Kept in Sight

Jeff Coldwell was busy with his glass test tubes, carefully watching liquids of mismatched colors swirl inside them. It was his home office—if you could even call it that. In reality, it was just a room split in half, a chaotic layout of equipment cutting right through the main hallway and the living space. Some say scientists love cluttered environments, and he was no exception. His main hall was designed to hold his entire world in one place: the workspace, the living lounge, the kitchen, and a dining table pushed right against his favorite sofa and television corner. He truly preferred having everything contained within a single room.

Jeff swept his gaze across the room to shake off the exhaustion. He had barely slept all night. Walking over to the kitchen counter, he brewed a cup of coffee, hoping the caffeine would chase away the heavy fog in his eyes. He glanced up at the wall clock; it was already 8:00 AM. Holding the warm mug, he sat back down on the sofa, facing the bulky, old CRT television—the kind that still required a digital converter box just to pick up a basic signal. Helen, his girlfriend, used to complain every time she visited, telling him he should finally get a new flat-screen TV. But he never cared. His work kept him too busy to watch anything anyway. Sometimes, he only turned it on to break the suffocating silence of the house. It was Helen who usually sat there, watching horror movies to pass the time while waiting for him to finish his research.

The young man switched the television on and pressed the remote. Before the channel could even load, the picture died. The screen suddenly dissolved into a blinking storm of gray and silver, a blizzard of black and white pixels rushing across the glass, accompanied by a loud, piercing roar of pure static. He threw the remote down in frustration but left the static roaring. “Better than the quiet,” he thought to himself. He walked back to his workbench, reaching for a glass tube. Suddenly, a low, mechanical noise drifted through, cutting right through the television's static.

Screeech... screeech...

The sound was faint, barely audible. He strained his ears, trying to catch what it was, but the noise remained blurred behind the white noise. Then, without warning, his phone on the dining table began to vibrate violently.

Riiing... Riiing... Riiing...

He walked over and saw a familiar name flashing on the screen. Helen. His footsteps faltered. He stared down at the phone with completely vacant eyes. Instead of answering, he turned back and sat on the sofa, his mind drifting back to the reality of two days ago. Late that night, he had stopped by Helen’s house, only to find her tangled in bed, completely naked, sharing an intimate act with another man. In that singular second, he didn't know which was louder—the blinding agony of what he saw, or the rising tide of rage. He had turned around and walked out of that house, his heart turning to stone. Yesterday, following that night, Helen had called him all day long, but he never answered. There was no longer any reason to hear her voice.

Ding-dong...

The front doorbell rang. He peered out the window and saw Tom, the familiar mailman, waiting with a parcel. Jeff opened the door to greet him.

"Just need your signature here, Jeff," Tom said, handing over the pen and clipboard.

Riiing... Riiing... Riiing...

Jeff turned his head toward the phone, which was now ringing rapidly inside. "Sorry about that," Jeff muttered to the mailman. "The phone's been ringing off the hook."

Tom frowned, looking confused. "Ringing? I don't hear anything, man." Then Tom glanced past him into the house, noticing the screen. "I think you need to fix your TV, Jeff."

"Yeah, it acts up a lot," Jeff replied quietly. "And now there's this weird scratching sound cutting through the noise."

Tom looked even more bewildered. "Scratching? I don't hear a thing, Jeff." Shaking his head with a puzzled look, the mailman turned and walked away.

Jeff went back to the sofa and sliced open the parcel. Inside lay their wedding invitations, sent from the printing shop. He stared at the soft, elegant paper, completely still. Would Helen still be happy to see this? For him, the paper held no meaning. It felt entirely hollow.

Screeech... screeech... screeech...

The sound seemed to grow sharper, clearer. He strained to listen again through the television's roar.

Screeech... screeech... screeech...

It grew louder, crawling up his spine and echoing clearly inside his head. Yes... now he knew exactly where he had heard this sound before. It was only last night, right after Helen had come to his house to confront him. Flashing images flooded his mind, sharp and vivid, like scenes ripped out of a horror movie—the very kind she loved to watch. He remembered the way she looked at him. Eyes begging, paralyzed by absolute terror.

Scritch... scritch... scritch...

From the fingers... the toes... the wrists... the ankles...

Scritch... scritch... scritch...

The arms... and then the legs. She had stared up at him, her eyes bulging wide with absolute terror and agony, before the blood rushed out in heavy, dark crimson tides.
He looked down at the now motionless body, before setting to work on the torso... and then the neck.

Scritch... scritch... scritch...

The metallic scent of fresh blood hung heavily in the air. Even after scrubbing the floor all night until dawn, the smell still clung to the inside of his nose, refusing to leave.

The young man walked straight toward the room at the very end of the hallway—a new zone he had recently set up as a specialized space. There was something... something he had to keep in a separate, locked area. A faint smile curled at the corner of his lips, a mixture of satisfaction wrapped in a cold, bitter detachment. He stepped into the pitch-black room. There was only a single, tiny lightbulb burning in the center, casting a dim glow over a massive object covered by a thick black cloth.

The young man stopped before it. He reached out, pulling the cloth away slowly...

She stared right back at him. Her face was bleached pale, yet frozen in her final seconds of life—eyes wide, bulging with intense terror and burning rage. Her severed head, preserved inside a massive glass jar of chemical fluids, gazed unblinkingly at him through the glass

Jeff whispered softly into the dark, "You should be happy, my love. Have you seen our wedding invitations? I just received them." His smile was ice.

Inside his ears, the phone began to ring frantically once more.

"Stop calling me, sweetheart, I am right here." Jeff murmured, his eyes locked onto the jar. "I already buried the parts of you that he touched in the backyard. But I decided to keep your face."

The cold smile widened….
"From now on... you will be kept in my sight. Forever, my love."

Outside in the living room, the scratching sound from the television kept tearing through the dark, entwined with a ringing phone that he would never, ever answer.