Best Served Cold

Delivering the Threat

Note: I’m so tired… but this is still eating my brain… the characters are not mine, they are Mystery Ben’s and Artsy’s.

 …………………………….

             Arthur heaved a deep sigh, sliding the deadbolt back into place. He rested his forehead against the wood. Vivi had coaxed a third of a plate into his stomach before he’d told her he couldn’t take anymore. She’d wrapped the wrest up for him in Tupperware, telling him she’d better not see it in his fridge the next time she was over.

             “Viv, just gimme a few days, ok?” He’d pleaded. “I promise I’ll do better. Really.”

             He’d finally gotten her to promise him two days’ space before she came to check on him again. Two days to pull himself back together.

            “How am I supposed to do that, Mystery? I barely managed the first time…”

            He felt his robot arm swing as Mystery nudged it hard. He cradled the metallic limb with his real arm, running his fingers over the joints. Mystery was right, working on his own prosthetic had held him together in the weeks after…

            He shoved the memory out of his mind. He couldn’t think about it anymore. He’d spent the past three days wallowing in it, and he couldn’t do this to Vivi.

             You know he’s coming for you. It’s why you gave up in the first place.

             His metal fist clenched. Fine. If Lewis wanted to come for him, he could, but until he did, Arthur was going to carry on like everything was normal.

             “That’s a laugh,” he muttered. “I barely got out of my chair and I’m already thinking about normal. I’ll settle for functional. Meet me in the workshop, Mystery.”

            With a grin, the dog bounded off down the hall, leaping into the back room. Arthur followed, pressing the palm of his hand into his right eye to stop the dull throb as he shuffled along down the hall and entered.

           Wires and circuits lay scattered about, and metal shavings were everywhere, and Arthur slipped on his rubber shoes before getting in too deep. Screws and motherboards, tiny flame welders and pliers of all sizes lay scattered about, intermixed with other tools and technological bric-a-brac. It was a mess, but he knew where every part and piece was by heart. This room, more than anything else, had saved his sanity in those dark days.

             Maybe it was time to invent something again. It had been his passion all through highschool, and whenever he wasn’t out with the gang investigating ghosts. Vivi had been needling him about an ectoplasm detector for awhile, and the van could use some upgrades. Maybe he could figure out a way to wire Mystery’s head up so that his thoughts displayed on his forehead, that would be useful.

             A low growl sounded in front of him, and he looked up sheepishly. “I didn’t mean it, but even if I did it wouldn’t… hurt…”

             Mystery’s hackles were raised, the fur on his back standing on end. In the middle of the floor was a spot that was perfectly clear of any debris, save for a book. Arthur’s stomach sank. There wasn’t a single spot in his workshop that was clear like that, and he didn’t keep any book that looked like that.

             Inching over, he peered at the cover, before lurching back, moaning.

            It was a beautiful black leather edition of Edgar Allen Poe. The cover was inscribed with gold leaf letters, swooping in accusing cursive letters that spelled, “The Tell-Tale Heart and Other Stories.”

            Arthur knew for a fact that he did not own this book, nor had he checked it out of the library since high school English, and even then it was a crappy paperback edition with dog-eared pages and the last student’s handwritten notes. Not this elegant collector’s edition staring up at him in baleful accusation.

              He’d always been uneasy reading Poe. Vivi had eaten it up, extrapolating on all the details of the murders and what reasons kept the ghosts around, while Lewis argued that it was likelier everything was in the mind of the guilty party and that nothing supernatural was going on. He himself would have preferred writing reports on Springer’s Handbook of Robotics, but the teacher compromised with him on Isaac Asimov’s works.

          He would never own a copy of this book. But he recalled its contents all too well.

            He sank to the floor slowly, eyes screwed shut, a small whimper escaping his throat. “Mystery… why bother? Even if I don’t give up, Vivi’s still going to have to sit through another funeral and you know it. He’ll get me. He’ll make me pay, and by the end I’ll be as dead as him.”

             He felt Mystery’s paws land heavily on his knees. The dog pressed his nose to Lewis’ forehead, silently holding it there.

           “Why didn’t you just kill me that day?” He whispered. “You should have just finished it.”

            A soft, reprimanding bark was his answer.

             “It doesn’t matter if it wasn’t actually me. You know why it got in, don’t you? You know how it was able to take control.” He pulled his knees in tight to his chest. “Which means it was my fault.”

            The throbbing behind his eyes pounded harder as he pressed his face into his knees. He must not have eaten enough. Maybe he’d go back and eat his leftovers, if for no other reason than to get rid of this headache. He was in no shape to work on anything today.

            Standing unsteadily, he shuffled out of the workshop again, accompanied by a four-step patter close behind. As he pulled into the kitchen, he pulled up short, blood running cold.

            There, sitting at the very table he’d just eaten on, was a well dressed skeleton, with a swath of glowing purple hair, and eyes that bored into him with a cold, unearthly hatred.

            It lifted a hand, pointing a bony finger straight at Arthur, just like before. But this time, he heard Lewis’ voice echoing through the room.

             One week.

           And then, just like that, it vanished.

             The last thing Arthur remembered was seeing the ceiling and walls careen by as his knees gave way, pitching him headlong toward the floor. His head cracked against the floor, and he slipped into blissful unconsciousness.