The second story in the Bump in the Night series.
Headaches
Thom's head was aching, again. He
wasn't quite sure if it was the cold or perhaps his fellow
co-workers. All he knew for sure was that the pounding above his
temple was getting worse by the day. He hadn't had headaches like
these since he was a child and was told that he needed glasses. He
didn't want glasses though, he still wanted a reason for failing his
pre-calculus class(he claimed it was because he couldn't properly
read the chalkboard).
But as an adult he could not have any
excuses. Headache or no headache, work was always lurking overhead.
How he hated his job. Thom had spent the majority of his early
twenties attending a very prestigious university in Cambridge. He
never liked to tell people where exactly he had studied, he was a
very modest man. He attended the university in hopes that it would
someday help his works of fiction become published. It didn't.
He spent the first year after
graduating top of his class sitting in a cubicle at the New York
Times. He was a fact checker and, as the title might suggest it was a
rather boring job. Every single article was passed through his or one
of seven other fact checker's hands. Hundreds of articles every week,
most mind numbingly boring.
To lighten the mood he and his fellow
checkers devised games. There was a different game for each day of
the week. Today was Friday, which meant that today's game had drinks
on the line. On Fridays they would work a regular day trying to find
all and any mistakes. At the end of the day they would collect all of
the notes that they had gathered and vote. The person lucky enough to
find the dumbest or funniest mistake would be awarded with free
drinks for the evening. It wasn't much, but it helped keep them sane.
The evening following this week's game was a night to remember,
although chances were that none of them would remember a thing.
Thom awoke the following morning with
yet another headache. He felt a little better being able to explain
this one. He spent his Saturday keeping to himself, reading, writing
and attempting to cook himself a sustainable meal. His only social
interaction for the day consisted of a rather boring trip to an empty
mailbox.
The sun had come and gone and Thom
found himself lighting a fire in his office's hearth. His eyes were
still much to sore for the hash light produced by his lamps. He wrote
late into the night, and when he could no longer keep his eyelids
from clamping down he fell with a hard thump onto his desk. He slept.
Sunday was spent in much the same way.
Reading a bit more, writing where ever he left off the previous
evening. It was a perfectly pleasant Sunday, except for one thing.
The headache. Still sitting stubbornly above his eyes. It grew less
evident by the hour however and by the time sleep called it was all
but gone. Tonight he made it a point to enter the bedroom long before
he felt the drooping of his eyelids. The bedroom was always the
warmest part of the house. Even on the coldest winter nights. The old
heat vent was built right into the wall. It sat at the perfect height
to wash his bed over with a warming breeze the whole night through.
He had a habit of sleeping with his head as close to the vents as he
could. Allowing the heat and gentle hum to sing him to sleep.
That night he dreamt. He was wondering
the dark halls again. There was never an end, no way out. Hour after
hour, hall after hall. Then he awoke. It was quite a simple
awakening for such a terrible dream. He lied still, entranced by the
even rising and falling of his chest. He had lost his bedsheets
somewhere amongst the endless halls, but it did not matter, the vents
were doing their job. The heat slowly caressed him back to sleep.
Then the itch. A most persistent itch deep from the inner workings of
his right ear. He did his best to stifle the itch with his little
finger. He dug deep looking for the satisfaction to follow. It never
did. Instead he was greeted by the tiniest of pricks at the end of
his finger.
He retrieved his pinky as quickly as
he could and, panic stricken searched for the light switch. Once the
illumination began he wished that he could un-see it. There, attached
at the end of his little finger wiggled a sight not fit for eyes. The
fleshy worm was small, perhaps half an inch or so. But it's bite was
disproportionately powerful.
He tried to give a scream but was
only muffled by the sound of the heat kicking on after a momentary
absence. He rose his eyes to the vents above his bed. This time he
could not scream. How many were there? Surely it was impossible to
count. There, coming from the slits were hundreds, no... thousands of
worms. All identical to the one still sinking it's teeth into his now
bleeding finger. The sensation in his ear began to grow as he felt
the other worms burrowing deeper. The headache was back.
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