The Revelations by Erik Hoel (e ink ebook reader txt) 📕

To rid herself of that grimy feeling that comes with being out in Manhattan for a long time, she starts a shower. Just as she gets ready to begin the long process of conditioning her hair the phone rings. Thinking that it might be Kierk she darts out, grabbing a towel for some instinctive reason and wrapping it around her as she leaves puddles all the way to her cell phone in the kitchen.

“Hello?” she says, smiling, one hand clutching her towel closed.

There is the sound of a deep exhalation, a guttural pant.

Carmen is frozen. Dripping wet she is suddenly intensely cold, her whole skin flushing with goose bumps.

With far more courage than she feels—“Who are you?”

The guttural breathing begins to intensify, breaks with a huffing snort, then goes back to the deep breathing. Why now? Had someone followed her back from the subway?

Carmen’s face contorts—“If we ever meet, if I ever find out who you are, I am going to kill you. Do you understand? I will kill you.”

The breathing seems unfazed, or maybe even excited, continuing to ramp up, working toward something she didn’t want to imagine; it sounds like spittle is flying with every breath and the tone has grown even deeper, guttural, a heaving thing beyond language. Then there is a moment of dislocation, a doubling. The sound is both coming from the phone but also, somehow, it is near her in real life too. Her whole body reacts in the sensation of utter terror. She freezes completely. It is here. It is near her.

Her apartment is small and she’s standing in the middle of it in a towel. The sound, that horrible moaning, is far enough away that it’s nearby, but muffled, like it’s through a wall. The window with the fire escape. Slowly she sets down the phone as the impossibly low moan begins to build, both through the phone but also, beyond. The window. It’s outside the window. The light inside makes it impossible to see outside, where there’s only a black plane. Then there is creaking, a motion. The fire escape. Dripping, one hand holding the towel. One foot back, then another, to the kitchen. The drawing of a knife, her hand shaking. It is impossible to move in all but the slowest movements. It is impossible to think. Another sound, more creaking, a shudder of massive weight shifting. Oh help me. Someone help me. The hand holding the knife goes up to flick off the light switch. The apartment is plunged into darkness. There is a frantic series of motions, the sound of someone moving about outside, of clanging metal, but quickly fading away, and then all the sounds stops. Her eyes are adjusting. The pane of dark glass. One step, then another, her feet still slippery. Still almost impossible to see. Something is there. A human form. She shrieks. It is stilted, to the side, lying there on the fire escape, propped up, sitting, looking in. She’s gasping and screaming, clutching the towel, the knife. It is unmoving. It sits propped on the fire escape looking at her scream. She can’t find her phone in the darkness but doesn’t want to turn on the light. Why is no one coming? She screams again and again. The figure is motionless. She stops screaming. Nothing moves. There are only the mute city sounds. It’s a person looking in. No. Her eyes have adjusted now. It’s not a person. It’s a mannequin. A female mannequin, legs splayed out, resting back against the railing. It is inert. Someone left this thing here. Oh god why? There’s something wrong with its face. Carmen cannot quite make it out. She moves closer. Its blank face looks back at her. It has a blonde wig on but no clothes. There. A handle. Something has been impaled into her face. Under her eye. An ice pick. An ice pick under her eye.

Just like a lobotomy.

Carmen screams again, more like a sob. The dummy stares at her. Whoever had left it had left themselves, she had heard them go. Hadn’t she? She can’t turn on the light. She’s close enough she can peer through the window to the rest of the fire escape, which is empty. Slowly, she unlocks the window. She might still be able to see whoever left it departing. Carmen’s upper body leans out, creating a mirror to the mannequin. There is no one on the ladder, above or below. Some deep instinct causes her to push away at the dummy, push it through the railing, and it falls in a heap to the ground a dozen feet down. She hears an exclamation from somewhere down the street, someone walking who had seen it fall.

Closing the window quickly and locking it, Carmen, groping around in the dark, throws on some clothes, finds her phone, her purse, and for some unthinking reason also grabs Kierk’s notebook. She opens the door slowly after staring through the peephole and listens. The hall is quiet. She descends the stairs, then is out the door, down the steps, and Carmen flees up the street and into the city. She’s headed to the most populated area she can think of near her. Turning onto First Avenue, Carmen’s already on the phone with the police.

“You can come down to the station to report it. Or we can go to your apartment. It sounds like maybe it was a prank, ma’am.”

“It was a death threat! And I’m not at my apartment!”

“Was there someone there inside the apartment?”

“No, they were probably outside.”

“What did they look like?”

“I didn’t see them. They called me.”

“What did they say?”

“They didn’t say anything!”

“So they called you but they didn’t say anything?”

“Look, they left a lobotomized store dummy. Do you even understand what that means? That’s a threat.”

“Maybe. There’s a lot of college students in your area and it’s a weekend. Lots of dumb tricks happen. Why don’t you come down to the station