Death on the Balcony

I saw something strange out there.

“I’m fine” I breathed down the phone for the third time that evening “You don’t need to come over. It was just a weird tremor. No. Yes.”

My mother had always been overprotective, but now that I’d been diagnosed with a heart condition she had the excuse she’d always hoped for to call me every night.

“No, mum. I’m fine. Please go to bed”

I rolled my eyes as she reminded me to take the necessary medicines that would allow me to stay topside. “Yes, I will. Bye mum.” The phone clicked.

I sighed, and then stretched as I wandered through my modest London apartment. Mum wanted me to come home to live with her, but I couldn’t give up this place. The rent was a steal; I supposed it was owned by some pensioner who hadn’t realised rent prices had gone up since the 70’s. One bed, one bath, one balcony overlooking the Docklands with a pair of patio doors leading out to it. It wasn’t much, but it was home.

It is on my head that my heart is in the state it is. After the initial symptoms, I stubbornly wrote them off until I simply could no longer ignore it. Afterwards, it took about a month and a half for them to diagnose the problem. My heart was too damaged by the time they finally picked it up; some sort of congenital heart defect that blocked and damaged the valves. The only course of action now is transplant. Or of course, just taking the 3 to 5-year life expectancy and being done with it.

I sidled over to the light switch. I hadn’t really intended to go straight to bed just because I’d told my mother that I would; it was all of half past nine, but I decided turning in early for once wouldn’t kill me. I snapped the light off. All at once, something caught the corner of my eye through the double doors of the balcony. I froze, continuing to face the light switch, standing alone in the dark. I thought I’d seen a figure standing out there on the ledge. Slowly, I brought my gaze up to look through the glass. I would have screamed, had I not been silenced by the sheer terror of what I saw. There was a figure, covered head to toe in black, hood covering his face and one bony hand on the balcony door glass, four long fingers protruding up from its black palm. Thinking quickly, I darted for my phone, punching in the ‘999’ emergency number and slamming it to my face.

“Emergency, which service?”

“Yes, hello I"” I turned around to face the figure. He was gone.

“There was someone on my balcony” I said

“Are you in danger? Do you need the police?” Said the operator

“Yes, please” I said, “156 Westferry Road, flat 202”

“They’re on their way.” I hung up the call, and crept closer to the glass doors of the balcony, trying to see around the blind spot cast by the edge of the glass and the bedroom wall. I couldn’t see anyone.

It took about 8 minutes for a police car to show up. I buzzed him up, and he took my statement. He glanced at the array of medicines I had gathered on the shelf in my bathroom as he walked past, which clearly damaged any remaining credibility I had once I’d tried to tell him about a man that had apparently climbed two stories of a high rise, only to climb back down again without a trace. I was sure to lock the doors firmly before I went to bed. Maybe it was the medication. Maybe I was just seeing things. I tried to recall the figure I’d seen, but the more I tried to remember, the fuzzier the memory got. I reasoned it was only a quick image; I simply must have imagined it. The next day was ‘Hospital Appointment’, as quoted from my diary. No work, just tests, prodding, peering, and concerns. In fact, more concerns than I had expected. They were very adamantly telling me that there was still hope for a heart to become available, and that I shouldn’t worry ‘yet’. Too late. Driving home, I saw an advert for some stupid Pixar sequel that would be coming out June of 2018.

“Will I even be here when that gets released?” I thought, sadly. I hadn’t even liked the first film particularly.

It was a lonely dinner that night in my flat. Mum had offered to come with me to my appointments, but I turned her down. She’d been to enough, and it just upset her, which meant I would end up having to console her rather than the other way around. I stared warily at my balcony as I stabbed a pasta shell and brought it to my mouth, I half expecting my imagined hooded friend to be there. No one on the balcony. But as I continued to munch on my pesto my eyes wandered past the balcony onto the street. My breath caught in my throat, and I nearly choked on a shell: I could see plain as day underneath a street lamp a tall, black, hooded figure staring up at my flat window. I dropped the fork and stood up, my heart in my mouth. Slowly, I walked towards the glass doors to get a closer look. It was about 7 o’clock in the evening in the middle of London; there were people walking past on their way back from work, but no one so much as glanced at the strange looking figure standing motionless on the pavement. I opened the door, and stepped out into the cold September evening. I never saw its face, it remained shrouded in the folds of its dark hood, but it must have been over seven feet tall. As I walked closer it lifted its long left arm, peeling away his robe to reveal a bony, black hand. It brought it up to chest level, and raised two fingers, and one thumb. Three digits in all. When it was sure I had seen what it was doing, he tucked away his fingers, folded his unnaturally long limb, and walked away into the night.

Realising I hadn’t dared draw breath, I loudly exhaled, swallowing large gulps of air as I processed what I had seen. Two? Two fingers? Or three? Did he mean three? Three what? Thoroughly shaken, I retreated to the warmth and relative safety of my flat, absolutely shaken from what I had seen. That thing, it didn’t look human. What was wrong with its hands? Why was it following me? Had it really been on my balcony yesterday? I couldn’t see how it could not have been; it would be too massive a coincidence. Yesterday I could write off, but I couldn’t ignore what I had seen that night.

Throwing the curtains closed, I grabbed my laptop and threw myself onto my cheap, badly made sofa. Ignoring the cracking sound, I began typing into the search engine. ‘Black, hooded man’ ‘Hooded man following me’ ‘Hooded man on balcony’ ‘Dementors’ ‘Black balcony stalker’ ‘Video of black man following me’ ‘Black crime in London’ ‘Race wars’. My clicking relevant links wasn’t getting me very far. I sighed. It was getting late, and there is only so long you can obsess before you have to accept that with the evidence you have there isn’t much to go on. I went to bed, only to face some very fitful dreams, and unenviable visions of black, hooded creatures. Work the next day was uneventful, mum called to ask me about my appointment. Frankly I admired her restraint at waiting a whole 12 hours. My heart was bothering me, though. I was experiencing pain. A lot of pain. I’d felt myself deteriorating over the last few months, but nothing like this. 5 o’clock came around, and as I was packing up to leave, Sally, the office flirt, came over grinning, holding a stack of fliers one of which she handed to me. “We’re doing an office Halloween party this year” she said with a smile that was practically a squeal “I’ve been petitioning for it for ages; and it finally went through!”

I took the flier off her.

“Sounds good.” I said, not mentioning that Halloween was over a month away, and she really needed to calm down about a few pumpkins full of Haribo and two watered down drinks with our bosses.

“Hope to see you there!” She squeaked, as she clacked past me in her heels heading for the techs.

I looked at the flier wearily, not thrilled about the idea, when I noticed one of the clip art pictures. A black, hooded figure standing in the background. My heart sunk. The hooded figure, traditionally depicted in a long black robe holding a scythe. Perhaps I didn’t recognise him without his trademark agricultural equipment. I gathered the rest of my belongings, flung on my coat and left the office, mind teaming with the possibility that death had literally come to my door the other night. Clutching my heart, my poor, broken organ, I ran down the stairs to the lobby and out of the building into the dusk.

The sun had nearly set by the time my bus pulled into the road next to mine, barely 10 minutes from the office. Nights were drawing in. I walked down the pavement and through the little short cut into my road, walking along a small alley next to rail tracks. As I neared the opening at the other end, my friend stepped into the gap between the wall and the fence. Head as shrouded as ever, fully swathed in his long, black robes. Menacing, ugly and out of place in the modern, lit city. He lifted his arm, peeling away his robe to reveal the bony, black hand. It brought it up to chest level, and raised two fingers. I stared at them, trying to make out some more features of this terrifying spectre. Once he was sure I had seen, he dropped his robe, and strolled calmly away.

I knew what this meant now. If I hadn’t known it last night, or I was just in denial, I wasn’t sure. But I know what he was trying to tell me. I clutched my hand to my heart and sighed inwardly.

Two days. He meant two days.

Author's Note

This is my first story ever posted to an online site. I originally sent it to 'Nosleep', hence the first person dialogue etc. and slight roleplay. Please do tell me what you think of the writing style, any tips, suggestions or thoughts would be welcome. (I know I overuse commas. Believe it or not, I've cut back)

Reviews

[Relic]

I read through the story once and I can say this was a pleasure to read. If there were an exuberant amount of commas I never noticed. You have a great style that's simple to understand which is a plus. And as for the story itself. I'd say it's one of the best I've read on here in a while.

The fact that I didn't notice any no spelling errors made it all the better to read being half the time that's all I see on this site.

I'll be sure to read your others. Great job and welcome to the site.