Something lives in the warehouse.
I don't know exactly what it is, but it's probably been there for a long time. Long before I started exploring the place, at least- a massive warehouse, just outside the city limits of my midsize hometown in the middle of nowhere. There's at least five stories to the thing, and I've only ever really explored the first and second. It's big enough that the mazes of shipping containers are always hiding new surprises, nooks and crannies home to dust, pests, and the occasional odd trinket that I'd pocket. Nothing massive.
I've looked in a couple of the old crates, too - the stuff stored there was mostly just clothes, and the place has been abandoned for long enough that most of it has rotted away or been eaten by moths as time goes on. Thing is, the clothes - or whatever else used to be kept there - aren't what really makes the place interesting.
I started noticing the pattern of weird noises somewhere around my fifth or sixth trip. Scraping sounds, like someone was moving a box on one of the floors high above me; something that sounded like footsteps, but far slower than a human's; the rustle of something soft being moved around, sometimes far too close for comfort. The acoustics of the warehouse seemed to conduct sound particularly well, so even though I could tell most of the noises were far away, I could still discern what they were - or what they might have been.
As freaky as the sounds were, I was only mildly concerned, and nothing came of them for a while. Nonetheless, I wondered - was it ghosts? Squatters? Looters? Someone else?
Eventually, I found out that it wasn't just someone else, but something else entirely.
It was easily my fifteenth or sixteenth trip there. I opened the door, the rusty hinges creaking in protest, but I'd learned to ignore them at that point. Nobody ever seemed to be worried about the place, so I wasn't concerned about the cops being called or anything. As usual, the hinges didn't seem to scare away whatever was making the noises, because they started up again as soon as I began my walk towards the second floor.
As my flashlight shone across the stacks of metal and wooden crates that bordered my path, I heard whatever it was moving around on the floors above me. The slow tap-tap-tap of footsteps, the scraping of crates - none of it concerned me. This time, though, I was more curious than anything else. I could keep exploring the warehouse methodically, sure - but the noises…
What the hell is going on?
I was filled with a sudden determination. Screw looking around the rest of this place, I'm gonna go see what's up there.
I kept walking towards the stairwell that would take me to the upper floors of the building, purpose fueling my steps this time instead of just a hobby or vague interest. As I ascended the stairs, I briefly paused on the second-floor landing, considering abandoning my investigation and going back to my old pastime; Then, I shook my head to myself.
I've already decided, and the noises aren't gonna stop anytime soon. I turned and kept climbing. Might as well.
I was having trouble determining where the sounds originated from, at first. I stopped on the landing to the fourth floor and listened, tilting my head, trying to decide from the intermittent sounds of moving crates and slow footsteps if they were coming from this floor or the one above me.
Okay, they might be from this floor, I thought. But they might also be from the fifth floor…? I shrugged and turned to climb the stairs going up. I'll get up there and listen, decide that way.
The moment I stopped on the fifth-floor landing, I knew that the sounds originated here, not from the fourth floor. The way the warehouse carried sound made everything seem louder than it actually was, so the clattering boxes and even footsteps were clear.
I reached for the door to push it open, and froze, suddenly apprehensive. What if it's dangerous? I thought. Maybe it's a homeless person off their rocker?
Nah, I've already committed, I thought, resolved. Not gonna back out now.
I slowly pushed the door open and leaned around it, ready to close it in front of me at the first sign of something being wrong as I shined my flashlight around the room. Instead of the cluttered space that I had expected, this floor looked nothing like the others; Where the other floors had boxes stacked all around the place, surrounding the support beams and bordering the paths, all of the boxes on this floor had been removed from the center, instead lining the edges of the main room. The only exception to this was a pile of crates stacked in the middle - the rest of the place was clear. Water dripped from the ceiling and onto the floor next to the crates, the drip-drip-drip strangely quiet in comparison to the other noises.
"What the hell…?" I murmured aloud to myself as I stepped fully into the room and let the door swing shut behind me. I swept my flashlight around again, scanning the towers of boxes as I approached the ones in the center.
About three-quarters of the way there, I heard something to my left. I stopped in my tracks, whipping my flashlight around to face the source - and saw something vanish behind a stack of crates, too fast for me to know what it was.
I paused, frozen for a moment. Do I investigate the movement...or the crates? I swallowed nervously. ...I'm closer to the crates, so might as well take care of that first. I slowly moved towards them, keeping my flashlight on the place I'd seen the movement for a few moments more. When nothing else happened, I relaxed a little bit and turned to face the center crates.
I inspected the one directly in front of me. It was wooden, nailed shut firmly enough that I was certain I wouldn't be able to pry it open without a crowbar. Luckily, I wouldn't have to open it to know what was inside- the block letters printed on the side read "feathers".
"Feathers…?" I murmured to myself. I guess for stuffing pillows, things like that, I surmised with an internal shrug. I turned my flashlight upwards to scan the pile- it looked like all of the crates were the same.
I frowned. Why feathers?
My brain froze in place when I heard something move to my right. I whipped around, and one more time my flashlight caught something vanishing behind a pile of crates.
"Hello?" I called, my voice surprisingly steady for the amount of adrenaline pumping through my system. "Who's there?"
I didn't get a verbal response, but I heard a familiar rustling noise- the sound of something soft being shifted that I recognised from the other times I'd heard it during my exploration sessions.
I blinked. Is...this whatever's been making the noises?
"Um...hello?" I called again, taking a step towards where I'd seen the movement. When catastrophe failed to strike, I took another step, and then another. "I've, uh...I've heard you making sounds up here for a while…"
The rustling happened again, accompanied by a couple of those tapping footsteps.
What is it?
"Uh...I'm not here to hurt you, or anything like that," I said, trying my best to come across as reassuring and friendly. "I'm just curious. Um...did you put these crates here?"
I got no response for a few moments as I got closer and closer to the edge of the room. I stopped before I reached the crates stacked there, shining my flashlight into the wide gap between two stacks. "If it was you, then wh-?" I started, but stopped as soon as something stepped out slowly from behind the box stack to the right.
A pale, human face. No eyes. Far taller than any human should have been.
I backed up a step, and felt my hands start shaking. This thing's face rode the edges of the uncanny valley - it looked human, but it didn't move, didn't emote, and it lacked anything organic aside from its shape, a white oval caught in the beam of my flashlight.
"Uh…" I was completely lost for words. "Um...hi?"
The face moved - but it wasn't just a face. The mask-like visage was attached to a tall creature, easily twice my height, shaped like a bird with a long neck bent like a vulture's. Their entire body, aside from their lower legs and feet, was covered in brown feathers, neatly preened and soft-looking, and their back was hunched, placing their face on a level with the rest of their body.
I scanned downwards from there. Their legs were long, stilted, and their feet were strangely small when compared to the rest of them, the nails sharp and clean - the source of the slow, even tap-tap-tap footsteps. Their wings, instead of being folded like a normal bird's, hung down at their sides.
At the joint where the claws would be on a pterodactyl, there was instead a pale set of human hands.
Their movements were slow, calculated. They tilted their head for a moment, thoughtful - and then started walking towards me.
"H-hey, I, uh - I didn't mean to, like, um - intrude or anything - " I said hurriedly, holding up my free hand and starting to back up very quickly. "I can - I can leave, if you wa- woah!" I stumbled and fell, landing hard on my ass. I sat there for a second, startled, but as the thing approached I very quickly became more concerned with them than with my fall.
"Um - uh - " I struggled to think of bargaining chips I could use to get this thing not to hurt me as I scrambled backwards on the ground. "I'm- sorry, I didn't mean to trespass or anything, uh-" I laughed nervously. "I'm not- I promise I'm not here to hurt you-"
I bumped into something, and realized that I'd reached the stack of feather-filled crates in the middle of the room. The water from the leak in the ceiling landed on my right shoulder, and I jerked away from it on instinct - it smelled foul, the stench of rot hitting my nose like a truck and further confusing my brain. The creature was too close for me to escape to the other side, so I pressed myself against the crate behind me, trying to get as far away from them and the leak as possible. I squeezed my eyes shut. "Please don't hurt me-"
I prepared myself for whatever means of attack this thing would utilize. To my surprise, though, attack never came.
Instead, they patted me on the head.
I opened my eyes, surprised, as they lowered their hand, the feathers rustling. They observed me for a moment longer, head tilted, and then bobbed it a couple of times, as if to reassure me. Without further ceremony, they turned away from me, and walked back towards the crates they'd first emerged from behind.
I stared after them for a moment, then stood, somewhat shakily. "Um…" I said. "Alright, cool. Did, uh- did you put the crates here?"
They stopped, and turned to face me. For a moment, I wondered if they even understood English - but then they nodded at me.
"Oh. Uh - alright."
They turned back and kept walking towards the crates. I hesitated for a moment, then followed them.
"Uh - if you don't mind me asking," I said, still somewhat nervous but a little reassured by the creature's actions, "Why stack the crates like that? Are you just organizing?"
The creature shook their head as they made their way around the crates. I followed behind them - not too closely, but closely enough to see what they were doing with my flashlight. "Oh. Uh - then what for? If you don't mind me asking?" I added, repeating myself just in case.
They turned to me, and held up a finger, as if to say wait a moment. Then, they pointed to the flashlight in my hands, then a small stack of crates next to us.
I blinked at them. "What- oh, here." I shined my flashlight onto the crates, trying my best to illuminate as many as I could. They nodded, seemingly satisfied, then bobbed their head back and forth, scanning the pile.
"Uh - if you're looking for another feather crate, there's one right...there, close to the top?" I said, somewhat tentatively, pointing to it. They followed where I was pointing and looked up at the crate, then nodded happily at me. I nodded back with a nervous grin.
The creature began to climb the stack, easily scaling it with their long, steady legs, using the crates like stairs. At no point did they lose their balance, no matter how precariously they appeared to be perched on a thin ledge. When they reached the crate of feathers I'd pointed out, labelled with the same block letters as the others in the center of the room, they placed their hands to either side of it, and I realized how overall frail they looked. Suddenly, I wondered if they were going to be able to get the crate down.
"Uh - I'd be careful if I were-" I started, but to my surprise they lifted the box with ease. They climbed down from the crates with the same grace they'd used to scale it in the first place, then stepped around me and the other crates, making their way back to the center of the room.
Again, I followed them, shining my flashlight upon the stack of boxes. I watched as they started to climb - and I suddenly realized that they'd arranged the crates in such a way that they acted like a staircase, enabling them to make it higher up the stack with ease.
I watched them silently as they climbed. When they reached the tallest part of the stack, they stopped and tilted their head, seemingly thinking. After a moment, they placed the box in front of them, and then shifted it from left to right, not satisfied with its exact position - I recognized these as the scraping sounds I'd heard from below on my previous expeditions. Curious, I glanced down at the crate nearest to me, and nudged it with my foot - or tried to, because it didn't budge. The crates of feathers were, apparently, very heavy - too heavy for me to move at all with one foot, but not too heavy for the masked creature to carry.
"Are you building something?" I called up to them. They adjusted the crate a couple more times, then nodded at it, seemingly satisfied, before looking down at me and nodding again in response to my question.
"Uh...what is it?" I asked. "Stairs?"
They nodded at me again as they walked down their makeshift steps, steady, never wavering or stopping to catch their balance.
I frowned a little bit. "Stairs to what?"
They reached the bottom and pointed at the ceiling.
I raised my eyebrow at them. "Isn't this the top floor?"
They shook their head and pointed again at the ceiling, more emphatically this time.
"There's another fl-?" I started to ask, but then stopped as I looked up, bringing my flashlight beam with me to see more easily.
There was a hole in the ceiling. That wasn't what was unnerving about it, though; it was what I could see - and what I couldn't see - that scared me.
The light from my flashlight seemed to just...stop when it reached the ceiling, as if refusing to go past the edge of the hole. Beyond that, there was nothing but a silent, oppressive void, nothing but shadow, darker than the night sky outside.
Nothing, except a pair of perfectly circular white eyes.
I was paralyzed with a sudden dread, my mouth half-open, where it had stopped when I was speaking. My flashlight beam wavered slightly with my trembling hand.
"Wh…what is that?" I asked in a shaky whisper.
The masked creature simply looked at me and shrugged. They didn't seem afraid at all.
"Are you...are you building the stairs to get up to it?"
They shook their head.
"...Are you…" I swallowed, my mouth dry. "Are you helping it get down?"
They paused.
They nodded.
Something lives in the warehouse's attic, and it drooled on me.
---
Comments