The Dark Corner

Four months in and no chance of parole, Sam thought, bitter, as he waited.  

His heart fluttered like a bird trapped within his ribcage. Same time every day, so he thought, but it was all about the waiting. He’d mislaid his watch and couldn’t afford a phone, so time here was meaningless, sometimes day, sometimes night. It always started late, after dark, like a dirty secret, and so he waited.  

Sitting in his chair, the walls illuminated by yellow streetlights, Sam clutched the blade between his fingers, tight, and curled his bare toes, nails catching against the harsh weave of the carpet – the burn felt good, something else to focus on, something other than the waiting.  

They’d laughed, at first, about how grim the flat was. It had seemed ridiculous to find themselves in this horrendous place in their early thirties, and Sam wondered if Steven was laughing now. When it had started, a few weeks after they’d moved in, his partner had left, got out, beat feet.  

Steven had implored Sam to leave too, but how could he? It was Sam’s name on the contract, he couldn’t afford to lose his deposit, was terrified he might be taken to court.  

Losing Steven had been a bereavement. It was as if Sam’s last link with reality, with the dirty streets of the city which still teemed with life beneath the flat’s grimy windows, was gone.  

He avoided the outside now.  

He wasn’t sure when he’d stopped going out, it had crept up on him over a period of weeks.  Desperate for essentials in the days after receiving his social security payments, Sam would walk slowly to the 24/7 store, just a few yards away from his tower-block. He’d hide underneath his hood, avoid eye contact with others and go about his business like a wraith. These were his only trips from the building.  

A dwindling pile of coins in the tiny kitchenette served as payment for the hungry meter. Some days he let it starve. He could live without heat and light, at least for a day or two. 

Tense, Sam’s ears homed in on the sound of the shower head. Drip, drip…drip. Calls to the landlord, when Sam still had a phone, had gone unheeded. Sometimes, he found himself staring, transfixed by the rusty line the endless dripping had made in the tub, but couldn’t remember walking into the bathroom.   

As he listened, memories of better times thrust into his mind like an assault. He and Steven had both worked before the government tanked the economy, before the insolvencies and the layoffs. They’d rented a comfortable apartment close to the river, enjoyed nights out, occasional holidays in the sun. Unthinking, Sam wiped his eyes, shaking his head as if that would dislodge the past, as he’d shaken seawater from his ears on those far away beaches.  

Unconsciously, he’d become anonymous in the long months since Steven had left. Aside from the unsmiling woman behind the toughened glass at the 24/7 shop he saw no one. There wasn’t any point in shaving or spending his benefits on a haircut, the short back and sides from his days at the office replaced by a dirty brown tangle.  

Still he waited, choking back tears as the shower dripped on. Outside a siren screamed, Sam barely heard it. 

In desperation he’d written to the landlord asking to be released from the rental contract. Despite his distrust of the outside world, he’d sooner take his chances and doss in one of the doorways of the abandoned shops down below. Ignored, a second letter had turned from persuasion to begging, leaving him debased, and fallen on deaf ears.  

The benefit payments barely covered his rent and looking for work was a bust. How could he find a job when he didn’t go out and couldn’t pay for internet access?   

Sam would not ask his parents for help and he clung onto this, his last source of pride. He hadn’t seen them in several years having had enough of dad’s taunts about Steven (‘your skinny bum-chum’) and his mother’s tearful lectures, her religious convictions clear; he’d be condemned to eternity in hell. 

Perhaps she’d been right. 

Sam clutched the razor-blade tighter, his right knee jiggling in the half-light.  

There it is he thought.  

From the corner of his eye the familiar flickering began, and his ears picked up the faint buzzing sound that invaded his nightmares.  

The flickering strobed lazily around the room, as if searching its surroundings. The buzz resolved itself into many voices, whispering in a long-forgotten tongue.  

Sam’s breath fogged as the temperature in the room lowered, the tracks of his tears icy-cold on his cheeks.  

He tried to remain still even as his body betrayed him, shivering from the chill, eyes tracking the uncanny flickering light.  

As it moved towards him the whispers seemed to fill the air and his scrotum tightened in primal response to terror.  

The first cut was the sweetest.  

It was the only way Sam had found that halted the horror, if only for the briefest moment.  

As the blade sliced into the already scarred flesh of his arm, the whispers seemed further away, the flickering less intense and a small sigh of relief took over from the hiss of his pain.  

The blood ran down his arm, warm in the cold air. 

The relief was short-lived as he knew it would be. The cutting didn’t really work anymore. That first time, Steven gone and Sam lost in fear, he’d had to dig deep to find the courage to scour his own flesh. No sooner had the wound parted and the blood begun to flow, so red against the pale skin of his arm, than the flickering, the whispering had gone. It was as if some unspeakable other-worldly hunger had been sated by the bloodletting.   

In the long weeks since, he’d had to make more cuts, many more, each night in the dark to satisfy the invader’s obscene needs.  

The light was behind him now and a cold hand caressed the back of his neck, a nauseating echo of the intimacy he’d lost. The whispers filled his head. Unknown words uttered by unseen mouths, wheezes and gloating laughter.  

Without thinking, he cut once more and the whispers dimmed, the hand on the back of his neck receding.  

Sam groaned from the pain, dimly aware of angry shouts in the city which seemed so far away.  

He counted the seconds, wondering if it was over for the night. Over until his terrible wait began once again.  

On the count of twenty-eight the light loomed directly eyes, illuminating small veins and blood vessels. Sam pressed himself back in the seat and tucked his feet under the chair, almost hypnotised.  

He saw, or thought he saw, angry eyes in the depths of the light. Shapes moved at the edges of his vision and things he didn’t comprehend writhed, just out of reach.  

The whisperers were almost shouting now. Mocking laughter seemed to come from behind his chair and he was gripped by paralysis, unable to move the hand which clutched the wet red blade.  

Many hands fell upon him.  

Rough, unseen fingers brushed his lips and kneaded his scarred arms. Others still ran up and down his legs, sharp fingernails scraped along bare soles.  

 Sam fought the scream which choked in the back of his throat, gritting his teeth against this violation of his body. The whisperers seemed to revel in his discomfort, and he squeezed his eyes closed to block out that terrible flickering light and the horrors contained within.  

An unseen hand found his balls and Sam began to shake, his focus now on this most vulnerable part of himself. As it stroked and massaged, gentle, the whispers receded once more. Sam experienced a wave of nausea as his body responded to the touch, unable to avoid thoughts of Steven, the intimacy they’d once shared.  He fought to loosen the memories from his mind.  

The hand, it was the only hand he could sense now, began to squeeze. Wincing, Sam opened his eyes, which were filled with the sickening light. Nothing now moved within. 

The squeezing went from uncomfortable to painful and agony was born from the pain. It was as if hot metal spears were being driven from groin to stomach and Sam began to scream. 

He had to stop this. He needed to cut.   

With a great effort he managed to move his prone body and the hand between his legs, now a vice, clamped and squeezed harder still.  

With his own hand, still clutching the blade, Sam - blinded still by the hateful light – started to cut. 

Screaming, he hacked and sliced and the evil slipped  away. He was relieved as the blood ran down his arm and the haunting light begin to dim.  

And still he cut. Too deep.  

In the weeks that followed, Sam’s body began the process of decay. With nobody to notice he was missing, no one would be alerted to his death until other of the tower’s residents began to complain about the smells emanating from his studio.  

Sam’s revenant looked on, locked in grief, as paramedics dumped his unrecognizable body on a gurney, and wheeled it from its resting place in the dingy apartment. 

Each night he waited. Each night the flickering lights and the whisperers would come to him. Each night was more terrifying than the one before. 

He had no way out. No body left to cut.  

Alex Hunter was the first child in his school year to be given an adult library card. He borrowed ‘The Rats’ by James Herbert, beginning a lifelong love for the strange and horrifying. As an adult, Alex is an award-winning corporate communicator, having made words the currency of his career. Alex lives in London with his horror-allergic husband and Bertie the pug. His debut novel is due for publication in 2025.