"Shadow on the Heart" (Short story and tribute to Edgar Allen Poe)

“Shadow on the Heart”
by Josh

“To die would be a great adventure” (Terry Brooks- Hook)

Death, it will sadden us, help us move on. It can bring us joy, it can bring us pain. It can drive us sober, it can drive us mad. It is said that ideas cannot kill. But the mere thought of Death can.
The greatest example of the lethal idea of Death can be found in my late friend, Marcus Cerberus. I knew him during my college years; he was a bright and cheerful man, always active, always in good humor. A greater intellect I have never known. No one better understood the many laws and fallacies as dear Marcus. After graduation we went our own ways; I to study in London, he to his great house in the Scottish Moorlands. For over 18 years I saw in store windows books, bearing the three-headed dog crest and name of Cerberus, full of theology and intellectual mystery.
Then for a number of years I heard or saw nothing of my friend or his works. Then on a rainy day in early December I received a letter from Marcus requesting my presence at his castle in Scotland. So after a long sojourn, I arrived at Castle Styx.
Once, during summer holiday, I had gone with Marcus to visit his dying father. I remember Castle Styx in all its white-marbled splendor. Grecian pillars and window arches added to the archaic appearance. Heaven’s gate wouldn’t have been more golden or white-framed. But now a marked contrast had befallen the once magnificent mansion. The once white-marble was pale-grey. The trees and flowers on the grounds were wilted and brown. The golden gate was dull and tarnished.
Inside the walls were dark and cobwebs hung in the corners. The once vibrant-red runners were now an almost bloody shade. Even the flesh of Marcus’ many ancestors that hung behind glass on the walls seemed pale. Life had abandoned the Styx.
The master of the house was in just as poor a condition in body and mind as his abode. The soft blue eyes had become faded spheres of ice. His face was gaunt and white as the Reaper’s. His hands long and boney, his uncombed brown hair faded with graying tips.
He himself seemed thin, as if a gust from the Moor could knock him head-over-toe. He said little until we reached his library. There we exchanged the typical greetings and caught up on the last few years. In retrospect I realize that I spoke more than he. He sat in his black leather armchair, staring at me with his glazed eyes, and said very little, if anything.
After a short time he arose and went off to get us a tray of afternoon tea, though it was well past dinner. As he was engaged in the kitchen, I took the liberty of looking around at his vast collection of novels strewn about the library.
At first what I saw struck me as nothing strange; he had what I would expect any intellectual to have in his repertoire. But as I continued to see titles of the same substance as Dante and “Ars Moriendi” *, and the same cheerfulness of Poe, I saw a morbid and disturbing pattern dwelling heavily in the realm of Thanatology.
I had just picked up a large nameless volume with a silver death-head upon a black backing, and had proceeded to open it to the title page when I noticed that Marcus had reentered the room. He had set his tray down on the side table and now stood with his hollow eyes fixed upon my actions.
We stood a moment, awkward silence eating at our souls. I had just made up my mind to address him on the strange pattern I had observed in his chosen literature, when he chose to speak first.
“Do you want to know how you will die?”
His voice, which I remembered as strong and loud, was soft and raspy. There was an emptiness to it, as if the life that had abandoned the house had left him as well.
I stared at him in slight confusion, wondering if he meant the question or if it was rhetorical and the start of one of his famous lectures. But he only stared back, waiting. So finally, hesitantly, I replied, “I… I am not sure.”
Marcus’ eyes narrowed as he stared at my chest. “You should stop smoking, those British cigarettes will cause your heart to fail.”
I stared at him in amazement. I had started smoking after we had parted ways many years ago, and had not mentioned my habit to him in any manner.
“How do you know this?”
Marcus fell back into his armchair, looking for all the world like a scarecrow that is tired of standing in the field. “I have attained the ability to see the method of how people will die.”
I sat across from him and pressed the matter, “How? Tell me everything!”
So Marcus told me.
“Do you remember the time a few summers back when we came to visit my dying father? He died, and his death caused me to look into the world of death. I at first treated it as a hobby, I read books on it in my spare time, attended a few lectures on the subject. Then I started to delve more into it; I studied the spiritual world of death, the mythological world… I studied it through psychology and science; I studied death inside and out, and became obsessed by it. I started to visit morgues and graveyards to study death after the fact. But it wasn’t until a man from Africa sold me that black volume there,” (Here he gestured to the book I had been inspecting, and he continued…) “…That things got really bad. That book tells you all about how you can predict death in others. I spent months reading it, studying it, memorizing it. The book was written by an African shaman, and I think he pored a bit of his soul into the text. I can see how people will die. Like a shadowy image of the future, I can see the means of one’s death! I simply stopped going into town because of the death I could see when ever I looked at a man, woman, child…”
He stopped speaking, and stared into the hearth at the flickering flames. Staring, just staring. I shifted uncomfortably, and his head snapped up, his eyes blazing with cold blue fire.

“I can see Death! He is like an archer, his black arrow ever on the string. He is watching me, waiting for my time. And Life is like a meadow that stretches on and on. I can run away as far and as fast, but his arrow will still find me! I can see how others will die; I have the ability reserved for Death himself! And do you know what? What bothers me most about the whole thing is that I cannot see how I will die! I look at you and I see heart failure, I look at a girl on the street and I see a car crushing her body, but I look at me and I see… Nothing!”
His eyes bored holes in mine, a crazed expression played on his lips. “No one has ever seen what I have: Death within Life.”
It was at that time when I realized; the Marcus Cerberus I knew was gone. There was only this mad shell of a once great man.
I stayed with Mr. Cerberus for a few months, attempting to cheer him up and pull him out of his depression. During the day he would laugh, go on long walks about the Moor, sometimes even go riding with me. But at night he would be in his library, enthralled by his morbid fascination with Death. During these times he would ever have the Shaman’s book at his side, referring to it for some guidance; though what guidance could be gained by a book so black, I will never know.
Then, at about five-thirty on June twenty-first, things came to a climax.
Mr. Cerberus had spent the last week walking aimlessly about Castle Styx, muttering to himself and jumping at the slightest sound. I had found him earlier that evening huddled in a corner of the dining room, drenched in sweat, and his eyes wide in some unknown terror. I had sent him to bed, and decided to have another look at the Shaman’s book that my old friend had kept so well guarded. I stayed up reading the strange book until late, and had just begun to understand why my friend had become what he was, when a noise from above my room caught my attention.
I knew not what it was, but a few minutes later, Cerberus himself slunk into the room. He was hunched over as if trying to stay hidden from something. His icy eyes darted around the room like one searching for a hidden enemy. His overall appearance was of one who was being hunted.
“Can you hear it? The clattering footsteps?”
He stared expectantly at me. I just shook my head. I heard nothing, and I was doubtful if he really did either.
“Marcus, go back to bed. You will feel much better in the morning.” Here I reached out to take hold of his shoulder. He pulled away violently and shouted at me like I have tried to stab him.
“NO! You will not keep me here for Him to find me!”
“Who? Who will find you?” I asked him impatiently.
His eyes locked on mine, and a fear and terror I had never seen the likes of before blazed from them.
“He is looking for me!”
He froze, as if he heard something. Once again I heard nothing. Then his eyes came back to mine, and newfound horror dwelt in them.
“He is here!”
He turned, and rushed out the door. I followed his mad dash down to the ground floor and out the front door. Here I stopped and watched as he dashed across the Moor as fast as he could.
Then, he suddenly stopped, as if stabbed, and fell backwards on the ground. Fearing he had had a heart attack, I rushed towards his sprawled out form. As I reached his body the sun peeked out over the moorland, and I stopped in shock.
Protruding from Marcus’ heart was what appeared to be a black arrow, shimmering and shifting in texture and appearance that I barely knew if it was real or not. I turned to look towards the mansion and saw a hooded figure standing at the foot of the steps leading up to the house. He wore a black cloak and hood, with what appeared to be a quiver on his back and a bow in his hand. I stared at him for a moment, recalling Marcus’ sensation of being hunted, and his account of the archer and the meadow. I looked down again at the body lying on the grass, and then back towards the house.
The cloaked figure was gone.

I gave Marcus a fine funeral, closed up the Cerberus estate, and sold Castle Styx. I kept the Shaman’s book though. I keep it in a glass case on my mantelpiece as a reminder of Marcus Cerberus, and a reminder of how lethal and obsession with Death can be.

Diary of an Outlaw (Song Lyrics)

Diary of an Outlaw
Locke- 9/8/08


Early morning cold, sun warms up my skin.
White scars stand out, as memories of past sin.
A face from a nightmare, stares out of the mirror at me.
My eyes are cold and red, with no feeling I can see.
My heart is torn and battered, like the body that holds it tight.
I brace my mind with brittle steel, to fight a loosing fight.


I’m not haunted by my life full of sin.
But by the crimes I could have done but never did.
I’m all alone with just my six-string at my side.
There is nowhere to run, no point to try and hide.
I’m chased by my heart’s pan and confused mind,
Sometimes I think I’m worth more dead, than alive.


Skeletons in the closet, and I dust them off again.
Empty sockets stare up at me, while lightning fills my brain.
They tell me to bury my dead,
And to get these thoughts out of my head.
But they don’t know that it’s easier said than done.
They don’t know how hard it is for a soul out on the run.



And they tell me not to run,
They say to lay down my gun,
But my life is far from done.
And I will always be on the run.


And I’m running!
It’s for me their gunning!
And I’m still running!

I’m still running!