Unrelenting Terror

by P. S. Power

  Unable to move or protect myself, anyone could do anything to me. The ghosts that had shown themselves earlier didn’t come back, possibly trying to hide from whatever was happening in the next room, if they weren’t causing it themselves. I wondered for a brief moment if I’d live to see the next day. I had to though, for Alex. That few moments of contact wasn’t enough, I needed more. I had to make it more real, to make certain everything was what it seemed like and not just some kind of dream or trick. That meant getting around the evil thing behind me.

  “Eclipse.” The words didn’t make a sound in my head this time, not even a whisper. The letters just hung in front of me.

  Until I realized that this time it wasn’t coming from inside at all. A voice was saying the word. Several voices. From the other room. Chanting it, over and over again. Each time they did I felt myself move farther away, deeper inside my head. I didn’t understand why they were using that word, but they kept at it, not stopping.

  “Eclipse. Eclipse. Eclipse.”

  Then everything went silent.

  For a long time I just stood in the dark, waiting. Dreading what would come next. The hand on my shoulder was soft at first, almost something I couldn’t feel, but the pressure grew over the course of seconds, until, without warning, it started shaking me, ever so slightly. If my vocal cords hadn’t been locked into whatever trance state they’d been dropped I would have screamed. Instead I went still, wondering what had come for me.

  It was Dr. Milford.

  “It’s time to move into the other room. You did a very good job, waiting like this. Come now, follow along and don’t let go of your focus. Understanding that each thing you hear, see or feel may be connected to the supernatural is an important step to gaining mastery over it. As you walk down the hallway here, be very careful of your footing and stay aware of the world around you. There are ghosts and darker things all over the place. Always. Keep that thought with you from this moment forward and notice them constantly.” The tone wasn’t sinister, just a little bit hushed.

  I wanted to ask about the screaming and chanting, but just followed along, as if I didn’t have any will of my own left. I felt like I did, inside, but I noticed that I was only actually doing what I was told. The state I was in seemed designed for that. It made me feel uneasy, wondering if I could resist anything asked of me in that moment. On the one hand I felt like I could, but on the other the evidence kept pointing to the idea that I’d lost the ability to really resist somewhere in the last day or so. It was almost as if the harder I tried to fight against the idea, the more I had to obey.

  Did that mean that I needed to stop fighting in order to escape? Did I need to escape at all? I was trying to learn how to communicate with the dead, specifically with Alex. Wasn’t that what I was doing? I’d felt the warmth wrapping me carefully, trying to guard me from the sense of evil that I’d felt. Both were gone now, but it seemed like I was being successful, doing what Milford wanted. That argued for working as hard as I could to keep doing exactly that and following orders as they came. I thought about it as I moved down the dark tunnel toward the white light of the lantern, and realized that I needed to keep doing what the Doctor said, not just because I’d agreed to it, but because I had to let the ghost’s into my head as a real concept. I had to understand them and not fight against them, so that I could have my love back. Even though the idea terrified me.

  The scene, when I finally saw it clearly, was perfectly normal. Too normal. In fact everyone was sitting on blankets spread out on the floor, as if nothing had happened at all. No one explained anything, Milford just steering me gently by the arm toward Toni, gesturing for me to take a seat next to the woman. I did it, though I didn’t really feel myself move. I noticed that I couldn’t feel anything physically for the moment, not past a vague sense of my own shape in the cool air.

  Daniel pointed a camera at my face and spoke calmly, as if nothing had happened at all to anyone.

  “Would you like a sandwich?” He waved to Jerald, who dug in a bag, bringing out several.

  The older man presented three of them, looking interested in one himself it seemed. They were all in white wax paper, and had writing on the outside in black felt tip. He read them off, his voice low and nearly whispered.

  “Roast beef, egg salad or ham on wheat. Which would you like?”

  The thought of eating in a crypt made me feel slightly ill, so I didn’t say anything. Again, I realized, I probably couldn’t at the moment. The dust in the air had bits of dead people in it and eating made you vulnerable to attack, as I’d learned earlier that day. Besides, I wasn’t hungry at all. There had been too much fear, too much adrenalin, for anything like that.

  Dr. Milford, who was staring at me as if trying to read my mind or gain insight into it through some other means, finally he spoke, his voice just as low and soft as Jerald’s had been.

  “Take the roast beef. Eat it and enjoy the flavors and textures.” It was a command, and an odd way to put things. For a second I wanted to rebel and tell him I wasn’t interested, but I found myself reaching out instead, actually moving across the space in a crawling motion to get to the sandwich being held out. I just did it. It felt odd, not like I couldn’t have ignored the idea, just like I didn’t want to bother trying. I opened it carefully, my fingers feeling fat and ungainly, the paper barely registering in my hands. The bread was white and I couldn’t smell it at all, but when I took a bite the flavors ripped through my mouth with an intensity I just didn’t expect.

  The mustard was slightly spicy with just a hint of sweetness to it. The bread was soft, but communicated the slightly stringy texture of the meat well. The mayo was thick and tangy. There were onions too. Normally I wouldn't go in for onions on a sandwich at all, but the crispness of them made the whole thing wonderful. I hadn’t been hungry, but suddenly I was starving and ate the whole thing, even as I knew that the dust of the dead was contaminating each bite. I just didn’t care.

  When I finished I just held the remaining paper in my right hand. Toni took it from me, being helpful and packing it up carefully to be removed. Littering was bad after all.

  No one said anything about the situation that had happened earlier, if it had happened at all, just chattering with each other like it was a picnic instead of an adventure in the supernatural. I wondered if I was ever going to be come that blasé about ghosts or whatever was going on as these people were. I didn’t think I would. In fact every time I got even the softest hint of anything unusual, the fear inside me grew more intense, not less. Every little twitch in the air, or sense of being observed, each thing I saw or heard intensified the feeling of dread more than I thought possible. I couldn’t prove it, but I kind of figured that would keep happening from that point on. There was no escaping it, or learning to get used to it that I could see.

  It didn’t matter though, not if I got to be with Alex again. For that I’d let myself live in terror forever.

  The Doctor hadn’t eaten anything. He sat looking slightly bored, or perhaps arrogant. In charge certainly, but aloof from the others as if not really one of us at all. He sat on the ground with us, but even though he wasn’t taller than anyone, he looked large, his head over everyone else in the room somehow.

  Catching my eyes he stared for a moment, as if waiting for something to happen. He spoke without warning, his voice catching everyone’s attention, though the words were clearly just for me.

  “We are surrounded by ghosts and spirits at all times, indeed they are the least of the things near us every day. When we wake and when we sleep, they are around us, trying to communicate with us, trying to feed off of our internal energies. At times they even try to end out lives, out of anger or jealousy. Even boredom. There is not one moment of your life that has not had such a being involved in it, even though you weren’t aware of it at the time. Now, by increasing your focus, by dwelling on the idea that these things exist, you’ve called them to you. Do you understand that? Do you feel it so de
eply you know it to the bottom of your soul?” He waited as if expecting a real answer.

  “Yes.” The word came out strangely, sounding muffled and very far away, even as I spoke. Almost like someone else had said it. that didn't matter, it was the truth and I owned it completely.

  “Very good, because after this things will become far more intense for you. You are very fortunate to be allowed to have these experiences you know. You must try your very best to make certain you are worthy of them. You can best do that by noticing all the small things around you that indicate something is near. You will do that from now on. Each thing you see, hear or feel that indicates a presence will automatically drive you into a state that allows you to see and experience more. There is no end to it now. There never will be, for as long as you live.”

  He kept speaking then, for a long time, as we all waited for the next thing to happen.

  Chapter five

  The word woke me up, sounding like someone was lying next to me, speaking in my left ear. I could feel the warmth of breath and a small puff of air hitting my cheek as the sound came to me and I finally understood what was being said. I half expected it to be something else, like “eclipse” but it wasn’t. It was simply my name.

  I didn’t recognize who was speaking, but the voice was female and felt familiar, if that made any sense. It took me a few seconds to sit up and realize where I was. The last thing I remembered was sitting on a slightly fuzzy blanket in a crypt with four other people. Now, without any reason that I could see at all, I was safely at home, in my own bed. It was also early enough that the sun still came through the window, the blinds not enough to keep it all out. It was designed to do that on purpose, letting the light hit me directly in the eyes if I tried to stay in bed past ten in the morning or so. Alex had done it, because I had a habit of sleeping in late otherwise, especially on the weekends which was boring. It was only nine-fourteen according to the clock on my beside table though. Still Sunday too, so even missing how I’d gotten there exactly, I wasn’t late for anything. I even felt pretty good.

  Rested.

  I didn’t really think about what I was doing for the first hour or so, not noticing much except that I needed to brush my teeth, shower and change. As far as I knew I didn’t have anything planned at all for the day. No one was coming over and I wasn’t going to church. It was something that I used to do, occasionally, before Alex died. We’d go together to the Universalist church down the street. They believed in God, but didn’t get too worked up if you had other views about how things might work. That had been about the two of us though, something we did as a couple, not anything I’d ever bothered with alone. I kept thinking I should make a service, if only to connect with some other people, but every time Sunday came around I found a reason not to go.

  It was mainly that I didn’t want another thing reminding me of what I’d lost. People at the church would want to talk about it and I didn’t want to. Not yet.

  No, what I wanted was for Alex to come and visit me again, like the night before. I sat at breakfast, waiting for something to happen, but nothing did. I just ate, alone, and then washed the dishes instead of leaving them in the sink. I had a dishwasher, but didn’t use it. What was the point when I could do them by hand faster? There was only the one of me now. which cut down on the work. I left them to dry in the wooden rack and moved to the living room sofa, wondering if anything was going to happen at all. I didn’t feel anything in particular. The words of the others the night before came back to me as I sat, looking at the television which I hadn’t even turned on in days.

  Someone had said that it was well known that what a person thinks about, they draw to themselves. Later Dr. Milford had made a point of reminding me that supernatural things were around all the time. So even if I wasn’t noticing it at the moment, there was something there, waiting. Wanting me to notice it. I tried to relax and just empty my mind. It had been terrifically clear the night before, but now I kept thinking about other things. The fact that I needed to go shopping soon for instance. I could go later in the day, but I didn’t want to lose my chance to connect with the supernatural while I had it.

  What I needed was to drop into a deep trance again and hold it. I could do that though, couldn’t I? All I had to do was imagine picking up my tablet, feel the weight of it in my hand, let myself see the screen and say the trigger word that would send me into the deepest mental state I could manage at the moment.

  “Eclipse.”

  I tried to remember what it felt like to be deep enough to see ghosts, like I had the night before. I even tried to imagine what it would feel like to be deeper than that, a remote feeling, like I was seeing the words on the page from a vast distance, down a tunnel. I looked down to find my tablet in my hand, not remembering having picked it up. The screen had words on it, but they just described what I was doing. I realized, even though it was very real, it was still just me imagining the whole thing. That… was awesome. I was feeling the imaginary book reader as if it were real now. The words looked that way too. I couldn't even remember it ever being different anymore.

  “OK.” I decided to speak out loud, just in case that mattered to ghosts at all. I had a strong suspicion it didn’t, but there was no one else around to see or hear me doing all this, so why not? I felt awkward doing it, but didn’t let that stop me. This was too important to me to not try everything I could. I wasn’t letting fear of looking bad stop me now.

  “Um, Alex? I’d like to talk to you. Can you hear me? If you can… Give me some kind of sign.” Then I cleared my thoughts and let myself just sit, reading the words I’d just said on the screen of my mental device.

  For a while nothing much happened. In fact I was just about to get up and get some water when I felt it. It was the gentlest of touches on my left cheek. At first I wasn’t sure that’s what it was. There was a tickle and a sense of contact, but it was very faint, weak and far away. I focused on my cheek, the sense of pressure increasing as I did. I kept going until I could feel it clearly, then I tried to sense who was doing it.

  “Alex?” I asked the room, but no one spoke back to me and the touch on my cheek faded as if a hand had withdrawn.

  “Wait! Don’t go or anything. I’ll try going deeper. Stay with me.” I didn’t know what to do, so I tried to concentrate and sense my lost love as hard as I could. Willing Alex to be there. After about three minutes of doing it, I could really sense something, a form standing right in front of me.

  A very familiar one.

  “There you are.” I felt a wave of love wash over me, as I reached out toward the space in front of the sofa. I couldn’t feel anything except, possibly, a small buzzing in the air. It was almost electric where the skin from my hand touched what I thought might be there.

  “I love you.” I spoke the words gently, then repeated them over and over again.

  The sense of presence faded over the course of about a minute and I was left just sitting, not knowing what to do next. I wanted to try it again, of course, but something inside told me it was wrong. Not evil or anything, but that pushing things too fast would be bad for me. Possibly for Alex too. So I sat and read for a while, using the real book reader this time, noticing how identical it was to the one that the Doctor was having me use as a focal point. The book I was reading was good. Engrossing in its own way. Different than what I normally read of course, but that made it better in a way. Easier to pay attention to. I was glad that someone else online had bothered to recommend it and went to the computer to do some of that myself.

  There was no law that said a person had to do reviews for a book, or recommend it to friends, but it felt really important to me for some reason. It tied into what I was doing, I knew, trying to connect with ghosts and the supernatural. There was a balance to things like that and failing to share what I read or experienced diminished the experience for me. If I liked a book I knew that I’d like it even better when I shared it with someone. On the good side I was able to leave sever
al excellent reviews for this one, it just called to me for some reason and felt important. I could do more on this one and knew I would.

  If the book wasn’t something that I liked I always felt bad about leaving a review at all, actually having a sense of empathy for others, so generally didn’t bother. Most books were good, even if I didn’t see it at the time and I didn’t want to blame the author for being different than I was. That kind of thing literally had to happen, didn’t it? So I only bothered to tell people about the good and interesting things. This book just had that going for it, so I made the effort to do a lot that way while I had the time.

  That took up about an hour all told, making it only eleven-thirty when I decided to go and see about shopping, wondering if my car had gotten back from Dr. Milford’s office or not. That I hadn’t thought to check before gave me pause for a few seconds, but it was right there in the garage where I always left it. That I’d apparently driven it home and couldn’t remember having done it at all was a bit scary, but at least everything seemed to be alright.

  No dents, scratches or dead hobo’s sticking through the windows.

  I knew I was still in a pretty deep state, but thought I could drive, as long as I kept myself on task and didn’t see any ghosts in the street. The shopping needed to get done, or I’d be down to eating nothing but oatmeal by Wednesday. I made sure to check all the mirrors and drive no faster than the speed limit, just in case anything jumped out at me. Nothing happened of course, the bright daylight keeping the supernatural hidden from my eyes well enough, I guessed.

  I really didn’t like shopping for food. It wasn’t being out in public, or even that it reminded me of Alex, though it did. No, it was just something about it that resonated with it being wrong somehow. Like I didn’t belong there and wasn’t really welcome. I often wondered if it was all the security at most places and scrutiny I got. For some reason, even though I didn’t steal, I always felt just a little bit like a suspect, being tracked and followed the whole time.