It Won’t Be Ignored

She sat at the desk, tapping her keyboard, liking the click of the keys but not typing anything of worth. With a sigh she peered out her window at

(her prison?)

Providence, her home. The buildings rose up, thrusting their cement edifices into the gray skies. Rain fell onto the city, cleaning it, making it pure. But purity was not what was needed. What was needed was something unspeakable, something she couldn’t quite believe she was a part of.

She looked at her keyboard, “Shub-Niggarath” she murmured.

MONTH ONE:

Scratch scuttle. Scratch scuttle.

The sound again. That infernal noise. She sat up in bed and looked around her. The bedroom was dark, and would be quiet if not for that damn scratching in her walls.

Her landlord, a man large of belly and small of mind, had chuckled at her over the phone the last time she called him regarding the noise. She could tell he thought she was a hysterical female desperately in need of a man. In fact, he had uttered “Don’t you lesbeens know how to, you know, do stuff?” She had clenched her fist angrily, it wasn’t the first, and wouldn’t be the last time he called her a lesbeen. In his barely understandable Rhode Island patois he told her he would “Take care of it.” When she asked when that would be he coughed a deep, phlegmy cough and hung up the phone without responding.

Scratch scuttle. Scratch scuttle.

That was weeks ago. Weeks and weeks of the noise. It sounded like little feet and claws in her walls. Of a busy critter making a nest, destroying insulation, doing damage. Making her insane. Weeks of it waking her up at night, of it disturbing her work. Weeks of it echoing in her brain like some kind of soundtrack for her life.

Truth be told, she loved her apartment. She lived on Union Street in a loft that had views of the skyline that took her breath away every day. If not for the scratching, it would be the perfect apartment.  She often told friends that it was a place she could live in until she died.

Which might be today, she thought unhappily as the scratching intensified, if that damn noise doesn’t stop!

Scratch scuttle. Scratch scuttle.

As a freelance writer, she spent most of her time in her apartment. When the sound had started she had hoped it would fade away on its own. When it got really bad, or what she then considered really bad, she played music to cover up the noise, but lately even that didn’t seem to be working. The noise permeated every moment of her life in the apartment.

Scratch scuttle. Scratch scuttle.

You’re being stupid, she thought as she lay back down and put her pillow over her head, it can’t get louder. You’re just tired from lack of sleep. Unless, her tired mind retorted, there are more of them in your walls. What if it’s an infestation. The thought made her heart race and her stomach clench. The thought of hundreds, no thousands of critters in her walls

Scratch scuttle. Scratch scuttle.

made her feel sick. Infestation. Vermin. Disease. Impurity. The words swirled and danced through her head like some kind of sadistic, twisted mantra. Infestation. Vermin. Disease. Impurity. Over and over again.  She moaned.

“Go to sleep crazy,” she said out loud to stop the racing, swirling thoughts, “Go to sleep.”

She closed her eyes. She knew what to do, she had learned it in therapy. Breathe in, breathe out. Breathe in. Breathe out. Breathe

Scratch scuttle. Scratch scuttle.

in. Breathe out. Breathe in. Breathe out. Rinse and repeat.

Impure. Impure. Impure.

“No,” she moaned and shifted in her bed, the sheets tangled between her legs, her body coated in sticky, smelly sweat.

She tried to count sheep, but the fluffy bastards wouldn’t cooperate. They started out all cute, like the Serta sheep in the old commercials. Then the clouds above formed the word Impure and the sheep began to transform. They became hairless, emaciated beasts, their mouths dripping with blood and some weird green goo. Their eyes rolled back and sunk into their skulls with a wet plop. Their flesh hung in ropey strands over bright white bone. They turned, opened their gaping, rotted mouths, and the sound

Scratch scuttle. Scratch scuttle.

Echoed around her. “Dammit!” She groaned and got out of bed to watch TV, “I give up, you win!” She yelled at the walls as she brewed coffee and sat on the couch, watching endless episodes of The Office as she waited for dawn.

Scratch scuttle. Scratch scuttle.

MONTH THREE:

Bleary eyed, a massive coffee clutched in one hand, her laptop under her arm, she sat down in the Dunkin on Dorrance Street, and sorted out her stuff. By this point the noise had been ongoing 24/7 for months. She no longer felt like herself. Her dreams, when she slept a few hours each night, were filled with monsters with sharp, glistening teeth calling her name. With dark rituals she didn’t understand, but that felt familiar and ancient. That felt purifying.

She sipped her hot coffee,

Impure.

not caring that each sip burned her tongue. She relished the feel of the caffeine working its way into her system, the warmth it created in her belly, “Ah, that’s the stuff,” she murmured and laughed to herself.

A man in a suit and tie looked over at her curiously, but said nothing. “That’s right douchebag, I’m talking to myself,” she mumbled and chuckled again, “I’m a loony tunes lesbeen,” she cackled. Now more people were looking at her, their eyes shifting to her laughing face and quickly away when they saw something in her face that scared them. If they accidentally met her eyes they felt a chill run down their spine, an awareness of something…evil in their midst. In fear they fled the shop, praying that distance would cause the fear to fade.

Scratch scuttle. Scratch scuttle.

She looked around her, “No,” she said, her posture hunched, like a scared animal, “No,” she repeated. The sounds of the coffee shop dimmed, all she heard was

Scratch scuttle. Scratch scuttle.

The sound. It was everywhere.

“No,” she said again, louder. Around her the crowd in line shifted away from her, faces buried in phones or looking outside, looking anywhere but at the dirty, disheveled woman talking to herself and getting more and more agitated.

She jumped when a hand touched her arm, “NO!” She growled in a voice she didn’t recognize, looking at, but not seeing the worker.

The Dunkin employee jumped away, her young face stricken, “Ma’am?” She asked, her voice shaking.

“NO!” She snarled again, “Not here! Not here!” She screamed.

Scratch scuttle. Scratch scuttle.

“Ma’am, are you all right?” The girl stepped away as the woman fell to her knees, her hands in her hair, a groan emanating from her in one long wail that sent many of the remaining customers out the door.

She looked up at the worker suddenly and smiled. The young girl gasped and stepped back so fast she tripped and landed with a plop on the floor. Her coworkers were gazing at the woman in fear, too afraid to do anything, and the manager, a tidy man in his 20s, stepped forward. He cleared his throat, but when he opened his mouth to speak

Scratch scuttle. Scratch scuttle.

was all that came out. She looked at him, tears in her eyes. She looked around the Dunkin, and shook her head, “No, no, no, no, no, no, no.” She mumbled, “I can’t hear you. I can’t hear you.”

Scratch scuttle. Scratch scuttle.

It was all she couldhear now. Then a voice sounded, it was her voice, but not her voice. It was a dead voice.  An ancient voice.

Impure. The blood is the way. Shub-Niggurath.

Confused, she screamed and ran from the coffee shop, she had to get back to her apartment she thought insanely. She would be safe there. The sound would keep her safe.

As she made her way through the streets of Providence, she swore she was being followed, she felt eyes on her, hunting her. A grunting hot wave of breath washed over the back of her neck and she shuddered, “No,” she moaned, “Please,” she begged, not knowing who she was begging exactly.

Impure. The blood is the way. Shub-Niggurath.

The voice was insistent. It wouldn’t be ignored. Sobbing, She turned to see the beast she knew was hunting her, knowing if she saw its eyes it would be the last thing she saw, but her legs got tangled and she crashed to the ground in a sobbing heap. Snot ran from her nose and dripped to the pavement. She pressed her forehead into the ground.

Scratch scuttle. Scratch scuttle.

She screamed and banged her head on the cement sidewalk. Once. Twice. Again and again, until blood stained the pavement.

The blood is the way Morrigan. Shub-Niggurath.

Suddenly she smiled, yes, the blood, the blood would make it stop. It would make the sound stop. She was sure of it. It would cleanse her, for she was impure.

You need more.

A hand gripped her shoulder, she flinched and scuttled away, growling. The police officer sighed, but he stepped way, holding his hands up. She gazed at him and watched his lips move, but

Scratch scuttle. Scratch scuttle.

was all she could hear. It lived in her brain now, that sound. But she had been given the answer, the way to make it stop. She knew now what to do.

Blood. The blood. It needs the blood to make the sound go. Get the blood. Bathe in the blood. Feed us the blood.

“Who is us?” She asked out loud. The police officer rubbed his face and spoke into the walkie on his shoulder, “I’m going to need an ambulance at the corner of Dorrance and-“

“SHUB-NIGGURATH!!!!!!” The woman screamed the sacred name, the word coming from an ancient and unknown place within her. She suddenly, in a burst of knowledge handed down from generations of her ancestors, she knew what had to happen. What was happening.

Her shriek had started the police officer and he stepped back, away from her madness, away from the fear that jumped into his throat at the sound of the name.

He stepped back, off the curb, and directly into the path of an oncoming bus.

She felt warmth wrap around her. For the first time in months, she felt happiness as the police officer seemed to explode as the bus driver slammed on brakes that screeched and squealed. As bystanders screamed in unison. As the blood sacrifice was made.

Yessssss…Well done Priestess.

All she heard was silence. Blessed silence.

Exhausted, she pushed herself off the sidewalk and shook her head, blood drops from her wounded forehead flying around her in a gruesome halo. People had run to where the officer had been killed. Others stood nearby, wailing in surprise and fear.

No one noticed as she slowly walked away, the silence around her a welcome and comforting cocoon.

MONTH FIVE:

Morrigan sat at her desk, tapping the keys happily. She felt so refreshed, so creative. Things had been good. Even the dreams didn’t bother her. She knew it was the beasts way of honoring her. She knew now what she had to do to keep the noise at bay. She knew how to serve the beast and keep the noise quiet.

Scratch scuttle. Scratch scuttle.

Sniffing the air, she raised her head. It couldn’t be, it was so soon.

Scratch scuttle. Scratch scuttle.

She stood and gathered her things, “Shub-Niggurath,” she said solemnly, Reverently.

She got it done efficiently for the beast, for that was her sacred duty as priestess.

The blood. It needs the blood to keep the quiet To purify.

Scratch scuttle. Scratch scuttle.