Black Sun by Clifford Beck - HTML preview

Chapter 15

Her name was Karen, a broad woman who seemed to have been born with a host of personal issues. Marrying at a young age, she watched her husband die of an open brain injury at Albany Medical Center. One night, while on the job as a police officer in Albany, he had been attacked by one of the city’s more notorious gangs. After being pinned to the ground, he was disarmed and shot in the head with his own weapon. Later, his side-arm was recovered and presented to her at his funeral, along with his badge, mounted in a stainless frame. Having collected his life insurance, she had him laid to rest just on the outskirts of the city. But, there was much more to her life than the tragedy of losing her husband. Karen had developed a serious mental illness just after the onset of puberty and was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia. She had been relatively stable for years with brief stays at Albany Medical Center’s inpatient psychiatric unit, but over time, and with the death of her husband, her illness only got worse. With her husband’s sizable insurance policy, she left her job and retreated to a newly constructed development just outside of Watervliet, away from the chaos that seemed to contribute to the voices that ran through her mind. But, the death of her husband left her broken into pieces she would never recover, and she often found herself sitting in a corner, her head swirling with unimaginable madness. But, things were about to get far worse, and it was this unexpected turn of events that would bring her life to its final curtain.

She had been on medication since the onset of her illness, a powerful anti-psychotic she would take in varying doses as her body changed over the course of her life. But, it was on one seemingly uneventful day that even this would become a problem. It was in the late morning when Karen rolled out of bed that she discovered that her prescription had run out. Fortunately, there were two more refills and with no need to visit her doctor, she picked up the phone. Being more comfortable with her solitude, Karen had the convenience of calling in her refill and would pick it up the next day. However, putting the phone to her ear, she was surprised to find that the line had gone dead. Ordinarily, she would have simply brushed it off, but today of all days was not the time to be cut off from what had become her lifeline to sanity.

Hanging up the phone, Karen decided to wait, and an agonizing hour later tried again, with the same results. Sent into a panic, she grabbed her keys and rushed out the door. As she approached the driveway, her mind fell into a spiral of terror, finding the hood of her car blown open and the battery in pieces, scattered over the engine compartment. Now, panic gave birth to rage as she let loose a flood of disjointed cursing and continuing her rant, Karen stormed back inside, pacing furiously. Again and again, she returned to the phone to find it still sitting lifeless. Now, the voices came to life, filling her fearful mind with terrifying commands and unspeakable images.

“Where is it?!”

“There’s only one way out of this. You know that, you fucking pig!”

She rushed to the couch and, opening the prescription bottle, fished inside as if one or two should have magically appeared. Again, she picked up the phone, and again, hearing its silence taunting screaming in her ear, slammed it down on the coffee table in front of her. And the voices continued, growing louder in her head. “I can’t do this!” she screamed.

Her voice exploded in obscenities as she leaned forward, beating her fists against the sides of her head. “Get out of my fucking head!”

The terror of what she could not control finally burst forth in a tearful rage and as desperation quickly took over, Karen leaped up from the couch and ran up to the second floor. Once at the top of the stairs, she pulled a ladder from the ceiling, opening a trap door. Somewhere in her clouded mind, she remembered where she had stored her late husband’s police revolver, and retrieving it also found the commemorative frame where six shells had been displayed, beneath his shield. Using the revolver, Karen shattered the glass and, removing the shells, ran back downstairs and returned to the couch.

In her haste for resolution, Karen dropped one or two shells on her way back to the living room. Her mind continued to be ruled by chaos as she sat, fumbling with the shells, lining them up on the coffee table. She had never handled a firearm, but after a moment managed to open the cylinder. One by one, she hastily pushed each shell into the cylinder’s chambers. Having accomplished this, Karen laid the weapon on the table in front of her, staring at its cold, gleaming black finish. The voice of an infant cried in her mind, followed by a deep, masculine command. “Pick it up! They’re almost here! What are you waiting for?!” From within the deep layers of her psychotic mind grew images of men, women, and children, pushing their way into her house, committing all acts of unspeakable torment while holding her to the floor. Sitting in a near catatonic state, she saw herself lying helplessly on the floor. Her body had been eviscerated as what had become a horde of monsters clawed through her abdomen and chest, mindlessly emptying her body – her senses remaining intact, her mouth open in a silent scream. Looking around at the crowd, she saw a joyful rage carved on their faces, as she felt the fiery pain of fingernails digging at her bones and pulling at her organs.

Now, as quickly as it started, the waking nightmare was gone. Yet, the terror remained and picking up the revolver, Karen’s mind would play one final trick, just for fun. It was a sound, the soft click of a door latch. She lived, essentially, in the middle of nowhere, away from the busyness and the lights of the city, away from people and the threat her mind had created of them. In her mind, she was never safe, and now the nightmare was about to become real and painful. With the revolver still in her hand, she saw it as a comfort, her only salvation. Hearing the sound again, Karen felt a calm resolve sweep over her and, placing the barrel in her mouth, pointed it up and squeezed the trigger.

The crack of the shot was never heard, by her or anyone else. The impact of the round against the bottom of her skull was never felt, as her brain exploded in a liquefied mass from the top of her head, painting the wall behind her. But after the day had come and gone, her body still sat against the back of the couch, only to be discovered by two strangers, wandering the suburbs in search of food and water. The grim sight of death was the last thing they expected to find, but it would not be the last time they would see it, and neither would ever become accustomed to its gruesome appearance.