Category : Stories

Sub Category : Thriller

Occasionally while im sitting all alone, or perhaps just on my way to a place, I hear them. They whisper most commonly, but on rare occasions they speak right out loud. I've had a few instances where I have actually jumped out of my skin having been startled. When that happens I'll look around to see if anyone else may have heard, hoping someone else heard. If they had,even once,I think I wouldn't feel so crazy all the time. It isn't so bad if they say just one or two words,that I'm used to,that I could probably live with. It's the long drawn out speeches and one-sided conversations that wear me down.Those,and the questions,many of which I don't know the answer to.I can't accurately explain how they even know to ask them. I can't see them but they must be with me all of the time...at least most of the time.They know things, things that only I should know,things I've never told another living soul.God I wish I knew how they know those things.As the years have dragged by,there seems to be more and more of them and they have gotten louder and bolder and more demanding."Listen to me!"They always say.I try to keep earbuds in with some kind of music or videos playing most of the time.It tends to drown out the sound and I am grateful for any break from it. In as long as I can remember I have never been without them for any extended period of time."Extended" of course meaning more than a few hours.I wish I could pinpoint a day it started,or even a year. 
Maybe recall an event, some marked tragedy or trauma, but no such definitive "X" marks any one spot in my life.No matter though, I don't expect it would change a single thing if there was.This afternoon on my lunch break I was standing in line at the gas station waiting to pay and there was a twenty- something ahead of me buying a pack of Newports and a Dr. pepper. He reached to his back pocket for his wallet but it wasn't there.He felt around in his coat pockets both inside and out,still nothing. He looked at the cashier and said he must have left it in the car and he would be right back in.The next thing I heard was one of "them".
It was a woman this time, she sounded older."Pay or he'll die."The voice said both quickly and quietly. 
I looked around more with my eyes than my head as to not draw attention to myself to see if anyone was around, but there was no one.
"I'll be right back!"The twenty something said holding up his finger to the cashier.He raced towards the door,pushed it open and ran out.The door made a "ding-dong" electronic bell sound as he flew through it. That was the last sound I remember hearing before the screeching of car tires followed by what sounded like someone threw something at the car.I turned my head towards the door and saw the side of a red trailblazer just outside the glass doors.I set my own Dr.Pepper and a pack of gum down on the counter in front of the cashier next to twenty-something's selections,then I walked toward the doors and pushed them open.I had a feeling in my chest and guts that I always got when I didn't want to see or hear or know something.It felt like I had been dropped off a sky scraper and was falling faster and faster.Once I was on the sidewalk just outside, I turned my head to the right so I could see towards the front of the trailblazer.Still not a good enough view. I walked down the concrete walkway towards the front of the vehicle.I saw through the passenger window that the driver side door was hanging open.Crying started,then screaming.A young woman ran around the front of the SUV toward me.She still had her cell phone in her hand."He just came running out in front of me."she sobbed hysterically.She didn't stop to talk to me anymore than that.Instead she ran in the store.I had made it to the front of the trailblazer and I saw it.Twenty-something was laying on the dirty oil stained pavement and blood was already everywhere. He was on his back and the front passenger tire rested on his left arm.His right leg was so obviously broken in the way that his foot lay paralell to his right hip and turned in the opposite direction.That wasn't what told me he was dead though,what told me he was dead was the condition of his head.It was mishaped,and wrong.His short blond hair now deep red.One eye remained open and staring while the other side of his face was smashed in the pavement.I stood up from my kneeling position when I heard the sirens approaching.The driver of the trailblazer remained inside with the cashier.I began walking toward the pumps.My GMC was parked at the far pump at my usual spot.The silver Honda civic was still at the pump in front of me. I had walked past it on my way in, but since we were parked nose to nose,I walked along its passenger side then.That is the reason I hadn't seen the worn brown leather wallet lying on the pavement just outside the drivers door.I stopped and just stared down at it a moment before bending down to pick it up.Here it was,the difference between life and death.Something as small and insignificant as a young man's wallet.Due to this menial thing,a whole chain of events were set into motion,and those events caused his death.Or did they? Don't think for a single minute that what the voice said is lost on me. They say so much on any given day that it's impossible to know exactly what to do or when to do it. Besides that, those voices are just some part of my brain malfunctioning.Every single medical doctor I have ever seen has run his tests and scans and concluded the very same thing.Nothing is physically wrong with me. After that conclusion, time after time I am then referred to a psychiatrist or therapist or counselor who then picks apart every detail and in the end prescribes pills. I haven't taken a single pill in the last twelve years.They do nothing but turn me from an average man with an average name like John who happens to hear voices,into a slobbering,lethargic creepy looking man named John-who still happens to hear voices.The ambulance came tearing down the street and into the parking lot.It shut down its sirens and slowly crawled up the lot.The E.M.T looked out his window towards me, I pointed over to the trail blazer.He stopped beside it. I turned and went to my truck and got in but did not leave.Instead I just sat there in the driver's seat watching the scene unfold through my windshield.While I was waiting I realized I still had twenty's wallet in my hand. It hadn't occurred to me to open it when I first found it, but now it did. What was the name of this poor guy,I had to know. I unfolded the wallet and looked through the dirty plastic at his driver's licence. "Cody Wheeler" twenty four years old. The address listed was about six blocks from the station on Harrison St. and only about three from the hospital.Had he not sustained the head injury, he most likely would have lived.I was overwhelmed with a sudden feeling of guilt.In all the years of the voices, all the different things they had said and asked,I have never had anyone die right in front of me.I was trying to find a dozen other ways he might have lived,but the most obvious way would have been if I had just paid for his damn cigarettes and pop. Then he would have still been standing in the damn store while I was filing through my own wallet for my debit card when crazy trail blazer lady came ripping through the parking lot on her cell phone.
I heard a slam and looked up.They were shutting the back doors of the ambulance.I hurried and opened my door and got out.The same E.M.T. looked in my direction when I shut my own truck door and that gave me the opportunity to wave him down.I jogged up the length of the gas pumps towards him.He looked both ways before crossing the lot from the store to the pump island.I handed him the wallet and explained where I had found it pointing at the Civic.He took the wallet and thanked me with a solemn and regretful tone,then turned and headed back toward the ambulance. 
While walking back to my truck I noticed a police car turning in,but decided not to stay and offer any statement. I couldn't tell them anymore than the  trailblazer lady or the cashier were about to.I got in my truck and left.I was almost an hour late getting back to work from my lunch break,but no one seemed to notice.I guess being a produce manager at a grocery store doesn't have people counting the minutes until your return.The only reason I even leave the store on my break isn't because I need anything- it's just so I can get the hell away from there for awhile.I sat in my crappy little office at my desk and just spaced out. All the years of hearing them,but never listening, never acting.I wonder what other terrible things may have come to pass due to my neglect.Those answers certainly wouldn't be found in the towering stack of old banana boxes filled with paperwork in the corner of my office.I clocked out and went home.I laid on the couch and stared at the yellow discolored ceiling.I had lived alone in this apartment six years.I had no girlfriend or wife.I had very few friends,no one I could call to talk to.Unless you count the hotline number in the packet Dr. Franzen gave me.I didn't even really know any of my neighbors. What kind of life did I have here? Work and home and half crazy most of the time. Something had to give, something had to change. What's the worst that can happen if I just start listening to them? What if the next time they ask me something,I simply just answer or, if one tells me to do something,I just do it? If it isn't a huge deal, just something small like paying ten bucks. I think that would hurt me a lot less than Cody Wheeler being killed. I wont tell Dr. Franzen...I won't tell anyone! I'll just keep it to myself and see how it all works out. I'm a man with nothing to lose. I have made no dent in this world,done nothing great,but I could. I suddenly started feeling a sense of excitement,I could do something if I wanted! I sat up on the couch and said "I refuse to allow the day I let Cody Wheeler die wreck my life! I refuse to continue hiding who I really am so someone else can die.I hear voices and I am going to start listening to them!" Then I stood up and I shouted loudly," today is the first day of my new life!" Then I heard a voice say "I'm glad to finally hear that John,we've been waiting for you a very long time" I slowly turned around, it was Cody Wheeler, he was sitting on the arm of the couch,and I could see him, and he looked perfectly fine.