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| Ten Past Nine | |
| By Issy | ||||||||||||||||||||||
| 06 August 2008 | ||||||||||||||||||||||
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This is a piece I wrote for a Creative Writing Couse I attended recently, and the brief was to write a modern ghost story. As I am new to the site, your comments and thoughts would be much appreciated! I’m too frightened to own a TV, or a radio. Internet involves email, so that’s out too. In fact anything that involves screens, words or voices I haven’t looked at or listened to for over two years. I now crisscross the counties in my truck (smashed the radio out as soon as I bought it) working mostly as a casual labourer for farmers. The greenery doesn’t make me nervous, and best of all in the open away from technology, I can’t hear them. It wasn’t always like that. At one time I had a good broking job with a top City broker, five figure salary, the pad to match, but the stress finally took over. That, and the fact I couldn’t sleep very well due to the messages that appeared in my Inbox every morning at ten past nine. At first it seemed like a joke, just the words “Help us”. No sender address, and the IP came up with nothing. Checked with the guys in IT, no glitches, or hoaxes, the email had come from thin air. I had tried to reply, asking them to tell me who they were, but a non delivery message bounced back every time, announcing the address was incomplete. Incomplete. That was what the small sentence on the page seemed to want to say. Whoever it was sent me the same message for over a month at the same time very morning. Even when I tried to block the sender (whoever they were) the message reappeared again, like those tiles in Spain I had read about. Faces had started to appear on the floor in the kitchen, and when they were scrubbed off and the room left overnight, they just appeared fresher and more distinct the next morning. The story had always disturbed me, and now looking at the small envelope icon in the bottom right of my screen, I felt I was about to scrub away again for nothing. My eye shifted automatically to the time. Ten past nine. I clicked the message and it opened. “You have to help us” was written over a hundred times in different fonts across the screen. I viciously hit the delete button, and noticed my phone had a new text alert. Flipping open the handset, I didn’t recognise the number, and the message on the screen simply said “we need your help”. Looking around the office, I tried to see if anyone was watching me, but everyone was engrossed in the days work. No one noticed I was sweating and had knocked my coffee across the keyboard. Outside the windows, the world carried on, as I watched my coffee drip on the carpet leaving a dark puddle. My mobile buzzed again, and I turned it off. “Old girlfriend, eh? A voice said behind me and I nearly screamed. “Jesus Phil, you look like you’re gonna burst an artery,” Alan said scanning my harried face. “Alan, I whispered, thank God”. “Looks like you didn’t like the coffee this morning either!” Alan said cheerily, but his eyes remained seriously fixed on mine. Wiping my forehead with my palms, I stood shakily and decided to get some paper towels to mop up the coffee now drying in sticky dark patches across my papers. “I gotta clean this up Alan.” I said slowly. “You ok Phil?” he replied in a serious tone that made a young clerk look up momentarily from her work. “I don’t know, I replied. I think I may be losing my mind.” Alan’s eyes never left my face.” You wanna talk about it?” As we sat in the pub after work going over what was happening to my email and phone every day, it felt good talking to Alan. He listened without interrupting me, and nodded in the right places. I showed him the text messages, and we went back to the office after hours to look at my computer. I stood mutely with my hands in my pockets glancing around the empty space listening to the thrum of the servers idling in neutral. Alan sat and scrolled through my emails, but the messages had deleted themselves. “Can we get out of here? I pleaded with Alan, empty offices make me nervous”. The atmosphere seemed disjointed and heavy, and my heart pounded and echoed in my ears. Alan hadn’t heard me, but was staring at the screen. “A new message has just arrived, and this time it’s got a window’s media player attachment to it” He said slowly “Delete it!” I said frantically, “Get rid of it, I don’t wanna know.” “Wait a second, he said. Let me forward it to my email, and I will open it. If it’s clips of cats falling off tellies, then you have nothing to worry about eh?” Watching Alan stride across to his desk, the dread seemed to tighten another notch around my middle, and I was aware I was breathing in shallow rasps. Alan pushed his glasses back up on his nose, and turned on his PC. I sat at my desk, and waited for him to open the message. By his face, I could see he was puzzled. I don’t know what I had expected him to do, but he quietly stared at the screen, and waved me over. Hesitating, I hoarsely shouted over to him.” What is it?” “Nothing” He replied. “ There’s no video clip, just a blank screen that carries on for over a minute.” Turning back to my desk, I double clicked over the media player icon in the message, and it was just a dark screen. Turning up the volume, I listened. Under the static I could hear faint voices, as if a tape recorder had been left on in distant room, and had picked up a conversation. I stared at the screen and could see my own reflection staring back intently. Suddenly, reflected in the screen, a dark shape passed behind me. I leaped up and knocked my chair over. Alan saw my panicked state, and ran over to pick my chair up. “What the hell was that?” I shouted wildly. “Something was behind me, didn’t you see it?” “No, said Alan looking around the office. Nothing is in here.” “There’s voices in the message!” I said as I turned up the volume and played the message again. “Listen!” The lights flickered for a moment, and suddenly the power cut out plunging us into darkness. “Let’s get out of here.” I screeched, and headed in a zigzag bumping into desks now obstacles in the menacing darkness. Looking back at my desk, I saw with dawning horror that my computer was still on, throwing an oblong of white light onto the desk. The volume had been turned up on the monitor, and the voices whispered menacingly against the static of the screen,” Help us, Help us”, over and over. From that day I never went back to the office. I had anxiety attacks and nightmares for months. Pills helped, but the way the voices followed me was disturbing. Using the ATM, instead of asking me to input my pin, the screen displayed the familiar messages of Help us. My TV, and my laptop went, together with my radio. I didn’t mind the silence, I felt safe. I have been on the road now for a year, and so far I am doing ok. I stop in remote places and pick up casual work, but nothing with screens, or phones – too risky. My truck bounces over the B roads with ease, and the farmers that hire me on the most part have stuck with the old ways of farming. Today I am helping harvest a field, and the only sound is the distant phutt, phutt of the combine harvester. I turn and stretch my back, and above us marching across the landscape are the electricity pylons. I can hear them buzzing with the voltage they carry, but I feel the old anxiety coming back. I don’t know what travels along the thick wires two hundred feet above me, but I know it isn’t just electricity. The wind is blowing in my direction and the thrumming is louder. Under the pylon nearest to me I can see my workmate, he has heard the change in the rhythm to and turns his face upwards with a puzzled look on his face. “Sounds like voices”, he shouts over to me and points above, Come and listen!” I shout back that I can’t hear anything, but I can hear them, faint disjointed cries travelling to where I stand. My arms have broken out in gooseflesh, and I want to get away as fast as I can. Suddenly, my workmate’s mobile phone starts to ring, and he reaches casually into his pocket, answering it on the third ring. He listens for a moment, and then begins to walk towards me. “It’s for you.” He says.
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