Poster of Her

Chapter Five

Orson didn’t quite know what made his tormentor leave his side. When he woke up, he was aching and bleeding all over. His eyes were shut, and he held his body like a fetus in a mother’s womb. It was around the precise moment when he was again drifting into unconsciousness when he heard the laugh.

It was a melodic laugh, like someone was right in the room with him, looking at him; and he immediately turned to look. He only saw the shadows of the night forming and dissolving on the walls of his little room, but he could see little else.

Dismissing it as a trick played by his petulant mind, he turned back to sleep, but the laugh played out again, this time louder than the first. He woke up and sat upright, as much as his almost broken back could afford. He looked around and found nothing. But the laugh was distinct. He hadn’t heard it before, but, he had a faint recognition of it.

And then a thought entered his mind—this is the way Bessie would have laughed.

With that thought in mind, he hobbled onto his feet and went right up to the window which was still open. He hoped to find her back, sitting again by the window, just as he had seen her the last time. But his hopes were dashed to the ground as soon as they had sprung in his mind. The chair, devoid of any occupancy, mocked at his misery in the nocturnal silence.

He sat on his bed, puzzling over whether to lay down or not, nodding his head in disbelief at his easy credulity, when he noticed the slight movement out of the corner of his eye.

It was the poster—the poster of her.

He was sure there had been a movement in it.

And then, even as he was straining his neck in its direction to catch it again, it happened again.

This time it was sudden that he almost fell backward right on his bed. His eyes were fixed on the poster, which had now begun to exhibit a state of turmoil. The silvery white of her hair was blending with the blue of her dress, and darkening to an unholy color of sickness. Her white face was getting filled with warts, and the blue eyes were becoming blacker than the night. He saw in utmost fear the eyes blink and the face move, and then the lips, which were now burnt black, cracked and opened to reveal a most vile mouth inside.

He could even feel the stink.

The reality of Bessie had now chosen to present itself in front of him, and this was a reality he could have done without. He tried to run away, but he could not. He found himself pinned to his bed.

Then the poster moved.

This was not just the flat movement that was happening up till now; this time the movement was three dimensional. It was first those breasts—they popped out of the poster—and he could see their bizarre inhuman shape. And then the face came out, and then one limb after another, and he saw how they terminated in the most perilous talons he had seen. The whole entity now popped out of the poster and began moving toward him.

It stood there, in the middle of the room, and he pinned on his own bed, could do nothing but look at it in amazement.

Then he felt the strange feeling. It was at once pleasurable and bizarre. It welled from deep inside him, and it was an erotic feeling, arousing him sexually, though he tried to stifle the feeling. But nothing was in his control now.

The creature in front of him did not touch him. It just hovered there, like some kind of holographic apparition, but he slowly began to moan with the pleasure of the most intimate contact he had ever had.

But he knew this should not happen. He knew this would be his last climax if he reached there.

And, just like that, with a big burst of energy, he pushed himself away from the bed and found the energy to flee from his house.

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