This Side of Death - chapter one

One

 

In 1989 the Berlin Wall came down in Germany, the serial killer Ted Bundy was electrocuted in Florida, the Menendez brothers murdered their parents in California, and Pete Rose was banned from baseball in Cincinnati. Dead Poets Society won an Oscar in Hollywood.

In that year Harbor Beach, California carried on as one of the last quiet Pacific coast towns. The surf was never as spectacular as it was for the big name beaches farther south, but that kept the tourist trade at a moderate level. Harbor Beach remained a sleepy town, even though it had its own mall on the far edge of the city limits.

The hills surrounding Harbor Beach helped it to exist in a certain amount of isolation from the expanse of Los Angeles. The roads in and out of the village passed between the hills into the valley where Harbor Beach had emerged over a hundred years ago. The coastal highway ran along a series of hills that fringed the beach, forcing a visitor to find the occasional passages that provided entrance to the quiet beach areas.

One of the hills overlooking the ocean was home to a World War II-era machine gun bunker, one of many along the Pacific Coast designed to protect California from Japanese submarine attacks. Like most of the old bunkers, Harbor Beach’s had disappeared from the consciousness of most of the residents. Most of them had no idea that a new evil had be birthed many years ago in that concrete chamber—an evil that would come to call on Harbor Beach once again.

 

N

 

For Jay Ellington, this would be the year he started his second year of college, and the year he began to believe in Hell. It was the year he met Alec Sisera.

Jay had always lived in Harbor Beach. He liked being close to L.A. and Orange County, but home felt quiet and hidden from the busyness of the larger world. Still, he hoped one day to do something with his life that would take him to new places.

These days, the idea of going someplace new had great appeal. If it were not for his mother and sister, Jay would have found a place to live where the pain wasn’t constantly triggered by the familiarity of his surroundings. It seemed like there was one trigger after another—the beach, the batting cages, his car, and the house—always the house. Everything in the house shouted out the memory of his father.

It was 1989 and Jay was nineteen years old. Had he been born twenty years earlier he would be thinking about the draft. In a way, being forced into the Army might have brought a welcome relief from his life in Harbor Beach. Now all he thought of was getting through college and finding some meaning in life. He had lost interest in dating and found that he didn’t miss the drama. School, work, and his family were all that occupied his time.

Jay wasn’t one to maintain a rigorous workout schedule, but the physical demands of work kept his muscles in shape. He had played basketball in high school and was pretty good. At six-one, he thought he might be a bit short to play college ball. Regardless, his life had no room for sports.

He used to surf but hadn’t been out for a couple of years. He missed being out on the water, but when he tried to go out again he felt too sad and angry to stay. It wasn’t the water or the activity. It was the hills. The hills overlooking the coast of Harbor Beach would never hold the familiarity and innocence of the past. For Jay, they only represented pain and horror. Alec Sisera would bring the horror back to life.