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Short Fat Stubby Finger Stories PRESENTS:

Episode 22

Mary took a deep breath and slowly let the air escape her lips – then repeated the action several times before the panic within her began to subside.   The fear in her mind all but disappeared.   The ice had gone completely from her entire body, and normality was returning to her rationality.   Eventually Mary found the courage to attempt to verify her newly found control over her own body and was elated to find her limbs to be supple once more.   Tentatively she had tried moving her hands, rolling them from side to side while simultaneously moving her fingers.   She then began twisting and turning them in every direction imaginable … and with every movement the smile on her face grew wider and wider.    The hands, the arms, both moved easily, comfortably.   Mary found herself in seventh heaven.

   “Yes!” she called out loudly, excitedly, and quickly became even more energized when she realised another faculty was working again, half expecting the garage attendant to come rushing in because she had yelled so loud, but he didn’t.   However, Mary’s nervous system was still in damage control following the pain and suffering she had undergone only minutes earlier.  Her mind was not certain that all was well with her because she still did not understand what had actually happened to her.   She still mistrusted both her sanity and her physical capabilities, and although her voice and hands appeared to be back to normal, she did not trust her legs.

   It had been her legs she had relied on to take her to safety … and they had failed her when it counted.   She had no reason to trust them now… not at face value.  They would have to prove themselves … for both her safety … and her sanity.   Though whether this would help in deciding whether she was insane … or a survivor, was now a mute point in her mind … it no longer seemed to matter.   Whatever was happening – was happening … Mary just needed to know that she could walk so she could get as far away as possible from this nightmare.

   Mary stared intently at the door.   ‘Only ten – no –maybe, eleven steps,’ she told herself, ‘I can do this – I can!  Whatever had possessed me before … is gone!  I am free.’   Mary stared even harder at the door.   It became the focus of her objective.   She concentrated on it.   Not for a moment did her eyes waver.

   ‘One step at a time’, she impressed on her mind as, slowly, she began to lift one foot off the floor, an action that seemed to take forever in her mind …  an action that required enormous concentration and will power as Mary put every ounce of her mind power into action, her teeth gritted tightly together as she pushed her mind to the limit … and then it all came to a frustrating end and became an action that had failed to eventuate.  She had not been able to lift her foot one inch upwards.   Despite the warm feeling that had begun to trickle through the veins in her legs a moment earlier that had convinced Mary that all was now well with them … her feet were still as one with the floor.

   Mary became panicky, and tried again, but on each occasion she found her foot still pasted fast to the concrete floor.  ‘An inch, I can’t move my foot even one single inch,’ she complained aloud to no-one but herself, ‘is everything moving backwards in time?   Am I about to return to the same nightmare, the same level of insaneness I had been in but a minute or two ago?’

   Mary was becoming fraught with frustration.   It was as if something unseen, some invisible adversary, was somehow melding her foot with the floor to prevent her from moving.  But no matter how much her mind was telling her Mary about the lack of co-operation her feet were giving her, she did not move her eyes from the door …not for one second.   She had no intention of doing anything but passing through the doorway even if that meant going down on her hands and knees and crawling her way through it; no intention of allowing distractions of any kind preventing her from accomplishing her task, and that included distractions caused by invisible entities or the supernatural … or whatever one called the thing that was currently controlling her mind and body.

   As she increased her concentration on the door, attempting to push everything else that cluttered her mind aside, Mary could feel the sweat building up on her forehead again; on her arms; her head began pounding – and the fear of the unknown was quickly re-entering her mind.   But she would not take her eyes from the door.

   Mary forced her mind to block out the distraction; the fear; the sweating.   Sucked in a deep breath; exhaled, and tried again, attempting to push her body forward with so much force that she was on the brink of falling forward – straight to the floor in front of where she stood.   But still she couldn’t move her foot an inch.

From nowhere within her vision a voice suddenly began to enter her head.      ‘Mary … listen to me,’ it implored her, listen to me.’

   Mary was but a single distraction from submission to defeat; to becoming convinced that she was losing her mind.   To admit she was insane.   And when the deep, gentle voice unexpectedly began flowing through her mind, Mary’s spirit finally broke.  She was immediately willing to accept insanity was the cause of her current grief.   ‘What more proof did she need?’ she wondered.   She knew there was nobody else in the room.   There was no radio or television playing in the background, yet the sound of words continued in their almost monotonous tone as they rolled on inside her head.  Mary never heard the intent of the words, her refusal to listen – her last act of defiance.   But the words continued their request for her attention never-the-less.

********

Time strolled by in its inevitable way – and as it did, the world inside Mary’s mind became darker and darker – until eventually Mary’s defiance, her courage, her fear, subsided simultaneously.   Her mind began to become devoid of any thoughts whatsoever – only the words remained.   She no longer cared if she could walk or not.   She cared not for anything but a release from this madness that was beginning to engulf her.

   And, as she stood in limbo, uncertain of what would become of her over the next while; uncertain if she would stay in this position until she had totally succumbed to the madness … or if her mind would simply give out and leave her unaware of her own existence, she stopped fighting, succumbed to the inevitability of it all and allowed the words that had come from nowhere to communicate with her: words that called out her name; words that demanded her attention.

   ‘Mary … listen to me, listen to me,’ the voice had said over and over again.

   Now, finally, Mary began to listen and a soft light began to glimmer in the thick forest of darkness that was now Mary’s mind.

   The density of the darkness soon began to be reduced to shadows as the light began to shine with more intensity.

   The request stopped – and was replaced with more meaningful words; words that didn’t seem to make much sense to Mary.  But still she listened.

   The light intensified … the shadows completely disappeared and light reigned within her mind again.

   ********

Mary took another deep breath as she attempted to analyse the words; to try and understand the message more clearly, but found that she couldn’t.    Mary stopped trying and let them roll around inside her befuddled mind.   She knew eventually they would explain themselves to her mind what was to be done next – and then her mind would tell her.  And, as she waited for the answer to come forth, Mary relaxed for the first time since she had noticed the photo and had allowed it to momentarily take over her life.

   She knew she had to take control of her fear, an action she had known and attempted from the beginning of entering this strange world that her mind had wandered into, but had been unable to do so indefinitely.   And it was with this thought that she finally realised her inability to move her foot was somehow being controlled by her mind.   She had had absolutely no real control of her attempt to walk to the door.   Something had tricked her mind into thinking she could not walk; had made her concentrate solely on the door; had made her ignore seeking an answer to why she could not move her foot.   Who or what had created this situation was a question for another time.   A time when the answer would make much greater sense to her, but that time was still yet to come

   Then Mary suddenly realised it could even have been fumes from the oils and fuels in the room and the adjoining workshop that had caused the madness; the delusion to occur, caused to her to trip out.   Perhaps there was something in the workshop that had made her feel hot in the first place … and the vapours from various items in the garage eventually got into her system, which in turn caused her mind to go a bit funny for a while.  Whatever, she had to take back control … and do so quickly, before something worse happened to her, something like chemical poisoning.

   As she sought a solution to her problem Mary began pondering over her new found reasoning, and from whence it came, unaware that the voice inside her head had stopped talking, not realising that her mind had already advised her of the answer to her problem.   Mary simply presumed it was instinct that made her move her eyes towards her stubborn feet.   And when she did so, her mind reacted in total disbelief at what she saw.  So perplexed by what her eyes showed her, she automatically tried to refute what her mind was beginning to comprehend; the simplicity of the solution to her problem.   Then Mary broke out in uproarious laughter as much in relief – as the sudden understanding of what had happened.

   Tears of joy rolled down Mary’s face as she began to remove her non co-operative foot from under the wheel jack that lay on the floor in front of her as she realised there was no problem with her foot movement; no invisible demon was playing games with her.   She had simply failed to see the wheel jack as she had begun to move towards the door.   She didn’t remember seeing it when she had gone down to where the picture had been hanging, and presumed that she had probably been too preoccupied with her discomfort earlier to have even noticed making contact with it when she was trying to get out of the room.   Mary began to think it was a wonder she hadn’t tripped over it in her attempts to walk. 

  ‘It was certainly a tight fit, the space between the top of my foot and the bottom of the jack.’ She thought, ‘It had been a wonder that I hadn’t felt the contact when my foot went under it.   ‘Still, I was pretty wound up at that stage.   It would have been like being under a fear-induced anaesthesia.’

   Shaking her head once again in disbelief at what had occurred, Mary continued her journey towards the glass door, but instead of going outside to the driveway as she had originally planned, she stopped at the door where she could see the attendant who was in the process of closing the hood of the customer’s car.  His vision, once he had completed the task at hand, was in direct line with the glass door and seeing Mary staring out at him gave her a smile and a wave.   Mary, now relieved that things seemed natural again, gave him a smile and a wave in return, then headed back to the coffee machine, her mind set on a double strength dose of caffeine.   ‘God knows,’ she thought, ‘I deserve one after what I have been through.’

   “God, I’m a goose,’ she laughed loudly to herself as she looked one last time at the wheel jack, ‘a silly, bloody goose.”

   “And now you will become a dead one”   The voice was without volume, without tone, but its intent was unmistakable.   Mary’s body felt like it was completely immersed in ice as absolute fear wrapped itself around her again, and she knew this time it was not her sanity that was at stake … it was her life.   She swung her entire body in the direction of the sound of the voice and jumped in pure terror at the sight of the distorted face that she had thought that she had imagined earlier emerging from the photograph.

   Spellbound, Mary watched in fearful fascination, as most of the body of a half man – half something not human, drifted out of the photograph and spiralled upwards towards the ceiling, increasing in size with every beat of her heart.   The apparition, even from that distance to Mary, produced such a vile odour it made her feel abhorrently nauseous.    But even that could not encourage her body to loosen up enough to allow her to escape the room – instead it did just the opposite … her legs buckled under her and she fell backwards to the floor.

   As the almost indescribable repulsive thing that was the creature moved ever upwards towards the ceiling it never once took its eyes off Mary, and as a result Mary could not help but notice the thick vein on its forehead.   A singular skin covered tube that ran from the base of the nose to the dead middle of the forehead where it separated into the shape of a three headed scorpion,  each head facing a different direction.

   Then she noticed the scabbard in the creature’s hand and its intention became clear in her mind, but still she found she couldn’t move.   Mary tried to scream for help, wishing with all her might the attendant would arrive in time to save her from this thing, but her tongue too had became frozen, stuck to the inside of her mouth as the creature reached its goal and hovered against the ceiling just above her, then it began spinning in a dizzying circle.   The smell in the room became rank – darkness began to cloak the light, as a trail of distorted coloured vapour trailed behind the creature as it moved around the room.   She tried harder and harder to set free the frenzied well of terror that was bubbling up within her.   Her head flew back, her body arched itself, her mouth opened wide and her voice exploded with her silenced scream until she could feel her lungs bursting, but nothing emitted from her lips.   

   As a final resort, Mary tried with all the strength she could muster to get off the floor; to run, but fear still immobilized her legs, she couldn’t roll over onto her side, far less push herself back up to a stranding position – her mind was bursting with panic and trepidation regarding her immediate future when, without warning, the creature suddenly struck down at her.

   Laying backwards on the floor, unable to move, Mary was an easy target for the razor sharp blade that glistened in the reflection of the brilliance of the overhead lights as the creature began to move down towards her, the tip of the knife pointing directly towards the sacrifice that lay waiting for its unwelcome arrival.  

   However Mary was taken by surprise by the cruel, slow-motion speed at which the blade and the creature travelled towards her waiting body.   It was as if the creature was trying to absorb the very rawness of her absolute fear and pain for its own macabre gratification before it killed her.   In her mind Mary prayed she would pass out before another second passed.   That her mind would be covered by total darkness and deafness before it happened.   That all feeling would disappear from her mind and she would simply slide into oblivion.   For this she prayed, but her pleas and prayers for compassion fell on deaf ears and eventually she could feel the steely coldness severing the skin and setting the exposed nerves on edge as the tip of the blade penetrated the middle of her forehead.   The blood ran freely, its crimson brightness glittering in the bright light as it quickly ran down her face.   From its frozen position within her throat, the hideous scream of a life leaving this world was brutally released; the forlorn sound rebounding against every beam and pillar inside the room until the air was filled to the limit with the expose of the tragic atrocity that was taking place.

   Then, as Mary’s mind began its transition into permanent meltdown, the penetration of her skull suddenly ceased and her body was roughly lifted high off the floor where she had lain … her eyes sprung open in both fear and surprise as she was lifted upwards and upwards until her eyes were in direct line with the vile creature that was attacking her.   The creature roared so loud Mary could feel her body vibrating from the sheer volume it produced.   She could feel her face burning from its spittle, and the stench that emitted of the creature almost caused her to choke … and it was then that Mary knew that her fate was sealed and in her final seconds of her life on this mortal coil her thoughts went to Joseph.   Then, her body went limp, and she was finally granted the escape from the nightmare that she had so badly craved in the preceding moments as her eyes closed … and darkness surrounded her.

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