The Man in White (A Short Story)

THE MAN IN WHITE


My name is Charles. Once an owner of a small antique shop, where the past is illuminated in displays to be named as artistic and with sentimental value. Most were probably worth more in its time than it was in my shop, which inherently made myself not that successful. However, the reason why subjects entered in my shop was beyond that of buyer’s interest. They say at night, after closing, that people hear strange sounds, more or less screams and cries, coming from within. This phenomenon led to accusations of abduction and murder, yet no one in the town of Brinsburgh were missing, and there were no signs of any body to be found on the premise. Yet at least once a week, in the bones of my own little shop, the screams and wails persisted. People came to the conclusion that my shop was haunted, which drew tourists rather than buyers. Other than the occasional mysterious cries, my life was relatively absent of any major event. Until, one day, a man in white appeared in my shop.

I’ve never seen his like before. A tall, white man with short, neat blonde hair. He wore round-rimmed glasses, and inquisitively looked at my items with compounding interest. His white clothes looked too clean, as if he spent his days up in the house of God rather than in our own realm. He held his hand up to his shaved chin, and inspected one item after another.

“Is there anything in particular you are looking for?” I asked him. I stood behind the dusty counter waiting for a response but he gave me no answer. Continuing to observe the man in white I saw him lingering around an hourglass carved from white oak, so I suspected he was somewhat interested.

I motioned toward him, but was then halted by the sudden upward glance of his face, his angelic features gleaming with an otherworldly intelligence. “I would like to ask you about this hourglass here.” It was as if a whirlwind snatched my breath into the afterlife, taking me by surprise about how cold and emotionless his voice was audibled to me. No, not just cold and emotionless. His voice brought with it a pristine authority and command. Each syllable within each word, in such a simple phrase, was powerful and compelling then ever audibled by man, and provided nothing more than absolute truth. Putting away his glasses he looked at me with icy blue eyes, his pupils capturing my essence into its dark chasm. I stood motionless behind the old counter, as if paralyzed, as I met his eyes with my own. Breath fled from me, as I struggled with seeming calmness to get it back, but I was utterly trapped within his gaze.

Then his image changed before me. He blinked, smiled, and now I could have sworn that what I felt and saw with my own eyes was merely an illusion.

“Yes yes.” I said, struggling to get a hold of my shaking figure. I moved hurriedly in front of the counter to the man in white, and talked to him about the hourglass about which he had inquired. It was small, about five inches in height, and two inches in diameter. The oak was finely carved, throwing sharp contours around with fierce detail, unlike most hourglasses of its kind. After his seeming satisfaction I picked up the hourglass, and carried it over to the counter. I rang thirty dollars, and he took out a brown leather wallet with a crest of large tree embroided on it, and happily paid. I put the hourglass in a paper bag, handed it to him, and bid farewell like I typically do. But he remained still for a moment at the counter

“I have something to tell you before I go.” Said the man in white. He motioned me to lean forward, and listen. “I'm going to tell you a secret,” he said, breathing his words into my ears. The cold, smooth voiced man returned, and everything in the world seemed to fade into nightmare, leaving only him and my still conscious self. My eyes bulged, and body turned white. I felt numb, terror grinding into me, soul wrenching forth my body trying to escape the man in white as his words were forced into my ears. Yet I stood there, motionless and helpless. “The ghosts who dwell in this shop? They were real. And you killed them.”

His words vibrated in my head, and struck me mentally with a heavy blow as I stumbled back from the man in white. My vision blurred, and while I tried to look up at the man in white as he left the shop, my consciousness slipped away and I fell to the floor.

* * *

I awoke with a crowd of concerned eyes staring at me. I staggered up, grasping my head in burning pain, while the spectators backed off warily.“Are you alright?” Said one man. My initial memory returning to me with the man in white, I responded with anger, and shouted them away violently. After they had scampered off, I sat down on the floor behind the wooden counter, and thought about the situation presented to me by the man in white.

It was clear, to me, that his words contained a certain perception that I had not yet believed to exist. Frustratingly, I found myself doubting who I was, and what I had done. Had I really committed such murderous acts? I don’t know... All I knew was that something in the foul reaches of my soul was screaming for truth, but what was truth if I was no longer sure of myself? Was it possible that my own consciousness has been poisoned by the words of the man in white, or did I really kill people and not remember? I believed that the remedy of my well being lay with the man in white himself, but first, I had to investigate my shop and its ghostly cries.

I closed the shop, and spent the night with my ancient artifacts, taking my rest behind the counter to avoid the bright moonlight. The pillow and blanket I brought with me were sufficient enough, but they did little to ease my overwhelming condemnation upon myself as I tried to observe my ancient shop. Hours passed, fleeing with the gust of wind in the night whooshing upon the shop. There was no sound to be heard.

Then the darkness suddenly became heavy within, and I felt as if my sleepless eyes were viewing devils in the shadows, their presence sucking the life from my body. I shivered, though I felt no cold, and though I tried to sleep off the night, my eyes refused to shut lest some beast were to carry me away to the void. Shivering now... my body was shivering! Every shadow I saw I now began to feel a sense of dread and despair! Forcing my eyes shut did not save me from my madness, for I now began to see faces! Faces of people I did not know yet seemed so familiar! I tried to shut my eyes, but I continued to hear their crying, screaming, wailing – I could not stand to perceive through closed eyes the amount of pain and torture they wished upon me! I opened my eyes, avoiding the shadows in the darkness as best I could, and ran screaming like a madman through the front door. Running in the night, I could still see their faces, hear the wails of anguish, and no matter how hard I clutched my head and pleaded for it to stop, they stayed with me.

* * *

I awoke in late morning with the sun beating upon my neck, and a clear head, free from the terror of the night before. The dry dirt from the ground stuck to my clothes as I rose from the earth. Looking around, I observed that I stood quite a distance from Brinsburgh, and that I would have to trudge through this barren landscape to return to the place where it all started.

I was surprised at myself for running this far out. I hardly remembered a thing, other than the screams and faces in my head. Walking back to the town, or at least I believed to be the direction to the town, I tried to make sense of everything that happened. I had never heard those screams before and never seen what I saw in my life, let alone what appeared to be people projecting themselves unto me. Others around me have said they heard the screams and wails from my shop before, and although this appeared to be a true occurrence, why did it feel like they were targeting me specifically? Was it because I was in my shop during that night? It felt as if it were a personal agenda, yet I do not even know who they were! Besides, they didn't find any bodies! How could I have killed anyone if there were no bodies found? But the thought still plagued me... and in order to receive any form of normal life I needed to confront the man in white again.

It was evening now. I came across an Inn, and inside I inquired about a man in white clothes. At the desk, the old and tired Innkeeper seemed frightened at the description of my foe. He had seen the man in white. I asked what room he was staying in, and while the Innkeeper told me the room, he would not give me the key. So I waited. When the Innkeeper walked out of his post to the restroom, I went behind the desk and snatched up the key to the room where the man in white slept, and replaced it with another key. Turning to the stairs I crept up, taking extra care to be as silent as possible with each step to the 2nd floor, for soon my salvation would soon be granted from the one who tried to destroy me. At the top of the steps, I looked for number 204, and soon I was standing right in front of the door of the man in white.

I inserted the key, trying to be carefully silent as it ground its way into the keyhole. Turning it, slowly, I opened the door to the dark room. Inside all I could hear was silence, but with the light of the hallway I observed the man sleeping soundly in the bed. I went inside swiftly. Inside, my eyes began to adjust to the dark, and my hearing heightened enough to hear the un-disturbed breathing of my enemy. I sneaked into the bathroom and grabbed some towels, with the idea of using them to bind the man in white to the bed. Slowly I lifted each limb and tied them tightly to the posts. I turned on the lamp to expose his face to the light, and within a minute his blue eyes opened, and my soul once again felt trapped in his gaze, and my body shivered. Then he opened his mouth to speak.

“Hello Charles” he said. His first words were my own name, which I am sure I never told him. Despite being tied to the bed, the man in white was seemingly in control.

“How do you know my name?” I asked. I felt that I needed get away as soon as I could, but I couldn’t. I wanted to be here, my instincts told me to 'Get out while you still can' but I could not find the strength to leave. I was trapped, and the only direction to go would be forward.

“I know a lot of things about you Charles. Some of them, you do not wish to face yourself. You killed those people in your shop. There is no escaping the truth.”

“There were no bodies found!” I said. “I never killed anyone! In my shop or otherwise!” He laughed. The demon dressed in white laughed at my statement. “This is not funny! Do you have any idea what you have done to me?”

“You have only yourself to blame for your madness shopkeeper. You can't face the reality that you are a murderer. Whether you remember it or not, it is true.”

“Then explain how no one found the bodies.” This was the trump card, I thought. No bodies were found in my shop, so how could I have killed anyone in there? But the man in white was cunning.

“It's because you buried the bodies somewhere else,” he said. “You killed them in your shop, so that's where their spirits lingered. You then moved the bodies to a different location.”

“That's a lie....”

“It's the truth.”

“I would have remembered!”

“You shut it out of your mind, and you are trying to deny it!”

“I never met you before in my life! How do you what is truth and what is a lie?! Who are you!? Some kind of demon?!” His laugh was low now. I was no longer petrified, for anger started to grow in me like a virus.

Then he looked at me, smiling, “Perhaps,” he said, “I am a demon. Perhaps I am your own sub-conscious, trying to make you remember. Your memory bursting forth from your mind. Maybe I am an angel, sent from God to exact judgment upon your soul. I can be anything you want me to be Charles, but the bottom line is, you are a murderer, and deep down inside you know that to be true.”

“No it's not!” The sounds of his accusation twisted the anger inside me and transformed it into a burning rage. For these brief moments, I lost myself in vengeance upon the one who stole my well-being and replaced it with madness. In this madness I threw a small object against the wall, and proceeded to grab a soft pillow to silence him. “Everything you said is a lie!” I said, as I pressed the pillow onto his face. The man in white, demon, angel, whoever or whatever he was, struggled to breathe as each moment in panic his lungs received nothing. “Because of you...” Tears were forming in my eyes. “Because of your lies, my life is now a horrible curse.” Soon after, the struggling stopped, and my mortal enemy lay dead upon the bed.

It was some moments before I realized what I had done, and I put it upon myself to carry my foe out of the Inn to bury him where no one could find him. I scouted downstairs, and saw the Inn Keeper sleeping in his chair, so I went back and carried the man in white out the entrance, to a place I knew no one would ever look, a few miles North of where my shop sat in the dark.

It took ten minutes to walk to the location, and finding a shovel near a home, I proceeded to bury the man in white. The dirt was loose, as if someone had dug here before, so the digging was made easier on my physical stature, and soon I dug a big enough trench to drop the body inside.

It was strange, seeing the lifeless body of the man in white in his grave. Even in death, his facial expression mocked my existence. He seemed to have a slight smile, as if saying “I beat you,” and it seemed that he had. I swore I never killed anyone in my life, but by killing the man in white, I was subject to even further despair as I not only DID commit a murder, but the words the man in white preached as “truth” will forever plague my mind. He gave me no closure, and more doubt. Am I now a murderer? Was I a murderer before? Who was I, to doubt my own mind? If his words were truth, should I believed them if I had no recollection of what he said? He never proved them, so how could I trust what he said?

His words are like barbed wire wrapped around my mind, constricting it to his will. I will not let him win. I will not doubt myself. Easier said than done when your own mind has been turned against you by a devil.



THE END