THE AMULET PART VI

Jack and Dianne were 80 and 83 respectively. They were happy, as healthy as one can be at this advanced age, and perhaps just a bit more peppy than one would otherwise expect. By all accounts, they were normal, regular, run-of-the-mill folks. But it wasn't this that was so unusual. No, none of this was anything to write home about, unless you understood the simple fact that the two of them, the Morrisons, had always been 80 and 83. Respectively.

Jackson Renee Morrison and Dianne Leslie Stevens bought their first home after their matrimonial union in 1951. It was a ranch, it was complete with 3 bedrooms (one wold become a den), a huge basement (this, too, would serve as entertainment for their two boys), and a sizable bathroom as well as an attached 2-car garage. The Morrisons couldn't have found a more perfect deal or location if it had been handed to them. And, as it turned out, it was. Well, it wasn't as though the realtor had any idea just what he was selling when the newly wed couple jumped at the chance to own their first home. No, he had no clue that wedged deep within the crawlspace in the boilerroom of the basement was a item of such unearthly evil and unimaginable deviltry that its power could stop time itself. No, this was never a selling point. But there it was just the same: a teacup plate-sized metallic amulet sat wedged in the deepest corner of a tight, completely ignored concrete shelf giving off its horrid, sickening ruby glow. But that, though the cause and effect of the Morrison's lack of aging, was never noticed but to those who knew them best.

The Morrisons had two boys a few years into their happy lives: Grant was first in '55, and then Marcus in '58. They grew normally, lived regularly, and moved on just as children eventually do. Of course, at this point, Jack and Dianne had yet to reach that point in their lives where the process of aging dropped along the wayside and the odd occurrance of living life as a breathing wax statue took over. But, time shoved them all along and years down the line, Grant went on to have three kids of his own with his wife and then, as the years unfurled like a wind-whipped flag, they, too, had children. And it was then that the Morrison's, now honestly reaching the ripe old ages of 80 and 83, respectively, just stopped needing birthdays.

Yes, people indeed noticed but they were always laughing at their own unbelievable ideas about such nonsence especially since -though aging was now a pointless factor- illness still reared its ugly head time and again. This, above anything else, made most realize that the couple was moving on in life just like the rest of the outside world. However, it became increasingly more obvious to the family (as well as to the Morrison's themselves) that remaining in their first and only home was literally not going to let them die. And so went the terrible power of the Amulet: Hell itself.