Lord Ruthven - Flash Fiction

by Mitchell Luthi

He’d been a guard for as long as he could remember. Day in and day out, he watched over the house from his little security booth. It was all he was paid to do, but he didn’t mind. The pay was good, and there wasn’t much going on—except for when Mr. Ruthven invited people over.

“Charlie, old boy,” he’d say. “I think I’ll have a little gathering tonight. Just a small one, mind you.”

Then the guests would arrive. They’d come in fancy cars, dressed in sparkling dresses and immaculate suits. They’d drink and dance and sing, and drink some more. Then, when the night grew old, Charlie would close the door to his little security booth, and block his ears. It didn’t help, but he had to try. Mr Ruthven would start to hum, a terrible droning sound, that slowly rose until it broke into a chant. A voice would join his, like an echo of his own, but deeper—and always a second behind. The guests would play along at first, laughing as they tried to add their voices to the chanting, falling over each other in their drunken stupor. It normally took a moment for someone to notice, and then the jig was up.

The first scream was always the loudest, Charlie found. It broke through the chanting like a knife, echoing around his little booth until it faded. Other voices would join it: screams of panic and fear, men feigning bravado until they conceded, cries for mercy, prayers to this god or that. It didn’t matter—Charlie had found that, too. More voices would join the chanting, uttering words that made his skin crawl and his hand hover over the butt of his pistol—not for them, mind you. He couldn’t do anything to stop them, but he could make the sound go away for good. Somehow, he always managed to pull through.

In the morning, things would go back to normal. Mr Ruthven would greet him warmly, wink knowingly, and head off to work. Charlie would never ask about the night’s festivities. His pay wasn’t that good, after all.