Etched Deep & Other Dark Impressions

by David Niall Wilson

  He reached out toward the pages, meaning to glance at the first of them for just a moment, and then paused. He had the distinct and terrifying impression that there was something behind him, something just begging him to turn and see it. He resisted; he tried to force his mind back to the business at hand. The sensation was too strong, and Edgar turned.

  A red stain crept out from beneath the mattress. It gathered at the bottom of the sheet, and then traced a thin line to the bottom of the bed frame.

  Drip! One drop hit the floor, and then another and the stain worked steadily out from some deep pool of red within, seeping through the aged material until it had spread out to cover the bottom corner of the mattress and formed a large, dark puddle on the floor.

  "No! Nononononononono…” Edgar shut his eyes. He ground his teeth until the sound of it deafened him, and he fought the growing tide of terror for control of his mind.

  It's not real, he thought. It's all in your head, man–there is no blood

  He turned and faced the desk once more, reaching as calmly as he could manage for the quill. The steady drip of the blood at his back was deafening, and he wondered if the woman who could hear the sound of his quill on paper in the early hours of the morning could not hear this as well. Perhaps she was out now, calling the constable to report the dripping sound

  “Not so quick as dripping water, it weren't, sir,” she'd say, “but thick-like. Like blood, not so much a drip as a bleeding cut. I heard it through his walls.”

  The dripping was so loud it shook the room, and Edgar dragged himself back from the terror, realizing as he did that the shaking was nothing more than his own nervous tremors. He stared at his hand and thought about the man in the bar and his large friend. He tried to picture them in his mind, only now he couldn't recall if the man had actually been there at all. Perhaps only the larger man had been there. Maybe Edgar had never seen a body in the alley at all, only papers and pages and stories. Maybe none of it had ever happened at all. Maybe there was no pile of stories on his desk, only a stack of empty pages he'd lined up in his own delirium.

  He looked back over his shoulder and whimpered. The stain had grown and the puddle beneath was making its way across the floor, spreading into a lake of blood and stretching out to reach for him with glistening red rivulets for talons.

  With a cry, Edgar brought the quill down on his free hand. There was a flash of sudden, intense pain, and he felt the kiss of ink and blood as they mixed. With a quick suck of dry air, he glanced sharply over his shoulder at the bed. The blood was gone. He laughed, and the tinny sound echoed off the walls and died slowly.

  There never had been any blood. And he had never stolen any stories. The large man at the bar had been alone, and the small man with the face of a ferret and a million stories in his head was a figment of Edgar's own imagination. Like a mantra, he set those thoughts running over and over in his mind.

  Yes, that's it, he thought. It was my own psyche fighting to bring the stories to the surface. My own personal Cyrano.

  He looked down and blinked at the droplet of blood oozing from the wound on the back of his hand. The tip of the quill had punctured his skin, and the edges of the cut were growing dark and curling in on themselves. Edgar smiled to himself and began to hum. He couldn't have done that to his hand. It was another product of his imagination.

  An even smaller droplet of blood clung to the pen and ran into the ink channel. As he set it to the paper, the blood soaked in and stained it, first a bright red, then pink and finally purple as it flowed away and the ink ruled once more.

  Edgar screamed and leaped from his chair, knocking it to the floor and shaking the desk so hard that the lamp nearly toppled in a mass of flames. He righted it with shaking hands before it had a chance to spill the precious oil. Then he stood in the middle of the room, face buried in his hands, shaking harder than he thought possible.

  Slowly, he peeked between the fingers of his hands at the words on the page. They were still stained that accusing red. He turned his hand over, and saw that the small oozing droplet was spreading across his wrist. Eyes wide and vacant, he turned to the bed. More than anything in his life he wanted to see clean, white sheets. He wanted to see a slight lump where the mattress rested on the sheaf of stories. Blood dripping from his fingers to stain the floor, he knew that he would not.

  The corner of the mattress was a clotted mass of blood. It was blackened at the seam, but the drip was still brilliant red, trickling across the floor and showing no sign of slowing. Soon it would wind its way under the door and out into the street beyond, and someone would see it. He turned back to the desk.

  He glanced briefly at the review where it languished, unfinished and insignificant in the shadow of the pages he'd written the night before. Stolen words. The pile of paper was so pregnant with indefinable dread that he expected the corner of it to be soaked with dark ink and bleeding on to the desk.

  His hand began to throb, and Edgar walked into his small kitchen and ran cold water over it, washing away the blood and gritting his teeth against the bite of cold water on his suddenly fevered skin.

  He wrapped a linen napkin around his hand, covering the wound, and walked to the bed. As he drew near, the room grew hazy, and he stopped. The second he stood still, his sight cleared, and the steady drip resumed. Before he could lose his courage, Edgar leaned in close and gripped the sodden corner of the mattress firmly. As his fingers closed, he closed his eyes as well and gritted his teeth against the sensation.

  It never came. The mattress was as dry and hard as it had been the first day he'd laid eyes on it, and Edgar's eyes snapped open as he stared, his heart trip-hammering in his chest. No blood. He lifted the mattress and took the sheaf of papers into his trembling hands.

  Feverishly, he thumbed through the pages, removed the top ten and replaced the rest beneath the mattress. He strode to his desk, brushed aside the unfinished review almost absently, and dropped into the chair. There was no sound of dripping blood from behind him. He did not look to see what state the corner of the mattress might be in. He read, and then reread the words, letting them sink into his mind. As he did so, he worried at them, teased them and poked them into a slightly different shape, a more proper tale. It was a tale of obsession, wine, and revenge, and it made his tongue tingle for just a taste of the vine, but he ignored it.

  Straightening his desk, his hand still throbbing with pain, Edgar pulled out a new, blank page, and as the lamp flickered and danced, casting its laughing shadows mockingly into the corners of the room, he wrote. He concentrated on the words, and on the paper. The room faded to the background, and it wasn't until two hours later, when he heard an angry banging on his wall, that he looked up from his work.

  The hour was very late. The oil he'd managed to purchase was low, and there were only a very few hours until he would be expected to turn in his review. He stared at the paper, pressed to the desk beneath his cramped fingers. There was page after page of writing, neat and ordered, and he barely remembered writing it. He had vague images, and there was something about Amontillado whirling through his thoughts, but…

  He straightened the pages and added them to the stack of those he'd already written. Bleary eyed, he reached for his review and for the next hour or so, conscious of every slight scratch of his quill on the page, he worked, glancing nervously at the wall separating him from the old harpy with the bat's ears. He finished with barely enough time for two hours rest, and without even glancing at the corner of the mattress; he fell across it into a fitful, dazed sleep.

  The Swan was crowded, and it was difficult to get a good line of sight down the bar. Edgar sat, hunched over a glass of sherry, and glared at the two empty seats across the room. There had been no sign of the large man, and Edgar's hands, wrapped tightly around the stem and body of his glass, trembled. In his pocket he had a single sheet of the small man's manuscript, and on the bar before him, paper and pen. He had written nothing, no captured or stolen phrases.
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  He was watchful now. At the first sign of the blood, he knew he'd have to write. If he concentrated on the manuscript page in his pocket, went over the story in his head, and wrote the result, everything would be fine. Everything would be dry, free of blood, and they would not stare at him. Their voices would remain muted and distant and impersonal, and they would not accuse him.

  An image of the alley surfaced, the man's bloody head leaking onto the pile of paper and he shuddered. He wondered, briefly, if he put the papers back where he'd found them, if the man would rematerialize slowly, blood first, to cover his words, but somehow he knew it was not that simple–and never would be again.

  Edgar sipped his Amontillado and thought of the pages, piled and waiting, on his desk. He had more work to do–a criticism and an essay–but first the blood would take its price, and there were many, many pages of the little man's manuscript left to finish. He shuddered again, and downed his drink, signaling the barman for another.

  What he feared the most was the bottom of that pile. What would happen when he dropped the last of the manuscript into his fire and watched the blood flow and dry and crackle to dust? When all the stolen words were translated, and the stories piled in a heap on his desk, would they bleed? Would he have to start again, and again, drying it all away through the tip of his quill, or would it be set to rest?

  His eyes were slightly sunken, and his pallor had become unhealthy and even paler than was his wont. No one took notice, though they stared at him more closely when he turned in his work at the paper, or when he bought food, oil, or ink. His plan was to write slowly, a little every night, stretching the dead man's words out across the years to come. If he was never without a sheet of paper, and one of the pages of the ferret-man's manuscript, then if and when the blood began, or he was afraid that someone was noticing something, he could translate a few words, or re-read the story at hand.

  He was half afraid that if the manuscript brought enough blood, since he'd joined his own to it through the quill, that it would draw him down to his death.

  The barman brought his drink, and Edgar cupped it between his palms without looking up. He took a long pull on the sweet, chilled wine and turned to glance down at the empty seats once more. He started, nearly spilling his drink. There was something on the bar, something indistinct and shapeless, but familiar. He shook and drank again, and as he did, he watched. The big man's hat. It lay in its usual shapeless mass on the bar. There was no sign of its owner, but something dark was pooled beneath it.

  Edgar shoved his drink away violently, nearly tipping it. He scrabbled for his quill and drew a small bottle of ink from his breast pocket. Opening it and dipping the quill, he began to write with feverish intensity. Outside, the bells on the city clock had begun to ring maddeningly, and though he knew they went on for moments only, the echoing sound lingered. He twisted the sound into something the ferret man had said, something from the page in his pocket.

  “The bells, bells bells bells….”

  At the end of the bar, where the evening sunlight cast Edgar's shadow down the bar, the lumpy mass that had been a hat dissolved to nothing, and the barman rubbed the smooth, polished surface of the ball unseeing. There was no sound but the loud, insistent scratching of a quill.

  Mirrored Hearts

  Long barren, sacred temple of my heart

  Open now and dripping

  Sweet rain.

  Cloaked in finery of aching emotion

  and flowered vines that

  Twine about my soul.

  Come to Me, oh priestess of

  Mirrored hearts,

  Drink the wine that is

  My blood,

  And let it drain,

  Through soul and heart,

  and blend with yours...

  Lie back on the altar of

  bone and fire and

  offer yourself,

  sacrifice to sacrifice,

  The sweet-sharp blade

  of my prayer

  Slicing soft skin to pierce

  Our heart

  To drain and savor,

  You,

  No drop spared as you/I/we run red

  Into the temple floor,

  As you draw me deep within

  The dark cathedral of your eyes

  Trade secrets of essence, and power,

  and we clasp one another in fluid splendor,

  Mirrored hearts,

  Feast on one another's dreams

  and love as if

  Forsaking life.

  Come to me oh priestess of mirrored hearts

  Drink the wine that is my blood.

  SHIFT

  The flighty flicker of spooked birds was in her eyes and her steps were quick and nervous as she picked her way through the haven. Shapeless lumps half-buried beneath the inadequate cover of hand-out blankets littered the floor, gathered in a loose semi-circle around one large metal heater. The dream scratched at her heart and she shivered. Too cold, always cold, and yet she had to get away. A longing look at the glowing warmth of the heater–at her precious space, hard-won, that would not exist if/when she returned–and she skirted the final sleeping obstacle between herself and the night.

  "Come to me oh priestess,

  Of mirrored hearts..."

  Her steps quickened as she tried to escape the words lodged cold and invasive in her mind. The night sky was clear above her. She bathed in the light of the moon, face upturned, and behind her the snap of automatic locks offered her to the night with no retreat. The clean, fresh air lightened her heart for an instant and the dream struck again.

  "Drink the wine that is my blood."

  She shivered and turned toward the park, pulling the shreds of her once fine jacket tightly about her. Her skin prickled with the cold, nipples hardening as they brushed on soiled silk. The dream lapped hungrily at her heart. So long since she'd slept. So long since she'd last been warm.

  The moon that moments before had beckoned to her shone brilliantly down to spotlight her as she glided along the empty road, tracing her movements in shadow and baring her, vulnerable, to the dream.

  "Lay back on an altar of bone and fire."

  She slipped through a line of trees and blended to shadow, blocking the moon's leering eye with their branches. It was only moments before she felt them tremble, calling to her, looming ominous and hungry as they bowed toward the trail–toward her–brushing leaves across her cheeks and grasping with thorns at her hair. She knelt suddenly in the cold trail and let the tears and dreams claim her.

  "Offer yourself, sacrifice to sacrifice,"

  SHIFT

  The temple doors stood ajar and tangled vines dangled like serpents. They clung soft and moist to her skin as she passed. The white linen of her dress glowed blue-white in the moonbeams slipping through the nest of branches dangling from the withered trees that grew above the massive doors. Her eyes shone clear and bright. Hand clasping the scarab chained to her neck and dangling against her heart, she entered.

  Soft voices from unseen sources spoke to her and she glided dream-like through their adulation. She strode smoothly and purposefully down the stone corridor on long graceful legs. Red torch-light glimmered in the depths of her eyes and the voices called to her, now blending–now one.

  "The sweet-sharp blade of my prayer

  Slices soft skin to pierce our heart."

  She felt him deep within and smiled. Thoughts drifted across the screen of her mind's eye, flickering through, away, and she moved forward toward a softer light. It glowed the green of storm and shimmered, as if viewed through a curtain of soft rain. The walls to either side were stained with deeply etched design and time-calloused strength. Faces peered from the crevasses; dreams flickered across mica-coated stone. She felt him again, moving in and around her, and her flesh reacted, pressing against the air that was his breath and straining within her emotionally battered flesh for release within his heart.

  "To drain and savor you,

  No dro
p spared as you/I/we

  Run red..."

  SHIFT

  The altar rose, tall, ancient, comforting. His features melted through the stone, melded with the carved visage and back again to her heart. Far above her the scarab embedded in the stone, twin to the one worn over her heart, winked, caught squarely by a shaft of moonlight that invaded the darkness through a crack in the stone roof. In the background, leaking out from the depths of the temple to blend with the night sounds of birds and insects beyond the gates, the voice of running water called to her. She stared at the monument longingly, touched the scarab at her throat again, longingly, tracing lines that matched those above, then closed her eyes, lost in memory and sound and his touch....

  SHIFT

  The river rolled back and away under the barge, each swell undulating beneath the bound wooden frame and on toward the shore. Crocodiles lounged on each bank, half-concealed in mud, huge glaring eyes locked to the soft bobbing of the barge. They waited, patient as the wind that uncovered the desert floor one grain of sand at a time, uncovering layers and more layers with the patient hunger.

  "Fly to me oh Goddess

  of Sun and Moon."

  She shook her head, rising from the couch that had been brought out on deck for her pleasure, feeling the deck of the barge as it bobbed slowly, graceful steps catching the rhythm of the waves and joining them, stepping lightly and easily.