Threshold of Pain
By: Carla Anderson
((i was really wanting to create a horror story, and this is what came out. I've always wanted to do something where the person just when ballistic. I hope you like it.))
"Look at her dress..."
"Why does she think..."
"How can he even do..."
"What's wrong with them..."
"Go get a room..."
"Hmm... This is good..."
The voices kept going around and around in my head. They mimicked the voices of the people I had met last night at the club. But I wasn't at the club anymore. I was alone, in my room, curled up on my bed in a fetal position. My hands were clamped to the sides of my head. Silent tears ran down my face; my face set in a grimace.
These voices keep coming back. They've kept coming back for the past year and a half now.
"Who does she think she is?"
"He's gonna slit his wrists tonight."
"She popped one too many."
"... found hanging from his favorite leather belt..."
"... LSD flashback... right off the balcony..."
"...jumped off her five-story apartment building... swan dived into the pavement..."
My body racked with tremors raking up and down my spine. I screamed silently, my mouth gaping wide from the pain.
"The threshold of pain... 120 decibels... pops your eardrums..." My biology teacher's voice rang through my head like a set of church bells. I sprang up from my bed and almost collapsed to kneel in front of my stereo on the floor in the corner. I put in a Rob Zombie CD and cranked up the first song to the loudest my stereo could put out. His voice bellowed out of the small speakers and I sighed, happily. The voices were dulled; I could think.
Three violent taps came from my ceiling and a muffled, "Turn that s**t down!" came through. I shut it off and listened to the ringing in my ears.
This was the third time in two days that I had done that to dull the voices. They were bugging me more now; during school, during work, and lately, in my sleep. They haunted my dreams and unlike normal dreams, they were there when I opened my eyes. Not the remembered dream, but the living dream. They were getting more and more persistent, and it was harder to make them go away.
I stood up, the ringing still in my ears, and went over to the dresser to put on my work clothes. I would need s shower before I did anything else. Even then, with the water pounding down on me, I could still hear them. Faintly, but still.
Work was never dull. Harvey's Diner and Truck stop was always busy. Even Harvey worked a full time shift. I got there about nine a.m. and checked in. Harvey set me up quickly with an apron and order pad and sent me around to the tables. It was fairly routine work.
"What would you like, sir?"
"Welcome to Harvey's. What can I get you?"
"Please, seat yourself."
"I'll be there in a minute."
It wasn't until two hours before five, my quitting time, that the voices began to disrupt me again. I tried my best to shut them out and carry on taking orders for the customers. It wasn't until one customer that I had a good enough hold on my mind.
"Hello sir, ma'am. Welcome to Harvey's. What can I get for you today?" I put on my cheery face for them.
"I'd like a chicken cheese melt with white milk, the fries, and no coleslaw, please." The lady said. I repeated her order as I wrote it down.
"And for you sir?"
"I'd like the beef commercial, with white milk, and for you to get down on all fours and suck my d**k." I looked at him in disbelief. He looked calmly at his menu as if he hadn't said what I just heard. I shook my head. It was only the voices.
"Excuse me, sir?"
"I want a beef commercial, white milk, and the side of fries." He looked at me calmly as I wrote down his order and asked them if they wanted their drinks right away.
"Yes, we'd like them right away." The man said.
"Could you drop your panties and let me find out how deep you go?" The woman said. I looked at her.
"Ma'am?" This was getting out of hand. They were ruining my conversations now.
"Could you get me a new set of silverware, please?" She repeated. I nodded and quickly left, giving their orders to the chef. I filled their drinks and grabbed a napkin-silverware set and gave it to them without waiting for a thank you or another request. I didn't say anything, just as quickly as I could without running went into the bathroom to take a Tylenol and wash my face.
But the same thing kept happening for the rest of my shift. People's orders were changed into obscene requests. The voices kept their voices but changed the words. I quickly checked out when five came around and went back to my apartment to get ready for my evening classes at the University.
But even during school, the voices were doing the same thing. Even my teacher was against me in the fight to continually drive me insane.
"Now class, when you work through this equation you can conclude that the only way for you to pass this class is for you to let me ******** you four different ways to Jupiter." I instantly shut out his voice and concentrated hard on my tablet in front of my on the desk.
The words and letters seemed to swirl and disappear. Then they came back, but they appeared in a whole different order:
Tisk, Tisk...
You should have listened to your teacher...
Bad girl... disobeying customers...
You should punish yourself...
Take the blade...
You know...
The one in the back of your dresser drawer...
Open the vein... You know it'll help...
Or use the rope... You always wanted to be able to fly...
Or take some more Tylenol... or aspirin...
You have a headache... no, a migraine...
Doesn't it hurt... so much that you feel tired...
Try the sleep aid... that'll help... about half the bottle...
I quickly shoved my tablet to the floor and stood up. The entire class turned to look at me. When I had stood up, I had overturned my desk. But I didn't care, the voices were driving me crazy. They all watched me run out the doors. I ran all the way back to my apartment and locked the doors behind me. I undressed to my bra and panties and climbed under the covers on my bed. The voices were shouting at me now.
"Take it! Kill yourself! You're no good at anything anyways! Why live?! End your stupidity!"
"NOOO!!" I shouted to the empty room and rocked back and forth. The voices went silent. I sat up in bed, clutching the blankets to my chest. My breath was ragged and fast, but it began to slow and return to normal.
When I had returned to normal I sighed deeply.
"They’re gone..."
"No we're not..." Someone whispered. My eyes went wide. Every hair on my body stood on end and goose bumps covered my arms and legs like I just jumped in cold water.
"We'll never leave." They got louder.
"Not until you..." They got louder and started giggling.
"Not until I what?" I was scared. I was talking to the voices. This wasn't right.
"Not until you die!" A small shrill voice shrieked and laughed off.
"Nooo..." I gasped, exasperated. "You leave, leave now. NOW!" I shouted.
"No." And they started laughing louder and even more manically. "No, No, No!" They started chanting over and over again in my head. "No, No, NO, NO!"
I jumped out of bed and ran into the kitchen. I dug in the drawers and cupboards for anything. Anything that would stop the voices. I found nothing.
"The threshold of pain... 120 decibels... pops your ears..." His voice rang out again like the bells. The other voices stopped to listen. I turned around to look at everything in my apartment that could make a noise. The TV, stereo, guitar, the computer, alarm clock.
"No. Don't do it!" A small voice pleaded. I smiled wickedly and went around to turn on and to their loudest volumes everything that could make a noise worth blaring. Rob Zombie shrieked out lyrics, the TV screamed hard rock and roll. Everything went off like fireworks on the fourth of July. The voices were screaming, "NO, DON'T!" in my head. The neighbors shouted and pounded on my ceiling and door, yelling at me to turn it down.
After a few minutes, the voices began to laugh. Higher and sharper. They knew it wouldn't work. The knew and begged me not to do it anyways. I went back into the kitchen and looked in the silverware drawer and found a pair of wooden chopsticks from the last time I ordered Chinese.
The voices were still laughing maniacally. I put one stick in each ear and gently pushed until they went in a far as they could without forcing too much. Tears were sliding down my cheeks.
"Threshold of pain... 120 decibels... pops your eardrums..." I shut my eyes tight and use the palms of my hands to hammer the sticks down my ear canals. Down to the three small bones and into the cochlea. Pain seared through my head, spine, and throughout my entire body. I collapsed to the floor and everything went black.
Slowly, I opened my eyes. Lights were overhead on the ceiling but they were off. I looked around and realized that I was in a hospital. I sat up and my head buzzed. I remembered what I had done and placed my hands gently over my ears. Thick, gauze bandages covered the sides of my head. I laid back down and sighed, listening. Nothing. Silence. No voices. Perfect... Quiet... I breathed a sigh of relief, but it seemed to echo.
"That was strange..." I said, but didn't hear my voice. Suddenly soft lights came on overhead. I raised hand to cover my eyes. I looked up to see a doctor and a nurse come in. They stood on either side of my bed.
Soundless words came out of the doctor's mouth. It shocked me a little that I couldn't hear him, but I was glad the voices couldn't change what he said. I turned to look at the nurse. She was talking, but I couldn't hear her either. I laid my head back down and watched them talk to each other.
I sighed again and it seemed to still echo. This time twice. My eyes went wide. Softly at first, but gradually getting louder, a single voice filled my head with laughter.
"You think you could get rid of us! Ha! Not a chance. Now, there is no way you can't not listen to us!" The rest of the voices joined in, laughing with him as he laughed at me. I screamed, not hearing any of it, but the voices laughing. Laugh because they were still there... still haunting me... still tearing me apart, piece by piece.
"Threshold of pain... 120 decibels... pops your eardrums..." My teacher's voice deepened into that of the first voice. No longer church bells, clearing my head. Bells of Hell, filling my head with hopelessness. He yelled at me through the myriads of voices. "POPS YOUR EARS!!!"
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