Warnings: Alcohol Use (Bourbon), Past Death, Mention of Blood, Violence, Christmastime Setting, Mention of Car Crashes, Implied Stalking, Mention of Smoking, Emotional/Psychological Manipulation, Toxic Mindsets.
A.N. - The artwork is illustrated by Ashley Nichols.
The clacking of the typewriter, sputtering with each elongated thought and ebbing into the intermittent punch of a lone key when the thoughts dried like an old well, filled the café in a droll melody. A pair of dimly lit candles sat upon opposite corners of the table, illuminating the backs and bottoms of wooden chairs and counters that still bore a fair resemblance to the trees from which they were carved. Crisp air wafted through the crevices in the front door, tinged with the aromas of incense and autumn leaves. It brought a shiver to the areas of your skin not protected by a dense coat, and you shook like a dog fresh out of a lake.
Shadows pranced across the walls in the form of exaggerated shapes, bobbing with the periodic flickers of the candles but too wide and tall to be accurate reflections of anything real. The howls of a midnight wind, swirling past the shop in flimsy gusts and rattling the doorknob like a customer who had been denied entry, competed with the baritone of a long-dead blues singer emitting from the pocket of darkness nearest to the exit.
The voice was made scratchy and distant by the needle of the record player as the disc spun in an imperfect circle. Entering the café was akin to stepping off the street into a different era, one where the jazzy songs of big bands played out of every radio in town and zoot suits were the fashion craze of the decade.
The gramophone imbued such spirited music with a timeless quality as if, within the dusty confines of the shop, the present that existed outside its doors was a separate world that need not be faced if one only chose to look away. Moonlight poured through the glass in a solitary wave and cast a milky glaze across the furniture and floorboards. It was a sombre sight, which enhanced the particles of dust, dirt and dandruff floating in the air like snowflakes.
After a period of watching the blank page, waiting for a burst of inspiration that was teased but never fulfilled, you stood and pulled the needle away from the disc. Silence overtook the building like a plague. Fidgeting and deliberating, your gaze drifted until an old radio caught your eye. You carried it to the edge of your table and lowered it onto the wooden surface with tentative care, a soft thud echoing in the desolate café. Dust clung to the instrument like a coat of fresh paint, yet it fell easily to the sway of your hands as you batted off an array of cobwebs.
The whims of the radio held an inexplicable degree of personality as though it obeyed a timer or cycle that dictated what genre of blues would radiate from it at certain times of the day. When you approached the door to leave, the music became soulful and would abruptly change songs in a flurry of static and overlapping stations to do so. When the jingle of the bell announced your arrival, chipper tunes flooded the café in the spirit of breakfast waiting to greet you in the morning.
No sooner had you turned the knob when the device hummed to life at a startling volume. "Greetings to all you early birds! We here at WWL radio come to you with this news bulletin, just-in!" boomed a Transatlantic voice wrapped in static and vitality. The dial wagged across the length of the frequency range - hovering at one before darting to the next - as if struggling to choose, but the voice did nary so much as stutter for even a moment.
Finally, it settled on the 833.3-AM frequency. "Today marks the sixth anniversary of a fried chap stumbling into an early grave on our very own Bourbon Street." Letting your hand slide down the end of the table, you returned to your seat and raised your arms to begin typing. "You heard right! Six years ago today, a New Orleanian put on the ritz and bumped off a local ragamuffin." As the sound of keys clacking underscored the buoyant inflections of his voice, the announcer broke into a carefree chuckle. "You know what I always say, laissez les bon temps rouler!"
The static intensified with each second the man was on-air, and when you attempted to change the station, the dial shifted but always swung back to 833.3-AM. "All this talk has certainly given a few of you the heebie-jeebies!" Retracting your arm, you observed the radio with the makings of frustration and bewilderment. "For our feature program, why don't we hear a little ragtime from Bessie Smith? What a dame!"
As the strong voice of a blues singer spun tales of hardships and despair, the static gradually abated. It lagged in the chorus, but you reserved your attention for the rapid taps of your fingers on the typewriter as words flowed from the depths of your mind onto the pages like a river.
* * *
The trek to the shoddy apartment you called home involved a series of winding streets. Balls of paper and old trash that had either escaped from a can or been pitched off one of the many balconies above littered the ground, tumbling across the grime-stricken roads and slapping the tinted windows of various shops. Foreclosure signs hung on the door of every other shop like a dreary game of tic-tac-toe, and the route was populated with homeless people, some wandering while others huddled in small groups.
A woman dressed in rags was sitting on the edge of the sidewalk, her face stained with dry mud and her legs sprawling onto the street. The space on her left was occupied by a rusted barrel, and she had looped her arm around a radio lying atop it as if they were friends retiring from a night of heavy drinking together.
Recalling the radio in the café, your gaze lingered on the device. The static lulled just enough for the cheery voice of the announcer to shout, "Hello!" A crack in the concrete hooked the end of your foot as you staggered to a halt, but the woman kept her listless stare fixed on the border between the sidewalk and the road.
It was during this daily journey that the string of disappearances - which painted the headlines for years - lost all fogginess and became as clear in your mind as the sun in a cloudless sky. The entire city had swept itself into a frenzy over the question of foul play, an uproar so potent that even now, you could smell the paranoia in the air and see it on the faces of neighbours.
Shortly before the street that held your apartment, you passed an opening in the row of buildings. A swamp lined the outskirts of the city, and it sang the nightly tunes of all the crickets and frogs. If you squinted, a dilapidated lodge was visible among the thick branches and overhangs of the foliage. It was lifted above the muddy waters by short stilts and covered in dirt and vines that had grown into the foundation of the house.
Despite being home to nothing but mushrooms and insects, the faint aroma of gumbo and jambalaya wafted out of the rotten wood. A lanky shadow popped in and out of your peripheral vision for the rest of the journey, but when you whirled around to confront the owner, the nearest person was sitting with a blanket on their shoulders on the opposite side of the street. The instinct to flee to the sanctity of your bedroom only heightened the anxiety creeping up your back and arms like frigid tendrils, a sentiment that hampered your ability to shut your eyes once in bed.
As soon as your head hit the soft texture of the pillow, you were bombarded with intrusive thoughts about strangers enduring the final moments of their life. One of these visions continued for much longer than the others. It was told through the eyes of a man shambling down a poorly lit street, and he raised a bottle of bourbon to his lips with a disoriented grunt.
Another person was strolling far ahead of him, who resembled a slightly younger version of yourself. The drunk was accelerating his pace as much as his unsteady legs would tolerate and approached like a wolf stalking a lonely fawn. Before he could move within earshot of you, an ebullient voice teetering on the cusp of insanity shouted from behind him, "That's no way to treat a friend of the family!"
The drunk was turned around by a hand gouging its fingernails into his shoulder and yanking. A willowy man sprinted out of the darkness enclosing the streetlight, the glint and ring of a kitchen knife bathing his inebriated self in terror. Glass shattered into jagged strips on the concrete as streaks of bourbon and blood painted the nearby window, and the drunk was hauled, choking and groaning with a liquid trail at his feet, into the alley.
Exerting greater force than intended to sit up, you lurched over the side of your bed and were saved from smacking your face against the floor by a haphazard outstretch of your arm. The stiff boards had all the coldness and rigidity of ice beneath your open hand, and you raised a shaky finger to the pocket watch resting on the end table. Its golden chain was like spider legs tickling your skin. The timepiece clattered to the ground when you blindly retracted your arm - thinking it was within your grasp - and knocked it off the table, the noise jolting your agitated mind into a fleeting panic.
A strip of moonlight peeked around the corners of the thin curtains shielding your eyes from the yellowish glow of the streetlights. The distant honks of car horns were like the howls of wolves, and the repetitive bounce of tires on rocky asphalt was uncomfortably clear that night. All your senses assaulted you with heightened strength, the remnants of a panic attack supercharging your eyes and nostrils until every bit of motion was a possible intruder and every scent was a pile of rotten eggs and spoiled milk that urged you to puke.
In the corner of the room nearest to the door, a humanoid shape materialized, seemingly emerging from the wall itself. The entire bedroom was cloaked in darkness, but this shape was darker. It was a shade of black so vivid that it appeared bright. The figure was unnaturally thin and barely short enough not to touch the ceiling. A pair of vaguely hand-like appendages protruded from the top of its head, bending with the curvature of the walls, and bearing a series of pointed ends like antlers.
The sight filled your mind with the buzzing throbs of static, and you reeled onto the end table with your fingers digging into the rickety surface in a quasi-embrace. You flung the top drawer open to reveal a sheathed knife. The shape was accumulating thickness and height as if evolving from a mere shadow into a tangible presence, aggravating your inability to formulate new thoughts until your limbs were vibrating from an abysmal lack of coordination. After propping the bulk of your weight on the end table, you jerked the blade out of its leathery covering and hurled it at the corner.
Ringing echoed in the bedroom as the knife pierced the wooden texture of the wall. The weapon jiggled like the tail of an excited dog, and if the shape was human, it would have impaled the heart. Instead of releasing an agonized groan or collapsing in a lifeless heap, the shape dissipated in the spirit of a shadow struck by brilliant light. The static faded along with it, and control of your limbs gradually returned as if you were awaking from surgery and shedding the effects of an anesthetic.
As you fell onto the bed with a rattle of the mattress, a whiff of jambalaya pinched your nostrils.
* * *
The snow in the city was grey and stunk of freshly smoked cigarettes. It melted into a puddle of frigid water moments after touching your hand, leaving the roads and sidewalks slick with a frosty glaze. Pedestrians hugged the poles of streetlights and the arms of each other to resist slipping, and with the cautious attention they paid to every step, many of them resembled someone struggling on an ice rink for the first time.
Automobiles, while rare due to the weather, zoomed through the streets without any care for the people they drenched in cold water and their own safety as they took sharp turns that lifted a wheel of the vehicle off the ground. The thrums and chugging of the engines failed to overshadow the howl of a distant blizzard, which swept ever closer to the café like an ocean wave lapping the sandy top of a beach. Snow deposits had begun to accumulate in the bottom and lower sides of the door.
"Boy, is it coming down out there!" Upon inserting the key into the lock and kicking the snow off your shoes, you were greeted by the familiar cheer of the announcer. "I haven't seen a storm of this calibre since the Knickerbocker Theatre lost its roof!" After each comment, the radio fell into a long period of static as if awaiting a response. This conversational method of broadcasting earned a look of perplexity from you, but just as quickly, you shook your head and opened the typewriter on your regular table.
Dismissing it as an experimental broadcast launched to test a new facet of the wireless, you presented deaf ears to the announcer's endeavours to regale you. Aside from the jokes about people freezing to death and crashing their cars into lamp posts and a peculiar remark that "It's certainly hotter where I am," it was not until the topic switched to the emptiness of the café that you paused. Wordless static flowed from the radio as if savouring the fact that it had won your attention.
A piano erupted in a series of melancholic keystrokes, and you turned to the radio with a swerve of your head. "Had a dream last night that I was dead," bellowed the rough voice of Bessie Smith, which carried from the machine to every sliver of the café in a mournful ballad. It was the same song that had been playing on repeat for the last few days, starting with the day you awoke in a mess of sweat and heart palpitations.
Mild nausea washed over you like a spray of icy water in the shower. You curled up in your seat and drew your legs inwards, brushing your face with your hand and muttering, "It's the holiday season. Can't we get something a little merrier?" It was a passing complaint with no expectation of an answer, but when the static swelled for an instant before the jingle of a Christmas carol began, you were not thoroughly surprised.
With the first snowfall of the season, there had been flourishes of trombones and saxophones reverberating through the café from dawn till dusk. Old voices, the kind that encouraged a cup of hot chocolate by the fireplace, sang about the wonders of sugar plum fairies and festive bells to the tune of a jaunty piano and a children's choir. The urge to lay your head on the table and sleep was intoxicating, hindered only by the occasional screech of a tire.
Before you could wrap your hand around the cold doorknob and resign yourself to an actual bed, a gloomy and wistful tune rang out in the dark café. "I've got the blues, I feel so lonely." Bessie Smith recited her woeful tale with an ominous echo gifted to her by the lack of competition in the vacant building, and the droop of her tone seemed to drag itself across the floor. "I'll give the world if I could only make you understand." Your palm hovered above the round piece of metal with the slightest quiver.
Another voice - this one masculine - arose in the depths of the shadows veiling the café, looming closer and carrying farther as if the band were performing inside the room. It was cloaked in a thin layer of static and flawlessly reproduced the hazy yet intimate atmosphere of a speakeasy. "It surely would be grand," hummed the voice in a mixture of amusement and nostalgic fondness.
At the instrumental break separating the first verse from the second, a black cane with a microphone on one end shot out of the darkness. It swung downwards with impressive speed but only lightly tapped the radio. The device was silenced, and the small light that indicated its power disappeared with a click. Slowly retreating from the radio, the cane was aglow with a red flicker, one that peeled the shadows off a beige face and a mouthful of yellow fangs. He was human and animalistic at once, sporting the pallor of a corpse and the long, fluffy ears of a deer.
"You know," began the stranger, casting his gaze upon the cane and swiping his fingers across it as if grooming the object, "my mother liked this song. She always had it playing around the holidays." As he reminisced, his eyes drifted from the ceiling to the floor and back again. He emphasized every third or fourth word with an elegant movement of his hand, and the perpetual verve and boom of his voice conjured the image of a talk-show host entertaining his listeners from within a studio.
"Why, she even sang it to me once!" Despite pressing a palm against his cheek like a vivacious child in awe of the sight, the memory prompted his smile to wane. The dark splotches of skin that comprised his lower eyelids became increasingly apparent. "I'm afraid this trip has sapped my energy more than a June bug in the heat of summer," confessed the stranger as he tilted his forehead into the palm of his hand, turning slightly to look at you. "Might I trouble you for a cup of your finest?"
The doorknob rattled as you attempted to force the door open, and when the thought of breaking the glass to the detriment of your elbow was just beginning to form, the stranger proceeded to march towards you. "Of course! In my excitement to arrive, it would seem I've misplaced my manners." He dashed between the tables and chairs in quick strides and swept your hand - which was rising to jab the glass - into his own. "Pardon my forwardness, dear friend! It's not every day you stumble upon a kindred spirit, such as yourself."
Under the shimmering eye of the full moon as it peeked through the dense gales of snow flooding the street, you beheld the strawberry-red hue of his attire illuminated in a silvery light. His bob cut and pinstriped suit were the rich colours of candy apples and smoke, and the smooth texture of a grey glove tightened around your limb. "Delighted and charmed to finally be speaking with you!" The stranger shook your hand up and down with such wanton enthusiasm that your upper body bobbed with it.
"Although the folks in Hell know me as the Radio Demon, you may call me Alastor."