Christmas Gothic - The Sojourn of The Soul

As the man came in from work, he looked on the hall table as he did every night, ostensibly for any letters that had been delivered that day. There were none that day. There was, however, a small parcel wrapped in brown paper. The label on it was addressed to him, ‘To Harry, With Love’ it read. It looked like his wife had bought him a book, which was unusual for her to even go into a book shop let alone buy him a book. He picked it up and felt its weight it was quite a weighty tome. He unwrapped the book and looked at the title: A Goode Wyfe: The Sojourn Of The Soul. He noted the archaic spelling of the title; she had chosen well. It looked very interesting and was certainly very old, the leather binding and the gold lettering on the spine and cover gave that away. It was well thumbed too and the pages fell open on their own.  He looked at the imprint, last imprint 1818, first imprint 1313. He did a quick sum in his head, those two dates added together made 3131, a mirror image of the original imprint date. He thought this was quite curious and certainly very clever. Someone had added a handwritten annotation in ink;

‘A Love Which Interanimates Two Soulles the Defects of Loneliness thereby Controlles’

John Donne he thought to himself and smiled that she had remembered that dedication he’d put in her card all those years ago. The book had been well used over the two hundred years since it was reprinted. She knew what he liked in books.

He called into the air,

“Thank you.” he hoped she had heard that wherever she was in the house. Then he heard the clatter of plates being cleared away in the kitchen, his wife was obviously in there and was tidying up after a meal. He’d eaten at lunch time and didn’t want anything to eat.

He’d start to read the new acquisition tonight. He liked reading old books, they were so much better than some of the modern fiction that passed for literature.

The man then went into the front room and sat down in his reading chair. He knew his wife would stay in the kitchen; she’d be typing up a report for her work. He could hear her shuffling papers and sighing. She often did that now, especially after his last affair. Now he nearly always sat reading in the sitting room by himself as she sat alone in the kitchen. The only company he had was the elderly cat, who always took a place on the corner of the sofa near the door and also near the radiator.

He sat down in his reading chair; it was really just an armchair with a special reading light next to it. He liked reading in a darkened room, it made reading special and it divorced him from the world, this pool of white light was where he did his thinking. This is where he escaped from the world around him.

He settled back in his chair switched on the reading light and opened the book, he started to read the frontispiece, it read: ‘The Goode Wyfe, A Treatise On Affection and Love’.  Once again, the archaic spelling struck him, it had after all been written in 1313.

He momentarily glanced up from the book as the cat jumped down from the sofa and slunk across the floor, it looked scared and spooked. The cat scratched at the small crack in the door desperately trying to get out of the room. Normally he would get up and help the elderly cat open the door but he was strangely fixed in his chair. The cat managed to open the door and pushed his way out of the room, he heard it run upstairs. As the door opened a bit, he heard a strange clatter, the tap, tap, tap of a manual typewriter. The door then clicked shut of its own accord. When the door had shut closed, his reading light dimmed and then powered up with an intensity he never seen before. He couldn’t move in his chair to adjust his light, it felt like his arms were pinned to his side. The pages of the book turned by themselves, page after page, the pages were all blank, devoid of type.

Suddenly the television flashed an image of his wedding day, a photograph of the happy bride and groom appeared onto the screen then slowly faded into a white dot and disappeared. As the image decreased, he saw a black figure walk from the door and walk towards him. It circled his chair three times and the stood still in front of him. His mouth went dry and he shook. The figure didn’t stop there but just passed through his body and went straight through the chair. As the figure pushed through his body it left him freezing cold and shivering. Then he felt a huge weight forcefully hit his chest and his left arm went dead and cold. He could sense the figure was now standing behind him. He couldn’t turn to look at it or move; his whole body was a leaden, dead weight. He tried to speak, but his jaw was numb, it tingled and felt dead and lifeless. Then he felt the figure’s hands on his shoulders, the fingers had talons on them; they dug deeply into his flesh and dragged up pieces of skin beneath his shirt. He could feel blood running down his chest from the wounds. He felt the hands slowly move along his shoulders to surround his neck and then begin to strangle him. He coughed as the strangulation took hold and choked the life out of his body. He couldn’t struggle, he was totally helpless and immobile.

Soon a strange peaceful calm filled his mind and he felt hypnotically compelled to look down at the book that was curiously still clutched in his hands and was now open on the first page. He started to read the page:

“A man walked towards a door, a door he had never seen before. It seemed strange that he was in this place he didn’t know and had never been to. He knocked on the door. The door swung open and a tall gaunt man stood before him.

“Come in.” said the man and he clutched at the man’s arm and tried to drag him over the threshold. The visitor saw that the man’s eyes were fixed on his. He felt uneasy.

“Come in. Come in.” said the man more urgently.

“Come in.” he said more aggressively and pulled viciously at his visitor’s arm. He felt claws dig into his flesh and blood drip from his fingers. He felt compelled to follow the man. He had no choice. He was being forced to follow the man.

The hallway seemed very dark, foreboding and unwelcoming. The house was very hot and smelt of rotten meat and faeces. As they both walked down the hall, one in front of the other, they passed countless hundreds of closed doors on either side of the corridor. However, the visitor could see a lit kitchen at the end of the hall. It looked inviting and warm. But every time he got close to the kitchen another door appeared in the wall on either side of the hallway. He didn’t like this it unnerved him. It was taking aeons to just walk down the hall. The man turned and checked that he was being followed by his visitor. They seemed to walk and walk. The man in front set the pace: it was urgent.

As they passed a door the man turned and said to his visitor,

“One of these rooms will be yours for an eternity.” it was said with a chuckle in his voice.

The visitor didn’t understand what the man meant. They both eventually reached the kitchen.

“Please take a seat.” the man said politely to the visitor and he pulled out a chair for his guest. The visitor took a seat at the kitchen table and looked around the room, it seemed familiar. Very familiar.

“Would you like something to eat.” asked the man as he opened a cupboard. It was filled with food of various sorts. Boxes of food fell to the floor and rapidly, magically, vanished into the stones.

“Will I owe you something if I do?” asked the visitor with a tremor in his voice.

“Of course you will. There is always a price to be paid for everything.” the man’s voice had more than a hint of menace in it.

He added “Loyalty would be one thing.” the man spat out the words.

“I won’t accept it then.” the visitor replied; his voice was shaking with fear.

The man slammed the cupboard door shut with such force the room echoed with the noise.

Then he suddenly turned and aggressively asked the visitor,

“Would you like an apple then? They were popular years ago.”

“Would I owe you for that? I have no money on me.” the visitor looked at the man as he replied.

“Oh yes, you’ll owe me. But we could keep a tally and you can pay later. Over the years I have been doing this, millions have paid later.” the man looked his visitor in the eyes and held his gaze.

“I won’t then, thank you.” the visitor was hesitant with his reply in case he once again upset the man.

“You must want something to drink after your long journey.” the man asked the visitor.

The visitor swallowed down; his mouth was as parched as a kettle left to boil dry.

“Will I owe you something if I have a glass of water?”

The man nodded he was tired of this game of verbal ping pong being played out.

“You either accept my hospitality or you can leave this house.” the man said loudly and with such menace and impetus the visitor shook and swallowed down in sheer fear.

The man sat opposite his visitor and looked at him, in fact he was inspecting him. The man’s eyes were black, he had no irises.  His fingers had turned to talons as he scratched at the table leaving deep scores across the wood. Then he looked above his visitors head and nodded to someone who was standing behind his visitor.

The visitor felt two strong hands go around his neck and they were beginning to strangle him. The grip tightened and tightened.

“Well?” the man asked. “Will you now accept my hospitality?”

The visitor shook his head and gasped out a strangled,

“No. I cannot. I cannot.”

The man shook his head, exasperated at the reply; then he imperiously waved his hand at the assassin that stood behind his visitor.

“Stop! He is to make the return journey.” The strangulation immediately stopped.

“Pah! You bloody fool. This could stop.”

The man waved his hands at his visitor.

“Get out now! You bloody fool, you should have accepted my invitation. Now get out of my house. Get out now!” the man kicked a chair across the room as he screamed the command.

The visitor stood up and rubbed his throat. It felt bruised and sore. He badly needed a drink. If only he had accepted that glass of water or even that apple, either would have quenched his thirst.

The visitor suddenly found himself stood at the kitchen door looking into the kitchen. It was as if he had never sat down. It was as if he’d never been in the kitchen. Then he felt the hallway reverse behind him and he started to travel backwards. He wasn’t walking, he was gliding backwards down the hall. He once again started to pass the doors he had passed as he walked down the hall. Every door opened then slammed shut as he passed them. The hallway seemed much shorter this time, he was still facing the kitchen and he could see the man looking at him intently. He saw the man’s eyes widen and turn red; he dug his talons deeper into the table top. The assassin was stood behind the man dressed in black, his eyes were black and they widened as he took in the sight of the visitor leaving the house. The visitor then heard the man shout,

“Think about it! One more chance! Take my hospitality or I will see you again and again!  I know I will! Someone has bought your soul for me to take.” he screamed down the hallway.

The hallway passed by door by door until the visitor was once again stood at the front door facing into the house. The front door then slammed forcefully in his face.”

The man looked up from the book and panic stricken looked around the room. He looked back down to the book. The words on the pages he had just read cascaded down the page and fell onto his lap and then disappeared. He turned a page, it was blank. He turned another page; it too was blank. Then another and another and another, all were blank. His mouth went dry, his hands shook. He kept turning the pages until suddenly he saw some type showing up in the reading lights glow on the other side of the page. He turned to that page and saw the paper was populated by words.

He was able to read the book again.

As he started to read the words on the page, they slowly slipped down the paper and onto his lap. The television suddenly switched itself on and the man looked up to see the screen flash an image of his wedding day, the happy bride and groom. This time the image slowly burned away into a flame into one corner of the screen and then disappeared into a white dot.

He heard laughter come from the kitchen and the tap tap tap and ding of an old-fashioned typewriter. Then his gaze was drawn back down to look at the book. As he looked down at the page of the book, it was slowly being filled with words one letter at a time, as though they were being typed.  Now he realised who was typing the words. He started to read the words as they formed,

“A man walked towards a door, a door he had never seen before. It seemed strange that he was in this place he had never been to. He knocked on the door. The door swung open and a tall gaunt man with red eyes stood before him.

“Come in.” said the man and he grabbed at the visitor’s arm and dragged him over the threshold. The visitor saw that the man’s eyes were fixed on his, his eyes were now turned black and soulless. The visitor shook with fear. Where was this man taking him?

“Come in. Come in.” said that man more urgently and aggressively.

“Come in.” he repeated even more aggressively and pulled at his visitor’s arm. The visitor felt the man’s talons dig into his flesh so deep his muscles froze in fear. Blood dripped from his fingers onto the floor.

“Your good wife bought the book especially for you. Now will you accept my hospitality? Or will you do this again and again until you do accept my hospitality?”

The man slowly looked up from the book and heard his wife’s laughter coming from the kitchen.