The Omen

by David Seltzer

THE OMEN

Copyright © 1976, 2019 by David Seltzer

THE OMEN

To the Honorable Jeremy Thorn, next Ambassador of the United States to the Court of St. James in London, and his wife Katherine, the gift of a son... DAMIEN...

WHO IS DAMIEN?

Author’s Note

It was in The Old Testament, I found the key: “The Beast will rise from The Eternal Sea.” The “beast” refers to The Antichrist - the spawn of Satan. The “Eternal Sea,” interpreted to mean “the roiling broth of dissent and Revolution.” Politics! I got it! The Anti-Christ, son of the Devil, will be “born” into powerful political family - headed by a generous and kind Father (one like my favorite actor, Gregory Peck played in “To Kill A Mockingbird”) whose kindness would lead him to the disastrous mistake of being convinced, after his wife’s child died at birth, to pass off a Foundling, as their own.

As to when this would happen, I found that in the Bible too. At the start of the Book of Revelation: “Let him who hath wisdom, reckon the number of The Beast. It is a human number. Its number is 666.” All I had to do, was take those three numbers and turn them into a date, and time. June 6th at 6:00 AM. The moment little Damien was born. Today, I see those three sixes printed on T-shirts, tattooed on biceps, featured in song lyrics, and scrawled on walls. Phone numbers and license plates randomly preassigned, with 666, are sent back for revision. So potent is the fear of these numbers, that Ronald Reagan, when he was President, had to change his triple-digit San Clemente California, address.

Like the posters of the movie said: “You Have Been Warned”

Preface

It was the sixth month, the sixth day, the sixth hour. The precise moment predicted by the Old Testament when earth history would change. The wars, the turmoil of recent centuries had been mere rehearsals, a testing of the climate to determine when mankind would be ready to be led. Under Caesar they had cheered while Christians were fed to the lions, and under Hitler while Jews were reduced to charred remains. Now democracy was fading, mind-impairing drugs had become a way of life, and in the few countries where freedom of worship was still allowed, it was widely proclaimed that God was dead. From Laos to Lebanon brother had turned against brother, fathers against children; school buses and marketplaces exploded daily in the growing din of preparatory lust.

As high in the sky, the black star grew brighter, the chant grew louder, and the basalt center of the planet reverberated with its power. Within the hollowed-out ruins of the ancient city of Megiddo, the old man Bugenhagen could feel it, and wept; his scrolls and tablets useless now. And above him on the desert floor outside of Israel, the night shift of archaeological students paused in their work, their dirt-sifters falling silent as the ground beneath them began to tremble.

In his first-class seat aboard the 747 bound from Washington to Rome, Jeremy Thorn felt it too and routinely fastened his seat belt, preoccupied with what awaited him below. Even if he had known the reason for the sudden turbulence, it would have been too late. For at that moment, in the basement of the Ospedale Generale in Rome, a stone crushed the head of the child that was meant to be his.

Chapter One

They had been together almost since childhood, he and Katherine, and even then at the age of seventeen, her instability was plain.

The first signal of her distress had gone almost unnoticed, Thorn expressing anger instead of concern when he returned home to find she had taken scissors and fairly butchered her hair. A Sassoon wig covered it until it grew out, but a year later he found her in their bathroom making small cuts in the end of her fingers with a razor blade, dismayed herself at why she was doing it. It was then that they sought help; a psychiatrist who merely sat in bland silence. She quit him after a month, deciding that all she needed was a child.

The pregnancy ended in the lavatory of an airplane, blue water washing away her hope as she cried.

In the end, one lonely cell found another, and for five and a half months hope again bloomed. This time the pains began in a supermarket and Katherine doggedly continued her shopping, trying to deny it until it could be denied no longer. It was a blessing, they said, because the fetus was impaired, but this only furthered her despair and she slipped into a depression that took six months to relieve.

It was the third time now, and Thorn knew it was the last. If something went wrong this time, it would be the end of her sanity.

The initial four-week agenda had droned on now for close to six months, and in that time the paparazzi had begun to notice him, the rumor spreading that in a few years hence he himself would be a U.S. Presidential hopeful.

As the taxi stopped short in front of the darkened Ospedale Generate, Father Spilletto gazed down from his second-floor office window, knowing in an instant that the man bounding out was Jeremy Thorn. The rugged jaw and graying temples were familiar from newspaper photos, the attire and gait seemed familiar as well. It was satisfying that Thorn looked every inch what he should. Plainly, the choice had been right.

"Something's gone wrong," said Thorn. "The child is dead."

"Your wife is safe," he said, "but she will be unable to bear another child." "It will destroy her," whispered Thorn. "You could adopt." "She wanted her own."

"God works in mysterious ways, Mr. Thorn." And he held out his hand. Thorn, rising, was compelled to follow.

Moving to a glass partition, the priest paused, waiting as Thorn hesitantly approached and gazed down at what lay on the other side. It was a child. Newborn. A child of angelic perfection. With thick black hair tousled above deep-set blue eyes, it stared upward, instinctively finding Thorn's eyes. "It is a foundling," said the priest. "Its mother died as your own child … in the same hour." Confused, Thorn turned to him. "Your wife needs a child," continued the priest. "The child needs a mother."

"The Signora need never know," implored the priest.

"Is ... it a healthy child?" asked Thorn in a trembling voice. "Perfect in every way." "Are there relatives?" "None."

"I am in full authority here," said the priest. "There will be no records. No one would know."

"Could I ... see my own child?" he asked. "What's to be gained?" implored the priest. "Give your love to the living."

"For the sake of your wife, Signor, God will forgive this deception. And for the sake of this child who will otherwise have no home ..."

"On this night, Mr. Thorn … God has given you a son."

"Our child," said Thorn, his voice trembling with emotion. "We've got our son."

Chapter Two

Immediately after his birth they dutifully brought the infant to church, but so abject was his terror upon entering the cathedral that they cut the ceremony short. The priest had followed them out to the street with water cupped in his hands, warning that if the child were not christened he could never enter the Kingdom of Heaven, but Thorn refused to continue, seeing clearly that the infant was in a state of terror.

The boy was growing into an artist's rendering of the ideal child. In the three years since his birth, the promise of physical perfection had been fulfilled, and his health and strength were phenomenal too. He had a kind of composure, a contentment, that one rarely sees in the young, and visitors occasionally found themselves unnerved by his gaze.

Aside from being quiet and observant, he was in every way the perfect child, the appropriate issue of the perfect marriage of Jeremy and Katherine Thorn.

Chapter Three

Before leaving, he set his darkroom timers, then shuffled through piles of papers looking for the engraved invitation. It was to be a birthday party. The fourth birthday of the Thorn child. From all the ghetto areas of London, busloads of crippled children and orphans were already on the way to Pereford.

For a mile outside the Thorn estate, policemen directed traffic and checked credentials; Jennings gazed straight ahead while they double-checked his invitation to make sure it was real.

The exclusive. That was the Jennings dream. Private entree into rarefied realms. There was excitement in the stalking to be sure, but no status, no respect. If he could somehow work his way inside; that's where it was at.

The child's nanny, Chessa, was dressed as a clown, her face whitened with powder and painted with a garish red smile. As the photographers danced about her, she delighted in the attention, hugging, kissing, smearing her makeup onto the child.

As the crowd moved on, the nanny was left standing alone, the towering house framed behind her, the clown costume somehow accentuating her air of desertion. Jennings hit the button twice before the young girl turned and walked slowly back to the house.

"I've never seen this," said the girl. "I've been doing children's parties for three years, and I've never seen it before." "Seen what?" "Look. No personality lines. All he's got is creases."

"Look how smooth his fingertips are," said the girl. "I don't think he has any prints." Katherine looked closely. She realized it was true.

But as the young girl reached for the child's hand, they were interrupted by a voice from outside. It was Chessa, the nanny. And she was shouting from a distance. "Damien! Damien!" she cried. "Come out! I've got a surprise for you!"

"Damien! Come out and see what I'll do for you!"

Exiting from the tent with Damien in her arms, Katherine paused, gazing upward toward the house. There, poised on the roof was Chessa, a heavy rope in her hand, cheerfully stretching it upward to show it was wound around her neck. Beneath her the crowds began to turn, smiling in confused anticipation as the small clown moved forward to the edge and held her hands out as if readying a high dive into a pool of water. "Look here, Damien!" she shouted. "It's all for you!" And in a single movement she stepped off the roof, her body plummeting downward, snapped back up by the rope, then hanging limp. Silent. Dead.

A coroner's report had shown that there was a high amount of Benadryl, an allergy drug, in the girl's bloodstream when she died, but this only added to the confusion and speculation as to why she had taken her life.

It was the child who captured Jennings' interest, and he waited patiently for precisely the right moment to snap his shutter. It came in an instant. A flickering of the eyes and a sudden change of expression as though the boy had been suddenly frightened, then, just as suddenly, soothed. With his eyes riveted on a point far across the cemetery, his small body relaxed, somehow warmed in the midst of the cold, drizzling rain. Swinging his telescopic viewer, Jennings searched the landscape finding nothing but headstones. And then something moved. A dark, blurred object slowly coming into focus as Jennings adjusted his lens. It was an animal. A dog. Large and black, its pointed face distinguished by narrow-set eyes and a lower jaw that protruded forward, exposing teeth, stark against midnight fur. Unseen by all others, it sat motionless as statuary, its attention fixed firmly ahead.

The child and the dog were small in the distance, but their silent communion was plain.