The Whisperer in Dissonance

  By

  Ian Welke

  Omnium Gatherum

  Los Angeles

  The Whisperer in Dissonance

  Copyright © 2014 Ian Welke

  ISBN-13: 978-0615964065

  ISBN-10: 0615964060

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the written permission of the author and publisher.

  http://omniumgatherumedia.com

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  First Edition

  For Amy

  Praise for The Whisperer in Dissonance

  “The Whisperer in Dissonance is a scary, disturbing novel that reads like a cross between H.P. Lovecraft and Philip K. Dick. I highly recommend it.”

  —Mike Davis, editor of The Lovecraft Ezine

  “Ian Welke’s first book, The Whisperer in Dissonance, is a strong debut that taps into our fears of technology, conformity, and the loss of self. Welke gives us tastes of Soylent Green and The Body Snatchers while still being unique and current. The concept of digitally spread virus that physically attacks the human mind and body…that’s true horror. It has been a while since I sat down and read something I enjoyed. This was it.”

  —Mercedes M. Yardley, author of Beautiful Sorrows and Nameless: The Darkness Comes.

  “With a frightening sense of inevitability Ian Welke examines the drone mentality of modern life and the diminishing gap between our frenetic existence and sheer madness. Our obsessive devotion to minutiae prevents real understanding. Information is available everywhere yet we struggle to create meaning in the simplest interactions. And over all hovers a constant threat, that on any given day we may be one commute, one phone call, or one Google search away from complete collapse. The Whisperer in Dissonance is a stark, eerie portrait of the many ways in which we capitulate, even against our instinct for self-preservation.”

  —SP Miskowski Shirley Jackson Award nominated author of The Skillute Cycle

  “Insomnia, alien infiltration, and a touch of old-school weirdness drives the plot of Ian Welke’s The Whisperer in Dissonance, a short novel which takes the well-worn B-movie paranoia of They Live and Invasion of the Body Snatchers and gives it a fresh shine through deft characterization, a relatable modern setting, and high-tech creep-outs galore. Heard the voices on the television transmitting strange, buzzing messages lately? Read The Whisperer in Dissonance and understand... before they find you!”

  —Ross E. Lockhart, editor of The Book of Cthulhu I and II and Tales of Jack the Ripper

  “Ian Welke writes like Nick Cave makes music. Instantly personable and creepy, his rhythm gets under your skin, the melody gets stuck in your head, and the storytelling appeals to the more frightening underside of a previously undisturbed stone.”

  —John Palisano Bram Stoker Award nominated author of Nerves

  CHAPTER ONE

  I can’t tell which is which. One sound is the click of the chain on the ceiling fan colliding with the plastic shade covering the lamp beneath it. The other noise is the ticking of the clock. The two sounds have overlapped, and I can’t tell them apart. Nor can I tell why this matters so much at this hour. No. I do know. It matters because separating these sounds beats the hell out of dwelling on not being able to sleep.

  I get it. The count is different. The fan click isn’t as even as the clock. Every fifth rotation, the chain rattles.

  The lights are off and my eyes are half open. The blades of the fan blur as they rotate above me in the dim light. I close my eyes, again, but all I get is the same result as the last ten times.

  Anxiety about my life. Anxiety about not being able to sleep. Anxiety about anxiety.

  I can’t remember when this round of insomnia began. It seems like it’s been forever, but it’s gotten harder and harder to tell how much time has passed. It’s not just that I don’t sleep. I lie awake worrying about not sleeping. There’s a point in any prolonged bout of insomnia where I find myself longing for the morning to come. The dread of the night has reached the point that I’d rather just skip it if possible. But I’m long past that point now. My need for sleep has gotten so bad I look at the clock praying there are more hours of the terrible night just for the potential that I might sleep and find some relief.

  The insomnia and anxiety are getting worse, feeding into one another, accelerating the downward spiral.

  Saturday night I realized that I would spend all of Sunday dreading the workweek. Next, I’ll spend Friday night worrying about dreading Sunday on Saturday.

  I’m worrying about worrying. Fear itself is not a small thing to fear.

  The fan squeaks, rocking back and forth.

  Don’t do it. Keep your eyes shut. Don’t look at the numbers.

  I can’t help it. I reopen my eyes and check the glowing red numbers on the clock radio again. Seeing the numbers means doing the math. It means calculating how little time there is until the alarm. The litany of panicked thoughts start their stampede through my head, and the cycle starts anew.

  One o’clock. Six hours until the alarm.

  Rent’s due. There goes the checking account. No chance of a raise. If I ask they’ll give me the “lucky to have a job in this economy” speech again. Crap. Why even worry about it? There’s nothing I can do. Oh yeah, because it beats worrying about not being able to sleep.

  I throw off the sheets and sit up. There’s the futility of lying on the bed versus the futility of lying on the couch.

  The couch has the TV at least.

  The rough-thread carpet rubs raw on my feet as I shuffle down the hall. My feet burn, but I’m too exhausted to care enough to lift them up and walk normally. Instead of turning on the living room light, I grab the remote and switch on the television. The clock on the cable box reads one-o-five.

  Five hours and fifty-five minutes until my alarm.

  I flip channels doing my damnedest not to look at the guide and its accompanying clock. An infomercial starts up. “Do you suffer from insomnia?”

  A well-targeted time slot.

  On the next channel, a woman who’s thinner than I was at my skinniest, but claims she was once obese, hawks a weight loss method that’s just taking a pill and sitting on the couch. “No diet or exercise needed!”

  Sell it to someone else, sister.

  Another channel up, a buzzing sound covers up a voice-over for a new mobile phone company. I can’t tell if that’s meant to be the reception other companies have, or if they can’t make a damned commercial.

  The channels pass by like flip-book animation. Another ad, this one hosted by a man with an Australian-English-South African accent attempts to sell me security software.

  Infomercials aren’t going to do the job. I’ll either need to use the guide to find some actual programming, or if I’m awake anyway, I should do something productive.

  My sketchpad sits on the end table under a layer of dust and guilt, but I’m still not sure I want to turn on a light. Turning on a light means admitting sleep defeat.

  I don’t have to draw. If I turned on a light I could read a book. But what if I start to doze and the need to switch off the light stops me from making it all the way to sleep?

  My eyes shut. I can feel myself drifting off.

  I’m sleeping now. This is it. I’m asleep. I’m really sleeping. No. I’m awake.

  I keep my eyes s
hut anyway. A car alarm blares. My eyes pop open and focus on the clock.

  Five hours and forty-five minutes until the alarm.

  A folded page sticks out from sketchbook, the last page I used. It’s been ages since I drew anything, and I might feel better if I accomplished something. But with less than six hours left to sleep, five hours and forty-three minutes, thank you, clock. I can’t justify starting something that I can’t put down. Instead, I sit up and open my laptop.

  I’ll just check email and Facebook. If I’m still awake, maybe I’ll blog a bit. I might feel better if I get something done, but there’s nothing as likely to keep me awake all night as drawing.

  The clock on the desktop catches my eye.

  Five hours and forty minutes until the alarm.

  An IM Window pops open. A bell from the Cologne Cathedral chimes as the kitten Jane uses for her profile picture shows up next to the window.

  Jane: Annie! What are you doing up?

  Annie: Guessing you can’t sleep either?

  Jane: Nope. Not for like a week now.

  Annie: I can’t turn off my brain.

  Jane: Punish brain with booze?

  Annie: If I didn’t have to work tomorrow…

  Jane: I hear ya!

  Annie: I am going to try and block out some time for drawing. I’m hoping progress might lead to sleep.

  Jane and I have collaborated from time to time. In high school we made our own sci-fi fanzine. She did the writing; I did the art and the layout. We put out three issues before we gave it up. That was before summer. Before college. Before we lost touch and reconnected later. Since then she’s provided captions for art I’ve put on my website. I’ve also illustrated some of Jane’s stories, two of which have appeared in webzines. That was before my day job went into its overtime cycle. Before it became a day and night job, and the insomnia set in.

  Jane: Ooh! New post soon? It’s been like forever since an update.

  Annie: I know. But I wouldn’t get my hopes up too high. Anyway, I hope you can get some rest.

  Jane: You too! We should get together in person soon. Like see one another offline for once.

  Annie: Yeah. It might not be much fun though. We might just both fall asleep.

  Jane: If that’s what it takes, I’m in!

  It hits me that I can’t remember what Jane looks like now. It’s not surprising. I’m so groggy people I see every day seem like strangers and I keep thinking complete strangers are long lost friends. I can remember Jane from high school, but I don’t know if I could pick her out of a crowd today. I click on a set of her Facebook pictures.

  Who are all these kids and all these moms? Which one is Jane?

  How long has it been since we’ve seen one another offline? It must be at least a year. We’d lost touch after college, but found one another when social networking came along. Jane’s not that far away. She lives out in the Inland Empire. For a while, we took turns driving to one another to get coffee or lunch but that’s dwindled and now we only talk to one another online. The strange thing is, I have more in common with Jane than people I see regularly offline.

  Jane: Talk to you soon. And don’t worry, you’ll get some sleep!

  My fingers hover over the keyboard. Too late. I’m already worrying about not being able to sleep. I can’t help it. My eyes drift back to the clock.

  Five hours and fifteen minutes until the alarm.

  ~

  I wake up coughing. Startled and choking on my own spit. My arms flail as I struggle to sit up. I knock over the water glass on the coffee table. A man stands over me. He’s albino, tall, and thin. He wears a ball cap for a team I don’t recognize. Instead of a team emblem, the cap has a circle ringing another circle. In the smaller circle, five isosceles triangles point toward the middle of the image. Where the triangles overlap, a black and white mandala pulls my attention inward. Another layer of the image spirals in. Version after version of the image flashes by. The image’s borders flicker and oscillate. In between the oscillations, monochrome ones and zeroes strobe across the outlines.

  The man’s lips open, revealing sheet-white teeth clamped shut. His teeth remain clenched as he starts to moan, a low droning sound like the Tibetan monks’ chants. Do not be frightened, his words echo in the low buzz. You are not alone.

  I awake startled and panicked. The television has gone to static. In the dim light I don’t see anyone, but I’m not sure I want to switch on the lamp.

  Am I still dreaming?

  I turn on the light and grab the lamp’s neck, ready to fling it at the imagined attacker.

  There’s no sign of the albino. The only one in the room is crazy, sleep-deprived me.

  The water glass is knocked over on the coffee table. I dab my fingers in the puddle of water next to it, making sure that it’s really there and that I’m really awake. The room sways when I stand.

  As soon as I’ve steadied myself, I step around the coffee table. I peer down the hallway half expecting to see an assailant crouched in the shadows next to my misshapen IKEA DVD tower. Finding no one lurking there, I creep down the hall, and switch on lights until I get to the bedroom. The bed is as I left it, sheets still pulled down from when I abandoned it for the couch. With my back to my bookshelves, I slide to the corner between the shelves and my desk, and retrieve my replica mace with its ball of black steel at the end of a foot long metal handle. Although technically a “replica,” it was built by a blacksmith, a fellow medievalist from my Middle-English literature days at Santa Cruz, and I have no doubt that it’s solid and heavy enough to crush a man’s skull.

  I circle around the desk and creep up to the bed. I reach down and lift the edge of the comforter. There’s no one under the bed, but I keep the mace with me as I walk back to the living room.

  My neck throbs in time with my pulse. Taking slow deep breaths, I sit back down on the couch.

  No use freaking out and having a heart attack now. Any distraction will do. Get out of your head.

  The television is still on, giving off eerie static. I channel surf until I find the first channel with programming. It’s an infomercial, but I don’t care. Anything with a voice will do.

  It takes several minutes for the glow of the television to calm me. The sun’s coming up. Blue predawn light emerges from the bathroom window. Remembering the knocked over water glass on the coffee table, I trudge to the bathroom for a towel.

  Cold water on my face does little to help revive me. Even in the low light the black circles under my puffy eyes are obvious. My whole face looks swollen. Not sleeping, working all the time, I’m not exercising and I’m eating crap that barely qualifies as food. I feel fat. I can’t stand the thought of getting on the scale. I try to put that thought out of my mind, but I just feel ugly in every way. My roots are starting to show, but I can’t find the time for a hair appointment in my work schedule. I pull at a few strands with fingers still shaking from my nightmare.

  Maybe not the burgundy this time. Shock the boss with a green or a blue. Imagining his expression, I feel relaxed for the first time tonight. Until I realize I’ve relaxed, and the anxiety returns.

  With a start I remember what I came in here for, and retrieve a towel to dry up the spill on the coffee table.

  ~

  I don’t remember going back to bed, but the alarm on my clock radio plays. I could just switch it off, but I want something to hit, and I smack the snooze button. The TV blares from the living room.

  Three voices argue. The first two I recognize as vapid daytime talk show talking heads. The other one I can’t place. His voice echoes down the hall, distorted. Problems with their sound? His voice buzzes, just like the noise in my dream.

  Male Newscaster: And it’s another bright sunny morning…

  Unknown Man: sun No. Shine. No today.

  Female Newscaster: And for children going to school today…

  Unknown Man: little minds shapes of minds, special
>
  Female Newscaster: A story that may have you bringing antibacterial wipes on your next flight…

  Unknown Man: nights flights dream fights .

  I grab the mace and run to the living room, ready to swing the club at the albino man from my dream.

  I turn the corner, but he’s not there. The newscasters are still on the television, but there’s no buzzing man commenting on what they say. All that’s left is the regular patter that passes for news. I whirl around. The room is as empty as I left it. There’s no one behind the couch. No one under the counter. There’s no one hiding in the drapes. I reach through the curtain to check that the backdoor is locked. It is. The front door is locked as well, both the deadbolt and the bottom lock. For the second time in a few hours, I stalk through my small apartment making sure that no intruder is hiding in some nook. I yank open the doors to the closet in the hall, and find just linens and towels.

  It’s the lack of sleep. Stop panicking. Get through today.

  Exhausted, I shuffle back to the living room, and turn up the volume on the television. My head rolls forward and my eyes shut. The room sways and for a moment I worry that I’ll fall asleep standing up. I force my eyes open and pay attention to the crappy morning show. I endure the vapid talk. There are no mic problems and no one’s voice buzzes.

  Waiting for my toast to pop up, I lean on my kitchen counter, my coffee mug placed on the one remaining spot free of clutter. Piles of unopened mail are layered across the counter. There’s no telling what I can safely throw out without shredding it first.

  They say don’t get into debt, but the credit card companies flood my mailbox with applications I don’t even want, and I can’t throw them out without some dumpster diving identity thief getting his hands on them.