I didn’t answer the first few times that he knocked. I didn’t want to.
“Jeff! Open the fuck up and tell me what you found!”
I had no idea what he was referring to. I found a lot of stuff, after all.
However, it turns out that he was only being polite by knocking. Within a few minutes, my door was down. It was so sudden, that I yelped in shock. I don’t even know what he did. The door kind of just fell over. I looked around my box of an apartment, trying to identify an escape route. But then I remembered that I was on the 14th floor.
Chad barges in and tells me that we have to back to the factory. For the briefest second, I protest. But that never mattered. I wasn’t getting out of this. He grabs my arm and pushes me out into the hallway. It seemed effortless for him.
We get into his car and start driving. Once we get there, we’re met with the familiar red and blue lights. And a bunch of dead cops. There’s some kind of bizarre, buzzing sound emanating from the within the cornfields. It’s almost like that ringing you hear in your ears when everything’s absolutely silent. The more I sit still, the louder it is. But I don’t like it. So I don’t sit still.
Chad seems to take a frantic look around of the place before getting out of the car. He rushes over to the trunk and pulls out what appears to be an extremely large and rather bizarre looking shotgun. And then he looks at me:
“Look, you’re actually gonna want my help, so don’t fucking complain. You don’t want be stuck here forever, do you?”
This statement flusters me. “What? What the hell are you talking about?”
He does a half-chuckle/half-scoff before saying “Let’s go.”
I had no idea what he meant by that, but I was a bit too afraid to ask.
We walked into the factory, which had its doors wide open. Everything was a mess. The assembly line was still running, but there were no workers to take care of it. In fact, there was nobody there at all. I immediately directed my attention to the wall. I didn't know what he thought that I'd found, but I had a guess.
“Over there.” I tell him. “That’s where it is.”
Chad nods and we make our way over. From what we could tell, somebody had already tried to break through. There was a damn jackhammer on the floor, with the chisel completely busted. However, there were only a few cracks on the wall.
I inspected it further, eventually locating the hole. I pointed towards it.
“Right there, that’s where I saw it.”
Chad does an impatient half-nod before stepping backwards. He raises the shotgun, before firing off two devastating-sounding rounds. A few more cracks materialize, but no breakthrough.
“This ain’t gonna work.” He sounds angry. He looks around, before gesturing towards the back room. “C’mon. Might need your help here.”
For a second, I consider running away right there. But that never came to fruition. Without knowing what to do, I just followed him.
We went into the same back room that I’d been in a few weeks prior. The one with the window and the door. I was expecting him to shoot the lock off or something, but he turned his immediate attention to the window instead, smashing it with the butt end of the gun. My earlier conjecture was correct. The room beyond the window wasn’t dark. There was just black paper covering it… for whatever reason.
We jump through the window and find ourselves in some kind of long hallway. There’s lights above, but they flicker intermittently. As we progress further down, it becomes evident that place branches off quite a bit.
At this point, I have absolutely no idea what the hell we’ve just stumbled upon. Some time passes before we begin… hearing something. Like grunting in the distance. Chad stops and signals for me to do the same.
It’s getting louder. It’s… familiar. A deep, clear voice and a jumbled indistinct one interlocked in conflict. Winston and the Suit suddenly come tumbling out of one of the corridors in front of us. They’re still fighting. In addition to losing his arm, Winston’s missing one of his eyes, has an exposed ribcage, and is limping on a singular leg.
However, the Suit’s not faring much better. Half of his jaw has been torn off, exposing dark-blue muscle and an array of pitch black teeth. His eyes, which are a steely grey, are locked with Winston’s single. But they both turn to face us when Chad cocks the gun backwards.
“Fucking hell. Didn’t know he was here too.” I hear him mutter. Chad fires off two shots at the both of them in rapid succession. Winston reacts first, ducking into an adjacent corridor while the Suit takes the full brunt of the slug. He stumbles back, now clutching the cluster of holes in his chest. However… he’s still standing.
Chad’s face drops. “Fuck.” In the time it takes him to reload, the Suit has already lunged into our direct vicinity. He grabs one of Chad’s wrists, crushing it with ease. Chad shrieks, but manages to use his other arm to swing the gun into the Suit’s exposed jaw, knocking out several teeth.
Yeah, I didn’t care what Chad said, I wasn’t sticking around.
Now absolutely lost and disoriented, I sprint through the confusing corridor, trying to find my way out of this fucking place.
I guess I was going the wrong way, because I found what I think Chad was looking for.
I turned a corner, finding a door that looked like the one that we’d come through. I barged through it, but nearly staggered back in shock at what was actually in there.
A bunch of chained up, emaciated people, with what I can only describe as a giant, white screen at the opposite end. None of them even bothered to look at me. The weird part was… they didn’t seem to be in pain. In fact, they didn’t seem to react to anything at all. They were all just… emotionless. Blank. At some point, I was beginning to think that they were inanimate. But upon closer inspection, it was pretty evident that they were indeed breathing, although incredibly subtly.
One of the most disturbing parts were their eyes. No irises or pupils. Just a solid, off-white.
Wait. I recognized these people. I’d seen them around work. They were my co-workers. I walk around, inspecting each one. My suspicions turned out to be true. I found Sergio. I tried shaking him, but he was unresponsive. He was so frail that it felt like I'd dislocated one of his shoulders right then and there.
This was… nearly too much to handle. But I tried to keep my composure. It was what I saw next that sent me over the edge.
Myself. Chained and Emaciated, eyes white, just like everybody else. There was also a hole right next to me.
A hole.
It couldn't have been... What the hell was this?
I pace around, trying to make a determination regarding what to do. However, my contemplation is cut short by the sounds of something coming up behind me.
It’s Winston, still inexplicably alive despite being devastatingly bloody and broken, now crawling on one arm towards me. He looks up and shakes his head.
“Everything would’ve been fine.”
As I stumble around, trying to locate some kind of weapon, he lunges at me. Despite now missing both legs and an arm, he still manages to knock me down. He slams one of his fists down on my ankle, and I can feel it nearly break. I kick his face with my other leg, but the effect seems to be negligible. I scramble backwards and he lunges at me again, barely missing this time.
Just as I think I’m absolutely done for, I can start to make out another set of raspy breaths behind me. I quickly turn around, seeing Chad standing there. Just like everybody else, he’s beyond repair. While he’s still standing on two legs, both of his arms are out of commission. One has been completely severed from the elbow down, and the other just lies limp at his side.
However, he’s still grasping the shotgun. He drops it to the ground and kicks it towards me.
“Fucking SHOOT him!” He bellows.
I hastily grab at it and turn the barrel around just as Winston’s preparing for another lunge. This time, I hit him square in the chest. His body bounces backwards before hitting a wall.
For a moment, I think it’s over.
However, that hope quickly fades as Winston rapidly spins back around, now with a gaping hole in his upper body.
“What the hell?” I find myself blurting out.
“No, not him!” Chad screams. I turn to look at him again, seeing him raising a shaky finger somewhere to the right of me. I make a hurried attempt to pinpoint what exactly he’s trying to point to. And then I see it.
It’s… another Winston. Also chained up. However, he doesn’t seem to be starved like everybody else, retaining the same bulky frame that he had when I first met him. Out of the corner of my eye, I see the other Winston bounding towards me. Without any more hesitation, I raise the gun and take a desperation shot.
Since he was rather far away, the bullets spread, hitting about three others close to him. But one of them hits where it counts.
The neck.
As soon as the connection is made, the crippled Winston ceases movement. However, the other Winston bolts up, hands covering his leaking throat. He stumbles for a few moments before falling down. He looks over at me, an expression of pure hatred plastered on his face before ultimately going limp. As soon as this happens, the white screen at the other end also disappears.
Chad lets out an exasperated sigh and slumps down, with his back to the wall. For a moment, we simply say nothing. But he eventually breaks the silence:
“Kill your copy before it’s too late.”
At first, I feel apprehension. “Are you serious? Why?”
“Just fucking do it. Winston wasn’t a part of this world. You’re not too late yet. Everybody else is, but you aren’t.”
I waver for a few more minutes.
“What happened here?” I call out to him. But I get no response. I turn to look at his now lifeless body slowly sliding down the wall. His head pivots slightly as it hits the floor, revealing a large gash at the back of his skull.
I guess there's only one thing left to do here. My ankle hurts like hell, but I can still move on it. I limp over to my own copy, examining it once more.
This time… I notice the difference. My face isn’t completely blank like the others. There’s some semblance of a nearly indistinguishable expression still fighting its way outwards.
I pick up the shotgun and slam it down on my temple. I do this until my breaths have ceased completely. I was expecting to… feel something. But nothing changed.
For a moment, I consider doing the same thing to Sergio. But then I remember Chad’s last words. “You’re not too late yet. Everybody else is, but you aren’t.” I do it anyway. Maybe there's still a chance for him. But maybe that's just wishful thinking.
Before leaving, I fish Chad’s keys out of his pocket. It felt a tad disrespectful, but I didn’t know what else to do. I walk out the door and back down the corridors, with this feeling of relieved melancholy looming over me. At some point, I pass the Suit, who appears to be torn in half at the torso. I don’t know whether it was Chad or Winston that killed him. It doesn’t really matter, though.
Eventually, I find my way out. The crisp night air has never tasted so fresh. The buzzing sound is now gone. However… I’m not alone out here. I can spot about 7 figures, each standing at some point at the edge of the crops.
It’s not a mystery regarding what I have to do. As soon as I start running, the figures follow suit. I jump in and start the car with no time to spare. One of the figures slams into my side window. I don’t look at it. I don’t want to. I simply peel out of there.
When I get home, the sun’s starting to come up. I lock all my doors and shut all my blinds before passing on the couch. When I wake about 11 hours have elapsed. I’m feeling a lot better. I suppose the only thing that I really have to worry about at this point are the crop people. I might also have to deal with the cops. But we’ll cross those roads when we get there.
I've messaged Sergio, but he hasn't responded.
But I’m safe for now, at least. I think.
UPDATE
I just found a job posting in my local paper. $27 an hour. For a barista.
At the Dolus Café.
---
Credits
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