From Within These Eternal Shadows

From Within These Eternal Shadows

A Story by J.L Hunter

          Gordon stared at the blade, swinging back in forth, inches away from his face, like a delicate pendulum. It gleamed in the artificial light, glowing dimly from a single bulb hanging from a thin chain and hooked to a clasp that seemed very much on the verge of coming loose.

           His eyes moved from the monotonous back and forth motion of the blade to the light-bulb. The smoky luminescence hadn't been enough to reveal the man holding the razor thin knife. His body, engulfed in an inky blackness like a silk blanket, smooth and impossibly tangible, a thick web of shadow, carefully draped and woven by the predatory fingers of his assailant. No need for masks, Gordon thought restlessly, the darkness is your clothing. You are probably naked underneath, aren't you?

           The words crept into his mind like the lunatic ravings of a sickness-induced fever dream. He tried to shake them off by concentrating on the dizzying motion of the blade, glistening as it turned and arced, arced and turned, ever constant, glistening, throwing minute beams of light like electric bolts that pierced into his head.   For a split second he had thought the knife had finally been thrust into him, he actually thought that it was over. Crazily, this thought pleased him, and even though Gordon was in no pain whatsoever, and the blade continued its exotic dance in front of him, the fear had become its existential substitute.

           Fear had become the man's weapon. Perhaps whoever it was would never even have to use the blade on Gordon, who was ever at his mercy, tightly strapped to the old splintered rocking chair by a length of rope. He could be cut to pieces. And then, he would talk, only after accepting the eventuality of death, realizing at the same time that the final act of the man's torture, would ironically, be that death wouldn't come.

           But instead, the man who stood just beyond the threshold of shadow, turning and twirling the blade in careful yet menacing arcs, a hack magician in the midst of attempting to mesmerize a perplexed audience, opted for arguably the most affective form of torture, that of not knowing what may or may not happen.

           The fear was in fact real. That, Gordon could not deny.

           Silence was everywhere, pressing itself against Gorgon’s ears, making him focus on his own racing heart-beats, thrumming wildly In his chest, amidst the stream of blood, flowing just beyond his ear canal, a cacophony of sounds that existed only internally. Outside, there was silence.

           As the minutes slid by, the non-existent clockwork of time, which had no place in the dark room, Gordon began to realize that he might just lose his mind before anything occurred. His dismay at this idea flooded his emotion, grasping him with cold hands, promising in its clenching madness to not let go.

           He tried to scream. Nothing. It was as if his mouth had been muffled by the impenetrable silence. No, that's not right, he thought. Not exactly. As he opened his mouth, no scream arose out of his throat, only a series of inarticulate choking noises. The gasping, raw groaning sound of a man who had just awoken from the anesthesia haze of a prolonged surgery.

           Spittle flung out in gleaming wet streaks, flying out into the abysmal dark. A bit of saliva failed to make it too far out of his mouth and landed on his trembling lips, dribbling down onto the wiry patchwork of hair that stuck out in a gnarled mess on his chin.

           In some other realm, some otherworldly place where terrible things hide, Gordon realized that both his tongue and teeth had been ripped carelessly out of his mouth. In that same distant place he noticed the faint tinge of red spattered on the gloved hand, which floated against the edge of shadow. It was almost like the gloved hand, the knife twirling and twirling, weaving back and forth, in and out, was not connected to anything at all, a dismembered apparition acting entirely on its own accord.

           This sent a single shrill of terror through his body. A series of sharp icicle strands of pain that felt distant and surreal underneath the numbness that simultaneously unnerved him and made him want to cry aloud in joy that he was not in fact nearing death at all. The pain that had once not been there, when in fact it should have, coursed up and down his body in short, stifled spasms. Then it was gone and there was once again numbness and silence.

           He turned his head to the left and right that would have reminded him of an infant refusing a plastic spoonful of green sludge. Gordon did this in an involuntary attempt to break free of his bound state. He pulled and tugged his arms once, twice, as hard as he could, three, four times before settling back down. The rope hadn't loosened. His bulging, red-veined eyes peered down at the rest of his body like it didn't belong to him anymore. He allowed his eyes to trail the darkness for the shape of the man, but all he could see was the disassociated blue gloved hand, fingers wrapped casually around the handle of a knife, index finger resting on one edge of the blade as it curved and flipped and danced its majestic dance in between the light and the dark.

           Suddenly a far off sound came issuing through that darkness. Laughter. Chuckling laughter, the dull, close-mouthed clicking of the throat that one would make while stifling great bellows of laughter in a small crowd.

           “Mmm... Mm. Mmm...” The voice from behind the darkness moaned. The unpleasantness of its tone nearly blocked off all sensation in Gordon's thought processes.

           It continued, “Mmm... Mmmm... Mm...”

           The blade made another long swipe, coming close enough to Gordon's head to graze off a bit of hair. The next wide arc nicked the lobe of his left ear.

           “Ah. Ahhhh!” Gordon offered what sound he could produce, his mouth wide open, displaying only a swollen set of pink gums. “Ahhhh! Ahhh!”

           His head twisted back and forth, mirroring the continued repetition of the blade, now alive and gleaming with new blood. It dripped onto Gordon's jeans and in a moment of obscene clarity he thought the blood looked somewhat like cranberry juice he had once spilled all over the kitchen linoleum. The brightness was startling in the dull light.

           “Mhm. Mmm.” The disembodied voice intoned. “Mhm. Mhm.” Then finally, “There you go Gordy. There you go.”

           The fiery pain began to dull to a warm throbbing that coursed down his neck in waves.

           Gordon stared, his eyes gleaming with teary wetness as the man's face emerged from out of the darkness with a dreamlike slowness.

           “There you go. There you go Gordy. There. You. Go.” The man spoke from behind a pale blue surgical mask looped over top of his ears into a careful bow-knot. Ears that stuck out from within a jungle of hair which stuck out in untidy lumps along his head. His eyes, deep set, blue, similar curls of red veins intertwined around his dilated pupils so black it made the man look monstrous. There is nothing behind those eyes, Gordon thought frantically. He could kill and think nothing about it, maybe even take a bit of joy out of the process. There was a slow, calculating intelligence in those ocular lenses. Inhuman intelligence. Predatory intelligence.

           The man leaned in, his body still partially consumed in shadow. Gordon could smell the man's breath, the putrid stench of halitosis poorly covered up by peppermint that stung Gordon's nose and eyes the way a freshly cut onion would.

           Go away! He wanted to say. To scream. His nostrils flaring, eyes watering, saliva running down the sides of his quivering lips in an endless stream.

           As the blade drew closer, its point resting menacingly on the side of Gordon's face, he could feel its tip pushing ceaselessly deeper and deeper until blood began to drip down his cheek like a crimson tear. As the blade pushed ever inward. Gordon began to scream. The sound was only in his mind, yet the blood curdling shuddered across infinitely into every part of his being.


                -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------


          Gordon turned from the body, slumped over in the chair that rocked slightly back and forth. The entire left side was covered in the thick syrupy liquid that bubbled and seeped from the wound. A puddle had begun to gather on the floor, spreading outward around the bare feet that jumped in little spasmodic twitches that would abate after a few minutes.

           “There you go Gordy. There you go. Sleep. Rest until next time.” Gordon's voice was soothing in the dark, almost chiming with a musical quality. Killing himself had become a sort of calming practice. After awhile, indeed, there had developed a kind of poetic lunacy about it all.

           Poetic lunacy. He mused on that thought. He would write it down when he got home.

           But now, he must clean up his mess. Until next time.

           Gordon began the lengthy, tedious job of cleaning his own blood and, of course, burning the body.

“Before more can be made.” He said aloud, his voice trembling ever so slightly at the last word. How could it have come to this? He thought.

           Looking down at the blood soaked knife that now lay on the towel, at his hands doing the work of wiping and scrubbing, a job he had done numerous times before, almost hundreds of times before, he wondered sickly how many more would have to do, before finally bringing the knife up to his own head and ending it once and for all.

           He remembered, before the mess started: Kill them all. Leave none to spread. Then kill yourself to save what is left of the world.

           Those darlings, those infinitely little things, microscopic in size, yet magnificent in design had to end. He had to destroy whatever was left of them. He was the last, the finality.

           Gordon looked over at himself, a form of himself, and with a touch of unease bent under the table for the butane, unscrewed the top, and lifted the container upward. The smell made him think of camping before the end of the world. He didn't really know why. He laughed, a close-mouthed chuckle.

           “There you go Gordy. There you go.”



                    J.L Hunter

                    (November 16, 2014)

© 2014 J.L Hunter


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Featured Review

I really enjoyed the idea of this. I'm a big fan of unhappy endings, so reading about a man who kills himself many times over is right up my alley. The only thing I wasn't happy with was how short it seemed to be. The concept was cool and engaging, but I feel like it never got a chance to be more than that. Maybe I missed it because its 3 am but I would have liked to find out just why and how this man continues to kill himself. Regardless of that it was still a solid read. Keep up the good work

Posted 9 Years Ago


1 of 1 people found this review constructive.

J.L Hunter

9 Years Ago

Thanks. Maybe I will incorporate the story into a larger project. For now, though, I have too much g.. read more



Reviews

I really enjoyed the idea of this. I'm a big fan of unhappy endings, so reading about a man who kills himself many times over is right up my alley. The only thing I wasn't happy with was how short it seemed to be. The concept was cool and engaging, but I feel like it never got a chance to be more than that. Maybe I missed it because its 3 am but I would have liked to find out just why and how this man continues to kill himself. Regardless of that it was still a solid read. Keep up the good work

Posted 9 Years Ago


1 of 1 people found this review constructive.

J.L Hunter

9 Years Ago

Thanks. Maybe I will incorporate the story into a larger project. For now, though, I have too much g.. read more

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Added on November 17, 2014
Last Updated on November 17, 2014

Author

J.L Hunter
J.L Hunter

Pensacola, FL



About
Writer. Father. Lover of cheese. Umbrella salesman. Badger enthusiast. Doorknob. Cup. Also, cigarettes. Lots and lots of cigarettes. And beer. Smoke. Sizzurp drinker. Lemon flavor, never grape. more..

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