A short story about Harolds
EvilToasterElf
Posts: 1,119
I don't think I've ever posted this here, wrote it a couple of years ago, not particularly good, but I always thought it was interesting...I'll have to break it into 2 parts.
Harold’s Shadow
Campers drunk with midnight crawled from their tents, simultaneously dressing themselves and sobering up. They heard a high-pitched noise followed immediately by a feeble call for help, drenched in panic. A sound that drives desperate men to rash decisions, in this case, the desire to jump. The sound was unmistakable; its echo bounced painfully though the forest driving the fear further along its course. People knew it could be no joke or prank and that something serious had certainly happened, someone may have slipped off the precipice overlooking the parking lot. If by miracle that poor bastard did survive he was no longer screaming, and the emotions that those first echoes filled them with made the recently shaken campers internally debate which was worse; that blood curdling scream, or the silence.
From many directions around the lot people began to filter in, curiosity overwhelming any fears they had at the moment. There had not been any reports of bears or any fierce animals around this campground for a decade, but one never new what to expect even in this small island of wilderness, only miles from suburbs and highways. At first they all seemed to stare straight up at the cliff, a one hundred eighty foot drop from the top. It was not a sheer wall, it was made of ruinous and huge blocks of white limestone which looked as if a great white pyramid of some ancient society had toppled and left building blocks sprawled dozens of stories high. Most were rectangular and spaced so oddly that hundreds of dark holes ran down the side, large enough for even a grown man to hide. Mist shrouded the top of the cliff and had a tank sat resting at the edge the onlookers could not have seen it. Harold Moyer, a gruff but intelligent looking man stood a few feet from the bottom of the cliff, reaching out and touching it, as if the dead rock could somehow pass the explanation of tonight’s events to him. One woman was about to obnoxiously ask him to look around like everyone else, but his eyes had a look of deep concentration and she thought better of it. Slowly their heads began to fall searching for some sign of what had caused the noise and seeing nothing they began to fan out and inspect the bottom of the cliff, with no more than a single command of, “we should split up and fan out” nobody knew, or particularly cared who had uttered it. Harold had said it over his shoulder, and to most of the “search party” its muffled sound could have come from the mountain itself.
Before long someone had screamed, as though they had forgotten what it was they were looking for. A woman whose face was pale, more than just the whiteness of standing out in the cold, and with a pleading look toward the throng, stuttered, “I think it’s a…I think he’s dead.” Harold Moyer, a gray haired man wearing a plaid wool shirt, and a brown cap with flaps that covered his ears quickly explained that he was a pediatric doctor and moved toward the mangled figure. He approached the man with a haste borne of life and death necessity but he bent down slowly, studying the immediate surroundings for signs of clues. Quickly refocusing on the figure buried in the gravel of the parking lot. The man had landed face down and if he was alive had certainly broken many bones. People crept closer while the “Dr” Harold Moyer quietly inspected the body, he began turning the man over despite some half-hearted pleas not to move him. When he turned him over there was a gasp, but not from this man on the ground, or the crowd around him, Harold Moyer himself had gasped.. The injured man, with an eerie glow on his hairless scalp stared up at him with pleading eyes. Deep penetrating eyes of a kind Harold in his 58 years had never seen before, and although he had never been so frightened he found that he could not tear his view away. He was bending closer to the face as if his muscles now obeyed only this set of eyes staring up at him. They captivated him and he had no choice but to follow the motions he no longer controlled. To the appearance of the crowd now two figures lay on the ground, the healer had appeared to have fainted and landed next to the mysterious body, but Harold was simply seeing something that was impossible, he was looking at himself in another place, but he was not looking at the body he was born with, he stared at his hands and clothes which were not his own, and felt the bare scalp of his head…
He ran furiously through the bent limbs of saplings, squinting at the darkness, hoping that somehow obstacles in his path would reveal themselves between eye blinks. He dared not look behind him or he might falter and dive headfirst into a rock or tree. The moon was out early tonight, and the sun, which had shone so brightly only a few minutes before crept behind a band of clouds, but the light dimmed slowly as if it were choked into submission. Pocketed nets of light reflected now and then from the sheets of ice covering the wilderness, but not a creature moved that did not harrow his footsteps, the only semblance of movement was the dance of shivering leaves on a windless night. He stopped focusing on his feet for a brief second to wipe a blanket of sweat from his hairless brow and nearly crashed into the spiked wall of a wide evergreen. He redoubled his concentration and increased his speed, desperate to put more distance between him and the sprinting terror that followed him like thunder rushing to complete its ominous duet.
At the first sign of danger, while the sun was still cowering behind the snow capped mountains in the west Harold had reached slowly into his pocket for his car keys. It was at this point he realized that although he felt the keys in his hand, he was far from in charge of this body. He was simply an onlooker. But fear was overwhelming his confusion and before his mind could process exactly how he had entered this dream state (or was it?) feet began to move him away from his thoughts and he focused on the cold hard keys. They seemed to reassure him a bit as he edged towards a ravine that he thought overlooked the parking lot. But to his dismay he was not facing the right direction and his compass had seemed to go completely haywire sometime during the afternoon, spinning and stopping needlessly for seconds or minutes at a time. At this point he released his grip on his keys and began to walk very quickly in what the thought would certainly be the direction of his car, salvation from some unknown shadow that forced sweat from his palms and forehead. He walked desperately into a barren field of oaks and ferns. The ferns surrounded the path on either side almost as if to create a living barrier, but the path otherwise was almost indistinguishable from any other spot on the ground while it was covered with leaves from the great trees. The earth under his feet was packed hard as a few mornings had already seen icy sheens covering the dirt and grass. He pressed himself harder as his path began to rise slowly to a noticeable incline, even though he knew he was going the wrong way he feared to turn around.
He interpreted every signal sent by his senses as a threat, he knew he was on the verge of hysteria, the silence was threatening, the sounds of twigs breaking under his feet sent chills from his feet to his chest and back again in one heaving breath: “I have a gun, sooo-so don’t come near me you crazy son of a bitch!” he screamed, but also started to run. After a few minutes he had an acute pain on the left side of his abdomen, a cramp, but he ran through it, panting hard he climbed a few large boulders to get to higher ground, and off the trail. The next moment he afforded himself to look behind him left the trail far behind him, and he began stumbling over rocks. Lurching from left to right he almost regained his balance but finally stamped his foot into a shallow hole and fell in slow motion to the ground. His spine ground against some flat stones and he could only grunt from the pain, lacking the energy to scream. Rolling back onto his stomach reveals a colored sky, which has grown noticeably darker but the sun still sat lazily clinging to the horizon, some slender beams pierced wispy clouds and collected at the entrance of a massive cave not too far ahead. He had no idea where he was, and although he had momentarily regained a slight composure he suddenly remembered the shadow gnawing at his heels. He lumbered toward the cave rubbing his sweat glistened scalp, and before he had moved far enough into the cave to lose sight of the entrance, he felt a wave of pain at the back of his head, and he fell again, fading out of consciousness without seeing the source of the blow.
Harold’s Shadow
Campers drunk with midnight crawled from their tents, simultaneously dressing themselves and sobering up. They heard a high-pitched noise followed immediately by a feeble call for help, drenched in panic. A sound that drives desperate men to rash decisions, in this case, the desire to jump. The sound was unmistakable; its echo bounced painfully though the forest driving the fear further along its course. People knew it could be no joke or prank and that something serious had certainly happened, someone may have slipped off the precipice overlooking the parking lot. If by miracle that poor bastard did survive he was no longer screaming, and the emotions that those first echoes filled them with made the recently shaken campers internally debate which was worse; that blood curdling scream, or the silence.
From many directions around the lot people began to filter in, curiosity overwhelming any fears they had at the moment. There had not been any reports of bears or any fierce animals around this campground for a decade, but one never new what to expect even in this small island of wilderness, only miles from suburbs and highways. At first they all seemed to stare straight up at the cliff, a one hundred eighty foot drop from the top. It was not a sheer wall, it was made of ruinous and huge blocks of white limestone which looked as if a great white pyramid of some ancient society had toppled and left building blocks sprawled dozens of stories high. Most were rectangular and spaced so oddly that hundreds of dark holes ran down the side, large enough for even a grown man to hide. Mist shrouded the top of the cliff and had a tank sat resting at the edge the onlookers could not have seen it. Harold Moyer, a gruff but intelligent looking man stood a few feet from the bottom of the cliff, reaching out and touching it, as if the dead rock could somehow pass the explanation of tonight’s events to him. One woman was about to obnoxiously ask him to look around like everyone else, but his eyes had a look of deep concentration and she thought better of it. Slowly their heads began to fall searching for some sign of what had caused the noise and seeing nothing they began to fan out and inspect the bottom of the cliff, with no more than a single command of, “we should split up and fan out” nobody knew, or particularly cared who had uttered it. Harold had said it over his shoulder, and to most of the “search party” its muffled sound could have come from the mountain itself.
Before long someone had screamed, as though they had forgotten what it was they were looking for. A woman whose face was pale, more than just the whiteness of standing out in the cold, and with a pleading look toward the throng, stuttered, “I think it’s a…I think he’s dead.” Harold Moyer, a gray haired man wearing a plaid wool shirt, and a brown cap with flaps that covered his ears quickly explained that he was a pediatric doctor and moved toward the mangled figure. He approached the man with a haste borne of life and death necessity but he bent down slowly, studying the immediate surroundings for signs of clues. Quickly refocusing on the figure buried in the gravel of the parking lot. The man had landed face down and if he was alive had certainly broken many bones. People crept closer while the “Dr” Harold Moyer quietly inspected the body, he began turning the man over despite some half-hearted pleas not to move him. When he turned him over there was a gasp, but not from this man on the ground, or the crowd around him, Harold Moyer himself had gasped.. The injured man, with an eerie glow on his hairless scalp stared up at him with pleading eyes. Deep penetrating eyes of a kind Harold in his 58 years had never seen before, and although he had never been so frightened he found that he could not tear his view away. He was bending closer to the face as if his muscles now obeyed only this set of eyes staring up at him. They captivated him and he had no choice but to follow the motions he no longer controlled. To the appearance of the crowd now two figures lay on the ground, the healer had appeared to have fainted and landed next to the mysterious body, but Harold was simply seeing something that was impossible, he was looking at himself in another place, but he was not looking at the body he was born with, he stared at his hands and clothes which were not his own, and felt the bare scalp of his head…
He ran furiously through the bent limbs of saplings, squinting at the darkness, hoping that somehow obstacles in his path would reveal themselves between eye blinks. He dared not look behind him or he might falter and dive headfirst into a rock or tree. The moon was out early tonight, and the sun, which had shone so brightly only a few minutes before crept behind a band of clouds, but the light dimmed slowly as if it were choked into submission. Pocketed nets of light reflected now and then from the sheets of ice covering the wilderness, but not a creature moved that did not harrow his footsteps, the only semblance of movement was the dance of shivering leaves on a windless night. He stopped focusing on his feet for a brief second to wipe a blanket of sweat from his hairless brow and nearly crashed into the spiked wall of a wide evergreen. He redoubled his concentration and increased his speed, desperate to put more distance between him and the sprinting terror that followed him like thunder rushing to complete its ominous duet.
At the first sign of danger, while the sun was still cowering behind the snow capped mountains in the west Harold had reached slowly into his pocket for his car keys. It was at this point he realized that although he felt the keys in his hand, he was far from in charge of this body. He was simply an onlooker. But fear was overwhelming his confusion and before his mind could process exactly how he had entered this dream state (or was it?) feet began to move him away from his thoughts and he focused on the cold hard keys. They seemed to reassure him a bit as he edged towards a ravine that he thought overlooked the parking lot. But to his dismay he was not facing the right direction and his compass had seemed to go completely haywire sometime during the afternoon, spinning and stopping needlessly for seconds or minutes at a time. At this point he released his grip on his keys and began to walk very quickly in what the thought would certainly be the direction of his car, salvation from some unknown shadow that forced sweat from his palms and forehead. He walked desperately into a barren field of oaks and ferns. The ferns surrounded the path on either side almost as if to create a living barrier, but the path otherwise was almost indistinguishable from any other spot on the ground while it was covered with leaves from the great trees. The earth under his feet was packed hard as a few mornings had already seen icy sheens covering the dirt and grass. He pressed himself harder as his path began to rise slowly to a noticeable incline, even though he knew he was going the wrong way he feared to turn around.
He interpreted every signal sent by his senses as a threat, he knew he was on the verge of hysteria, the silence was threatening, the sounds of twigs breaking under his feet sent chills from his feet to his chest and back again in one heaving breath: “I have a gun, sooo-so don’t come near me you crazy son of a bitch!” he screamed, but also started to run. After a few minutes he had an acute pain on the left side of his abdomen, a cramp, but he ran through it, panting hard he climbed a few large boulders to get to higher ground, and off the trail. The next moment he afforded himself to look behind him left the trail far behind him, and he began stumbling over rocks. Lurching from left to right he almost regained his balance but finally stamped his foot into a shallow hole and fell in slow motion to the ground. His spine ground against some flat stones and he could only grunt from the pain, lacking the energy to scream. Rolling back onto his stomach reveals a colored sky, which has grown noticeably darker but the sun still sat lazily clinging to the horizon, some slender beams pierced wispy clouds and collected at the entrance of a massive cave not too far ahead. He had no idea where he was, and although he had momentarily regained a slight composure he suddenly remembered the shadow gnawing at his heels. He lumbered toward the cave rubbing his sweat glistened scalp, and before he had moved far enough into the cave to lose sight of the entrance, he felt a wave of pain at the back of his head, and he fell again, fading out of consciousness without seeing the source of the blow.
0
Comments
He got up and yanked the IV out of his arm, not realizing the other machines were attached he swung his legs over the side of the bed and stood up, bringing one rectangular box beeping down to the floor and bursting open to reveal complex innards, and spraying the white floors with black and gray machine parts. He noticed a pair of slippers next to his bed and put them on to avoid cutting his feet. As his hand clutched at the handle of the door he glanced to his right and saw clothes sitting on the chair, a pair of dark blue denim jeans along with a red plaid shirt and a furry looking hat, he walked over picking up the hat while rubbing it, staring into it hoping to elicit some kind of memory, some explanation of what had happened to him, but nothing came. He quickly threw off his gown, startled for a moment by his own naked body, and then proceeded to dress in the clothes which must have been his, no overt marks of tears or holes were in them. Which means he couldn’t have been severely injured, because then they would have been cut off to get to his wounds more quickly.
He draped the hat over his face slightly and walked out of the room, as he walked down a long bright corridor, he felt as if everyone he passed was suspicious of him, and the foot traffic was very heavy. After he had passed a few rooms, doctors and nurses began running past him and the echoes of shouts and footsteps continued for what seemed like minutes after they had turned the corner. He walked on and came to a 4-way intersection, each hallway appeared to significantly narrow at the end, focusing into a point, a trick of the eye with long straight passages, none of the signs pointed to an exit. Straight ahead there were a number of gurneys and the passage was marked trauma, to the left were a series of long clear windows and brightly colored doors, marked maternity, and one sign was scratched out beyond recognition, it seemed devoid of any visible distinction other than flickering overhead lights, driven by the need for stealth he chose the path least traveled, or at best the least appealing path.
He glanced over his shoulder and walked slowly into the blinking unknown. But he had gone no further than a few yards when a doctor turned the corner. The doctor turned his head from the chart he was reading, and asked, “Excuse me sir, are you lost? There aren’t any patients this way.” Harold shook his head and looked past the man, and managed to stammer out, “Umm, yeah, sorry I’ll just go back to the desk and get better directions, thank you.”
They both parted in separate directions but after a few seconds the doctor, an experienced looking man, with a well groomed beard and short graying hair, had heard the tell-tale shuffle of hospital slippers, something he had not noticed when he had arbitrarily glanced at Harold. So he walked over to the other side of the hall to use one of the many phones located around the hospital for doctors to call in once they’ve been beeped, he immediately called for some orderlies and hung up the phone, and then cupped his hands and projected his voice down the hall to Harold; “Hey, you down there, you’re going the wrong way, the desk is over this way.” Harold walked a few more steps and then stopped, he had to fight every impulse to simply bolt in the direction he was facing, but knew that would get him nowhere, so he turned around, and took a deep breath. “Oh, this hospital is a damn maze, you know.” The doctor simply smiled, a nervous smile, before walking him in the other direction, and two large orderlies met them not too far down the hall.
“Alright sir, what is your name, and why did you leave your room?” Said the doctor in a very matter of fact manner. Harold was scared, one of the only familiar sensations he’d had since he woke up, and he had no idea what his name was, how he’d gotten to the hospital, or even where his room had been. “I uh, I umm, have no idea…I don’t know much of anything right now, I just wanted to leave.” The orderlies stood menacingly behind him but they didn’t grab him, he may still be able to make a run for it, he imagined himself running, and then glimpses of images appeared in his head; pictures of leaves, and trails, and falling, falling forever, into a cold, barren darkness. He began to shake, and the three other men looked at each other inquisitively. Harold fell to his knees. The orderlies stooped to pick him up, but stopped when he looked at them, with a strange intensity, that wouldn’t seem possible from such a feeble figure, and he simply said, “I
fell.”
They walked slowly back to the elevator, the opposite direction from his room, and took him down to the nexus of the hospital. Harold acquiesced and walked forward with a sullen look on his face. When they got to the front desk they asked if any of the nurses recognized the patient, and sure enough, “Oh my God, what is Harold II doing out of bed!?” The perky woman at the desk blurted. The doctor let out an audible sigh, “What do you mean Harold II, and please Lauren try to be a little more sensitive around the patients.” There was a notable tension at this point, and everyone had been surprised by such a swift reaction from the receptionist, Shelly hung up her phone, and addressed the doctor directly, “About a week ago this man,” nodding to Harold, “and another came in, both were identified by their driver’s licenses as Harold, one was in critical condition, but you had no injuries. But you were both completely unresponsive, to anything, you were both in a coma and nobody could figure out why, actually by waking up first you just cost me 50 bucks and…” “Shelly!” the doctor screamed. She flinched and after realizing her mistake apologized.
Harold didn’t move during the whole little story but his eyes were wide open and he was clearly more alert, his memory jogged by the new information. “I want to see him, now.” The doctor nodded and let the orderlies go, he and Harold went to the elevator, and to the room, a floor below Harold’s own, astonished by the level of activity. There were at least 6 people in the room standing over the bed, with a myriad of equipment scattered all over the room, but despite all the noises in the room, the noise of a heart rate monitor flat lining drones over everything else. He stared on for what seemed like days, but must have only been a few minutes, they pronounced the time of death in a mild voice, 12:58 PM.
“What happened? Why did he die? What was wrong with him?” Harold stammered out a stream of questions, to the half dozen people who hadn’t even noticed his presence until right then. The man who was operating the defribulator turned and spoke. “What the hell? When did you wake up, we were about to check on you when Mr. Moorings here, came out of his coma, and then almost immediately had what appeared to be a heart attack. We won’t know until we’ve performed an autopsy. How did you get here, and why are you dressed, we couldn’t figure out why either of you were in a coma, we thought it might be permanent.” Harold simply told him that he woke about twenty minutes ago.
He stared into the room, focusing on that hairless head laying flat on the bed. He remembered the scream, the body on the ground, and the eyes. He thought of the eyes and turned his glance from the body and walked away from the room a few steps. Then without warning exploded into motion, straight into the room and before the doctors could stop him he grabbed the dead man’s head, with both hands behind either ear and cupped it toward him, with his thumbs he lifted up closed eyebrows and stared into the vacant eyes, which were once filled with such alien power. And saw nothing.
The body faded away and the hospital lights went out, he couldn’t make out anything but a light in the distance, he felt next to him and the walls were cold and damp. He was no longer in a blocky hospital room, the walls were jagged, and pitted, he brushed his hand back and forth before he could identify the substance, it was rock; he was back in the cave. He focused on the light ahead; it had to be the entrance to the cave. He looked from side to side but couldn’t make out anything, he started toward the light, but something held him back. Something gripped his arms, and he struggled furiously but couldn’t break the hold. He had never been more terrified; he could not even see what stopped him from moving. With one final surge of energy freed himself and fell to the ground, he quickly ran his hands in front of him and found a sharp rock; with surprising speed he managed to stand up and spin at anything coming up from behind him. He felt the cold weapon sink into something but whatever it was didn’t even bother to scream. He quickly let go and ran, a white dagger slicing through the darkness of that mountain hole. He felt power surging through him with every step closer to the forgiving day.
The gray haired doctor, whose nametag identified him as Doctor Mark Goldman, leaned down to inspect the orderly who had been slashed by “Harold II’s” “rock” which was in fact a scalpel that had fallen of a tray of instruments in the dizzying rush and found that is was only a minor injury, most of the staff within the room had not even had time to react to the extraordinary behavior of a man who a few short hours ago looked like he may have been permanently comatose. A few assistants and the remaining orderly had leapt out of the room after “Harold II” had dashed a few meters down the hall.
The fleeing patient and the pursuers were now ostensibly running down a hospital corridor on the second floor, the leader of this deranged footrace existed in an entirely different realm, created by this unforeseen shadow. Harold ran. He heard some gurgling noises behind him from what he thought was an injured and very angry bear, but he somehow knew that once he reached the dim light outside of the cave, for good or ill, his worries would be over. The party pursuing him slowed their pace, “It’s a dead end, he’s not going anywhere, just make sure we catch him when he turns around. But to their later dismay, Harold Francis Moyer was not going to stop. He barreled forward, pushing every muscle in his body to the limits that an adrenaline high would allow, and stumbled inches before the opening of the cave. As he dove into the dense star lit forest he heard glass shattering, with the last shred of his sanity, wondering if all the laws of his universe had crumbled around him. But in the hospital all they saw was an insane man jumping headfirst straight through a window, to the ambulance bay below.
The foursome stopped dead in their tracks and let out a horrid gasp. The man may have survived the fall, but the trauma from the shattered window and the concrete would provide a formidable resistance to his continued existence. Outside a single doctor ran to the limp body face down at the hospitals side entrance. Dr. Harold Morgan in a bleach white doctors uniform called for a gurney immediately and began to roll the man over.
But he had forgotten to check for a pulse, forgotten all of his medical training as soon as he looked into the man’s eyes, which had turned to an enveloping black, darker than any unfathomable blindness a baby in it’s mother’s womb could endure, and two gurneys then had to be called, for the two unconscious men laying on the pavement. Dr. Harold Morgan could not see this though, he was rubbing his hands on his faded blue denim jeans, and inspecting his shoddy wool hat that covered his ears, all he could make of his surroundings, was that he was somewhere, impossibly in the woods.