12:07 The Sleeping Read online




  Other Books

  by

  L. Sydney Abel

  Gruvel the Great

  Ish-ish Ishbochernay

  Keypya and the Pirates

  Kingsley and the Spider

  Marge and the Wobbly Onkey

  Mr. Runkin’s Secret

  Patrick Duck

  Smelly Nelly Welly

  The Evergreen Wolf

  SPEAKING VOLUMES, LLC

  NAPLES, FL

  2015

  12:07 THE SLEEPING

  Copyright © 2015 by L. Sydney Abel

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means without written permission of the author.

  9781628152661

  This book is for

  the souls that made it back into the light and for those that didn’t

  My acknowledgements are, as always, to Karen

  Five, look at me as one who is indebted and sad at the same time

  PREFACE

  You know when they’re here… you can feel them.

  Remember; stay awake, because when they come for you and take you, there is no coming back. If you give up fighting then you might as well give up living.

  To James – come sit next to me.

  We are who we are and not who we wish to be.

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Also by

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  PREFACE

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  CHAPTER ONE

  1974

  Recipient’s eyes were clamped open. Electric filament burnt 12:07. The number had been given. Many have the number. But only one is for this Messenger.

  2013

  James would fight for his life many times—always winning and yet always fearing, that anytime soon, it might be his last.

  James’ hands rushed to what felt like a mouth full of grit, as he began spitting out splinters of white. His fingers felt for his teeth which weren’t there. A coughing that tasted of blood shook him awake.

  Sitting up and feeling disorientated, James again felt for his teeth. He only needed to know they were there; his fingers and tongue satisfied his doubts.

  There was heard a snap of a latch from the closing of a front door.

  James groaned as he slumped back into the warmth of his mattress. He cocooned his ears with the sheets. Mr. Green has probably entrapped a lonely female OAP, he thought. What a sly old dog. He might be a nice old man, but even a nice old man can have a devious mind. No doubt he’s plied her with drinks, got her sloshed and is now about to...

  The stairs creaked as only his stairs did. Was that my front door? The thought assaulted him loudly, sending the hairs on the back of his neck to bristling attention. Is someone coming up my stairs? That thought was no less attacking. Doubt terrified his mind; no-one could be. Besides, the door alarm is on. That thought didn’t give the reassurance it deserved. He felt insistence to panic, to want to go and see… but he couldn’t. His body was held rigid with a ridiculous fear.

  The door handle to his bedroom turned, making hardly any sound. But he heard it. The door gently swung open, squeaking, as only his door did. He tried hard to turn and face his intruder. Sweat began to cover his body, as the corner of the bed sank when something sat down. He wished and wished for his limbs to move, but they didn’t. It was in those moments that all became still. Nothing could be heard apart from his own rapid breathing, which was loud enough to wake the dead.

  It’s nothing; it’s nothing, his mind kept blurting aloud. Yet the bed still had a weight to the bottom corner. Why wasn ’t it moving? What was it waiting for?

  James felt defeated. He was dying in his own claustrophobia. A crushing dread pressed upon his entire spirit. Then there was movement—a crawling up over the body movement—and whatever moved was now rested on top of him, lifelessly heavy.

  Haunting visions of every kind entered his mind until he could stand it no longer. He gave everything he had, somehow managing to pull all his energies into vocal brute strength.

  James yelled. At first there was nothing, as his face contorted into Quasimodo ugliness. But the scream that eventually came out was so torrid—as if it had erupted from the fires of hell—that it burnt the oppressive air.

  “AAARGGGGGGGGH,” spat gutturally violent, shaking the very foundations of his soul.

  In fact, the scream was a mere whimper. But to whatever was laying lifelessly heavy, that scream tore through its presence like a slashing blade, sending whatever heard it back to wherever it came.

  James now lay in a cold sweat. He was drenched from head to foot. Groping for the light switch he clicked the bedside light on—its burn was trying so hard, but such a small thing could not beat such a great force.

  Whatever came only withdrew into shadows, waiting to attack, hiding, and gathering its strength for another try. But as long as this small bulb shone in this large room, keeping up its fight, James felt safe—safe for the time being.

  James sat up and wiped his face with the sheets. All his senses were on high alert. Blood pounded a fast drum beat within his chest that resonated through his ears. A surge of adrenalin pulsed through his veins making him feel sexually aroused. He lowered the sheets to reveal a glistening-wet torso. He looked like he’d just spent the last three hours having wild, unadulterated sex—he was sweat-ridden and exhausted, but still ready.

  God that felt so bloody real, he thought, looking at his side table—the light of the lamp silvered the title of a novel he’d been reading into gleaming glass shards, making his peripheral vision glitter jaggedly.

  Feeling thirsty, he picked up the glass of water he always had there for night time sips. The glass felt unusually cold and wet—his fingers slightly slipping over the condensed surface—as he tried to take a drink. His nose recoiled at a foul smell and his hand responsively released its grip. With a crunch, the glass hit the floor, then in slow motion bounced gracefully, before sending splinters of itself and its sickly, putrid contents, to all directions of the compass, across the polished wooden floorboards.

  James propped himself up; his arm supporting his upper body trembled. In complete shock he finally realised that someone or something had definitely come into his room. He had not imagined this. The clock by the bed, with its segmented LED display, flashed repeatedly 12:07:00. Its display should be red, but it wasn’t. He looked around his room—everything was in monochrome. He leaned forward and frantically rubbed his eyes till they burned with the fire for living. Then the colour came back. On the floor was a broken glass, its shattered pieces l
ying in pools of ordinary drinking water. The red LED display now read 02:09:01… 02:09:02… 02:09:03… The stairs creaked, the latch snapped again as his front door closed. It had been another visit.

  Half-closed early morning eyes tried hard to focus on the door alarm. Sleepy fingers pressed in the keypad’s four digit code, rendering it unarmed.

  The latch was held back, the door opened and James blearily looked about.

  Mr. Green—from the downstairs flat—stood waiting outside his equally opened door. This bent-double and grey-haired old man craned his gaze upwards and commented: “You should get some sleep.” His warm, blue-grey eyes smiled.

  James wasn’t in any mood to comment, so he nodded in agreement.

  “I’m waiting for the post,” Mr. Green said, unperturbed by James’ standoffishness.

  “Are you now,” James remarked in a sarcastic tone. “You do know it’s Sunday?”

  “Yes,” Mr. Green confirmed. “I’m expecting good news…” Mr. Green talked away as James tried to look interested, but James’ mind was elsewhere.

  A white-painted vestibule echoed Mr. Green’s cheery voice. Hard ceramic floor-tiles seeped a cold emptiness into an eight foot by eight foot entrance hall. A table that had seen better days—along with a ladder-back chair that flanked it—rested against the only available wall space. A painting of Pollock similarity—which hung like it was upside-down—did nothing to cheer. It seemed to have been placed there for the sole purpose of confusing the day, which was fitting in many ways, as life always confused the true believers in repenting worthlessness. Like the painting, life was just merely dripping away. The entrance door to this stark room remained closed and closely watched by Mr. Green.

  Suddenly a flapping letterbox vomited a single white envelope.

  “That’ll be for me,” Mr. Green proclaimed.

  Then without hesitation, James did the kindly gesture of picking up Mr. Green’s mail and handing it to him. Mr. Green’s shaking hands took the letter with care and with a radiating smile on his face, he turned and went.

  A few minutes passed while the locks were tested, then a pulsing, piercing siren wail that lasted only seconds proved that nothing living came last night. Two logical questions to last night battled for supremacy. If James had dreamt it, then why was this nightmare slowly expanding? And if it wasn’t a dream, then what was it that came? Until he knew these answers, it was pointless suffering more unanswerable questions.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Monday morning’s sky was dark and threatening—rain was definitely coming. Lance hated the beginning of autumn. It wasn’t the weather that depressed him, although that was enough to depress anyone; it was the simple fact that his birthday had come and gone—over a week ago to be precise, but he still felt the presence of its misgiving. He had real hatred for his birthday—he didn’t know why, but it gave him the strangest feeling that the day didn’t belong to him. It made him feel indifferent, so he passed it by without any form of celebration. His hopes were for it to rain today. It seemed fitting in a cleansing way. Today’s clouds carried a silver lining.

  Lance strode casually into his office. He was so early, he’d beaten his secretary to work, and that was something that very rarely happened. Sitting down he gave a satisfied look. Lance loved this room—his room—where he kept his toys, the things he craved for during his struggling years at college. Some thought the room sparse, and it may well have been, but to the man behind the burr walnut art deco desk, it had everything he required. Comfort things. The desk for instance, once belonged to a wealthy business man in Manhattan, New York, USA. During the great crash of 1929 and on the thirteenth floor of a building, where an office window looked pleadingly upon Trinity Church, a calm man with nothing left to lose, gently pulled open the right side desk drawer and took from it a Colt M1903 Pocket Hammerless. He then placed it into the roof of his mouth and unceremoniously blew his brains out—it was Black Tuesday, October 29th.

  The other things Lance possessed hadn’t such a dramatic history. But that varied depending on how you looked at them. Most people have stress things, a Newton’s Cradle or a Pin Art for example. Lance had something better—a 1962 Fender Jazz Bass. This was not a copy or a reissue or even a Custom Shop special. It was a genuine Fender “pre CBS” (before the sale of Fender to CBS Broadcasting Company), and was very collectable. This baby had two stacked knob pots, giving volume and tone control for each pickup. Around ’61 this configuration changed to three control knobs, where two were for the volume of each pickup and the remainder was for the overall tone. Some with the concentric arrangements were still made in ’62, so this beauty was rare. It was looked at with Love—the love that had a capital L.

  Beep… Beep… Beep… Lance looked at his watch and with a button push, cancelled his reminder. He pressed his desk intercom, sending a deeper toned beep to his secretary’s desk. Miss Imogen Swan had just arrived; she was everything a man wanted in a secretary—brains as well as beauty.

  She answered into the intercom: “Yes, Mr. Lewisham.” It was said in a softly spoken, middle-class, perfect English accent.

  “Would you come in please, Miss Swan?”

  His office door opened and another beauty appeared.

  “Yes,” Miss Swan said, entering the office in her coat and still with her bag over her shoulder.

  Lance looked into her eyes, she looked into his.

  “Coming or going?” Lance joked.

  Miss Swan smiled. Everything about her smouldered sexuality, the simple way she said ‘Yes’ seemed to have sexual connotations.

  “Could you pop out of the office later for me and collect a small package from the florist’s?” he said, with an appealing childish grin.

  “Sure, when?”

  “Any time before lunch will be fine, if it’s not any trouble.”

  “For you, it’s no trouble.” She was doing it again, giving him the look she knew he loved. “Would you like me to put Friday’s files away?” she said, rolling her eyes towards the filing cabinet.

  He nodded and watched her strip-teasingly remove her bag and coat, put them on a chair, and then, with a slow sultry walk, take the files to the cabinet. The bend-over followed. It was the full touch your toes bend, where the legs remain straight and tight, when she pulled on the bottom drawer. It slid out easily; she placed the files at the very front and in no particular order.

  Lance’s office had two fantastic views. One overlooked the river with its stunning city sights and the other was literally right in front of him. This fantastically formed and curved human sculpture, with a behind that wanted caressing, even tenderly slapping, and most definitely taking, wore a pencil skirt so tight and short that in the position it beheld there was no upper body to be seen. At this moment why would you want to? That’s an altogether different view. Pure tall legs in black high heels supported that wonderful display of womanly beauty. Painted nails on slender fingers, belonging to delicate hands, silently slid the drawer closed. Miss Swan stood up and turned to reveal her coveted figure. Her dark hair was tied back in a loose ponytail which left shorter strands to curl and caress around her forehead. She looked the secretarial dream.

  She smiled before saying: “Is there anything else I can do for you?”

  Oh, yes, there was—but he was a married man. “No. Not at this moment, Miss Swan, thank you,” Lance said with regret in his voice. He knew that she knew she excited him. “Just let me know when my first patient’s here, that’ll be all for now.”

  She smiled again, turned, and left the room taking her coat and bag with her to hang up beside her desk.

  Lance wiped his brow with the back of his hand and sighed deeply. He got up and crossed the room, picked up his bass off its stand and sat in a chair. He held her close to his chest, his heart beating wildly into her resonant wood. She might be getting on in years, but this old rock ‘n’ roll relic with her original Olympic-white finish that had yellowed with age and stained from gigging in more smokier ba
r rooms than he could ever imagine, was still a picture of beauty. The dints, chips and partially worn away finish only proved she’d had a truthful life. She looked a true Pastorius, a well-played musician’s instrument that was now, sadly, in retirement.

  He plucked her open A. It sent vibrations through him that he urgently needed. He didn’t need to connect her to an amp. The resonance and sustain of her body was all he required right now. Like a junkie’s need for substance—he needed to feel her. And he was doing just that. Her body connected with his, and it felt solid and proud. It felt good. She gave him no illusions.

  The trick with Miss Swan happened every morning, albeit variations along the same theme. It was his early morning pleasure and she gave it so well. He knew she’d remove the files and put them correctly away the moment he left the office for some bodily reason. He knew she liked to give him pleasure, he saw it in her eyes. And he really did like that.

  In the corner, next to a separated washing facility, Lance has his small private gym. Nothing much, just a few weights and a walking machine. Hanging alongside was a heavy bag. It wasn’t just any heavy bag. It belonged to The Rock from Brockton—the great Rocky Marciano—the heavyweight champion of the world, from 1952 to 1956. Lance had a photograph of the man himself, working his hands upon its leather. Rocky had died two days before Lance’s birthday, on August 31st 1969, in a small private plane crash, at the age of only forty-five.

  Lance loved to hit the leather, working his hands as Rocky did. It kept him fit and for someone approaching Rocky’s age, he looked pretty good. He stood five foot ten and was not over muscular; a toned body to him was every woman’s fantasy. He had dark-brown hair too; it all went with the supposedly tall and handsome look. The two things he didn’t like about himself was his longish nose and French aristocratic chin. He was very proud of his physique in a quiet, modest way.