Fashionable Judgement

Warning: This story contains substance abuse, homicide, violence, mentions of suicide, and death.

Mr. King sat back in his recliner, looking at the oil lamp that was burning on the coffee table in front of him, on which his feet rested. The walls swirled around him, and shadows in the corner of his eye flickered and twitched. He shifted in his recliner, clutching his stomach as another wave of nausea and subsequent bitterness in the back of his throat hit him, and he glanced down at the empty mug on his table. The liquid that was previously inside of it being responsible for his misery.

He looked over at the spiky brown pods of the Datura flower on the table in the kitchen. They were cracked in half, and a few seeds were strewn across the table, though most of them laid in a warm mush at the bottom of the pot in the kitchen. He sighed as he looked at them, before his eyes drifted to the clock on the wall as it hit twelve. It promptly began emitting its hourly chimes, though their sound was different this time. They were loud, screeching, and deafening, emitting a sound akin to that of someone bashing pots and pans wildly together.

He groaned and covered his ears, the sound causing another wave of nausea to hit him, each chime making the feeling worse and worse. He closed his eyes and covered his ears as small explosions and pulses of sickening pastel colors filled his vision. Just when he was about to give in and allow the TV dinner he had eaten to introduce itself to the carpeting below, the chimes halted. He slowly opened his eyes and looked at the clock carefully, seeing that the minute hand was now one minute past twelve.

Five knocks in quick succession echoed throughout the living room, leading him to get up and approach the door.

The sharp cold of the brass knob hazily radiated through his hand as he twisted it until it refused to move. He pushed the door open, and stepped inside of his living room, seeing Mrs. King standing in front of him. Her arms crossed against her chest, and her face harboring a frown and a pair of furrowed eyebrows.

The moment he clicked the door shut behind him; Mrs. King spoke. Her words were sharp and loud, containing plenty of obscenities among them. Mr. King growled at her; the words of his wife landing on his ears in much the same manner as an old television with bad connection. He looked at the walls, which were covered in a layer of blur and fuzziness. He grumbled and went to snub his wife again, headed towards the recliner, his bloodshot eyes already aiming at the remote.

Mrs. King followed him this time. She opened her mouth and now spoke even louder and harsher words. She raised her finger and pointed it at her husband, her cheeks beginning to flush, and the muscles in her neck stretching taught against the skin as her mouth wildly moved. Her other hand moved erratically, swinging up and down furiously with each pause she made in her words, her finger jabbing at her husband.

Mr. King whipped around. His face refusing to flinch at even the harshest of criticisms or the loudest of profanities. All the words a melting smoothie of noises. He opened his own mouth and began speaking his own words. He had no clue of the words he was speaking; he only cared about their volume, which he aimed to make higher than that of his wife, who was recoiling at his breath.

But something caught Mr. King’s eye. A shadow flickered in the hazy corner of his vision, and he looked over to it to see a boy hurrying down the stairs, his face harboring a twisted frown and panicked eyes, his cheeks red and dripping tears. Mrs. King looked towards the boy as well.

Junior opened his own mouth; his words were different from those exchanged between Mr. And Mrs. King. His own voice quivered in its high pitch, and he didn’t point a finger or wildly wave his hand around like Mrs. King. Instead, one of his hands softly scratched his neck, while the other laid at his side as he shifted left and right. His ankles were crossed, his feet mechanically and sporadically shifting along with his swaying.

Mrs. King closed her mouth at once and gave a glare towards Mr. King. Her eyebrows relaxed and her frown eased from one of explicit upset to that of maternal concern. She slowly approached Junior, though Junior didn’t look at her face for long before his expression twisted to display more upset, and his eyes locked on to Mr. King.

Mr. King was unbuckling his belt, and with haste. Mrs. King turned to see what Junior saw, and once she did, she immediately approached her husband and spread her arms wide. Her words quickly stirred up again, even louder and sharper than what had come out only a minute before. Mr. King grumbled and moved forwards in spite of the noise, laying a hand on his wife’s shoulder to shove her aside, his belt in the other.

As he did, though, he felt a sudden explosion of pain in his left cheek, catching a glimpse of his wife’s hand swinging through the air. He recoiled a few steps backwards, feeling a sudden intense sensation within his head. His brain suddenly felt as if it was boiling inside of his skull, and he quickly moved forwards a step as his hand curled into a fist, but just as quickly as he started, he stopped.

His eyes caught a glint of something. The polished metal frame of the hunting rifle that sat above the fireplace mantle. He hastily approached the firearm, the living room blurring as he moved towards it. He grabbed it down from the mantle, the cold of the metal radiating through his hands as he gripped the rifle. Mrs. King’s words now suddenly became frantic and high pitched, and she began to back away from her husband as she observed him marching towards the closet.

Mr. King heard small footsteps running amain up the stairs. His hands worked quickly, grabbing the box of rifle cartridges. The sound of metal gliding against metal produced as his hands transferred all five cartridges into the firearm he held. He actioned the lever, paused to look at his old uniform from Vietnam, and then stormed back into his living room, seeing Mrs. King cowering in the corner.

He took a deep breath as he aimed the rifle towards the figure in the corner. The strange thing cowering in an odd manner as it crossed the two long appendages attached to its upper body over its head. With a slow exhale, he pulled the trigger. His ears rung as he levered the action a second time, the figure before him jolting and moving in a mechanical manner, red fluid emitting from where his shot had landed.

His ears rang again; the walls around the figure pulsating along with the beat of his heart. It moved less now; more red fluid poured. It wasn’t enough. Another jolt against his shoulder, the boom ripping through his head, and the walls leaking impossible colors from their corners for a short moment.

Figure lay still. He concludes his work. Up the stairs, to the second figure. Door locked. Steel tipped boot slamming against it. Door open. Second figure, “Junior” with its hands up. Aimed for the head. One final boom into the night, the walls pulsating as they had in Vietnam.

After his task was complete, he deliberately walked downstairs, set the hunting rifle down against the counter, and slowed his breathing, looking at what he had done. He had stolen the lives of his own flesh and blood. He sighed as he looked at the lifeless body of Mrs. King, covered in blood. He shook his head and walked towards the front door.

His hand gripped the cold brass knob and twisted it, then pulled the door open. His eyes looked up to face whatever was responsible for the knocking. And standing in front of him, with pale skin and inky blackness replacing the eye sockets; was the form of Mrs. King, standing upright, yet still slumped over, her neck in that same crooked position it was in after he fired the third cartridge. He invited her in; his judge from beyond the veil had come to conduct the trial.

He watched her slowly limp her way into the living room, towards the rifle lying on the coffee table, along with a lone cartridge. She slowly raised her finger, pointing at it curiously. Mr. King quickly understood what she was asking.

“I thought about it, but I eventually decided against it... It would be- pathetic.”

She nodded her head in understanding, before resuming her awkward gait towards the wall to the left of the hallway. It had a lone frame sitting only a foot to the left of the hallway; and in that frame was Mr. King’s old police badge. She pointed at it slowly and gave him that same curious look.

“The law? Nah... I don't see the point in rotting in some concrete grave only to be fried like a lab rat in some old chair after 20 years. What does it even matter when the outcome will be the same no matter what lawyer I get? Senseless how they don't bother to bring you to the gallows right after the mallet strikes nowadays, huh?”

The angel nodded her head and began walking towards him. He backed up and sat on the couch as the world around him suddenly became huge, and he became minuscule. The walls becoming massive, towering structures as she drew closer. The cabin glared down at him along with the angel as she became a puppeteer that manipulated the world around her, growing along with the cabin.

He began to quiver, his heart now beating fast and hard. He crawled behind the couch and curled up into a ball, trying to hide from the angel as her gait moved her forwards. Cowering and closing his eyes tightly. Eventually, he felt the angel’s cold hand resting on his shoulder; the sensation spreading throughout his body and traveling, sharp and merciless, down his spine. He took a deep breath- and opened his eyes.

He looked up to see that the angel was gone, and the cabin had returned to size, though still spinning and warping. He stood up as the cold slowly left his body, looking around the room and seeing it was still. He sat back in the recliner and sighed, taking a deep breath. Then the shadows moved.

But they didn’t flicker or stutter like they usually did. Instead, they became fuzzy, like the static from a television set. He watched as the shadows broke apart into individual spiders, which began crawling across the room. He felt a cold shiver run down his spine as he watched them, and he quickly hurried over and flipped on the light switch.

The lights did nothing to remove the spiders from the room, which dispersed from the corners they previously inhabited, now crawling around the living room. The light also attracted the locusts, which began to swarm the cabin, quickly beginning to eat away at the wood, desperately trying to get inside. He fled upstairs and into his bedroom, slamming the door shut behind him as he turned the lights on and curled up into a ball on his bed.

The room he had escaped to didn’t provide adequate protection for very long. In due time, he began to hear the locusts swarming angrily downstairs, and he peeked open his eyes to see the spiders crawling in through the gap between the door and the carpet beneath it. His breathing quickened as he tossed himself out of bed and grabbed a broom from the closet. Taking it in his hands and swinging it amain at the spiders which rapidly surrounded his feet. Alas, the swinging of the broom did nothing in the order of stopping his minuscule tormentors.

The locusts began entering the room as they turned the wood of the door to paste. He backed away as they began to slowly spill through the holes they were making, and the spiders made their way up his legs. He squirmed in terror as the insects swarmed him and looked towards the bedroom window. As they began to tear his legs apart, he realized he had no other option.

In an instant, he ran towards the window and threw himself towards it, closing his eyes and holding his arms in front of his head. He felt several sharp pains on his arms and body as the sound of shattering glass echoed through the air. He yelped as he entered free fall, but quickly hit the ground, a painful thud shooting through his right arm.

He groaned in pain as he opened his eyes to see a faint trickle of blood seeping into the snow beneath him. He hauled himself up off of the ground and proceeded to hobble around his home and to whatever was left of the front door after the locusts had destroyed it. However, upon reaching the door, he saw that it was completely intact, along with the walls of the house, despite the locusts.

He looked at himself and realized there wasn’t a single spider or locust on him, either. As he slowly looked up, he saw her standing in the window of the kitchen. The angel was here again. He quickly barged into his own home and ran into the kitchen to see her, not even bothering to close the door behind him. But the moment he turned right after entering his home to face the kitchen and look inside, she was gone.

His right hand curled into a fist, in which he used to thump the wall. A painful shock pierced through his right arm and caused him to grimace in pain. As he winced, he noticed that the floor beneath him was now grass.

He heard the sounds of distant gunshots as he looked up, now being in a small hut deep within the forest. He saw his standard issue rifle with a bayonet attached to it. As he picked it up, he heard the screaming of a Viet Cong soldier outside, and he turned to the open door of the hut to see the soldier rushing towards it.

In an instant, he shot the enemy soldier twice and rushed outside of the hut. He drew his rifle up as he approached the VC, and as quickly as he had approached, drove it down with all his might.

He looked down at the man he had just killed, only to see the snow-covered Earth staring right back at him. He huffed in anger, the hunting rifle shaking in his hands as he hoisted it out of the earth and turned around. And once again saw the angel that had tricked him twice now standing in his living room.

He stormed into the living room, looking at the coffee table and seeing the lone rifle cartridge on it. He made no delay in chambering it into the rifle and pointing it right at the angel. He took a deep breath, aimed square for her chest, and pulled the trigger...

Only to feel a shooting pain down the right side of his face and chest, wailing as he dropped the rifle, stumbled back, and crashed into the coffee table. He looked down at his chest to see it was now bleeding profusely; pieces of metal lodged in it. He looked over at the rifle he had just dropped; the back end of it torn to shreds.

He suddenly jolted up as he felt a great heat on his back and quickly turned around to notice the oil lamp had been knocked over by his fall. The fire spreading on the carpeting, engulfing the sofa and recliner. He quickly got up, groaning at the pain in his right side as he hobbled and limped out of the front door.

He walked aimlessly into the woods, beginning to shiver as the cold hit him hard, with him only wearing a tank top, blue jeans, and a pair of socks. He was no match for the January cold. His right leg gave out as he approached the tree line, followed by his left. He slowly dragged himself through the snow, shivering as the cold sharply dug into his body with the ferocity of a thousand razor blades.

The pain of the cold quickly faded as he laid down next to a fallen tree, resting his head against the log, and watching his family home be consumed by flames. His body slowly lost all feeling, the world around him beginning to swirl as the night became colder and the moonlight dimmed. He felt the spirits in the air quickly and fearfully depart as something approached.

He saw him. An odd man approaching from the distance. The stranger wore a grey trench coat, and a grey wide-brimmed hat. As the figure slowly approached, Mr. King felt his heart racing in spite of his body slowly failing from the cold. The man slowed his pace into a deliberate walk as Mr. King’s eyes widened, the negativity he brought closer with every step pungent, thick, and suffocating.

The forces from beyond the veil had made their decision, and their final judgement was to sacrifice Mr. King to the figure. And as the strange man in grey knelt down next to Mr. King and reached his cold, gloved hand out to touch his face-

He used the very last of his might and main to produce one final scream into the bitter air of the night.