This is a thriller I am working on, it should develop into something quite large for once. NOT FINISHED.
1.
Starting Over
Jeff woke up in a cold sweat. He inhaled heavily as he reached for the ceiling and some form of his own self; escaped with something, a rejection. It was the dream again.
He would hear whispers, like screams they would be, but quiet. They moved him, pushed him toward the picture. It was a portrait; a yellow vase on a table, rose peddles lying about it. In the vase were tulips. He would always note that, the absurdity. Rose peddles falling from tulips. He would see his hands reach out, grab it by the frame, cast it aside. The whispers accelerated. They raced toward a climaxing staccato. As his hands touched beige and green stripped wall the whispers crescendo’d into a wave of emotion and freedom and sometimes love and blood and, for Jeff, fear.
He grabbed at his body as he tried to console himself. He shivered violently; the rough winds swimming in through the window were partly to blame. He closed the window with a weak grunt as he tried to warm his muscles again. He looked at the clock to see it was just turning five. The dew settled on the window well as he watched the vacant street fill. Jeff drew a small circle on the window and let the condensation dribble down the pane. His coffee maker had started and Jeff’s apartment began to stink of the stuff.
Like every day, a newspaper was slid through the mail slip on his door. It fell to the hardwood floor with a terrible thump as it begged his attention. Jeff picked the hard and weighty roll of paper from the floor and smelled it. It smelled like comfortable mornings. It smelled like college and all things from his past and something intangible from his future. A terrible revelation which rocked his very foundations. It was a memory of the future.
Jeff sat at his kitchen bar and sipped his coffee as he read the Arts and Leisure section. A small acting troupe called “Theatre Kids” were preforming select plays by Oscar Wilde. Jeff highlighted it and flipped the page.
Before he left his home Jeff put on his lab coat and his name tag which read:
“Jeffery Philips, Co-Head Technician in charge of Bonding Research”
That’s how Jeff described his life in one phrase on the rare occasion he was asked; “Co-Head Technician in charge of Bonding Research”. He would say this in an even more monotone voice than he was familiar with—it was often dripping with venom and distaste as it slid from his lips. It was almost always mumbled and forgotten. People never remembered much of him. They only ever asked him questions so he would ask them something in return, those were the rules of life it seemed; both the quid pro quo and the forgetting of Jeffery Philips, Co-Head Technician in charge of Bonding Research—the latter more often than one would ever imagine.
So, Jeff drove through the damp streets of Chicago; down the avenue, around the corner and into the aged warehouse with bright blue lettering on top. It read, almost always, “Jackson & Peters’ Pharmaceuticals”, sometimes it read “Ja son & Pe ers’ Pharm “. Those days excited Jeff, made him feel like he worked somewhere else; in a farm. On those days he would imagine his Carolla was a tractor and that he was walking past cornstalks not lamp posts as he went to work. He would imagine the guards and people inside were cows and ducks and horses. Jeff would milk them, pet them, slaughter them.
Today wasn’t such a day. He parked his silver Corolla perfectly between the lines and disembarked his vehicle. He always thought of those words. It was a sort of supplement, it reminded him of a police officer. His life was never so exciting that he would ever be pulled over.
Jeff walked through the doors into Jackson & Peters, and through to the security checkpoint. He showed his badge and passed through. The security guards didn’t even look at it though, they knew Jeffery Philips, Co-Head Technician in charge of Bonding Research, and knew that he was chicken shit, or yellow, or pussy, or a bitch—and they knew that Jeffery Philips was too much of a chicken shit, yellow, pussy, bitch to do anything dangerous.
I bet he’s a fuckin’ fag, they’d probably say. I don’t even look at the fuckers badge when he comes in, they’d likely laugh behind his back, he aint going nowhere!
In the elevator Jeff’s hands were sweaty and his heart raced as he pictured what he would do in his head:
He’d go into the lab. He would take three vials of Hydrofloric acid and take the elevator down stairs. Anyone who tried to stop him would get some acid in the face. He’d run to the lowlife security officers who laughed at him and resented him and humiliated him, and he would throw the stuff in their faces. They’d scream and squirm on the floor as the liquid burned into their skin. They’d ask for forgiveness and he would laugh and spit on them and take their gun and shoot them…himself in the head.
It always went back to that. He would always turn the gun on himself. He would never—could never-- finish them, end them for his years of torment. Jeff could see his reflection in the stainless steel elevator doors. He had an average face and dull Grey eyes which would be striking if he were anyone else. His tie was tight and he felt sorry for himself. He would punch his reflection if he could. He would tell it to punch him, kill him, destroy him, take him over, become him, put those striking grey eyes and average looks to good use. He wanted to stab himself with his pen and end it all, let his reflection take over. The effigy in the door screamed at him, a sly smile crossed his disgusting lips when he didn’t. Jeff heard the whispers again, they attacked him, struck his mind, made him double over. The doors parted and the whispers left.
Jeff sat in his stool, a beaker in one hand and dropper in the other. He slowly let a bonding chemical fall into the solution below. It smelled faintly like mushrooms and he knew it worked. He placed the agent under a microscope and began inspecting. The blobs in the microscope changed, they shifted into something else, something violent and dangerous. It bubbled and multiplied aggressively. It was unnatural and Jeff would have ripped his vision from it if it weren’t so mesmerizing. The things contorted and contracted and convulsed in a manner never seen in science before. They formed a mouth and began devouring every other oblong in the area. It was disgusting and frightening. The shape produced more—larger, more contrast shapes. It fed on the other shapes to fuel its own creation. It erupted in colors; red yellow, blue, orange. Red fell in sparse tear drops on the surface of something flat. Yellow formed into an hourglass shape and orange flowers spilled from its head. Jeff shuddered but watched, he always watched and always would. The picture burst and behind was the yellow and green stripped wall. It lashed out and pulled Jeff through the microscope, it tried. He pulled back and screamed.
“Fuck!” He yelled, pulling his head from the shadow’s tight grip. He looked around, at his coworkers, superiors, peers they were called. He tried to regain his breathing and sat at a further off stool.
Jeff ran to his direct superior, Keller James, Head in charge of Bonding Research. He had character. He would tap his pen in his head when filling out a report and bite the end. He would flick dust off his shoulder mid conversation and make jokes that he never laughed at, just smiled, laughing was for the audience. Jeff had no character. He never tapped his pen, never noticed dust, never told jokes and never smiled. Jeff tacked a note on Keller’s door.
“Taking that long overdue vacation. Call me for any questions or emergencies” it read. Jeff almost felt bad by including the bit about emergencies, as if he’d be needed. That was Jeff being vicious. He almost erased it. He didn’t, though; he needed some sort of outlet, that was it.
2.
Taking a Leave
Jeff drove back down the avenue. He drove to his apartment building and ran upstairs. He ran faster than he ever did, glancing behind him sometimes, as if he were being chased. All that was behind him was his shadow. It moved with him; unnaturally it stretched its elongated limbs and moved along the wall. It dragged itself behind him in long disgusting strides; pulling itself closer, faster and closer. Jeff ran faster as he approached his apartment, he tried to get away from the menacing shadow as his breath escaped him. He pulled open the door and was sucked in. There was something, a force, moving him about. It forced him to do things. It forced him to write the note, it forced him to get in his car and drive down the avenue. The shadow forced him up the stairs and now an enigmatic power moved him to pack his bags. It wasn’t so much a power, actually; it was a being. It was a physical being which existed in time and in his head. He heard the whispers as he packed clothing and toiletries, accelerating in rhythm and gaining volume exponentially. They beat against his skull as if trying to escape and all he could do was hum. His apartment was silent except for the wistful humming of Jeff as he tried to drown out the powerful whispers which collided with his own consciousness. Decisively, Jeff closed his suitcase and the whispers stopped, they were content—for now.
It was a short moment before Jeff was in his car and riding down the avenue. He had decided this, for the first time in his life he had truly decided. He drove past his job, past his mother’s house and even past his sister’s. He had become brave; there was a swiftness to his motions in the car, as if he was trying to trick himself. He made a quick right, an almost motionless turn to the left and finally onto the Kennedy expressway toward the O’Hare airport.
Without thought Jeff parked his car in front of the airport, grabbed his bags and marched inside. A guard tried to stop him but he just kept walking.
“Sir,” He would yell. “Sir, your car will get toed!” Jeff ignored him, as he always did, but the man kept screaming, as he always did. It was in that one moment, the moment which always existed and always will exist, like all the others, that Jeff knew he could no longer turn back. As he approached the counter and the woman asked for his tickets he wanted to turn back. He wanted to drop his bags, turn around, heed the guards call, and drive back home. He wanted to drive back down the avenue, into the farm and get back to work. He wanted to ignore the security and the oblongs in the microscope and just do his job. He wanted to get to work. He wanted to head up the bonding research—cooperatively, of course, with Keller James.
Keller was a man which everyone in the office respected. Jeff had always suspected it was because Keller was a homosexual, they were always very charismatic, but he couldn’t prove it. Jeff never became so involved in other people’s lives, anyway. He would always go home after work, drink some coffee, take a shower, watch Rachael Maddow and head to sleep. Keller James would go out. He would go to a place in the unfashionable side of Chicago and dive into all sorts of bars. He would visit places like the “Mocking Bird”, a famously homosexual bar, in which he performed all sorts of homosexual misconduct; or so society perceived it. If Jeff would venture out, if he would at one point during his endless existence take a risk, follow Keller, he would have confirmed his suspicions. Keller, however, was busy being a Mocking Bird and Jeff was always too busy sleeping and waking up to the dream.
He wanted to mix chemicals and agents and acid. He wanted to throw the acid. Spit. Take their gun. Point it. To himself and shoot. He never did. He always smiled at the clerk, placed his bag on the scale, and pulled out his wallet. He would always slip his credit card from his wallet and hand it to the clerk. He would always hear her question.
“Where are you going, sir?” She would ask.
The whispers would pipe up then. They would always scream at him, liven up. They would play drums to the beat of his heart and boost his morale. They would always chant. London, they’d say. They’d repeat it over and over and over again.
“Where are you going, Sir?” She would ask again. He smile was disturbing and on her shirt hung a name tag. It read, “Sandra”. It was always slanted slightly. Jeff would always want to fix it.
London, they’d chant. The drum would beat faster along with his heart and his brain would pulse rhythmically. It was something Jeff was oddly comfortable with. The music consoled him and appreciated him. They would reinforce his decisions, or make them for him.
“London.” He’d say.
In the plane Jeff would sleep. The whispers would stop, they never left. His shadow sat right next to him, it took up a seat and held him as he slept. It would sing him sweet lullabies. It’s voice was many and metallic; like a knife against a whet stone.
Sleep, it would say. Sleep, my baby.
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Originally Posted by Amethyst
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