View From the Other Side

“Carl, what do you mean we must leave now? What are you looking at, I need to see.”

Jaylene rushed to the window Carl was fixated on and tried her best to look around his unyielding body, but try as she might, her husband remained as rigid as a pillar of granite. She eventually gave up and moved to the front door where she could peer through the sidelight into the front yard. Jaylene saw nothing on the grass or in the sky that should justify the amount of anxiety her husband was showing.

Maybe she needed a better view. With her hand poised above the doorknob she impulsively took one more look through the window and was glad she did. A full grown buck had meandered out of the nearby woods and was haphazardly grazing on the lawn. She was certain the sound of the front door opening would have frightened the gentle creature away. Jaylene loved observing the local wildlife and deer were her favorite to watch. This peaceful creature couldn’t be the reason for her husband’s distress. Carl grew up in the county and always seemed at ease around all types of animals. What was so different about this one?

Jaylene was about to jokingly call out to her husband and ask if the deer had spooked him when something strange caught her eye. An ethereal mist formed around the front half on the doe’s body. She could no longer see its head or front legs. The sky was clear except for this one isolated spot surrounding half the buck. There was no reaction from the animal as it stood seemingly frozen in time. A flash of multicolored light pulsed through the mist creating a sharp crackling sound. The mist, the bright light, and the front half of the deer all disappeared into nothingness. The doe’s rear torso toppled to the ground looking as though a guillotine had sliced the animal in half.

Jaylene stared in shock and disbelief as fear was quickly replaced by terror. As hard as she tried to call out to Carl, sound remained frozen in her throat. Unfortunately, the horror show was not over. Movement in the front yard caught her attention and as much as she wanted to look away, she felt cemented in place.

The air beside the severed carcass started rippling like the surface of a pond in the wind creating a small opaque wall approximately four feet high. Four gaps in the wall opened to allow thick black tendrils to slither through and wrap themselves securely around the dead deer carcass. The cadaver appeared to levitate off the ground and float through a new opening that had just formed in the wall. Once through the hole, the severed buck, the tendrils, and the wall itself vanished into nothingness.

Carl watched the same ghastly events his wife had but this wasn’t his first time. From the time he was a teenager he had been in contact with those from the other dimension. His ability to communicate happened after he suffered a severe head injury from a bicycle accident. The doctors told him the voices would go away over time, but they only got stronger. He had developed the ability to communicate transdimensionly. These beings had mastered the science of traveling between parallel universes.

Unfortunately for them they needed a beacon in the other dimension to home in on, and that beacon was Carl. Their other restriction was they couldn’t transition into confined spaces. A building or vehicle was strictly off limits for them.

The one delicacy their species craved over all other foods was human children. Young children had a special taste that faded as they matured, and it was lost entirely by the time kids reached sixteen. Carl had learned about their food preferences and did all he could to protect his children. Recovering from his trancelike state, Carl listened intently for his children, but heard nothing. Panic flooded his mind, and he immediately looked out to the yard. Both Jackson and Luther were kicking a ball around as the sky started to shimmer…