COUNTDOWN

COUNTDOWN (Toned Down Version for Uber-Snowflakes)

Entry to campfire competition June 2022 by William Mobberley

The cabin in the woods had been abandoned for years, but one night, a candle burned in the window.

“We’re in luck.” said Gavin. “He’s made it here ahead of us.”

Judith didn’t really care. The journey had been colder, wetter, longer and more unpleasant than the lark she had expected. Her patience had worn tissue-paper-thin. She had lost a stiletto heel in the trudgery through the woods, sensing the daylight fading behind them, taking with it all sense of fun.

If this was Gavin’s idea of a date, he was severely lacking in the romance department.

During their last steps toward the cabin door, which was opened before they even reached it, Judith felt a sense of foreboding which their host’s smiling face did little to assuage.

“Come in! Come in!” he said excitedly as he beckoned them inside.

So, this was Clem. He was nothing like Judith had imagined. He didn’t seem old enough to be a research fellow at a posh university nor did the location of his experiment seem, well, scientific. He seemed more like a throwback to the hippie era who belonged at a railway station, busking with a hat in front of him containing only a very few coins - given more out of pity than admiration for the talentless noise he'd be emitting.

Gavin, by contrast, was completely at ease - excited even - to see his friend and mentor. He and Clem had built up a relationship based on their mutual interest in the paranormal. They shook hands warmly and Gavin introduced Judith to Clem, who suggested that she come into the warm and sit by the wood burner which smelled of pine cones but contained logs which burned brightly, illuminating everyone’s faces from below with a yellow light perforated by the deepest, darkest shadows which delineated their eye sockets and the contours of their noses. Dependant upon where inside the cabin they were standing, it made them look like skulls. Had she not been so cold, wet and miserable, this might have amused Judith.

The warmth was comforting and Judith began to relax. She was content to let Gavin and Clem jabber away among themselves like a pair of schoolboys. As her eyes had become accustomed to the light in the cabin, she had begun to take in her surroundings with measured interest.

The first thing she noticed was that there were clocks everywhere. Mechanical alarm clocks, battery-operated, digital clocks. They were all over the place, attached to the ceiling, the walls, propped up on the rustic table and on the window sills. There was even a metal one perched on the top of the wood burner. Judith stopped counting at 19 by which point she had decided that ascertaining the exact number was of insufficient interest to merit the effort of continuing. Suffice to say there were loads of them.

All the clocks read the same time and appeared to have been meticulously synchronised.

“It must have taken hours.” mused Judith.

Next, she noticed that there were small slips of paper pinned to the wall in the gaps in between the timepieces. They had writing on them but she couldn’t see what they said as she hadn’t bothered to put on her spectacles. They are not really needed late evening, navigating through woods - and she had been anxious about them falling off and being unable to locate them in the bracken.

“I’m sorry.” said Clem, presently. “I did not mean to exclude you, my dear. Gavin and I were just catching up on a few things.”

“But you still haven’t told me what this experiment is supposed to be about.” answered Gavin. “If you wouldn’t mind?”

He raised an eyebrow at Clem, then turned his head and winked at Judith.

“I needed to have some secrecy.” admitted Clem. “Nobody could know in case they tried to do the same thing and that would dilute the experiment, possibly negating it. You are both quite privileged really, being told about it even at this late hour.”

He sat down at the table as did Gavin but they faced Judith so that she would be included in the conversation without having to move away from the fire which she had befriended. There had been no deliberate attempt to ostracise her and Judith knew it. Nor was there any attempt to patronise his guests on the part of Clem who struggled at first to describe his experiment.

“Well, you see, it's a bit like this...” he muttered. “It's a bit complicated really. How to describe it. Ah, yes! I know. Tell me, have you ever been on a train?”

He chuckled at the absurdity of the question.

“Of course you have. Heheh, I mean, have you ever stared out of the window watching the scenery go past?”

He chuckled again.

“Yes, hasn’t everybody? But - tell me - have you ever noticed how near things seem to go past very quickly while objects on the distant horizon seem to move at a snail’s pace?”

“Yes.” said Gavin. “It’s an illusion though, isn’t it? I mean, if you were to look through a telescope at the distant horizon, you would find that the scenery is actually moving just as fast.”

“Exactly!” roared Clem, excitedly. “That's exactly right – but have you ever considered that what you were witnessing could be regarded as a form of relativity? You knew that everything was moving at a set speed but it didn’t LOOK that way, did it? You've heard how someone in a speeding spaceship approaching the speed of light would age far more slowly than those left behind on earth? Well, what you see when you look out of the window is lots of objects which appear to be moving at different speeds relative to you.”

“Are you with me so far?” he asked. He had a look which suggested the disappointment would be painful to bear if they answered no but the two nodded honestly as – truly - it wasn't hard to understand what he had described.

“So...” continued Clem. “there you are on the train and let's suppose you are the driver, looking out of the front window. You see all these various objects approaching you but how would you tell whether any two objects chosen at random, at different distances, from ones straight ahead to those seen to your right, would line up in a straight line outside your passengers' windows at any given point in time? As you looked at one thing, you would have to mentally label it as moving at an apparent speed and depending on the distance, every other item you considered would have to be labelled as travelling at a different velocity. It would take a lot of calculation to predict which ones would line up at exactly the same time. Well, you couldn't do it, could you?”

“Do you know? I think I see what you are getting at. It’s all rather clever.” said Judith, who was something of a sapiophile and liked barmy, eccentric men.

“We're nearly there.” said Clem. “You see, it occurred to me that the spirit world is said to exist outside of space and time and that communication with spirits must be fraught with synchronisation difficulties. Someone saying: “Is anybody there?” at the start of a Ouija Board session, might sound to the spirit world very slow and low-pitched or sped up with a high-pitched, squeaky voice. Nobody gives the spirits a chance to synchronise with our world and time. It would be like trying to hand someone a note when you are stationary and they are on a roundabout going past.”

“So all these clocks are designed to enable spirits to align themselves temporally.” said Gavin.

“Bingo!” said Clem. “8 p.m. tonight to be precise. That is when all the alarms will go off and every single timepiece of all types will read 8 p.m. on the dot. All these pieces of paper give instructions to the spirits to congregate here at precisely that time and observing the clocks leading up to that very moment should enable the spirits to align with us. If time for one spirit is faster than ours, they will be able to tell from the speed at which the clock they are observing is moving. A spirit in a slower state will be able to deduce the same. The candle in the window was scheduled to be lit half an hour before the moment of contact, all part of the drawn out and therefore highly-accurate, synchronisation process. I lit the candle at 7.30 as a signal that contact was to commence in thirty minutes as indicated by the clocks.”

“It’s brilliant.” said Judith.

“It’s inspired!” said Gavin. “You wonderful, clever, barmy, old bastard.” he thought to himself.

“What do you think will happen at 8 o’clock?” asked Judith.

“No idea.” answered Clem. “That’s why it is an experiment and it all depends upon whether the spirit world is capable of aligning with ours. If they can, then who knows? Perhaps a spirit may literally manifest before us - visibly. Perhaps spirits may be able to speak audibly with us. Perhaps we may even be able to shake hands with one. It could be the start of man’s ability to communicate with the spirit world at will.”

“Wow.” said Gavin and Judith together. The magnitude of the experiment, the sheer genius of it had hit them both.

Clem rubbed his hands together.

“You GET it!” he said with satisfaction. “I am so pleased.”

“I hope you realise that you will tonight witness the culmination of one of the greatest experiments in all of history – assuming it works of course.” he added, humbly.

“Well, looks like there are just twenty minutes to go.” said Gavin. “I wouldn’t have missed this for the world!”

The happy group spent the next few minutes agreeing who should sit where and that it would be a good idea if no one save Clem spoke, an honour he merited as it was his experiment and it had been his idea. Gavin and Judith were along for the ride as it were but they were happy to play second fiddle.

At one point, Judith felt the same sense of foreboding she had felt when Clem had opened the door as they were approaching the cabin. It was a deep unease and it is true that many women do possess a tremendous intuition.

I had been told this when I was quite young and I had looked at the women all around me and the turkeys they were married to and I had wondered why they made such terrible life decisions if their intuition was so strong. The answer is so simple that it can easily elude those who cannot see the wood for the trees.

Women's intuition does not serve them well in life because THEY IGNORE IT!!!

Thus it was with Judith. Had she not drowned out that little voice inside and instead heeded its warning, she would have left the cabin and run just as fast as her legs would carry her. She would have screamed, begged, cajoled, pretended to have been mentally ill if necessary but she would have done anything and everything to coax Gavin out of the cabin with her but as it was, she was swept up by Clem and Gavin's enthusiasm. She convinced herself that she was just being silly.

The last five minutes felt like the previous hour. Time hardly moved at all. Gavin mused that perhaps it was just as boring for any spirits on the other side, lining themselves up, preparing a welcoming committee. Were they on the other side of the veil just as excited, just as full of anticipation? Were they celebrating and saying: “At last, someone on the other side has had the good sense to make it possible for us to synchronise with their world. No more fleeting glimpses. No more people's hair standing on end as they were wondering, did they see something? Was it their imagination?”?

At t minus one minute, Judith had that same sense of foreboding yet again. She felt ashamed and embarrassed. When she wished everyone good luck, she was just trying to hide it. No, more even than that. She was trying to force her strong conviction that something bad was about to happen back, deep into her subconscious where it couldn't bother her nor cause her embarrassment.

With 30 seconds to go, everything was so quiet. Even the ticking of the clocks seemed inaudible given the pregnancy of the air.

Ten seconds...

“Nah, this isn't going to work.” thought Gavin.

Six seconds.

“Is it?”

Five... Four... Three... Two... One...

At exactly 8 p.m., the alarms went off and the candle went out, leaving them in the gloom with just the firelight, embers which looked like they had capitulated to the darkness and had resigned themselves to a slow fading away into oblivion and the strange oases of light created by the LEDs.

“The candle." said Judith, unnerved.

“Shhh. I don’t think it’s a coincidence.” said Clem. “We are synchronised with the unseen world.”

Suddenly, a rubber duck on the table where it had been silent for years let out an endearing little squeak and Clem sensed a smell of bath time when he was a kid. He sniffed the air.

“It's OK.” said Clem, clutching his hand to his face.

“They're just synchronising” he reasoned. “Trying to see if they can move something. They succeeded. I'm sure they didn't mean to make us jump.”

Gavin wasn't so sure but said nothing.

“Come! Join us.” called Clem to the other world and its denizens.

At that moment all three of them saw a tall, silhouette of a man standing, equidistant among them. Judith took a deep breath and wished she were somewhere else. Clem looked like a groupie at a pop concert upon the arrival of his hero on stage.

“Welcome.” said Clem. “Welcome, friend from beyond.”

The figure didn't respond. It just reached forward and picked up the pen and began to write on the notepad. The LED displays from myriad digital clocks illumined the room like Christmas tree lights. The writing was visible, just, but not the features on the face of the silhouetted figure doing the writing. Gavin who was nearest to the notepad, craned his neck to read what was on it.

“JUDITH”.

“It knows your name.” gasped Gavin. “It knows who you are.”

The dark, figure shimmered in and out of the reality of this world as the pen it was holding scratched its way across the notepad and by the time it had finished, the black shape of the visitor had faded away and the pen fell with a clatter onto the table.

Gavin reached forward to grab the notepad. He ran his eyes over the letters and with a frown, he said, angrily: “Hey!”

“What does it say?” asked Clem.

Gavin handed it to him. Clem read it in silence as he tried to ignore the smell of bath time and lavender soap up his nose. Judith reached over, grabbed the pad and her eyes widened as she read the words.

“Big nose.” it read.

“What the hell?” said Gavin.

“Who do you think you are, speaking to me like ..?” said Judith but she never got to finish her sentence. Her head was jerked back by the hair and as she resisted, a feather appeared before her, floating in the air.

Now she was standing up only to be suddenly whirled around as though she had been spun by an invisible hand. The feather began to tickle her and she giggled like a school girl.

“Oh, do stop it!” she said between laughs.

That was enough for Gavin who screamed: “Leave her alone!!! That tickle is non-consensual.” and leapt forward to protect her. He wagged his finger at the invisible assailant. You're probably thinking what a woke wanker he was. There are a lot of them about, sad to say. Perhaps he could have gotten a job as a moderator of horror stories in online contests. Can you imagine how tightly they would have gotten their knickers in a twist if the ghosts had been malevolent in their actions? (Nudge nudge.)

Suddenly, he was launched into the air and flew across the room as though the invisible ghost was dancing with him and giving him a kiss. He landed at the other end of the cabin with a clatter of jingle bells.

“Ooh, aren't they lovely!” he said.

Dazed he watched in amusement as Judith was rolled along the floor, giggling, twirling her hair. She giggled again and made shadow puppets with the LED lights. Her clothes were torn from her in the nicest possible way, so she could be tickled more easily.

“Oooooh, stop it! What are you like?” she cackled.

“Bloody hell! She’s being attacked!” shouted Gavin erroneously above the cacophony of alarms, still ringing and chirping mockingly amid the terror.

“No, I'm not, silly.” replied Judith. “The ghosts are all about peace and love and fluffy, bunny rabbits and hamsters.”

“Do something. Stop them!” but Clem was transfixed with ecstasy, hands still cupped around his ecstatic, little nose, smelling the nostalgic aroma of bath time from long ago..

Gavin tried to move but he received one kiss on the cheek after another for his trouble. He would have had to have been super-human to prevail over such treatment. He had never encountered such love and affection. It gave him and everyone in the room the warm fuzzies.

Judith continued to giggle. Then her giggles turned to whimpering and weeping with laughter. She writhed and moaned with stitch, she had laughed so much. Gavin was a rare soul who had the gift of self-control and rapid, rational thought. He was also super-observant. He had spotted something red on her leg and could smell the aroma of strawberries.

“Don't be silly!” said Judith, who had noticed the look of concern on his face. “You think this is blood, don't you. Silly old gavin. It's not blood, you narner. I just sat on a cheesecake.”

“Oh, no!” said Clem, concerned. “Not my strawberry cheesecake?!!”

“Don't worry.” replied Judith. “I'll make you a new one.”

Gavin knew he could do nothing physically to restrain the fun and larksy spirits in the room but perhaps there was something else he could do to hamper their efforts...

“Leeeeeavvve hherrrrr aaaaallllloooooooooonnnnne” he shouted in as deep and slow a voice as he could make.

The atmosphere in the cabin seemed to alter. It was almost imperceptible yet strangely undeniable.

He shouted again, in the same deep slow voice as he reached up and grabbed a clock, feverishly altering the hands to a different time.

“Gooooo awwwwaaaaaayyy!!!”

The atmosphere was affected again. Gavin could feel the transformation.

“Change the clocks!” he shouted to Clem who somehow managed to pull himself together and began to do as Gavin had suggested..

As Clem and Gavin worked their way through the various timepieces, randomly altering them, the atmosphere continued to lift. With each change of displayed time, each silencing of an alarm, the kisses on Gavin's cheeks became weaker and more intermittent. Eventually there was a complete calm in the cabin. All noise from the alarms had abated and whatever it was seemed to be gone.

Judith was still giggling. but soon she too fell silent and slowly sat up.

“Oh my darling...” said Gavin, peeping at her through his fingers as though the horror of seeing her, tickled and giggling at her ordeal, would be beyond his ability to cope.

“They made you laugh so much.” He squeaked the pitiful, obvious words out as if saying them quietly would make a difference but he couldn't have been more mistaken. The ghosts were lovely, cuddly, little darlings who supported LGBT causes and strove in all things for world peace.

Suddenly, without warning, Judith stood up with a deep breath as though lifted by an invisible force. She hung in the air like a gown on a coat hanger. Gavin noticed that she was on tip toe, only just in contact with the floor and yet effortlessly supporting her own weight. She stared at Gavin with soppiness in her eyes. Of whatever loveliness had come to the cabin, some vestige still remained.

Stunned, Gavin looked into the soppy, daft eyes. He slowly shook his head.

“That's not my Judith.” he said. “She doesn't usually laugh that much.”

“Wanna bet?” Judith grinned at him. She was still having a little giggle as she slowly slumped to the ground, back leaning against the wall, still covered in strawberry cheesecake and oodles of cream.

Then, slowly, all silliness faded from her eyes. Judith blinked a hard blink and looked up in bewilderment. Her eyes scanned the room until they settled on Gavin. For a moment she seemed as though she didn't quite know where she was until suddenly she said: “Gavin?”

She lay there as though assessing the situation for a moment. Then she got up and they all played Ring a Ring o' Roses for a whole hour, thanking the ghosts for being so kind and aware of environmental concerns.

“It's gone now.” she said with a sigh of relief. The tickling had stopped. She began to chuckle as he held her in his arms.

“Oh my God, Gavin.” she howled with laughter and buried her head in his shoulder.

Clem was in shock. He was also very embarrassed.

“I'm so sorry.” he kept saying. “So sorry. Tickling is a terrible thing.”

He looked at them like a pathetic child who has nearly burnt the house down and been caught playing with matches in the nick of time.

“Of course.” he mused, apparently to himself. “Demons from the Land of Tickles. How could I have been so naïve? It never occurred to me that the spirits might tickle people. I just wanted to make contact with the next world, to prove that it existed, that it was possible to communicate.”

“It's not alright...” said Judith. “but I guess it's not your fault. None of us knew what would happen.”

She looked earnestly at Gavin.

“I could hear them.” She said. “The terrible giggles coming out of my mouth. I was trying to shout to you but something else was speaking through me and I couldn't fight it. It had access to my memories. It even remembered when I saw Ken Dodd with his tickling stick on TV as a child. I could feel it searching for other things to tickle you with. I didn't mean the things it said. It wasn't me.”

“I know it.” Gavin reassured her. “I knew it couldn't be you giggling that much.”

Bless her. To think that after all the tickles she had endured, her only concern was that Gavin should know that she did not have a low opinion of him, that it hadn't been her wanting him to have a tickle.

“Oh, Gavin.” said Judith, holding him tight. “I just want to get away. I don't care how long the walk is to the car. I don't care how late it is. I just want to to get as far away from here as possible.”

“I don't blame you, hun.” said Gavin.

“Will you be OK here?” he asked Clem. “You're welcome to come with us.”

“Oh, I'll be fine.” Clem assured them. “I don't think they/it or whatever it was will be back now. The synchronisation is broken. If it were that easy for them, they'd be doing it all the time. Besides, I want to write it all up while it's still fresh in my mind.”

“Ever the scientist.” said Gavin, humourlessly. “Come on, hun.”

They left with Clem standing politely, watching them from the porch until they were out of sight. He closed the door and flopped onto a chair with exhaustion. He roused himself shortly afterwards, lit a fresh candle and placed it on the table in front of him and began to write.

He felt like an absolute star as he wrote the words and they were the only ones he felt he could in all honesty set down in summary of the evening's events...

"The experiment was conducted tonight. A delightful and giggly evening was had by all and the experiment itself was a spectacular, rousing success."

He was already thinking which individuals he might involve next time. He had but one criterion: It would have to be people he loved...

Judith's baby will be born in the Spring. About 30 years later, over a billion people will have such a giggle about it. Nice baby. Tick tock.

P.S. Originally this had a more violent theme to it in keeping with it being a horror story (nasty things happen in horror stories) but hey. Try getting a horror story past snowflakes, eh? - Even when it is a horror story contest. SMH