The Abandoned Voice
Iron Age Media Image Prompt
The following is a sort-of free form story written for the above image prompt from Iron Age Media.
I didn’t believe him, and even more than that I didn’t appreciate his pipe smoke. The smell should have been a mix of wood and spice if it hadn’t be pungent enough to knock me clean over. I had felt skunked from the moment he set foot inside the elaborate Victorian house. But Mr. Harris Pardian had a significant story to tell from his cushioned oak chair and it was my job to listen—at least for now.
Mr. Pardian brushed his thinning hair back nervously and continued. “If you would wait one half hour longer, you would hear it too. You will wait here, won’t you?” He wouldn’t give me a word in edgewise, as if he could speak without breathing. That pipe apparently had barely slowed him down over all the years of smoking it. “I have told you before that this house has been in my family for four generations and I remember hearing it since being a boy. It comes only at the oddest times. I tried to keep track of when, but it never made any pattern. Won’t you listen? I can’t bear it any longer.”
Mr. Pardian sounded increasingly desperate at the end, enough so that it piqued my interest. It smelled like extra dough to me the way his voice squeaked near the end. I wouldn’t have said I was excited by the prospect, it was just a dry few months of late.
He’d called me, or rather my business, since it was the only binding service in town. There was one other down the I40, Emmerson’s Exorcisms, but I knew we had the advantage on distance to this big house. I began fingering my lighter impatiently.
“Mr. Pardian,” I interrupted, just as he drew another shaking breath to continue, “You’ll know I can’t just jump onto the job until I know what’s come’in. Take me over to your doll or whatever, and I’ll let you know what I think.”
I watched as his jaw gaped open a bit being talked at that impolitely. Finally, some brief silence. “Mr. Micah Dunders…” he began bruskly, but I could see the words as they slowly slipped out of his brain. He cocked his head, as if he were hearing something I couldn’t. He paled and then stood up. “Please,” he whispered, “...please follow me.”
In a flash he walked away to the grand staircase off the living room, and I grabbed my bag of tools to dash for him. Glorious wooden banisters traced up the stairs to a small landing, and then the steps turned 180 degrees to the second floor. I imagined Pardian must be the talk of the town with this house, for how old and grand it was from the plush carpet floor to the delicately carved ceiling work, but there wasn’t any time to comment on it. The lights above the first floor were off. Pardian almost faded into its shadow with his casual suit. Just off into the black and straight to business. We passed one hallway, although in the darkness it could have been the opening for a room, until we reached near the back of the second floor landing.
Mr. Pardian stopped abruptly, and it was only the lack of his footsteps slapping the wood which made me not run straight into him. It took my eyes a long moment in the dead silence to adjust enough to see. The light from downstairs was so barely illuminating. I suddenly realized how strangely I had followed, purely out of curiosity from his demeanor, when I could easily be walking straight into evil. Well, so be it, I thought.
“THERE,” his voice rasped, as if he were trying to enunciate a foreign word. As suddenly as we came up here, just as suddenly he then left me back to the light from where we came.
I turned, startled, and saw the profile of a hunched walk and his hands clapped over his ears. It was true most people can’t handle this line of extermination, so at least I wouldn’t have him hovering.
My eyes had to adjust again, but I finally saw a door in front of where he had stopped. I grabbed at the worn brass handle and twisted until it gave way. I wondered for a moment if I should call Charlie to bring the truck by, in case I ran into some trouble, but figured old Pardian was more codger than crackpot.
From main landing I opened the door and entered. There was a soft candle glow in the middle of the room which was enough for me to see that the room had a high ceiling. I wasn’t too tall of a fella, but it seemed excessively tall the way it arched out of sight into the darkness. The space was likely used as a bedroom, but a rather huge bedroom. I supposed it could also have been a strange office, too, with how many bookshelves lined two of the walls. The point of primary interest, however, was near the candlelight: a table, mostly unadorned save some scraps of paper, with a strange doll in attendance.
It was a plain doll, with bulging black eyes like a Margaret Keane painting and head that was stitched together from dulled, baseball cow-leather. The small thing was sat up at attention on a tiny chair on top of the circular table and staring at the door. Almost as if by magic, my eyes played a trick on me as they adjusted further and a creepy smile formed on the doll’s face from the pitch black.
I wasn’t frightened at first, just taken aback a little. “What are you on about, old man?” I asked aloud. There wasn’t any noise I could hear, but I was too interested to know. Missy Sullivan’s case had taken awhile to surface fully, when she went demon out behind the cafe where she worked, and this could be another such as that one. I waited by the door and stared back at the silent doll and hoped to hear anything.
The silence was deafening.
No clamor downstairs either, nor the creak of wood underfoot. “Come on now,” I muttered, “give me someth’in. Doing dishes would be more interesting than this. I’ve got a business to run, ya’know. Speak up!” Being antagonistic and impatient always seemed to work for me, so I’ll keep doing it until it stopped working. I took a step closer to the doll.
I saw more and more clearly its shape. The chair the doll sat on was somewhat ornate, although the carving wasn’t from around here. It looked like maybe it came from a New England antique store than carved by some cowpoke. It wore a carefully crafted suit covered in an odd pattern of polka-dot circles. One of its arms was crooked to a 90 degree angle, so I guessed the doll had some solid joints for a body instead of fabric or leather.
The silence was deafening.
I set down my bag of books and other assorted usefulness for exorcisms in order to scratch an itch at my hairline. “This can’t be all one-sided you know. Gotta say something—whatever you’ve been telling Pardian—if you want me to stay here. You’ll be sorry if I get in the mind to just light you on fire.” I was getting agitated, because I wanted this job. Pardian would pay well if I could solve his problem. There had to be voices somewhere, so I would wait them out.
However long I waited, I don’t quite know. I was determined to hear something so I paced around the table until I forgot to check my watch. None of the dusk jackets I scanned from around the room looked like cultist material, which was a relief. I didn’t need to worry about Pardian bursting in with a knife and chanting. No other arcane materials were present either. It was safest never to touch your target, just in case, but the longer I had my arms crossed the more tempted I became. The doll never moved. There were no voices. Only the candle changed as it slowly diminished to a puddle of wax.
The silence was deafening.
I went back downstairs to find Pardian stiffly sitting where he had been when we talked. It felt rude not to say something, so I thanked him for his time and mentioned I’d be back on Monday as a checkup. My car wasn’t far, just over on the long driveway, so I waited to call Jessie once I got back to my crappy Honda.
“Hey Jessie, sorry I’m just now call’in. What time is it anyway?” I stupidly asked our office secretary while looking at the dashboard clock blinking 11:23 PM. It certainly wasn’t the most tactful thing I’ve said when calling into the office on my cell, but it wasn’t the worst thing.
“I’m going to strap a shock collar to your ankle or someth’in to zap you when it hits nine,” she said angrily, which I laughed loudly at.
“Okay okay, I’m sorry. Look, this Mr. Pardian guy swore to me after chattering away for half an hour that he hears some...voice or something upstairs. I don’t know. It was just some doll. I figure we’ll just do another look on Monday and charge a dumb fee for calling us out. A few hours of work will at least earn a little,” I said, a bit defeated.
The silence on the other end disturbed me.
“Jessie, come on now, I’m head’in right back and that’s it for the night. Don’t be cross with m-…”
“No, Micah, wait!” Jessie commanded. “You...you said…” She wasn’t making any complete sentences, but I could hear papers being moved around and then her annoyingly loud keyboard. “Hang on...okay now, you said Mr. Pardian spoke to you? Some thirty minutes?”
Her question hung in the air. “Yeah, what of it? What are you saying?”
“Micah, Mr. Pardian has been a mute all his life.”
Well, I thought, I guess I’m working this weekend.
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Loved it!! More, more!!!