annie thompson (bumptiously) wrote in horror_story, @ 2013-02-11 16:17:00 |
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Entry tags: | annie, complete, cycle002, gideon |
Who: Annie, with a brief appearance of Gideon Fair.
When: December 27th, afternoon.
Where: Corner of Main Street and Ivy Lane.
What: Redheaded suicide.
Warning: Suicide, mentions of gore.
There’d been a miraculous break in the weather that day. Temperatures took a dramatic dip into the low teens, but the rain had let up and the sky was oddly clear. Gideon Fair was not at the bakery. His parents hadn’t seen him since Christmas morning, in fact, when he’d been oddly distant and reclusive. He’d stopped coming in for work. His brother and sisters also weren’t sure where he was. The optimists in the family, of which there were many, were hoping - hoping - that it was a girl. They reasoned that it had to be, because this wasn’t like Gideon at all. He was always so reliable, and he’d never stoop to drugs. So it had to be a girl, hadn’t it? He’d fallen in love, and lost his head. After all, he’s always been such an outgoing boy -- a sweet boy -- well, man, really, let’s not kid ourselves. Gideon Fair was nearly thirty years old, so it was about time he’d met a girl.
It couldn’t possibly be drugs.
Stalwart dedication to her son as well as an undeniable desire for grandchildren left Mrs. Fair optimistic, despite not having seen Gideon in two days. He was around somewhere, she was sure. He’d turn up. Preferably with a sweet, intelligent, pretty girl who’d produce sweet, intelligent, pretty babies with him at some point in the not-so-distant future. The town was only so big, so it’s not like he could possibly have gone far.
As it happened, he’d only gone down mainstreet. There was a clock tower next to the Star movie theater, near the corner of Ivy and Main. Gideon had been sleeping up there the past couple of nights. Roosting, one could say. Hiding from the snow and rain. But on the 27th there was a break in the cloud cover, and the sun was shining down on the little town of Crows Landing, making the streets feel warm even if people were still shivering inside of their winter coats. That was when Giddy emerged; a pale, freckled animal peeking out from hibernation. He climbed up onto the roof of the clock tower. Nobody noticed at first. The tower was only a few stories high, and Gideon Fair was a poor substitute for King Kong.
----
Annie was still feeling the post-Christmas laziness, and the last thing she wanted was to go into work today. She loved the kids, and she loved teaching, but there were some days when she would have much preferred just staying in and curling up with Axel. Instead, she got ready for work, made a show of kissing Axel goodbye, and grudgingly made her way into the cold.
The day passed as it usually did, with crying children and copious amounts of snot, but Annie was no worse for wear when she left work and headed downtown to finish up some errands. After some searching, she found herself a decent enough parking spot and slid out of the driver’s side, inwardly wishing she would have thought to stop and pick up Atlas; he would’ve appreciated the chance to get out and walk around. People had mixed reactions to the large, intimidating looking shepherd, but if they gave him a chance, Atlas almost always changed their minds with big, wet licks and overly excited wags of his tail.
As Annie meandered down the street, hands in her pockets and ear buds securely in place, a blur of motion caught her eye as she passed the clock tower. She craned her neck in an attempt to see, but the bright late-afternoon sun made it nearly impossible to detect the source, even with her hand acting as a sort of visor. Annie was just about ready to assume that she was losing her mind and move on when she saw it.
There was a person on the top of the clock tower.
There were no construction signs or tape, so that ruled out maintenance on the ancient tower. For a passing moment, Annie considered calling out to the person to make sure they were alright, but they didn’t look like they were in any kind of distress. She strained her eyes, wincing into the sun to try and make out any identifiable features of the person in question. It was a male, that much was obvious, and the more she looked, the more the shape looked like …
It was Gideon Fair. Gideon Fair was on top of the clock tower.
----
He was perched precariously on the roof, above the face of the actual clock. Something was in his hands, a small gilded box, impossible to see its detailing from the height. His eyes were glazed over with tears, and he was staring out ahead into the middle distance. Mouth moving, as if talking to someone that only he could see. There wasn’t much of a breeze on that day, so his clothes and hair stayed in place; mussed from the nights of sleeping on the floor inside the tower, but otherwise entirely his own. Gideon Fair atop the clock tower, weeping at the sunlight, the world’s least effective gargoyle.
----
What the hell was Gideon Fair doing on top of the clock tower? He didn’t know anything about clocks (that Annie knew of, anyway), and he didn’t have any business being up there. She racked her brain for reasons he’d be standing on the roof, desperate to think of something. Anything. Any reason at all that her longtime crush would be up there. There was only one reason that kept coming to mind, and it made her stomach twist violently.
Gideon Fair wasn’t going to kill himself, right? Why would he? As far as anyone knew, he had a good life with a good family. He had people that cared about him and loved him, and he’d never really seemed like the “type” to do something so rash and devastating as ending his own life. But there he was, the tips of his shoes overlapping the edge of the roof, holding ...a box?
He was crying. Annie couldn’t make out many details, but she could see that he was crying. Gideon Fair was actually going to do it.
“Gideon!” she screamed, so loud and hard that the word assaulted her throat. “Gideon, what are you doing!? Step back!”
----
The box in his hands was being held reverently, with his tear-streaked face turned upward to the sky he looked like a man offering his most precious thing to the Gods in sacrifice. For a moment it seemed like he might just drop the box. Some ritualistic ceremony that mirrored that of an ancient culture. Cast a newborn into the sea to ensure a bountiful harvest. The still air made it seem as though the entire town was holding its breath, waiting for the sound of the box hitting the pavement. A shattering crack of destruction. Maybe it wasn’t a suicide, but an elaborate murder of the artificial. For that one odd second, it seemed to be just that.
Then Gideon had second thoughts, or he’d just been showing the box to the sun, making sure the gods had received a good look at it. He pulled the box back to his chest, obscuring it with both arms and cradling it to himself, murmuring reassurances. He didn’t look at Annie when she screamed, but surely he heard her. Other people who were out on the street heard her, jolted out of their daily routine by her harsh verbal assault. They turned to look at her, curious, and followed her gaze up to the top of the tower.
Gideon crouched down to position the box next to his feet, and opened the top. It was impossible to tell what was inside of it, if anything. The box was too small. Nothing flew from it, nothing emerged to wrap a blanket of rationality around what Gideon was doing. No explanations were forthcoming. The sun caught a gilded edge and made the box shine prettily for a moment when he opened the lid, but that was it. Then Gideon wiped his face on a sleeve, and straightened up, looking back out from his place on the roof. Sunlight caught in his teary eyes when he turned, making them flash prettily, as well.
He noticed Annie, then, even waved at her, face splitting into a wide grin as he cupped his mouth with one hand to call out. “Don’t worry! They can fix it! It’s my year!”
When he stepped off the ledge, he was still smiling.
Someone cried out, but it was a woman who’d been walking her dog, her attention pulled by Annie’s initial exclamation. Gideon Fair was silent as he fell. The sound when he hit the pavement was dulled by flesh and clothing. Later, x-rays would show that there must have been cracks, but they’d been muted by the overall wet thud of him landing primarily on his face. He wasn’t instantly killed by the fall. After all, it was only a few stories. His face was ruined, his skull was split, and the impact had dislodged most of his ribcage, but the body was twitching, making rasping sounds against the sidewalk as it struggled for breath. The wind didn’t pick up to mask any of these noises.
The woman with the dog moaned something unintelligible and began running away, dragging the animal behind her. She might’ve stayed to give a statement to the police if it had been a quiet death, the kind shown in movies, but this self-execution hadn’t exactly been efficient. She didn’t want to be there to see the remains of his face moving when someone flipped him over. Better to have never been there at all.
----
“Gideon, please! Step back and I’ll come up to you!” Annie didn’t even know how to get up to him, but she would find a fucking way if that was what it took to keep him from jumping. “Just talk me to, alright!?” They’d never been especially close. Friends, sure, but nothing like she and Hunter. He was a quiet type, completely oblivious to any and all of her flirting, but he was sweet. Not just sweet. He had a kind spirit.
He was a good guy, and he was about to end all of that for reasons unknown. What possibly could have happened to make him think this was the answer?
People were gathering around her, her screams having alerted them of the situation. Annie wished they would go away. The last thing Gideon needed was an audience. They didn’t know him like she did. They didn’t know that this wasn’t right -- wasn’t anything at all like the sweet, freckle-faced man standing on the ledge. “Call 911!” Annie said to no one in particular, just anyone who would listen. She didn’t want to be the one to call the police, because she didn’t want to take her eyes off of Gideon even for a second. If she did, then he might --
What was he doing with the box? Nothing emerged from it when he opened the lid and sat it next to him. There was nothing at all. Annie wasn’t sure what she was hoping would happen, but it wasn’t the silence that followed. “Gideon,” she cried out again, hoping against all hope that this would be the time he listened, that something in her voice would shake him free from whatever had a hold on him. “Please, please don’t do this!”
When he stepped off the ledge, Annie closed her eyes and screamed.
It didn’t cover the sound of his body hitting the pavement, and when she heard the unmistakable sound of Gideon gasping for wet, bloody breaths, she tasted bile at the back of her throat. He’s alive, she assured herself, in motion at once. There was still a chance then, right? She kneeled beside him, preparing herself for what she would see when she rolled him over. As it turned out, nothing could have prepared her for what came next. His face (”How’d you get so many freckles, anyway?” she asked him once) was a mess of exposed bone and blood, practically concave now. “Oh, God,” she cried, unsure of what to do with her hands.
There was no coming back from this for Gideon. No hospital could fix this. Annie wasn’t even sure that he was alive, or if he was just caught in post-mortem tremors. Either way, she grabbed his hands, hoping that he could feel it through the pain. No one deserved to die alone. “I’m so sorry,” she sobbed. Whatever had caused this, Gideon obviously thought it was worth his life.
By the time the paramedics arrived, he’d already taken his last gasping breath.
Trembling, Annie climbed to her feet just in time to double over and vomit.