Shadows of a Book . . .
Posted: Tue Jun 03, 2008 2:13 am
There was no sound . . . but something not of the house brought me out of my slumbering thoughts and back into my bedroom. Shadows swirled around the wrinkles of the bed sheets and covered the dressers and desktops, tendrils and fingers seeking out a pulse of life to kill. The darkness seemed to gather all the thicker in the night, gathering most thickly by the quilted cot laid perpendicularly to the foot of our bed, laying siege to the tiny nightlight plugged into the outlet a foot off the ground. I sat up in bed.
Ron? Hannah?
I was the only one in the bed, and the cot was empty. I pulled into a bathrobe and was securing the cloth belt around my waist when the dull, heavy feeling throbbed behind me. I licked my lips and turned around, unsure of what I would do if this proved to be an enemy. It was Doc Coltraine, slightly pudgy, balding, and with the entire left breast of his sports jacket smeared in dripping blood.
He spotted me and staggered forward, his mouth agape and his countenance pale. Take . . . this. Don’t let it fall into . . . her hands . . . He stumbled to his knees right in front of me, pulling away the stained lapel of his bloody jacket and reaching for an inner pocket. His hand withdrew a book too large to have come from his jacket and held it out to me. I took in my hands and immediately saw the words emblazoned on the front, Diary of Doctor Joshua Philip Coltraine.
I looked up, but he had vanished.
I felt a great deal of danger and urgency steal over my heart like a veil. There was a sliver of light signifying the outline of the doorway, and I readily made my way to it, hugging the battered journal to my chest. The halls were corridor-like and filtered through my senses like a fish eye lens, distorted, twisted . . . unreal. The shadows caressed and moved like tree branches in the wind, grasping for the skirt of my nightie and the cover of the book in my arms. I wandered through the nightlit halls, finding nothing but empty, blood-soaked rooms and closets full of skeletons. The shadows became angular and sharp-edged, whining for blood and death with the silence of a wasp tiptoeing on a windowsill. I flinched and held my scream in check when a shadowy limb branched out and scratched at my neck. Backpedaling frantically at the sight of the raggedly thin arm that was anchored to the web of shadows at the shoulder, it clawed at the air, waving frantically for a hold. My breath caught in my lungs; behind me, more arms sprang from the shadows, grabbing my hair, my neck, my shoulders and nightdress. I clutched the book and struggled against the sharp-nailed fingers trying to pry it from my grasp. They scratched and pulled, but somehow the distortion of the scene allowed me to pull free.
Like writhing plants weeping blood, cutting themselves with their own claw-like nails, the arms tried to grab me as my bare feet pounded silently on the hardwood floors, shadows hanging everywhere like bad laundry flung about and forgotten. There was a lull in the frenzied arms’ movements, cut and bleeding from their own attack, the lines of blood slowly oozing to the floor like a an unbroken line of saliva slowly trailing down to the ground, pausing an inch above the wood before distending . . . and slowly rising back up. I paused and slackened my frantic pace. I could feel the shadows sift around my feet, caressing my skin just as roughly as any unwashed shag carpet. An alcove presented the perfect spot to offer rest . . . or so I thought.
But the scene grated, twitching like a movie reel’s end. I couldn’t hear the gurgling, or the snuffling . . . but it was there and it seized my heart also seized my breath. Behind me, the fish lens showed the threshold of the room I had just . . . suddenly filled by a huge, lumbering frame. Thick shoulders pushed their way through the frame, scuffing and tearing the wooden beams out. The creature was massive, a hairless gorilla with crimson eyes and heavy jowls full of shark’s teeth. I knew what it was even before its huge, maggot-pale limbs lifted into the light and stationed themselves like moldy pillars in front of it. A gusting plume of steam heated the front of the creature’s chest as it breathed out its nose, outlining a triangular peak around the maggoty flesh with white, dissipating froth. It put out its gargantuan limbs in front of it and dragged itself forward . . . the altered depth worked in the creature’s favor this time. One swing of his limbs was like two . . . I tried swinging around and running away, but just at that moment, more bloodied arms grappled for me. I struggled, but there were too many of them. Arms rose from the ground and seized my feet, my legs, my skirt . . . dragging me to the floor.
Dozens of arms sank into the floor, slowly pulling me to my knees, to my back. Sharp-nailed hands held me bound, gripping my hair, my shoulders to the ground, my legs and hips. The huge abomination shuffled forward with impossible speed, warped by the conventions of the fish-eye distortions and made to appear vulgarly slow. I clutched the journal to my breast as tightly as unreality allowed, the arms scraped and tore at my hands and wrists, my fingers and neck . . . but I held on. The dull thud of the beast’s arms sent waves through the scene like water drops on a pond . . . seen, but unheard; felt, but not sensed. Even had I not been in the clutches of all the hands, the two bulky fists that crashed down at my side trapped me better than any cage could. The creature turned its head this way and that, heavy jowls trembling, a thick rope of drool hanging from the corner of its mouth and slowly lengthening. Two scrawny arms waved in the air above me, clones of those that help me prone to the ground. The rope of saliva stretched downward, scraping the air in front of me. My head was held in place by countless fingers, moving would be impossible.
The line of drool shifted as the chin lowered . . . red eyes were revealed, two searing blots of match light burning away any courage I had gathered. I tried to speak, to yell, to struggle as its tiny right arm reached for the journal . . . but the pressure around me was building . . . I was sinking into a bottomless ocean . . . I couldn’t breathe . . . the red brands stared at me through the gathering darkness, scanning the labyrinths of my mind, searching for an opening, reaching for the book. But with consciousness came instinctive defenses . . .
“Wie! Wake up, you’re havin’ a nightmare!”
___
I woke with a start, a gust of air blowing into my lungs. Nothingness surrounded me. I was blind once again. My arms were folded tightly to my chest, but something was between them and me.
I gasped, releasing the squeeze hold I had on her poor wrist. “Hannah?”
I could feel the outline of a book pressing into my back as I sat up. “What’s this . . .?”
Doctor Coltraine’s journal.
Ron? Hannah?
I was the only one in the bed, and the cot was empty. I pulled into a bathrobe and was securing the cloth belt around my waist when the dull, heavy feeling throbbed behind me. I licked my lips and turned around, unsure of what I would do if this proved to be an enemy. It was Doc Coltraine, slightly pudgy, balding, and with the entire left breast of his sports jacket smeared in dripping blood.
He spotted me and staggered forward, his mouth agape and his countenance pale. Take . . . this. Don’t let it fall into . . . her hands . . . He stumbled to his knees right in front of me, pulling away the stained lapel of his bloody jacket and reaching for an inner pocket. His hand withdrew a book too large to have come from his jacket and held it out to me. I took in my hands and immediately saw the words emblazoned on the front, Diary of Doctor Joshua Philip Coltraine.
I looked up, but he had vanished.
I felt a great deal of danger and urgency steal over my heart like a veil. There was a sliver of light signifying the outline of the doorway, and I readily made my way to it, hugging the battered journal to my chest. The halls were corridor-like and filtered through my senses like a fish eye lens, distorted, twisted . . . unreal. The shadows caressed and moved like tree branches in the wind, grasping for the skirt of my nightie and the cover of the book in my arms. I wandered through the nightlit halls, finding nothing but empty, blood-soaked rooms and closets full of skeletons. The shadows became angular and sharp-edged, whining for blood and death with the silence of a wasp tiptoeing on a windowsill. I flinched and held my scream in check when a shadowy limb branched out and scratched at my neck. Backpedaling frantically at the sight of the raggedly thin arm that was anchored to the web of shadows at the shoulder, it clawed at the air, waving frantically for a hold. My breath caught in my lungs; behind me, more arms sprang from the shadows, grabbing my hair, my neck, my shoulders and nightdress. I clutched the book and struggled against the sharp-nailed fingers trying to pry it from my grasp. They scratched and pulled, but somehow the distortion of the scene allowed me to pull free.
Like writhing plants weeping blood, cutting themselves with their own claw-like nails, the arms tried to grab me as my bare feet pounded silently on the hardwood floors, shadows hanging everywhere like bad laundry flung about and forgotten. There was a lull in the frenzied arms’ movements, cut and bleeding from their own attack, the lines of blood slowly oozing to the floor like a an unbroken line of saliva slowly trailing down to the ground, pausing an inch above the wood before distending . . . and slowly rising back up. I paused and slackened my frantic pace. I could feel the shadows sift around my feet, caressing my skin just as roughly as any unwashed shag carpet. An alcove presented the perfect spot to offer rest . . . or so I thought.
But the scene grated, twitching like a movie reel’s end. I couldn’t hear the gurgling, or the snuffling . . . but it was there and it seized my heart also seized my breath. Behind me, the fish lens showed the threshold of the room I had just . . . suddenly filled by a huge, lumbering frame. Thick shoulders pushed their way through the frame, scuffing and tearing the wooden beams out. The creature was massive, a hairless gorilla with crimson eyes and heavy jowls full of shark’s teeth. I knew what it was even before its huge, maggot-pale limbs lifted into the light and stationed themselves like moldy pillars in front of it. A gusting plume of steam heated the front of the creature’s chest as it breathed out its nose, outlining a triangular peak around the maggoty flesh with white, dissipating froth. It put out its gargantuan limbs in front of it and dragged itself forward . . . the altered depth worked in the creature’s favor this time. One swing of his limbs was like two . . . I tried swinging around and running away, but just at that moment, more bloodied arms grappled for me. I struggled, but there were too many of them. Arms rose from the ground and seized my feet, my legs, my skirt . . . dragging me to the floor.
Dozens of arms sank into the floor, slowly pulling me to my knees, to my back. Sharp-nailed hands held me bound, gripping my hair, my shoulders to the ground, my legs and hips. The huge abomination shuffled forward with impossible speed, warped by the conventions of the fish-eye distortions and made to appear vulgarly slow. I clutched the journal to my breast as tightly as unreality allowed, the arms scraped and tore at my hands and wrists, my fingers and neck . . . but I held on. The dull thud of the beast’s arms sent waves through the scene like water drops on a pond . . . seen, but unheard; felt, but not sensed. Even had I not been in the clutches of all the hands, the two bulky fists that crashed down at my side trapped me better than any cage could. The creature turned its head this way and that, heavy jowls trembling, a thick rope of drool hanging from the corner of its mouth and slowly lengthening. Two scrawny arms waved in the air above me, clones of those that help me prone to the ground. The rope of saliva stretched downward, scraping the air in front of me. My head was held in place by countless fingers, moving would be impossible.
The line of drool shifted as the chin lowered . . . red eyes were revealed, two searing blots of match light burning away any courage I had gathered. I tried to speak, to yell, to struggle as its tiny right arm reached for the journal . . . but the pressure around me was building . . . I was sinking into a bottomless ocean . . . I couldn’t breathe . . . the red brands stared at me through the gathering darkness, scanning the labyrinths of my mind, searching for an opening, reaching for the book. But with consciousness came instinctive defenses . . .
“Wie! Wake up, you’re havin’ a nightmare!”
___
I woke with a start, a gust of air blowing into my lungs. Nothingness surrounded me. I was blind once again. My arms were folded tightly to my chest, but something was between them and me.
I gasped, releasing the squeeze hold I had on her poor wrist. “Hannah?”
I could feel the outline of a book pressing into my back as I sat up. “What’s this . . .?”
Doctor Coltraine’s journal.
. 
