Note to readers: Halloween has passed folks. But it is always scary season!
Hi readers, ever felt a wave of emotions after a jump scare either directly or indirectly. Read until the end to find if it leaves behind a mark.
This story is about Amanda, a simple girl who lives in the simpler suburbs of Freiburg, a German city. She resides over her ‘simple’ life of working, eating, chatting with friends and occasionally going for vacation to a tropical country, particularly Spain. On the night of October 25th, she after a long and distressful phone conversation with her boyfriend rushes off outside for a walk with her skin thin jacket. Her dog was wagging her tail for a quick tag along.
The chilly winds of Freiburg hit her the moment she leaves for the walking trails. She decides once the cold reaches her arms, ‘There is no turning back’ and tucks into her jacket pockets holding the leash from there. So she walks for a couple of minutes on a side-walk along a street that sees a few cars drive past. Her dog, kippy, enthusiastically follows the trail until he hops off to a tree and starts sniffing intensely. Amanda pulls her to follow towards a trail. The trees beginning to wilt and dry reflect her emotional state. She and her boyfriend had been living apart in different cities for almost 2 years, after graduating from their college. Lately, her boyfriend had missed her calls and called back one day later without any memory of being called. One occasion, a month ago, she raged at his nonchalant behaviour, “Why are you like this? You used to love me? We spoke on for hours. Look at us now.“. He replied, “Really, you think that?” And he hung up.
Both of them chose to distance themselves until now. She spoke an hour ago and they raged at each other. She mumbles under her breath wasting precious air as vapour, “Who does he think he is?” and kicks a stone away towards a tiny stream. As she hears a gulp sound from a distant puddle in the dark, she concentrates at the full moon near the horizon peeking through the black, bony trees. This leads her away from the rage an hour ago. Her steps continue for 20 minutes more or so circling around the woods, until the chill penetrates through her thin jacket to her bony arms, after which she chooses to take a short cut. Although it is a bit late to take the shortcut, this is the only way, to not freeze herself to death. Kippy is elated as usual, as he welcomes a new path leading into a maze of fallen leaves and small puddles.
Troubling is the foliage found everywhere in the path. Even midst full blown autumn, life is thriving in this unusual corner. Amanda takes out her phone and illuminates the narrow passage. Trees bend and hug each other, lowering their branches, and at parts coiling against each other. An unsaid monster shrieks from afar, as the brown carpet of fallen greyish brown leaves crunches under her feet. Amanda hugs herself even closer as a new chill fills the space. Trembling through her steps, she just can’t figure the appropriate reverse motion. She is freezing in the cold but unfrozen in her steps. As if in autopilot, her legs punch the ground for the passage.
Then her memory skips several steps, within a blink. As if there is a skip button to the whole thing. A heaviness exudes from her body and a sharp pain reveals from her left arm as she tries to turn around. Her dog, kippy, is working on the leash jubilantly. He sees her wagging his tail as if nothing happened here, as if the nothing here is really “nothing”.
The palpitations soon die down reflected in the dog’s doleful and innocent eyes that gleams under the full moon. Soon she feels an icy shell forming around her body biting through her skin. She took off,
“Quick…..” and rubs her hands under the jacket until it brings warmth to her body. Her irregular steps turn into hops, while kippy trots, and then full-on sprints. Cutting the wind with her body bring back old memories from her college, those athletic competitions.
In this maniacal frenzy of wind and legs, the icy shell melts and turn into a hot blaze. She throws the passage out of sight and the immediate memories behind her. Minutes later, a change of scenery ensues. Wilted desperate trees transform into dull and dead concrete. Now the moon refuses to come out from behind an array of greyish buildings. Adrenaline brushes off these disappointments and within moments she finds herself in a park laden with a sandbox, see-saw, and a broken bench.
Having reached the park, she breaks into deep pants. The hot blanket wrapped around allows her to take a respite from the run. It had been a while since she sprinted in full speed. With kippy following her, she catches the broken bench and lays herself on it. Kippy sits on the bench besides her tugging close. Without a thought, Amanda scratches his neck turning him to a tail-wagging machine. Unable to hold her breath even, she halts and soon finds herself bending on her knees. Her gaze is weighed downwards, with her willpower barely trying to control her uneven breath. A few seconds later, she slowly traces from the park soil to the buildings gazing over the park.
“Who…?”
She is not alone. A man with his back towards Amanda, moves his body forwards and backwards, picking or sweeping something with a rake. He wears a baggy old shirt and pants slightly torn with suspenders in the middle of an autumn night.
Amanda, “I don’t know what this…”
Before her voice could manifest the words, he whips around and shows a face. Wrinkles take more space than the actual face, a thick beard sagging over his loose, wide jaw with blue green eyes stuck onto his sickly white cover. Dried, chapped lips flutter, and yet no words come out, only spits. Amanda maintains her eyes onto his flapping lips.
‘Perhaps, he’s a mute’
As her vision blurs and gains back focus in front of the man, does she even realise the translucency of the old man, especially his feet. She loses all control, her breath moving erratic, heart pounding like a boom-box on the verge of blowing out. Remnants of her psyche attempt to save her.
‘Maybe this is a hologram.’
It is an admirable attempt. To seal a hole appearing in her being, her completed self. Apparently the sealing had not been enough. Suddenly he opens his eyes and mouth agape, pointing his fingers towards her forehead, as if a line pierces it. Chills run through from her forehead, disperse spine-wards, shaking her whole body. Blood leaves her face leaving behind a pale shell. And then something even worse occurs. Another translucent being protrudes out of her slowly as if her soul itself departs, one that is clad in a brown farmer frock and a red headscarf. The world around her loses light in cycles and drops off until she skips consciousness for a split second. Regaining, she sees the maid cower back and crouch.
At this moment, a part of Amanda wishes she had perished in that arch of trees back in the forest. She would prefer to die in a forest that in concrete. Even before she realises the way out of this horror, her surroundings chose to move, blur in its motion away from the park, the buildings, or even the civilisation. Alas, it is half true. She recognises the all familiar rug, the Persian rug with rose patterns under her bare feet. But it was worth the try to leave everything behind.
She falls on her knees and refuses to ponder any further. Seconds melt away, minutes or perhaps hours. Nobody could keep count of. After which, she notices that her hands over her knees feel uncomfortably light, like it is missing something crucial.
“Something with l… What was it? I am forgetting something seriously important”.
She finds herself caught between the will to remember that transpired and the one to forget everything. Distraught at this absolute hollowness of her head, she lightly lifts the empty and looks around the living room. Her back feels the soft sofa, facing the ultimate attraction of her room, the television, a portable DVD player and a Playstation. On the side of the television are a bunch of photographs with her ex- and her dog…….., “kippy.” She murmurs and then wails upon the realization,
“Kippy! Oh god. I left him there. “
Terror had poked several holes in her memory, kippy being the most important one. Her soul felt crushed under her own weight. She finds no energy or courage to even go back here.
‘Perhaps in the morning.’
And her alarm clock announces the unflinching thrust of the morning and spelt out words
“07:00 am!!!”
x ——————————————————————————- x
Keys clack in constant monotone, pens or pencils scribble chaotic on paper, the frenetic movement of the workers shuffling between spaces scatters the noise everywhere. These motions hammer at Amanda’s head. The night had felt like a dream, that unfortunately she can not erase. In the morning, before she went looking for kippy, Amanda queried the internet about holograms in the town. There was no hologram. There was no kippy. Her stomach had sunk in her sleepless state, while her insides felt evaporated by the truths of the night. Coffee, a regular stimulant, does nothing to mollify the lost. As a matter of fact, the usual shoot up in energy was met by a dread mixed in with a persisting annoyance at regular things.
She scuttles off from her chair, kicking it back in a fit, startling the people around her. She storms into the break room, grabs the coffee pot, and dumps its contents into the first cup she sees. At that moment, she cares for the least whose life she was marauding. Today, everything belongs to her. Down she gulps the coffee without hesitation, the heat passing as if hot coal is passing down her chest. Instantly her tongue felt its demise. She fumbles for the sink, cold water spilling everywhere as she tries to cool the burn, when someone suddenly appears behind her.
“Hey Amanda.”
So it is the overzealous, …S… Sandra? Sarah? announcing her presence on top of her high-pitched voice.
“What brings you to this part of office? Energetic ..”
Amanda turns around in a flash showing a face without makeup, her hair unkempt, water dripping from her mouth. Sarah is stuck. Nothing in Sarah’s life has ever shut her up. Her gregarious, non-stop chatter earned her the nickname Chatterbox.
Amanda glares and snaps,
“Do I look energetic to you?”
Sarah shrinks in size. “No…..”
“Then what is your problem?”
Sarah measures her response even further “You… I mean I haven’t seen you at the coffee….”
Her words entrance Amanda, to the point she could not hear anything, only the sound of broken masts and drowned sailers. Only a low echo, the sound of dragging permeated amongst the drowned-out voice of Sarah. She squints hard to focus on this uncanny sound. Maybe it is a sudden blow in the vents or something.
It halts for a second or two. Sarah’s high pitched half-cries resume filling the room,
“Worried that you maybe having a lot of coffee….”
And then comes from yonder, a sharp gasp close to a snort, one of shock or either of fury. Nothing that she heard felt coming from the woman in front of her. A terrible pause permeates, and then comes a piercing growl,
“unverdæchlich wîp! wâ bistu al dise zît?(Insufferable wench! Where were you all this time?)”
in a thick rustic German. Another feminine voice, a higher-pitched than that of Sarah interjected,
“Verzeih mir, Vlad! Verschone mich! Ich habe nichts übel getân. (Pardon me, Vlad!! Spare me! I didn’t do anything wrong.)”
And her mind connects the dots together. Old memories from the night push into her regular day.
“Aaaah!!” shrieks Amanda.
Sarah opens her eyes wide in shock and holds her chest close. Other office coworkers converge in from all sides to inquire.
“What’s the matter?”
“Did you just hear this conversation… An old man.. a woman, One is shouting…”
Nobody replies back. She pants heavy, while holding a constant barrage of thoughts,
‘Both possibilities are the worst versions. Hologram or no hologram.’
Everything from last night rushes in and presses against her skull; the passage, kippy, holo, everything. She forgets how to breath. Although the world around her learns to spin,
“Yesterday….. park… hologram..”
As she is stammering, she falls on her sides. Before losing consciousness she sees everyone rush to her side.
‘What the hell did I witness?’
And in the background, an eerie soundtrack plays. One of shrieks, thuds and a whimper of who knows what.
And it turns off.
x ————————————– END———————————–x
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