Disclaimer: I don't own it! Please note that some dialogue was taken directly from The Tell-Tale Heart by Edgar Allen Poe.
Author's Notes: My English Literature class read The Tell-Tale Heart for Halloween, and this is actually an assignment. Go me. My class is going to think I am psycho...mwaha. Well, enjoy..
Ungodly was the hour, and peaceful my sleep. The sun's light did not yet grace the sky as I was called from my bed. Rare is the occasion that I am roused from my slumber and called to duty. But this eve's – or should I say, this morning's –endeavors were to be unusual, per se.
Being a fairly junior officer, I was still naïve, having not truly seen what the hooligans, madmen, and lunatics of the world were capable of. With not even a warm drink to fully awaken my senses, my young wife pecked my cheek by way of goodbye, and I was out the door.
A somewhat garbled report had arrived, and suspicion of foul play aroused. A shriek had been heard in the dead of night – no doubt a wanderer lost in the realm of nightmares, uneasy and disturbed in their rest I was sure, but nonetheless the incident must be investigated, if only to soothe the agitated neighbor.
I was joined by Howl and Jenkins, two burly, older officers who looked none too pleased to be cavorting the town at this hour without inasmuch as a pastry and a coffee to console them.
We arrived at the scene of the alleged shriek, an aging, peeling house of seventeenth century design. The lawn and gardens, which must have once been splendid, were unkempt and overgrown, spilling over the iron fence and onto the walk, I noted. At the spur of the moment, I entertained the notion that none resided in this house at all.
Howl and Jenkins, having no such petty doubts, strode purposefully through the rusting iron gate, up the crumbling walk and – oh! – up the creaking front stairs, and with no further ado rapped briskly on the door with myself lagging behind timidly.
In very short order a heavy clumping was to be heard echoing from the recesses of the dwelling. A handsome young man with sharp, intelligent features abruptly opened the door as Howl raised his ham-like fist to knock again. He seemed in high spirits, relatively unperturbed at the early hour.
"Greetings my fine fellows," he said pleasantly, even cheerily. "What brings you to my humble abode?"
He behaved perfectly cordially, as if we were not London bobbies calling upon his estate in the wee hours of the morning, but rather fashionable gentlemen visiting for tea.
Howl, not being overly inclined to mindless chatter, gruffly stated our official business. The gentleman lightheartedly shrugged off our untimely intrusion, and told us that the cry had been his own, uttered during a nightmare. He had reportedly been unable to return to sleep, and so had been revisiting a favorite novel when we called.
I felt a rush of sweet relief mingled with annoyance at this. On one hand, our suspicions of foul play were alleviated. No brutal murder had been committed, no innocent lives lost. The neighborhood was safe from the denizens of darkness. But at the same time, a steamy mug of coffee was extremely desirable in my mind, followed nearly by a warm breakfast.
However, at this time all that was available was a pot of tea the man had courteously brewed; it would have to suffice. I sipped the invitingly warm liquid, noting an exotic but enjoyable taste, and settled down to listen to the man's talk. Howl and Jenkins responded enough to be suitably polite, but no more than was strictly necessary while I remained comfortably silent.
The man chatted innocently, telling us of a long term of apprenticeship with an elderly man, a clockmaker, who was off for a jaunt in the country, visiting an old acquaintance. That would certainly explain the plethora of clocks occupying the room, in various shapes and sizes, all ticking constantly. It was nearly an annoyance, but not quite.
Animated and lacking not for topics, he talked at length about any number of things, inquiring about such as like our jobs, our families, and our wives. Slowly it seemed to me as though his easy demeanor was gradually becoming forced. Our host, once gracious, became increasingly agitated and failed miserably to hide it. His already bright eyes grew overbright and frantic, darkting to and fro like a dragonfly over a pond, simply much less serene. The volume and rate of his tone of his voice increased enormously – he shouted rapidly and incoherently about no sensible thing whatsoever. He seemed quite berserk.
Fear ensnared my sense, the blood pounding through my veins and sounding in my ears. I sat as rigid as the scantlings beneath my booted feet. I could scarce draw breath for fear as he ranted and raved, and I am ashamed to say it.
And it was then that I felt it. A shuddering, rhythmic thumping coursing up through the woodwork, coursing up through my legs and the wood of the chair into my seat and continuing its way upward to resonate in my ribcage, beating in time with my own heart.
My own heart.
Horrified, it was then that I realized; the steady beating coming from beneath the floor was a heart.
Ordering my body to leap from the chair, to do something, nothing happened. A fruitless attempt. As such was the attempt to utter a cry; silence.
Finally he howled at the very top of his lungs.
"Villains! Dissemble no more! I admit the deed! – tear up the planks! Here, here! – it is the beating of his hideous heart!"
Terror held my body paralyzed while my mind ran in endless circles; I could not think, I could not move. Howl and Jenkins were held immobile in a similar fashion. This was no terror holding me hostage, this was poison. Deadly poison, seeping through my veins and killing me slowly from the inside. I remembered faintly the exotic taste of the tea. Ah, the cleverness. Still rigid as a board, I fell to the floor. The madman's mouth was now frothing as he shrieked his rage to the ceiling.
Death took its icy hold on my senses. My lungs were deflating, my vision blurred. I lost all resistance and gave in to lurking blackness. My eyes fluttered shut one last time, and my breath left my body for good.
And that, my dear Chief, is how my body found itself terribly acquainted with the scantlings below which it reposed, while now I am naught but a spirit wandering the countryside. Tell me, dear sir. Why don't you listen? Can't you hear me?