Page 90 - World of Darkness

The voices wouldn’t leave him alone. The
shapes wouldn’t stop following him. They had
hounded him since he’d worked at that con-
struction site out in the hills. Ever since
they’d uncovered that cave with all the Indian
arrowheads and pictures painted on the walls.
Then the site was shut down while university
people took over.
After that, it was like some bad horror
movie. The voices. The shapes. And Ted was the
only one who could see or hear them. They
didn’t seem to talk to anyone else, or tug at
their hair, or prick their skin, or trip up their
feet. Only Ted. He thought he was going crazy
until he found proof. Broken twigs where they’d
walked, bruises where they’d stuck him, little
odds and ends they stole from people Ted didn’t
know, people he couldn’t possibly have met.
They were real, and they were haunting him.

He tried to plead with them, to figure out
what they wanted, but they would never say.
They’d only laugh or howl, scaring him. He was
like a toy to them.

So he finally bought his own toy. It took a
while to get, with the background check and all,
but he got it. For self-defense, of course.
That’s what he’d said, and he was right. It was
the only thing that could save him now.
Ted found the bench he was looking for, the
one where he and his father used to feed the
squirrels. They’d come here with peanuts. He
wished he’d thought to bring some now.
He settled down and reached into his coat
pocket, hands trembling. The cold metal was
reassuring somehow, something to focus on as
the jabbering started again in his ears. They
didn’t like what he was planning.

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