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29 March 2008
38. The Language of a Small Infected Demon
“Plan? What plan?”
I had caught-up with her before I realised what part of the house we were in. We’d travelled down the stairs and I found myself standing outside of the open cellar door while Kidman was inside.
I could see that someone had clearly ransacked the place in pursuit of something. I looked at the computer and, for the first time, I noticed that it was encased in a metal shell for security. It could be switched on and off but it would have been extremely difficult to remove it. Someone trying to gain access to the metal frame was probably the banging sound that I’d heard. I pushed it lightly to see for myself how secure it was and it failed to give at all.
“Interesting,” said Kidman.
I instantly scoffed at what she thought was interesting. “Forget it, Sherlock. Just tell me what your plan is, will you?”
“But this is interesting. This, my sleepy-eyed, bury-your-head-in-the-sand, emotionally-fragile little friend, is a clue!”
I blinked voraciously. I didn’t know what to respond to: the fact that she regarded something as a clue or the fact that she was being so insulting. My indecision caused me to respond as only an emotionally fragile person would: “Clue-gile? I mean, bury my clue? What?”
I looked away, squinted and licked my lips, feeling remarkably uncomfortable, but angry and resentful also. All of a sudden I was again aware of how vulnerable my body felt after the previous night. Inside, I felt like a room stripped of wallpaper; outside, like an old building covered in scaffolding. Kidman, on the other hand, looked like she was made of stone, each gesture precise and exquisite, every surface smooth and resplendent.
When she turned her gaze on me, she at first said nothing – there was no need, her entire look was comprised of ENP. Resentfully, I realised then that she was right, sometimes ENP is all you need. No other gesture is required, no words need be employed.
My irritation grew and I became a little agitated. “Quit that ENP crap, will you!”
She didn’t stop though, merely relaxed the ENP for an instant and then realigned its properties towards me with even greater force. “It doesn’t mean anything, you know! It just looks stupid!”
She held it. Boy, did she hold it! It was magnificent! How I despised her! Despised her? Did I? I aimed for calmness, but only reached quiet incandescence: “Thank you, Kidman. I think I get it.”
Then she dropped the pose as if it was just a hankie. “Fine,” she said. “Do you want to hear about this clue?”
I did, but I didn’t. All I wanted to do was grab my hair and pull it ever so hard, in one place and then another. She knew it, but knew also that I would listen. She’d ENP-ed all the fight right out of me! Oh, she knew it alright!
“The only filing cabinet that has been open and emptied contained files for the letters ‘MNO’ – no other letters. Other drawers have been opened, but the files that have been scattered all belong to those letters.”
“So what the person was looking for was one of the files that related to someone whose surname begins with one of those letters!”
“Yes! Although there’s no guarantee that this has anything to do with the dead astronaut! But it’s all we have to go on.”
Kidman was sitting up on one of the filing cabinets now and swinging her legs, her face all insipid and glowing, childlike and unperturbed. I knew how I would look in comparison: ransacked, violated, internal files scattered, and little parts of me pummelled by an anonymous assailant. And probably I had some essence at the centre of my look that gave the impression that something had been taken from me, but you weren’t entirely sure what. All of a sudden I wanted to get out of the cellar and I turned to leave, arms folded defensively, my bare arms suddenly feeling chilled.
“Well, we can bear it in mind,” I muttered. “And, when you want to tell me your plan then I’ll be upstairs.”
“Upstairs? I thought you’d feel at home in the cellar! Especially in this cellar!” She knew what I’d been thinking and she was relishing the opportunity to exploit my weakness. Her legs started to kick more forcefully and her head was slightly angled towards me in a put-on look of bafflement.
Now my irritation was firing-up. Perhaps it was the flayed and dissected nature of my nerves that produced it. Oh, no, hold on, it was the deathly ache in all my limbs, an ache that weighted them so heavily I could almost feel cold water – or maybe ‘passed’ water -rising over me to consume me luridly, poisonously – yes, that was the cause. Or … could it be … yes, just maybe … that’s it! The reason struck me! It was because I hated her! So totally. So absolutely. And with a delicious evil and spite at its core. I think it lay within the place inside where I felt something had been stolen, almost as if it was occupying a space illegally, uncouth hands holding up a damaged ceiling, in place of the strong, keen pillars that the structure called for. Something diseased was squatting deep down inside me. I recalled the words of Mrs Ormsley’s friend: it was a long way inside for a demon to go just for a pee!
My language in replying to her became the language of a small infected, crippled demon who was finding his way up and out inside – “Up and out inside,” the small demon cackled, ‘”Up and out inside, that’s where I’m going.” I couldn’t stop him. I just couldn’t. Seeing Kidman, the demon thought it recognised one of its own kind and spat.
“You disgusting, infected little presence, Kidman! Get out of my life! Get out! You repel me! You horror! You plague of a presence! You’re bile in my life, you’re a scourge! How dare you talk to me and treat me the way that you do! Just get your repulsive, insulting fucking knives out of my fucking life! Woman? You’re no woman, Kidman! You’re just a set of horrible dirty stabbing knives! Get out, damn it, get out!”
It was my voice, but how unlike me. I could see myself speaking the words, yet I felt connected to myself by some chord that projected me above myself. All those feelings, however, were with me, travelling through the chord and passing toxins into my head. My lips had saliva on them and I could feel a bit of spit on my chin, but my mouth was utterly dry. I felt my hands and my chin shaking with nervousness and anger and self-hatred.
I knew how Kidman would respond. I knew her presence. I awaited the silent ENP stance. But, oh, how wrong I was!
I noticed that her head was facing down, down at her dangling feet; they were no longer kicking about frivolously, instead they were entirely still.
There was a silence between us. For the first time, it was one of ignorance on my part; the first time I felt that I didn’t understand what was going on with her. It was eerie. Perplexing. Worrying.
Slowly she raised her head and looked at me. No elevated quizzical eyebrows, no dagger-like nose, no plush and protruded puppies. Instead, darkness. Wrath. Steely anger. Not like mine. Hers was fearsomely focused and portentous. This was a new Kidman and I didn’t like it.
I decided to get away from her as quickly as possible. “As I said, I’ll be upstairs.” The statement was kind of thrown at her feet, with a pathetic little flight and a pathetic little landing – in fact, the statement was more thrown at my own feet than Kidman’s. I didn’t care though and I hurried up the stairs. No sound from Kidman. No movement from the cellar.
I decided to go for a short walk, get some fresh air and clear my head. Clear my nerves. Clear out of the house and leave it to Kidman! As I moved towards the front door, there was still no sound from the cellar, just a cold, hard sense, an inscrutable presence like an enormous oil slick of dark thought.
I left the house as quickly as I could, scared to look back.
What had just happened to my Kidman? What had I done to her?
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11:20 Posted in Part Two: Getting Some Answers | Permalink | Comments (0) | Email this | Tags: haunted house, ghost story, horror story, astronaut, space, nicole kidman, journal