Sho Ma

Sho Ma novel pt 4

call out for help to the only One I knew for sure could help me… God. So I fall to my knees while at the same Sho Ma runs at me to take my life. I just stay on my knees facing my big brothers door, I look up and start praying.

            “God, I know you’re up there, please save me!” I say with all hope feeling helpless.

            I then turn to see Sho Ma trot running at me. Just before Sho Ma gets to lay his shovel on me, he disperses into black dust right in front of me. The implosion of his dispersion pushes me sideways into the bathroom, but I catch myself to see an empty hallway looking back at me. I let out a huge gasp of relief then get to my feet quickly. I run to the end of the hallway and meet the other hallway. I look in the living room back to the end of the hallway towards me and my mom’s room. I feel like everything from here on out was going to be bad for a really long time. Depression overtakes me and then I do the only thing I can do.

            “God please help my mother. Please protect me and my family for we need it.”

            While stand with my head down in prayer, a loud booming laughing echoes throughout my home, then the voice speaks again.

            “Your prayer is strong but this far from over. Actually this is only the beginning. We are coming for you…” The voice looms.

            I immediately panic and run down the hallway towards my room. I reach the end of the hallway and dart in my room shutting and locking my bedroom door behind me. I look around my room not seeing anything out of the ordinary. I feel a sense of warmth and protection around me. Almost as if I was protected in some kind of barrier. I see an imaginary barrier of white light around me, so I walk over to my bed. I lay down on it feeling a bit relieved and that if I go to sleep, I won’t be bothered for the rest of the night.

            After I get comfortable in my bed, I settle down and take one last look around my room. I look lastly at my dresser and see that my deodorant is standing up perfectly on it where I normally put it. I suddenly think to myself, wasn’t that supposed to be on the floor from the last time… Just as I am thinking this, my deodorant flies off the dresser like someone smacked it off yet again. This time, I paid it no mind, attention, nor thought. I did not feed it any energy and I just close my eyes and start drifting into a deep slumber. Just before I lose consciousness to a warm felt, hearty, sleep, I think to myself. I know that this is not over. The things that happened were just a tease and minor taste of what was coming in my near future. I knew this because I could feel it in my mind, body, heart, and soul. I was worried of what was to come. I didn’t want to be part of it, I just wanted me and my family to be okay. But for us to be okay, I knew that I needed to get stronger, and not just physically stronger but gain some sort of power. I needed power more than ever, but I didn’t have a clue at how I was going to obtain it. No matter what case was, to overcome the evil that befell me and my family, getting power was my only answer, and I would stop at nothing to achieve it the upright way. The good, light, and righteous way. I will have power so that I can protect my friends and my family. Power to stand against any evil that came my way…

            I drift into dreamland only a few minutes after closing my eyes. I find myself almost instantly in a black candlelit room. I walk towards the candle light, and out of the dark nowhere comes the Devil dressed in red garbs. He slowly walks towards me smiling holding a long blank parchment. He smiles a sinister smile then gets ready to speak but I interrupt him.

            “What the freak are you doing here?!”

            “Shhhh… Lower your voice. I am only here to talk to you. Here to see if you would like to make a deal with me…” He says.

            “No! I don’t want to talk to you, nor make any deals with you!” I scream back at him.

            “That’s what you say now, but you see this parchment here? I can give you anything you desire… I can even give you the power you so seek… All you have to do is sign your name on this contract in blood and you can have all the power you want…”

            “I’d never sign your contract because I don’t want anything from you! I want power just so I can beat the likes of you, and any evil that stands in my way! Yes I want power, but the only kind of power I want, only One can give to me and that’s GOD of Heaven and the Universe!”

            “Oh, so you think I can’t give you this power? I was created in Heaven afterall…” He says.

            “Shut your mouth!” I reply courageously.

            “Hahahaha… So you think that him up there will give you this power? You are a hopeful, youthful, fool! Him up there will not grant you the power you seek because only I grant those that do my bidding power!”

            “That’s a lie! GOD grants power too because there has to be heroes just like there are villains, good just like there is evil, light, just like there exist dark. You will not win against me! I will fight you with the power that GOD gives me soon! So you can take that parchment and shove it where the sun don’t shine! I’d never in my entire life make a deal with you!”

            “Well that is mighty bold of you. Too bad I can’t say the same for your mother… Because now she is mine! What a sad one that is… But no matter, I shall the others deal with you until it is time… Hey at least I tried to bargain with a pathetic creatin like you. Now begone from my sight! I’m tired of looking at you!” He says with a look of distaste on his face like he smelled or tasted something horrid.

            I try to say something to get the last word, but he waves his hand and send me flying in total darkness.

Chapter 4: The Horror Continues

I wake up to the sound of my school alarm at 6am. I wake up in shock, looking confusedly at my alarm wondering why it is going off on a weekend day. I shut it off and get up, head to the restroom. After I come out of the restroom, I get ready to walk past my big brothers bedroom and then his door burst open and out pops his head.

“Hey wassup little bros, How are you?”

“I’m doing fine.” I lie to him.

“Well I am glad you are, cause last night was a crazy night for me!” my big brother says with fear in his voice.

“You too!?”

“Yea…”

“Yea big bro, last night was hard on me too. I…” Just when I was to carry on the recent events of last night, my big brother interrupts me midsentence.

“Hey, let’s talk about this in the living room. I don’t feel comfortable in my room at the moment. Go in there and wait for me.

I nod my head to him and walk away his room towards the Living Room. After I walk away, my big brother closes the door behind me. I walk into the Living Room feeling dehydrated. So I go past the Living Room into the Kitchen, grab a drink of water and head back into the Living Room. After I finish my cup of water, my big brother comes out of his room and walks up to me.

“Little bro, I had a heck of a night! A lot of weird stuff was happening in my room! There was this red aura that outlined my room and I kept getting woken up by an invisible force attacking me!”

“Whoa! You too?! And you saw the red aura as well?!” I asked him.

“Oh yea, I saw it alright.”

“So did you leave your room?” I asked.

“No I didn’t, I was too scared to. Did you? How did your night go?” He said.

 “My night was unbelievably horrible! I did leave my room because so much stuff was happening in my room, plus I had to go to the bathroom really bad.”

“Man, I had to use it too but I just held it until the sun came up. So what happened? Was the rest of the house weird too?”

“Yes! I even came to your bedroom door, tried to open it, knocked on your door, and yelled your name really loud! You didn’t hear any of that last night?”

“No little bro, I didn’t. I was too busy fighting off whatever was in my room last night! I locked my door because I felt safer that way. I’m sure you had your door locked too. But you walked out of your room, you have more guts than me, I’ll give you that… So what else happened?”

So I then tell my big brother everything that happened except for parts of Sho Ma appearing because I knew he would never believe me about that part. But I should have at least given him the benefit of the doubt. I just didn’t want to take any chances of being called a fibber. My big brother just listens intently, hanging on to my every word.

“Darn little bro, you don’t think that this had anything to do with what mom said last night do you?”

“Yes, I’m certain it does!”

“So mom’s door was locked too! And it was smoldering hot?! That is unreal! At least you tried to help the family. That is pretty cool of you, and stupid! You had the chance to leave the house too…! If it was me, I would have gotten out of the house and came back later. But that’s just me…”

Just before I get ready to reply some nasty words to my big brother, my mother comes out of her room and runs up to us crying, she falls to her knees again and hug our legs again weeping.

“Mom, why are you crying?” My big brother says.

“Mom what’s wrong?” I ask.

My mom just remained there and crying for at least three minutes before she got it together to speak.

“I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry! I didn’t mean it!”

My mom started crying harder and my brother and I knew exactly what she was talking about. So we just looked at each and then looked back down at our mom.

“Yea mom, we know…” I said.

“No you don’t understand! The Devil came to me last night and asked me to sell…”

“Mom, don’t ever say it again!” I yell at her.

“Okay, I won’t. But he propositioned me, and I didn’t do it! I couldn’t do it! I swear I didn’t do it!”

“Mom we believe you!” my big brother says.

When my big brother said that, we just look at each other again feeling worried not sure if we fully believed our mother. We wanted to believe her, but in the back of our minds, something kept telling us that our lives were soon about to change dramatically for the worse. But I had a plan up my sleeve to turn this situation around! I was not going down easy, even if it meant faces all seven layers and depths of Hell!Suddenly my mother stops crying and turns to me with a very serious face.

“Hey Novell, don’t you have to go to school today? You are not missing any days because of this!”

“Mom, its Saturday! We went out with dad last night on Friday night!” I said laughing at my mom.

“Novell, it’s not funny and I’m not playing with you. You know how serious I am about your schooling. I don’t know why, but you were sleep for two whole days and your big brother was sleep all Sunday! I thought you two would never wake up! I came into both of your roomsand touched both of you while you two were sleep and neither of you were responsive. Almost as if you were in a trance.”

“What?! No wonder why my alarm to go to school woke me up this morning! I was wondering why it was going off on the weekend! This sucks! I can’t believe I wasted my fun days off sleeping! What a weekend that was…” I said rolling my eyes sarcastically.

My mom finally stops hugging our legs and gets up off the floor. Then angrily tells me to get ready for school, and disappears in her room slamming the door behind her.

“What was that all about?” I say to my big brother.

“I don’t little bro. Mom seemed a little bipolar there, but you know how she is about our schooling. Well anyway, I will talk to you later when I get home from work. We have a lot more serious stuff to talk about! But I know you have to be out of the house at 6:30am, and its 6:15am now, so you only have fifteen minutes to get ready. So I’ll talk you later, be careful little bros.”

“Okay, you too big bros, I will catch ya later.”

We shake hands and then part ways. I go back into my room, rush to get ready for school, and head out of the door.

Just getting to school was a challenge for me in itself… It was a game of death I had to play five days out of the week! Monday through Friday was no walk in the park for me, and definitely no chill. I had to walk over twenty blocks and through over seven g**g territories to get to school, because I lived in the city of Los Angeles. My mother stopped buying me monthly bus passes because she claimed she couldn’t afford it anymore since bus prices went up recently. I hated walking to school because of all the obstacles I had to overcome even before getting to school, just to overcome more within the school reaches…

Let me recap really quickly what one of my days walking to school was like. I would have to first wake up a lot earlier than usual, because of course, walking took ten times longer than catching the bus. After I would wake earlier than really necessary, I would freshen up, leave the house, and head to my two friend’s house that lived two blocks away from me. I used to walk alone but I got tired of the unwanted attention of when groups of thugs see you by yourself as an easy target. So after I would get my two friends,we would sing songs that we all knew the words to while walked to school, to try and make the walk seem easier. It would keep our mind off things a bit but to no avail, our days walking to school were always quirky, weird, and dangerous.

While we walked to school, we would get bothered by Police Officers, g**g members, chased by dogs, or experience some sort of unpredicted, unprecedented, awkward, horrific scenario. Something bad happened to us almost every day. It was a miracle if we ever walked to school safely without something bad happening to us. There were very few days that we had where we went to school without something weird, eerie, bad, preternatural, or something eldritch happening. Those days were days I always sought for, yearned for, begged for… Well this basically sums up one of my school days of walking to my school or back home from school. Just talking about it gave me the chills, how about you…?

So anyway, after I left my home and get almost to the end of the street, I take out my cellular phone and call one of my school walking buddies. He answers and tell me that he is approaching the corner of my street and to hurry up and leave my house. I tell him that I almost to the corner already. I turn around the corner of my street and almost bump right into one of my school walking friends. When I see my two friends, they grin and laugh then we start walking to school.

We walk a few streets up, then one of my friends, the same friend I called, stop and looks at a corner market we always pass to get to school.

“Let’s stop at the market!” He says.

            My first thought said this was a bad idea, but then I thought about the true fact that we were a lot safer in a*****e than walking the streets. We would stop at stores a lot of times just to avoid dangers at times. So I thought, what the hay? We can stop at this store that we usually go to some days on our way to school. We get in the store and walk around and shop for drinks, candy, and chips like we normally do. So as I am grab a bag of chips and taking them to go pay for them at the counter, my friend the same one,  grabs a couple of candy bars with one hand stuff them in his jacket pocket and yells loudly.

            “I’m about to rob this guy!”

            To my surprise, he did all of this with no remorse. I had never seen this friend steal or act like this before. He usually was the level headed, peaceful one. But today I saw a side of him that I never saw before. It didn’t seem like the person doing that was my friend at all. I guess my friend thought the store clerk was going to be scared or something, but he wasn’t. Suddenly, out of nowhere, the store clerk erupts and his eyes widen with ferocity in his eyes, then he starts yelling at the top of his lungs with a sort of Arabian deep accent.

            “What did you say!? You want to kill me?! Huh!? Stealing from me is like taking money out of my pocket! Taking money out of my pocket is like taking food out of my mouth! And taking food of my mouth means you want me to starve and die! So now you want kill me you stupid child!? C’mon, let’s go den! Let’s fight! I’ll kill you!”

            The store clerk just seemed to change into this monster of a man! His eyes appeared as if they were black! He walks from behind the counter and walks in the middle of me and my two friends and walks up to my friend that stole and gets in his face. Next he turns and looks at me.

            “What?! You want to steel from me too?! Watcha gonna do?! I will kill you too! I will kill all of you!”

            “I didn’t steal anything, I was just going to buy these chips!” I reply to him.

            The store clerk turns back to my friend and starts yelling again.

            “So ur a tuff guy huh?! Kill me, kill me then!”

            “You better get the heck out of my face!” My friend tells him.

            “Make me!” The store clerk replies to him.

            The store clerk flinches at my friend like he is about to attack him, then he starts laughing an eerie laugh. Suddenly the store clerk’s entire head turns into Sho Ma’s boxed shape metal head. The store clerk then pushes my friend. After I see all this happening, I intervene.

            “Hey hey hey… I is okay. We don’t want any trouble. We have to get to school. Just let him give you back the candy and let us be on our way.”

            After I spoke, Sho ma, or rather the store clerk as Sho Ma, laughs, and then his head flashes and seemed to turn back fully into the store clerks.

                                                                                                                                                                                                 “Alright fine, I will allow this! But never come back in my store again! I don’t want none of you in here!”

            “Fine I will give him his stupid candy back! I didn’t want it anyway and it wasn’t even that serious! I know he better get out my face though…!”

            The store clerk and my friend just glare at each other saying nothing. Then the store clerk settles a bit and moves away from my friend slightly, then my friend reaches in his jacket pocket, takes the candy out and puts it back where he got it from and walks out of the store. When he walks out of the store, our other friend follows him out. The store clerk turns my direction ready to attack me. He stands there motionless on the defense, I walk past him in fear for my life, feeling chills down my spine. As I’m passing him, I speak to him with unwavering courage in my voice.

            “I’m sorry you had to deal with that…Deal with my friend coming into your store trying to steal and take from you.”

            The store clerk fell silent for a moment, then starting talking cool and non-chalant.

            “You are not like those other two. You are different than them. You would do well to keep better company. It will benefit you in the long run. You are welcomed to come back to my store anytime, but I cannot say the same for your friends. They are not welcomed here! You take care of yourself…”

            “Okay, thanks…”

After I speak, I retreat from the store meeting my two friends outside of the store front.

            “What took you so long?” The friend that was trying to steal asked.

            “Nothing. I just had to confront the store clerk. But since we are questioning each other, bro, you never try to steal anything! What’s gotten into you?”

            “Ain’t nothing has gotten into me! Forget that store clerk, I am not worried about him! He ain’t nothing to me! He is just a loser with a*****e!”

            “Okay man whatever. I can’t believe you went into that store and tried to steal. We used to go there regularly and now we are not allowed in there anymore. Oh well, we gotta start going to another store now.

            “Yup there are plenty of stores to go to!” he says.

            I just shrug off the entire event and signal for us to keep walking towards school. After what I had experienced last night with my mother and Sho Ma, I was not prepared to fight again, especially if it was Sho Ma again! Sho Ma had done a number on me so fierce that I barely even felt like myself. I felt cold inside, barely on the tip of consciousness. That shovel really almost possessed me. But I would not lose myself totally I told myself.

            My two friends and I continue our treacherous journey to school. Every morning we get halfway to school, we always run into these old gangsters hanging out on the corner in front of this Liquor store. These old timers have nothing better to do besides bother people early in the morning. My school starts at 8am in the morning, so what are these guys doing posted up on a corner so early in the morning, instead of sleeping the morning in, is beyond me… If I had a choice in the matter, I would still be sleep at this time in the morning. Normally, when we see these old gangsters, they just try to recruit us into their g**g. We usually deny their request, and they just laugh it off. Then they try to offer us drugs or alcoholic beverages trying to get us to ditch school. We decline and try to get as far from them as we can.

            Me and my buddies get to the corner today and try to walk past the old gangsters but they block our path, and the ring leader jumps in my face with no hesitation.

            “Hey, wassup young punks!? I know y’all are ready to join the g**g today! And I am not settling for a no this time! Telling us no, is just like cursing us out! And y’all have told us no one too many times. So what’s up?”

            I walk up to the leader of the old gangsters like I always did so that I could put my friends behind me to protect them just in case we were going to get attacked. Because if we were to get attacked or worse, they would have to go through me first… When I approach the g**g leader, I walk to him casually and speak to him.

            “Yea, we are going to have to decline today. We have to get to school or we are going to be late. We ran into a bit of trouble this morning that took up quite a bit of time. So if we don’t hurry up and get to school, we are going to be late and end up in the tardy room.”

            “Did you not hear what I said!? I told you I didn’t want to hear a no this time! Ran into trouble you say…? Now you are in way more trouble than what you ran into earlier! You are going to join our g**g, Or else…!”

“No we are not, we don’t have time for this! We…”

Before I could finish what I was saying, the g**g leader’s head turns into a square iron head, which only meant one thing, Sho Ma was back… The ring leader’s head transforms into Sho Ma’s head leaving standing there in fear. I turned back to look at my two friends to see them staring at the man in horror, looking like they saw a ghost. One of my friends point at the man. So I turn back to the man to see him lift his shirt up revealing a large black handgun tucked in his pants. Fear creeps over me as I get the chills seeing the g*n. My whole entire life flashes before my eyes. 

Let me tell, you, reader of this book, if you are reading this right now in a dangerous or unsafe area, or just anywhere in public, someone has a g*n on them and you should be cautious! Do you feel yourself getting the chills? Then you should probably relocate yourself to a different area! ARE YOU LISTENING TO ME!!!? Get away from that area and run to safety as fast as you can before you get shot!

After my life flashes in my mind, I yell at the top of my lungs.

“Run!”                                                                                 

I turn around towards my two push friends and nudge them to start running towards school. I sorta push them in the direction I wanted them to go. They immediately begin to run at top speed towards the direction of our High School. I wait for my two friends to start running first because I am a protector and always have been. Always have been willing to sacrifice myself for the people I love and care about, including my friends and not just my family. After my two friends take off, I follow them trying not to look back but then the gangster calls out to us and I turn around