Soul Window

This story, Soul Window, is an update of the previously (self)published short story, Lunar Doom (itself the result of a writing prompt by Nina Pelletier on the awesome [but now defunct] Google+).

Ducky Smith chose this updated version for inclusion in the Sci Fi Roundtable's Halloween Newsletter. I am humbled.

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Soul Window, by Jason Darrell

December taps its icy fingernails on the bedroom windowpane, tempting me to peer into its misty bowels once again. Outside, darkness reigns. Short days, long nights; the perfect season for creatures who stalk the night.

Legends of Scotland’s eastern shoreline, sat smothered in a broiling mist beyond my bedroom window, impress upon my psyche.

Arc-sodium incandescence filters through the fog’s silent invasion, washing the panorama with its sombre light. Regimented lampposts stand to attention along the coastal road, hanging onto the tarmac for dear life as the road crumbles abruptly into clifftop not a yard before their guard.

Intermittent beams fleetingly impregnate the mercurial mist, glisten against frosty particles, then fracture against their own reflection, dissipating with a twinkle unto another dimension. This mood, it is contagious.

In solitary confinement, watching fog descend and devour the desperate hours of a December night-time, lines between myth and reality are all but eroded.

Tonight, like so many recent nights, I ponder the moon, waxing and waning, but ne'er complaining.

Evolution’s secrets are safe, carved into her pockmarked face by celestial bodies over millennia. Bright as she often is, why does she always appear maudlin? Does she ache for us to visit her and claim those secrets hidden deep beneath her surface, to end her lonely lament?

Hitherto, she waits in vain. The saddened smile of the Mistress of the Tides, etched forever into the midnight skyscape, serves to reflect the efforts of misguided mankind. One day, perhaps, we will visit.

But tonight, as I stare beyond the flaking window pane, she’s nowhere. And from nowhere, I think, "Wilson, you must paint these window frames, come Spring.”

Creeping, crystallising condensation claims the glass, flexing its newfound fingers of splintering ice. Hypnotic, distracting, it whisks my imagination away to worlds of Snow Queens, Little Matchstick Girls and impish frost-elves.

On some other level, the fog, billowing and blossoming beyond the icy pane, registers again. Demons develop within its vapour-thin veils, borne inland on the North Sea breeze, before disintegrating upon each new gust of Siberian winter.

And still no moon. Where is my love? Beyond this fog, do the clouds also veil her beauty? Impossible to tell. Dejected, I slip off the windowsill.

***

All of us, I think, possess a sixth sense. Those times one instinctively knows they're being watching, or when someone's name randomly pops into one's head, letting us know that someone's thinking of us. Ofttimes, it’s impossible to know for certain, yet…

…it is such a situation in which you find me now. I ache to withdraw from this painful panorama, but instead, I feel an invisible pair of eyes lock me in their tractor beam.

Temptation tickles my chin, daring me to acknowledge those eyes. Thus far, I have resisted, that sixth sense warning of some Medusa awaiting an audience at my first-floor window. Without the sustenance of the moon, my resolve dissipates, blown upon the wind.

Goosebumps pop to prominence, writing an unknown code in Braille upon my arms; simultaneously, hackles spring erect, rolling from the nape of my neck along my spine, like watching tumbling dominoes, only in reverse.

If I could just slink back to the sanctuary of my bed…
…I know not why, but to be laid upon my mattress seemingly offers a ward against the evil that lurks in mid-air outside.

Ah, jeepers! The spell has failed. The indiscernible face that plays host to those glaring peepers has crept into view, following me as I tiptoe towards that hallowed duvet.

"Lord", I silently pray, "please let this be slippage. Let that which floats at the very edge of my peripheral vision be akin to that which we oft think we see, yet can ne’er pirouette swiftly enough towards to fully encounter before it slinks, unidentified, back into its parallel dimension."

Alas, Lady Luck and the Lord have deserted me tonight. The vision slips into sight; for a moment, I manage to avert my gaze downwards, to break those invisible bonds.

My brain cannot (or will not) accept that which my eyes scream exists, even with only inches and a single pane of glass between us to evidence the miracle.

Outside the windowpane, a straggled mop of unkempt hair hovers, enveloped in the molten mist. Its eyes turn to face me as I clamber onto the mattress. Fog eddies at its passing, or so it seems.

For a moment, it stares, no more than a face suspended in mid-air on a cold December night.

I crane my neck, still disbelieving, to see what trickery is at play. In response, its torso straightens out, reaching backwards into the gambolling gamut of greyness, laying parallel to the ground like some magician’s assistant, levitating just beyond reach, 16 feet off the ground.

The face beyond the windowpane also looks down, as if to confirm that it's capable of maintaining its gravity-defying feat. Oh, that the fog would choke this foul being, or tumble whatever mystical, invisible framework supports it and bring the curtain down on this horror show!

Headfirst it floats before me, its feet disappearing yonder into the gluttonous mist, itself bellowing like dry ice, compounding the sense of, but also threatening to engulf this macabre stage act.

That head of lank hair rises to face me in a deliberate arc; our eyes meet again. The full force of that glare penetrates the darkness, breaching the glistening ice that adds an even more surreal framework to the scene, and which offers my last vestige of privacy.

Madness. Pure, unadulterated psychosis stares back at me, unmoved, trapped behind a translucent mask of evil.

“What do you want of me?” I ask, through a mouth subjugated into silent stillness.

The face in the fog, now vignetted by the ever-encroaching circle of frost, knows that I know the answer. Its eyes plundering the depths of my mind in search of my soul.

From a distant memory, a jingle of recognition jangles for the first time in a seeming eternity of oblivion. But those features concede nothing. Daring, insomnia-rimmed eyes stare into my bedroom in fascination, meeting my glaring eyes, accusing eyes, scared eyes.

Fear all but petrifies me into a state akin to deep sleep paralysis: aware of some threat, but incapable of moving to escape. The pasty-faced creature, surrounded in whirling clouds of freezing fog, begins to taunt me, mimicking my every move.

At that, the atmosphere changes. More afraid than at any time since our encounter began, my body breaks the spell the thing has cast upon me. I inch a retreat backwards towards the headboard, away from the window and the creature in the night beyond.

In response to my cowardice, it draws back on its haunches, bracing itself to strike.

Could it really come crashing through the pane to maul its prey? Is it not forbidden for creatures of the night to enter one's home without an invitation, an invitation I do not intend to extend? Where art thou, mysterious upholder of ancient legend? Who will stop this night stalker from plundering my mind, body and soul?

The hope of salvation all but relinquished, instinct instead possesses me.

The best form of defence? Attack! Dare I call its bluff?

I set to crouch onto my haunches, like a leopard about to pounce in the savannah, only to find instinct has already set my body so. Fear expelled by a clear course of action, I'll match force with force, if need be. For better or worse, the creature has engaged a similar strike position.

The Mexican standoff, the calm before the storm; even the mist's meandering has mellowed to assume the shape of a floating floor scattered with bulbous cushions.

The rancid damp of fear is all sweated out, magnetising my clothes to my body. We shift for position, for dominance, weigh up each other's character, our nerve. Now, the music’s stopped, the dance is done. Silence reigns.

Without warning, the mop-haired creature bolts out of the night towards the window; without sanction, my body is already hurtling towards its tormentor with equal velocity, perfect symmetry in synchronisation.

The window quickly looms larger; beyond, the approaching madness etched into the creature's face, wrought into its wrinkles, becomes even more acute. Destiny holds its breath, anticipating our head-on collision. This may yet hurt.

We meet at the window in tandem; in that split second, I know that face. Contorted with hysteria into a mask of rage and panic, I am the creature, the creature me. We both have what we came for!

But there is no pain, only the revitalising rush of frosty December air; then…
…weightlessness.

As I sail through the fog on a sea of shards into the muffled arc sodium light, I think, “Wilson, you needn't worry about the flaky paint on the windowpane any longer.”

The orange-washed pavement rushes to meet me, the cold torment of winter over at last.