Call me crazy. Call me anything, because nothing is a whole lot worse. Nothing festers inside of you until you become it, numb, a shell of a being you once had hope for. So I’ll take crazy. Normal is not in the cards for me and perhaps I don’t want it.
I’m in the office after my shift, finishing up the cleaning that I volunteered for. Laying on the freshly vacuumed carpet, a thin layer of material covering the cement floors, staring up at that ceiling in a daze. The cheaply made tiles are placed one after another separated by a grid of metal furring strips. No art to it, just the existence of something to cover up the poorly constructed building under it. Like so many of us, putting on our pretty clothes and face of makeup to hide what’s really inside.
“What are you thinking about?” I hear a man’s deep voice in the distance.
In a panic, I sit right up and look around. There’s no one there. I locked up over an hour ago and I’ve checked the clinic with my round of cleaning. Maybe I’ve had another one of those moments of daydreaming where I convince myself that my characters are real just to keep life interesting.
I wait for a moment longer, just to make sure I am truly alone, then take a breath of relief. I quietly say to myself, “Just life… and death.”
I feel a chill overtake my body, goosebumps line my skin in formation to warn me of the darkness that looms behind me. My hair is gently swept away from my ear and a deep voice replaces it.
“Which one do you crave more?”
I should be more startled than I am but I’m also intrigued. I listen to ghost stories on my way to work, the same podcast I’ve been listening to for the last year. Everyone always runs away from the voices, leaving the mystery to the listeners. I’m much more curious, stupidly so.
“Are you death?” I ask. “If you’ve come here to torture my soul, you’re too late. I’ve already spent a lifetime doing it to myself.”
The cold disappears and when I turn around, I see nothing but the reflection of the clinic showing the front in the window.
The automatic sensor light from the front area of the office turns on. It can only be activated with movement but I am here and someone is there because it’s on. In a sudden move, the small fish tank from the desk gets pushed off and crashes onto the tiled floor. Water, rocks and glass take up the space that I just washed. I walk over and stare at the ground, the small fish flapping around, stunned no doubt by their new circumstance.
“Will you let them die?” The whispers in my ear bury inside of my head like they’ll forever repeat themselves in an echo.
I keep my eyes focused on the fish, whose movements are starting to slow, just watching them in their final moments of suffering.
“Yes,” I reply. “Because in saving them, I’m damning them to life inside of a tank. A tank where they will swim repeatedly in the same space over and over again, the same view outside of the glass, the same sprinkle of food raining down on them, the same terrible existence that we’ve all grown accustomed to, that we just accept. No different than a tank, a cage, a zoo that only gives us an illusion of freedom. But it’s all the same.”
Am I still talking to myself? I need sleep. It’s been too long without the interruptions of my dreams or my neighbours snoring or that little twitchy thing my dog does at the end of my bed.
The fish stop breathing. I go get a broom, a mop and grab the garbage from under the counter to start cleaning up the mess. I’ll have a fun time explaining this one to Elodie, who absolutely loves those fish. A tragedy that I’ll be blamed for no doubt.
When I’m done, I shut the final lights off and I see it, a shadow, tall, dark, standing in the back corner of the room staring at me. I’m no stranger to darkness. I’ve seen them before, in my room, in my nightmares. I’m alone and I should be scared. And perhaps I’m more scared than I lead on. But I’m also tired. So damn tired.
“Will you be sticking around the office, or attaching yourself to me like a leach? Perhaps instead, you’ll return to the depths of hell,” I say out loud, not breaking my eyes away.
It doesn’t say anything, just fades into the wall behind it until it is a shadow no more.
I walk away through the staff area to the back door and gather up my items. I shut off the final light and lock the back door as I’m exiting. It’s dark out, but the lights from an adjacent lot light up enough to make me feel safe. I always park by the lamp post so my car is illuminated on the inside. I get into my car and put on some music, making my way home.
When I’m about halfway there, on a quiet side road, that feeling returns, or maybe it never left to begin with. I look up in the mirror and gasp, slamming on my breaks and pulling over to the shoulder. There he is, black eyes and hair, as real as any man standing in my presence. His sharp jaw is heightened by the smirk on his face.
“You bastard,” I yell out, holding my hand against my chest. “The mirror move, really?” So typical of any horror scene. Sure it spooked me but I was semi mentally preparing for it.
I turn around and he’s gone, when I turn back around, he’s standing in front of my car, head tilted slightly to the side just staring at me. A car approaches from ahead of me and the headlights light up the area in front, causing my vision to be blinded momentarily. Damn LED’s. When the car passes, he’s once again gone from my sight.
“Fuck these games,” I say and signal to get back on the road.
But once more, the cold seeps into my skin, as if the heater in my seat is replaced with a cold flow of air and my breathing becomes suddenly constricted, like a hand has wrapped around my throat.
“Oh you and I are just getting started. When I go back to the depths of hell, I’ll be bringing you with me.”
I’m grabbing at an invisible force and terror starts to run through me. Is this it? Is this how I die? Just when I think I’m about to pass out, the grip loosens, and he caresses my cheek.
“Fuck... you!” I breathe out, trying to catch my breath.
He laughs eerily, “Plenty of time for that.”
If I could fight back, I would… or would I.
A car pulls up beside and rolls its window down. “Everything all right?” A blond woman with wavy hair asks.
No, I’m not okay. I just nearly died at the hands of a demon. “Everything’s fine. I just needed to make a phone call. Thank you.”
I continue to head home and a small smile curls up on my lips. Unfortunately, that was the most exciting thing that has happened to me in a while and I realize that I’m far more doomed than I initially thought.
I put on Spotify, tapping on my ghost stories podcast and keep that smirk on my face all the way home.
Maybe hell will be more fun than this.
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