Month: October 2017

A Proposal, Part 2

Image licensed by Shutterstock.

This is the second installment of a seven part series. Parts 1–3 are available for free on my blog, while parts 4–7 are available exclusively on Patreon. If you’re looking for part 1, you can read it by clicking here.

It was dark when Jill opened her eyes.

What time is it?

The lights were off. She must have fallen asleep, only when her eyes started to adjust, she found the shapes in the room were unfamiliar. Instead of the simple cubic dimensions of her kitchen, she was faced with broad high-reaching curves, with columns and formations that resembled stone and masonry rather than drywall and wood.

Her heart seized in a solar flare of panic, and for one terrifying moment she thought it would stop for good. The man at the door had been in her house (how was that even possible when she’d just closed the door on him?) and then she’d passed out. Where had he taken her while she was unconscious?

She was still lying on the bed from the kitchen, but it now stood against a wall with a large Gothic window that let in the flat monochromatic light of the moon. Like a castle, thought Jill. Like something she would have seen in a black and white vampire movie when she was young. Only this was real. This was actually happening.

The room was quiet, dead, like a tomb. Which was why, even with her hearing as bad as it was, she picked out the dusty sound of distant footsteps at once.

The man, Mr. Jacobs, was coming for her. She had to hide.

She tried to get up, but all too quickly she thought of her deteriorating body. She had to work herself to the point of exhaustion just to attain a sitting position, and a quick test of shifting her weight onto her legs told her she wouldn’t get anywhere without her walker. When had she gotten so old, so feeble? In her head, she was still that nineteen year old girl she’d once spied in the mirror almost half a century ago.

Never mind. Her body might be failing her, but she still had a few tricks up her sleeve, and determination if nothing else would see her through this nightmare. There was no way her legs were going to save her. Instead, she tipped forward, leaning out until she was caught by gravity’s jealous grip. Then, falling to the ground, Jill thrust her hands out, praying with fervent devotion that she could catch herself when she hit the floor and that she wouldn’t break an arm or a hip in the process.

The ground was stone, and the landing hurt more than she anticipated. But she’d braced herself, and the mattress wasn’t so high that the fall was catastrophic. She rested for a moment, waiting for the pain to subside, while the entire time, those footsteps grew closer, louder, echoing in spaces as of yet unseen.

“You can do this, old girl,” she whispered to herself. She reached forward with one shaking hand at a time and dragged herself across the floor, looking for a place to hide.

Left. Right. On her belly, like the serpent from the Garden of Eden (“On your belly you will go, and dust will you eat all the days of your life.”) She crawled across the stone in small incremental stretches. Mr. Jacobs was close now; surely it was he who approached. A rational interior voice warned that fleeing was no use, that hiding was impossible, that there was no way she could outrun him once he saw her. But while her body might have succumbed to age, her spirit and her determination to survive had not. She was happy to die in the Good Lord’s time, but not in Mr. Jacobs’s.

The room was barren, with only an empty high backed chair propped beside the bed. With nowhere else to go, so she did the only thing she could. She crawled backward, clawing at the cold stone beneath her fingertips, brittle bones creaking, dry joints cracking. Sweat beaded across her forehead like tiny moonlit diamonds. She grabbed the smooth black poles beneath the bed, hid herself beneath its looming shadow and took several moments to catch her breath before falling silent.

The view under the mattress was all at once familiar and strange, a bizarre vantage point overlooking life from a preternatural angle. How odd that so many ordinary events in an otherwise normal life should ultimately converge on a moment so otherworldly and terrifying.

The footsteps came to a thundering crescendo, like gunshots, or the pounding of primeval drums, then stopped. Perhaps he would move on. Perhaps he would give her time enough to find a way out.

No such luck.

Another sound: a booming metallic rattle, then a crack. A moment later, a door swung open.

She peered into the dark. There, standing on the threshold, the dim light of a lantern seeming to set his features on fire, was Mr. Jacobs.

Dracula, she thought, thinking back to her old movies once more, and Jill suppressed a shudder. The man lifted his feeble wellspring of light into the dark, revealing more of the elaborate Gothic architecture.

He started for the bed.

“Miss?”

Farther he pressed into the dark, the circle of light closing in, eager to announce her presence. She’s over there! she could almost hear it scream. Over there, beneath the bed!

“Miss?”

Mr. Jacobs stood beside her now. He saw that the mattress was empty, and that was when he lowered the lantern to the floor, where the treacherous light betrayed her at last.

“What are you doing under there, Miss?”

No answer.

Jill had never known such paralyzing fear. The same electric shock she’d felt the first time she saw him standing on her doorstep shot through her body again. This was how she would die: not in her sleep in front of the TV—a painless exhalation of her spirit that would propel her into the arms of her Lord at last—but in feral, abject terror.

“Please,” she croaked, and then she started to cry. “Please, don’t hurt me.”

Mr. Jacobs stared at her, and the moment was reduced to a timeless pocket of eternity. Then he knelt beside her and grinned.

Read part 3 by clicking here.

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A Proposal, Part 1

Image licensed by Shutterstock.

This is the first installment of a seven part series. Parts 1–3 are available for free on my blog, while parts 4–7 are available exclusively on Patreon.

It was the day the axis of Jill’s life forever shifted, the day she was swept away by the gravity of sinister forces and compelled to walk a dark, inexorable path. If only she hadn’t answered the door, she thought later. If only she’d stayed in the kitchen and watched TV. If only, she would think forever after, looking over her shoulder for the man hiding in the shadows. If only…

There were three things nobody told you about getting old as far as Jill was concerned.

The first were the frequent bouts of insomnia, as if the mind, terrified of death looming over the horizon, decided to stay awake to make up for lost time.

The second was that many of your family and friends were dead, with more dying each year. Live long enough, and you might discover you’re the only one left, the unlucky winner of life’s wicked lottery.

The third (and arguably the worst), was the lack of mobility. Everyone always said they couldn’t wait to retire, that they’d travel the world, build a workshop, or sit down to write that memoir. The trouble was the body refused to cooperate. It gave a sad new meaning to the expression, “the spirit is willing but the flesh is weak.” Jill herself had had enough, and she’d be happy to go when the Good Lord called her home.

That last thought had just occurred to her when someone knocked on the door.

Jill started. She wasn’t expecting company. Maybe it was the electricity man come to chase after another unpaid bill. It had happened last month, and her caretaker Rosalyn had warned her to be more careful (that was the fourth thing they didn’t tell you about getting old: Your head had more holes in it than a pasta strainer.) She prayed even now that her daughter in Chicago wouldn’t find out. She’d already threatened to put Jill in a home, and only hours of pleading for her independence had allowed her the alternative of a part-time caretaker.

But as it happened, her visitor turned out to be someone else entirely.

Jill pushed herself up by her arms, body quivering. She grabbed the walker beside her bed, then shuffled toward the door.

She was greeted by a portly man in a black suit and fedora hat. Odd, thought Jill, with the summer being so hot.

“May I help you?”

“Actually,” said the man, removing his hat and inclining his head, “I was hoping I could help you.”

An atavistic shiver spasmed through her body. Something about his eyes, she thought, and the way he talked. In some way she didn’t understand, the man represented all that was wrong with the world, a shining avatar of evil so bright, she wanted to slam the door and spend the next hour and a half in prayer.

“May I come in?” he asked. “It’s hot and I haven’t had anything to drink.”

Jill was always hospitable, even to strangers. She hadn’t been a part of the generation that was taught to fear the vagrant on the doorstep, and turning someone away without a very good reason was rude. But this man was dangerous, she could feel it in her bones, and instinct trumped manners every day of the week.

“I’m sorry. My daughter’s sleeping on the couch and I don’t want to wake her.” She felt her face flush with the lie, but she didn’t want him to know she was alone.

The man smiled wide, revealing bone white teeth, and a strange thing occurred to her.

He knows I’m lying.

“I understand,” he said. “I don’t want to be a bother.”

If you don’t want to be a bother, why are you still here?

“I’ll come back at a more convenient time.”

“Thank you, Mr…”

“Jacobs, Miss. Mr. Jacobs. Good day.”

Jill shut the door behind him and shivered once more. Why had he triggered such a visceral reaction? Anyway, he was gone now, and she could return to her makeshift bed in the kitchen.

“Hello again, Miss,” said Mr. Jacobs when she’d turned back to the living room. He was lounging on a cloth covered couch, looking as if he’d been relaxing there the entire afternoon.

Jill shrieked.

“Curious. I came back around for a second try and discovered your daughter wasn’t in.”

“She’s in the bathroom,” babbled Jill. “How did you—”

“A minor technicality. But I’m afraid I really must speak with you.”

“I’ll call the police.”

“There’s no need for that, Miss.” Mr. Jacobs was no longer on the couch, but standing right in front of her, obstructing her path to the kitchen. “I only want to talk.”

Jill’s pulse quickened and her heart began to tap out Morse code. She tried to turn again, only she was lightheaded. Like a ghost, she thought as the world blurred, as she tried to reach for the stairs beside her with insubstantial hands and lost her balance.

The world tilted. Slowed. Stopped.

Jill remained alert long enough to feel the man’s hand press into the small of her back. Then her vision faded to white and she saw no more.

Read part 2 by clicking here.

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