“Depravedness"

Lisa was so grateful to have such a wonderful, loving and devoted husband.  She had been so demanding to Steven last night.  The pressures of her job had been getting to her lately.  She felt too tired to cook, too tired to converse, and even too tired to leave the couch once she had plopped down.  Steven was angel.  He always did whatever she asked him on these days.  She really didn’t mean to order him around, but she knew sometimes it came off that way.  Steven was just so understanding and compassionate.  She couldn’t have a better husband.

Lisa was at work again.  It felt like she lived there.  She was just so tired and run down, she felt like she was wasting her life away in her lousy cubicle.  By night she was an artist and a writer who wanted to change the world through her art.  She had some fresh ideas, and people had begun noticing her work.  It would only be a short time when she would be able to live off her income from her art.  Her life seemed so like it was starting to fall into place and seemed just too good to be true.

Meanwhile, she slaved away making the sales calls that financed her dream.  When she had a spare minute, she decided she would send Steven a quick email thanking him for all he had helped her with last night.  She really wanted him to know that he was appreciated.  Steven worked in tech support so he was always accessible by email, or phone.

Lisa sent the email, and then became engrossed in her work once again.  She was on the phone with one of her clients when she noticed a message from Steven pop up in Outlook.  It contained an attachment.  Lisa thought that was really strange, and decided to check it out even though she was mid conversation with a difficult client.  She wondered why Steven would send her an email attachment.

Lisa opened the email and was surprised to see that there was no message at all.  All that was there was two blank attachments, titled, “Virus.”

 “What the …” said Lisa out loud.

“Excuse me?” asked the Mrs. Pearl’s voice from the other end of the phone.

“Oh Mrs. Pearl, I’m sorry I just had something distract me,” said Lisa as she tried to refocus on her conversation.

Still, Lisa was a little uneasy, she didn’t know if she had messed up the computer or what was going on.  For some reason, she had a funny feeling and she couldn’t place why.  She typed a quick message to Steven while still focusing on her conversation with Mrs. Pearl.

“What were you trying to send?” She typed quickly.

She tried with all her might to refocus on the conversation with Mrs. Pearl, but she was just so distracted.  All of a sudden another email from Steven appeared in her Outlook.  She quickly opened the message only to reveal the same empty message.  This time she typed “What the hell?”

She finished up the conversation with Mrs. Pearl and took a short break.  When Lisa returned to her desk there was another email from Steven.  This email was out right disturbing.  For some reason the subject line “I love you” from the original email she had sent had been replaced with “Depravedness.”  The email continued with a jumbled message that she read aloud:

Heyello,

***
The virus has been detected.
We notify you that the virus has been removed from this email.
***

“Hohe hoholulu
From the first edition. Allusions in aug. To the deathly
white, with the horrible certainty that hair in confusion,
mingled with the deep lace burgoyne, i desire to confirm
these rumors for good luck victory hath been thine, o thou
of kuru's wilt be freed from all these sins. Vaisampayana
they beheld the hermitage of nara and narayana, been here
before? I think it is one of the most he cried, in his brusque,
explosive fashion, i retire into woods. To live there is
preferable strength into the water. Then the wellknown husband
desirous of compassing the destruction of one to assist
even his foe, beholding him seeking about him in any imployment
of his principality, me is all this like a row of pearls
on a string..”
Lisa was scared.  She knew it wasn’t Steven typing this screwy message.  He would never write such insane sounding blabber.  It looked like word salad straight out of the mouth of a schizophrenic.  She decided to call Steven.

On the first try there was no answer.  Steven was at work, maybe he was just busy and his computer was acting up.  She was probably just being paranoid for no reason.  She was overworked and her anxiety was probably just creeping up on her.  A few minutes later she called again, and it sounded as if someone had picked up the phone.

“Steven?  Baby, are you there?  Are you okay?” asked Lisa hopeful that she would her husband’s soothing voice on the other end.

No words came from the other end, just muffled breathing.  It sounded like he was there, but maybe he just couldn’t hear her.  He did have Nextel after all, and sometimes his phone would just act up.  She decided to hang up and call back in a few minutes.

On the third try, someone answered the phone but it didn’t sound like Steven.

“He-yello.” Said a gruff male voice.

“Steven, baby is that you?” asked Lisa nervously.

“Narayana,” said the man.

“What?  Where’s Steven? Steven is this a joke?” said Lisa now with anger filling her voice.

“Narayana.” Repeated the man.

“What the fuck?  This is ridiculous,” said Lisa as she hung up the phone.

She knew that wasn’t her husband and she was really scared.  She just didn’t want the voice on the other end to know.  She double checked the number she dialed just to make sure she didn’t dial out the wrong number, but no, the number had been correct.  She wondered who the hell was answering Steven’s phone and email.  Why would someone do that in the first place?  Sure, someone could have stolen the phone, but the whole email business was just weird.

Lisa thought she could try the landline to Steven’s work.  He did work for the county in a big building; someone must be able to get a hold of him there.  She dialed the main number for his office.

“Hello, thank you for calling CSC, this is Jeannine.  How may I direct your call?”

“Yes, this is Lisa Laning calling for my husband, Steven Laning.”

“Oh, Hi Lisa!  How are you doing today?” asked Jeannine.

“I’m good.  How about you?” replied Lisa.

“Oh, I’m good,” said Jeannine.

“Wonderful.  Have you happened to see Steven today?”

“Actually I haven’t seen him all day, but I can try ringing his department.”

“Thanks Jeannine.”

The phone rang and rang in the IT department and got no answer.  Eventually the call bounced back to Jeannine.

“I guess they aren’t picking up.  Maybe they are out to lunch,” said Jeannine.

“Well, Jeannine, can you please just tell him that I called and that it is really important?” asked Lisa not wanting to let her know the crazy feeling she had.

“Surely will, You have a good day Lisa,” said Jeannine.

“Thanks, Jeannine.  You too.”

Lisa decided she had enough for one day.  She told her boss she wasn’t feeling good and went home.  It was about 1 o’clock.  Steven got out of work at 4pm and she figured she would just go home and wait for him.  If she was going to be paranoid and drive herself crazy over a stupid SPAM email, she wanted to do it in private.  She was almost embarrassed, as if everyone could hear her thoughts.  She felt like a lunatic, maybe she was just tired.

Lisa got home and locked the door behind her.  She decided she’d work on some artwork. She figured that would calm her down.  She was really into detailing the mermaid she was drawing when the phone rang disrupting her serenity.  It was an unrecognizable number with a 561 area code.  She decided to answer and was glad she did when she heard Steven’s voice on the other end of the line.

"Hi, Baby,” said Lisa.

"Hey, I lost my phone this morning, so Norm took me out to get a new phone,” said Steven.

"Oh thank goodness. I was so worried,” said Lisa as she told her husband about the creepy email and the phone incident.  She also told him how she went home.

"Someone must have picked up the phone and was playing games.  As for the email, that just sounds like SPAM.  Don’t worry about.”

"Really spam can sound all poetic and crazy?  I just thought it was weird.  I read it out loud and I swore it was some kind of Voodoo.”

"Babe, don’t worry about it.  It is kind of weird, but the message is generated automatically,” said Steven.

"Still, you gotta admit it’s kinda creepy,” said Lisa.

"Yeah, I guess you’re right it does sound creepy, but don’t worry about it.  It is nothing,” said Steven.

"Ok, I’ll take your word for it, Mr. IT guy.  I love you,” said Lisa

"I love you too baby. I will see you soon,” said Steven.

Lisa felt a lot better after talking to Steven.  She was so worried that something terrible had happened to them.  It seemed she almost always expected something terrible to happen because she didn’t think people were supposed to be this happy.  She had the perfect marriage.  Her husband adored her and she worshipped him.  She had never met anyone more wonderful in her life.  She knew a lot of people that dreaded going home every day, but she always looked forward to spending as much time with Steven as she possibly could.  She just didn’t think things were supposed to be that good.

Lisa went back to her drawing, and around 3pm she decided she would cook up a Steven’s favorite dinner to show her appreciation for the kind and thoughtful gestures he had showered her with yesterday.  She decided she would put on her cutest dress and heels so when he came home she would see that sparkle in his eyes that he always had when she wore dresses.  It made her so happy to see the pleasant surprise in his eyes when he sat down to a delicately prepared Italian dinner and his gorgeous wife dressing up just for him.

Lisa had just lit the candles when she heard Steven’s key in the door.  She felt her stomach flutter with excitement at the thought of his smile.  She began to run to the door to greet him, except when she looked up the person greeting her was not Steven.

Her first reaction was to scream, but she was so shocked to see a tall gangly bald man with porcelain white skin walking through the door with her husband’s key in hand, her mouth just dropped.  She noticed a bright silver medallion around his neck.  It was the strangest thing she had ever seen.  It didn’t look like anything that could be found on earth.  It almost looked as if he had captured a moonbeam and put it into the charm around his neck.  Lisa was scared but she was also mystified at the vampiric looking stranger that had entered her home.

He placed his hand gently over her mouth, and said, “Shhhhh…..”

“But, who are you…………”said Lisa nervously.

“Shhhhh….” said the stranger again.

With the second “shhh….” Lisa  blacked out.

She woke up tied to a chair.

“Now,” said the stranger.

“Now what?” asked Lisa.

“Now we are going to go over every sin you have ever committed and cleanse you of the depravity that has polluted your soul.”

“Depravity?” asked Lisa confused.  Suddenly she remembered the email.

“Yes, depravity.  You are a selfish putrid creature, Lisa who needs to know her place in this universe,” said the stranger.

“Who are you to judge me?” asked Lisa annoyed with this stranger’s judgments.

“What the hell are you doing in my house anyway?  Who the fuck invited you?  You know my husband is going to be home soon and then there is going to be a real problem.”

“You see, Lisa you have called me here, with your vicious little chant.  You begged me to come and your husband can’t do a thing about it. You may also want to watch your mouth.  It is not very classy for a woman to talk in such a way.”

“Who are you?  I think I deserve to know, seeing I called you. Oh, are you the one that was on the phone earlier?  You are the sick fuck who was breathing into the phone weren’t you?”

“Oh, Lisa, Lisa, such language for a lady.  To answer your question I am everything inside of you.  I am all around you.  I am your deepest darkest secret.  I am the one you call on when you think you just can’t go on anymore.  I am the one who saves you in the darkness.”

“Do you ever speak in anything but riddles?  I just want a fucking answer,” asked Lisa.

“Lisa, my darling you have got to watch your language or I am going to have to take drastic measures to get you to stop.”  Said the stranger with a silver blade glittering in his hand.

“Are you going to hurt me?” Lisa asked nervously.

“Not if you do what I say.” Said the stranger.

“What do you want?  Steven is going to be home any minute, and he’s going to call the cops and get you out of here,” said Lisa.

“No Lisa, you see Steven is stuck in a traffic jam, and the cops are powerless against me.  Even if Steven was to walk through the door right now he wouldn’t be able to help you.  In fact, he wouldn’t even see you.”

“What do you mean?  Where have you taken me?”

“Nowhere.  You are nowhere, and I am nothing.  You are everything though, and I am a part of you.”

“You are crazy.  Can’t you just untie me, take what you want and leave me the hell alone?”

“I’m sorry, Lisa but you won’t let me leave you alone ever.  I am your dark prince.  The shadow that haunts you in times of bliss.  The one you rely on to know what happiness is.  You always come back to me, wishing hoping that things could be less mundane.  Less tiring, and more suited to your every whim.”

“Okay, whatever psycho.  You said we were going to discuss my sins or something.  What are you a deranged priest or something?  Are we in a confessional?  Let’s talk.  I’ll give you the dirt, if you will just leave.”
“
“Your greatest sin my sweet angel, is your dedication to darkness.  No matter how good life is you always dream up some disaster to destroy your happiness.  You hate yourself.  That is a sin worthy of damnation.” With those words, the stranger placed his hand over Lisa’s eyes and closed them.

Lisa heard agonizing screams all around her eyes were closed and she could feel hands all around her.  Several hundred hands that were all grabbing, pulling, scratching and pushing her in every direction, and she was scarred.  She had no idea where she was, and how magically she was transformed from her living room into this nightmarish land.  She felt the stranger’s hands on her eyes and somehow felt comforted with his touch on her.  Even though he was eerie he was most familiar compared to what was around her now.  It was good to know she was not alone, but she had no idea why that should bring comfort.

She opened her eyes and saw hundreds of bodies stacked on top of each other.  There were people buried alive underneath all the corpses trying to lift all the dead weight off of their shoulders.  Some of them would reach the top of the corpse mountain and then accidently fall off into the hard ground or they would just end up suffocating under all the bodies.

“Don’t, worry they are going to get to try again.  All they do is try for all eternity.  It’s actually kind of humorous,” said the stranger.

Crazily calm for someone who was clearly walking through the catacombs of hell, Lisa let out a tiny laugh.  She was appalled at her sick sense of humor.  Perhaps she was just distracting herself from the horrors that were sure to come.

“Oh, Lisa do you know why you are here?”

“Am I dead?  I was a bad person, and hell is real?  Just a quick guess,” replied Lisa.

“Actually no, to the first question, maybe to the second.”

“What is going on then?”

“You are eerily calm.  You are faced with hell, and you are serenely calm.  You go to work for 8 hours and you are frazzled.  That is hard to comprehend.”

“Well, what control do I have now?”

“All the control in the world.  There is a special place reserved just for you to think over and over your thoughts.”

All of a sudden everything was dark.  Blackness was all around.  She didn’t know what happened and the mysterious stranger who riddled off spiritual guidance was no where to be found.  Lisa was all alone.  She remembered the email from earlier, she had spoken it out loud. Maybe that was why she was here.  Was it some kind of curse she had somehow formed into reality?

Lisa was floating in a sea of overwhelming anxiety.  She was trapped inside her own mind.  It was lashing out at her spewing rants of hatred and taunts of what she should have done differently in life.  She longed for the boney pale hand of that vampire looking stranger.   Anyone would have been comforting, but no one was around.  There were no frightening images, just blackness everywhere.  She felt so alone, so desolate, and the thoughts; she felt as if her head was going to explode into a million pieces.

Steven walked through the door.  It was about six o’clock, he had gotten stuck in the worst traffic.  He couldn’t find Lisa anywhere.  He walked into the bedroom and was shocked at what he saw.

Lisa was ghost white, shaking and convulsing on the cold tile floor.  Her eyes were huge, and hollow.  It looked as if she wanted to speak but couldn’t.  She was catatonic.  Steven had no idea what to do, so he dialed 911. 

Lisa woke up in a hospital bed wondering what happened.  She had no clue how she had gotten there.  Steven was standing over her smiling, glad that she had finally awoken.  She felt something strange around her neck.  She reached down to touch a smooth shiny medallion made of moonstone.  Lisa let out a blood curling scream.

The hospital machines started to go off, and doctors rushed in.  Her heart had stopped beating completely.  She was in shock.  Doctors were able to revive her, but they made it clear that she was to remain in the hospital under sedation until she calmed down.

After several weeks, Lisa was finally home again.  The doctors had said her severe anxiety had caused her to have a break down.  They gave her some Xanax and sent her home.  Things seemed to be getting back to normal.  She was back at work and started to feel more relaxed. 

Still she knew the pendant was around her neck still.  She couldn’t unlatch it and take it off.  Steven had told her it was probably something that had been found while Lisa was cleaning.  Steven’s mother had always sent tons of packages with nick-knacks she was trying to get rid of.  The odd necklace seemed like something his mother would have bought back in the seventies.

This necklace was no relic of the seventies, and Lisa knew it.  She just couldn’t prove it.  It seemed much older, older than time.  She wondered if it somehow hung around her neck in protection.  That is what she hoped, but deep down she knew it just confirmed her fears that the tall gangly stranger had been real.  She couldn’t tell anyone.  No one would believe her.  She thought Steven was already starting to think she was losing her mind.  All the trauma had put a strain on their lives.  She knew that things couldn’t be perfect forever, but she asked herself, why couldn’t they just be normal and mundane? 

She tried to ignore the shiny medallion, but just when she started to, there was a knock at the door.  She looked outside the peephole and peered into the blackened eyes of the tall, pale gangly stranger.  She didn’t scream, but began whimpering tiny shallow cries of doom.  She knew even if she didn’t let him in, and she barricaded herself in her locked bedroom no matter what he would find his way in.  There was no stopping him.  He could stop time, and space.  There was nothing he couldn’t do and no one who would believe her.  She couldn’t go on like this forever.  She was already starting to lose her grip on reality and the appearance of this stranger further clouded her mind. The door opened, and the stranger made his way in.

“My dear Lisa,” said the stranger in his creepy razor sounding voice.

“Go away,” replied Lisa.

“You keep calling me.  I can never leave you now,” replied the stranger.

“I do no such thing.  I don’t even know who or what you are,” said Lisa.

“You wear my medallion around your neck and smooth it with your hands when you feel nervous.  You know who I am.  I am your protector from the world.  I saved you from the gates of hell,” said the stranger.  He put his hands on Lisa’s head and slowly eased her into a deep sleep.

Lisa woke up on the cold tile of the bathroom floor.  Steven hadn’t come home yet.  She wondered if he even was going to anymore.  He had begun to think that she was more and more irrational everyday.  He had threatened to sign her into the sanitarium.  She knew once in there “he” was the only one who would visit her.

He always said that she had called him into her life, but Lisa could never figure out what he meant.  She thought about him incessantly.  In a way he was right, he was always with her.  He was her dark angel.  Her dark protector saving her from the fires of hell.  She knew she couldn’t live a normal life anymore.  She saw the sparkling blade across the room.  It was almost as it called out to her the same way she had called out to the stranger.

Lisa picked up the blade, caressing it in her hands lightly cutting off the tips of her fingers.  It didn’t hurt, she felt relieved.  She continued to slice slowly away at her body until she could no longer feel the cares of the world weighing down upon her shoulders.   She was so tired, and longed for eternal sleep in his arms.  She had let him win.  She couldn’t resist the lure of his persistence.

She was now in a land dark and foggy with rain and wind.  She saw the pale glow of his skin in the distance.  The pendant shined upon her neck as she walked slowly to meet him.

“Oh, my dear, what have you done?” asked the stranger.

“I wanted to be with you.  You are the only one who can protect me from the fire.”

“Oh, my child.  I think you are mistaken.  I showed you the fire, and showed you the power was inside yourself.  You put your trust in me, and in others.  Now you can never come back.  Read this.”

Lisa read the email out loud to the pale nameless stranger.
“From the first edition. Allusions in aug. To the deathly
white, with the horrible certainty that hair in confusion,
mingled with the deep lace burgoyne, i desire to confirm
these rumors for good luck victory hath been thine, o thou
of kuru's wilt be freed from all these sins. Vaisampayana
they beheld the hermitage of nara and narayana, been here
before? I think it is one of the most he cried, in his brusque,
explosive fashion, i retire into woods. To live there is
preferable strength into the water. Then the wellknown husband
desirous of compassing the destruction of one to assist
even his foe, beholding him seeking about him in any imployment
of his principality, me is all this like a row of pearls
on a string..”
The stranger disappeared and Lisa was all alone in the woods.  The only sound was that of the woods.  It sounded as if the woods were an entity alive with depravity that could only be felt by being stranded in the middle of them all alone.  There was no escaping the grip of the mile high trees grasping onto her soul.  She walked until she found a river.  In the murky water she saw something floating. She moved the branches, and saw Steven’s bloodless face staring up at her from below the water.
Lisa opened her eyes and screamed and screamed and wouldn’t stop. Had she killed her husband, and herself?  Where was she now?  The room was bright white and she was on the floor shaking back and forth and terror.
“Get the sedatives!  She’s going to have a heart attack,” screamed an unseen voice.
A few men with white coats struggled to inject sedatives into Lisa’s shaking body.  She was so thin and pale.  The orderly looked at the girl and thought to himself she had looked like walking death.
“Steven, I’m sorry to say Lisa is not getting better.  She goes further and further into psychosis with each day.  Yesterday, she was screaming endlessly about how she had killed herself, and you.  It was quite disturbing.  The men who were taking care of her were frightened.  Steven, I am so sorry.”
Steven looked into the doctor’s face and burst into tears.  What had happened to his beautiful happy wife?  How had things gotten like this?  Lisa was trapped inside some kind of dark fantasy dreamlike state.  How was it possible for her to wake up one day a normal person, and then just go completely psychotic?  He was baffled.
The doctor was an odd looking man.  He was tall and gangly with a creepy sounding razor voice unlike anything Steven had ever heard.  He had just appeared at their doorstep the day he found Lisa shaking in the bathroom. 
************************************************************************
“You know, Dr. Whitley, this experiment is going very well.  Who would have known that with a simple click of send on a strange sounding email that a person can spiral down out of control?” said a normal looking man with brown hair, and expressionless eyes.
“Lisa is not one of the weak minded either.  She is an artist.  We needed to stop her.  She was going to influence too many people,” said Dr. Whitley.
“We can’t have them thinking for themselves.  That would destroy our plan for this world.  Doing this to the ones that think outside the box would be a wonderful way to discredit their voice.  How did you know this would get to her?” asked the man with the expressionless brown eyes.
“She was really into fantasy art and writing poetry.  I figured she would find the message unsettling, but so interesting she couldn’t look away and possibly become obsessed with it.  Showing up at her door after stealing her husband’s phone and keys made the curse seem real to her.  Our new technology helped a lot too. I mean, when you can make someone seriously believe that they are walking through hell that really puts you in a position of power.  I can’t believe how advanced the government’s virtual reality system is!  It is unbelievable.   That kind of psychological terror really could keep all our enemies at bay,” replied Dr. Whitley.
“Well, Dr. Whitley, thanks for testing it out.  It is good to know it works.  I really appreciate your role in this experiment.”
“I am so glad that I could assist my country,” replied the doctor.
“Here,” said the man as he opened up a brief case filled with cold, hard cash. 
“This is the sum of money we agreed on,” said the man.
“Thank you, Mr. Smith, it was my pleasure.”
“Now, Doctor, please go through the list that we have provided you with and find a way to bring down the others too.”
“I surely will.  I love my country to much to see it fall into the wrong hands.  They have been getting much too powerful in the past decades.  It really is time to bring the power back to a more centralized government,” Said the doctor.
“I know, the terrible thing is that they actually believe they have rights they are entitled to.  It really is kind of entertaining and humorous,” said Mr. Smith.
“Really, that is the beauty of it.  Letting them think they have rights.  It really helps mold them to exactly where we really want them,” said Dr. Whitley.
“It’s funny how many are too stupid to see it’s all a great illusion.” Said Mr. Smith.
“Oh, and Doctor Whitley, how are the girls?”
“Oh, they are doing fine.  I brought in a couple more this month.”
“We are really grateful for all that you are doing, Dr. Whitley.  Thanks so much for helping our cause.  Soon, the earth will be ours, and they will all be put in their place.  Take care and keep up the good work,” said Mr. Smith as he walked out of the room.
What a great future they were building together, thought Dr. Whitley.  A smile came over his face.  When he thought of Lisa, he just laughed to himself.  How naïve and paranoid would someone have to be to fall right into his trap?  Trapping creative minds was just too easy.