Visage of Death
by Allison Haag Waldron

Currently, I am hopeless and without conceit, deeply rooted in the depths of a black depression. Unable to eat or sleep, I spend a lot of my time sitting in the bowels of my home, the office in the finished part of the basement.

This is where I do all my writing, yet lately it has been like pulling teeth, without one original idea in my head. My thoughts are scattered and I am finding it increasingly difficult to put concrete thoughts down on paper, for I have no thoughts worthy of my fine parchment, worthy of my high quality inks and quills that I normally use. Well, that I used to use that is until my brain seemed to shrivel and dry up like a raisin.

I use the archaic ink and quills purely out of superstition. The habit started innocently enough, it helped set the mood for my writing. I’d light a candle, pour myself a brandy, get out my quills and ink, then let the atmosphere channel my inner muse, letting it wield it’s magic. The quills and parchment seemed to take on a life of their own.

After my first book was published, the manuscript written with my quills, it became a superstition, a tradition of sorts. I convinced myself that unless the original manuscript was written in this manner, it wouldn’t ever be published.

However, now not even the quills and ink can ignite the fires of imagination within my mind’s eye. They have been squelched, snubbed out at my own hands by my own recognizance. My mind has betrayed me, leaving me alone, an empty vessel of a man.

The brandy’s warmth has spread out into tiny tendrils of consolation in my stomach, like small fingers massaging away the cold, emptiness inside. Yet, there is no appreciation, or appeasement for that matter, in the familiar, for the familiar has abandoned me.

Perhaps I shouldn’t have had that third brandy; perhaps I shouldn’t have smoked the rest of my joint. Perhaps. Perhaps. Perhaps.

Lately, I feel as if I am being watched. I have this constant sense of foreboding and it seems to intensify when I am in the basement of my home. Yet, the basement has always been my special place, my sanctuary, if you will, at least it was up until about a month ago when I first started to feel this deep sense of dread every time I started to descend the stairs.

My office has grown cold, yet the rest of the house remains a comfortable 70°. I leave the door to the basement open so it can warm up, but to no avail. It remains as cold as a tomb and the air seems to have taken on an eerie life of it’s own.

Sometimes, I hear it whispering to me, then as quickly as this phenomenon transpires, it’s gone. Was it real, I’ll ask myself, was it ever real or was it all in my head?

No, it can’t possibly be. The coldness carries on a breeze, yet this strange wind seems to intensify in my office, which is windowless. How can there be a breeze?

Just yesterday it seemed to talk to me, "Jared…Jaaarrreeeddd, sit with me…keep me compannnyyyy", it seemed to say. Then, the voice was gone. It was so low, so quiet when it spoke I questioned my own senses. Did I ever really hear anything, or was it just a combination of my wild imagination along with too much pot and alcohol? I lie to myself and tell myself, yes that’s it, but I know I heard it, but for my own sanity, which is very frail these days, I tell myself these perversions of truth.

Even if I move, I know it will follow me, like a death shroud that has been plastered to my pallid skin. It lives, no-resides, in my office, but deep down I know it wishes to make me it’s home and it will follow me, taking up lodging in my next office, and the next, and then next.

It will never end, for it has told me this with it’s invisible tongue, words carried on an apathetic breeze washing over me like the cool waters of the north Atlantic, lest I have lost my mind.

What is a writer with writers block? As good as dead, completely worthless, that’s what. I pray to God, pleading for his protection and begging him to banish this evil phantom from my home.

I now wear a gilded cross around my neck, heavy and leaden, like my heart.

I peer at my unkempt image in the mirror that hangs above my porcelain sink in my upstairs bathroom and I see the phantom.

A narrow, white-faced being with sunken eyes staring back at me, seemingly stupefied. The pallor of the skin appeared mottled, like old, dusty marble. The ghastly, weary image frightened me, yet I couldn’t help but feel pity for the creature, for myself.

I splashed some cold water on my pale, ghostly looking face. The skin on my cheeks felt like wet dough, foreign and somehow unattached, numb.

What’s happening to me, I asked myself and the chilly air seemed to answer me back with an unearthly breeze.

"How did you get up here?" I heard myself questioning the empty room.

This must be what it’s like when you start to loose your marbles.

"You are not crazy, Jaaarrreeeddd…" the phantom-thing answered.

"Leave me alone," I screeched.

I looked at the mirror and watched my reflection morph into something loathsome, something even more terrifying then what I had just glimpsed seconds earlier.

Momentarily, I swear I was looking at a corpse and I witnessed a quick flash of a wry-looking smile play on its decaying, rancid lips.

Then, as quickly as the image appeared, it was gone, and I was looking at my tired, unkempt self once again.

I decided to go out for a little while and get some fresh air, clear my head.

I phoned my friend, John, and made plans to pick him up in an hour for drinks at Barry’s Pub, but oddly enough, when I arrived at his apartment, he wasn’t home.

It’s so unlike John to ditch on plans that we have made, to completely stand me up. John’s the most reliable guy I know. But, I wasn’t going to let a bump in the road stop me. I went to Barry’s anyway.

I had a few Guinnesses, and then decided to head home. On my way out of Barry’s I saw John sitting alone at a table in a dark, dank corner of the seedy bar.

"John, that you?"

"Jared?"

"John, you okay?" He looked as if he had just seen a ghost.

"Jared? How? Where?" He stammered.

I sat down next to him, slipping into a not-so-clean, beer-soaked chair.

"Jared? How is it possible?"

"John, what are you talking about? How’s what possible?"

His face ridden with fear peered back at me with vermilion eyes and his breath reeking of rum.

"John, you’re scaring me. How’s what possible? What in the hell are you talking about?"

He was definitely three sheets to the wind. My rational mind told me that the fact that he was making no sense is because he’s as drunk as a skunk.

"John, maybe you should ease up on the juice."

"Jared, I thought you were dead," He said, his bloodshot eyes fixing on me with nothing short of dumbfounded affrightment.

"What in God’s name are you talking about," I asked, my voice no longer even-toned, wavered with fear I could not hide.

"Jared, I attended your funeral just three days ago."

John’s words hung in the air like some toxic gas cloud, too heavy to take in without gagging.

"What," was all I could muster.

"You were killed, by a drunk driver. We just hung out; we were here actually, at Barry’s in fact and well… that’s the last time I saw you…alive." This last word died on his lips, yet his eyes held steadfast to my gaze. He looked at me as if I was some strange, exotic creature at the zoo.

"This is a really fucked up way to behave, John. I mean...it isn’t funny so cut the shit!"

I gestured to the cocktail waitress and she strutted over to our table, holding her little round tray.

"What’ll it be," she asked, eyes downcast, not even bothering to look up as she took my order.

"A Guinness," I mumbled.

"Sure thing."

"Oh. Oh. Okay, I get it," John said in a maniacal voice that made the hair on the back of my neck stand on end.

"You are really fucked up my man. Really fucked up," he said and knocked back the rest of his rum and coke.

"What are you talking about?"

"Faking your own death. What the hell else do you think I’m talking about?"

My mind reeled, feeling as if it were about to explode from an overload of the bizarre. I felt as if I was in some X-Files episode.

John’s drunk and my writers block has taken on a twisted life of it’s own, causing me to not sleep and to drink too much which in turn has been causing me to have strange hallucinations. Besides, the last few days have been a little hazy, but I remember sitting home in my freezing-cold office, clutching my quills and crying into my brandy over my lack of creativity.

Surely if I were dead I would know. I decided to give into John and his nonsensical ramblings.

"Yes, John. I really managed to pull of a real doozy of a prank. Had you all going pretty good too," I said, smugly, and took a deep, refreshing drink from the frothy mug placed in front of me.

"Shit, Jared. Man, you are one twisted dude. Do you have any idea what it’s like to think someone you were good friends with is gone forever? I mean, to see them dead in their casket, to cry at their funeral, to say your final good bye only to find out the person’s really alive.

"Does anyone else know? I mean, shit man, what’s your parents and your sister gonna think? What about your ex and Jared junior?

"You need some serious help if you think that’s funny. Besides, how in the hell did you pull that one off? You must’ve had help."

"Yeah, all my close friends and family knew. Well, know I should say," I narrowed my eyes and let my voice drop an octave. "I’m wanted by the mob you know."

John looked at me intensely, sizing me up, looking for cracks. I could tell by his statement that he didn’t know if I was joking or not.

"I’m kidding," I bellowed and slapped him on his thick back.

"Oh, yeah. I knew that." He broke into laughter until tears steamed down his bloated, red face.

"Well, I’m gonna go home. I’m dead tired," I chided.

"Funny. Really funny," John his words slurred, as thick as syrup.

I knew that he was completely inebriated and had probably forgotten everything we were just talking about. I took the opportunity to make my exit.

As I drove home, terror gripped me in its unforgiving vice-like grip as I recalled John’s eerie, unbelievable tale. I felt surreal.

He’s drunk and probably on something. Besides, that’s John, a nice guy but a major alcoholic. I’ve always taken everything he says with a grain of salt. Why take him seriously now?

I decided that John was a few cards short of a deck, obviously on a bender. Besides, the other option was just too unbelievable.

But you saw the image, Jared; you saw the rotting corpse in the mirror smirking back at you knowingly, like it had a dirty little secret.

"Shut up!" I said out loud to myself. "Just SHUT THE HELL UP!"

I had an image flash before the picture screen in my mind’s eye, me, driving, then a car coming out of nowhere and plowing into me. Me, head on the steering wheel, blood seeping from a gash in my brow like a dripping faucet. I couldn’t move. I couldn’t breath and I didn’t breath. Was I dead?

"Stop it!" I screamed the sound of my voice thick with panic.

"Stop it! Stop it! Stop it!" I shut my eyes, trying to block the images that bombarded my mind with relentless fury. My words resonated in my ears like a mad man’s plea. "Just stop it for Christ’s sake. Please, stop!"

I opened my eyes at the sound of a car horn, which pierced the silence of the night. I saw my image in the rear view mirror, my face a visage of death, a rotting, stinking corpse, writhing with maggots.

I turned my head toward the oncoming truck that swerved back and forth as it barreled down on me. The headlights illuminated the inside of my car, flooding it with bright, white light. The driver’s face in the oncoming truck twisted into a mask of pure terror and revulsion as our eyes locked.

©2002 Allison Haag Waldron

Allison Haag Waldron is 27 years old. Her favorite book is  Stephen King's "Pet Semetary" and her inspirations are   Stephen King and Poppy Z. Brite. She lives in Long Island, New York (USA) and has been writing for a little over six years now. Other publications: "A Poet's Penance" on Dreadful Dreams e-zine -  http://www3.sympatico.ca/konrad.olen/index3.html and a poem entitled  "Butterfly" published by The International Library of Poetry in a book entitled "The Eternal Sea." ("Butterfly" was also published as a sound recording on "The Sounds of Poetry" CD compilation also published by The International Library of Poetry). She was also awarded with the an Editor's Choice award for her poem.