Supernatural | Mini Series | Ep. 6

The One You Let In

Jay can’t control his dream walking, but is near to solving the mystery surrounding the children who’ve fallen in a trance

Alex was still at rugby practice when Jay hurried past his house. Unlocking his own front door, he went straight to Dad’s study to find out how Lulu was feeling.

“No change unfortunately. She isn’t eating and has slept most of the day, but she has no temperature. I’m taking her to the doctor tomorrow.”

J had a sinking feeling this wouldn’t help. He needed to talk to Alex, make plans about forcing Danny to break the hypnotic trance his sister was under. He took a bacon sandwich and a cup of tea to his room. With his laptop on, he began researching hypnotism and meditation, hoping to identify a ‘key’ to free the entranced children.

He face-timed Alex to tell him what he’d pieced together; with music on in the background he successfully masked their conversation.

“Who’d have thought? … Danny! All the plays I’ve seen him in …” Alex shook his head in wonder.

“But that’s probably how he did it. Working with Katie, plenty of rehearsals, he’d have ample opportunity to gaze into her eyes or use a pendulum and hypnotise her,” J said.

“Why have they all been saying ‘they let him in’? That fits better with my vampire theory, although Danny looks the same as us. Could he be a vampire?”

J shrugged, he hadn’t given it serious consideration, because he didn’t believe in the existence of vampires. Now he tapped at his keyboard, Googling vampires and the legends surrounding them. Excitedly he read one entry aloud.

“Glamouring! Vampire hypnotism is called glamouring; they use eye contact to make their victims happy and relaxed about having their blood sucked. Perhaps Danny has glamoured them all.”

“Check Lulu’s neck Dude! See if she’s got fang marks.”

“Aargh! Don’t say that! I can’t even deal with the thought of that!” J was shocked.

And disgusted, but he had to admit it made sense. Vampirism would certainly explain the pale and listless appearance of all the victims. He planned to examine Lulu’s neck that evening, but he needed to avoid arousing his parents’ suspicions.

An opportunity presented itself quite innocently, Dad had made a snack of toast and Marmite with a drink for Lulu. J offered to take it up to her room. While Dad put the finishing touches on the family’s hot food, J cracked the door open and tiptoed into Lulu’s room.

She was cocooned in her duvet and facing the wall. Murmuring soothing things J gently stroked hair off his sister’s cheek and away from her neck, where he peered closely. He was anxious about finding puncture wounds, but there were none. Thank goodness, her neck was unmarked. Lulu’s skin was clammy and cool but no bite marks.

“Lulu, do you want a drink? Or some Marmite soldiers?” J used a coaxing tone.

He pulled on her shoulder so that she rolled over. It didn’t rouse her from sleep, but he was able to check her neck on the other side … Phew! It was also intact. J’s relief at this discovery was intense, but as he looked at his sister’s vulnerable sleeping form he felt sad, and a little scared; what if they couldn’t get her back to normal?

Supper with his parents was a silent, dismal meal. J used the excuse of pressing studies to return to his room, where he confirmed to Alex know a total absence of any sinister marks on his sister’s neck.

“Another contradiction to the idea of Danny as a vampire, is that he walks about in the daylight. He’s not burned or harmed by the sun,” Alex pointed out.

“That rule doesn’t apply to the vamps in Twilight. Those guys avoid the sun because it would show their skin is sparkly.” J countered.

“Seriously? Man that’s so weird! Let’s try to look closely at him in school.” Alex was thoughtful for a moment. “I’ve never noticed his skin glittering.” Then he added, “Hey, Twilight’s a chick film? When di you watch that?”

“Hard to avoid it!” J laughed. “They often play the Twilight trilogy on Film4, and my Mum’s a huge vampire fan.”

J was certain his mother wouldn’t be a fan if she thought a vamp had been anywhere near Lulu.

Lulu in the clutches of an undead blood sucker was unthinkable, but finding no puncture wounds on her neck was a positive thing. J caught noticed the time and wound up his call with Alex. He still had an English essay to write before he went to bed.

Somehow J was less startled when he snapped out of sleep that night.

3 am — It was becoming a grim routine, as he lay still allowing himself to ‘feel’ the pressing darkness, hoping for a sense of whoever or whatever was out there. His mind’s eye began to focus on the front of a house he didn’t recognise. The streetlight spilled a yellow glow into its front garden so he could see a gate to the right, which was not latched shut, banging softly in the breeze.

The darkness had a menace to it, was it possible that Danny was here? J moved soundlessly, and with dread, through the gate and round the back of the property. He could see in through the conservatory. The occupants kept an aquarium of tropical fish, which lit up the room with a violet glow.

Pressing his face to one pane, and with his senses alert, J studied the interior. At first he thought there was nobody there, until he spotted a young boy wearing cartoon pyjamas. His blonde hair stuck up in all directions, as often happens with restless sleepers. There was an unhappy hunch to the boy’s body language, add to that he was repeatedly banging his head against the wall. The sound of his sobs twisted J’s heart. He tried the handle of the door, but it was locked. His attempts to gain entry didn’t distract the child, whose mournful crying continued.

Jay’s heart was heavy to discover that another young person had fallen under the evil influence.

He speculated that this boy had wanted an entertainer for his party, that Danny had visited the house and was “let in” by the boy’s unwitting parents. Danny was hiding in plain sight — he’d give no clue regarding his sinister nature when he was hired to perform as a clown.

Personally, J had never trusted clowns, they gave him the heebie-jeebies!

As a young boy he’d found their use of thick make up, especially the painted on expressions, highly suspect. He would swerve invitations to attend any party with a clown on the agenda, for just that reason. How ironic that his immature suspicions held grains of truth.

Looking at the small, distressed boy, even though he couldn’t get close enough to offer comfort, J knew that by morning, he’d be pale and listless, in a trance-induced state. But he fervently hoped that he would be proved wrong.

Next morning was not quite the usual helter-skelter rush getting ready for school. Mum and Dad were still worried, Lulu was unfortunately not showing signs of improvement. Dad was on the phone to get her a Doctor’s appointment as J slammed the door, hurrying to Alex’s house. Alex was already waiting on the path, so they set off at a brisk pace. As they walked, J described the pitiful young boy he dreamed of, the most recent victim of the hypnotic menace.

“Why do you dream about them though?” Alex questioned.

J shrugged. “No idea, I’ve been wondering that myself. I always wake at around 3 am too, the time is regular.”

“I’ll Google that, it might be significant. Also, we need to watch Danny closely, get an idea of his movements and who he hangs around with. I have a free period before lunch, I’ll do some scouting then. Meet you in the canteen.” Shrugging his backpack further onto his shoulder, Alex hustled off to form.

J pushed through double doors, moving with the flow of pupils to their classrooms, keeping his eyes peeled for Katie or Laurie, he was concerned for their wellbeing. As morning lessons progressed, J’s mind sorted through the components of the puzzle: what would motivate Danny to control the willpower of the young people he was hypnotising? Finding the answer to this might influence his primary question — how to stop him?

J’s last lesson before lunch was maths. Laurie moved into his classroom making J’s stomach lurch with shock and fear. Laurie looked so gaunt and emaciated, his skin was chalky and his movements were laboured and shuffling, as if his body was too heavy for him to animate. His hair looked dirty, his appearance uncared for. Laurie’s eyes were fixed on the floor as he moved to an empty desk.

J felt very uneasy and anxious seeing Laurie in close proximity. Other students cast similar, furtive looks in his direction.

Once the lesson began, the difference was more marked, as Laurie (once the star maths pupil, widely tipped as an Oxbridge candidate) did not participate. He sat listlessly with his head hanging, like a moving toy when the batteries are removed.

J pondered what could be concluded from his observation that Laurie had lost his life force, his spark. Could this be Danny’s motivation? Perhaps stealing from young, vibrant children somehow added to his power. Although J shook his head at the train of thought, it was no more crazy than the idea that a vampire went to their school.

He should run the idea by Alex, needed to consider how these far fetched ideas would help them tackle Danny and reverse his influence. He scraped his books into a pile, dumped them in a backpack and flowed with the rest of the students who headed out of the classroom, towards the dining hall.

He didn’t know how Alex did it, but he was already at a table shovelling food into his mouth with enthusiasm.

J slid into a seat opposite him and shared his latest revelation. Alex took it in his stride, years of watching the Sci-fi channel and reading Marvel comics meant nothing much surprised him.

“What did you discover?” J asked as he forked up shepherds pie and chewed.

“Danny mostly hangs about with those 2 goth girls in year 13 … and the drama group are putting on a show at the end of term. There are a lot of rehearsals for that going on, meaning Dan-o stays after school several nights a week.”

J knew the girls Alex was referring to. They looked like something out of the Addams Family, wearing their hair straight in an unnatural shade of black. Their pale faces and heavy eyeliner twinned with their choice of clothes made it seem as if they were on their way to a rather dramatic funeral. He had an idea they both studied textiles, and were probably involved with the costumes for the show.

J wondered if they knew what Danny was capable of. If so, did they help him? Would they need to factor the girls in when they tackled Danny to make him release his hold over the children? He and Alex should divide the tasks and take action without delay. He should visit the library for books on hypnotism or auto-suggestion. Alex could continue to scout around, learning about Danny’s habits and timetable.

J headed down the corridor and upstairs to the library. He immediately began to browse science books, tilting his head to one side to read the titles on their spines. He wasn’t seeing any material which related to his specific problem.

He’d begun to feel agitated, as if a timer was in operation, its sand constantly leaking through the narrow gap from the upper chamber into the lower, with Lulu and the other children’s lives in the balance.

In desperation he pulled out a book called The Mask of Time by Joan Forman. He flicked through it’s pages and his eyes were drawn to one passage:

When a human organism dies, the matter, the physical body, is seen to change and known to decay. But a human organism is also energy, electrical, gravitational, magnetic, and on physical death, it ceases to operate through the material structure with which it has been associated. If energy cannot be destroyed it must therefore remove elsewhere where it may continue to operate according to the laws governing it.

This seemed to support his theory of life representing an ‘energy’ which could be taken from a person, but unfortunately it made J more afraid for the lives of Danny’s victims. He slammed the book shut and pushed it back into its slot on the crammed shelves.

[To be continued …]

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