“sweet sweet chérie, lover of life, love of mine, wine of sherry, marry marry…”

The words of that horrid, bone chilling tune rang around in Julie’s brain over and over.

With her hands clasped over her ears as if she were trying to crush her own skull. Julie rockled back and forth on her bathroom floor trying to make sense of what was happening to her.

The first time she heard the song she thought it was lovely. Lovely in a gothic romance type of way. The singing voice was slow with a faint french accent and high pitched for a man.

But now the song burned in her mind like acid and chilled her to her core.

The first time she heard it was yesterday morning on the subway. She had assumed someone was playing it on a speaker but now thinking back it didn’t seem to be coming from anywhere in particular.

The tune was catchy enough. She found herself humming it at her desk the rest of the morning. All was relatively normal until at one o’clock she realized that same song had been playing faintly through her headset over and over gradually getting louder.

She had thrown her headset off in a start. She could’ve sworn she still heard the song.

“merry Mary mon chérie, wine of sherry, sweet sweet love of mine”

But that couldn’t be. This was silly Julie thought. “I’m just hungover and need to get a damn grip.” she said to herself. Still she decided to walk home after work to avoid the subway.

She got to her building and stepped into the elevator. As the doors closed she felt a sensation of dread wash over her. Then the song began to play. The elevator wasn’t stopping and the song played louder and louder. It roared in her ears like a thunderstorm. Julie felt disoriented and couldn’t keep her balance. She held onto to walls of the elevator trying to call for help but no sound came out of her throat.

The doors opened suddenly to the lobby. The elevator hadn’t moved at all. It had felt like an eternity of horror for Julie but it appeared as though only seconds had passed. She called for help.

The doorman ran over to her to see if she had fell but he couldn’t grasp was she was saying. She didn’t know what to say.

“Chérie chérie, love of mine, merry Mary, sherry of wine”

She hated it but she was humming it. “I look like a crackhead” she thought. She composed herself and hurried up the stairs to what she thought was the safety of her apartment. There was a burning in her ears.

In her apartment she tried to distract herself with some TV and a whiskey she’d been saving. All the while the terrible song was stuck in her head and she could’ve sworn the characters in the movie she was watching were saying the lyrics of the somg instead of their lines. she caught a glimpse of her reflection in the glare of the television and thought she saw something on her ear. When she looked in the bathroom mirror she realized there was blood streaming out of her ears.

The song grew louder in her head. The melody of the tune was morphing into an ugly chant then back to a melody again. She blacked out.

She came to alone still in her bathroom. There was no blood and all she could hear was the faint sound of the evil song coming from her television.

Crying hysterically she had locked the door and was rocking back and forth on the bathroom floor covering her ears and pleading for mercy.