Here I am again, back in the attic, locked from the inside.
Chapter 6: The Voice Inside the Mind
“Are you afraid?”
“No.”
“Yes, I think you are. You’re afraid. That is it.”
“No.”
“You want to leave. Don’t you? You don’t like it here, alone where I see you. You’re afraid.”
“I’m not afraid. Who is this? Where are you?” I turn in circles searching the drafty dark room. A large square column made of crumbling brick lifts through the second floor and penetrates the acute angle of the roof. It’s probably the chimney chute. I frantically find an object to grab sitting on a broken chair.
“You’re looking for something,” the voice taunts, “or maybe you’re lost.”
“I’m not lost!”
“Oh of course not, no, no, I see now, you’re hiding. That’s what you’re doing up here. That’s why you came.”
The hammer balances comfortably in my grip. I hold the wooden handle gently in my palm. There is a long dark crack in the plastered wall across the room. Black dust and soot coat everything in a blanket of untouched age: shattered vintage window frames, a pile of heavy broken oak doors, ratty clothes, an old hand-carved stairwell railing, peeling paint chips, boxes and boxes musty and tightly taped closed, a pile of tattered mildewed books. I see motion.
“I like it up here!” I shout lifting the hammer.
“Sure you do kid.”
I approach the wall.
“Don’t come any closer!” the voice shrills. I see a beady yellow eye peering out from inside the crack. It disappears and I hear tiny footprints scamper through the walls like mice in a ceiling.
“Who are you?” I demand.
“I am your fear.” The creature echoes from behind sheltered attic walls.
“I don’t fear you. Show yourself monster.”
“But, you are afraid,” the shrieking voice whispers from above me. I look directly up. Blinking eyes flash over a small square opening. It is big enough for a person to fit through. All I need is a ladder and I will be able to reach the attic within the attic.
“How unfair of you to hide from me.” I said. “How tricky to stay beyond my reach, imp. Now show yourself.” I saw three sharp green fingers wrap around the edge of the opening.
“There is a ladder in the corner. I cannot come into the daylight. You have to come up here.” The thing said.
In the far north corner of the attic, under a soiled mattress and ripped Japanese banner I found a rotted wooden ladder. It had seven steps, two of which were already broken. I dragged it across the creaking floor and propped it up against the chimney chute just below the dark square opening. A vision flooded my mind of a shiny bald Taoist monk standing at the last step before the mountain vast and full of mist. I began climbing.
Reaching my hand up into the opening to pull myself in I felt tiny pebbles shifting under my touch. I pulled my hand back. Bat shit! Bat feces everywhere and I pulled myself through.
Instantly, a thick moist humidity struck my face mixed with a sweet pungent odor kind of like burning sugar or marshmallows.
“Why have you entered my home?” the voice asked hidden within the darkness. “Your domain is the attic below. You are not allowed up here.”
“I want to see who haunts my thoughts.”
“Haunts?” Muttered the voice, confused. “I don’t haunt. I merely reside.”
I stood up on the parallel truss cross beams, my pupils shifting, focusing and adjusting to the darkness, a double balance of weight and vision. Thin slits of light from down below pierced through the cracks barely illuminating the small narrow crawl space. I had to duck and bend at the waist to keep from hitting my head. The hammer still gripped firm and tightly in my right hand.
“Show yourself!” I demanded seeing the small leathery creature move in the far corner. I thought of the movie E.T. and took a step forward. Something crunched under my foot. Bones, tiny scattered bones lay everywhere. Frail dead mice and bats alike lay in a carpet of dried death.
“Do not come any closer!” squealed the imp. “I will bite your throat off if you do.”
“What are you?” I asked.
“I told you. Do you not listen? I am the fear inside your head.”
“I mean, are you human?”
“Stupid people you all are. I am what I am.” Dust-filtered light flickered across its thick oily face revealing a wide grin of shimmering teeth as it growled and moaned. Dark burnt spots protruded like cancerous warts over its cheek and narrow slit eyes. “What the fuck do you want me to be?”
I suddenly realized I was afraid. “I don’t understand.” I said.
“Understand nothing and leave me to my own.” It snarled and hissed coming towards me. “I am a Greckon messenger between worlds.” A glint of gold caught my eye. The greckon held a medallion in the air. “You like pretty?”
“Yes,” I said hypnotized. “What is it?”
“This is my treasure and it will be your wealth.” The creature gurgled approaching me slowly. “Come take it boy. You can have it. You will need it.” It licked its thin, dark lips with a long blistering tongue.
I crawled on all fours like a slave, like a dog.
“Put it around your neck. Put it around your throat. Put it over your head and never take it off.” Said the Greckon.
I bowed my head in fearful amazement as the thing stood before me. I felt his warm decomposing breath on the back of my head.
“This is the medallion of a secret wanderer.” The imp said as it anointed me with the circular gold medallion. Its weight burned as the chain hung from my neck. The greckon touched my face with razor sharp fingers forcing me to look up by poking dangerously deep into the flesh under my chin.
“What an ugly one you are.” It said to me streaking its black claws across my cheek. I tried to smile and it sinisterly hissed a mouth of fangs. “Now leave.”
I sat there motionless like a stupid puppy bowing to the three-foot horrid greckon with its ears draped around its head like a gremlin.
“Do you not listen?” It said again slashing out at me and tearing my shirt. I fell backwards stunned and stumbling on my hands and feet trying to crabwalk back to the opening. The greckon kept creeping forward clawing at me. “And remember dear Vincent,” the thing knew my name, “No one shall know. No one will ever know about this. You were never here.”
My hand found the opening beneath me and I fell through without warning hitting my head on the ladder and bouncing to the attic floor.
Copyright © 2018, Charles Denton
All rights reserved
Previous Chapters:
https://steemit.com/fiction/@ghostfish/spider-dreams-chapter-one
https://steemit.com/fiction/@ghostfish/spider-dreams-chapter-two
https://steemit.com/fiction/@ghostfish/spider-dreams-chapter-three-and-four
https://steemit.com/fiction/@ghostfish/spider-dreams-chapter-5