The Oath Keeper

It wasn’t right, and Eric didn’t want to laugh at the crass joke that his compatriot Malcolm had just told, but the man did have a point. The race for number one salesman would cause some serious competition, after the incentives the drug company offered for each customer. Technically, they should be called patients, but honesty was something Eric prided himself on and calling these people what they really were would be proper. Herbert Josslin laughed until he spit out the half masticated Hors d’oeuvres he was munching on.

Eric felt he should respond, maybe say something to Herb about his eating habits, but the loud jingle of the crystals in the chandelier put a stop to that idea. Most of the people didn’t seem to care about the noise, but Eric couldn’t hear anything because of its ringing. He looked up at the light fixture, then back around at his comrades. “Can no one else hear that?” He asked.

The others in the room began to whisper, while looking at Eric weirdly. Some talking conspiratorially behind their hands, he was sure, about him. Eric turned back to his group of friends when a terrible voice boomed through the room. “The oath breakers must be punished for the severing of their oath.” The deep voice was insistent, forceful, the entire room began to shake. Eric, believing that he was actually at a pharmacy conference, began to recognize the dream like quality of everything.

A dream that quickly began to break down around him. The people in the room shimmered then faded from existence, while pieces of furniture and other flotsam dissolve in his front of him. “The oath breakers must be punished.”

The words boomed from everywhere waking everyone in the house. Eric, grateful to be awake, stared ahead for a moment: unsure if the words were an echo from his dream or reality. He stared ahead thinking of right and wrong. What he should have done and what was done. The oath he’d taken to care after his patients and how he broke it.

Sue, Eric’s wife, had a hand vice gripped on Eric’s forearm. “Did you hear that?” She whispered, turning to look into Eric’s eyes before looking toward the door to their room. The voice was deeper than anything they’d ever heard. The house almost vibrated from its timbre.

Eric continued blinking, informing Sue that he was out of it. He was making a low humming sound and Sue was sure he didn’t know he was doing it. She didn’t want to wake him because she was afraid of what that would do. She’d read that waking a sleepwalker could be dangerous.

“Eric?” She whispered. He blinked a few more times before turning to look at Sue completely aware.

“What’s going on?” He asked, his voice groggy.

“I just had a crazy ass dream.” He said after clearing his throat.

“Eric.” Sue hissed, elongating his name. “There’s someone in the house.” She said, imploring him with her eyes. Eric blinked at his wife confused before turning his attention to the closed door.

The footfalls of someone coming up the stairs was all the evidence Eric needed, there was an intruder in their home. Intensifying the situation, is the words the intruder spoke. “I swear by Apollo, the physician and Aesculepius and Hygeia and panacea and all the gods and goddesses making them witness...” The last word slurred, creeping over his flesh creating goosebumps. Sue pulled the sheet, clumped loosely around her, up to her chest. Eric turned his head slowly to look at his wife, the terror on his face told Sue that he knew those words. “What is it?”

Eric jumped from the bed, ran to the bedroom door and locked it. “What is it, Eric?” Sue repeated, getting out of bed herself. The intruder continued to recite the prayer, accentuating his ascension. Like a giant, emphasizing, each period in the sentence was followed by a stomp that they both could feel.

“Eric!” Sue couldn’t help the way her voice sounded or the fear that she felt just staring at the closed bedroom door. With the assistance of moonlight, the two watched as the wispy darkness swirling underneath their door grew thicker. The shadows swaying back and forth like smoke, as if alive, it slid across the door from the crack underneath.

Screaming, Eric jumped away from the door. He shuffled to the closet without turning on the light and began to rummage inside. The boom of the intruders footsteps reached the top of the sairs. “If I fulfill this oath and do not violate it, may it be granted to me to enjoy life and art, but if I transgress it and swear falsely may the opposite of this be my fate.” BOOM!

He was right outside the door. Eric could feel it and it made him work harder. Sue could feel it too, she knew it, but her body wouldn’t listen to her. Her mind was doing no better. Rationale told her to bolt, leave. Run to the neighbors and tell them what is happening. Maybe Mark would be able to help Eric subdue the intruder but an even more rational thought brought up good facts like, ‘You’re on the second floor’ and ‘You would run away and leave your husband to die?’

The last one was harsh and it felt like it was questioning her loyalty. The fact that these ideas were warring in her head was lost to her. Fear tends to push sense away like that.

The silence thickened. Nothing came from the other side of the door nor from Eric who continued to rummage in the closet. Sue opened her mouth, ready to call for Eric, seconds before he burst out of the closet holding something big in both hands. He fumbled with the item for a second before he took a stance then pointed the object at the door.

Hands shaking Eric took a few tentative steps toward the door. He pointed the weapon, then said, “I’ve got a gun, whoever you are.” The deafening silence interrupted by the loud crack of the gun cocking.

“The oath breakers must be punished.” The voice boomed from the other side. Without another word, Eric shot the door several times, creating four large fist sized holes in the wood. As if invited, tendrils of thick black smoke, so thick it looked like oil, slithered through the holes.

The smoke flowed into the room in waves. Dripping to the floor, instead of floating to the air, it rolled towards Eric. Eric screamed, stepping back but the smoke followed. Tendrils of smoke wrapped around Eric’s legs and snatched him off his feet. They dragged him toward the door. Sue turned her head away, she didn’t want to see Eric’s body make contact with the door, or hear the crunching sound it would make, but the sound never came. She opened her eyes and turned back to discover that she was alone in the room.

Eric’s body was not in the room. She called out to him but got no response. Sue’s eyes roamed around the space before resting back on the room door. “Eric.” She said, slowly walked towards it. The hairs on the back of her neck began to stand, as she neared the door. “The oath breakers must be punished.” The voice boomed loud enough to cause Sue to cover her ears.

A blue light crept into the room, from the holes in the door. Eric began to scream, but Sue couldn’t understand what he was saying. Her fear vanished, she ran to the door and peered through one of the bullet holes.

Eric was being held by the scruff of his neck like a puppy. A black man, standing over eight feet tall, held Eric like a rag. The man was draped in a dark trench coat that couldn’t hold the sheer girth of his size. Eric’s five foot four body flailed futility. The stranger flung Eric into a hole that only became visible to Sue after he was thrown in.

Arms, limbs and appendages from creatures that were far from human, fought to tear the skin from Eric’s body. His skinless, bloody, carcass rolled through the multitude of appendages with pieces constantly being torn away. Sue’s last image, before turning away, was Eric’s bones being taken by something barely visible at the bottom of the blue hole.

Sue couldn’t help but cry out at what she’d just seen, which caused the intruder to turn back toward their bedroom door. “The oath breakers must be punished.” An image of her and Eric on their wedding day appeared. Sue marveled at the youth visible in those happy faces. Slowly, the image changed to show her face speaking her vows. The happiness visible in that moment brought tears to her eyes.

“The oath breakers must be punished.” The words reverberated through Sue’s head. The image of her saying her vows shook, changing to show something new. It was her in a room with her leggings being pulled down by Patrick, a friend from work. The image changed again, showing Sue as she looked up at David, Eric’s partner in the practice.

Sue wished that she could close her eyes to the truth, but the images were on repeat, in her head. A whimper escaped her at the thought of what would happen next. “The oath breakers must be punished.” The voice repeated in her head, as the tingle of the smoke touching her bare skin caused her to shiver. Her body was grabbed, toppled then dragged, just like Eric’s. “The oath keepers must be punished,” The intruder said as he flung her by one foot into the hole of appendages.