Whisper

by Michael Bray

  She sat and waited as he searched through the files on the computer. He turned back towards her and was wearing that wide grin again which looked so out of place that it gave her the chills.

  “Here it is. Just listen.”

  Steve played the audio, and the room was filled with the sweeping, whooshing sounds of wind shaking trees. Melody strained her ears, listening for anything that might sound out of the ordinary. Not because she believed it — she didn’t buy into the idea of the supernatural. She believed in evolution, in science and cold, hard facts. But in this instance, she half hoped that she was wrong, because the alternative meant that Steve had some possible issues with his mental state, and to consider that at a time when they were just about to start their lives together frightened her more than any mysterious woodland voices ever could. He was watching her with an expectant grin, waiting for her to register that she had heard the same things he had, but try as she might, the only sounds that Melody could hear were natural ones — trees being barraged by the elements. She shook her head slowly, and was pained by the hurt, confused expression on her husband’s face.

  “I’m sorry… I don’t hear anything.”

  “But it… it’s right there.”

  She stood and crossed the room, unsure how she felt. Hot tears stung her cheeks as she opened the door and turned back to face him. “I want you to see a doctor.”

  “I don’t need to see a doctor. I’m not crazy!”

  “Then do it to humour me. I’m worried about you.”

  “I’m fine…I…” he trailed off and looked at the floor. “You were supposed to understand…”

  “Don’t put this on me,” she said, unsure why she was so angry. “What did you expect, sneaking around and talking about voices in the damn woods?”

  She was surprised at the venom in her voice, and although she felt guilty, she was also genuinely angry at him.

  “Are you surprised that I kept it quiet?” he asked, standing and pointing at her. “I knew you’d be like this. Let me tell you something Mel, the world isn’t all cold, hard facts and science and black and white. Maybe, there are things out there that we don’t understand.”

  “Oh, so it’s my fault for being rational? You can be really pig-headed sometimes.”

  “And you can be so fucking naïve sometimes,” he roared, slamming his fist down on the table.

  She could feel the heat flush in her cheeks, and wanted to walk away before things escalated, but something in her wanted to make a point, and so she stood her ground.

  “Naïve? Try realistic. This was supposed to be a fresh start away from our old lives, and here you are making up stories about voices in the trees. Do you know how insane it sounds? Just listen to yourself.”

  “You think I don’t know that? Why do you think I didn’t just say it outright? Why do you think I knew I would have to prove it for you to even entertain it?”

  “Prove what? I didn’t hear anything unusual.”

  “I played you the damn audio,” he screamed, eyes wide and tendons bulging out of his neck.

  “You did,” she said softly. “And I didn’t hear anything.”

  She turned away, stepping out into the cold.

  “I’m going to bed. I want you to sleep on the sofa tonight, and then go to see a doctor tomorrow,” she said from the doorway.

  He shook his head. “I don’t need to see a doctor. I need you to believe me. I’m trying to protect you here.”

  “Either see a doctor, or this is over,” she said, and then closed the door before he had time to respond. She walked quickly to the house, hugging herself against the cold and trying to make some sense of the life that seemed to be slowly unravelling around them.

  17. WAKING THE DEAD

  SHE WOKE WITH A start, confused and disorientated, surprised that she had actually been able to fall asleep in the first place. The content of her dream was enough to tell her that the earlier spat with Steve was still very much on her mind. After the two of them had argued, she had come straight to bed, but found that she was too upset to sleep and had lain awake for what felt like an eternity, staring at the ceiling and half hoping that he would come upstairs to make up with her.

  She remembered how her mother used to tell her never go to sleep on an unresolved argument, and in the past had always abided by that advice, but this was bigger than a standard argument. This could be a relationship changer. She wondered what could be wrong with Steve. Could it be schizophrenia? Or could it be nothing more sinister than her initial guess – that his years of city living had left him unprepared for country life and the natural sounds that came with it? She had heard him come into the house just after midnight, but he hadn’t come upstairs. She tried to stay awake in the hope that he would come up to see her, but despite her best efforts she had fallen asleep.

  The dream had been disturbing.

  In it, she was naked in the grass circle in the woods, the trees rocking and swaying, but this time, she could hear their voices, mocking her, teasing her, making despicable, lewd suggestions at her. She had tried to run, but her movements felt sluggish. The whispers had grown louder, and the circle began to close in, the ancient, thick trunks pulling themselves out of the ground and dragging themselves closer on filthy, black roots. The branches reached out and were suddenly the groping arms of people that she knew.

  She saw Donovan, her sister and her father, all grabbing at her, clawing and tearing at her flesh. No matter how much she tried to distance herself, their arms seemed able to reach. They surrounded her, closing in and grabbing, groping, tearing. She screamed, and one of the gnarled roots went into her mouth. She gagged on it, feeling it crawl down her throat, making its way into her stomach as she breathed raggedly through her nose. The arms were now too many to count, stroking and grabbing, tearing muscle away from bone. As one clawed away a handful of her flesh, it was replaced by another. She could feel it all in agonising detail, and would have screamed if not for the slick, wet root which filled her mouth and was now probing around inside her. Her skin started to rupture, and just when the agony had seemed too much to bear, they disappeared, leaving her standing alone.

  Panting and crying, she looked around. She was standing on the edge of a forest clearing. In front of her was a village comprised of simple wooden huts. At its centre,, a huge mountain of corpses burned and sizzled. She knew they were dead, as nothing could possibly survive such an ordeal, but still she heard them screaming. The heat of the fire was fierce, and as she watched, a lone figure walked out of the flames. It was Steve. He was silent, watching her. His naked body showed his arousal as he looked at her, and when he grinned, his teeth were filed into sharp points. He pointed at her, and then, as she continued watching, he walked back into the flames and climbed onto the mountain of bodies. She screamed, because although he was burning and his skin was melting and bubbling, falling from his face like hot wax dripping from a candle, still he smiled, and observed her with that sharp-toothed, manic grin. The wind howled, yet it still wasn’t enough to mask her husband’s horrible laughter.

  That was when she’d jolted awake, sweating and confused. She noticed that Steve still hadn’t come to bed. It was almost three in the morning and, with a sigh, she lay back down and closed her eyes, trying not to think about the nightmare. She was in that place—the hazy no-man’s-land between full sleep and consciousness when she felt an icy breeze touch her body. She sat upright, imagining Donovan’s grinning face as he reached out to caress her skin, but the bedroom was the same as it always was. She relaxed and told herself it was just her nerves making her imagine things that weren’t there when she felt it again, a cool caress which chilled the sweat on her skin and made her shiver. She sat up, straining her eyes as she stared into the darkness, trying to locate its source.

  The windows were all closed and locked, as she had made sure before turning in for the night, but she climbed out of bed and checked again anyway, looking for the tell-tale sign of the curtains moving i
n the breeze, but they were still. And yet she could still feel the steady touch of cool air on her skin.

  “Steve?” she called out, her voice sounding incredibly tiny and insignificant as she stared at the open door to the shadow-draped hallway beyond.

  She felt like secretive eyes were inspecting her, and she pulled the sheet off the bed and wrapped it around her body.

  “Steve?” she called out again, straining her ears for any response.

  She waited, but was met only with heavy silence and the feel of that inexplicable chill on her skin. Even with her eyes now accustomed to the gloom, she couldn’t force herself to step outside the safety of the bedroom.

  She could see the ghostly shape of the bannister and the closed door to the circular room above the lounge, which they’d not decided on a use for yet and was, for now, storage for some of the things that they hadn’t got around to unpacking. Everything looked normal and as it should except—

  She held her breath and listened, straining her ears. She heard the occasional muted gust of the wind battening against the house, although it was now considerably less violent than earlier in the evening. Beyond that she could hear a steady dripping coming from the bathroom—the tap in need of repair, which was on their ever growing ‘to-do’ list. She also heard the hum of the water boiler in the cupboard next to the bathroom and—there.

  Something else.

  A sound from downstairs. A small secretive thud, so quiet it was almost inaudible. She exhaled slowly and walked quietly on to the hallway carpet, leaning over the bannister rail and looking over them, hoping to see the glow of the downstairs lights that Steve had a habit of leaving on when they came to bed. However it was still dark down there, and Melody felt an awful feeling trill up and down her spine as she tried to see what the source of that subtle but definite sound was. Downstairs could have been a hellish, deep pit for all she could tell, and memories of the threatening text messages buzzed and darted around her brain. She wanted to call Steve’s name again, but her throat was dry, and she could muster neither the courage nor the willpower to make a sound, afraid of what might answer.

  She heard it again. A dull tap-tap sound.

  She crept to the top of the stairs, every footfall feeling deafeningly loud in the overpowering silence of the house. The steps loomed in front of her, an opaque void leading to whatever was making that stealthy sound. She willed herself to go and find out what it was, but was afraid, and it had rooted her to the spot, reducing her to peering into the darkness and imagining monstrous eyes crawling over her body.

  Tap tap

  She wished now that they’d replaced the upstairs light bulb in the hallway, as its presence would have surely shooed away the terror surging through her body at the thought of walking into the dark. However, the bulb had blown the day they’d moved in, and because they hadn’t really seen it as a high-priority fix, it had been pushed down the list and forgotten about it completely. But now, as terror clung like a physical thing to her body, she’d have given anything to have been able to reach out and turn it on, knowing that its light would make everything seem a little less frightening, and to feel a lot less isolated.

  Fourteen steps.

  Just fourteen steps and then she’d be able to reach around the corner of the living room door and flick on the light. She took a deep breath and slowly began to descend, counting the steps as she went. Halfway down she heard it again, that out of place, stealthy tapping sound. It was sharper now and much clearer. She stood and listened, one hand on the wall, the other clutching her dressing gown across her chest as she forced herself to calm down, to slow her breathing and be rational. She attempted to push herself to continue, to make it down the steps and flood the shadows with warm, artificial light, but her thoughts were interrupted by other ideas, and instead of the comfort of light, she imagined reaching around the corner and groping for the switch only to have something cold and wet grab her wrist and pull her into the shadows.

  Tap tap

  She held her breath, the cold chill sweeping through her body, raising gooseflesh on her skin. She continued her descent, acutely aware of every creak of the old wood, every groan of the house as she made her way down. She reached the bottom of the steps and peered into the dark living room, her furniture so familiar during daylight hours now vague, threatening forms. They played tricks on her mind and she saw them as gnarled and twisted humanoid figures, horrendously out of proportion, with long, reaching fingers which were spread across the walls, instantly bringing back vivid memories of her nightmare and the groping hands which had tried to tear her apart. She reached into the room, and ran her fingers across the wallpaper in search of the light switch.

  This is when it’s going to happen, she thought. This is when whatever is making the sound is going to grab me and drag me away, and I’ll never be seen again.

  Tap tap

  She whirled around, her eyes staring at the entrance to the kitchen. The sound had definitely come from there and now, nearing it, the cool breeze was more intense, ruffling her hair as she stood at the threshold. She glared into the gloom, and it happened, the same sound, but sharp and loud. It was close.

  Tap tap

  She instantly saw the source of the sound and was both alarmed and somehow relieved that it wasn’t some otherworldly thing formed in her mind by Steve’s rambling talk of voices in the woods. The kitchen door leading to the garden banging against its frame, pushing more of the cool outside breeze towards her.

  Tap tap

  Her initial fear was replaced by anger at Steve, who had not only left the house in the middle of the night, but had left the door open and scared her half to death. She hoped for his sake that he wasn’t in his studio recording more pointless weather sounds to try and ‘prove’ something to her, as she didn’t know whether she could handle any more stress. She crossed to the door and was about to walk over to the studio and give him hell when she saw him. He was standing by the edge of the river in his shorts and the old t-shirt that he usually wore for bed. She opened the door and was hit by an icy blast of wind which drove her back against the door frame.

  “Steve!” she shouted, but the wind rose, snatching the words out of her mouth and carried them away. He was tottering on the edge of the bank, his bare feet struggling to grip the wet grass. She started to run towards him, but the wind fought against her, pushing with tremendous force and slowing her progress. Its pure ferocity was frightening, and as the black husks of trees swayed and billowed, and the autumn leaves skittered and rolled, she could almost believe that they were talking.

  The rhythmic sound could almost be interpreted as words, or more specifically one word, and the word chilled her more than the icy bite of the weather.

  It sounded like they were saying ‘ jump’.

  A loose length of branch was picked up by an exceptionally violent gust, skittered across the ground and slapped her painfully in the face, and now the sound of the trees was like slow, mocking laughter. Stumbling back, she saw Steve being buffeted by the wind, and yet somehow he didn’t fall. She yelled out to him again, so loudly that it made the back of her throat raw, but he remained unresponsive as the violent wind continued its barrage. The grass was wet underfoot, making her slip, and she’d almost regained her balance when a second gust pushed her in the back sending her to her hands and knees, against the direction of the wind that was keeping her away from Steve.

  She looked up from her hands and knees, and knew that she was too late. She could only watch as Steve casually stepped off the edge and into the water. She screamed and scrambled towards the riverbank, trying to ignore the deep rumbling laughter which surrounded her. She peered into the swollen, raging water but could see no sign of him. She wondered how deep it was and as she processed the thought she saw him, floating face down and being carried away by the current. She scrambled to her feet and raced along the bank, trying to get alongside him. She wasn’t sure when, but at some point she had started to cry. She was along
side him now and, without thinking, leapt into the water, its icy shock sucking the breath from her body.

  For a few seconds, she couldn’t move, and was sure she was going to drown, but her feet kicked at the sandy bottom as she struggled to regain control. She swam towards Steve, closing the distance more quickly than she imagined possible. She grabbed him and turned him over so that he was face up, not quite sure what to do or even how to get them both back onto dry land. Hooking her arms under his, she kicked hard towards the edge, hoping to find something to grab on to in order to stop them from being dragged along, but her strength was dwindling, and with it she felt herself tiring. She wanted to close her eyes, just for a second, to regain some strength before the final push, but knew that if she did, then they would both die, and so forced herself to keep kicking and stay awake. The riverbank was close now, but it was downstream from the house and the edge loomed over them, too high to climb. She grabbed at the loose roots and long grass, hoping to slow their motion, but she overcompensated, and her head slipped under the water.

  She coughed and spluttered as the cold water tried to fill her lungs and weigh her down. She kicked harder, but it was no good. She had no strength left. She held onto Steve, who looked blue and lifeless under the moonlight, and closed her eyes and prepared to accept her death when her back scraped across the sandy bottom. They were suddenly motionless, sobbing and coughing. She got to her feet and dragged Steve up the smooth incline, laying him flat on the grass. He wasn’t breathing, and his eyes stared with glassy indifference towards the heavens.

  “Don’t you die on me,” she sobbed, as she began chest compressions in an effort to revive him.

  The wind roared, and still it sounded like laughter. She ignored it and continued the compressions, hoping and praying for a miracle. Steve gasped and coughed up a great gout of water, and Melody held him, kissing his head. The trees rocked and swayed, a violent cacophony of branches whipping and snapping, thrown around by the elements which continued to assault Melody and Steve where they lay shivering on the grass. Although she knew it was quite impossible, she couldn’t help but notice the noise of the trees as they shook fiercely.