I wrote this while working last month, and now that I am unemployed again, I thought i'd take the time to publish it on my blog. It's not very long and reads quite fast, so it shouldn't take that much time to read it. So enjoy the literary recreation of my imagination:
Worst case scenario
Holding the handle of the gun tightly, John walked slowly towards the door of the apartment. The light shining from the end window was a horrible orange shade, and the carpet around his feet was sticky. A rush of heat rushed over him as he prepared himself to enter the apartment’s door… this was it…Two days ago John received a phone call at his desk, which surprised him because his phone wasn’t receiving any calls that day. He lifted the receiver, and a harsh, gravely voice started talking. The voice informed him that a body had been found underneath the railway bridge at the outskirts of the town. John immediately assumed that a bum had just discovered a body and had used a payphone to call. The only thing that bothered him was the fact he got through to his phone. He dismissed this as a freak incident and carried on with the investigation. On his way out he noticed a small man in a brown overcoat behind some bushes directly opposite his car, but as he took another glance he noticed the figure had gone. Again he gave this incident no credit and carried on.When he reached the scene there was a small crowd huddled around the body, just quietly looking at it. This gave john a real uneasy feeling:“What are they doing? Hasn’t anyone seen a body before?” But while walking towards the corpse John started to realise this was no ordinary body. The eyes were missing. John picked up the radio on his dashboard and called for Forensics to come down and have a look, and after he had done that it was time to lay the yellow tape.“What’s botherin’ you John?” asked David. He could see something was on his mind by the way he was staring blankly into space, as he never usually did that. John just stared at him for a few seconds and then stood up to walk towards the window. “Come on John, you know you can tell me” piped David. “It’s stupid!” replied John. “Try me”:“Well, it’s just I feel empty, I can’t explain it. It started this morning when I saw that old man.”“What old man?”“It doesn’t matter.”John walked over to the other end of the office and poured himself a cup of coffee, looking into the Chief’s office he noticed the secretary was laughing at something. He then walked into the bathrooms and looked into the mirror, instantly noticing another face instead of his. Jumping back and spilling his coffee John looked closely at the mirror. The face had gone from in front of him, but the face in his mind remained. He began to think that something very odd was happening, but again he dismissed it and put it down to lack of sleep, or stress.“John, quick, get over here now!” Came a voice from inside the office. John ran forgetting the broken pieces of coffee mug on the bathroom floor and looked directly at David.“It’s another call, what’s going on?” John answered it and the same harsh, gravely voice started talking again. This time it wasn’t about a body, well, not yet, the voice informed John of a possible attack that was about to happen in a small rundown street in the centre. John mulled over this but then began imagining scenarios of ambush and the likes, so he decided not to go.An hour later John received a fax on his desk stating that someone had been killed not ten minutes ago in the very street the man had named. This couldn’t be coincidence, it just couldn’t be.John waited until the end of the day for another call, but it never came. So he went home feeling empty again. He knew there was a murderer on the street tonight, that he had a chance of stopping, but now it was too late, another person had perished. As he walked to his car he noticed the same man in the corner, but again he disappeared just mere nanoseconds before he could align his sight towards him.That night John tossed and turned in his bed, the image of the old man alive in his mind. Somehow he had occupied his entire mind, even though John had never seen his face clearly, he was some sort of sub-conscious idea that wouldn’t go away, however hard you tried. The next morning John had forgotten about it all, but was reminded again when he looked into the mirror of his medicine cabinet and saw the face again. Jumping back as before the face vanished just as soon as it appeared. This had gone beyond the symptoms of stress, or lack of sleep, so John decided to make a doctor’s appointment for later on that day. On his way to the office block he noticed a large, derelict building that used to be a block of flats. He had always known it was there, but this time he felt something drawing him to it. He couldn’t explain it but he felt compelled to go inside, so he pulled up and got out of the car. Looking at the crusty, old, heavy wooden front door he felt an overwhelming sense of heat all over his body. He also thought he could hear someone whispering, but he decided against this idea. He walked into the reception area and placed his hand on the wooden banister leading up a long set of winding stairs, and as soon as his hand touched the wood an image flashed instantly in his mind. He could see a young girl screaming and then a knife and all of a sudden he looked around the room and the time had passed several hours. Taking a moment to compose himself he dusted his coat down and started towards the door. At this very moment his mobile phone rang and his superior was on the other end:“Where the hell have you been John? Its chaos down here… move your ass!” The dialling tone followed. Then John noticed that he had seven missed calls on his mobile LCD screen. This he puzzled over and the progression of the time, but again he was forced to dismiss it. However things were getting weirder all the time and John knew it. He began to feel empty again.Back at the office he received a barrage of probing questions, all of which he couldn’t answer. The likes of “where were you” and “how did it take you that long” were all mystery, but the real priority was the next call, which John had been informed happened over one hour ago, to his phone. David told him it was an old man’s voice and immediately John knew the significance of his visions. Was this the killer he had been seeing in his hallucinations? He could only speculate on an answer. They proceeded to the scene of the supposed dumping and found it to be occupied by a small crowd, as before, again just quietly looking at the corpse. John knew what was next but needed some confirmation:“Check if it has eyes!” David looked at him is disbelief. “Go on then.”David left the car and walked slowly towards the body but stopped dead about half way there and turned around with a look of despair on his face. The eyes were indeed missing. John immediately began to feel hot and put his finger into his collar to let some air circulate around his body. It began to engulf him in heat and an instant image of the large crumbling building flashed into his mind. He knew exactly where to go:“David, come on, we gotta go!” David ran toward the car, jumped in and slammed the door behind him. John backed the car up really fast and skidded a complete 180 degrees to face forwards. He applied all of his weight to the accelerator and the car sped off down the street. At the building, John began to sweat profusely and his face began to turn red, so he decided to get out of the car and cool down, but as soon as he stood up, the feeling had gone and all he could hear was a faint whispering sound, but then he couldn’t be sure it was actually there. Walking toward the same heavy, wooden door David jogged a little to keep up with John’s fast pace.“What we lookin’ for in here?” David asked. “I don’t really know, but I feel something is here that shouldn’t.” David looked at him with a smirk, “You can’t go breaking into derelict buildings just on a hunch?” “This is NOT a hunch, David, something is here, and I can feel it!” John picked up the pace and then lunged his leg towards the front door violently swinging it open. Looking up the huge spiral stairway he reached for his belt and extracted his gun from its holster. David did no such thing thinking there was no need. John started to walk up the stairs and as soon as his hand touched the banister he began to have hallucinations. It was almost instant but lasted only a moment before he came back and realised David had a hold of his arm. “What happened?” asked John, quite shakily. “I don’t know, you went to go up the stairs and you just froze.” David told him he had only been standing there a few minutes but had not moved once. John continued up the staircase. He reached the top and noticed a long hallway with doors leading on both sides. All of the rooms had no doors on them, except for one, which was located at the end of the hall and to the right. John also noticed a small window with wooden planks going across, making the sun shining through it a horrible dark orange colour. He walked toward the only closed door and placed his hand on it to push it forward. But before he could place a finger on it he remembered about the banister, so he then decided to charge wildly in. He ran into the door and immediately tripped into a large hole directly in front of him. It was a trap. John fell almost twenty feet and landed heavily groaning loudly as he regained his consciousness. As he looked along the floor of the hole he noticed two feet. They looked human but were a grey/blue colour, and then they started to walk towards him, revealing more of the leg as it slid out of the shadows. The figure was horribly distorted with lumps and folds all over. His eyes were bright yellow with a long thin black pupil in the middle.“What were you planning to do when you got here?” The figure asked in a harsh, gravely voice. “Kill me?” The legs walked away. Right then John recognised the voice as the same one behind the phone calls, and instantly began thinking whether this was all planned from the first phone call. “No it’s earlier than that John. I’ve been watching you for a while.” This startled John, he couldn’t think anymore. Was he dreaming or having a nightmare? “I’ve been in this world for thousands of years, I was banished from my world because of my appetite for human souls. Once a decade I would come here and feed on the souls of any humans I could find. But now I am forced to move from place to place, causing unsolved murders wherever I go. So, now I am to move again, but before I do, I shall have one last feed.” The figure started walking towards John again and placed his hand on his shoulder. With a huge burst of power he was lifted off his feet and all of a sudden John was face to face with the creature. His horrible distorted face was showing a crude smile through the yellow eyes and black gums. His teeth were a dull black/grey colour and the skin on his face matched the colour of his feet, and all over his body. He was a monster. The creature looked up and his eyes turned dark red. “Do not struggle. I will remove your eyes and consume your soul. You will not feel anything.” The creature then started to chant in a strange archaic language. He moved his hand towards John’s face. John immediately closed his eyes tight, but was thwarted by the creature that had placed one finger over his eyelid and pulled it upwards. The creature was getting louder with the chant and his eyes grew darker and darker until, eventually, they were black. His other hand started moving towards John’s face. This was it… he braced himself.All of a sudden the monster let out a bellowing wail of pain and dropped John onto the ground. At once John noticed David standing above the hole with his gun pointed directly at the beast. “Shoot it again,” yelled John. A barrage of bullets followed and eventually John was lifted from the deep pit and all at once he noticed the empty feeling had gone. “I’m having a couple of weeks off, I think” David just smiled uneasily at the wreck that John was, picking him up and limping out of the door.
Thank you for taking the time to read this. I hope you enjoyed it, or found it at least a little bit interesting.
Peace out!
