The Kiamuck Incident

Incident Report: The Kiamuck Event

Summary: The exact details of the origin of the event are still being investigated, but some information has been retrieved. The event began at 01:47 October 21st 2004 at the loading docks located 20 miles from Kiamuck, Nunavut. The loading dock was utilized by the local populace to offload supplies from passing shipping vessels. Due to the topography of the waters around the island, an unusually deep channel was present along the shore, allowing large tankers to easily maneuver around the island and providing an effective shortcut back to shipping lanes. The island was used as a refueling and resupply depot for vessels leaving the inner islands, and the town that sprung up had a population estimated at 137 people. The town was located on the southeast side of the island, due to the presence of a small protected bay and a sheltering hill line on that side of the island.

Also of importance was a small industrial compound that had been set up on the western side of the island in 2001 after purchasing land from the town government. The ostensible owner, Futuro Industries, has proven to be a dummy corporation and attempts to trace the true owner have proven unfruitful. Statements taken by individuals who interacted with workers from this facility indicate the facility was involved in chemical research, though the nature of this research was unclear. Manifests for items offloaded for the facility were vague, fraudulent, or routine items.

Of particular note was the manifest for the delivery on October 15. Cargo offloaded included two large chemical tanks of an unidentified, non-hazardous chemical and several pieces of unspecified heavy machinery. We have managed to track down one of the crew for that delivery, and he indicated that the machinery appeared to be some kind of scientific equipment. He also mentioned that the chemical tanks were handled and accompanied by Futuro Industries personnel instead of the crew. He also noted that several crewmen who had entered the storage hold containing the tanks noted that the hold felt unusually cold, even for winter. The witness states that the tanks and equipment were offloaded without incident.

At this point, information becomes sketchy. What is known is that on the 21st at 01:47, the Kiamuck Sheriff’s office reported a loud explosion from the western side of the island and what appeared to be a fire, based on flickering light coming from that side of the island. He would radio in again at 01:50 that there was evidently no fire, as the light had died out. Subsequent investigation of the Futuro Industries site indicates an explosion and fire did occur at the facility. The explosion did destroy one building, but signs of fire were extremely limited. Scorch patterns indicate the fires burned for less than one minute before being extinguished.

Security camera footage recovered from the Futuro site and the loading dock was spotty. Cameras at the Futuro site were recording onto hard drives when the ‘incident’ began and most were rendered inoperable or lost power due to the explosion. However, one hard drive managed to survive and record the incident. At 01:47, a pressure wave and bright flash can be observed on the footage, followed by flickering light consistent with fire. Over the next minute, the flickering light is extinguished. A low, hanging cloud of white fog begins to spread across the ground, slowly growing denser and higher. At 01:52, the lights illuminating the monitored area go out, and the footage displays a warning that system is now on battery power and will shut down. The footage captured behind this on screen warning is now completely dark, save for the occasional flicker of light.

Footage from the loading dock was more easily retrieved. The dock system was a VHS based system, and was not damaged in the explosion, so suffered no loss of power. The footage shows that at 01:58, a low heavy fog begins rolling in from the western side of the island. This fog appears to contain floating objects of what can only be described as ‘snowflakes’. However, at several points, electrical energy appears to arc through the cloud, appearing to originate from the snowflakes. As the fog envelops on of the lights on the dock, the light can be seen to flash then go out. This repeats as the fog overcomes each light. The fog swallows the first of the four dock security cameras. The footage from that camera goes blurry, and then cuts off. Slowing down the footage, we have determined that what happens is a rapid crystallization of moisture inside the lens, followed by fracturing of the lens and failure of the camera. At the same time code, a nearby camera records a bright flash. This repeats for each camera in succession.

At 02:05, Kiamuck’s sheriff reports a low hanging fog rolling in from the northeast shore. Weather records indicate a prevailing wind from the west that night, and the hills likely prevented the floating cloud from rolling straight across the island. The sheriff indicates he is sending his deputy with a chemical sensor to location to test if the cloud contains toxic substances, and that the emergency response services should hurry up.

At 02:15, the sheriff radios in that he has lost radio contact with his deputy, and that the fog is ‘sparking’ as it rolls into town.

Emergency responders approaching Kiamuck from the west around 02:00 report sudden and extreme blizzard conditions. One fire response helicopter is lost in the pop-up storm. The two boats responding indicate they are unable to approach the island due to frozen seas. This is of particular note, as the route had been clear for the cargo ship on the 15th and ambient conditions for the previous week were unseasonably warm, which should have inhibited sea ice formation. Temperature data from the ships instruments indicated an air temperature low of -50 C. Weather maps for the time in question show an extremely dense storm, extending only a few miles off shore of the island. After withdrawing several miles, the air temperature rises to -1 C, Unseasonably warm for the area at night.

There was no further communication with the island. The pop up blizzard around the island persists for several days before subsiding. Observers indicate flashes of lightning and rumbles of thunder inside the storm, and emergency response crews are prepped to respond at the nearest dock. It is decided that military rescue teams will be the first in, in order to assess damage and decide what resources are needed most critically. Overnight from October 25 to 26, the storm rapidly abates. At 09:00 October 26, it is determined the storm has dissipated, and first response by the Canadian Forces Search and Rescue is begun.

Video of their initial approach to the island by helicopter has been restricted due to security concerns, but summarizing, the island appears to be buried under large amounts of snow as they approach. However, as the helicopter comes down for a landing, the ‘snow’ collapses and disperses under the rotor wash, revealing it is a layer of hoarfrost several feet deep. The copter touches down in the exposed area, and initial recon begins. Air temperature is recorded as -20 degrees C, while temperature at the staging dock 20 miles away is 5 C. Also of note, ambient humidity is 0 at Kiamuck. The rescue team clears a path to the nearest structure to the landing site, a residential dwelling. The exterior of the house is coated in the thick hoarfrost present around the rest of the site, and all points of entry are frozen shut. After working on the door for several minutes, the team gains entry to the house.

Inside the house, there is a layer of frost coating everything the camera pans across. A search of the house finds two occupants, in the bedroom. They are covered in heavy clothing and blankets, but appear to have frozen to death.

The search of the island takes several days, during which the frost is broken up and the town unearthed. No survivors are found. A second team is also sent to the site of the Futuro Industries site. In addition to previously noted information about the site, it is important to note here that the conditions on the western side of the island are more in line with standard after blizzard conditions. Snow has drifted as deep as 6 feet in some places, and wind has flattened all structures on the site not damaged by the explosion. Bodies of 7 individuals are recovered from the site. Four appear to have died in the explosion. The other 3 present a far more interesting picture. Two recovered from the edge of the site appear to have frozen to death. However, a lack of frostbite in extremities or extracellular ice indicates a rapid freezing process of almost similar to flash freezing. The coroner estimates they must have reached temperatures near -200 C in less than 1 second.

More interestingly, closer examination revealed that the bodies did not cool from the outside to the inside, but rather cooled in a radiating pattern from a single wound. These wounds, on the forehead of one victim and hand of the other, are around 1 inch in size, and are, in the coroners words, unlike anything he’s seen before. His best approximation is that it is similar to frostbite, but far more violent. The skin came into contact with something that reduced its temperature so fast that the cells simply disintegrated due to cellular contraction and intracellular ice formation. As you move away from the wound, the severity is reduced but is still quite disturbing. His best guess is that they came into contact with something about the size of a quarter that somehow drained away all heat in their bodies in less than a second.

The final body throws more shadow onto the situation. The individual was killed by a massive electrical discharge, similar to what one might expect to see if he’d come into contact with high voltage equipment. No high voltage equipment was present where the body was found, and time of death was estimated to be around the time of the explosion. The burn pattern of the wound indicates the electricity struck him in the center of the chest, again not consistent with coming in contact with high voltage equipment by mistake. It bears more similarity to a lightning strike, though at far lower voltage and amperage.

The survey of the Futuro site turned up no information. All data was stored on electronic devices which shorted out or were damaged in the explosion. All material recovered from out buildings is either standard residential or industrial equipment that is normal for a remote operation. The contents of the main building were destroyed by explosion, fire or blizzard, though the remains of the lab equipment indicate it was some kind of laboratory for superconductor research. However, it was data uncovered in Kiamuck that would finally shed some light on what had happened.

A digital camera was found near one of the residents bodies. The camera contained a flash memory card with several photos and a single video on it. The photos appeared to be standard family photos, but the video, dated October 21st at 02:21 AM, has proven crucial to uncovering the truth of the incident. No transcript is available, as there is no sound on the recording, but I will summarize the contents.

The video starts abruptly. The camera is being pointed out a window, and it takes a moment to focus. When it does, the subject of the shot is apparently a strange white fog rolling down the street. The camera swings slightly and zooms in, showing that there what appear to be snowflakes in the fog, roiling slowly. There is a person standing in the street, apparently observing the fog rolling in. The next event is difficult to observe due to the quality of the video, but it appears one of the ‘snowflakes’ land on the left side of the person’s exposed neck. At this point, the person suddenly begins to spasm and falls to the ground after a second. It is difficult to make out, but it appears that his right leg has broken off just above the ankle, with the foot remaining stuck firmly to the ground. The camera zooms in and we can see the right half of the person’s face has turned blue and appears to have frozen, both figuratively and literally.

After a few more moments, there is a bright flash, and the footage ends. A frame by frame analysis of this flash indicates it appears to begin at the victims left shoulder as an arc of electricity that is extending towards the house where the video is being shot from. Subsequent review of the logs of investigation of the town identifies what appears to be the body in the video. It was frozen solid, with its right foot broken off at the ankle but still upright a few feet away from the rest of the body. The house where the video was shot shows signs of a major electrical discharge scorching the siding just beside the window. The body of the frozen man shows significant cold damage to the extremities and major tissue damage on the left shoulder and left side of its face consistent with a lightning strike.

At this time, we have no further leads. Weather patterns at the island returned to normal by November 1st, and there has been no unusual weather reported since.

—
Credits to: Discardable

Squidward's Suicide

I want to start off by saying if you want an answer at the end, prepare to be disappointed. There just isn't one.

I was an intern at Nickelodeon Studios for a year in 2005 for my degree in animation. It wasn't paid of course, most internships aren't, but it did have some perks beyond education. To adults it might not seem like a big one, but most kids at the time would shit themselves over it. Since I worked directly with the editors and animators, I got to view the new episodes days before they aired.

I'll get right to it without giving too many unnecessary details. They had very recently made the Spongebob movie and the entire staff was somewhat sapped of creativity so it took them longer to start up the season. But the delay lasted longer for more upsetting reasons. There was a problem with the series 4 premier that set everyone and everything back for several months.

Me and two other interns were in the editing room along with the lead animators and sound editors for the final cut. We received the copy that was supposed to be "Fear of a Krabby Patty" and gathered around the screen to watch. Now, given that it isn't final yet animators often put up a mock title card, sort of an inside joke for us, with phony, often times lewd titles, such as "How sex doesn't work" instead of "Rock-a-by-Bivalve" when spongebob and patrick adopt a sea scallop. Nothing particularly funny but work related chuckles. So when we saw the title card "Squidward's Suicide" we didn't think it more than a morbid joke. One of the interns did a small throat laugh at it. The happy-go-lucky music plays as is normal.

The story began with Squidard practicing his clarinet, hitting a few sour notes like normal. We hear Spongebob laughing outside and Squidard stops, yelling at him to keep it down as he has a concert that night and needs to practice. Spongebob says okay and goes to see Sandy with with Patrick. The bubbles splash screen comes up and we see the ending of Squidward's concert. This is when things began to seem off. While playing, a few frames repeat themselves, but the sound doesn't (at this point sound is synced up with animation so yes that's not common) but when he stops playing, the sound finishes as if the skip never happened. There is slight mummuring in the crowed before they begin to boo him. Not normal cartoon booing that is common in the show, but you could very clearly hear malace in it. Squidward's in full frame and looks visibly afraid. The shot goes to the crowd, with Spongebob in center frame, and he too is booing, very much unlike him. That isn't the oddest thing, though. What is odd is everyone had hyper realistic eyes. Very detailed. Clearly not shots of real people's eyes, but something a bit more real than CGI. The pupils were red. Some of us looked at eachother, obviously confused, but since we weren't the writers we didn't question its appeal to children, yet.

The shot goes to Squidward sitting on the edge of his bed, looking very forlorn. The view out of his porthole window is of a night sky so it isn't very long after the concert. The unsettling part is at this point there is no sound. Literally no sound. Not even the feedback from the speakers in the room. It's as if the speakers were turned off, though their status showed them working perfectly. He just sat there, blinking, in this silence for about 30 seconds, then he started to sob softly. He put his hands (tentacles) over his eyes and cried quietly for a full minute more, all the while a sound in the background very slowly growing from nothing to barely audible. It sounded like a slight breeze through a forest.

The screen slowly begins to zoom in on his face. By slow I mean it's only noticeable if you look at shots 10 seconds apart side by side. His sobbing gets louder, more full of hurt and anger. The screen then twitches a bit, as if it twists in on itself, for a split second then back to normal. The wind-through-the-trees sound gets slowly louder and more severe, as if a storm is brewing somewhere. The eerie part is this sound, and Squidward's sobbing, sounded real, as if the sound wasn't coming from the speakers but as if the speakers were holes the sound was coming through from the other side. As good as sound as the studio likes to have, they don't purchase the equipment to be that good to produce sound of that quality.

Below the sound of the wind and sobbing, very faint, something sounded like laughing. It came at odd intervals and never lasted more than a second so you had a hard time pinning it (we watched this show twice, so pardon me if things sound too specific but I've had time to think about them). After 30 seconds of this, the screen blurred and twitched violently and something flashed over the screen, as if a single frame was replaced. The lead animation editor paused and rewound frame by frame. What we saw was horrible. It was a still photo of a dead child. He couldn't have been more than 6. The face was mangled and bloodied, one eye dangling over his upturned face, popped. He was naked down to his underwear, his stomach crudely cut open and his entrails laying beside him. He was laying on some pavement that was probably a road. The most upsetting part was that there was a shadow of the photographer. There was no crime tape, no evidence tags or markers, and the angle was completely off for a shot designed to be evidence. It would seem the photographer was the person responsible for the child's death.

We were of course mortified, but pressed on, hoping that it was just a sick joke. The screen flipped back to Squidward, still sobbing, louder than before, and half body in frame. There was now what appeard to be blood running down his face from his eyes. The blood was also done in a hyper realistic style, looking as if you touched it you'd get blood on your fingers. The wind sounded now as if it were that of a gale blowing through the forest; there were even snapping sounds of branches. The laughing, a deep baritone, lasting at longer intervals and coming more frequently. After about 20 seconds, the screen again twisted and showed a single frame photo. The editor was reluctant to go back, we all were, but he knew he had to. This time the photo was that of what appeared to be a little girl, no older than the first child. She was laying on her stomach, her barrettes in a pool of blood next to her. Her left eye was too popped out and popped, naked except for underpants. Her entrails were piled on top of her above another crude cut along her back. Again the body was on the street and the photographer's shadow was visible, very similar in size and shape to the first. I had to choke back vomit and one intern, the only female in the room, ran out.

The show resumed. About 5 seconds after this second photo played, Squidward went silent, as did all sound, like it was when this scene started. He put his tentacles down and his eyes were now done in hyper realism like the others were in the beginning of this episode. They were bleeding, bloodshot, and pulsating. He just stared at the screen, as if watching the viewer. After about 10 seconds, he started sobbing, this time not covering his eyes. The sound was piercing and loud, and most fear inducing of all is his sobbing was mixed with screams. Tears and blood were dripping down his face at a heavy rate. The wind sound came back, and so did the deep voiced laughing, and this time the still photo lasted for a good 5 frames. The animator was able to stop it on the 4th and backed up. This time the photo was of a boy, about the same age, but this time the scene was different. The entrails were just being pulled out from a stomach wound by a large hand, the right eye popped and dangling, blood trickling down it. The animator proceeded. It was hard to believe, but the next one was different but we couldn't tell what. He went on to the next, same thing. He want back to the first and played them quicker and I lost it. I vomited on the floor, the animating and sound editors gasping at the screen. The 5 frames were not as if they were 5 different photos, they were played out as if they were frames from a video. We saw the hand slowly lift out the guts, we saw the kid's eyes focus on it, we even saw two frames of the kid beginning to blink. The lead sound editor told us to stop, he had to call in the creator to see this. Mr. Hillenburg arrived within about 15 minutes. He was confused as to why he was called down there, so the editor just continued the episode.

Once the few frames were shown, all screaming, all sound again stopped. Squidward was just staring at the viewer, full frame of the face, for about 3 seconds. The shot quickly panned out and that deep voice said "DO IT" and we see in Squidward's hands a shotgun. He immediately puts the gun in his mouth and pulls the trigger. Realistic blood and brain matter splatters the wall behind him, and his bed, and he flies back with the force. The last 5 seconds of this episode show his body on the bod, on his side, one eye dangling on what's left of his head above the floor, staring blankly at it. Then the episode ends.

Mr Hillenburg is obviously angry at this. He demanded to know wht the hell was going on. Most people left the room at this point, so it was just a handful of us to watch it again. Viewing the episode twice only served to imprint the entirety of it in my mind and cause me horrible nightmares. I'm sorry I stayed.

The only theory we could think of was the file was edited by someone in the chain from the drawing studio to here. The CTO was called in to analyze when it happened. The analysis of the file did show it was edited over by new material. However, the timestamp of it was a mere 24 seconds before we began viewing it. All equipment involved was examined for foreign software and hardware as well as glitches, as if the time stamp may have glitched and showed the wrong time, but everything checked out fine. We don't know what happened and to this day nobody does. There was an investigation due to the nature of the photos, but nothing came of it. No child seen was identified and no clues were gathered from the data involved nor physical clues in the photos. I never believed in unexplainable phenomena before, but now that I have something happen and can't prove anything about it beyond anecdotal evidence, I think twice about things.

Quiet

I never saw the ocean till I was nineteen, and if I ever see it again it will be too goddamn soon. I was a child, coming out of the train, fresh from Amarillo, into San Diego and all her glory. The sight of it, all that water and the blind crushing power of the surf, filled me with dread. I’d seen water before, lakes, plenty big, but that was nothing like this. I don’t think I can describe what it was like that first time, and further more, I’m not sure I care too.

You can imagine the state I was in when a few weeks later they gave me a rifle and put me on a boat. When I stopped vomiting up everything that I ate, I decided that I might not kill myself after all. Not being able to see the land, and that ceaseless chaotic, rocking of the waves; I remember thinking that the war had to be a step up from this. Kids can be so fucking stupid.

I had such a giddy sense of glee when I saw the island, and it’s solid banks. They transferred us to a smaller boat in the middle of the night, just our undersized company with our rucksacks and rifles and not a word. We just took a ride right into it, just because they asked us to. The lieutenants herded us into our platoons on the decks and briefed us: the island had been lost. That was exactly how he put it. Somehow in the grand plan for the Pacific, this one tiny speck of earth, only recently discovered and unmapped, had gotten lost in the shuffle; a singularly perfect clerical error was all it took. It was extremely unlikely, he stressed, that the Japanese had gotten a hold of it, being so far east and south of their current borders, but a recent fly over reported what looked like an airfield in the central plateau.

We hit the beach in the middle of the night. I’d heard talk of landings before, and I’m not ashamed to tell, I was scared shitless. I don’t know quite what I expected, but it wasn’t we got, that thick, heavy silence. Behind the lapping of the waves and the wind in the trees, there was… nothing, no birds, no insects. Just deathly stillness.

Another hundred yards deeper into the eerie tranquility of the jungle, we stopped in a small clearing for the officers to reconvene, and it was obvious even they were spooked. I wasn’t a bright kid, but I knew enough to know that something was very wrong. It was like the whole island was dead. I remember I could only smell the sea, despite the red blossoms dangling from the trees.

It wasn’t an airfield, on top of the plateau. I can’t tell you what it was, because I’ve never seen anything like it, and I don’t think anyone ever will. If I tell you it was like the Aztec pyramids, but turned upside down, so that it sank like giant steps into the earth, you’d get the basic idea of it, but that somehow fails to capture the profound unearthliness of the structure.

There was no sign of individual pieces in the masonry, it appeared to have been carved out of a single immense block of black rock into a sharp and geometric shape. It was slick and perfectly smooth like obsidian, but it had no shine to it. It swallowed up even the moonlight, so that it was impossible to see how deep it went, or even focus your eyes on any one part of it, like it was one giant blind spot.

Our platoon drew the honor of investigating the lower levels, so we descended the stairs as the rest of the company surrounded the plateau. We took the stairs slowly and carefully after the first man to touch one of the right angle edges slit his hands down the bone.

At odd intervals down the steps, there were several small stone rooms; simple, empty, hollow cubes of stone with one opening, facing the pit in the center. There was no door that we could see, and with the opening being four feet of the ground, you’d have to put your hands on that black razor sharp edge to climb in into it.

We circled the descending floors, shining our lights into each of the small structures; They contained the same featureless black walls and nothing else. No dust, no leaves and other detritus from the jungle, the whole monument was immaculate, as if the place was just built; but that couldn’t be right. The whole structure felt incalculably old to me somehow, despite having no way to articulate the particular reasons.

Down near the bottom you could see that it simply sloped away into a darkness that swallowed the flashlights. We tossed first a button and then a shell casing down into the pit, and waited in the unearthly silence, but no sounds returned. No one spoke, we simply turned away from the yawning abyss and continued our sweep of the bottom rung and the last of the small structures.

The body in the back corner was almost invisible at first in the thick shadows, but the long spill of drying blood reflected the light of our flashlights, and it led right too him. He was coiled tight, arms around his thighs, and his face tucked into his knees. You could see badly he was cut, his clothes opened in ragged bloody tatters to reveal the pale skin and bone beneath it. He may have been dressed in a Japanese uniform, but it had been reduced to ribbons; I only had few seconds to look at him before we heard the first shots.

It echoed like the buzzing of faraway insects in the still jungle, swallowed almost instantly by the blanket of quiet. By the time we reached the top, the rest of the company had vanished. There were shell casings on the ground, and the hot smell of gunpowder in the air, but they were gone. The trees were deathly quiet around, there was not a trace of the nearly fifty other men that had come ashore with us. I could taste bile rising in my throat as panic threatened to cripple me; I felt crushed between the yawning pit and razor edges on one side and the dead jungle and the pounding ocean on the other. The silence rang in my ears and I struggled to still myself.

They were just inside the jungle, waiting for us. They came out from between the trees with all sound of a moth, simply sliding into our view.

I can try to tell you what I saw, the same as I did to the army doc on the hospital ship when I first woke up, and again half dozen other various officers over the following months, and you’ll have the same reaction they did; that I was a dumb country rube suffering from heatstroke and exposure and trauma. That I was crazy.

You know me. You know I’m not crazy. And I remember every second of that night with crystal clarity.

The thing, the first one that caught my eye, was wearing the skin of a Jap soldier, all mottled with the belly distended from rot. The head drooped, useless and obscene on the shoulders, tongue swollen and eyes cloudy. I could see where it was coming apart at the ill-defined joints, with ragged holes in the drying flesh. At the bottom of each of these raw pits was blackness, deeper than the stones of the buildings; a darkness that seemed to churn and froth like an angry cloud.

The thing moved suddenly, the head snapping and rolling backwards as it dashed towards us. I had my rifle clasped tightly in my hands, but it simply didn’t occur to me to fire. All I could do was gape silently at the macabre sight bearing down on us, and think absurdly of my mother’s marionettes.
A gun went off beside me, and I turned to see a dozen more of the horrors darting silently in on us. Among them were a few more rotting and swollen forms, but the majority wore the same uniforms as us, and were pale, fresh, and soaked in blood. More bullets zipped through the air, and I saw the grisly things hit again and again, but they never slowed. I caught a glimpse of the First Sergeant’s vacant glassy eyes as his head dangled limp from his shoulders; I saw the great ragged wound in his back and the shuddering darkness that inhabited his corpse when he leapt just past me without a sound, landing like a graceful predator onto the soldier beside me. The others around me began to drop in a silent dance of kinetic energy and blurred motion.

I was on the track team in high school, and it could have got me to college. I didn’t need an invitation. I just ran. I ran blind through jungle, caroming of tree trunks; I ran until I saw the ocean, and it struck a new ringing note of terror in me. I don’t remember actually deciding to swim, but when I turned back to the tree line, I saw one of the white and bloody things emerge, running on all fours, the hands splayed wide and the back contorted and cracked in an impossible angle.

To this day, the mere thought of the ocean still brings on a cold sweat, but that night I let it embrace me, let the tide drag me out to sea, if only to bring momentary relief from the impossible monolith and terrors on the island. The days I spent drifting off shore and blistering in the sun were a welcome release from the silent island.

I never saw the war. They sent me home as soon as I recovered.

It was comforting in a way, when I thought no one believed me. It allowed me to believe that it never happened, that it was a product of my mind. But as I got older, I’ve found that it is pointless to lie to anyone, especially yourself. I know what I saw.

Someone else believed me too. I’ve seen maps of where they tested the hydrogen bombs in the South Pacific.

Credited to Josef K.

In the Mirror

Normally you sleep soundly, but the thunderstorm raging outside is stirring you from your sleep. You begin to doze, then another crash jolts you awake. The cycle lasts most of the night. So you lay there, eyes open and outward, looking at your room stretching out before you in oblong shadows. Your eyes move from nameless object, to object, until you reach your mirror, sitting adjacent to you across the room.

Suddenly a flash of lighting, and the mirror flickers in illumination. For a scant second the mirror revels to you dozens of faces, silhouettes within its frame, mouths open and eyes blackened. They stare out at you, their black pupils fixed upon your face.

Then it is done. Are you sure of what you have seen? Unsettled, you don’t sleep for the rest of the evening. The next morning you remove the mirror from your wall and toss it in the trash. It didn’t matter if the vision you had seen was of truth or falsehood, you wanted to be rid of that mirror. In fact, you scrap every mirror in your house.

Weeks pass and the event of that night falls into passive memory. You are spending the day at a friend’s house and it’s time to use the bathroom. While you are in there the faucet starts to run without you prompting it. Taken aback by this, you do not yet act, trying to reason with your paranoia in your mind. The water starts to steam and a skin of moisture covers the mirror up above. You’re watching intently as words form:

“Please return the mirrors. We miss watching you sleep at night.”

A Chat Over Dinner

If you are the type who eats out regularly, one day a stranger might join you at the table. This stranger will always appear to be of your age and sex, and he (if it is a he) will only appear if you are alone. No matter what style of restaurant it is, he will always be carrying his own plate of food.

After a few seconds, he will look directly at you and say, “You seem like an interesting person. May I know you better?” Say yes, and he will begin to ask you questions about yourself in between bites.
These questions will be innocuous enough at first: what your name is, what you do for a living, and so forth, but should you open your mouth to answer, you will be forced to tell the truth, even if you do not consciously know what the truth is. Remain silent, and the stranger will scowl at you, pick up his plate, and leave. You will never see him again.

If you do indulge his questions, however, they will grow darker and darker as the food leaves his plate, and it will become harder and harder to resist answering. Do not attempt to leave the table before he does under any circumstances.

When his plate is clean, he will stand up to leave, but not before asking you one last, irresistible question: “What would drive you to take your own life?” You will instantly be aware that you will be able to lie in response to this one question, and I suggest you do, for whatever you describe will come to pass within the week.

Those who are canny may use this chat to gain whatever they desire, but know that if the happenstance you name does not drive you to suicide, the stranger will start guessing as to what will.
And consider how much he now knows about you.

Credited to Peter L.

Theo Twining

This is the tale of an incident that occurred to me a few years ago, when I was a younger man, and convinced that the world was exactly as I saw it, and worked exactly as I was told it worked.

I had just finished my undergraduate degree at a college I shall not name, in the middle of Wales. Though my degree was interesting enough, I really wanted to leave behind the books and the academia, and immerse myself in the study and practical research of the paranormal. Though my funds were slight, at best, and my student loan needed repaying, on returning to London, I placed an advertisement in my local gazette, asking for anyone who had experienced paranormal phenomena, and didn’t mind talking about it to give me a call. I couldn’t offer anything in the way of a reward for their troubles, but I did promise to buy them a drink or two while we talked over what they had experienced.

It didn’t take long for me to receive my first and only caller, and to be honest, I was quite surprised that my ad had this much success. But I am not one to look a gift horse in the mouth. The call came while my mobile was turned off, but a number had been left on voicemail, and a few days later, I called back. I didn’t want to respond immediately, though I don’t know why. Perhaps I wanted to seem more professional. Like I had a hundred people on a waiting list or something.

Anyway, I called the next evening, and was greeted by the voice of a young man, who identified himself as Theo Twining. I asked if we could meet, but he declined, with a dry and solemn chuckle. I told him that it didn’t matter, and that we could conduct the conversation just as easily by telephone. Perhaps he was shy, I told myself. His situation was this:

Since about two weeks ago, he (and he paused for a good minute or two before recanting his tale, repeatedly telling me that I would think him stupid) had started to see worms, regular earthworms, across his path. I at first thought him a little bit paranoid before I heard the particulars of the tale. Not just outside, not just crossing his path, but in all manner of places. If he made a cup of coffee, there would be an earthworm, dried and boiled at the bottom of the cup. When he woke, he woke to find himself covered with five or six of them, and when he sat at his desk, they would crawl toward him from beneath the monitor screen, and from under his keyboard. He told me of how he lived in a neat-ish studio apartment on the third floor, and how this only happened very recently.

I listened to all he said with a rapt silence, alternating between deep fascination and a nagging guilt. I was finding such thrill in hearing this tale while Theo was undeniably suffering over it. Naturally quite hooked on his story at this point, I asked again if we could meet. Maybe he was more at ease with me now? But he seemed even less inclined now to meet. However, he did promise that he would call the next day. We agreed that I could take the call at 7pm, after I got home from work.

I work in a not-so-busy estate agent’s, so I spent most of the next day’s office hours mulling over what he had told me, and even went as far as to run an internet check on Theo Twining. What I found made revulsion rise in the pit of my stomach, a hot and acidic feeling of sickness. I don’t know for how long I sat there, still and shocked, until a co-worker shook me out of it, asking me if I was okay. It was all I could do to lie, though before me the screen gave details on Theo Twining.

A young man of (…), the same area of London in which I lived, had committed suicide in his apartment two weeks ago. The obituary and funerary notice was in the very same paper in which my advertisement appeared. I ditched my mobile as soon as I could, tossing it into a hedge, and I took the next few days off work. I went off to visit friends, not wanting to be alone.

As of writing this, I am studying for a master’s degree in my undergraduate subject. I never tried to investigate the paranormal again, after that. The world doesn’t work the way I am told it does.

Credited to industrialresolution@googlemail.com

Contamination

You stumble into the kitchen, covered in sweat. Mind racing. Heart thumping. Christ, could he have followed me here? You think. How did he even find me?

A moment passes. One thing is certain.

He’s not here now.

Your stomach rumbles. Even someone in your position has to eat. Your refrigerator door cries as you tug it open. You peer through the shelves. A jug of tea catches your eye. You take a swig, right out of the container. Your mother won’t know.

The tea tastes sharper than usual. You examine the label. Black tea. She bought the wrong kind. You shrug, reach for some leftovers. Flip the TV on in the other room as you slide them into the microwave. The five o’ clock news plays in the background. It might say something about him.

The usual teary story about the war. Some presidential candidate is coming to your town. You count down the numbers on the microwave. 5, 4…

“And, finally, tonight a food contamination alert for all residents in this county.”

…3, 2…

“A shipment of Lipton’s Black Tea delivered to local stores has tested positive for traces of the ebola solanum virus. This super-strain of the disease causes painful sores on the underarms, neck and groin followed by profuse bleeding from all orifices. The survival rate once infected is less than 10%. I repeat, Lipton’s Black Tea has been pulled from the shelves but any resident who purchased the tea is advised to call the Center for Health Control to dispose of it immediately.”

1.

You tug open the fridge once more and look at the tea you just drank.

Lipton’s. That’s not the kind your mother usually buys.

“Authorities report the shipment was tainted by an unidentified biological expert who remains at large.”

He’s not here now. You think. The jug of tea falls to the floor.

But he was.

Credited to Alice Wilde.