Unrelenting Terror

by P. S. Power

  It was eerie in the dark and I felt just a little crawling of fear in my stomach and tightened it just a bit. It was almost a thrill, like excitement, but it turned sour as I felt something on my neck again. It was a finger. The very tip of one pressing gently in the same place that I’d just rubbed at. I did it again, almost afraid that I’d hit the spectral limb, but there was nothing there. Just a feeling and a stronger sense of something watching me.

  I felt things crawling on me then, little itches and tingles, nothing too scary. The main thing was the sense of being watched. Directly from behind, even though that had to be a safe spot. No one could be standing back there, I reminded myself, trying to deny what I was experiencing. Then I made myself stop, feeling the weight of the tablet in my hand, the texture. It reminded me that I wanted to feel these things. That I’d agreed to it and chosen this path. I'd made a promise to do it that I couldn't break. Denying them now was both a waste of time and a sign of mental weakness.

  “Alright. I’m here and waiting. Is that you Alex? Let me know if it is.”

  Frustratingly, nothing happened for a while. Finally I went back to reading, noticing more about the words in front of me than I normally did. The color of the words on the screen, the way I kept breathing just a little faster as time passed, in time with the events in the story. I even felt the beat of my heart, but for a while nothing else happened. I almost forgot that anything should be as I read, until I heard the wall pop from across the room. It wasn’t a very loud thing, but it was a real one. I rubbed at the itch on my neck that came at about the same time, then felt an odd sense of pressure again.

  Was it Alex? Could it be? The training of a lifetime told me it wasn’t, that it was just what happened when the temperature changed and the house settled. As a child I’d been told things like that so I could sleep at night. What if it wasn’t true? Or really, what if it was, but that’s how spirits got in touch with the living? It made sense that they might work through the environment to save energy, didn’t it? I kept reading, trying not to let the unease I was feeling stop me. The creepy feeling of being watched got stronger as I did and I felt things starting to make contact with me in other places of my body, not just my neck or between my shoulder blades. I had a goal, I reminded myself so I wouldn't give in to fear or let myself give up. This wasn’t just about reading a book anymore, it was about using the experience to let myself get in touch with the other side. With the world of spirits all around me.

  “Alex.” I spoke the word out loud, not knowing if the presence I felt was connected at all to anyone I’d ever known. That hadn’t been promised after all. Dr. Milford had told me I’d learn to experience these things, nothing else, but I knew that Alex wouldn’t leave me. Not all alone. Not if there really was anything after we died. It was the only thing I had left to cling to, so I knew it had to be real. It just had to.

  A soft touch rested on my shoulder as I read. I didn’t notice it at first, but finally I focused enough attention on it to get the sense of weight, the presence of each finger as it lapped gently over the curve of my back. Like someone stood in front of me, holding me. Begging me to look up.

  I did.

  No one was there, not that I could see, but I could feel that someone was. The weight on my shoulder heavier as each second passed. Growing as I read. I also knew that I badly wanted to believe it was Alex, but the feeling was wrong for that. Off.

  This was something a little darker than anyone I’d ever known was. It smelled fetid. Damp and like mildew. The scent was soft, just a tickle in my nose, a feeling like someone breathing to close to me. It was similar to what towels smelled like when they were left in the washing machine too long. Not a horrible reek or anything, just a scent that wasn’t pleasant at all. Not Alex. Alex had always smelled warm and like good things. Lemon wood polish sometimes, or like clean clothing and sunshine. Never mildew or rot.

  The other shoulder was taken then, the fingers a bit firmer as I noticed the pressure, it was enough that I thought I could make out the indentations in the cloth of my shirt in the dim light. My eyes strained as I glanced at it, still holding the pad, trying to fight my way back to the words there as soon as I could.

  I felt fear growing, knowing that I’d gotten in touch with something and wasn’t really sure who, or what, it was. It worked in my belly, that sense of pressure on my shoulders. That crawling on my skin, tingling and itching slightly. It didn’t leave for a long time, but finally I had to go to bed. The idea scared me more than a little, since the presence wasn’t gone and was still touching me… but I had to sleep. Like death, it was an unavoidable part of life.

  That meant being vulnerable, unaware for hours as it watched me and waited. For something.

  What that was, I didn’t know. I could only hope it wasn’t anything bad as I crawled under the covers, knowing that no matter what, my session with Dr. Milford had gotten results. This was only the start of things too. The very beginning. Once on this path, he’d said, I could never get off of it. I had to live with what was going to happen now. That made me a bit uneasy, but I tried to just deal with it, not ignore what I was feeling. It didn’t really stop, the sense of things touching me every now and then. The tickle on the skin when I tried to think about anything else. I knew that something was watching me the whole time too, it was so strong I could almost see the person behind me in my mind.

  As I slept I felt something crawl on the bed next to me, the mattress dipping as it did. It felt real, like a person was next to me, moving as I rested. I opened my eyes but all I saw was the light colored screen of my tablet, behind my eyes, but somehow floating in front of me in the inky blackness. It had a single word on it.

  Eclipse.

  Chapter two

  When morning came I didn’t know how I managed to sleep at all, feeling that something had slid into bed with me like that. I’d jumped out so fast at the time it must have looked like I levitated, fear ripping through me, breath coming in short urgent pants. I froze when the light came on, because there on my bed was…

  Nothing at all. The covers weren’t even messed up on the other side of the bed. Alex’s side. They’d been flipped all the way over on my side of course, my pillows all the way off the bed on the floor. I’d laughed nervously at the time, wondering again if it was all my imagination playing tricks with me. After all, I wasn’t stupid. I’d been told exactly what to expect… and it happened. It might not be hypnosis that Dr. Milford had used, but it was something pretty darn close. I remembered thinking that he’d have me clucking like a chicken in no time at that rate, but as I settled back I also remembered thinking that I’d been warned not to play anything off. Nothing about what had happened should be dismissed just because I’d been told to expect it. There was a sense that thinking about things like that got their attention and allowed a person to really experience them. It may have just been that.

  I mean, I had a decent imagination, but I didn’t just make up things like ghosts crawling into bed with me, and that one hadn’t been on the list of things to expect at all. For some reason that idea made me feel better. Until I got up and started to think about it a bit. Then I realized how crazy it had been at the time. Either I’d imagined the whole thing, which was a lot more power than I could normally summon by way of imagination, or I’d actually had a ghost climb into my bed.

  Or something. There was no way for me to know it was a ghost specifically. It could have been something else entirely. I’d have to ask about it when I went to meet with Dr Milford at four.

  Just for a second I let myself consider skipping it. The last night had been as advertised, true, but I hadn’t really been ready for fear that intense. A part of me wanted to quit, to just run away and make sure nothing like that ever happened again. Another part, deep down inside knew it was already too late. Once started on the path, I had to see it through. It was a part of who I was. Who I wanted to be. Plus it was a rule that I’d agreed to already. No backing out now.

 
On top of that I just didn’t have anything else planned. When Alex had died six months before a lot of our old friends had called, and some had even come over. In the months since then that had pretty much stopped. Now it was just me. I didn’t even have a dog, since Mongo, the canine friend Alex and I had shared for years had been run over by a car about two months before the accident. That left me all alone. Just a house that was way too big for one person that had been just the right size for a family. One that wouldn’t be happening now. It made me sad to think of and I just couldn’t cry anymore, so I got up and made an elaborate breakfast.

  Elaborate for me. Alex had been the cook in our little two person family. I did most of the laundry, so it evened out a little, though now that I was doing it all for myself I realized how much more work went into two meals a day than I’d remembered from living on my own before. That was probably because I used to just eat things out of cans and cartons, and now I’d been spoiled by years of good cooking, so had to make everything from scratch. I had two pancakes and some bacon. I’d have normally done some eggs too, but I hadn’t picked any up the last time I made myself go shopping.

  I hated shopping now. Honestly I’d never liked it all that much, but going with Alex had been fun, a playful time, since I’d never known what kind of mischief would come up. Now it was just another chore I had to do, which meant I put it off as long as possible most of the time.

  While I ate I picked up my tablet, letting it rest on the table next to my plate, reading at the same time, splitting my attention. It was a horrible habit, but it helped to keep my mind busy. Off of everything I’d lost and could never get back. I switched books up though. Horror was best read in the dark after all, doing anything else was kind of cheating, which everyone knew. If you wanted to be scared you didn’t turn all the lights on. If you didn't want to be frightened you didn't commit to horror novels.

  The new book was a historical piece about the civil war. Not really my kind of thing normally, but it had been recommended by a friend online. There was a sort of online book culture that I was part of, after a fashion. We always tried to let everyone know what we were reading at the time, and share what was good. It was just a thing we had going on. I was constantly surprised by how much I actually liked different offerings, once I gave them a chance.

  At first I didn’t notice anything but the words on the page, busy as I was learning about widows of the civil war, while simultaneously munching a piece of crispy bacon, using a lot of wiping with my napkin to keep the delicious grease off of my screen. The words in front of me were a lot more interesting today than they normally were, and I remembered Milford having mentioned that. I figured it was because I needed to pay closer attention to his instructions, part of which showed up in writing in my head. By staying interested and engaged in all the reading, I was fulfilling the promise I'd made. The memory of the words caused me to feel a lot more focused on the page, the text calling to me, making every letter seem a lot more special than anything I could recall from before.

  Something niggled at me though, when I thought about it. A tingling on the back of my neck. After a few seconds the feeling grew. Not the tingling itself, that stayed about the same, but that vague sense of presence that I’d felt before… That grew behind me. I fought to keep looking at my tablet, to keep reading, but wanting to look behind me. Needing too. I also didn’t want to give in to the sensation, because it probably wouldn’t be anything at all.

  What if someone had broken in though? The idea nearly made me laugh. They could have been sneaking up behind me at that very moment, and getting ready to kill me like a ninja. I’d never know it, because I was too busy trying to be brave, rather than listening to my fear like a reasonable person. A truly brave person would look, I knew that now as much as I knew anything in the world. The words nearly rang through my head for a moment in Milford’s voice. It was a real point, wasn’t it? Denying that I felt something when I did was part of what blocked my ability to sense the other world.

  I had to look twice at the screen, because just for a second, I swore I saw those very words, there on the page, mixed in with the others.

  “A braver person would look.” But it wasn’t about bravery or fear, I just didn’t want the ghost to know I knew it was there.

  It didn’t sound like a real reason once I thought about it, and the feeling of presence didn’t go away. If anything it was slowly getting stronger the longer I refused to let myself check on it. A strange vision of a black clad man crouching low behind me filled my mind for a minute, and I realized that not checking was stupid. There’d be nothing there and once I looked I could go back to eating. I decided to do it on three, counting slowly, then I whipped my head to the side rapidly, like I was trying to catch the nothing behind me in the act of not being.

  Only there was someone there.

  It wasn’t a person and before I could focus on them, on it, the form was gone. It was all black, but three dimensional. It had the form of a person, but only in the roughest sense. A head, two arms, two legs and a torso. I thought it had at least. It was gone before I could do more than gasp.

  I’d never been a screamer and didn’t want to start, but I did pick up my plate and dance back from the table, chair skittering on the floor as I did, but not tipping over. I left the tablet, but protected the half eaten food. It was an odd thing for me to notice, that I’d grabbed my plate as I got away. The meal wasn’t that good. It must have been some kind of primal instinct, something telling me that the most valuable thing I had was the stuff I was eating at the moment. Intellectually I knew that was wrong, but deep inside it probably made sense. The cave dweller in my soul didn’t care if the cave was made of rock or wood, or if there was a dirt floor or wall to wall carpeting. It just knew that I didn’t have any people to protect, so it was all about the most basic of things now. Day to day survival.

  It kind of killed my appetite, realizing that. Plus my heart was still racing a little. I noticed it more now than I had before. My breathing too. In a way I felt more alive than I had in a long while. Part of that was simply the jolt of adrenaline no doubt, but the rest of it was probably just that I was throwing off the shackles that society had placed on my mind and waking up for the first time. I’d seen a ghost.

  A real one. Maybe not for long, but that had to count as a real sighting. Was it progress? I’d have felt better if it had been Alex that I’d seen, but… yeah. This really had to be something big. It was big for me at least. It left icy chills running down my spine, and I decided right then and there to always look behind me if I felt someone watching from that point on, but it was real. It was something that showed I wasn’t wasting my time. Everything was real.

  The rest of the day was calmer, taken up with minor chores and being lonely for the most part, wishing I had contact with Alex and wondering what the hell I’d invited in already. It seemed like more than one thing when I thought about it. The black man from that morning in the kitchen and the unwanted neck massage being from the night before. Either of them could have been in bed with me of course. That thought didn’t leave me feeling all that great about the whole situation, so I tried to just focus on vacuuming for a while. Nothing else tried to sneak up behind me.

  Not that I noticed at least.

  I did make a point of checking every now and then as I worked around the place though. Thoughts of the black presence that I’d only caught a glimpse of haunted me. It was startling to just turn and see something like that. More than that, it was intimidating. Really kind of oppressive. I couldn’t shake the feeling, a sense that came deep from within me, saying that these kinds of things were around me all the time. Waiting. Watching. For what I didn’t know, but the idea that I kept coming back to was clear in my mind, sitting right on the tip of my tongue.

  It wasn’t about having the power to see them, it was just about noticing what was always there.

  Not wanting to just clean an already tidy house again, I sat to read a bit more of th
e story on my tablet. I didn’t do it in the kitchen though. I knew it wouldn’t really help anything, but I opened the blinds to let light in and sat on the sofa, with the wall to my back again. I sank in to the cushion after a few seconds, and clutched the reader, hitting the button to turn it on, expecting… Something.

  I got a book of course. The story was well written and interesting, a lot more so than I think I normally would have noticed, different from what I normally read, but in a very good way. Still, I kept having a sense that someone was watching me from different places in the room. I tried to lose myself in the story, only to see a bit of moving black out of the corner of my eye to the right every few minutes. It was like a vague shadow at times, moving slowly, but darting away if I stared at it. At other times I noticed a flash of light, flitting away before I could look.

  Finally it got to be three, which was really too early to leave, but not too early to get ready to go if I didn't rush too fast. I really didn’t want to be late to the meeting for some reason. There were so many questions to ask I didn’t know where to start. Plus I had a strange feeling that the things watching me would go away when I got to the Doctor’s office. There was no reason to think that, but the feeling was just so strong that I believed it anyway. Maybe it was something I knew on a deep level? Some kind of instinct that said I'd be protected by Milford or even just being around him. That or wishful thinking.

  I drove carefully, hoping that nothing would distract me, like a hand on my shoulder or a black form standing in the middle of the road. The idea started to really bug me about halfway there, filling my thoughts. Every person I passed made me wonder if they were real or not, or possibly a ghost. How would I know? They all seemed real, but the questions kept bothering me, eating at my mind as I pulled into the parking lot of the low building complex the office was in.