# 3+ HOURS of Reddit Horror Stories to listen to secretly listen to while at work or something

An episode of [CreepsMcPasta Creepypasta Radio](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1492008134), 21 Feb 2024, 3 h 48 min.

Audio: https://dts.podtrac.com/redirect.mp3/api.spreaker.com/download/episode/58668633/3_hours_of_reddit_horror_stories_to_listen_to_secretly_listen_to_while_at_work_or_something.mp3



## Transcript

[0:01] I wouldn't have believed he was cheating if it wasn't for the pictures. I've
[0:07] been cheating on before, And I think the number one tell is that cheaters
[0:12] like to spread the guilt around. They make mountains up every little mole hill
[0:18] because they want to feel like the relationship was doomed and that's why they cheated,
[0:23] not the other way around. They find all sorts of silly reasons to
[0:28] fight you because it's better to tell people, oh, we were arguing and
[0:33] communication broke down instead of the truth, which is often I screwed a stranger.
[0:40] That's my experience of being cheated on. Anyway. I had one boyfriend
[0:45] who lost his mind because they didn't answer my phone while on a night out.
[0:51] What would have been a small deal just a few weeks before, would
[0:55] suddenly proved that I was sneaking around and couldn't be trusted. Sure, just
[1:00] a few days later, I caught him at a Starbucks with some girl he'd
[1:04] met online. Do you think he told his parents I left him because he
[1:08] had his hands up another woman's skirt. Nope. He said, we've been
[1:14] distant for a while and arguing lots, and in a moment of weakness,
[1:19] he found solace and another woman. He just left out the part where he
[1:23] initiated all those arguments. But my husband never changed, not one bit.
[1:32] Didn't kiss me different, didn't look at me different, didn't change his habits,
[1:37] not in any way at all. Wasn't like he started randomly showering when
[1:41] he got home, or going to the gym at night instead of in the
[1:45] morning. My mother said she knew my father had started seeing someone else when
[1:51] she went to take his plate away and there was food left behind, and
[1:55] soon after she caught him looking in the mirror and sucking in his gut.
[2:00] I guess my point is a lot of the time, when you realize you've
[2:04] been cheated on, you look back and see all sorts of little clues.
[2:10] But I never felt that way with my husband. It was just out of
[2:16] the blue. The envelope arrived, thick as a pack of cards, red
[2:22] lipstick on the back, reading, you need to see what your man is
[2:25] up to. Inside were half a dozen polaroids of my husband sleeping with another
[2:31] woman. Her face was obscured, but his. He had a strange look
[2:38] about him, blank eyes, a strange expression, but it was so clearly
[2:46] him. I remember feeling so shocked that everything took on a hint of the
[2:51] surreal. Sounds stupid, but for the first few seconds I stared at the
[2:55] photos, dumbfounded, and just thought, good God, where does he find
[3:02] the time? Dumb Here I was facing proof of the ultimate betrayal, and
[3:10] I was trying to figure out the logistics. It was a good point,
[3:15] though in a weird kind of way. He worked nine hours a day and
[3:20] only two days a week in the office, and that was a ninety minute
[3:23] commute. His morning routine was to wake up at six a m. Go
[3:29] for a run, cook breakfast, shower, shave, do the cross word,
[3:31] drive to work. I mean, really, there wasn't a lot of
[3:37] time where I thought he could even meet another woman, let alone build a
[3:40] whole new relationship. I didn't say anything when he got home. If it
[3:46] was such a good actor, I wanted to be one too, at least
[3:52] in the short term. I wanted control of the situation, and most importantly,
[3:58] I wanted control myself. Didn't want to burst into tears the second I
[4:03] challenged them. Still, I barely slept that night. I stayed up going
[4:10] through the mechanisms of it all. Was she and escort. I thought that
[4:15] might explain the time constraints. The man could get one of those off the
[4:18] internet real easy. He wouldn't have to wine and dine anyone. Then what
[4:25] would he need, really some cash and half an hour somewhere private. And
[4:30] let's be honest with ourselves, men and women both, half hour is a
[4:35] bit of an overestimate. For most guys I've been with, it's closer to
[4:40] a commercial break. I studied the pictures very closely, looking for answers to
[4:46] these weird questions. From the looks of it, they were going at it
[4:51] in someone's living room. I figured he might have found a prostitute with her
[4:56] own place nearby, although I wasn't necess necessarily married to that idea. Really,
[5:02] my theory was that whoever he found, they had to be pretty comfortable
[5:08] with no romance in and out. You know, he was only out of
[5:13] the house two days a week, and I knew he really did go to
[5:16] the office because he was once late due to traffic and his boss called up
[5:20] furious, and I had to offer up all sorts of excuses. Still,
[5:27] just to be sure, I started testing him in the following days. I'd
[5:31] call this desk phone at random and he was always there. I even called
[5:36] up the receptionist and I said, I wanted to send him some flowers for
[5:40] our anniversary. So was there a specific time I should avoid having the delivery
[5:45] guy turn up? And she said no, he was pretty much always at
[5:49] his desk except for maybe twenty minutes at lunch. That meant whoever he was
[5:56] carrying on with, they had to be meeting up at lunch and doing it
[6:00] all in record time, which was pretty odd if you ask me. I
[6:04] mean, I had hard proof in my hands, so I couldn't doubt it.
[6:10] But yeah, it was hard to think of him sprinting out to some
[6:13] random woman's house. If this was an affair, how did it start,
[6:17] what were the terms? What did they both get out of it? I
[6:23] mean, it wasn't like he had stopped showing affection to me. Don't get
[6:27] me wrong, after the first picture, I immediately withdrew all intimacy. But
[6:32] what I'm saying is, in the run up to me finding out, it
[6:36] wasn't like we stopped doing it or even reduced the amount. I suppose he'd
[6:42] always had a bit of a high drive we both had. I just found
[6:46] it strange. Whatever this affair was it pretty much had to be only sleeping
[6:51] with each other and nothing else. But at the same time, why not
[6:58] just get a little more from me in the scheme of things he was ruining
[7:02] our marriage for? Like what twenty five percent more? That struck me as
[7:08] weird too. In my head, I kept going over the whole scenario again
[7:14] and again. If it was just more he wanted, why not just have
[7:18] it with me? I did this when my dad left, by the way,
[7:25] tried to rationalize it, made it into a kind of mystery that had
[7:29] to be solved. Why weren't we enough? Was it because he wanted a
[7:33] son or because my mother and I were too close and had nothing in common
[7:38] with him. The other woman he left us for wasn't some young bimbo either.
[7:44] She was my mother's age, So what was different about her? What
[7:48] did this woman give him that his home life couldn't. I remember I saw
[7:54] her in the car once, sitting there while he came to the door to
[7:58] see me for an hour or two. One Mom went around back because she
[8:01] couldn't stand the sight of him. And I'd expected some done up blonde bimbo,
[8:07] but no, just another middle aged woman who even looked a bit like
[8:11] my mom. Did they say history repeats itself? The woman in those polaroids
[8:20] looked like me too, hardly some young model. I couldn't see her face,
[8:26] it was always something blocking it, but she had long brown hair,
[8:31] similar build, similar age. Sounds weird, but I think it would have
[8:35] hurt less if he'd been screwing some blonde and a cheerleader outfit. As it
[8:41] was. Every time I looked at those photos, I couldn't escape the feeling
[8:45] that something very specific must be wrong with me. And it couldn't be some
[8:50] shallow physical thing. It was deeper than that, something he realized only after
[8:56] spending ten years with me. I annoy him on a personal level. Did
[9:01] you just look at me one day while I shaved my legs and think?
[9:05] Gross? And that was that he got the ick? He didn't get an
[9:11] upgrade, just a replacement, and somehow it just, I don't know,
[9:18] it felt worse. I considered revenge, but I couldn't bring myself to do
[9:24] it. So weird, I put him on an Instagram picture that wasn't like
[9:30] the usual ones. Geez, Men online don't need a lot to get going,
[9:35] do they? You go to idul sites and see the things women do
[9:39] there When you figure men must really need some mess up stuff to get turned
[9:43] on, but it turns out there's always some guy waiting to slide into your
[9:48] DMS because you wore moe jeans or ankle socks. All it took for me
[9:54] was a picture in an oversized T shirt with my legs tucked underneath. I
[10:00] hardly saw any skin. I've seen more revealing adverts didn't stop the messages coming
[10:05] in from total strangers and more than a few good friends and old flames.
[10:13] I responded to none of them, not a single one. They were flattering,
[10:18] but I didn't once feel the urge to reach out. It's just well.
[10:26] It reminded me of the fact I wasn't starved for attention in the first
[10:30] place. I wasn't unhappy with my relationship. The polaroids told me I was
[10:35] in enough, but I never once felt like it. A part of me
[10:39] wanted to bulldoze over this obstacle in our relationship, fill in the pothole,
[10:46] lay new tarmac, and just keep on using the road like nothing had changed.
[10:50] But I didn't have it in me. Very little time had passed and
[10:58] I already felt like I was going mad if I needed to know why the
[11:01] hell he'd done this. Every day was spent oscillating between gut churning sadness and
[11:09] read out fury at the betrayal. Couldn't keep the act of forever. Sooner
[11:15] or later I'd break the performance wasn't perfect. He'd notice the distance between us,
[11:22] kept asking if I was okay. Sooner or later the answer was going
[11:26] to be a swift kick to the balls. Hadn't the whole point of biding
[11:31] my time been to get a handle of myself, to not lose control and
[11:35] give him the upper hand that had been moot if I ended up charged with
[11:39] the salt in the end, I decided on a simpler solution. I was
[11:48] going to speak to this other woman, Maybe not head on. My life
[11:54] isn't Jerry Springer wasn't going to kick the door down and scream you took my
[11:58] man. But maybe I could just bump into her just to have a chat,
[12:05] like, oh, hey, nice shoes, where to get them?
[12:07] What kind of work are you in? Do you have some kind of nimble
[12:11] super technique to end marriages? I joke, It's what I do when I
[12:18] feel uncomfortable and I felt very uncomfortable at the thought of finding this woman and
[12:22] talking to her. I'm no spy. Talking to strangers makes me anxious enough,
[12:30] let alone when the whole encounter is a ruse because of some hitchcock in
[12:33] a fair Good news was I didn't have to look far. One of the
[12:39] polaroids had a house number and a few buildings in the background that I recognized.
[12:46] Took maybe twenty minutes on Google Maps to pin it down, nothing difficult.
[12:50] I soon had an address, and it wasn't long before my husband had
[12:54] an inn office day and I could go investigate. First thing I thought up
[13:01] on seeing the house. Her house looked like a crack. Then one of
[13:07] the windows on the top floor had been broken and boarded up. The door
[13:11] was wide open in the middle of the day. The garden was an absolute
[13:16] mess of overgrown weeds, a random crap that looked like passers by had tossed
[13:20] over the wall, but the owners had never cleaned up. It was just
[13:24] all very gray and dingy. It really did look like the kind of place
[13:30] drug dealers would squat. I even checked the telephone poles for a pair of
[13:33] shoes hanging off the wires. I felt pretty sketchy waiting in my car,
[13:39] but it seemed to beat getting out for a walk. I kept thinking I
[13:43] was going to see her come or go, but it just never happened.
[13:48] All I managed was to waste a few hours. I did take some time
[13:54] to compare the polaroids to the living room window, and it was definitely the
[13:58] same room. Unfortunately, staring at those pictures riled me up. There she
[14:05] was on the sofa, bent over, hair hanging over her face, and
[14:11] there he was behind her, and here I was in my car, meekly
[14:16] staring at the exact spot I'd been betrayed. It wound me up so bad
[14:22] that I got out of the car and felt a little closer to that Jerry
[14:26] Spring, a moment I always told myself I'd never have. I think all
[14:31] the weeks of stress and wondering had started to wear me a bit thin,
[14:35] because I was already teary eyed before i'd passed the garden gate, and my
[14:41] husband, who'd gotten home by now, was texting me wondering where I was,
[14:46] and I kept ignoring him. Time was passing too quickly when I just
[14:52] wanted it to stand still for a little longer. It felt like now or
[14:56] never. This was the breaking point. I had to know if she was
[15:03] in there, or if there was some proof he'd been in there. I
[15:07] had to know. I knocked but got no answer. Since the door was
[15:16] open, I leaned around and had a little peek inside, but I ended
[15:20] up nudging it with my elbow and pushed it open even further. The hinges
[15:26] let out a terrible screech, like they've been standing still for weeks or even
[15:31] months. If someone wasn't there, they should have come running at the sound,
[15:39] but nothing. Once I was sure I was alone, I stepped inside
[15:43] and revised my earlier opinion. It wasn't a crack then. It was more
[15:50] like a crime scene. Everything was well, sort of clean, not destitute.
[16:00] There were one or two paintings in the wall, but the glass was
[16:03] so covered in dust I couldn't see anything of the actual images, and the
[16:08] carpet looked filthy but not gross. Just abandoned and left the festa. There
[16:15] went cigarette butts everywhere and needles strewn over the place. It was like a
[16:19] normal house that had just been left behind. The main thing I could smell
[16:26] was mold and damp, probably because rain had gotten in through the open door.
[16:33] Not really able to help myself, I went deeper into the house.
[16:37] I locked in the living room, the very same one in those photos,
[16:44] and saw the same thing I had before, a relatively neat room with a
[16:48] sofa and a TV that was covered in dust. Some of it had been
[16:55] disturbed in places, but not enough to suggest regular use. In the polaroids
[17:02] it had looked normal, but in person it was clear to me it hadn't
[17:07] been lived in for years. Sheeees. I wondered, did they actually find
[17:14] an abandoned house to use? It was the only thing that made sense to
[17:18] me. Maybe the woman knew about it because she passed it on the way
[17:23] to work or something. But still I had to wonder how a house could
[17:29] stay empty long enough for moulder settling, not for kids or junkies to move
[17:33] into. There was no graffiti some letter outside I mentioned that, but no
[17:40] use condoms or broken bottles or anything like that. The kitchen was more of
[17:45] the same. So I went upstairs and soon had my suspicions confirmed. First
[17:52] bedroom on the right, yellow police tape all over the doorframe. Although it's
[18:00] been torn down now, it just hung there like old streamers from a party.
[18:04] That had gone wrong. My god, I realized it actually is a
[18:11] crime scene. Obviously, I looked inside. I think up until then i'd
[18:18] fixated a little too much on my social anxiety. I kept expecting to bump
[18:23] into this woman and have some awkward conversation, either about her screwing my husband
[18:30] or me breaking into a home. But leaning into that room made me feel
[18:36] genuine fear. It was the sight of blood, even old, dried brown
[18:42] blood soaked into an ancient bedspread. I'd never seen anything like it, not
[18:51] in that quantity, and not strewn around so violently. The bed itself had
[18:56] been massacred, gore soaked foam and feathers and caked all around the stab marks
[19:03] in the mattress, and there was blood all up the walls and ceiling.
[19:07] Looking at it gave me an immediate sense of what had happened. Someone had
[19:12] laid there and another person had gone at them with a big knife, maybe
[19:18] kneeling over them. Just bang, bang, bang, one vicious downward thrust
[19:23] after another. I can't really put into words just how vivid it felt.
[19:30] One of those scenes or brains can't help but put back together. Now,
[19:37] who the hell will one to sleep with? Someone in a house where that
[19:41] happened. Wherever this woman was, I decided she was a freak. I
[19:48] decided any confrontation I was going to have about this affair could be between my
[19:52] husband and me, in the safety of my own home, where I could
[19:56] lock all the doors. I turned and left, hurried down the stairs,
[20:03] but only got halfway when I heard something strange coming from behind, a giggle
[20:08] that cut through the ambient sounds of my quiet footsteps and the distant traffic.
[20:15] Something about it made me freeze on the spot. It wasn't the laugh of
[20:19] the sane person. I already figured that if this woman lived here, she
[20:25] must ever screw loose, but hearing her chuckle behind me like that made my
[20:30] skin crawl. A part of me wanted to avoid turning around, partly because
[20:37] it felt like i'd be coming face to face with a woman who destroyed my
[20:40] marriage, but also because I was starting to feel genuinely afraid what the hell
[20:48] was this place and who the hell would live here in these conditions. I
[20:55] don't know what got me to turn around in the end, Courage maybe,
[21:00] or just the desire to get it over with more likely. When I finally
[21:04] turned I saw a skinny woman standing on the top of the stairs, hair
[21:10] draped over her face. She certainly resembled the woman in the photos. Then
[21:15] again, what had I really seen of her face? Hair? And that's
[21:22] largely what I could see of the woman in front of me, hair wet
[21:26] and greasy, dripping down over a face to cover just about everything except a
[21:33] blood red grin and a dirts made neck. Beneath that was a body right
[21:40] out of Oliver twist, thin and scraggly clothes hanging loose, bare feet poking
[21:47] out over the top step. It's weird, but it was a toes that
[21:51] made me feel so uneasy. I don't like feet, and hers were like
[21:56] something straight out of the Hobbit, like she'd spent a whole life living in
[22:00] a ditch off the motorway and eating road kill. We must have looked at
[22:07] each other for a whole minute before I worked up the courage to do something.
[22:11] She certainly didn't seem bothered at all. With the silence, I half
[22:17] suspected she would have stayed there all night, looking at me atop the stairs.
[22:22] Excuse me, she squealed in a girlish imitation, her voice like nails
[22:30] and a chalkboard, had an almost physical presence to it that pushed me down
[22:33] one step without missing a beat. Moving after me like a mirrored reflection,
[22:40] she followed down the stairs one step. Also I didn't I didn't realize.
[22:47] She crooned while tilting her head left and right. The impression I got right
[22:52] there was of a crow imitating speech. I'll just grinned, and I got
[23:00] a glimpse of blooded teeth. I could feel it, the tension, the
[23:07] palpable capacity for violence that lurked in the air. She oozed it out of
[23:12] every cell in her body, the promise of a thumbtack in a mouthful of
[23:17] blood. Any second now, I told myself, and she's going to leap
[23:22] down onto me and bang, bang, bang bang, one vicious down with
[23:26] thrust after another, just like that bed. Her hands were behind her back,
[23:34] and I had no doubt they were clutching something sharp. Screw this,
[23:41] I cried and turned, making for the door. It wasn't far, maybe
[23:45] five meters at most, but every single step felt like an eternity as I
[23:51] kept waiting to feel something at my back, the blade slicing between my shoulder
[23:56] blades, her hand latching onto my jacket and dragging me backwards. The sheriff
[24:00] of a body leaping up onto my back, slid my hands reaching out to
[24:04] slip my throat, while a weight forced me to my knees. But I
[24:11] made it to the door, free and clear, and ran straight to my
[24:14] car. I didn't stop until I'd gotten in and locked all the doors.
[24:19] Even then, I only risked one brief glance up at the doorway and saw
[24:26] that it was empty, before I turned the ignition and slammed my foot down
[24:32] on the gas. I was crying as I stumbled through the front door,
[24:44] unsure of what had happened, but terrified all the same. I wanted to
[24:48] know that I wasn't alone, and cried out. But the house was quiet
[24:52] and empty, lights off, no TV, no husband. I went looking
[25:00] and found only a letter waiting for me on the kitchen island. Nothing elaborate,
[25:07] certainly not the confession I initially expected upon seeing it. It was simple,
[25:14] scrawled on a piece of a four torn out of the home office printer.
[25:18] He didn't sign it. He didn't need to. I need a few
[25:25] days to process this. Please don't look for me. We can talk when
[25:30] I come home. Next to the letter, was a bundle of polaroids and
[25:34] an opened envelope. You need to see what your wife is up to had
[25:40] been written on the back, and it was nearly identical to the one I'd
[25:45] received weeks ago. The photos were much the same, too, only this
[25:51] time the man's face was obscured and the woman's clearly visible. She looked exactly
[25:59] like me. Not a matter of sisters, but twins, a doppelganger,
[26:06] even although something behind the eyes felt out a place. This was my own
[26:11] face after a night of meth or heroine maybe, and yet still unmistakably mine.
[26:21] Of course, she was familiar for another reason too. There was no
[26:26] mistaking that eerie grin and greasy hair. I'd met her that afternoon. I'd
[26:33] seen her standing at the top of the stairs, crowing my words back at
[26:37] me like some puppet. I couldn't begin to fathom what sick game was being
[26:42] played. I just knew that I had to get in contact with my husband.
[26:48] I tried his number, but it was hardly a surprise when he didn't
[26:52] pick up. I tried again and again and again, until well it must
[26:57] have been the fifteenth try when he finally responded. He didn't answer my cause
[27:03] directly. I wasn't lucky, but he did send a voice note. Looking
[27:11] back, it seems so obvious. I assume this started a few weeks ago.
[27:17] Yeah, that's when you withdrew. At first, I thought maybe I'd
[27:21] done something wrong, But as the days wore on, it became clear to
[27:25] me that something deeper is at play. Never in a million years did I
[27:29] expect this, though, I mean maybe, I don't know. There were
[27:33] times I thought maybe you were pregnant, afraid you'd after what happened last time.
[27:40] Jeez, I thought it could have been anything, but not this.
[27:45] I need time, a day at least, before I even speak to you.
[27:49] This is the last you'll hear of me until I unblock you. Please
[27:53] don't keep reaching out to me. I don't know if you want forgiveness or
[27:57] just to blame me, or try it lie your way out of it.
[28:00] But before any of that can happen, I need a day to gather myself.
[28:07] I'll speak to you when I want to speak to you, not before.
[28:10] Then. I was so frustrated with this, I whipped my phone at
[28:15] the wall and began to cry, mewing the words stupid and myself over and
[28:21] over again, as I realized just how badly I'd been played in hindsight,
[28:27] who was so obvious? I could claw off my own skin with anger?
[28:33] Yes, I'd pulled away, Yes my behavior had changed. Yes, I'd
[28:37] become irritable and prone to arguing over the silliest little things. This whole thing
[28:42] had been a set up from the start by that crazy woman, and I'd
[28:47] walked right into it. Who's to say there was even my husband in those
[28:52] photos? I mean, if I had a look alike, why not him?
[28:57] If I just confronted him on day one, maybe we could have made
[29:02] sense of it. But as it was, I looked guilty as sin from
[29:06] where he was standing. Jeez, I'd even lied to him about taking time
[29:11] off work. My behavior was practically the poster child for a cheating spouse.
[29:18] I don't know what was being planned here, but I knew something was deeply,
[29:22] profoundly wrong with it all. What the hell was the endgame for these
[29:26] sick freaks to ruin my marriage? What the hell am I going to do
[29:32] now? I whispered in despair. What the hell am I going to do
[29:37] now? The words were so gentle, I wondered for a moment if they'd
[29:44] come from my own mouth, an echo, maybe even my own thoughts,
[29:48] mistaken for actual words. But none of that was right, and I knew
[29:53] it. The words had presents in the world more than that, they had
[30:00] a location. Behind me. Slowly, desperately hoping that I shouldn't have to
[30:11] trust my own senses, I turned to face the hallway i'd just come from
[30:18] empty. And yet why did I get the feeling it had been occupied only
[30:23] a few seconds ago? Some sixth sense, perhaps the knowledge that just because
[30:30] something looks safe doesn't mean it is. Something had just ducked back out of
[30:37] sight as I turned, I was sure of it. But where our cozy
[30:44] little home suddenly seemed far too big for comfort? A doorway here, a
[30:48] stairway there, no lights aside from what I turned on in the kitchen when
[30:53] I'd rushed in. Was this really the place where my husband had held my
[30:57] hand every time we waited for the doctor to call, or where we sat
[31:02] and cuddled as I read and he played games. He was wrong, all
[31:07] wrong? Hello, I cried out, desperately, hoping that reality might suddenly
[31:15] snap back into place. But there was nothing, no echo, just me.
[31:23] But could I trust that I was alone, my God said, No.
[31:30] There it was again, that itch between my shoulder blades, the same
[31:34] crawling terror I'd felt in that house, knowing that woman might jump at me
[31:40] at any moment from a place atop the stairs. I tried to tell myself
[31:45] the paranoid thoughts should be ignored, but I still reached for a nearby knife
[31:49] and cried out once more, if only to break the silence that felt painfully
[31:55] heavy. Hello, is anyone there? Quietly, I went out into the
[32:04] hallway and switched on the lights. They helped a little, but not enough.
[32:10] From upstairs, a quiet thump, the muffled sound of something moving.
[32:20] I wanted to leave, but go where and to what end? I told
[32:24] myself it could only really be her, couldn't it. And she was,
[32:30] after all just a person, a thinner, scragglier looking version of myself.
[32:37] I may have spent the last few weeks getting led around by the nose,
[32:40] but I wasn't some docile pet. I was a person. I had agency,
[32:46] and I didn't want to be afraid anymore, not in my own home.
[32:52] I gripped the knife harder, watched the light glint of its edge,
[32:55] then turned to face the stairs. I was frozen in time, unable to
[33:02] move towards the sound, but unwilling to just leave it all behind. Finally,
[33:09] I worked with the courage to speak, to force out a few shaky
[33:14] and uncertain words, I know you're up there. No response, at least
[33:22] not verbal. The second ticked on and slowly, almost as if she was
[33:29] relishing it for corpse. Pale fingers curled themselves around the top step. I
[33:37] tried to picture the scene at large, the fact that for the last few
[33:42] minutes, me at the bottom of the stairs, her at the top.
[33:46] She had been lying with the whole body pressed flush to the floor like some
[33:52] kind of spider, waiting, just waiting. Thought made me feel sick,
[34:01] like this was far worse than a simple home invasion. And then came her
[34:07] face, my face, and I felt like this was just the beginning of
[34:14] some kind of waking nightmare. It came peering out over the top, a
[34:20] grin as wide as my whole head, with her head cocked to one side
[34:23] like a disappointed puppy. She stared at me with this distorted expression, and
[34:30] then in one fluid motion, she lifted the rest of her body into sight.
[34:37] What the hell are you? She hissed back. Her mouth didn't move
[34:45] an inch. Something behind that horrible smile, something dark, wet and glistening,
[34:52] seemed to vibrate. I felt lightheaded as I processed this, felt my
[34:57] nerves turned to water, my hand involuntarily loosen, and the knife clatter to
[35:02] the floor. Iran, I'm not sure there was any conscious thought behind it,
[35:10] any decision rational or otherwise. The same heady punch of terror that propelled
[35:16] me is the same force that made me peel myself when I heard her feet
[35:21] scurrying after me, the same that made me cry out like a damned child
[35:25] as she bore to the floor. It was only the pain of smashing my
[35:30] face into the cold tile that brought me out of the hysterical fear. Looking
[35:36] back, I think it's what saved my life. A bright red splash of
[35:42] blood, a single tooth scent scattering across the floor, my tongue probing the
[35:47] empty space of a missing incisor. The pain caused the kind of knee jerk
[35:52] reaction, and I kicked back as hard as I could. I made some
[35:58] contact, not much, but it was enough to let me claw my way
[36:01] back onto my feet and run towards the door. Mystery repeated itself. It
[36:08] seemed her behind me as I raced towards the nearest exit. But this time
[36:15] it was different. This time she didn't let me get away unharmed. This
[36:21] time she drove a kitchen knife into the meat of my calf, and it
[36:24] hurt like nothing else I'd ever felt. It sent me toppling over as I
[36:30] screamed in pain, turned my legs to jelly. A bit of luck meant
[36:36] that I managed to reach out and grab the door handle to stop myself going
[36:38] down all the way. But it took every ounce of willpower I had to
[36:44] hold myself there as I vented the pain in a good wrenching cry. With
[36:49] one hand, I tried to stem the bleeding in my leg, while with
[36:52] the other I fumbled around to open the door. It took a good few
[36:57] seconds longer than I wanted. It too long enough for me to glance over
[37:02] and see her standing there, breathing so heavily her whole body shook. She
[37:09] might have been laughing, or maybe this was her imitating my cries of pain.
[37:16] I couldn't be sure, but I found myself hoping that I was going
[37:22] to wake up any second now. That this was a nightmare, a gross
[37:27] perversion of my imagination cranked up to eleven, but time just kept going,
[37:35] one hand desperately trying to work the key in the lock, the other clutching
[37:38] a lump of muscle that throbbed in pain. My skin slick with hot blood,
[37:45] wet socks, slippery floor. Am I going to pass out? I?
[37:49] Wondered? What is she going to do to me if I do?
[37:53] She took a step towards me, savoring my weakness. I sobbed and kick
[38:00] out with my one good leg. With this sad gesture meant I lost my
[38:04] footing and slid down to the floor, where I sat back against the door
[38:09] and watched helplessly as she stalked closer. What do you want? I sobbed.
[38:17] What do you want? She choked back at me from a frozen mouth.
[38:22] God, whatever was moving behind those awful teeth, it looked almost insectile.
[38:30] The last thing I remember before the pain became too much was her face,
[38:37] closer than it should be and all lit up impossibly bright by a swelling
[38:43] cascade of blues and red. That face of hers, my face, it
[38:50] was haunting, bloodshot eyes that darted over my features like a predator savoring its
[38:57] kill, and that mouth, and a kite, and as thing that swelled
[39:00] within, slowly opening wider and wider. I awoke screaming, several orderlies,
[39:15] big men pinning me down as panicked nurses and doctors worked away at my leg.
[39:21] One of them told me I was safe, but he took an age
[39:23] for the words to sink in. It was only when I remember the lights
[39:29] that I began to calm red and blue. A neighbor had called the police
[39:36] in response to all the noise. When the nurses explained what had happened,
[39:40] I cried with relief. Who would have thought I'd be so thankful for nosy
[39:46] neighbors. They figured it might have been a domestic situation gone wrong. For
[39:52] when the cops turned up and found me bleeding all over the floor with a
[39:55] six inch carbon knife jotting out of my leg, they knew it was much
[40:00] much worse a home invasion. They told me. I wanted to correct them.
[40:07] I stammered out a kind of fumwared response about a woman in my home,
[40:10] and they nodded. But how could I explain to them the madness of
[40:15] the last few weeks? When they told me about my missing clothes and jewelry,
[40:21] about the way someone had clearly ransacked the home for valuables. It was
[40:25] clear as day they made up their mind about it being a burglary gone wrong.
[40:31] The thought of her rummaging through my things disgusted me. The notion that
[40:37] she had gone rifling through my things. Of course, my clothes and jewelry
[40:42] were missing. That nightmare of a woman seemed to get a kick out of
[40:45] imitating me. Did this mean the next time she appeared, jumping out of
[40:51] some dark closet or unfolding herself from the backseat of my car, she be
[40:54] dressed in my clothes, clothes I'd once loved, now bl blooded and filthy
[41:00] jewelry my mother and father had given me draped around her neck my husband,
[41:07] I asked the nearest policeman. Once he was done with the questions, notebook
[41:13] folded, standing up, he was getting ready to leave. Have you heard
[41:19] from my husband? He's on his way. Tired beyond belief, I fell
[41:27] backwards and began to cry. The policeman, clearly aware of what I'd been
[41:32] through, let himself out without another word, and I lay there alone for
[41:37] what must have been hours. I think I passed out again. I just
[41:43] fell into a very deep sleep. When I awoke, it was through the
[41:51] feeling of cold morning light filtering through the half closed blinds. Slowly I realized
[41:58] that I stirred to the chat and reassuring sound of my husband's voice. Hello.
[42:07] I smiled at the realization he had come, and the familiarity that the
[42:12] sound of his voice brought the feeling of safety after everything I'd gone through meant
[42:20] the world to me to have him so close again. It turned over and
[42:25] saw him standing there, facing away from me. Daniel. I tried to
[42:34] keep my voice clear. We got less than halfway through his name before it
[42:38] turned into a great big sob Oh, thank god you're here. Who are
[42:46] you? I frowned. The choice of words confused me, but my husband
[42:54] didn't move or turned to face me. That in itself was to make me
[43:00] sit upright. Daniel, I repeated, what are you doing in my room?
[43:07] Get the hell out of here, Dan, Jeez. The sudden exclamation
[43:14] made me jump. My heart rate spiked. Some machine close by began to
[43:19] screech, but still my husband did not move. Jeez, what the hell
[43:24] are you? He continued, Oh my god, he began to scream while
[43:31] remaining perfectly still with his hands behind his back, head tilted to one side.
[43:38] Just as suddenly as the crying out had begun, it stopped, and
[43:43] several medics began to race into the room to check on me. My head
[43:47] grew light, the world began to spin slowly. At last, my husband
[43:53] turned to face me as the nurses crowded around, asking a dozen questions,
[44:00] none of which I seemed to hear. I saw his face. God,
[44:08] his face, a grin as wide as his head, wood shot eyes,
[44:16] greasy hair, and a sort of dazed, drug addled lock. When he
[44:22] spoke one final time, his lips did not move, but behind that strange
[44:29] and warped mouth there was the barely visible glint of vibrating black carapace. What
[44:37] are you? He said, a dying rattle, one last exclamation before he
[44:44] turned to leave. The others in the room were oblivious to him, focused
[44:49] as they were entirely on me. As a dozen alarms went off as I
[44:54] watched him leave, a sickening realization dawned on one that threatened a crowd out,
[45:02] the last vestige of consciousness. That thing was his doppelganger, and he
[45:14] had been repeating my husband's dying words right back at me. A few years
[45:30] ago, I was invited to a dinner party. And it wasn't that fancy,
[45:36] just a few odd friends reconnecting people I hadn't seen since high school.
[45:42] Some of the people on that list were people I hadn't seen or heard of
[45:45] for years, so it'd be a nice opportunity to catch up. My wife
[45:52] couldn't come, though invites only. She didn't mind. I looked forward to
[45:59] it all we I dug out my old Tomskog High School baseball cap and went
[46:04] through the guest list. There were a few names I recognized at the drop
[46:07] of a hat, and a few that I didn't. I figured some people
[46:13] had changed their names over the years. While it wasn't a proper reunion,
[46:19] more I could get together of old friends, I still got the sense that
[46:22] there was something more to it. There was no anniversary coming up, so
[46:29] it sort of came out of nowhere. I got the impression that maybe something
[46:32] else was up, like a proposal or some other announcement. The big night
[46:39] took place on a Saturday, had a rented venture just outside of town,
[46:45] some old clubhouse. Nothing big or fancy, but enough to house the eight
[46:51] party goers that had pressed the I will attend button. I got there a
[46:55] bit early, dressed up in my favorite jacket, sporting the classic baseball cap.
[47:02] It smelled a bit like mildew, but what the hell. If there
[47:07] ever was a time to wear it, this was it. Rolling up to
[47:13] the house, the first person I ran into was the host herself, Jerry,
[47:19] short for Geraldine. She was the de facto head of the A V
[47:23] Club back in high school. The elected president of the club was often missing
[47:29] or off doing their own thing, leaving Jerry to take care of the practicalities.
[47:35] If there was one person I'd bet on to arrange a night like this,
[47:38] it'd be her. She swept me up in a big hug, pulling
[47:44] a little on my baseball cap. Oh we're bringing out the big guns,
[47:47] eh, she laughed. Should have kept my club sweater. Got to represent
[47:52] the Tugs, the stupid name we used for the locals. It was still
[47:58] around. Over time, the others dropped in Nellie the Overachiever, Olly or
[48:06] o Ley, who was on the student council, Chris and Corey the twins
[48:12] Omar who didn't move in until the final year, but instantly made himself part
[48:17] of the group. Finally, we just waited for Tess. It was getting
[48:23] late, so we figured she could catch up later. We had a couple
[48:29] of drinks and got snacking on some appetizers Jerry had arranged for a catered meal.
[48:36] It didn't take long for us to fall back into our old roles,
[48:38] finding our way back to each other like we'd never left. There is a
[48:44] saying that the better you know someone, the less you need to talk to
[48:46] them. It really is true. It was just a matter of minutes before
[48:53] we were right back to where we left things all those years ago. But
[49:00] Tess was a no show. I figured she'd run into some sort of last
[49:05] minute issue, but Jerry wasn't convinced. If anything, Jerry was being a
[49:12] bit strange about it, avoidant. Halfway through the main course, Nelly cheked
[49:19] her phone. She fell silent all of a sudden. It was hard to
[49:25] tell since everyone else was laughing and chatting about but I saw her lift her
[49:30] hand to her mouth and her eyes stopped blinking. She'd seen something, something
[49:38] shocking. I gently elbowed Omar next to me, who noticed the same thing.
[49:45] Once the two of us quieted down, so did the others. It
[49:50] didn't take long for the entire table to notice. Nelly looked up at us.
[49:57] She's there's been an accident. I I think she test is not,
[50:05] she sniffled, putting down her phone. She buried her face in her hands,
[50:08] trying her best to hold back the tears. Everyone picked up their phones,
[50:15] trying to see if what she'd said was true, checking local news,
[50:20] social media, anything. But I kept my eyes on Jerry. She was
[50:29] unnaturally quiet about this. It didn't take long for the room to devolve.
[50:36] Nellie was openly weeping. Olet just went pale, staring into the wall.
[50:40] Chris and Corey started arguing about the details as they differed from one source to
[50:45] the next. Omar just shook his head over and over, trying to convince
[50:52] himself it wasn't true, but of course it was. Turns out Tess had
[51:00] some kind of aneurysm earlier that day out like a light the moment she sat
[51:05] down in a car, completely unavoidable and undetectable. It just took some time
[51:10] for people to notice, since it looked like someone just sitting in their car.
[51:17] But Jerry just sat there, sipping a whine. She didn't look at
[51:22] her phone, and she didn't join the conversation. There was a shake to
[51:27] her hand, like she was suddenly nervous. I wanted to pull her aside
[51:32] and ask her about it, but there was no space. People were talking
[51:37] over one another, calling out demanding my attention, all the while Jerry didn't
[51:45] move a muscle. Then the power went out. It went completely dark.
[51:55] For a moment, all I could see were faces lit up by smile phone
[52:00] screens like ghastly apparitions. I joined in, and so did Jerry. The
[52:06] discussion just died as we all looked at one another. At some point,
[52:10] someone turned their phone towards the table, as if looking for something. As
[52:15] the light panned across the room, we all noticed in unison a shape.
[52:24] It was only there for a fraction of a second. Something tall, dark
[52:29] and spectral arms that reached all the way to the floor. Something sickly thin
[52:36] and black as oil. There was a shrill screech, like the cables inside
[52:43] the walls were burning, screaming for help. This high pitched burn, something
[52:50] overloading, bathing the room in the smell of burnt plastic and gypsum. In
[52:55] the blink of an eye, the power returned, and with it, the
[53:00] dark disappeared. The room irrupted. Nelly was on her feet, backing away
[53:08] from the table. Allie crouched down. The twins just stood up, looking
[53:14] lost. Oh Mar just froze, not knowing what to do. But my
[53:20] eyes landed on Jerry and what she was doing. She just sat there,
[53:28] staring at the space where the dark thing had stood. As the room fell
[53:32] silent. I caught her attention. What's going on? I wheezed, What
[53:40] was that? Jerry shook her head. As the rest of the room turned
[53:46] her attention to her. She began stuttering. Her eyes shifted from one to
[53:52] the next, until she finally gave in. It's it's hard to work explain.
[54:04] So now we got the real story. It started a couple of months
[54:07] ago. It started with a woman named Gwen. She had been an acquaintance
[54:15] at best, someone that most of the group hadn't interacted much with. She
[54:21] was part of another clique in a way, and there wasn't much crossover between
[54:24] the groups. She had suddenly passed, leaving some former classmates devastated. Tess
[54:32] had heard about it somewhere in a social peripheral. One post in particular had
[54:37] stood out. In one of the memorial comment sections, someone mentioned she knew
[54:45] this was coming. She'd seen the specter of death, she told me,
[54:52] and I think she was at peace. After that, there'd been two more
[54:58] deaths, a man and a woman, both dropping dead within a month of
[55:02] one another, again vague hints to seeing something and a specter, but this
[55:10] time Tess knew them a little better. In fact, she talked to one
[55:15] of them. Just weeks ahead of their death. Two things became apparent,
[55:22] one that they were being followed by something, and two that they knew their
[55:29] time was running short. By that third death, Tess figured it was no
[55:35] longer a coincidence. Their old friends were dropping like flies. She reached out
[55:40] to Jerry to kind of get the gang together to talk about it, but
[55:45] only days ahead of the reunion, she'd started to see the specter herself.
[55:52] She wanted us to go ahead with or without her, said Jerry. She
[55:58] knew this would happen, So what does it mean? Nearly asked, we
[56:04] all saw it? Are we all next? Jerry shook her head as the
[56:09] questions reigned. What the hell is that? Yelled Cory? Were you going
[56:15] to tell us? Chris joined in question after question after question. Finally,
[56:22] Jerry just slumped into a chair, still shaking her head. I don't know,
[56:29] she repeated, over and over. I I just don't know. Olly
[56:37] was the first to react. He headed for the door. I'm getting the
[56:40] hell out of here, he yelled, screw this. The moment he opened
[56:46] the door, the power was cut again. My phone was glowing hot in
[56:52] my hand, overloaded by static electricity. All the illuminated faces flickered as our
[56:59] phones going to stay alive. In a vague flicker from one of our phone
[57:04] screens, I only caught a glimpse of it, a figure so tall we
[57:08] couldn't see the head as it loomed outside the door, and impossibly long arm
[57:15] reached in. Olli just screamed, evolving into a series of ever repeating no
[57:22] no, nos, until he was silenced. It took longer for the lights
[57:29] to return now. When they did, Olli was curled up on the floor
[57:34] like a dying bug, face frozen in surprise and horror. He was already
[57:39] pale as limestone, his eyes glazed over, a single tear in the corner
[57:45] of his frozen eye, dead as a doornail. The room irerupted into panic
[57:55] Jerry screamed at them to stop. The twins headed for the back door,
[58:00] only for the lights to go out again. I could hear a bull pop
[58:04] from the fridge, and I could smell something burning. The scene played out
[58:08] as if there a strobe light. As light bulbs struggled to come back to
[58:13] life, little snapshots of chaos burned into my retinas. Chris dropped immediately in
[58:22] the doorway. Corey made it all the way back to the dinner table before
[58:27] he collapsed, and impossibly long arm touching the back of his head, he
[58:31] fell haphazardly forward, breaking the two legs at the short end of the table.
[58:37] He pulled down most of the tablecloth, along with the plates and glasses.
[58:43] Carefully prepared mimosas and half drunk wine bottles spilled onto the floor, mixing
[58:49] with froth and dust. He was dead before he hit the ground. Omar
[58:55] panicked but nearly managed to hold him back. Jerry was high in the corner.
[59:01] I was just standing there like a deer in headlights, trying to remember
[59:06] how to breathe. I had never been the one with a vital flight instinct,
[59:12] like a genetic thing. Nelly shook her head. I have to do
[59:16] regular checkups for work. She said, I got a clean bill. We
[59:22] went through a checklist of things, trying to figure out an answer to why
[59:27] us. It was the only thing we could do. Our phones were dead,
[59:32] and no one dared to leave. We just stood there, our thoughts
[59:37] running away from us at the speed of panic. It didn't make sense.
[59:44] We were different genders, backgrounds, ethnicities, and religions, with different occupations,
[59:50] aspirations, hopes, and dreams. For all intents and purposes, we
[59:54] were wildly different people. The only thing tying us together with our association with
[1:00:00] one another and our shared time at Tomskog High. At one point, we'd
[1:00:07] all curled up against the walls. I hugged my knees close to my chest.
[1:00:13] I couldn't look at Jerry without my eyes crossing paths with Corey's body curled
[1:00:17] up like a dead bug, fingers twisted and turned in a painful final expression.
[1:00:25] I opted to just not look at her, instead speaking generally to the
[1:00:30] room. So that's it, Then, I said, there's no reason.
[1:00:37] We're just screwed. We tried to leave and were screwed. That can't be
[1:00:45] said, Omar, Then why wait, why not just kill us. None
[1:00:50] of this makes sense, muttered Nelly, shaking her head. Why now,
[1:00:55] that was a good question. We considered what had been going on in our
[1:01:00] lives lately. I mentioned moving into a new house with my wife, who
[1:01:06] started a new job as a realtor. Nelly talked about accepting a position in
[1:01:10] Minneapolis. Omar was moving to South Dakota to be with her sick mother.
[1:01:15] Jerry had been working remotely for a company in Dallas for years, and only
[1:01:20] recently they decided to enforce a return to office policy. There were no obvious
[1:01:25] patterns, relationships, families, jobs, It all looked very different. Omar
[1:01:32] tried a different approach. Maybe it's more practical, he said, maybe we
[1:01:39] have to leave as a group. Why. I don't know. I don't
[1:01:45] even know what it is. So let's look at it rather than us.
[1:01:51] Let's look at what it's doing. I said, it's keeping us here,
[1:01:55] It wants us to be here. We're safe now, right. We all
[1:02:00] looked around as if to make a point. We were indeed safe for now.
[1:02:08] But despite it all, no matter how much logic we tried to apply
[1:02:13] to it, I couldn't wrap my brain around what we'd been looking at.
[1:02:17] Some kind of otherworldly entity tearing through us without any kind of retaliation, or
[1:02:27] maybe there was. Nelly argued that we should attack it. We'd seen it,
[1:02:34] so it was some kind of physical entity. It had a shape of
[1:02:38] form that in itself should mean that it could be destroyed. Slowly getting off
[1:02:45] the floor, we looked at what we had. A few broken table legs
[1:02:50] as clubs. Jerry figured we could try using salt, and as it was
[1:02:55] supposed to have some sort of supernatural properties on non world the entities, Omar
[1:03:01] figured trying a cross wouldn't hurt. We armed ourselves to the best of our
[1:03:07] abilities, figuring we should try something as a group. If it really was
[1:03:12] a physical entity, that meant it was constrained by its own properties, meaning
[1:03:17] it couldn't catch all of us at once, So instead of moving as a
[1:03:23] pile of pigs to the slaughter, we would spread out, scattering to the
[1:03:28] wind. It was risky, but who was all we got. Omar positioned
[1:03:37] himself by the front door with a table leg. Jerry got the back door
[1:03:40] with a frying pan. Nellie and I took windows on the opposite side of
[1:03:45] the room. She armed with another table leg. Well. I used the
[1:03:50] roast pan as a shield and a kitchen knife. We reviewed the plan again.
[1:03:57] We would go on five, heading in different directionstions. Once out,
[1:04:01] we would be calling for help. If confronted by the entity, we'd be
[1:04:06] using what we had to force it back just enough to run. We hadn't
[1:04:12] seen it move much, so maybe it wasn't that fast. It was a
[1:04:16] risky, stupid plan, but we were desperate. Nellie counted down from five.
[1:04:26] I held my hand on the window, watching the others follow suit.
[1:04:30] As the countdown continued, I could feel the strength in my arm wane,
[1:04:35] like everything in me just wanted not to run, but to crawl into a
[1:04:40] corner and just wait. And yet the countdown reached zero. Nellie flung the
[1:04:48] window open, Ohmar kicked the front door open. Jerry pushed into the back
[1:04:54] door, and me I realized my window was locked. The reaction was immediate
[1:05:06] and violent. Out of every window and every door, dozens of shade like
[1:05:15] appendages appeared, knife sharp, bonelike fingers reached for us. The window was
[1:05:21] blown apart by the pressure, covering my hand in a hundred little cuts,
[1:05:27] shattered pieces of glass boring into my hair. I didn't fight that instinct just
[1:05:33] wasn't there. I scrambled backwards, doing exactly what my instinct taught me to
[1:05:41] to make myself as small and invisible as possible. Omar thought Nelly too.
[1:05:47] Jerry actually managed to hit something. I could hear the thwunk of the frying
[1:05:53] pan, but it was quick, no screams. As the lights died,
[1:06:00] I saw Jerry's head being grasped as she was dragged outside. Her heart stopped
[1:06:04] before she even dropped the frying pan. Nelly got half way across the room
[1:06:10] before they got to her, making a face plant into the hardwood floor in
[1:06:14] a morbidly comical manner. An entire life snuffed out, ending with an embarrassing
[1:06:19] self inflicted nothing. Ohmar just stood there as one of the things loomed over
[1:06:26] him. It reached for him, and he did nothing. It was calm,
[1:06:31] collected, even reverent in a way, But as what looked like a
[1:06:38] thumb approached his forehead, he started shaking his head. No, he pleaded,
[1:06:45] no, I can't not like this, and with that he fell to
[1:06:50] the floor empty. They made no sound. Dozens of un dozens of specters
[1:06:59] pulled into the surrounding me. I wanted to scream, but my breath was
[1:07:04] stuck in my throat. I couldn't believe what I was seeing. It was
[1:07:10] so far from the world. I knew that it started to feel like a
[1:07:14] bad dream. It simply couldn't be well and truly real. But feeling that
[1:07:19] cold, hardwood floor against my cheek made me think differently. I looked up
[1:07:26] only to see one of the specters looming over me, so tall that its
[1:07:30] head cut to the ceiling. It reached to me, a thumb like appendage
[1:07:36] reaching for my forehead, and in that moment it spoke to me, less
[1:07:45] of a voice and more of a series of impressions. It's hard to explain.
[1:07:54] It showed me flashes of a life, me settling down with my wife,
[1:07:58] growing a little blue sunf I was in the backyard, having kids,
[1:08:01] growing old and dying on a park bench near Frog Lake, never leaving the
[1:08:06] little Minnesota town where I'd grown up, a long, peaceful and uneventful life,
[1:08:14] little spots of sunshine and joy along a gray path, one i'd willingly
[1:08:18] bind myself too. But then it showed me something else, a different world,
[1:08:28] full of dark shapes in an endless desert of black sand. There I
[1:08:32] wondered as another faceless thing, saying nothing, doing nothing, and there was
[1:08:41] no end, learning hellscapes where my flesh was reforming as fast as it melted
[1:08:46] from my bones in a perpetual cycle of pain. In another place, I
[1:08:53] was stuck in an empty, starless void, where my being was spread among
[1:08:58] dying stars drifting. In another I was floating on a sensationless ocean, staring
[1:09:05] up at a night sky or a single red eye. The sighs of the
[1:09:10] moon stared back. I was a consciousness bound as stages of life I could
[1:09:15] never break free from. It was an invitation. They were asking me to
[1:09:23] stay here, there and forever. That's what had killed the others. They
[1:09:30] had wanted to leave. I finally understood I wasn't running, I wasn't leaving.
[1:09:39] I was staying in this town, while the others had been eager to
[1:09:42] settle elsewhere. But this invitation wasn't just about me and they're here and now.
[1:09:49] This was about an endless multitude of existences waiting to happen, one where
[1:09:56] an end was not promised, A perpetual me bound to whatever form necessary like
[1:10:03] them, Like all of them, I could feel myself shaking my head into
[1:10:10] a no. I could feel my tongue licking the roof of my mouth,
[1:10:15] looking to push out that n but I couldn't. My froze, Yes,
[1:10:24] I cried, Yes, of course, a cold dumb touched me as if
[1:10:31] drawing an invisible mark across my forehead. And that was it. One by
[1:10:39] one they left. They gained what they came for, a recruit someone to
[1:10:45] stay with them, to join their group at an unfathomable cost. The final
[1:10:51] one left with a breeze knocking over my Tomskock high baseball cap home of the
[1:10:58] Togs. I just stood there alone. Contorted remains of people I used to
[1:11:05] know littered the floor husks. The lights came back on, phones buzzing across
[1:11:13] the room, pings from mist calls and messages. But after all the notifications
[1:11:18] died down or that was left, it was me, sobbing on the floor,
[1:11:27] doomed. You might have heard about all this, but in another way,
[1:11:33] they blamed it all on wine poisoning. There was a sham investigation.
[1:11:39] I think something around two thousand bottles were recalled. Not a single soul believed
[1:11:44] my testimony, and my lawyer recommended me to retract my official statement. As
[1:11:49] it would either send me to a madhouse or get me in legal trouble perjury.
[1:11:55] Maybe instead I said that I simply didn't drink any wine, that I
[1:12:00] had settled for a beer that in itself was a lie, but everyone was
[1:12:06] willing to believe it. Perhaps they all knew there was more to it,
[1:12:12] perhaps they didn't care. A few years down the line, now I have
[1:12:18] two daughters, I have a nice job. My wife and I get along
[1:12:23] well, caring for the house together. It is a good life. But
[1:12:29] I can't help but to get that nagging feeling that I've doomed myself, that
[1:12:34] there was something waiting for me that I can't come back from. That maybe
[1:12:42] at the end of all this, I am the one getting the raw deal,
[1:12:46] and not the shriveled up corpses that I left behind in that clubhouse.
[1:12:54] They say that you never really leave the small town life, that it follows
[1:12:59] you through your life, if one way or another, I never thought it'd
[1:13:05] be this litteral. The knock on the van window might as well have come
[1:13:20] from out space. Pitch black parked up on the side of a country road
[1:13:26] and in a metal box being pommeled by a storm that had left half the
[1:13:30] country underwater. My wife and I practically jumped out of our skins at the
[1:13:35] rat tat tat and the driver's side window. I could see nothing except rivulets
[1:13:42] of water pouring down the window, and the sudden idea of someone leering at
[1:13:46] us on the other side made me deeply uncomfortable. I hesitated for a moment
[1:13:54] before I wound the window down. Couldn't help but think of hook handed men
[1:14:00] and lonely couples stuck in the middle of nowhere. But when I heard the
[1:14:04] muffled sound of someone trying to talk to us, I swallowed the worst of
[1:14:09] my nerves and pressed the button to wind the window down. Wouldn't stay here.
[1:14:15] The old man shoved his whole head through the window so it could be
[1:14:18] heard over the storm. I couldn't help but cringe backwards, and I was
[1:14:24] reminded of being in a safari with the window down. The way the wild
[1:14:29] beast come ploshing in looking for food. Thankfully, my wife Leslie, managed
[1:14:34] to stammer out a reply before any awkward silence could fester. Ah, pardon,
[1:14:42] can't stay here, he repeated, This lane will be underwater by midnight.
[1:14:47] Oh, I replied, Damn. I was feeling fairly deflated by this
[1:14:54] point. I hadn't pulled up in the middle of nowhere to sleep in a
[1:14:58] van because it was my first We'd arrived here only after spending a good six
[1:15:03] hours trying hotel after hotel, only to find they were either underwater or booked
[1:15:10] to the gills with people escaping the floods. Do you know anywhere we could
[1:15:15] go, Leslie asked. We just need somewhere to park up. The old
[1:15:21] man grimaced and shook his head. Not around my land. Sorry, ain't
[1:15:27] falling for that again. He looked in the back as he said this,
[1:15:31] as if the gauge who we were might have been the Bong or my friends
[1:15:36] Ryan and Meg lying stoned in a sleeping bag with something back there, amused
[1:15:42] him. He let out a nasty little snort laugh. No way, ain't
[1:15:46] even squatters again. Best bet would be the Weeping Ram, he added.
[1:15:53] So what hotel about half hour up the road? What was it called?
[1:16:00] Asked the Weeping Ram. She immediately began typing on a phone with The old
[1:16:05] man gestured with his hand for her to stop. Won't find it online,
[1:16:11] love, he said, Look, you go straight and take the third right.
[1:16:17] Leslie, diligent as ever, took meticulous notes as he spoke, But
[1:16:24] I had to fight not to roll my eyes. Something about the old man
[1:16:28] had rubbed me the wrong way, and once he left, I said as
[1:16:31] much. Half tempted to just stay here, I said, as I played
[1:16:36] with the keys in the ignition. He probably just wants us out the area,
[1:16:42] unhappy with the undesirables lurking so close to his land. Yeah, but
[1:16:46] if if floods, we're in real trouble. Ryan appeared out the back,
[1:16:53] red eyed and tired, but clearly having paid more attention than I thought.
[1:16:58] Please don't sink my van. It is literally my only possession in life.
[1:17:03] He's right, Leslie added, we can't risk getting caught in the flood.
[1:17:09] What's this place meant to be like? Then, I asked, don't know?
[1:17:14] Leslie shrugged. I can't find anything about it on line. Quaint as
[1:17:18] hell, Ryan said, with an easy going nod of the head. Old
[1:17:23] world off line vibes like some ancient being beer or something. But he creepy
[1:17:29] is what it is. I replied, nothing about it on line. Leslie,
[1:17:34] still scrolling, shook her head. Bet, oh, we don't end
[1:17:38] up starring in the West Country. Chains or massacre, I grumbled. Nobody
[1:17:44] laughed, so with a bit of a grimace, I turned the keys and
[1:17:48] began to pull the van out of the banking i'd parked on. Leslie smiled
[1:17:53] and gave my leg a reassurance squeeze before feeding me the first of many directions
[1:17:59] to come. At least we know it as vacancies, I said, as
[1:18:03] I robbed the van to a stop on an empty gravel lot. Is that
[1:18:08] a that roof, Lesley cried, while ignoring me. Oh my god,
[1:18:13] it is made Cood, her blonde hair and round face, making a brief
[1:18:17] appearance by the front seats. Let's get in there and take a lock.
[1:18:23] She quickly disappeared back into the rear of the van, where her and Ryan
[1:18:27] set about gathering their things. Oh, come on, Mark, it is
[1:18:31] quaint, Leslie said. I couldn't help but grimace. This funny looking pub
[1:18:39] we'd been sent to by some stranger was in the middle of nowhere, situated
[1:18:44] in a small valley between two stony hills, with a view overlooking an overgrown
[1:18:48] field below. The land might once have been used for farming, if only
[1:18:54] for grazing animals, but now he looked desolate and dingy. Rain lashed thorns
[1:19:00] and thistles and spiky thickets of grass were just about the only thing we'd seen
[1:19:04] in our head lights on the way up, and Shure the weeping Ram was
[1:19:10] somewhat quaint, with its expansive fat roof and a hand painted sign of a
[1:19:15] pained looking sheep that swung fitfully in the wind, its lump and white plaster
[1:19:19] facade adding to the medieval rustic vibe. But I got the feeling the place
[1:19:26] was going to be full of cobwebs and spiders and dust and miserable old locals
[1:19:30] with no sense of humor. And where the hell were we? The stormy
[1:19:35] night had eaten the road behind us, erasing all sense of time and place
[1:19:41] as we drove down a muddy gravel lane, until out of nowhere, the
[1:19:45] turning the old man had warned us about appeared and led us to the pub.
[1:19:50] With the rest of the country running in circles because of the storm.
[1:19:55] I couldn't shake the feeling we'd crawled into a forgotten corner of the world,
[1:20:00] one best left alone. Did people really come here to get drunk or stay
[1:20:04] for the night? Did people drive here to come to work, or to
[1:20:09] eat, or cook or serve drinks. It wasn't just out of place with
[1:20:14] the Internet age, it seemed out of place with civilization itself. My suspicions
[1:20:21] were confirmed. Once inside. There was barely enough room for the four of
[1:20:26] us to cram into the small, poorly lit corridor, so Ryan peeked ahead
[1:20:31] and found the main drinking hall after the right passing through our feet, scoffed
[1:20:36] an ancient stone floor, and I noted the horse hair plaster on the walls
[1:20:43] that likely predated the First World War. It reeked of mildew and damp,
[1:20:48] and yet the air seemed dry and musty at the same time. There were
[1:20:53] only four tables and two booths for drinkers, and a dark hardwood bar that
[1:20:59] some potato faced man likely served booze from. But for now it was all
[1:21:04] deserted, no patrons, no bartender. The only sign of life was the
[1:21:10] faint flicker of light from the candlelight. Sconces, Oh my god, this
[1:21:15] is crazy, Megan cried, grabbing Lez's arm to draw attention to the light
[1:21:20] fittings. Look at that, Leslie agreed enthusiastically, But I tuned it out
[1:21:29] as I walked up to the bar and ran a finger across its greasy grain.
[1:21:33] It was dusty as hell, like it had gone unused for years.
[1:21:39] Behind the counter were a few rats for spirits, a couple taps, and
[1:21:44] a single door that led into some unlit space. Could have been a kitchen
[1:21:48] or a storeroom. Had no way of knowing, but I stared into the
[1:21:54] darkness and felt an uncomfortable sensation gather in my stomach. It looked like something
[1:22:02] was moving back there. But why would some one be lurking in the dark?
[1:22:09] D'ye think the owner's back there? I didn't hear Leslie approach, so
[1:22:15] I couldn't hide my fear when she spoke, jumping like some spooped child.
[1:22:19] She made no mention of my overreaction, not even a chuckle, and for
[1:22:26] some reason, that bothered me more than if she teased me about it.
[1:22:30] Let's see, I said, and went behind the bar and into the darkness.
[1:22:36] Using my torch as a light, I scanned the room, seeing a
[1:22:41] dusty old kitchen with pots and pans that hadn't been used for years. Left
[1:22:45] to right and left again. I looked carefully for some sign of life.
[1:22:53] I was sure I had seen some one moving around. I stepped deeper into
[1:22:58] the kitchen, and when my light caught the leering grin of an old woman,
[1:23:03] it took all my resolve not to cry out. Without meaning to,
[1:23:09] I dropped my phone. I went to pick it up while stammering out the
[1:23:13] best greeting I could given the circumstance. Excuse me, I cried, unable
[1:23:19] to shake the image of the strange looking face. I just glimpsed in a
[1:23:24] dark room. Sorry, I didn't mean to intrude or anything. It's just
[1:23:29] we were directed here by the words stopped dead in my mouth. When I
[1:23:33] stood up and brought the light up, there she was again, that old
[1:23:40] woman, eerie grin and wide eyes, pallid white skin, hands held together
[1:23:45] in front of her like an elderly headmistress supervising some exam. And she hadn't
[1:23:51] moved since I'd last laid the torch on her, not an inch, not
[1:23:57] a millimeter. Even there was no more to her, no breath, no
[1:24:01] reaction, not even the constant, darting micro movements of the human eye that
[1:24:06] are barely perceptible but always always there. Somewhere, my mind told me.
[1:24:15] This must be a Mannikin, not a person. Too uncanny, not right,
[1:24:21] And yet it couldn't be. She was so lifelike. I couldn't help
[1:24:28] but take a few steps towards her, noticing faint, downy hair, long
[1:24:32] her cheeks, liver spots by a hairline, and a thousand other details that
[1:24:38] are refused to believe with the product of some crazy artists working with wax.
[1:24:44] But her eyes did not even dilate when the torch glinted directly off their glassy
[1:24:48] surface. No human could stand in darkness and have a torch beamed into their
[1:24:55] eyeballs and not even flinch. It just wasn't possible. Oh my god,
[1:25:02] I muttered, before realizing I had to show the others this incredible find.
[1:25:09] Slowly I backed out of the room, not yet willing to turn my back
[1:25:13] on that creepy thing, and found the others admiring the old wood burning fireplace
[1:25:17] in the corner of the room. Any look back there, Leslie asked when
[1:25:23] she saw me. Jeez, guys, I cried breathlessly. You won't believe,
[1:25:30] I was interrupted by the urgent cry of a brittle, feminine voice.
[1:25:34] Oh no, just look at you, poor things. The old woman appeared
[1:25:42] behind us, as if out of nowhere, and my stomach hit the floor.
[1:25:46] With a warm smile and gentle, grandmotherly tone, she swept past me
[1:25:51] and towards my friends, where she immediately began cooing over them, Oh,
[1:25:58] you're drenched, Look at you. How on earth did you make it up
[1:26:01] here in this weather? You must be freezing and hungry too. The others
[1:26:09] reacted normally as anyone might when greeted by a friendly old landlady, but I
[1:26:15] stood rooted to the spot, not sure if what I was seeing was even
[1:26:19] real. Her clothes were identical to the thing in that room, as was
[1:26:27] her hair and face. Everything was the same except for that deeply unsettling expression
[1:26:33] that, ever so slightly two white grin that had terrified me just seconds before
[1:26:40] in the dark was gone, replaced with a surprised but welcoming smile. While
[1:26:46] everyone was busy being fawned over, I quickly backtracked into the kitchen and shone
[1:26:53] my light at the corner. It was empty. Mark Leslie called, and
[1:27:00] I went back into the lounge. Mark, come on, this is Bernadette.
[1:27:05] She's going to show us to our rooms. We're not strictly open for
[1:27:11] business, the woman said, with what seemed to me to be not quite
[1:27:15] sincere concern, but I cannot possibly turn anyone away in weather like this.
[1:27:23] She smiled at Leslie and then at me, and for the briefest of moments,
[1:27:30] hidden in the fractions of a second where Leslie wasn't looking, the old
[1:27:35] woman winked at me. Leslie asked what was wrong, and I wasn't sure
[1:27:49] how to answer right there, and then sat on our bed where it was
[1:27:54] warm and safe, just the two of us. There wasn't much, if
[1:27:59] anything wrong at all, and felt all too easy to ignore the strangeness I'd
[1:28:03] just experienced. So that's what I did. I shrugged it off, told
[1:28:10] Leslie everything was okay, and settled into bed beside her, but not before
[1:28:15] locking our door. After that, I crawled under the covers, pulled my
[1:28:20] wife close, and shut my eyes. Sleep came surprisingly quickly, although there
[1:28:28] were a few flashing images of that deathly white face haunting me in my dreams.
[1:28:35] I couldn't say what woke me. I came to with the faint impression
[1:28:40] of a loud noise just outside the room, Suddenly aware of a cold breeze,
[1:28:45] on my right side, when Leslie should have been Now she was gone,
[1:28:51] the covers thrown back in the bed beside me. Empty. This oriented,
[1:28:58] I poured myself upright and immediately went stumbling to the door looking for her.
[1:29:03] Arms wrapped around my bare chest to stay warm. I poked my head
[1:29:06] out into the corridor and saw nothing except darkness, again, the subtle,
[1:29:15] almost subconscious idea of movement in the inky black Leslie. I called out and
[1:29:23] waited, straining to hear something, anything, over the roaring of the rain
[1:29:29] against the pub's ancient walls. Something might have moved around in response, but
[1:29:33] I wasn't sure. It was like listening for voices and white noise. The
[1:29:40] brain can play tricks on you. Nervous and wishing that I could just crawl
[1:29:45] into bed and pretend that nothing was wrong, I went back into the room
[1:29:49] and got dressed and turned the lights on. When I returned to the corridor,
[1:29:55] with the help of my room light, I could now see the doors
[1:29:59] of the other the guest rooms stretching down the hallway before fading into the darkness.
[1:30:04] And there, at the very threshold of the light was someone's phone,
[1:30:12] the screen broken and the edges dented. I picked it up and could tell
[1:30:16] from the astrological stickers on the back it belonged to Meg. The door to
[1:30:23] her and Ryan's room was empty, and looking inside I saw that the bed
[1:30:28] was ruffled and unmade, and Ryan's phone was still plugged into a power bank
[1:30:32] near the mattress. But where were they and why was there only one of
[1:30:41] his trainers lying upside down halfway between the bed and the door. It was
[1:30:46] like he'd been trying to pull his shoes on when something interrupted him. What
[1:30:53] the hell? I muttered quietly as I pouned my torch across the room.
[1:30:58] God, I wanted this little nightmare to be over with. Ever since I'd
[1:31:02] seen that terrifying old woman standing in the corner of that kitchen, frozen in
[1:31:06] place like some lifelike wax dummy, I felt as if I walked right into
[1:31:12] the twilight zone. But I didn't know how to go about it. All
[1:31:17] I could think of was to go back out into the corridor and try crying
[1:31:23] out for Leslie. There's let's come on, where are you? This time?
[1:31:32] There was a definite sound and muffled but clearly audible thump that came from
[1:31:40] one of the doors off further down the hallway. It sounded like it had
[1:31:45] come near the stairs, and that made sense. If the others were off
[1:31:49] moving around, they weren't going to stick around in the empty guest portion of
[1:31:54] the house, just empty doors and creaking floorboards. No, they probably go
[1:32:00] downstairs to find the old woman. I paused at the top of the stairwell
[1:32:04] and waited, listening for some confirmation that the others were safe and sound.
[1:32:11] I hoped I might hear them laughing and chatting. May be sharing a drink,
[1:32:16] guys. Another thump, this time it definitely came from below. Quietly
[1:32:27] tiptoeing like some scared child, I slunk down the hardwood stairs, pressing my
[1:32:31] feet to the edges of each step, where I knew the wood would be
[1:32:35] strongest and least lightly to make noise. Down one floor and down another.
[1:32:43] The sound of something moving deep within the building drew me on further into what
[1:32:47] felt like a nightmare. But I couldn't just turn back. A part of
[1:32:53] me remained convinced that any second reality in common sense would reassert themselves, that
[1:33:00] everything would snap back into place where it was meant to be. I'd find
[1:33:04] the others laughing and enjoying a drink. Maybe the girls had gone off for
[1:33:09] a chat and Ryan followed, and now I would do the same. Maybe
[1:33:14] there'd been a medical emergency. Meg might have fallen and the others were attending
[1:33:18] to her. Anything might explain why I had woken up on that floor alone,
[1:33:25] crying out, only for no one to reply. A lifetime of experience
[1:33:30] had taught me the childish fears went away when you shone a light at them.
[1:33:35] Then again, I had never experienced anything like that woman. Standing in
[1:33:42] the darkness on the ground floor. Just as the tight spiral staircase opened out
[1:33:48] into another hallway, I'd spotted a gentle amber glow. It came from an
[1:33:55] open doorway some way down the corridor. I was drawn to the first sign
[1:34:00] of life I'd seen since waking up. Then pushed the door open, hoping
[1:34:04] to find my friends gathered around a fire. Instead, I found something out
[1:34:13] of a surreal nightmare. Dogs, cats, foxes, rabbits, forty,
[1:34:23] maybe fifty animals lined the walls and shelves, stiff cotton stuffed faces and glassy
[1:34:29] eyes glaring at me from every knock and cranny of a cramped, humid room
[1:34:34] of course, in the country, it isn't uncommon to come across something like
[1:34:39] this. We'd stayed in a hotel in Scotland just a few weeks before,
[1:34:44] with an enormous deerhead mounted over the bed. But this room wasn't some big,
[1:34:48] showy affectation. It felt private, like someone actually came to that place
[1:34:56] and sat on a single empty chair looking for comfort. And no one would
[1:35:01] have ever been proud of bagging these animals. No majestic deer or threatening bears.
[1:35:08] Instead, these animals were all of the sad and small variety. There
[1:35:14] was a dalmatian in one corner, its head slightly misshapen, a weasel missing
[1:35:18] two legs on a cabinet, a badger with no head, and enough rabbits
[1:35:23] to make a warren, all of them riddled with mixedmatosis that left them ugly
[1:35:28] and deformed. This was not some grand display of nature's majesty. It was
[1:35:34] at best the showcase of an amateur taxidermist who scavenged Britain's motorways for his subjects.
[1:35:44] So where was the amateur taxidermist and where were my friends? Hello?
[1:35:53] I had to force the lone word out of my mouth again. I was
[1:35:58] looking for that sense of reality and normality. I wanted to dispel the childish
[1:36:02] fear that was gripping me tighter and tighter with each passing second. Sure things
[1:36:09] were weird, but so something moved. My heart ceased as my eyes darted
[1:36:16] left and right, desperately trying to make sense of what my mind insisted could
[1:36:21] not have actually happened. The room was well lit, but so full of
[1:36:27] dusty fur and old furniture it was impossible to say. Too many shadow lined
[1:36:31] shelves, too much space to keep track of. Was I sure anything had
[1:36:36] moved at all? I took a step further into the room and tried to
[1:36:42] make sense of it all. If I had seen something move where my gut
[1:36:51] told me the movement had come from the corner with the Dalmatian. I took
[1:36:57] a closer look at it and grimaced. I love dogs, love them dearly,
[1:37:03] but I didn't love that one for a start. Who was dead?
[1:37:09] Whoever had set out to remake it might have had good intentions, but come
[1:37:14] on, you can't just stuff Fido full of sawdust and call it anything other
[1:37:18] than a pile of dog shaped sawdust draping the poor animal's skin over it does
[1:37:25] nothing for me except make my skin crawl. And that goes for good taxidermy,
[1:37:30] the kind you might find on display in some eccentric's house. For this
[1:37:34] dalmatian was all out of shape. Its abdomen bulged regularly, its eyes pointed
[1:37:41] in different directions, and its glossy open mouth didn't bear the welcoming smile of
[1:37:45] a friendly canine, but instead the slack, open, shawed expression of some
[1:37:51] malicious idiot. Thump that I had been following returned, this time closer than
[1:38:03] ever before. It sounded like I had just been outside the hallway. I
[1:38:10] went and checked, staying close to the doorway, but there was at least
[1:38:13] sufficient light. There seemed to be nothing, But when I turned back to
[1:38:19] the room full of animals, I felt a terrible, overwhelming sensation of wrongness.
[1:38:28] The Darmatian was gone. In the dark, something brushed against my leg
[1:38:36] and I heard the telltale click clack of a dog's claws on hardwood floor.
[1:38:42] Spinning on the spot, I tried to follow it, but caught only the
[1:38:45] faintest hint of a white and black animal fading into the darkness of the corridor.
[1:38:56] My torch illuminated only three steps of the basement stairs. Looking up from
[1:39:00] the very bottom was the Dalmatian with its strange lump and head. The rest
[1:39:08] of it remained in shadow. He waited patiently. It did not bark or
[1:39:14] pant like any normal dog. It stared expectantly, and so far I had
[1:39:20] followed it only out of some naive hope that it might lead me to my
[1:39:25] friends. But as time has gone on, as the evening has taken on,
[1:39:30] more and more of that surreal, almost dreamlike quality that made me feel
[1:39:34] helpless and trapped, I could not escape the feeling the dog was leading me
[1:39:40] deeper into the nightmare and not out of it. This was not helped by
[1:39:45] the fact that as I'd followed it onwards into the strange hotel, passing old
[1:39:50] rooms full of rotting knickknacks and cobweb covered doors, the strange thumping noise had
[1:39:57] grown louder and louder, like the peeling of There were times that it occurred
[1:40:02] to me to turn and leave, to get into the van and just go.
[1:40:06] Maybe I would have if I'd been in a more normal state of mind,
[1:40:12] But I like to think I would never abandon my wife or my friends.
[1:40:15] I may have been afraid, but I wasn't a coward. Leslie again,
[1:40:24] I hoped that she would suddenly appear, the lights would come on,
[1:40:28] the ever present dread would be pushed back, but there was nothing. I
[1:40:33] stood at the threshold of the basement stairs and knew sooner or later I'd have
[1:40:41] to follow the dog down in the darkness. Someone groaned, and it made
[1:40:46] me realize I could wait no more. A woman was down there, and
[1:40:51] I was certain it was Leslie who'd made it. As if on cue,
[1:40:57] the dog disappeared like it knew I was going to follow now no matter what.
[1:41:03] Heart racing, I descended and found myself in a crowded, dusty basement
[1:41:09] full of old rubbish and soggy boxes. The roof leaked in a half dozen
[1:41:14] places, and with a storm in full effect, the ground had flooded by
[1:41:18] about six inches, so that my feet were completely submerged in filthy looking water.
[1:41:26] Somewhere in the basement, I could still hear the dog's paws cut through
[1:41:30] the water in a lazy, sloshing canter. I was looking around the basement
[1:41:35] with my phone as a torch, trying to see where it was leading me,
[1:41:40] when something caught my eye a stony, cylindrical structure in one far corner.
[1:41:48] It was an old well, common enough in a house of the era,
[1:41:54] but in an unusual touch, it had been sealed shut with a heavy
[1:41:59] wooden lid. Something about that enormous slab of blackened timber seemed odd to me.
[1:42:05] It wasn't merely a safety feature. It looked like the sort of thing
[1:42:09] you'd seal a tomb with. Behind me came another splash. This was different
[1:42:15] to the quiet patter of the dog. It was like something or some one
[1:42:21] dropping into the water. I turned towards the sound and saw Bernadette. Her
[1:42:30] face twisted into another hideous grin, eyes wide and excited. I let out
[1:42:36] a cry and stumbled backwards, but by the time I managed to get back
[1:42:40] unto my feet, the old woman was gone. Close to panic, I
[1:42:46] swept my light around me and found her. She had moved and was close
[1:42:51] to my back, but she was frozen again, unreactive, like another piece
[1:42:58] of taxidermy. I wanted to run away at the sight of her standing so
[1:43:02] close, but somehow I just knew if I took my torch away again,
[1:43:09] she'd disappear, and I might not have time to find her before her bony
[1:43:14] fingers found me in the dark. Instead, I stayed in one place,
[1:43:19] then slowly backed away mark The sound of Leslie's voice hit me like a freight
[1:43:30] train. I gasped, turning distinctively towards her and then back again, to
[1:43:34] find that Bernadette had already disappeared. Aware that she might be anywhere, I
[1:43:40] focused on my wife, finding myself overcome with emotion, both good and bad.
[1:43:45] As my eyes took in the strange state of her. She looked pale,
[1:43:50] disoriented, and afraid. She stood there in a T shirt and underwear,
[1:43:56] freezing cold, looking almost sick. But at least she was there.
[1:44:01] At least she was right in front of me. At last, some elements
[1:44:06] of this nightmare was giving way. Jeez, babes, what happened, I
[1:44:12] said, as I wrapped my arms around her. I don't know. She
[1:44:16] mewed like a sick child. I had these nightmares, and I woke up
[1:44:20] here. I think I was sleep walking. I dreamt I was a little
[1:44:25] boy speaking to something in a well. I had a sister, I had
[1:44:29] a dog. The voice in the well wanted me to God. It made
[1:44:33] me do such strange things I couldn't help, but look at the well in
[1:44:40] the corner. Her eyes followed mine and she grimaced. I don't like this
[1:44:45] place? Can we go? God? It feels so weird? Here?
[1:44:50] Am I still dreaming? She walked forward and practically fell into my arms.
[1:44:58] With one arm wrapped around her, I held her upright and led her towards
[1:45:01] the stairs. Part of me wanted to ask about Meg and Ryan, but
[1:45:06] I knew it was more important to get her somewhere safe. We'd climbed just
[1:45:12] a few stairs when I heard the sudden sound of someone barreling towards us at
[1:45:16] a sprint, their feet splashing in the water with stomach churning speed. I
[1:45:24] turned just in time to see the old woman, face still twisted, coming
[1:45:28] out of the dark. Instinctively, I pushed Leslie ahead of me, but
[1:45:32] Manadette was more interested in me. With an icy, hard grip, she
[1:45:38] grabbed my ankle and yanked me down. My head hit one of the steps,
[1:45:43] and for a brief moment, everything went a little warbly. The next
[1:45:47] thing I was aware of was water rising to my ears in the sight of
[1:45:51] the basement steps receding away. Something was pulling me deeper into the dark.
[1:45:59] I tried to struggle, but a hard, rubbery hand refused the lego of
[1:46:02] my ankle. I kicked hard with the other leg, hitting Bernadette in the
[1:46:06] small of a back. To my disgust, my foot hit something like densely
[1:46:12] packed hay, or maybe even would it certainly wasn't flesh. Slowly, Bernadette
[1:46:19] turned to face me, her head pivoting like an owl's while her body kept
[1:46:24] facing the other way. My brother will look after you, she said.
[1:46:30] He has a gift for putting people back together after they've fallen apart, always
[1:46:36] had, even as a little boy. You don't realize just how hurt you
[1:46:42] are. None of you do. That's okay, My brother is good at
[1:46:47] putting things back together. Still facing me, eyes wide and manic, she
[1:46:56] pulled me towards what I slowly realized was the well in the far corner of
[1:47:00] the basement. He scrapes away the scars and wounds, and replaces the broken
[1:47:06] bones and withered muzzles with fresh, clean, perfumed sawdust. Puts you back
[1:47:14] together, one bit at a time. Did you know how hurt you were?
[1:47:18] Did you see the cuts and scars across your faces and hands? I
[1:47:23] did? She stopped at the well. With one arm and freak as strength.
[1:47:30] She effortlessly lifted the wooden slab, and so did he. Even in
[1:47:35] the dark, he could see the bleeding inside and out, full of it,
[1:47:42] full of blood. You're all so full of blood. You needed help,
[1:47:47] just like me. The smell that came out of that pit was nauseating,
[1:47:56] and realizing what was about to happen, I started to kick and punch,
[1:48:00] grabbing at any part of the old woman I could or, trying my
[1:48:03] best to hurt her. But all that came away beneath my nails was papery
[1:48:09] skin and moldy sawdust that smelled of rotten meat. Bernadette climbed up to the
[1:48:15] lip of the well and swung me over the darkness. I couldn't help but
[1:48:20] look down into the inky abyss, where I caught sight of what looked like
[1:48:25] an oil leak on asphalt, a dark, murky collection of metallic colors,
[1:48:30] some of which I couldn't possibly describe in words. Slowly, something strange bobbed
[1:48:38] up from the foul fluid and gnarled and fowl began to break the surface and
[1:48:43] reached towards me. Just as I felt like my sanity was going to shatter
[1:48:47] into a thousand pieces. I was thrown sideways into the water. There was
[1:48:54] a grunt and a struggle, and I looked up to see Leslie, her
[1:48:58] eyes clear for the first time. I found her repeatedly hitting the old woman
[1:49:01] with a bit of wood. She was furious and unrelenting as she whacked Bernadette
[1:49:08] over and over. She had saved me, and for a moment I fell
[1:49:14] in love with her all over again. But the romance didn't last long before
[1:49:18] my senses returned and I realized I couldn't just lie there. Desperate to help,
[1:49:25] I pulled myself to my feet and rushed over just in time as well.
[1:49:30] Leslie went for one final swing, and Bernadette caught the plank of wood
[1:49:33] with an unflinching hand. Slowly she tightened her grip and the wood began to
[1:49:40] splinter. But with all the attention of my wife, she failed and noticed
[1:49:45] me charging towards her. With a good shove, I pushed her over the
[1:49:48] edge of the well and into the darkness below. We had the thick syribe
[1:49:56] clop, and when we looked over we saw her struggling in the filth below.
[1:50:01] Two eyes fixed us in the dark from a sut covered face, and
[1:50:05] I knew we couldn't waste another second. I grabbed Leslie's elbow and ran,
[1:50:14] Let's get the hell out of here, I cried, as we scampered up
[1:50:17] the steps behind us. Burn adead led out a blood curdling howl. A
[1:50:27] few hours later, and the sun was beginning to rise. We had pulled
[1:50:30] up the van on the side of the road to take a moment to ourselves
[1:50:34] and go over the strange events of the night before. The storm starting to
[1:50:40] fade by now had made a terrible mess of the roads, and it had
[1:50:44] taken us an infuriating few hours just to find another main road, as so
[1:50:49] many other country lanes were blocked by fallen trees and branches. But now,
[1:50:55] with traffic passing us by and electric lights visible in the distance, we'd finally
[1:51:00] found ourselves on the trail of civilization. Jeez, I said, as the
[1:51:05] engine died in silence settled over us both. Did that really happen? Leslie
[1:51:14] simply shook her head. It was a dream, right, the whole thing.
[1:51:17] I remember, God, I remember sleeping and someone coming to me,
[1:51:23] and I was definitely awake from my part of it, I replied. I
[1:51:28] woke up in the middle of the night and you were missing, and I
[1:51:30] went looking. None of that was in my head. It felt so real
[1:51:34] and all kinds of wrong, But it wasn't a proud up to my mind.
[1:51:40] It's hard for me to separate things when I look back. One moment,
[1:51:45] I'm a little boy scraping squirrels off the side of the road. The
[1:51:48] next I'm mean the basement. That terrible old woman stroke in my cheeks.
[1:51:55] I put my arm around her and pulled her close. Where are the others,
[1:52:00] she asked, after a few moments. I don't know, I replied,
[1:52:05] was shaking my head. God Mark, we need to find them,
[1:52:11] even if we just call the police and tell them where. We need to
[1:52:14] do something. Do you have your phone, i asked, I'll call them.
[1:52:18] No, do you I lost it in the basement. I turned in
[1:52:25] my seat to look in the back or. I hoped I might find a
[1:52:29] spare phone or a laptop, something I could use to get help. Would
[1:52:33] a frozen place? When I saw Meg and Ryan's sleeping bag, it wasn't
[1:52:41] empty. Meg and Ryan, frozen with waxy skin and glassy eyes, lay
[1:52:48] side by side in the back of the van, holding hands posed like a
[1:52:54] Daver's on mannequins in some strange display. Dead, I figure, good,
[1:53:00] surely dead. They had to be taken first by Bernadette, hollowed out by
[1:53:06] whatever lay in the well, and added to the collection. But that was
[1:53:13] before I saw the gentle murmuring of Meg's bluish lips, and the way her
[1:53:17] eyes looked at me as I leaned over my seat to try and hear what
[1:53:23] strange words she was whispering. It wasn't until I was so close I could
[1:53:29] feel her icy breath and smell the strange chemicals that soaked her that I realized
[1:53:35] what she was muttering in feverish terror. It hurts, It hurts, It
[1:53:45] hurts, it hurts, it hurts. I've always associated my birthday with that
[1:54:03] depressing time of year, where the cozy autumn turns into an early winter decay,
[1:54:10] where colorful leaves die, leaving a withered brown shell behind. Still,
[1:54:16] people are expected to celebrate their birthdays. It's strange if one doesn't. I
[1:54:24] don't. My fiancee recently asked me why I never celebrate my birthday, and
[1:54:31] it's a hard one to explain when you've been through something traumatic. Everything sort
[1:54:39] of brings you back to that moment one way or the other. And while
[1:54:43] I'd love to tell her about it, I don't think I can without sounding
[1:54:47] like a maniac. I thought I'd start by just telling my story anonymously and
[1:54:54] sort of go from there. It was the year I turned thirteen. Since
[1:55:00] You've Been Gone was blasting on the radio every hour of the day. My
[1:55:04] friends and I were quoting How I Met your Mother religiously. It was a
[1:55:09] good time to be a kid. Since my birthday was in the middle of
[1:55:14] the school week, my big birthday plans were postponed until the upcoming week end.
[1:55:19] Still, I couldn't complain. Birthday cake on a Tuesday didn't sound all
[1:55:25] that bad. I got home, had a small celebration with my parents and
[1:55:30] opened a few presents, two new games for my PlayStation two. I finished
[1:55:36] at my home work and browsed the net for a few hours ahead of my
[1:55:40] scheduled bedtime when there was a knock at the door. We rarely had visitors,
[1:55:48] so to have some one knocking at our door at ten p m.
[1:55:51] Was unusual, to say the least. My parents had already opened the door
[1:55:57] By the time I was half way down the stairs, there was a man
[1:56:01] in a fancy jacket with a clipboard standing outside, along with two armed guards,
[1:56:09] and I sort of fell into the middle of the conversation. So we
[1:56:14] need you to sign the consent forms and we'll get started. The clipboard man
[1:56:17] said, any questions, This can't be legal, my mum said, and
[1:56:25] what kind of authority are you, ma'am? This is an emergency. We've
[1:56:30] been authorized to bring anyone and everyone if need be, but I promise you
[1:56:34] it'll be a less pleasant experience than what you could achieve here in the comfort
[1:56:39] of your own home. As the discussion continued, the armed men pushed into
[1:56:45] the house. They had a sort of checklist they were going through, asking
[1:56:51] questions. As they poked and prodded, someone mentioned the satellite phone, which
[1:56:58] we didn't have. I hurried back up stairs. From my window, I
[1:57:03] could see them putting wheel locks on our car. They were testing some sort
[1:57:09] of electrical equipment too, and as they did I could see the internet connection
[1:57:14] of my computer disappear. My cellphone lost all bars, and while I didn't
[1:57:18] check, I suspected they'd done something to our land line as well. They
[1:57:25] were isolating us, putting us under some sort of lock down. I still
[1:57:30] didn't have the slightest idea of who these people were. There were no patches,
[1:57:36] badges, ranks, or symbols, just a bunch of serious looking men
[1:57:42] in wind breakers with visible gun holsters. After a few minutes, one of
[1:57:48] the men entered my room. My parents were worried sick, but were told
[1:57:54] to wait outside. The man was about six four and had the look of
[1:58:00] someone who could kill me with his bare teeth if need be. Without a
[1:58:04] word, he started to go through my things. You got any walkie talkies,
[1:58:11] he asked, Any radio science projects something like that. Nope, I
[1:58:16] said, shaking my head. I got a PlayStation two that can go online,
[1:58:23] right. I never got the chance to answer before my mom added,
[1:58:29] we don't let him play online games. She said, it can't do that,
[1:58:34] As if to make sure, he pulled the power cable and dropped it
[1:58:39] in a sealed bag, along with various knickknacks and keys they'd collected. They
[1:58:44] weren't taking any chances, and I wasn't playing my new games anytime soon,
[1:58:48] it seemed. As they finished up their impromptu house inspection, we were asked
[1:58:56] to gather downstairs. The fancy man with clipboard cleared his throat and the room
[1:59:01] fell deathly silent. Even my dad, who was usually a very assertive man,
[1:59:08] didn't have much to add to the conversation. That's how you knew it
[1:59:13] was serious. For seventy two hours, this and the surrounding neighborhoods are under
[1:59:18] lockdown. The man explained, there is a localized problem related to a recent
[1:59:25] geological event. We just caused some unexpected issues. I'm sure you've noticed some
[1:59:30] minor oddities as of late, like what my dad added, milk turning sour,
[1:59:36] house plants getting a strange color tint, swarms of frogs cluttering the roads.
[1:59:44] My parents said nothing, but they nodded. Perhaps they'd seen something I
[1:59:48] hadn't. The man put down his clipboard as he explained calmly, you have
[1:59:56] been exposed as something akin to a chemical who reacts violently to the release of
[2:00:01] certain hormones which are associated with deep rim sleep. To ensure your safety,
[2:00:08] we are currently enforcing at temporary seventy two hour ban on sleep. Excuse me.
[2:00:15] My dad took a step forward, but one of the armed men responded
[2:00:18] in kind. They both stopped before it had the chance to escalate. Exposure
[2:00:26] was approximately nine hours ago, meaning you have about sixty three hours left to
[2:00:30] go. That'll be approximately one p m. On Friday. There's no way
[2:00:36] we can This is non negotiable. This is a matter of your security,
[2:00:41] sir. We have an emergency health service sight, but I can promise you
[2:00:45] that it won't be pleasant. You will be chemically induced into sleeplessness for the
[2:00:49] full duration of exposure until the event has passed. It can cause long lasting
[2:00:56] brain damage. We were handed a folder each explaining our responsibilities and rites,
[2:01:02] an unmarked red folder with three papers, one explaining their right to force this
[2:01:09] upon us, another explaining that we'd already signed the consent papers, and a
[2:01:15] third one was a form explaining exactly when we could go to sleep. There
[2:01:20] was also an inventory form explaining the items we were to have returned. At
[2:01:26] the end of the containment, they left a box of fifty glass files,
[2:01:30] some kind of four hour booster shots. The man explained how underaged children were
[2:01:36] not to take more than one every seven hours, and that my mother,
[2:01:41] if pregnant, shouldn't take any at all. Luckily my mom wasn't pregnant.
[2:01:46] I'm an only child. We were also given fiber bars with some kind of
[2:01:53] hormone supplement, unmarked and unbranded, but warm. Maybe there were made reason
[2:02:00] the packaging was sloppy at best. The fancy man was trying his best to
[2:02:06] explain, and I could see my parents were eager to listen, but I
[2:02:12] barely understood half of it. Instead, I looked at the armed guards.
[2:02:18] They looked exhausted. Maybe they too weren't allowed to sleep. One of them
[2:02:25] had his mouth open and almost drooled, blinking one eye at a time I
[2:02:30] could have sworn. He nodded off for a second, which prompted him to
[2:02:33] take a walk outside. I don't know if we can do this, my
[2:02:39] mother complained. It's it's a lot to ask. We've only just if at
[2:02:45] any point you can't do this, you need to call this number. It's
[2:02:48] the only number that works, the man said, pointing to the final line
[2:02:54] on the final page of the folder. If someone falls asleep and can't be
[2:02:58] awakened within a few minutes, they're in terrible danger. If that happens,
[2:03:03] try to keep them awake by any means until we can get here to pick
[2:03:08] them up, and then they'll be And then they'll be taking to our side
[2:03:15] to Mankato, or they'll be chemically induced to stay awake. So what exactly
[2:03:20] happens if if someone doesn't make it. My mom asked, if we'll just
[2:03:27] fall asleep. The man shook his head, tapping the clipboard with his pen.
[2:03:34] They will most probably die. Others might too. While they went into
[2:03:45] the kitchen to explain the details, the angry looking guard approached me with a
[2:03:49] sealed bag, handing me back my PlayStation two power cable. He gave me
[2:03:55] a pat on the shoulder. I checked with the tech team. He said,
[2:04:00] you're good to go, and AH, happy birthday. I'd almost forgotten
[2:04:09] that it was my birthday. I appreciated the gesture, but I just couldn't
[2:04:14] bring myself to smile. I had too many questions bubbling in the back of
[2:04:18] my head, and I was too afraid to speak. They probably talked for
[2:04:25] another twenty minutes or so before the men left, leaving my parents and I
[2:04:29] alone in the kitchen. My mother was smoking under the kitchen fan. I'd
[2:04:34] only ever seen her smoke two times, once when she lost the job and
[2:04:40] another time when her father got sick. Smoking in the kitchen was a sure
[2:04:45] fire away to tell something was wrong. Dad was sitting with his arms crossed,
[2:04:50] looking at the box of booster shots. This is not a joke,
[2:04:57] my dad finally said. This is very serious. We're all gonna need to
[2:05:01] help each other to get through this. Mom said nothing, but I could
[2:05:08] see her hands trembling. She'd been crying. She was shaking so much that
[2:05:15] the ash from a cigarette didn't reach the ashtray, just PLoP down on the
[2:05:18] stove. We can't be alone, Dad continued. We're going to do our
[2:05:25] best to keep busy. You can play as many games as you want,
[2:05:29] but you can't fall asleep. They gave back my power cable. I said,
[2:05:35] does that mean it's okay for me to use the PlayStation? It's okay,
[2:05:41] Mom coughed, it's okay, honey, play your games. For the
[2:05:46] first few hours, I didn't understand what the big deal was. No more
[2:05:51] school for the rest of the week, no bedtime, and unlimited screen time.
[2:05:57] That didn't sound too bad. I gained late into the night. Slide
[2:06:02] Too and Ratchet and Clank were on the menu, and I had a blast.
[2:06:06] I got some snacks along with one of those fiber bars. They tasted
[2:06:12] like twigs and raisins. But it made my brain calm, not tired,
[2:06:17] but it made it easier to focus. It also made it harder to shut
[2:06:21] my eyes, making my eyelids ditch. All lights in the house were kept
[2:06:28] on all throughout the night. Mom and Dad kept playing music on the downstairs
[2:06:32] stereo, and they desperately tried to keep me engaged. I was engaged enough
[2:06:39] just playing games, so I think it was more for their benefit rather than
[2:06:44] mine. At five a m. Dad took his first booster shot. I
[2:06:49] could hear it all the way from upstairs. He was cussing pretty hard.
[2:06:56] Apparently those things tasted like a mix of stale right and death. Mom took
[2:07:01] her first booster shot half an hour later, but she mixed up with orange
[2:07:05] juice. Apparently that helped. By seven am, even I was feeling it.
[2:07:15] I'd never been up all night playing games like that on a school day
[2:07:18] before. Sure, I'd pulled all night as with my friends, but it
[2:07:23] was usually something we prepared for. So by early morning I could feel myself
[2:07:29] nodding off. My parents were checking in on me every now and then,
[2:07:33] and decided to act. We were having family breakfast, pretending as if we'd
[2:07:40] already slept. You're always cranky in the morning, Mom said, Try to
[2:07:45] imagine this is just that another cranky morning. I knew for a fact that
[2:07:54] they'd slipped one of those boosters into my cereal. I saw three empty vials
[2:07:58] on the counter, and I knew none of them had taken a second one.
[2:08:01] Yet still, I had little choice but to try. We weren't even
[2:08:07] half way through the containment yet. As we finished our breakfast, we could
[2:08:13] hear commotion outside. I was upstairs brushing my teeth watching through the hallway window.
[2:08:22] It was our neighbors, Larry Peterson, the fifty five year old man
[2:08:26] who worked the fishing supplies at the local mini more, crawled out of his
[2:08:31] front door. He was throwing up something black and blue under the pavement.
[2:08:39] I'd never seen this man do anything more physical straining than trying to start the
[2:08:43] lawn mower, and now he was crawling on all fours like his life depended
[2:08:48] on it. I could hear his wife calling out from the inside. She
[2:08:52] was screaming at him, but I couldn't hear what. Larry got up and
[2:09:00] almost leaped into the back of his pickup truck in a show of athleticism I'd
[2:09:03] never seen from him before. It wasn't until his wife got out of the
[2:09:09] house that I could hear what she was saying. Larry, She cried,
[2:09:15] Larry, wake up. I saw Larry Peterson grab a wrench, get out
[2:09:22] of the truck, and grab his wife by the hair. Suddenly a hand
[2:09:26] covered my eyes. As my father dragged me away from the window. I
[2:09:31] could hear a scream turn into a gargle, followed by a hearty laugh,
[2:09:37] one I'd heard a thousand times before, the same kind of laugh Larry Peterson
[2:09:41] would chuckle up whenever my dad tried to pull off a bad pun. My
[2:09:46] mind painted me a picture of what had happened, and it wasn't pretty.
[2:09:54] My dad spun me around and stared into my eyes. I could tell he
[2:09:58] wasn't in There were lines across his face that I hadn't seen before. Stay
[2:10:05] with me and mom, he said, don't look outside. People are getting
[2:10:11] sick. Are we getting sick? Dad? I asked, a yawn escaping
[2:10:16] me. He shook me a little, as if to make sure I was
[2:10:22] paying attention. We'll be fine, he said, it's just a matter of
[2:10:26] time. But I don't want you to see people getting hurt. Larry isn't
[2:10:33] feeling well. There was a knock on the front door that took point as
[2:10:39] Mom hid in the bedroom. I remember standing on the top of the stairs,
[2:10:45] looking over the railing to the floor below. There was a violent,
[2:10:48] angry pounding on the door, Larry Peterson's soft chuckle coming from the other side.
[2:10:56] He didn't say anything, He just pounded on the door with this wrench,
[2:11:01] laughing as he tried to get in. He went around the house,
[2:11:05] rattling our windows. He didn't get far before we could hear a car roll
[2:11:09] up. There was a popping sound, but not like a gunshot. I
[2:11:16] think they tased him. By the time I could hear Larry Peterson get dragged
[2:11:20] off, my mom had come upstairs with a smile taped to her face,
[2:11:24] asking me to show her how far had gone in my new fancy video games.
[2:11:31] She was clearly trying to keep me distracted, but I didn't mind.
[2:11:35] At that point, I wanted desperately to be distracted. I could imagine Larry
[2:11:41] Peterson on the other side of the door, his white T shirt stained with
[2:11:46] that strange black and blue goo he'd thrown up, wielding that wrench with a
[2:11:50] manic grip. The thing was as large as my arm and solid metal.
[2:11:56] I never considered it a weapon. Of thinking about it made my blood run
[2:12:01] cold. Had he really killed missus Peterson? Why? Mom and I spent
[2:12:11] the next few hours playing video games. We also made a plan. We
[2:12:16] went through our all DVDs and decided on a watching schedule. She'd originally planned
[2:12:22] a walk, but now we weren't to leave the house. She didn't want
[2:12:28] to say why, but I had the feeling that there was something outside the
[2:12:31] Peterson's house that she didn't want me to see. Bloodstains. Maybe I was
[2:12:37] too afraid to find out. My parents tried their best to keep the mood
[2:12:43] up, but I could tell it was getting to them. My Dad was
[2:12:48] mostly just standing there, leaning against the door, staring straight ahead, like
[2:12:52] in a trance. Mom tried to occupy herself by playing games and watching DVDs
[2:12:58] with me, but she was counting the minutes until she could get her next
[2:13:03] booster shot. I wasn't eager to take one. They made my stomach all
[2:13:09] queasy. We made it all the way until noon. Dad was having trouble
[2:13:15] staying up and kept washing his head with cold water. He tried to keep
[2:13:20] busy doing housework that he kept for a rainy day, but there were constant
[2:13:26] distractions. We could hear sirens in the distance, and at one point there
[2:13:31] was someone spraying off front door and windows with a high pressure water hose,
[2:13:37] possibly to wash away the last traces of Larry Peterson. There were dog patrols
[2:13:43] going up and down the street, along with the occasional phone call. The
[2:13:48] one number that still worked was someone called to make sure we were all awake
[2:13:54] and accounted for. By dinner time, Mom was having stomach troubles. Her
[2:14:01] shaking had gotten worse, and she was having trouble with sudden change of smells.
[2:14:07] Dad kept rubbing his eyes and checking his watch, getting up every ten
[2:14:11] minutes or so just to move around. We had decided that we were going
[2:14:16] to play board games after dinner, but Mom was having trouble keeping herself from
[2:14:20] throwing up. We ended up just reheating a lasagna from a few days back.
[2:14:26] I didn't mind. Mom made amazing lasagne, but my appetite was quickly
[2:14:31] lost when I saw my mother barely keeping it together. She kept drooling and
[2:14:37] making this weird chugging sound. She was blinking slower and slower. Dad tried
[2:14:45] to get her to eat one of her fiber bars, but she just ran
[2:14:48] out of the kitchen, locking herself in the bathroom. It was touching go
[2:14:54] for a while. I could feel my heart racing as Dad tried to convince
[2:14:58] her to unlocked the door, but she just couldn't do it. After a
[2:15:05] while, she stopped responding. Dad had to break the handle with a hammer,
[2:15:13] but it was too late. She was already sleeping. I could hear
[2:15:18] her through the door as the door burst open. Mom had only been asleep
[2:15:24] for a couple of seconds, a minute at most, but she was sitting
[2:15:28] on the toilet, her head leaning back, and something was coming out of
[2:15:35] her mouth, black and blue fingertips poking out over the edge of her lips.
[2:15:43] Her throat undulated. The moment Dad grabbed her, she tipped her head
[2:15:48] forward, coughing. Dad washed her face in the sink or yelling at me
[2:15:54] to wait in the other room for a few minutes. I was just sitting
[2:15:58] there, ready to run or hide. It might have been too late.
[2:16:03] I figured she could have already been affected like Larry Peterson. I could hear
[2:16:09] them arguing in the other room, and as Their voices went from angry to
[2:16:13] desperate to sad. I didn't know what to do. When they finally returned,
[2:16:20] they sat me down to explain that we were going to be fine,
[2:16:24] that we were almost half way through, and that we were in the home
[2:16:28] stretch. It was so kind, warm and careful in the way they explained
[2:16:35] it, but my mind was a thousand miles away. I had trouble focusing,
[2:16:41] and all I could think about was that strange noise I kept hearing in
[2:16:45] the background something outside. Dad was halfway through explaining how we weren't going to
[2:16:54] lock our bathroom doors anymore, when something in me screamed at me to react.
[2:16:58] It's just a slight click, but it was clear as day. Maybe
[2:17:05] it was the booster shots, but I kept hyper focusing on little details rather
[2:17:09] than big picture stuff, like an actual conversation taking place in front of me.
[2:17:16] I closed my eyes, and no less than a second later, there
[2:17:22] was a loud bang. Someone was shooting at us. It was only a
[2:17:31] couple of shots, but we dropped to the ground. One shot got lodged
[2:17:35] in the front door, while the other cracked the kitchen window. There were
[2:17:39] loud voices outside, laughing hysterically. They were talking but barely making any sense.
[2:17:48] One of them sounded like she was trying to talk with food in her
[2:17:50] mouth. Mom and Dad kept quiet as two more shots popped off. One
[2:17:56] of them hit in the kitchen light within a trick spark he gave out,
[2:18:01] blacking out most of the kitchen. I could hear someone running and laughing as
[2:18:07] they continued down the street. In the distance, there was more gunfire,
[2:18:13] maybe someone responding in kind. We can't stay here, Mom whispered, We
[2:18:20] gotta call them. You want to go where they put Larry. Dad answered
[2:18:24] to be in a whole hospital full of these people. They're shooting at us.
[2:18:30] We can't just Mom quieted down and looked at me. She and Dad
[2:18:35] excused themselves, the talking private while I was asked to move upstairs. I
[2:18:41] was to stay away from windows, and I couldn't sit or lie down.
[2:18:46] They'd be up to check on me in a bit, but of course I
[2:18:52] was too curious. While still hearing them argue downstairs, I checked an upstairs
[2:18:58] window. I could see pretty far down the street, and in the distance
[2:19:03] I could make out a car stalling on the side of the road. The
[2:19:07] headlights were still on but it was surrounded by at least six people. Two
[2:19:13] of them were dressed like the armed guards we'd seen earlier. It took me
[2:19:18] a while to realize there was an old man sitting in that car. I'd
[2:19:22] seen him around a couple of times, but I didn't know his name.
[2:19:28] The surrounding people were trying to crack the car windows with various weapons tire irons,
[2:19:33] bricks, hammers, lead pipes, but it didn't take them long to
[2:19:37] break through. They reached in to pull the man out. It was too
[2:19:41] far off for me to hear his screams, but I could vaguely see what
[2:19:46] they were doing. They held him down and covered his face with their hands,
[2:19:50] his eyes, his mouth, his ears, leaving only his nose to
[2:19:54] breathe through, and then they just there. It took me a moment to
[2:20:03] realize what they were doing. They were forcing him to sleep. After a
[2:20:13] few minutes, they let go of him. The old man slowly stood up,
[2:20:18] leaned against his car, and started to dry heave. After a while,
[2:20:22] the same blue and black goo that I'd seen from Larry Peterson started pouring
[2:20:28] out of his mouth, stopping only as he coughed up some kind of clot
[2:20:31] that could barely fit in his mouth, a clot that moved as he straightened
[2:20:37] his back. He looked at the strange group, and they walked down the
[2:20:41] street together. Some jogged, some sprinted. One of them crawled, but
[2:20:48] it looked like he held onto something with his teeth. Either that or something
[2:20:54] was coming out of his mouth. Something long as they hurried down the street,
[2:21:03] I could hear more gunfire in the distance, coming from another way.
[2:21:07] I could see another group of people, at least a dozen, but heading
[2:21:13] in another direction, roaming gangs of sleep deprived, sick people. God knows
[2:21:18] how this thing affected them long term. When my parents were done discussing,
[2:21:26] they sat me down to explain that we were going to stay indoors and keep
[2:21:28] away from the windows just in case. We were locking all doors and windows,
[2:21:35] closing all curtains, and not playing anything louder than necessary. We were
[2:21:41] to draw as little attention as possible. Of course, I agreed, What
[2:21:48] choice did I have. That night, I could tell things were deteriorating.
[2:21:54] Dad almost took a double dose of booster shots as he forgot he'd taken the
[2:21:58] first, but Mom stopped him. There were no phone calls coming in they
[2:22:05] stopped checking in on us. Mom even tried calling, but the line had
[2:22:09] been disconnected. The gunfire outside was further away but more frequent. We could
[2:22:16] hear cars honking, but no sirens. Then there were the fires, at
[2:22:22] least two somewhere downtown. We could see the smokestacks from afar. Mom wasn't
[2:22:30] doing well. She couldn't eat, and at times she could barely stay on
[2:22:35] her feet. She kept talking out loud, even if no one was in
[2:22:39] the room with her, and she had to lean against things to stay upright.
[2:22:45] She couldn't keep the fiber bars down, and she kept walking around with
[2:22:48] her head bobbing back and forth. Dad tried his best to keep her active,
[2:22:54] but he was having trouble as well. No matter how many cold splashes
[2:22:58] he took to the face, he just couldn't stay attentive. I wasn't doing
[2:23:03] well either, but nowhere near as bad. I still had my appetite,
[2:23:09] and I took my booster shots, but I could feel the side effects.
[2:23:13] My hands kept shaking, and I had a nasty headache. There were these
[2:23:18] pinches down my neck, like someone was shocking me with a wet battery.
[2:23:24] I'd imagine things moving just outside of my vision. I kept turning around to
[2:23:28] look at the windows as I started to hallucinate that there were screens. By
[2:23:35] morning, there was a new problem. Both the power and the water had
[2:23:43] been caught. There was a small lake a short walk from the house,
[2:23:50] and we had no choice but to try and get some water by hand.
[2:23:54] We had some drinking water stocked in the kitchen, but we needed some for
[2:23:58] the bathroom. Mom volunteered to go, but that was out of the question.
[2:24:05] She could barely stand or make a coherent sentence. There was no discussion.
[2:24:11] Dad had to do it. We watched him from one of the upstairs
[2:24:15] windows. The sun had just risen, bathing the withering landscape in long,
[2:24:20] sharp shadows and a sickly bright glow. Mom was just staring blankly ahead,
[2:24:28] as if trying to remember what was so important. Isn't it your birthday soon?
[2:24:35] She said out loud, that was Tuesday? I responded, Did you
[2:24:41] wish for you to get older? She asked, I wished for that.
[2:24:46] I want you to be be able to get older. She looked at me
[2:24:54] and laughed moniacally. She blinked one eye at a time and left eye lingering
[2:25:00] a bit longer than a right. Her eyes were sunken and dark, and
[2:25:03] she kept going cross eyed. I think she meant well, but that look
[2:25:09] she gave me was nothing short of terrifying. It was like she'd been reduced
[2:25:15] to her most basic self. My mom was still in there somewhere, but
[2:25:20] most of it was just gone. After about an hour, I spotted Dad
[2:25:28] coming back. Mom and I were both relieved, but it didn't last long.
[2:25:35] I noticed he wasn't carrying any water. Moments later I could see he
[2:25:41] wasn't alone. There were about two dozen more people coming with him. Mom
[2:25:48] didn't seem to react. She just looked out the window and nodded to herself.
[2:25:54] For a moment, she was almost falling asleep, standing up, her
[2:25:58] mouth moving up and down on its own, like a bass out of water.
[2:26:03] I could see something moving in her throat. I shook her, and
[2:26:09] in a moment of clarity, she looked out the window again. As I
[2:26:13] heard something pounding against the door downstairs, Mom pushed me into the closet.
[2:26:20] She ran downstairs to get the remaining booster shots and dropped it all on me,
[2:26:24] along with the wristwatch and a couple of fiber bars. Someone will come
[2:26:28] get you, she said, Just wait and stay awake. I'll try to
[2:26:35] think of something. I didn't have time to protest before she slammed the closet
[2:26:43] shut. I could hear a key slide into the lockdownstairs. Dad may have
[2:26:50] forgotten something about who he was, but he hadn't forgotten how to use the
[2:26:54] house keys. I just sat there in the dark, listening. I curled
[2:27:03] up into a ball, but I didn't want to get too comfortable. I
[2:27:07] could hear furniture being turned over. Unfamiliar voices yelling obscenities were incoherent nonsense.
[2:27:15] A fight broke out and I could hear someone throwing something. Another person ran
[2:27:20] up the stairs and into the bedroom, repeatedly kicking the bathtub. A woman
[2:27:24] screamed, then a man. There was a gunshot, followed by windows being
[2:27:30] broken. I could hear a muffled scream as someone was held down, maybe
[2:27:35] like they did with the old men outside the night before. I must have
[2:27:41] sat there for hours in the dark. It was hard to tell if my
[2:27:46] eyes were open or not. I couldn't tell if I was really hearing something
[2:27:50] outside or if I was just imagining it. I could hear voices and whispers,
[2:27:56] but they didn't seem to make sense. Sometimes I imagine them standing just
[2:28:03] outside my door, asking me for the cheat codes for the game I just
[2:28:07] played. All I had to keep my waning sanity company was my mom's wristwatch,
[2:28:13] and I could barely make it out. Time passed so strangely. I
[2:28:20] could be wrapped in a thought for what fell like hours, but only minutes
[2:28:24] passed. Then I catched myself staring straight ahead, and two hours could disappear.
[2:28:31] I kept repeating the next scheduled hour for the booster shot like a mantra,
[2:28:37] but things were getting stranger. The clock would go backwards. I'd imagine
[2:28:41] someone sitting across from me, a pair of white eyes staring back at me
[2:28:46] from the dark. There were little voices telling me to go to sleep,
[2:28:50] and I found myself nodding off. I could feel something moving in me,
[2:28:56] like a hand trying to fit into a glove. I finally gave up and
[2:29:05] got out of the closet. I could barely stand as I dragged the booster
[2:29:11] shots and fiber bars along in a plastic bag. I didn't care if there
[2:29:16] was anyone downstairs. I needed to see something. I needed light or some
[2:29:22] kind of stimuli. The whole house was trashed, every piece of furniture broken,
[2:29:31] every light smashed. There was blood splatter on the walls, and the
[2:29:35] front door was hanging on a single hinge. Every window was smashed, and
[2:29:39] our picture frames had been thrown across the room like ninja stars. But the
[2:29:45] strangest thing was an acred smell coming from the kitchen. At first I didn't
[2:29:52] understand what it was. It looked like a person, but there was the
[2:29:58] wrong number of limb. After a few seconds of adjustment and trying to force
[2:30:05] myself to clarity, I realized there was a dead body, a young man
[2:30:11] with a knife sticking out of his chest, splayed out on the kitchen floor.
[2:30:16] His jaw was extended and broken. On one side. There was a
[2:30:20] black and blue arm reaching out of his throat, reaching upwards to grab his
[2:30:26] own head. Something in me stirred, Something in me didn't like what I
[2:30:33] was looking at, and I wasn't sure if it was me or something else.
[2:30:39] I tried to push it down with a fiber bar, which strangely worked.
[2:30:46] I made my way outside in a daze. I didn't know what to
[2:30:48] do. Part of me wanted to find my parents. Another part of me
[2:30:54] wanted to get out of town. I wanted to look for a bike or
[2:30:58] just start walking, catch a boss. Of course, there were no bosses
[2:31:03] to catch, but my sleep deprived mind couldn't separate fact from fiction anymore.
[2:31:11] That entire night was one long, living nightmare. I kept imagining things coming
[2:31:16] out of the dark. I could hear voices telling me to turn around,
[2:31:20] to stop, to run, all at once, and none at all.
[2:31:26] I could barely keep my balance, and stopping even for a moment would send
[2:31:31] me straight to sleep. I had to keep moving. I even took an
[2:31:37] extra booster shot, which just gave me this sharp jolt of pain and made
[2:31:41] me sweat. I could tell I'd done something stupid. I took a short
[2:31:48] cut through the park. I could see faces coming out of the trees.
[2:31:52] I saw a man lying down on the gravel path being pulled forward by an
[2:31:56] arm coming out of his mouth. I saw a man out by the lake
[2:32:00] repeatedly slapping his arms against the cold water surface like a maniac child, trying
[2:32:05] to get as high as splash as possible. Some of it was real,
[2:32:11] some of it wasn't. I couldn't tell which was which not anymore. When
[2:32:20] I finally reached downtown, I saw at least two dozen people gathered outside a
[2:32:26] burning building, all of them with black and blue arms reaching out of their
[2:32:30] mouths, stretching towards the flame, as if slowly wafting air towards them,
[2:32:37] like human help moving against an invisible current. They leaned back and forth in
[2:32:43] unison, praising whatever chaos they caused, without a word or sound, And
[2:32:50] yet I could hear them welcoming me, beckoning me, all voices unique carried
[2:32:58] to me by an unfre belt wind. Come closer, it begged, you
[2:33:05] belong here. I turned away, and the voices grew louder, desperate,
[2:33:13] screeching, demanding my attention, my devotion, some of them coming from outside,
[2:33:20] some of them coming from the rumble of my stomach. It's already here,
[2:33:26] it laughed. It'll never go away, it'll never sleep, it'll never
[2:33:31] stop. Hands reached for me, a face in every window, voices reaching
[2:33:39] from beneath the concrete, gunfire, broken windows, glass cracking under my rubber
[2:33:43] boots. As I shuffled past burnt out cars, it was dark, then
[2:33:48] bright, then dark again, and at some point I succumbed. I felt
[2:33:56] concrete against my cheek. I couldn't bring myself to get up. My legs
[2:34:03] wouldn't move, my eyes wouldn't open. Yes, the voices laughed, Come
[2:34:11] come to us, Come burn with us. And then darkness. I don't
[2:34:24] know how long I was out, hours, maybe half a day. I
[2:34:31] woke up to see a man running towards me, asking me if I was
[2:34:35] okay. A car had pulled over, bathing me in a warm light by
[2:34:41] the side of the road. The colony of frogs looked at me in the
[2:34:45] distance. My eyes landed on a discolored flower. It had turned blue.
[2:34:52] Strange how you don't notice the most obvious changes until they stare at you in
[2:34:56] the face. Turns out exposure had happened at least six hours earlier than the
[2:35:03] man with the clipboard had predicted, and I'd been awake long enough for most
[2:35:07] of the effect had passed through my system. I was found unconscious by the
[2:35:11] side of the highway, about nine miles from my house. While I did
[2:35:16] have an uncomfortable, dreamless sleep, the effects it had on me were nowhere
[2:35:22] near as bad as what had happened to most of the neighborhood. I'm sure
[2:35:28] you've all heard of it riots. They called it just another mess up in
[2:35:33] a low income area. I don't even think it reached national news. Some
[2:35:39] of the people who succumbed to it early got permanent brain damage. Larry Peterson
[2:35:45] was never the same, but it was hard to tell if it was because
[2:35:48] of the emotional trauma or the sleep thing. Either way, he had to
[2:35:54] have a nurse come to look after him a few times a week for the
[2:35:58] rest of his life. Mom and Dad weren't completely unharmed either. Mom developed
[2:36:05] some kind of narcolepsy after that night, spontaneously nodding off at the most inopportune
[2:36:09] times. Dad lost this sense of taste and smell. To this day,
[2:36:16] they're having a hard time explaining what exactly they experienced. To them, it
[2:36:22] was just like going to sleep and having the most horrible nightmare, only to
[2:36:26] wake up in a hospital bed. Sometimes I wonder if I did fall asleep.
[2:36:33] Some of the things I saw were so strange that there was no way
[2:36:37] to tell if they were real or not. I vividly remember that scene of
[2:36:41] hands waving back and forth outside that burning building downtown. It had to be
[2:36:48] real. That building really did burn, As you might imagine, I have
[2:36:58] a hard time looking back at this. Thinking too much about it gives me
[2:37:03] this icy feeling in the pit of my stomach, like some part of me
[2:37:07] believes that this is all just a big nightmare, that I'm still just a
[2:37:11] clock stick away from waking up in that closet with someone standing just outside waiting
[2:37:20] for me. Or maybe it's something inside of me still waiting to grab the
[2:37:26] reins. Maybe it's just a night away. Click, I excelled sharply as
[2:37:46] I lowered the revolver from my temple. Today marks the fifth anniversary of Nadia's
[2:37:52] disappearance. Hard to believe it's been that long. We had so much time
[2:37:58] left, so much life to live together, but that all came to a
[2:38:03] screeching halt half a decade ago, and the day we found those stairs without
[2:38:09] her, I have no purpose. I've got no family, no friends,
[2:38:13] no one to keep me tethered to this world. So every year and the
[2:38:20] night that Nadia went missing, I stumbled out to the spot that it happened,
[2:38:24] with my six shooter in hand, half way drowned in a handle of
[2:38:28] vodka, and I let the forest decide if I'm going to live for another
[2:38:33] year or if I'm going to be reunited with her wherever she is now,
[2:38:41] that is determined that I have at least one more trip around the sun.
[2:38:45] I'll tell you how I ended up here at rock Bottom. I need to
[2:38:50] get this out while I still have the guts to tell this story. Don't
[2:38:54] know why, though, I'm going to wake up some time tomorrow afternoon with
[2:38:58] a massive headache and no recollection of tonight's events. I'd better tell you while
[2:39:05] I still can. I've lived on the outskirts of Bear Creek National Park for
[2:39:11] my entire life. Don't bother looking it up. It's a fake name,
[2:39:16] so nobody tries to seek out the evil that lurks here. It's safer that
[2:39:20] way. As I was saying, I used to live out here in a
[2:39:26] cabin with my dad. I miss him so much. He passed away eight
[2:39:31] years ago, leaving me all alone. Cancer sucks. That was before Nadia
[2:39:39] and I started dating. It's funny how things work out. I actually met
[2:39:46] her at a coffee shop on my way back from visiting Dad's grave. When
[2:39:50] she approached me and asked if the seat across from me was taken. I
[2:39:54] was instantly smitten. Her deep blue eyes shimmered like the ocean. Long brown
[2:40:01] hair cascaded down to her shoulders in waves, and that smile. When Nadia
[2:40:07] smiled, it was as if time stopped just for a moment, so that
[2:40:13] the whole world would soak in its breath taking beauty. We were inseparable after
[2:40:20] that day. In a month, we were dating. In nine more,
[2:40:24] we were living together in my cabin, And in another year we were set
[2:40:30] to get married, had a date and a venue picked out. In everything,
[2:40:35] I was on cloud nine, but that was all torn from me in
[2:40:39] an instant. God, I wish I never would have taken her out there.
[2:40:46] I had my first experience with the stairs when I was seven. Dad
[2:40:50] had always warned me never to climb them. That wasn't a problem for me,
[2:40:56] though. The stairs exuded malevolent presence, like anyone who dared to walk
[2:41:03] up their steps would be eaten alive from fear alone. I remember it like
[2:41:07] it was yesterday. I was playing in the woods near the cabin when I
[2:41:11] saw it, A black, winding set of metal stairs that stretched maybe a
[2:41:18] story. They didn't lead anywhere, they just kind of ended. All the
[2:41:26] stairs are like that. They vary in size and shape and model, but
[2:41:31] the one thing they all have in common is that they don't lead anywhere,
[2:41:37] and they're never in the same place twice. They just sort of materialize.
[2:41:43] No one knows how or why, and truthfully, we don't want to know,
[2:41:50] most of us. That is, Nadia wanted to know, and that
[2:41:56] knowledge cost her everything. Come on, baby, just a little further.
[2:42:03] I want to see the sunset, Nardia wind in protest and my proposal to
[2:42:07] head back. Nadi, I know you, but we didn't bring flashlights and
[2:42:11] our phone batteries aren't worth crap. I don't know about you, but I
[2:42:16] don't feel like smacking into trees every few feet on our way home. How
[2:42:20] fine, you win. I'll go back this time, but promise me we
[2:42:26] can come back tomorrow, she requested, puffing out a lower lip and gazing
[2:42:31] up at me with her best puppy dug eyes. I'd be lying if I
[2:42:35] said they hadn't worked. All right, I'll take you back out here tomorrow,
[2:42:41] but only if you um, I trailed off, entranced by the sight
[2:42:48] of them, Nardia's brow knitted together in confusion as she traced my gaze.
[2:42:54] Then her jaw fell open directly before us stood a polished cedar wood staircase.
[2:43:03] I got a sinking feeling in my gut the moment I laid eyes on that
[2:43:07] thing. It looks so out of place, like a rat in a fish
[2:43:13] tank. What is that thing? Nadia muttered, gaze still fixed to it.
[2:43:20] It's nothing. I'll tell you later, I said, snatching her hand
[2:43:24] and leading her in the opposite direction. Oh, Jason, let go.
[2:43:28] Why are you making such a big deal out of this? Tell me what's
[2:43:31] going on. I'm not going to move another inch, Nadia protested, crossing
[2:43:37] her arms defiantly, I sighed. There was no point in hiding it any
[2:43:43] longer. She was going to find out eventually. Okay, so this is
[2:43:50] going to sound completely unhinged, but please bear with me. Ever since I've
[2:43:56] lived here, ever since anyone's lived here, really, people, I've been
[2:44:01] finding random staircases in the forest. They appear in disappear all the time,
[2:44:05] and you'll never find one in the same place twice. The stairs are a
[2:44:11] bad omen. Something awful happens if you climb to the top, but no
[2:44:16] one quite knows what. All I know for certain is we need to stay
[2:44:22] far far away from them. Nadia rolled her eyes in response, Come on,
[2:44:30] Jay, do you really expect me to believe that a bad omen?
[2:44:33] Ay you some kind of spiritual medium? Now? Ooh, a staircase?
[2:44:37] So scary, she said, waving her hands in a mocking gesture. Nadia,
[2:44:43] do I look like I'm joking. I know it sounds crazy, but
[2:44:48] I wouldn't lie to you. She softly took my hands into hers and met
[2:44:52] my gaze. Baby, you know I wouldn't accuse you of that. It's
[2:44:58] strange, but if it really irks you that much, I won't press it.
[2:45:01] Okay, thank you. Now let's go home. I'm starving. Once
[2:45:11] we were out of sight of that wretched thing, I could sense the tension
[2:45:16] starting to disperse. It was as if a veil had been lifted. I
[2:45:20] fell asleep that night with a stomach full of dumplings and not a thought in
[2:45:26] the world besides the batite girls snuggled in my arms. The stairs had vanished
[2:45:31] from my brain, just like they always did until the next day. We
[2:45:39] both had the entire day off work, and before I knew it, Nadia
[2:45:43] was pulling me back down the same path as the day prior to watch the
[2:45:46] sunset. Butterflies danced to my stomach as we approached the spot that we'd seen
[2:45:52] the stairs the day before, even so Nardia noticed it first. Hey,
[2:46:01] isn't this the same place you pulled me away from yesterday? Those stairs they're
[2:46:05] gone. See I told you they were a bad omen Now do you believe
[2:46:11] me? I never said I didn't. It's just a strange phenomena, you
[2:46:16] know, like seeing a unicorn. You don't really expect to find it,
[2:46:20] or in this case, not find it. It's a lot to process.
[2:46:28] I didn't know what to say. She'd hit the nail on the head with
[2:46:31] her analysis, except the staircases were no unicorns. No, there was something
[2:46:39] far more sinister. We continued our walk in silence until we finally reached our
[2:46:46] destination. That evening we'll always stand out in my mind. The sky looked
[2:46:52] like a painter's canvas, a gorgeous amalgamation of purple and pink and orange melt
[2:47:00] together behind a smattering of light, wispy clouds. I'd never seen anything so
[2:47:05] picturesque. We stayed there well past the sunset, staring up into a sea
[2:47:11] of stars illuminating the night sky. Thank you for keeping your promise. Today
[2:47:18] was perfect, Nadia yawned sleepily, resting her head on my shoulder. Every
[2:47:24] day with you is perfect. Thank you for dragging me out of the house.
[2:47:28] This really has been incredible. I love you so much. You're welcome,
[2:47:35] bonehead, I love you too. Nadia giggled quietly, her eyes struggling
[2:47:39] to stay open. All right, sweetheart, I think it's time for us
[2:47:45] to go back. You can hardly stay awake just a little longer. You're
[2:47:50] so comfy, she protested, bearing her head into my chest. My heart
[2:47:56] felt so full in that moment. I done to deserve such an amazing girl.
[2:48:03] All right, hope we go, I said, hoisting my weary girlfriend
[2:48:07] into my arms. If your legs won't move, I have no choice but
[2:48:11] to carry you. Oh no, how terrible. Whatever shall I do,
[2:48:16] she quipped, wrapping her arms around my neck. Nothing, just stay still
[2:48:22] and let me my froze mid stride, I swallowed a dry lump in my
[2:48:28] throat, and sweat began to beat atop my brow. In the darkness among
[2:48:33] the foliage, my flashlight beam fell upon a large, bulky object. They
[2:48:41] were back, Jason. What's wrong? You look pale? Nadia said,
[2:48:48] following the ray of light until she realized what I was looking at. A
[2:48:52] wide set of weathered concrete steps ascended to nowhere. They called to me,
[2:49:00] begging me to climb them. Just one step, just one, that's all,
[2:49:07] Jason. I feel it now, what you were talking about yesterday.
[2:49:13] I feel it. It's all wrong. They shouldn't be here, Nadia whimpered,
[2:49:18] fear jolting across the pupils. Yeah, yeah, you're right, I
[2:49:24] said, ripping my gaze from the awful thing. Just don't look at it.
[2:49:31] We're going to be okay. This time. I wasn't as relieved once
[2:49:37] we'd escaped the staircase as a lowering pull. I'd never seen the stairs two
[2:49:41] days straight before. They were always more sporadic in their appearance, never showing
[2:49:48] up with any rhythm or consistency, so to see them twice made me feel
[2:49:54] a bit uneasy. Nadia and I didn't mention the stairs again that evening.
[2:50:00] We were both absolutely exhausted and we were itching to get some much needed rest.
[2:50:07] I'd be damned if I wasn't going to let some stupid staircase ruin her
[2:50:11] good night's sleep. Nadia was already snoring when I joined her in bed,
[2:50:16] and I was out the second my head hit the pillow. If only we
[2:50:22] could have made it until morning, maybe then she'd still be here. I
[2:50:31] awoke in a pitch black room. Nadia was missing from her side of the
[2:50:35] bed. I didn't worry at first. It was an abnormal for her to
[2:50:41] sneak off to the bathroom in the middle of the night every once in a
[2:50:43] while. I didn't want to drift back off until I had her beside me,
[2:50:48] though. I waited and waited to no avail. Then, after what
[2:50:56] felt like an eternity, I finally called out, hey, babe, are
[2:51:01] you coming back to bed soon? I received no response. That was when
[2:51:09] the panic set in. Nadia would never ignore me like that. I leapt
[2:51:15] out of bed and beelined for the bathroom. It was empty. My heart
[2:51:20] began to pound against my rib cage like a jackhammer. Sirens were blaring in
[2:51:24] my head telling me that something was wrong, and I felt helpless to silence
[2:51:30] them. I turned the whole cabin inside out, with no results. Nardia
[2:51:35] was nowhere to be found. Then, amongst all the chaos, an idea
[2:51:41] flickered in my head. Why hadn't I thought of it sooner? Nardia's phone
[2:51:48] was missing from the bedside, but I could track a location and find my
[2:51:52] friends. I fumbled to unlock my own phone and opened the app. I
[2:51:56] hadn't know that she was okay. I loaded up the app and located Nardia's
[2:52:03] icon. She was close. The app said that she was only a few
[2:52:09] hundred feet from the cabin. I threw on a pair of shorts and darted
[2:52:13] out into the frigid night air. I raised barefoot across the leaves and rocks
[2:52:18] and acorns. I didn't have time to grab shoes right then. I didn't
[2:52:24] care if my feet would taunt of ribbons, as long as Nadia was okay.
[2:52:31] I eventually reached the point where a phone should have been. I frantically
[2:52:35] called it, praying that she would pick up. This time. I saw
[2:52:39] something illuminate amongst the leaves, and not far beyond it, I found who
[2:52:46] I was searching for. But instead of being overcome with joy upon finding the
[2:52:52] love of my life, my blood turned ice cold. Nardia's face was partially
[2:52:58] illuminating by the moonlight trickling through the canopy. She was gazing down at me,
[2:53:05] with tears streaming down her cheeks. Below her feet sat a staircase this
[2:53:13] time, it was ornate, white, glassy marble stairs gleamed even in the
[2:53:20] darkness, topped off with the pristine red carpet. The stairs looked as if
[2:53:26] they would lead straight to Heaven itself, and that terrified me. Dread crashed
[2:53:33] over me like a tidal wave as we stared at each other. I wanted
[2:53:39] to move, I wanted to sprint up to her and sweep off those god
[2:53:43] forsaken things, but I couldn't. I was rooted in place, forced to
[2:53:48] watch as the girl of my dreams ascended the final step. Jason, Please,
[2:53:56] I don't want to go. I love you and I want to stay
[2:53:58] with you forever. I had to know. I could feel them calling to
[2:54:03] me, Please don't let them take me. Nadia sobbed uncontrollably, reaching out
[2:54:13] a hand toward me. I wanted to grab it, to pull her into
[2:54:16] my arms, to tell her that everything was going to be okay, but
[2:54:22] I was stuck. I was forced to watch in abject horror as Nadia involuntarily
[2:54:28] took that one last step to the top. It felt as if time had
[2:54:35] slowed to a crawl one second. I was paralyzed, eyes locked, and
[2:54:39] Nadia and those vile stairs, and the next I was alone. Nadia and
[2:54:48] the staircase had vanished into the cool night air, like they'd never existed at
[2:54:54] all. The burden of that night will stay with me until the day I
[2:55:01] die. I wailed, I screamed, I pounded the earth unto My fists
[2:55:07] were bloody and my throat was hoarse. Nadia had been taken from me right
[2:55:13] before my very eyes, and I did absolutely nothing. I blame myself for
[2:55:22] a long time after that. Hell, I still do. I don't think
[2:55:28] I'll ever be able to move on. That's my punishment, I suppose,
[2:55:33] living out a dull, meaningless life. All images of my lost girlfriend run
[2:55:39] through my head day in and day out. That's why I drink. Strangely
[2:55:46] enough, I've never seen the stairs again. Very really the only reason that
[2:55:52] I'm still here because maybe if I just give in me, if I convinced
[2:56:00] myself to climb that one last looming step, then there might be a chance
[2:56:07] that I'll be reunited with Nadia. And for me, that's the chance that
[2:56:15] I have to take. It began with a black bag over my head,
[2:56:30] six or seven men seizing me off the street on my way home from work.
[2:56:33] Holding me at gunpoint in the back of a van. They explained in
[2:56:37] detail what would happen to my family if I didn't listen to them. Until
[2:56:43] that moment, torture was just a word. I'd never given it much thought.
[2:56:48] I wasn't prepared to hear some of the things they told me. By
[2:56:54] the time they were loading me onto a helicopter, I would have done anything
[2:56:58] they asked. I arrived at the Black Site, kicked out of the chopper,
[2:57:03] where my feet hit the hard packed, wet mud with a splash.
[2:57:09] Black hood torn off so hard it hurt the skin on the tip of my
[2:57:11] nose, and then I got my first look at the place. Can't say
[2:57:20] if it met my expectations or not. I didn't have any idea where I
[2:57:24] was going or what it was supposed to look like when I got there.
[2:57:30] Still it managed to leave me feeling surprised. An abandoned village nestled in the
[2:57:37] jungle, mostly one room hovels, lots of corrugated iron. Here and there
[2:57:43] lay burned allotments, dying pepper plants left untended, their fruits stamped into the
[2:57:50] earth by the passage of soldiers dressed in all black rotten fences and troughs to
[2:57:56] feed long dead pigs and goats lay smashed to pieces, and then lurking on
[2:58:03] a hill like some architectural jump. Scare was a three story hospital made of
[2:58:09] glass and steel, stated the art, built in a place where tarmac was
[2:58:15] just a rumor. Officially, it had been put there by a charitable nonprofit
[2:58:20] wanting to research novel diseases and potential cures deep in the jungle. Unofficially,
[2:58:26] it had always belonged to the CIA, a useful place to test strange things
[2:58:33] with pots in the name, and when the time came, a useful place
[2:58:39] to dissect the impossible. Imagine my surprise when I was escorted by armed men
[2:58:46] to an office with my name on the door and discovered that I was to
[2:58:52] be in charge of its latest major project, head of Research. Printed on
[2:58:58] the glass my official looking big black letters like I'd always worked there. First
[2:59:05] thing, I thought, how long do they intend to keep me here?
[2:59:11] But that didn't last long. The hospital became my home and has been ever
[2:59:16] since. Less than twenty four hours after my arrival, and I hid my
[2:59:22] feet up on the desk, barking orders at lab technicians, I slipped into
[2:59:26] the role easier than I'd like to admit. You see, where they got
[2:59:31] me was on scientific curiosity. That's how they ensured I was on board with
[2:59:37] the project. That's why they never pointed a gun at me after day one.
[2:59:43] They didn't have to. The second I saw that thing inside the Messiah's
[2:59:48] chest cavity, I was a willing asset. No more me, only the
[2:59:56] project, the discovery, and the revelations. Lying on that slab nestled in
[3:00:01] the flesh of an otherwise normal looking man was a white hot piece of divinity,
[3:00:09] a pinprick in the fabric of reality. I don't know how else to
[3:00:13] describe it. It was like I'd spend my whole life seeing two dimensional shadows,
[3:00:20] and then I suddenly got a glimpse of the three dimensional shapes casting them.
[3:00:26] I haven't seen my children since they took me. Couldn't tell you their
[3:00:31] names. I was never the same after the first autopsy. No one in
[3:00:37] that place was sane. After the scalpel first bit into his flesh. Attrition
[3:00:41] amongst the research staff was incredibly high. Every day, another nurse seized by
[3:00:48] stigmata, or a once faithless lab technician struck by the call to write the
[3:00:54] Third Testament. The guards dealt with the unwilling members of the team. Traumatized
[3:01:01] scientists and clinicians lined up one by one against an exposed brick wall in the
[3:01:07] jungle heat and shot. I remember smoking in the cafeteria in between surgeries,
[3:01:15] nervously shaking as I tried to ignore the pop pop pop of some of my
[3:01:20] more stubborn colleagues being executed. And then back to work, where I suppressed
[3:01:28] the feeling that I was the worst kind of traitor. Next day there'd be
[3:01:33] new faces, scrubbing up and asking for orders, another pair of hands shipped
[3:01:37] in from God knows where. Back to cataloging divinity. At times I imagine
[3:01:46] joining the objectors, the people who found religion in a sterile, black ops
[3:01:52] lab. But that thing we pulled out of him, that baffling enigma that
[3:01:58] burned my eyes consume the project. Everything we learned about it felt like a
[3:02:03] quantum leap in our understanding of microbiology. We tested everything we could get our
[3:02:09] hands on, plants, animals, humans. I tried not to look any
[3:02:16] of them in the eye. Quiet people taken from some quiet part of the
[3:02:20] earth where they wouldn't be missed. All of them scared. Did they know,
[3:02:28] I mean, really no, the suffering they were in for definitely not.
[3:02:35] They expected to be shot, I imagine, not to wake up with
[3:02:39] the roof of their mouth fined with eyeballs. I'm ashamed to say, but
[3:02:43] those kinds of results invigorated me, excited me. Even when it all fell
[3:02:50] apart and I missed the evacuation. I got to finally rifle through all those
[3:02:56] classified documents where I discovered I hadn't been selected because I was some genius of
[3:03:01] microbiology, but rather because my psychological profile made it clear I'd do anything if
[3:03:09] you dangled a big enough mystery in front of me. That and the fact
[3:03:15] that I was actually quite good at managing projects. Geniuses usually aren't grat at
[3:03:22] sending out memos or keeping track of performance numbers. Thankfully, I'm no genius
[3:03:30] who was humbling at times working with some of the guys down below, being
[3:03:35] senior to them, even I mean, doctor Coates was probably the smartest man
[3:03:39] I'd ever met, no real academic career, because he had a habit of
[3:03:46] hyper fixating on things that either couldn't be solved or which no one gave a
[3:03:50] damn about. But It was pretty clear this was a guy who could have
[3:03:56] turned his brain to just about anything and made a name for himself if he
[3:04:01] was just a little more on the ball. He was a NodD and basically
[3:04:07] gave lecture's barefoot would respond to last minute marking deadlines by giving every student to
[3:04:13] be through a stabler at the head of his department. That kind of thing.
[3:04:18] Intelligent, but not particularly sensible. The project broke him, broke his
[3:04:28] worldview, broke his mind, and, towards the end, even his body.
[3:04:35] You might think the problem was asking a hyper rational man to process the
[3:04:41] divine, but if anything, he processed it a little too well. He
[3:04:48] was the first person to read the Third Testament without going insane immediately insane,
[3:04:54] i should say, or maybe he was always nuts to begin with. Either
[3:05:00] way, he managed to take all the random scribbles in bits of verse that
[3:05:05] we'd collected from the personal effects of the deceased and actually put it together into
[3:05:09] a single document. Then he read it and came out looking like nothing special
[3:05:16] had happened. The next guy after him not so lucky, but doctor Coates.
[3:05:26] He carried on working for a few days after took measurements of this made
[3:05:31] records of that slipped into the background, out of my notice while I focused
[3:05:37] and trying to figure out some way of getting the Third Testament scanned into a
[3:05:41] computer without it causing havoc a lot like the people who read it, machines
[3:05:48] liked to give out halfway through reading the Third Testament. Not Coats, though
[3:05:54] he seemed just fine. I should have known better. The first clue that
[3:06:01] something wasn't quite right was when I went to his office, a cramped space
[3:06:07] with metal walls and floors, no windows given it was below ground, and
[3:06:13] a countertop full of equipment. It was always a mess in there, and
[3:06:18] usually a bit smelly too, but it was usually just that unwashed scientist smell.
[3:06:26] But one day, when I went to call on him, he opened
[3:06:30] the door and I got the whiff of something that was just wrong. Smelled
[3:06:35] a little like death, only not quite just different, moldy almost. Course,
[3:06:46] he was entitled to do some experimentations on his own time, and that's
[3:06:50] what I figured it was. At the time I wrote it off, had
[3:06:56] other things on my mind. Only the smell got worse with time, turned
[3:07:03] up day after day, and each time it stung my nose a little more.
[3:07:09] Hung around my sinuses a little longer and coats. He looked a little
[3:07:15] worse for wear each time, too. Again, nothing serious, the kind
[3:07:22] of thing that's actually quite normal for a man like him. I'm used to
[3:07:26] seeing scientists fixate on a problem, something quiet they won't share with anyone else
[3:07:33] until they know for sure what they've got. That's what he was like,
[3:07:37] and I figured when he was ready, he'd either show me something that would
[3:07:43] blow my socks off, or it'll be something stupid, like a girdis microwave
[3:07:48] to evenly heat up his lunch by taking it apart and rewiring its inside.
[3:07:54] Sometimes I wonder, if I caught it earlier, could I have done something
[3:07:58] about it. Someone smarter might have picked up the old chemical mixtures on his
[3:08:03] shelf or recognized the peculiar smells. Not me, though, all I can
[3:08:11] say in hindsight is thank god my office was above ground. By the time
[3:08:18] his little project had finished working its way through the floor he was on,
[3:08:22] he'd killed thirty six people with his home made nerve gas. Thankfully, the
[3:08:28] facility was prepared for that kind of attack, and the automated security systems had
[3:08:33] the entire level locked down very quickly. So that the damage wasn't that bad.
[3:08:39] Could have been a lot worse. But what was weird was the venting
[3:08:43] system wasn't working. Should have cleared it out and under a day, but
[3:08:48] four hours later and the gas levels were the same. The investigation, at
[3:08:54] least at first, had to happen remotely. CCTV from his lap was spotty.
[3:09:01] Something was corroding the cameras, but based on some of his material requests,
[3:09:07] we guessed he'd been culturing some unusual fungus to create the bioweapon. Whatever
[3:09:16] it was, it was potent, and we were helpless to do anything about
[3:09:22] it. We had to wait and hope to God whatever awful thing he'd concocted
[3:09:28] would wear out on its own. What little the CCTV could capture made for
[3:09:33] a grueling sight. Eight scientists dead at their desks, slumped over, blood
[3:09:41] pouring out of their mouths. The fluid looked black on the grainy black and
[3:09:46] white monitor. But what upset me more were the assistants, dozens of young
[3:09:52] men and women who didn't really belong in that place. Too much to live
[3:09:56] for, and all of them so s gared of what was going to happen
[3:10:01] to them, and They were just lying there in the middle of whatever it
[3:10:05] was they were doing in the labs themselves, smashed beakers and machines in disarray.
[3:10:13] In their rooms, some of them lay peacefully sleeping, others held each
[3:10:16] other in secret little trysts they thought no one knew about. All Over the
[3:10:22] level, bodies lay in the floor in strange positions, and again the black
[3:10:30] fluid leaking from every orifice, staining the floor, their faces and their clothes,
[3:10:35] soaking their chests and groins. I remember sitting there and just watching them
[3:10:41] twitch and foam of their mouths, waiting for death to finally come. Even
[3:10:48] then, the hours ticked on as we waited for the systems to purge the
[3:10:52] gas twelve twenty four forty eight. Nothing happened, and it was like everything
[3:11:03] in there was frozen in time. And then somehow the lights on that level
[3:11:09] went out. Emergency lighting came on, bathing everything in red, but combined
[3:11:16] with the low quality cameras, it was like gazing at an old video game,
[3:11:22] grainy, fuzzy, low resolution. We figured that Coats must have rigged
[3:11:28] up a remote timerund the electronics, which wasn't a good guess since his speciality
[3:11:33] was biochemistry and the security systems were of the highest tier, But what else
[3:11:39] could it be. Wasn't like someone could have hit the circuit breaker. We
[3:11:46] knew eventually we'd have to go in there sixty hours, have to shut down.
[3:11:52] We just had to. There was too much high value material to leave
[3:11:56] behind. And there are reports of strange noises down there. Guards posted to
[3:12:01] the door heard faint sounds on the other side, footsteps. They reckoned.
[3:12:09] Course. I wrote that off utter nonsense, I told myself and them,
[3:12:15] And yet we still went in armed, because well, if Coates were smart
[3:12:20] enough to rig this whole nightmare, who's to say he didn't make a little
[3:12:26] gas mask to keep himself safe. You'd think I'd be used to working in
[3:12:31] hazmat suits and I sort of vam, But going into that seileda floor was
[3:12:37] something else. The visor felt restrictive, the squeak of the rubber suit was
[3:12:43] deafening, My breath was too loud, and every time the insuit radio came
[3:12:48] to life with one of the soldier's barks, I damn near jumped out of
[3:12:52] my skin. And then the door actually opened. Nothing could have prepared me
[3:13:01] for that. The air was thick with mist, which lit up harshly with
[3:13:05] the emergency lighting's red hue. Old metal grates, vents, open doorways,
[3:13:13] all of it either blood red or completely dark. There are far too many
[3:13:20] shadows for it to feel safe. It didn't help some of the bulbs with
[3:13:24] strobe lighting, rotating sirens that lit the place up in periodic flashes of crimson
[3:13:30] light. God, even the four soldiers next to me look nervous. We
[3:13:37] passed more than a few bodies on our way to Coat's lab. All of
[3:13:41] them lay where they'd been on the CCTV, at least as far as I
[3:13:46] could tell. Sounds stupid, but I stared at a few of them closely,
[3:13:52] just to make sure. All those reports of footsteps had started to worm
[3:13:56] their way into my brain and shake the idea we weren't alone down the air.
[3:14:03] When we finally opened the door to Coat's what I saw left me frozen
[3:14:09] to the spot. The soldiers focused on the strange growth after the corner of
[3:14:15] the room, which registered to me only as a dim sort of collection of
[3:14:20] thick fungal petals crawling up the wall, veins pulsing like capillaries in the eye.
[3:14:28] But to me what really hit home was the empty desk. Last time
[3:14:35] they had reliable footage of that room, Coats had been lying there dead as
[3:14:39] a dodo, blood leaking from his still open eyes, pulling on the desk,
[3:14:45] and dripping onto the floor, And that stain was still very much there.
[3:14:50] There was even the faint outline of where his head had been laying,
[3:14:56] but the man himself was gone. This, even more than the grotesque thing
[3:15:03] that took up one wall, terrified me. The quivering mass of fungus was
[3:15:09] pomping out enough toxic gas to kill half the base, but it was stationary.
[3:15:15] At least in another circumstance, I might have even found it fascinating.
[3:15:20] But Coats, he'd clearly gone off the deep end. Had he lain perfectly
[3:15:26] still for days and end to trick us? That didn't seem right again,
[3:15:33] I thought, the bodies we passed the way, they looked so still,
[3:15:37] but not lifeless, like a porcelain doll. There was that slight suggestion of
[3:15:43] something working behind the eyes. What do we do with this? One of
[3:15:48] the men asked, take samples, burn the rest. I replied, If
[3:15:54] gas levels don't go down in a week, we'll have to purge the whole
[3:15:56] floor with phosphorus. The whole time. I had my eyes and the space
[3:16:01] around us under the desk on top of the cupboards. If Coats wasn't at
[3:16:07] his desk, where was he? Where the hell did this thing come from?
[3:16:13] The same soldier muttered as he laid a series of thermal charges on the
[3:16:18] fleshiest parts of the mold. It seemed to flinch in response to his touch,
[3:16:22] but otherwise benign. Ah. He probably took some of the subject's tissue
[3:16:28] samples. We know it propagates unusual levels of growth in plants and animal tissue.
[3:16:33] Explains why the cast levels don't go down. What'sn't metabolizing? I gave
[3:16:39] the soldier an odd luck what he said, you aren't the only ones within
[3:16:46] education? Fair enough, I replied, with a quick shake of the head.
[3:16:52] It isn't metabolizing anything except his tissue. It's a well bluntly I mean,
[3:17:00] I think of the fish and the bread, right. It's something we've
[3:17:03] known about his tissue samples for a while now, spontaneous creation of matter and
[3:17:07] energy out of nothing. But to give Coats his credit, this is a
[3:17:11] pretty novel application. He's created an infinite bio weapon. Why I was about
[3:17:22] to reply, I haven't. The slightest clue and a loud bang drew attention
[3:17:26] to the doorway. Outside lay a darkness broken only by the strobing of a
[3:17:33] red light. Flashing on and off. He revealed, for just a single
[3:17:39] instant, the outline of a man standing in the hallway. The soldiers swore
[3:17:46] nervously as they raised the rifles. By the time the light came back,
[3:17:52] the figure was gone. Who the hell was that, one barked, must
[3:17:58] be coats. Another replied, CHOP's done, I cried wad, gesturing to
[3:18:01] the charges. Lets get the hell out of There are no miracles left for
[3:18:07] you. You have made your own miracles. The words were growled, so
[3:18:15] loud and deep they seemed to vibrate my very bones. The soldiers snapped to
[3:18:20] attention, but me, I took a little longer to turn back to the
[3:18:26] corner of the room. I knew what I was going to see, but
[3:18:33] God, I didn't want to see it. There are other gardens, but
[3:18:37] not for you. Do not spoil the other readings. Goats emerged from the
[3:18:46] thing in the wall, pulling himself free with a wet squelch. He stood
[3:18:52] not naked, but clearly naked. As his skin began to absorb his clothes,
[3:18:58] he looked like a burned victim. Coat did analgae. He loves you
[3:19:03] in spite of everything. He loves you, and there is a place in
[3:19:09] Heaven for you all. But it is time to I can't blame the soldier
[3:19:18] who pulled the trigger. It wasn't just the fact that Coach was speaking with
[3:19:22] her mouth that had grown grotesquely across his abdomen, but rather that the words
[3:19:28] were drilling straight into our heads like some brushing off. It made my eyes
[3:19:33] cross, my ears ache, and my nose bleed. Two other men had
[3:19:39] vomited, splattering the inside of their visors with thick fluid. They were the
[3:19:45] first to go. They didn't see what hit them, and I'm somewhat glad.
[3:19:52] Coats, angered by the gunshot, moved with the elegance of a dancer.
[3:19:58] I stumbled out into the the corridor as he tore them apart, his
[3:20:03] arm seemingly flowing right through their biohazard suit. The remaining soldier, the trigger
[3:20:09] happy one, was beside me as I fled. It wasn't far to the
[3:20:13] exit. I hoped we'd make it the rest of the way without incident,
[3:20:18] and in just a few short hours I might be able to put the few
[3:20:22] images I had of coats pulling flesh and fabric apart, like it was tissue
[3:20:26] deep, into some recess of my mind, and just move on. But
[3:20:31] it was only a few short steps into the dark before the remaining soldier began
[3:20:37] to fire blindly at the corridor behind us. It was a mistake for him
[3:20:43] to turn around in the fraction of a second where his eyes had been turned
[3:20:46] away, he missed one of the bodies lying on the ground. I jumped,
[3:20:52] He didn't. I was dimly aware of there being no one beside me,
[3:20:58] only when the gun shot shots grew fainter and fainter. As I left
[3:21:01] him behind, one of the shots dinged off a panel by my head,
[3:21:07] and to this day I suspect it was not a ricochet, but a deliberate
[3:21:11] attempt to get revenge from me abandoning him. Still, I didn't look back,
[3:21:18] not until I reached the secure door. I thumb the keypad frantically,
[3:21:24] terrified as my ears registered the sound of approaching footsteps muffled by the bio hazard
[3:21:28] suit. God, I couldn't stop myself. I looked I had nothing else
[3:21:37] to do except wait for the security to clear me and open the door,
[3:21:41] and there was no guarantee they'd even do that. I might be waiting forever,
[3:21:46] staring at nothing as Coats came closer and closer. Without even realizing what
[3:21:52] I was doing, I turned and saw the soldier with a gun. Jeez.
[3:22:01] Coat's office was out of sight, so I had no idea if he
[3:22:05] repeated this with the other two. With the man I saw, he was
[3:22:11] in pieces yellow and red in ragged strips, a coat of the ceiling as
[3:22:16] much as the floor, and barreling towards me on all fours, legs and
[3:22:22] arms too long for a normal man. Came Coats, eyes wide, jaw
[3:22:28] distended, chunks out of his head still missing, but his mouth it silently
[3:22:35] spoke the same few words, almost in time with his loping gallop, over
[3:22:41] and over and over. It would take days for me to even realize what
[3:22:46] it was he was saying. Thankfully, before he'd managed to reach me,
[3:22:54] the doors opened and a hail of gunfire filled the corridor ahead. Coats,
[3:22:58] fast as lightning, disappeared into some dark crevice, and I was dragged to
[3:23:03] safety before the worst might happen. As soon as I was on the other
[3:23:09] side, I told security to flood the place with phosphorus, and everything was
[3:23:15] purged white, hot, fire and demand. By the time it was over,
[3:23:20] only metal remained, and even then a lot of it had melted and
[3:23:26] cooled in strange shapes on the floor. I also went out of my way
[3:23:31] to kill any attempts at reclaiming the lost workplace. Higher ups were mad all
[3:23:37] that square footage lost, but I said the risk of contamination was too great.
[3:23:45] Of course, I left out the part where I returned one quiet night
[3:23:48] a few days later and placed my ear against the thick steel wall that I
[3:23:54] knew ran close to one of the vents on that level. It was faint,
[3:24:00] but I heard Coats whispering. Only then did I get the final clue
[3:24:05] to what Coats had been saying, as he came towards me in the flashing
[3:24:09] red of that darkened corridor. We love you, We love you, We
[3:24:16] love you, we love you, we love you. Even now, the
[3:24:22] cameras showed that level to be a sterile, hollow space, but I cannot
[3:24:28] escape the feeling that if I were to open it, I would see Coats
[3:24:33] come slithering out of some long forgotten vent perhaps worse for wear, given all
[3:24:39] the time that has since passed. Were Coats none the less terrifying and misshapen,
[3:24:46] were desperate to spread the very Testament that twisted his mind and body,
[3:24:50] that caused him to try and breed something that might well have ended the entire
[3:24:56] world. And the worst thing of all, what he'd been saying to me
[3:25:01] in that corridor. What if it was true? What if he hadn't done
[3:25:09] it out of hate but love? And the time I assumed the force we
[3:25:20] were dealing with was hostile, But what if it wasn't Everyone who goes near
[3:25:26] the Third Testament kills themselves. And until Coates I thought it some kind of
[3:25:31] twisted revenge. But what if that wasn't the case? What if he wasn't
[3:25:37] doing it out of spite or hostility? What would that mean for me?
[3:25:43] Forgiveness? If so? That terrified me, because after everything I'd been through,
[3:25:52] I doubted I'd have the strength to resist that kind of offer. For
[3:25:56] weeks I lay awake at night just what the hell might be in those words
[3:26:03] that could compel people like Coats to do what they did. And yet,
[3:26:07] despite everything, I still haven't read the Third Testament, Coats was a genius,
[3:26:16] and he still gave in. I know that I did some pretty messed
[3:26:20] up stuff in the name of scientific curiosity, but well, I guess I'm
[3:26:26] not ashamed to say I'm also a coward. I'm afraid of dying. Curiosity
[3:26:33] can only get you so far, and after seeing everything that happened to the
[3:26:37] people who read that thing, I couldn't bring myself to risk it. Whatever
[3:26:43] the Third Testament is, hearing it seems pretty bad for your health. I
[3:26:50] don't think I even deserve to be forgiven if that is what he's offering.
[3:26:56] It was poetic justice that out of all the peace people who managed to make
[3:27:01] the evacuation, I wasn't one of them. Leaving on foot is hardly an
[3:27:07] option for me. I mean, even if I had the styrenth to hike
[3:27:11] through hundreds of miles of rainforest, I need to reach the outer fence first.
[3:27:16] And strange things have fested in the chemical pits where they disposed of the
[3:27:20] bodies, soft mounds of ash and bone that sing from time to time,
[3:27:26] exciting the birds in the canopy to take off and make strange patterns in the
[3:27:30] sky. If they can sing, they must have mouths, right, And
[3:27:35] if they have mouths, what else I think about coats? About what kind
[3:27:43] of hands would reach out to drag me into those rotten pits of long dead
[3:27:46] flesh and drown me in filth? And I shudder. I could try and
[3:27:52] sneak past, but it really isn't safe outside the hospital. It isn't safe
[3:28:00] inside, to be fair, But what choice do I have? At least
[3:28:05] there's still power, internet, food to last me over a century, and
[3:28:09] security doors. I keep everything below sub level one firmly locked away. While
[3:28:16] out there well, I see things sometimes moving quickly between the old buildings.
[3:28:24] The trees shake and stir, and wed jungle now grows thick and heavy against
[3:28:31] one of the glass walls of the hospital. The vines twist and turn and
[3:28:35] spell out odd messages. I shut my eyes firmly whenever I have to pass
[3:28:41] them. And yet even blind, I can hear the tidening fibrous coils as
[3:28:48] the clawing flora scratches against the glass. They want me hungering all those corpses
[3:28:58] we buried out there, rotting, breaking down, contaminated with divinity? What
[3:29:07] strange waters flow through the soil in this place? Nothing could make me risk
[3:29:11] opening the doors and try walking through that vegetation. He might forgive, but
[3:29:20] I don't think my former test subjects have. And as for down below,
[3:29:28] you know, I never met him while I was alive. Don't know where
[3:29:33] they got him from, or even why. My bet he ticked off the
[3:29:39] wrong people, got shot and got back up. Maybe they shot him again
[3:29:46] and he got up again. Maybe they did it five times, ten times.
[3:29:50] I don't know. Somewhere along the lines someone worked out they had an
[3:29:56] anomaly on their hands. Maybe I wasn't the first person to even try cutting
[3:30:01] him open. It's just weird. No one ever told us who he was.
[3:30:09] We just knew it'd be years before I wondered who mothered him, loved
[3:30:16] him, raised him. I often wonder if this was the way it was
[3:30:20] meant to go, or was it just an accident that he bumped into the
[3:30:24] wrong people at the wrong time. The Messiah came and the first thing we
[3:30:31] did was cut him off. No wonder we failed. Things in the projects
[3:30:37] started to go really bad about six months after the first incision. I turnover
[3:30:43] amongst researchers was one thing, but well, it turns out a lot of
[3:30:48] the soldiers had religious inclination. Wasn't just us dealing with visions and voices.
[3:30:56] At some point they worked out what they were part of. The agency likes
[3:31:01] compartmentalization, but it can only go so far. After the religious element became
[3:31:07] clear to the guys on the ground, things started to break down. It
[3:31:13] was one thing to control the scientists, for the guards were armed. When
[3:31:18] they broke, they broke hard. Most of his remains are stored in the
[3:31:26] lowest level. Wrote it as easiest to keep things cool outside. There's this
[3:31:31] long corridor leading to the central chamber, huge, wide enough to dry four
[3:31:37] or five cards side by side, And that was where the first card hanged
[3:31:43] himself. Simple enough, they dragged him away and cleaned it up. It
[3:31:50] wasn't long after coats. In fact, it was one of the men who
[3:31:54] saved me at the door. Were pretty soon another two guys went down there
[3:32:00] and hang themselves, and then five, and then eight, and then top
[3:32:05] side. Some people started blowing their brains out in their barracks in the canteens,
[3:32:11] standing watch at the doors, looking out on the jungle. Cigarette hanging
[3:32:15] loose on one lip seemed almost random, except there was a clear pattern of
[3:32:22] escalation when those guys started killing their friends that when it reached the point where
[3:32:30] they couldn't ship new guys in fast enough to replace losses. Once that happened,
[3:32:35] orders started getting lost, jobs started being left and done. One lab
[3:32:41] got written off because the test subject's body was left to festero over a weekend
[3:32:46] and by the time they got the door open there was flesh growing up the
[3:32:50] walls. Not enough manpowered to deal with it, so they left it for
[3:32:54] another day and moved on. Only they forgot to tell the research who worked
[3:33:00] there. So come Monday, he went in and had a hell of a
[3:33:05] surprise. Must have been like stepping into a wall of sour dough. I
[3:33:09] can only hope he suffocated and it was quick, but who knows, not
[3:33:16] like that stuff has hard and fast rules. For all I know, he's
[3:33:20] still in there, screaming for air. Meanwhile, that tunnel people just kept
[3:33:30] going down there and hanging themselves. I mean, every day I'd wake up
[3:33:35] and I'd be down, a few researchers and a couple more guards would be
[3:33:39] missing. Took a shockingly short amount of time for most of the six hundred
[3:33:43] people on site to just disappear. God knows when security stopped taking the bodies
[3:33:50] down, just another job that got lost and the grown panic. By the
[3:33:56] time evacuation orders came, we were down to one hundred. I estimate that
[3:34:01] around four hundred ended themselves in that tunnel. I've only visited him once since
[3:34:11] the project shut down, only had the guts that go look once barely made
[3:34:16] it out alive. I felt compelled to try and face up to him,
[3:34:20] acknowledged the role I played. Only that meant actually getting to the door at
[3:34:26] the end of the tunnel, which was by this point pitch black except for
[3:34:33] my torch and blocked almost entirely with hanging bodies, so many pressed together,
[3:34:41] so close that I had no hope of making my way through without bumping into
[3:34:46] one. Reminded me of the jungle, funnily enough, of a thick claustrophobic
[3:34:52] forest made of dried skin and brittle ligaments, different colors and shapes and different
[3:35:01] levels of d comp Some had lost their noses, lips, and eyes.
[3:35:05] Others were a little bloated but still recognizable. Not friends, really, I
[3:35:13] don't think I actually made one solitary friend on that project, but colleagues,
[3:35:20] people who were under my charge. They looked sad. All of them looked
[3:35:28] sad. They should have been buried at home with their families, but instead
[3:35:35] they were locked all the way in the ass end of nowhere. Of course,
[3:35:39] you can bet your ass the agency will make sure no one ever knows
[3:35:43] the truth. You know, I still have contact with them. Anything I
[3:35:50] post gets screened. Arrogant ass us know that no one's going to take me
[3:35:54] seriously in a record of this project anywhere. All this people just ghosts in
[3:36:01] a system too big for any one person to keep track of it all.
[3:36:07] You know how many people go missing in the United States in a year?
[3:36:11] What about Europe or the whole damn world. God, this project was just
[3:36:16] a drop in the ocean. I wanted to put it to bed to see
[3:36:24] if I could get some kind of answer from him. It was that idea,
[3:36:28] trying to get some resolution to this nightmare. I gave me the strength
[3:36:33] to push past the first dead body and go deeper into that tunnel. He
[3:36:39] reminded me of trying to make your way to the front of a gig only
[3:36:43] deathly silent, and the people you barged past one gently back and forth,
[3:36:48] the sound of makeshift nooses tightening in the dark. I think the worst part
[3:36:54] was the limited vision. My light was just a lone disc and God,
[3:37:01] it was pitch black in that place, like caving, only the floor is
[3:37:05] slick and you don't have to worry about a ravine. Made me think about
[3:37:11] being in the bottom of the ocean with all the corpses. Visibility was never
[3:37:15] more than a few foot ahead. I remember panicking at the realization I could
[3:37:20] easily get turned around, and well, if all those lost souls didn't let
[3:37:26] me go, what if I wound up going in circles for hours, days,
[3:37:31] even on end, just round and round. The nearest wall could be
[3:37:37] right there and I wouldn't know it. Just bones and teeth and ribs and
[3:37:43] hanging in trails, all of them called to the touch, freezing. Obviously,
[3:37:50] that's why we'd put him down there. The place was cold, my
[3:37:56] own breath visible in the air. But the bodies were like the meat you
[3:38:01] grab out of the fridge in a supermarket. It was just awful. Abound
[3:38:07] the fresh ones, the hardest, the stomach. A really rotten body looks
[3:38:11] almost like a prop It isn't, don't get me wrong. You look at
[3:38:16] it and your brain tells you damn well, it ain't a prop, but
[3:38:22] it's a hell of a lot easier to convince yourself. It's just the thing
[3:38:26] when it hasn't got eyes or skin. For the fresh ones, sometimes they
[3:38:31] still had expressions like anger or sadness on their faces. They made me feel
[3:38:37] watched. And the fact they were cold and slick with condensation. Every time
[3:38:43] I bumped into one. It took everything I had not to let out a
[3:38:48] whimper. And they moved. They didn't move, not like that. But
[3:38:56] there were no drafts down there. It was perfectly still. They had been
[3:39:01] perfectly still for months after the project shut down, and then I came along
[3:39:05] and disturbed them, and it was like a giant Newton's cradle. The static
[3:39:11] system that I put energy into it began to sway and twist and bomp.
[3:39:18] I knock one, and a fraction of a second later it would knock me
[3:39:22] back, jostling against my cheek or my arm as inertia rocked it back and
[3:39:26] forth. Ten minutes in too far to turn back. That was when the
[3:39:35] nightmare began started. Small I lost my ability to track what body was where
[3:39:43] and which ones were Since swinging by my own clumsy movements, and then fingers
[3:39:48] combed my hair. I cried out. Another said touched my beard, my
[3:39:54] face. I forced myself onwards and started making eye contact with one too many
[3:40:00] dead men for it to simply be an accident. Their expressions changed from sullen
[3:40:05] and listless to angry and cool, leering smiles and curled lips. Then came
[3:40:13] the unmistakable sensation of someone deliberately grabbing for my arm. I had to shake
[3:40:22] it loose, too afraid to look back and face the possibility that I'd see
[3:40:26] one of them moving and scowling. I pushed on, constantly, having to
[3:40:33] shake cold fingers off my elbow or my collar. They groped incessantly, looking
[3:40:39] for anything to hold on to. Firm grips pinched my belly, fat,
[3:40:43] my shoulders, my chest, and then they started reaching for my eyes.
[3:40:50] At one point I made the mistake of crying out, and a freezing cold
[3:40:54] finger with a slightly furried texture slid into my mouth. Came when I dropped
[3:41:01] to my hands and knees and crawled. The entire time, my mind raised
[3:41:05] with a terrible possibility that I really was just being sent in circles over and
[3:41:11] over and over and they were never going to let me leave. I would
[3:41:18] die down there in the dark, smothered by their rotting hands. God damn,
[3:41:26] I came close to giving up. When my torch finally alighted upon an
[3:41:31] open space. I cried out, a heaving, wet sob made of relief
[3:41:37] and joy, and my muscles, given new life, worked over time to
[3:41:41] get me out of that horrible nightmare and into freedom. I didn't stop until
[3:41:48] I bumped my head against the steel wall with a dull clang, and looked
[3:41:52] up to see the vault's door, at last, the place we'd frozen him.
[3:42:01] I got up, with what little dignity I had left, brushed down
[3:42:05] my clothes, and risked only the briefest of glances back. The bodies looked
[3:42:11] inert now, just like they had before I entered. I could have tricked
[3:42:18] myself into thinking it was my imagination. Only half my shirt was now in
[3:42:24] tatters on the floor, and I could still see strips of it still clenched
[3:42:28] in a few of their hands. I did my best to compose myself,
[3:42:37] and I entered the vault. We hadn't left him in a very nice state.
[3:42:46] The plan was the catalog everything, Yeah, we excised the most striking
[3:42:52] biological anomalies, but the remaining flesh. I mean, we wanted to know
[3:42:58] everything, every last capillary, every last cell. We wanted it recorded,
[3:43:05] so we had this special machine flown in. He works by taking a piece
[3:43:09] of flesh and slicing into a layer that's barely a micrometer thick, and depositing
[3:43:16] it into a slide. That slide is digested and then stored in specialized cold
[3:43:22] refrigeration units. Is usually used on a sample not much bigger than a potato,
[3:43:28] But for him we had something specially made, frozen stood vertigal. We
[3:43:37] put him on the machine where it worked, creating about one slice every three
[3:43:41] hours. Only at the end. Well, first no one came to take
[3:43:46] the slides away, so they gathered on the floor below in a terrible mess.
[3:43:52] And second, no one had bothered to check if he was still dead.
[3:44:00] Stupid of us. Really, of course, he came back to life,
[3:44:05] only this time he didn't get to leave the cave. I often wonder
[3:44:11] if he had anything left to say, but by then the machine had reached
[3:44:16] his nose, just his eyes at the top of his head, looking right
[3:44:22] at me, following me. God, we made a mess of things,
[3:44:28] didn't We made the Romans look gentle in comparison. I fell to my knees
[3:44:33] and begged for forgiveness. And the worst part he gave it. Obviously not
[3:44:43] verbally, but he shouldn't surprise you to know he had other ways of putting
[3:44:48] thought to my head. I was so angry at myself. I was positive
[3:44:54] I'd find some kind of punishment waiting for me. When I didn't, he
[3:45:03] forgave me, told me I was loved after everything I'd done. I mean,
[3:45:09] God, that hurt the most. I didn't deserve it, still don't.
[3:45:16] And then he gave me the Third Testament, or rather the cliff Notes.
[3:45:22] Not enough to drive me nuts, but the gist of it, so
[3:45:26] to speak, did a number on me. Anyway. By the time I
[3:45:31] was done sobbing on the floor, I lugged up and he was gone.
[3:45:39] Nothing remained, just broken glass in a machine cutting empty air. Going back
[3:45:46] through the tunnel was no easier than going in, but I hardly remember it.
[3:45:52] I lost a couple of weeks after that little trip down below, but
[3:45:56] eventually I came to in my off this Now I stay above ground. I've
[3:46:05] asked for rescue but the agency feels I best serve my country by staying where
[3:46:09] I am, making sure nothing else leagues out. It's messed up, but
[3:46:16] I think, for once they might be right. I've considered sharing what he
[3:46:24] gave me, considered even putting it in bits of writing here. Might even
[3:46:28] go get the full Testament and upload it, but that would involve reading it,
[3:46:35] and like I said, I'm a coward and I don't want to die.
[3:46:41] Everyone who reads it dies by their own hand. I guess all I
[3:46:48] can say is the Third Testament. It's something of a warning, an outline
[3:46:56] of what's coming our way, so bad that he came just to offer us
[3:47:01] a way out, a promise that there's somewhere else, and an acknowledgment that
[3:47:09] we're going to need. It makes me think of Coats, smartest man I
[3:47:16] ever met, whose first reaction to knowing what was on the way was to
[3:47:22] try and engineer something to wipe humanity all out. Given to what we did
[3:47:28] to him, I wonder if we don't deserve it

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