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IT’S THE NOT-KNOWING
by Tom Leveen
© 2022
A hooded figure sat at Jack’s computer when he came down that morning. Jack, quite naturally, gasped, cursed, and stepped backward at the site of the hood, bathed in the blue light of the computer monitor on the desk before it.
“The hell?” Jack demanded, feeling his shoulders tense up and hands clench into fists. He licked his lips, wishing for a weapon. None were at hand. Jack worked at home and was a CPA who barely watched action movies, never mind owning anything that might defend life and limb.
“Get out of here!”
His voice was weak and cracked at the end, making Jack wince. Dammit.
“Go on!” he tried again. “Get!”
Like the ominous figure was a misbehaving puppy. Predictably, the words had no effect.
Jack glanced behind him at the open door. Obviously, the smart move here was to run, to go back to the kitchen where he’d left his iPhone charging, and call the police. They’d deal with the intruder just fine, by God they would!
Only . . .
They wouldn’t. Jack felt this truth like knives piercing his palms and feet, pinning him to this time and this place.
The room was dark except for the monitor, and it cast its light against the robe and hood in a way that made a black hole where a face should have been. The tip of a nose, the glint of an eye . . . something should have shown the figure to be human, but the blank space in the hood offered no such consolation.
So Jack figured it was Death.
It sat still. Motionless. No bony hands rested on the desktop, and no brimstone odor leaked from the folds of its black robe. Still—Jack felt deeply that his guess was right.
Death faced forward—well, “faced” being a relative term in this case—while Jack stood just a bit to the side, so that the figure wasn’t looking at him head-on. Instead it faced the screen. From his position by the door, Jack couldn’t see what might be on it, nor could he remember what he might have left up on the screen yesterday when his workday was done.
An Excel sheet? Some client’s bank statement? A video game he knew spent too much time on?
The light never flickered, so Jack assumed it was a static image. Perhaps just his desktop, with whatever quasi-inspiring image Bill Gates’ people had seen fit to push through that day.
“Look,” Jack said, again trying to moisten his lips. “I get it, okay? I know who you are. So, what now, do I get another chance? Is this just a warning? Look, I’ll eat more vegetables, okay? It’s not like I smoke. I don’t even drink a lot. So, come on. Another shot, huh?”
Death didn’t move.
“Well you don’t have to be a dick about it!” Jack shouted. “If we’re going to do this, then come on, do it! I’m . . . I’m ready!”
Lie. Total and utter. He wasn’t ready.
Death didn’t make a sound.
Jack gripped his short hair in hands. It felt melodramatic, but hell, life didn’t get more melodramatic than this.
“I’m talking to you! Answer me, say something! What? What do you want?”
While the figure made no movement, Jack heard a stealthy, slithering sound emanating from the dark folds of the robe. Cloth rubbing together, like arms shifting. But he could see no movement.
It occurred to Jack then to turn on the damn overhead light, but he hesitated, afraid of what the light might reveal. What if he then could see into the hood? What sort of Lovecraftian horror might be gazing back?
Jack released his hair and hugged his own body tightly, pounding his right fist against his chest. “Come on! Just do it, okay? You’re here for a reason, just get it over with!”
No response.
Jack shrieked. The madness of not knowing his fate grew like a geyser of India ink in his belly and torso, swirling black and heavy. He stamped his feet like a child.
“What are you waiting for? I’m here, I’m right here!”
Death offered no new sound, no motion.
The strain nipped at the edges of Jack’s sanity. In an ecstasy of tension, he gripped the sleeves of his shirt and tore them away. The old fabric whispered apart in his hands.
“What do you want from me? Huh? Are you the Ghost of Christmas Wasted or something? Speak!”
At that, the hooded figure slowly turned its head.
It was a slow, deliberate motion that obeyed all known laws of physics, yet at the same time, the gesture had an ethereal quality to it Jack could not pinpoint. The closest thing his addled mind could compare it to was the movement of a snake, which always disgusted him; they had no legs, how could they move? Here it was the same: the figure did not have a visible structure, no bone, muscle, sinew. How could it move?
Despite the movement, the darkness within the hood only appeared to grow thicker, revealing nothing. No pinprick ice-blue lights for eyes, no glimmering ivory fangs. Just darkness.
Jack raked his fingernails down his face and screamed. “What, what, what, what?”
He pulled thin layers of skin off, leaving burning tracks behind. It felt good, for a moment; felt good to feel, felt good to control, felt good to hurt. Pain meant he was still here.
So he did it again, and again. Bellowing rage at the dark figure, Jack fell to his knees and dug his fingers into his mouth. Pulled, hard, until the thin flesh gave way in a flood.
“What, what, what?”
By the time Jack stuffed his fingers into the soft skin below his eyes, he was well and truly insane. He tore his face to pieces until dead, lying prone against the thick-pile carpet in his office. It sucked eagerly at his blood.
The figure observed all this without a sound. When the deed was finally done, it rose gracefully from Jack’s leather chair. The robe fell neatly into place like drapery. It moved silently across the room and stepped easily over Jack’s mutilated body.
It was not Death, but Death’s assassin.
It was the not knowing that killed them.
THE END
Be sure to let me know what you think, or ask any question about the process of short stories vs. novels.
To the question of whether or not aspiring novelists should write short stories, I think yes. No writing is ever wasted. It all helps your craft. Some authors argue that if you want to write novels, then just do that, a lot and often. I don’t necessarily disagree, but I do feel that short story writing — particularly under “duress” like I am doing for the next three months — opens up veins of creativity that can bleed wonderously into a full-length project. For myself, getting up every morning and essentially forcing these stories is not only putting me in a better mood the rest of the day, I can feel it kickstarting old, longer ideas back up to the front of my mind, those novels that long-since gave up clamoring for my attention.
It’s time to get back to work.
Keep writing!
~ Tom
