I’m standing on a gallows platform with a noose around my neck. Looking below, I can see the expecting audience, many of whom I recognise. I see my English teacher, and a woman dressed in a red sweatshirt, Catherine Blake. They all look at me with a mixture of anticipation and deep sadness which I could spot in the grey complexion beneath Catherine’s eyes, the look of someone who is about to die or is about to watch someone die. As I turn my eyes slightly to the right, I can see the silhouette of the executioner. He is slim with a black mask on his face and in his right hand he is holding the executioners switch. As he pulls it I watch Catherines face turn to a horrifying grin which she tries covering up. I feel my body sinking into what I assume is quicksand, yet the cord is tightening. I’m sinking deeper and trying with all my power to break the cord which is choking me and feel that the quicksand is my salvation. As I prepare to die, I look up at the audience a final time and see with horror how a gigantic blizzard makes its way through the distance. The encroaching buildings next to the city square where the gallows freeze to ice and the audience screams in horror, before I know it Catherine’s body cements with ice and her posture freezes still. I am just about to die from either choking or the extreme cold when suddenly the cord around my neck snaps and I sink into the quicksand below and reach other parts of my unconscious.
Howard Ripple awoke from the fever dream in a state of delirium and confusion, he had never experienced such a devastating nightmare. Immediately he threw his white sheets aside and fixed himself some coffee. Scenes from the nightmare permeated his mind as he slowly sipped from his cup when suddenly the phone rang. Adjusting to the morning hours, Howard lit a cigarette and answered his phone.
“Hi, is this private investigator Howard Ripple?”
Howard took a drag from his cigarette and answered
“Yes I am, what can I help you with?”
“Our son has gone missing. He’s been missing for 3 days now, Terrence Swan is his name.”
“And you want me to find him? Job opportunities are kind of scarce at the moment, so I suppose this could work with me.”
Howard set off towards the town of Westshore. It was a small town secluded by trees and a mountain just by the outskirts. Apparently it was a religious community where almost everyone knew each other and met every Sunday at church to listen to sermons. Howard veered off the highway and headed into the town. He found the description given by the lady on the phone highly prescient; trees surrounded the town so that you could almost miss the mountain with its peaks and a small spot of snow at the top. The doorbell rang twice before someone opened at the Swans residence. On the other side stood a man in a casual attire, sweatshirt with jeans, curly hair, with eyes as blue as diamonds..
“Hi, we’ve been expecting you.”
Howard was wearing a dark suit with glasses and a brimmed hat. He looked like someone straight out of a 1960s noir flick. The man greeted him before stepping inside. Mr Swan sat down on a brown sofa in the living room and offered his guest a seat in a chair.
“Our boy Terrance has been missing for 3 days now and we are getting worried.”
“I understand, I will do anything I can to help.”
Howard began by looking at photos of Terrence from infancy towards adolescence. Lots of photos of him smiling with friends, Howard notices a shift in demeanour as Terrence ages, he adopts a sullen disposition and rarely smiles except for one photo with his girlfriend, which was among the last few taken off him before his disappearance. After that Howard takes notes of Terrence’s academic work from elementary school to high school, excellent student, almost straight A’s all the way through. Howard continues by looking at Terrence’s poetry and journal entries. The last date, February 15th, the day he went missing, is almost completely blank except for three dots drawn next to each other horizontally inside of a large circle.
“What does this symbol represent?”
Mr Swan reacts with ambivalence.
“What spots in town did he frequent?”
“Oh, there were certain cafes, bookstores and clubs he would go to during the weekend.”
“I would like to talk to his girlfriend, do you have her address?”
Howard detours towards the hotel he’s been planning to stay at before paying Isabella a visit. He’s completely drained from the drive over and collapses into his bed inside his hotel room.
Howard was talking to the same Catherine whom he had seen at the gallows earlier, a nurse. They were discussing an incident that occurred with one of her patients who was taking a blood sample since he was just put on an antipsychotic. When she pricked his arm with the needle and drew the blood back, a tiny centipede filled the vial along with the patient’s blood. Catherine calmly explained that this was standard procedure and no cause for alarm. She simply removed the vial from the needle and put it next to the other vials filled with blood. “We will continue later, don’t touch the tube while I’m gone.” While Catherine was discussing the incident with a doctor, they both heard a loud scream coming from the patient’s location. As she returns, all that is left are pieces of glass and blood on the floor and the patient isn’t there. As she was recounting the story, Howard noticed the same grey complexion beneath her eyes as he had seen on Catherine during his previous dream and suddenly he was overcome with the most intense feeling of déjà vu he has ever experienced and completely lost track of the conversation. He collected himself, but when he looked in Catherine’s direction, he saw how the flesh of her face was melting from her skull, dripping bits and pieces on the asphalted ground beneath them. As the skin on her face dissipated, Howard saw the centipede she had described crawling through the eye sockets of her skull and into her mouth making its way down the rib cage which was still covered by clothes. It burst through Catherines flesh while Howard screamed frantically. As it sunk its venomous teeth into Howard’s shoulder, he noticed he didn’t feel pain from either the bite or the venom. Stumbling to the ground, he felt instead the most relaxing sensation, like a shot of morphine into the bloodstream. Howard laid back against the ground and looked at the sky above. He noticed the shape of the clouds as the warm sensation spread across his body. One cloud looked like a noose, another like a needle being plunged into a patient’s arm. He saw buildings on fire and one looked like an atomic bomb going off.
Howard woke with the same sense of delirium and fatigue. He checked the clock by his bedside table – 9:30. He quickly fixed himself a drink from the minibar. Just as he was about to take a sip he heard a knock on his hotel door. Disgruntled, Howard rose and checked the keyhole. He saw a man dressed in all black on the other side.
“Who are you and do you want?”
“Let me in and I’ll show you, I’ll make it worth your while.”
Howard slowly opens the door to his hotel room and assesses the man from head to toe. All black, black robes, black sunglasses. “What can I help you with?”
“I want to talk about your case and about this town. It isn’t what it seems.”
Howard and the man took a seat in the hotel room and continued conversing.
“This town is not what it seems. You may have heard stories of communal gatherings and Sunday sermons but beneath the surface there is darkness brooding.”
“Is this at all related to my case with the Swan boy?”
“I can’t say much other than this is not the first disappearance of a high schooler. The first one happened about a couple of years ago, Anna, they found her hanging in the woods. Supposedly she disappeared during a full moon, just like the Swan kid.”
“What about these dreams I’m having, they’re apocalyptic and horrifying, ever since I entered this town they’ve been getting worse.”
The black attired man took a drag from his cigarette –
“Well, I’m not an expert on dream analysis, but I know dreams can reveal secrets our conscious mind can’t. Look into your unconscious mind and the jigsaw pieces will fall into place.
The man took a final drag off his cigarette before putting it out in the ashtray.
“I’ve better get going.”
Thomas followed him to the door and just as he was about to exit the man stopped and turned around and faintly whispered in Howard’s ear “its during our waking hours we’re asleep”
Howard strolled past the gate towards Isabella Lilacs apartment. Once inside, they started discussing the Swan case.
“I’m investigating the disappearance of Terrance Swan. I hear you’re his girlfriend and that you were with him during the night of his disappearance.”
“Yes, that’s correct. What can I say, really? We were in his basement drinking when we caught wind that there was a house party nearby, so we went to check it out. It seemed normal enough when we got there. Everyone was having a great time until Terrence started with his bullshit.”
“Bullshit, what do you mean?”
“He always has to take things to such extreme conclusions. Like, what could have been a fun house party suddenly got turned into this dingy drug den, I mean he wanted to do heroin with me for Christ’s sake.”
“Heroin? He was using heroin?”
“He already had the needle filled and everything and I’m not into that junkie loser shit.”
“So what happened?”
“He went into the bathroom and shot up, I was absolutely livid and told him he’s a pathetic loser and left. After that I never saw him again.”
Howard Ripple walked the streets in a daze, high on his own supply of codeine tablets and amphetamines, looking for the cafes Terrence used to frequent. When he finally found one, Sarah’s, with some trepidation, he walked inside. He took a seat and waited for the staff. When a tall African American man took his order, Howard slipped some questions in.
“Hi, I’m a private investigator, Howard Ripple. I’m looking for a young white male by the name of Terrence Swan. He used to frequent this place, tall, blond hair, blue eyes. Here’s a picture of him, have you seen him?”
The server paused for a moment after looking at the picture and nodded.
“He used to come by here. Last time I saw him was probably a week ago.”
“Did you overhear any of his conversations? Give me any information you can. What kind of beverage did he order?”
“Can’t say anything other than that he usually ordered an Espresso with Whole wheat chocolate Coffee cake.”
“Sounds like a standard order.”
“It is.”
“Did he say anything about where he was headed after his visit to this cafe?”
The waiter shook his head as he served Howard a cup of coffee.
Howard is back in his hotel room, he has just taken a shot of morphine and is laying in bed smoking a cigarette while nodding off. Suddenly a knock on the door disturbs his peaceful mind.
“You again?” The man in full black attire is gazing at Howard from the other side of the keyhole. Howard invites him in again.
”I want you to decipher my dreams”
The man looks puzzled at first but concedes
“Okay, go ahead.”
Howard spells out the fever dreams in precise
detail, from the hangings, the quicksand, the centipede in the syringe, the atomic blasts.
“The parents of the missing boy did not summon you here, deities beyond our comprehension called you, dark ambivalent forces which seek people like you to do their dirty work. My guess is that someone in this town is making ritual offerings in some esoteric deities name, and the deities called you here to stop him. Have you noticed how the killer strikes every full moon? That is a sacred occasion for occultists and practitioners of magic, which most people in this town are, though they keep it veiled through popular religions like Christianity or Judaism. If you want to get rid of your nightmares, find Terrence, dead or alive, but until then your dreams are your guide. Remember what I said…. in this town dreams are our reality.”
Howard is getting ready for a night out by taking a shot of pure Afghan h. He pulls the plunger back and watches as the vial fills with blood, then pushes it back in. A wave of relaxation fills his body, starting from his neck down towards his arms, chest and legs.
After a 15-minute walk in the foggy weather, Howard reaches the club which Terrence frequented. The club looks deserted besides a few odd couples and groups of friends lurking inside. As Howard gets in, he immediately moves towards the bartender and shows him a picture of Terrence. To his luck, the Bartender had in fact talked to Terrence the night he disappeared.
“He just seemed kinda bored, wanted to leave and go home. Can’t blame him, this place hasn’t seen much action these past years.”
Howard left the club and through a stroke of luck reminds himself of the scene in his dream where he was standing in the town square with a noose around his neck. Maybe it was this town square in Westshore?
“Might be a detour, but I need to check It out.”
Howard started walking towards the town square, and as he finally arrived, he looked around but noticed nothing of significance, random gatherings of couples walking past and kids in their teens smoking cigarettes. With a sullen disposition, Howard was ready to return to the Swan residence and inform Terrence’s parents that his investigation had yielded little. Howard reached the Swan residence and knocked on the door… no response. He peaked through a window and saw the house was pitch black, which he took as a sign that Terrence’s parents had left town for an excursion or they had gone out and looked for their son on their own.
At midnight Howard had packed his belongings now that the job was complete; he was sitting silently in his hotel room. He had talked with Terrence’s parents the previous day; they didn’t take the news very well that the investigation had yielded no results but at least they did all they could. The man in black hadn’t appeared and Howards nightmares had vanished. He took one last view of the town of Westshore from his hotel room and then turned to go. Before he left the room he washed his face in the bathroom, he gently scrubbed soap water then dried it off with a towel. He momentarily studied his face in the mirror and was ready to walk when he saw something sketched on the glass of the mirror, the same symbol sketched in Terrence’s journal. As Howard turned around, he met eyes with the man in black before having his knife plunged into Howard’s chest. Howard gasped and fell to the floor with blood spurting from his mouth.
“You’re the hangman… You’re the pagan hangman, did you call me here?”
The hangman dragged Howard out of the bathroom and placed him in front a window overlooking the Westshore park, in the distance you could see the moon which gleamed an iridescent yellow mixed with red lighting up the streets below where star-crossed lovers walked intertwined, holding hands and enjoying the intoxicating nighttime. Howard gasped for air while struggling to break free from the Hangman’s grip when suddenly he was bludgeoned in the head and passed out.
Howard is standing on a similar platform he had been standing on in his dreams. He witnesses the crowd below chanting and singing; he is without a doubt a part of an occult ritual. Delirious and frightened with his hands tied behind his back, he cannot struggle or free himself. He looks down towards the crowd and recognises the same individuals he had interviewed and spoken to when he was investigating the disappearance of the Swan boy. There was Isabella with her golden hair, she looked drugged and intoxicated as she was singing and dancing. He noticed the parents of Terrence Swan similarly drugged into oblivion. Were they really wasted or were they simply lost in the Pagan sacrifice? As the Pagan hangman beside Howard reached towards the executioners switch, Howard started panicking. The hangman pulled the lever and Howard dropped as his neck snapped and he choked and died. The crowd started cheering and dancing in a feverish climax. The Hangman took one last look at Howards corpse hanging from the platform.
“The circle is complete.”
Gabriel Wing 