Talking Heads (standard:horror, 20284 words)
Author: Reid Laurence	Added: Aug 03 2008	Views/Reads: 3145/2177	Story vote: 0.00 (0 votes)
Too strange to be true... or is it? Shockingly enough, it's difficult sometimes to tell the difference, but you be the judge...

Introduction 

Every passing eye had to at least glance at her as she walked down the
street.  The natural grace and femininity with which she carried 
herself seemed to make her something more then just a very pretty woman 
in the prime of her sexuality. She was a true star. A shining star that 
no one person, or any one thing could deny. Men in their cars would 
slow down at the sight of her. Some with less nerve then others just to 
gaze at the splendor of her person and some to ask - or beg of her - to 
sit beside them, to share the same vehicle for just a few passing 
moments, anything, just to get close enough to her to feel enviable; to 
feel lucky; to feel alive. Enamored of her – on such a brilliantly lit 
day as this – one of the many men too shy to make her acquaintance by 
any power of his own had just caught sight of her. He was gently 
slowing his car down, about to come to a four way stop on one of 
numerous, crowded Chicago city streets that he frequented when 
suddenly, their eyes met and what began as a nonchalant glance, became 
in milliseconds, a locked embrace of mutual understanding that neither 
fully understood, or fully realized at that moment. Fidgeting nervously 
with the steering wheel as he came to the stop, the driver wondered 
what to say and feeling estranged as he usually did at times like this, 
looked fretfully away and said nothing at all. Instead, he decided to 
drive around the block then hopefully, by stalling his intentions, he 
might gain some shred of the nerve he needed just to say, ‘hello'. Upon 
circling the block as it had dawned on him to do, he returned to the 
exact same spot he'd been... the well known six corner intersection in 
Chicago, where Milwaukee Avenue; Irving Park Road and Cicero Avenue all 
merge, but found no trace of this elusive, walking dream anywhere. 
Still, unable to let go of the astonishing image this stranger had 
created in his mind, he pulled the antique but unassuming car to the 
curb, put change in the parking meter and walked swiftly to the 
southwest corner of Irving Park and Cicero. There he stood, 
apprehensively scanning the streets for what he was now beginning to 
think of as more an apparition then anything else. Even so, his 
stubbornness prevailed and upon noticing the fashionable department 
store standing proudly on the opposite corner, he very hurriedly 
crossed the street and began pressing urgently against the heavy, 
tempered glass revolving door in his path. A path to which some - by 
this time - would have intuitively thought best not to follow, but 
nevertheless, he persistently did. 

Chapter 1 

Wandering around the ground floor of the prominent department store,
turning in circles and appearing lost, this overwhelmed young man was 
about to give up chase when suddenly a friend of his – or so he 
believed it to be – began to speak casually to him... “Hey buddy, you 
can't give up now, she's a beauty. Only a loon would walk away now. You 
ain't a loon are ya?” “Of course I'm not a loon, but I can't find her 
anywhere. Besides... there's something strange going on. I don't know 
how to explain it.” “Someth'in strange? What? She's the kinda stuff 
dreams are made of. But then, I wouldn't expect a nut like you ta 
appreciate such perfection. She's a dish.” “Why don't you quit picking 
on him?” answered a second voice. A voice no one but Raymond Mort could 
distinguish from any other component of deluded imagination, and one he 
knew simply and affectionately as, ‘Guy'. “Why don't you quit butt'in 
in?” replied Joe, an imaginary, longtime friend Raymond had created for 
himself out of a desperate need to fill a void of scattered and sparse 
- at best - relationships. But although these self-fabricated 
personalities kept Raymond occupied, they also served to distract him 
and at a time like this, Raymond needed all the concentration he could 
summon. “You guys, you're mixing me up,” complained Raymond, as a lady 
standing at the cosmetics counter next to him couldn't help but 
overhear the oddly, one-sided conversation in progress. “Young man,” 
she asked with uncertainty. “Were you addressing me?” “Well excuse me 
for breath'in lady. I didn't know I was in between you, an a develop'in 
world crisis. Tell her where ta get off Ray.” “Shut up Joe,” answered 
Raymond out loud. “Excuse me?” responded an approaching saleslady who'd 
been watching from a short distance. “Is anything wrong?” “This young 
man was just talking to...” began the irritated patron. But even as she 
spoke, Guy had begun a much more sensible, useful conversation with 
Raymond and was about to let on all that he suspected from the very 
start, or at least from the time Raymond had entered the store. “Hey,” 
he said shyly, deep from the frontal lobe of Raymond's brain. “I bet I 
know where she is.” “Huh? Who?” interrupted Raymond, speaking over the 


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