Who: Bertram Eden and an unexpected guest What: Another night, another terror Where: Bertie's bedroom When: Early hours of 14th November, 1888 Rating: PG-13 for disturbing imagery
Bertie woke gagging at the sight and scent of his own decaying chest cavity, which oozed black around the edges, dripping into spatters of shadow that congealed first on the bed around him, then crawled up the wall above his head to form a headless body which lurched a step toward the door.
He couldn't move. He was frozen in place, watching in impotent horror as the body moved, heavy and awkward, and then turned. It held out his arms to him, imploring, and the room began to fill with smoke from the fire that cracked the surface of its hands, which glowed like live coals. Bertie choked on the smoke, and a trickle of ash slid down his throat from a thick coat on his tongue.
His chest lit on fire, and Bertie felt released at last, crawling to the side of the bed and rolling off onto the floor where he thought he might find fresher air, though there was no fire in the room, no smoke. No ghost. The splitting pain in his chest had subsided, and the only marks to be seen were from his own fingernails scratching and scrabbling at his skin.
He shuddered toward a gradual calm, regaining his breath with a few tears squeezing from the corners of his closed eyes. When he felt he could manage it, he pulled himself up to sitting on the floor by holding onto the bed, and leaned his back against the side.
He nearly leapt out of his skin when he saw the apparition standing eerily still beside the bed, but after a moment he recognized the figure, and eased the force of the hand he'd pressed over his rabbiting heart.
"Jamie." His voice was shaky, but audible. He'd forgotten that he'd worn the locket home tonight, after taking in a show at the Spectacular Review with Jamie as invisible audience. "I'm sorry. I hope I didn't disturb you. I had a dream."
Jamie's gaze was fixed, not on Bertie, but across the room, near where Bertie had imagined he'd seen the silhouette of a laborer with no head. In the dark his features were shadowed, black pits in place of his eyes. He didn't move at all--he didn't need to, even to breathe. Bertie was reminded chillingly of how very dead Jamie was, and that he had been for quite a long time.
"No," Jamie said. His voice drifted the way it often did, as if it needed a breeze to carry it in place of human lungs. The eerie tone of it chilled Bertie as much as the words when he spoke. "You didn't."