The Statue

First published in Murder Park After Dark, Volume II

Have you ever woken in the middle of the night and known something was wrong? No hesitation, no doubt, just an overwhelming terror, punctuated by the wild hammering of your heart inside your ribs. You stretch your eyes wide, trying to pierce the darkness around you to find the source of that feeling. Is it something watching you? Is something there? Or is it only the fading memory of some nightmare?

If you haven’t, I envy you.

Envy. My greatest sin.

Yours is ignorance. Ignorance of what lies outside our reality. Ignorance of the horrible things all around us, beyond our understanding. The things we refuse to believe are real.

So who’s better off? You? Unaware and blissful?

Or me, drowning in this knowledge and damned for it, with nothing to show for it but this statue?

This goddamned statue.

I shouldn’t have stolen it. I know that now. But it sits on my desk, glaring at me, and I can only watch the last reds and pinks of the day fade into night and know my time has run out. I have to get all of this written for whoever finds me so they can get rid of this statue and save others from it. To do what I’ve been unable to do.

Why does its alien face follow me no matter which way I turn it? How can such minute detail exist on volcanic rock? The geometric designs that collapse in on themselves, chiseled into the folds of the magma as it cooled, are dizzying. Its matte blackness drinks in the light of my room. It’s beautiful and hateful and it’s coming for me tonight.

I should explain. You need to be convinced.

I’ve long obsessed over the occult. Defined myself by it. Nightmare tokens, forbidden tomes, and Gothic decorations fascinate me. Anything edgy and dark to add a solitary thread of definition to my personality. Just look around my apartment.

I began my collection years ago. As soon as I added a new piece, I’d hear of another piece in another collection and obsess over it until I had it. A mummified hand holding up a single finger, a stuffed cat missing an eye with a splash of white around its neck, a leather-bound copy of the Necronomicon inked in human blood. Supposedly.

I needed them. Their acquisition consumed me. It wasn’t long before I turned to stealing. Stealing eventually became more.

Envy, greed, and other sins.

I first saw the statue three nights ago. I had taken care of the owner upstairs and was stalking through his study when it spoke to me.

Ba.

The whispered, near-imagined word sent a shiver down my spine and I whirled to find its source: this black idol, perched on the bookshelf. It stared back at me and the tightening in my guts filled me with joy. It was horrific and I needed it. Had I found something truly dark, truly occult, after all that time?

I don’t remember returning home. I don’t even remember taking the statue. One moment I stood in the man’s study, the next I was hunched over my desk, inspecting the idol in the pale light of morning. For an instant I thought I had finally found my most favorite piece, but soon my thoughts were turning to other possibilities. If something like this statue existed, what else was out there? How much larger could my collection grow?

I spent the day staring at it, trying to understand it. I must’ve gotten up to eat or use the bathroom, but I can’t remember. Morning became night and all I can remember are those geometric patterns folding in on themselves. I almost nodded off on my desk before I was finally able to tear myself away. Sleep came in an instant.

I woke in a terror. No nightmare, just a palpable, heavy dread emanating from the darkness all around me. That overwhelming feeling I wrote of earlier.

As I sat there panting, the darkness around me gained definition. The winged beast against my wall became my dresser, the ghouls in my closet became my clothes, and the floating specter became my towel hanging from my desk chair. But as my eyes chased away the shadows to find truth, something else was there, too. Something that didn’t leave.

It was darker than shadow. It sat on my desk, amorphous and terrible.

The statue.

I knew it was there. Knew it. But if I looked at it directly the thing disappeared, like it knew my blind spot. I rolled my eyes around, hunting it with my peripherals. That hunched, dark thing I knew was watching me.

Hai.

The same whisper-quiet voice. Steel dragged across a whetstone.

What would you have done? Gotten up? Thrown something at it?

Your ignorance is what makes you brave. I’m not so lucky. I threw myself back under the covers and pressed my eyes shut. Calmed my breathing. Tried to calm my heart. It was only a statue, taken from someone who no longer had need of anything. Only a statue.

I don’t know how I fell asleep, or after how long. One moment I was shutting my eyes to the dark thing, the next my alarm was blaring. It wasn’t until my morning coffee was brewing that I even remembered the experience. I ran back to my room and found the statue where I had last seen it, hunched on my desk.

In the light of day, the statue was haunting and beautiful. Mesmerizing. Its intricate carvings folded in on itself to make a larger  creature with a bulbous, alien head. From one angle it was tripedal, from another, tentacular. The stone seemed wet, dark brown on black, dried stains. It terrified me and seduced me and I didn’t regret taking it.

Not yet.

I spent that day searching for those two words it had spoken to me. Ba and hai. Ancient statues and lost religions. Pagan cults and pre-Christian rites. Hauntings and unexplained sightings and urban legends. I hunted for knowledge, drank it in as I tried to find where the idol had come from. The greater my curiosity grew, the stronger my fanaticism to find something, the further away I moved from sanity.

By accident, I found it. Three and two. Vietnamese numbers written on a takeout menu.

The sun slid across the sky as I pondered the meaning of the two numbers and it was late at night when I finally retired, my eyes bleary from researching on my phone, since the internet had cut out earlier. My last thoughts were of the statue and the code it had whispered.

I woke later gasping for breath. I hungrily tried to gulp down air, as if I’d stopped breathing entirely, but I could only draw shallow breaths. I couldn’t move my arms. My legs were pinned to the bed. Only my eyes could move, could roam the dark room thick with malice, hunting for the source.

I couldn’t see the statue. But I heard it move.

A slow scratch filled my ears as it dragged itself across my floor. The madness of imagining its movements without being able to see them overwhelmed me. I tried screaming, tried flailing, tried doing anything, but I could barely make my lips tremble. I ground my teeth together, fighting to move. All the while it came closer.

It dragged itself onto my bed. Slithered up the tangled, sweat-soaked sheets, across my frozen legs, until it sat heavily on my belly, looking down at me. Its glare was palpable. Once more, I rolled my eyes, trying to get the faintest glimpse of it, but it evaded me. It was only with my eyes firmly on the ceiling that the top of its alien head became visible, peering down at me. I could barely fill my lungs with its weight on me. Its head tilted slowly, side to side, and it spoke once more.

Một.

The sound of a razor slicing flesh. My razor.

Tears leaked out of the corner of my eyes from the effort to move, but I couldn’t even blink. The world blurred around me, acid bubbled up my throat, and then I woke.

It was light again. I could move. The statue was no longer on my chest. It sat where I had left it. On my desk, watching me. I understood the numbers now.

I tried to get rid of it. The surface seared my hand when I grabbed it. I tried with oven mitts, and suddenly it was too heavy.

I’ve tried leaving, but the door to my apartment won’t open. The wood is warped and swollen into the frame. I banged my hands bloody calling out to neighbors to help, but no one has come. The internet is still out and now so is the cell service. My windows won’t open. I’ve tried breaking the glass, but everything simply bounces off.

The sun’s almost gone now, and I can’t stay awake forever. Throw this damned statue away. Sink it to the bottom of the ocean or throw it into a landfill away from human eyes. It’s too late for me, but maybe not for others.

At least my collection is finally complete.