Almost Her Name
An exploration of cosmic horror.
In the musky recesses of her mind a dull throbbing of the nightmarish clang sounded that she had come to associate with the phenomenon. With shaky hands she pulled out a cigarette from her well-ironed coat pocket. With practised ease, she brought it to her mouth and slid her thumb across the wheel of the lighter, sparking it into life illuminating the dark balcony.
Clang! Distant yet intimate it - she could hear it ringing inside her skull as the first drag scorched through her throat and filled her lungs with a heavy and familiar smoke. Her breathing shuddered a bit before calming down as the leaded blood - oh wrong in so many ways yet carrying hope of relief - rushed through her veins. The phenomenon hardly took notice - very aware, it had become more persistent over the years - of the darkness that lingered in the cold winds that blew away the smoke. Almost smiling.
Another drag burned down her throat, gentler after the last one yet as coagulant as the last with whispers of panic intermixing as she looked over at the street hoping she wasn’t noticed and hoping she hadn’t missed him.
The revolver felt heavy in her pocket. It always did when she had doubts about her kill. She ignored it in favour of another drag as the ringing got duller. Doubts were quite deadly in her line of work but on rare occasions she had found it alright to fuel the embers of humanity. It seemed the phenomenon disagreed but she was way past the point where she had the luxury of choice.
She blinked away the remnants of the pain as she crushed the half-lit cigarette against the railing and pocketed the bud smudged with her newest lipstick. Night had thinned the traffic below. The black sedan with the red sticker on the bumper sat unobstructed. He was late. Under normal circumstances she would have already aborted. This was an exception. It was unusually difficult to get any information about his whereabouts but she had been diligent - false name, flight booked - certainly they were for him. She could do without spots in her perfect record.
She checked her watch again.
Mar 13, 1970
22:03
Three minutes. The ringing swelled suddenly. She sharpened her gaze towards the decrepit building - the emblem of anarchy they called government. Broken glass panes, fading paint with barely functional doors surrounded by a well maintained garden with blooming lilies and lush greenery. A hollow, dark and insidious shell surrounded by nature’s wildest beauty. If there ever was a mirror.
He was tall and lean - suited in the fabrics only obscene wealth could buy. Briefcase loose at his side, he moved with a dull walk and unhurried stride towards his equally expensive car.
Click. She hadn’t noticed drawing her revolver or slipping off its safety. Cold metal now securely gripped under her palm - quickly becoming a reminder of why she was here. No longer heavy with doubt but replaced with an anchoring certainty. Her nails moved on instinct, counting the loaded chambers as she took aim.
He set the briefcase on the curb next to the car for a moment. She could tell he was fishing his pockets for his keys - an action that felt so off-putting for a man who had been chauffeured all his life. He paused looking around as if he felt the intensity of her gaze on him - he shook his head and pulled out the keys. As soon as he turned his back to her her decision was made. It always did. The phenomenon had fallen silent. The pounding of her heartbeats echoed in her eardrums as she pulled the trigger twice in subsequent action.
The silenced rounds tore through the lingering gunpowder smoke - and missed.
Impossible.
Her aim had never failed her, yet at the last instant the bullets had curved around his head and vanished. She caught his eyes in the reflection of the windshield as he looked directly at her. The ringing returned with a vengeance. Her breathing laboured, even from this distance she saw the slow bloom of a malevolent smile. Fury iced her skin as she pulled the trigger again.
Nothing.
The ringing crescendoed, pain drowning the anger as her sanity teetered on the brink.
Her breathing had become more laboured. The ringing peaking. She could feel the pressure on the edges of her skull as her knees buckled.
He moved.
Unafraid. Unhurried. Meticulous.
His eyes no longer glued to the windshield. He picked up his briefcase and adjusted his sleeves. His composure is all but elevated now. No longer roleplaying, he became something darker, something meaner.
The ringing pressed closer as she moved her aim lower from his head to his torso. Her hearing now fractured - the ringing had turned into a screeching. She pulled the trigger and a greater recoil snapped her wrists away.
Zip.
Even though she had aimed at him the bullet tore through the windshield instead. It hit dead center. Glass bent inward and broke into a flower-like pattern before dissolving into nothing. The windshield was as pristine as ever reflecting back the lights of the street.
A short hysterical laughter echoed in her mind. It took her a moment to realize it was her own. It felt absurd.
He paused with one hand on the door frame and looked directly at her now. The reflection no longer softens the gaze - the ringing suddenly stops. Withdrawn not gone.
The hollowness in her eardrums begged for embrace of the pressure as her soul was laid bare.
One round left in the chamber - there was a moment of clarity as she tightened her arm and re-aimed right at the center of its head.
He frowned. And the phenomenon returned with a fervor - hot sticky fluid rolled down her ears even as the pressure clamped her skull. It was protecting her and not him. And the pain was becoming unbearable.
She fired again.
There was no recoil. Black spots swarmed her vision devouring the dark street into emptiness of hope. A merciless pressure built inward from the edge of reality. She could see the cracks as blackness folded over - nothingness. The only certainty she carried into it was that man too collapsed, bent at an awkward angle.
Clang!
She awoke with a start, hands heavy and heart heavier. The scene of the man collapsed vividly on the forefront of her mind.
She checked her watch.
Mar 13, 1970
08:03
Her breathing became more laboured as she came to her senses. A slow and dull ringing echoing - warning her. Watching her. Almost sentient. She had no memory of making it back to her place or crawling into her blanket and falling asleep.
Her sharp eyes scanned the surroundings. She felt for her revolver and found it in her coat pocket where she always kept it. She also found the bud from last night - the smudge as she had left it.
“Jamie?” That was not her name. “Are you up?”
No one should be in her house. Not now. Not ever.
He walked in - dressed in the same clothes as last night. The smile was no longer malevolent - it held a kindness she wouldn’t expect from a man who committed horrible crimes. He crosses the room as if he had done it a hundred times.
The ringing hovered at the edge of her mind.
“Rought night?” he asked as he sat down on the edge of the bed. “I have to be in the office in twenty minutes.” That felt intimate. As if she had known him for years.
Yet he hadn’t even gotten her name correct.
What was her name?
It was right on the tip of her tongue but she couldn’t quite get it. The ringing subsided as she tried to not think about it.
Mar 13, 1970
08:12
“I gotta go. With the union case in the courts, no driver wants to drive me - so I gotta leave earlier,” as he got up and started putting on his shoes.
This she knew of. The Black car ‘black’. Government car drivers have refused to drive the Minister for Conservation. Her head was starting to hurt and this once it had nothing to do with the phenomenon.
She checked her watch.
She looked at the room more closely. While it looked the same there were subtle differences she could already spot. She couldn’t remember ever buying the horrid lamp that now sat on her table. The floorboards which creaked once hadn’t made a single sound as he had walked on them. The blanket was much cleaner than she remembered it to be. Even the air felt different.
He lingered at the door for a moment akin to how he did last night. He was perhaps waiting for something that never came. The kind eyes seemed so foreign on the entity that had almost swallowed her whole. He nodded to himself, “Don’t forget to lockup.”
The door closed with certainty as he walked out. She waited patiently until she heard the front door open and close again.
She lay back down, staring intensely at the ceiling. A chill started to settle in her bones. The ringing turned to whispers in ear - getting louder and louder. She couldn’t understand what they were saying but they were getting louder and louder. Heartbeats in tune with them.
Layered whispers. She could see the cracks in the ceiling. Her watch ticked but it no longer moved.
The whispers rose, hungry, impatient, gluttonous. Her skin was now getting warmer and felt as if she was sitting in the sun for too long. The room felt like an unspoken thought - paused in remembrance of those who never came back. Her vision was blurry with images she couldn’t recognise.
The vastness was no longer just observing her. It was watching her every thought, magnifying her fears, combing her flaws. She was not waking up - she was being returned.
Clang
The sound struck with surgical precision. Like someone had cut off her metal wings.
She woke up again. She found herself in the balcony she had just been in. She looked down and there was no black sedan with red bumper sticker to speak of.
Mar 13, 1970
22:12
The street is as plain as ever. No traces of blood splurts she had come to expect from her crime scenes. The gruesome murder she had committed never took place - it should have felt wrong but it felt as if something had corrected itself.
Fate herself seemed to have intervened and saved a life.
The ringing was gone now - yet something lingered. A faint distortion. Her eardrums too seem to have been intact which she could swear had bled more blood than she knew she had.
She looked at the window opposite to the railing and her reflection moved a fraction of a second too late. The ringing no longer, but something still seemed to be watching her. No longer willing to make her aware of its presence - just there looking over her miserable existence.
She tried to think of her name again. There was a shape where a name should have been. She would remember her name tomorrow - she promised as she pulled out her half cigarette and lit it.
The sense of being watched too faded as smoke started filling her lungs. The air felt lighter again.
She did not notice as stars rearranged themselves.
She did not notice as her watch corrected itself.
She did not notice as her name slipped through her own lips - “Jamie.”
There was no reason to. The phenomenon had been rather indifferent to her plight. The price had been paid in blood.
PS:
This was quite difficult. A first foray into weird fiction.
The research was quite fun, exploration in to multiple genres including cosmic horror, works of HP Lovecraft, The Fisherman by John Langan, The Gone World by Tom Sweterlitsch
Originally written for Cosmic Horror Monthly from the prompt.