Compendium 2020 – Story 39
By Andrew Hawnt
Graham Kelshaw stared at the bullet hanging in the air and wept. He stepped around it, the gun still in his hand, staring at the impossible thing. He prodded it with a finger and it wouldn't budge. This was crazy. He'd pulled the trigger and waited for the dark, but all that came was silence. The bullet had stopped on its passage out of the barrel and there it was, hanging in mid-air.
He looked around in a panic and froze as his gaze went to the window.
The rain had stopped. Just like the bullet. It had frozen in that single moment, still in the air like crystal shards.
“Is that it? Am I dead?”
His mind raced. Had he frozen himself at the moment of his death? Is that what happened to suicides?
“Not yet,” came the voice of a woman from the other side of the room.
Graham staggered into the corner in shock, turning to see the dark shape of the hollow-cheeked woman at the other side of the room. There was no way she had been there before., he'd locked the door of the room and had the only key. He knew this was more than just an intruder.
“Wh-who are you? What are you doing here?”
“I'm Mary. Once upon a time this was my house. Long ago. You can probably tell that by this ridiculously complicated dress.”
“I... can't see your eyes.”
“I haven't got any. Just the holes. They are a souvenir of my own suicide. I have given you a moment. A Fateful Moment. A chance to choose.”
Graham's knees went weak and he collapsed to them, his eyes again fixed on the frozen bullet.
“Please... just let me die. Whatever you are, whatever is going on here, please just let me end it.”
“Why?”
“Anything is better than life,” Graham sobbed. “I lost my job. My house. My wife and kids. They're both doctors now and they have nothing to do with me. I found out I have cancer and apart from a miracle, there's nothing that can be done. I don't want to be alive.”
Mary came closer, her pointed boots dragging on the carpet of the cheap hotel room as she was drawn to him without taking a single step. “Miracles only happen to the living, Graham Kelshaw.”
Through bleary eyes he could see inside her skull through her shattered sockets. Something was moving inside her head. A writhing, slippery darkness that lurched out of the sockets and engulfed him, spread over his body like a crude oil spill on seawater. For one terrible moment he saw all of the pain that had been endured in the room since the building had been erected. Decades of sorrow. Murders. Suicides. Slow marches to the grave through disease and abuse and all of the evils that life could bring.
When the darkness slithered away, back into Mary's skull, Graham realised he was screaming. Mary placed a freezing finger against his lips and he fell silent, unable to look away from the horror of her dead face.
“Your choice,” she said. “Use your Moment to live, or let the bullet strike you down. I have a proposition for you.”
Graham backed away, pulled himself to his feet and stood with his back against the wall. “Go on.”
The apparition gestured to the bullet. “One day more. One day longer. Allow yourself that extra chance. I will keep the bullet where it is. If one day more doesn't save you, then come back here and I will release it. Your head will be torn apart, but the suffering will never go away. You would just join the horror of this place.”
“One day?” Graham sputtered.
Mary nodded.
He ran to the door, fumbled with the key and hurried down the corridor.
*
“Dad? It's me, I'm sorry I missed your call last night. I've been doing triple shifts at the hospital. Listen, something came up in your test results. Can you come in tomorrow? I'll drive you over in the morning if you can. I've been talking to some specialists and there's something I'd like them to try out.”
*
The following night fell, and in the shadows of a forgotten room, a dark shape smiled as she watched a bullet fall to the floor.
(C) Andrew Hawnt 2020
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About Compendium 2020:
Compendium 2020 is a project from author Andrew Hawnt that consists of 52 original short stories, flash fiction stories and vignettes given away for FREE in 2020. Featuring science fiction, fantasy, horror and more, this began as a personal quest and due to the weirdness of 2020 has become an ambition to provide free distractions for anyone who needs them.
About Andrew Hawnt:
Andrew is based in Nottingham, England. Known for his music journalism career, comics writing and film critique work, Andrew is a prolific writer and is the author of a growing stack of books, including the cult hit VHS Ate My Brain. He made the movies The Demon And I and The Demon And I: Birthrite completely in lockdown with cast members filming their scenes remotely, and new films are coming.
Andrew is also the creator and presenter of the YouTube shows Planet Hex, Turn One Shock and the VHS Ate My Brain series as well as the video versions of the Compendium stories.
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© Andrew Hawnt 2020
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