Previously: Parabellum Waltz

During the Cold War, the increased scrutiny of normalcy preservation organisations meant that deploying massed manpower in most areas of the world became infeasible more often than not. Given that this was the typical approach to dealing with hostile, sentient anomalies, the Foundation needed to adapt.
Enter the blackout team.

Egret hears the thing pretending to be Henning coming from halfway down the hall. Her mind races through tactical considerations: he didn't seem armed, but he might've been concealing a gun beneath the skin somewhere, and besides, it's her job to consider the worst.
“Get under the bed,” she hisses, shoving Amitha underneath the mattress. “And don't come out til I say.”
She limbers up, bounces back and forth on her heels to prep her muscles for her next action—and the moment the imitator steps in front of the door, she charges straight through it, hitting him with so much momentum they end up smashing into the room on the opposite side of the corridor. It's empty. Good. She doesn't need to be weighing civilians in her tactical calculus.
Her play's bought her only a second to act and she takes full advantage of it, driving her knee into his chest and leaning her full bodyweight into a hold round his neck, trying to tear his head free of its moorings. The manual off switch. This particular model of homunculus lacks skin in its native state, and she can see the bones in his ribcage buckling as she pins him to the floor, but before she can break on through he reaches around her leg and wrenches it loose of its socket.
Egret screams—fear, anger, the humiliation of being one-upped by an older model—as she's slammed into the wall like a straw doll. They wrestle on the floor for a little while, slashing and clawing and yanking and grabbing, til Egret finally throws him back out into the hallway with a concerted effort.
They stand opposite each other, both in boxer's stance. Egret twists her neck from side-to-side. Puts her game face on. Pops her leg back into place.
“Alright, you worthless little fuck,” she gasps. “Let's dance.”

A blackout team is the doctrinal cousin of the Mobile Task Force, with each unit having fewer members and employing paratechnological force multipliers to make up for the loss in manpower. Their typical engagement is twofold: firstly, present a seemingly impossible threat for a defending force to respond to; secondly, destroy their ability to respond to it and use that window to neutralise their target.

Egret expected many things from a Mark Four factotum, but a perfectly executed feint wasn't one of them. A solid fake, followed by a backhand strike that hit her so hard it burst an eardrum; that was the kind of play you typically needed more than your hindbrain intact to carry out.
Dazed, she's too slow to react when he grabs her head. She only has the strength to try clawing at his arm as he begins grinding her face against the wall like a paint roller, chunks of her nose tearing off as her blood draws a bright red line from their room all the way to the reception. Once he runs out of wall, he simply tosses her limply in front of the desk, before picking up the lamp from behind the desk and testing its weight in his hand.
Then he brings it down on Egret's face.
“Amitha!” Egret howls.
Things are beginning to go fuzzy. She's lost color in her right eye. He hits her again.
“Amitha!”
She can't focus anymore. The lamp could be an inch away from her head or a mile.
“Ami—”
And then Amitha swings all thirty pounds of the bedside safe into the back of the factotum's head.
He topples over onto the floor, stunned. His skull is dented like a soda can.
It's not enough. Amitha isn't stupid: she's seen far weaker get up from far worse. So she finishes the job and keeps swinging til she's turned everything from the neck up into fragments of bone and well-mixed sausage meat.
Then she collapses onto her knees and tries not to throw up.
For a long while neither of them speak.
Eventually, Egret licks the blood off her face and pulls herself out from under the body. Her eyes are glassy, her pupils dilated. “I… I totally had that.”
Amitha stares at her, too dumbfounded to speak.
“But that was the hottest thing I've ever seen you do.”
Then the lights go out.

In order to disrupt defensive responses, blackout teams typically come equipped with MIZARU, the piece of paratechnology which gave them their name.
At the center of each MIZARU is a synthetic photovore the size of a dime that, when released from its housing, consumes every frequency in the entire visible spectrum in a roughly three hundred meter radius. Infrared, naturally, remains intact, allowing properly-prepared operatives to coordinate where defenders could not.
The net effect is a set of shock-and-awe units that had a five-nines success rate over the thirty years it was in rotation, with fewer than twelve failures on record across its entire operational history.

When the world goes dark, Amitha realises a few things:
Firstly, they're fighting a blackout team. They might be outnumbered either four or five to two, and their only real fighter is missing half her face. And neither of them have a gun.
So that means she needs to level the playing field with magic. But even though she has a contagion link lying dead and decapitated on the floor, it's not a good enough sacrifice. He's already dead. Egret is even worse.
Which leaves her.
Amitha fumbles in the dark and scoops up a handful of mashed brain, pinching her nose before she throws it back in a single gulp.
“Egret,” she chokes out.
“Yeah?” The homunculus' voice is the smallest she's ever heard it.
“Get behind something.” Amitha wipes her mouth and gags. “And don't come out til they're all dead.”
“But—”
“That's an order.”
Egret sounds like she's about to cry, but she complies, bunkering down behind the desk as best she can.
The ritual Amitha needs comes to her without thinking. Dipping her finger in the still-wet gore, she slips the robe off her shoulders and begins drawing the necessary geometry on herself in blood, chanting under her breath.
Even she can hear them coming now. Ten seconds away—
Five seconds away—
Now—

Blackout teams are equipped to handle the worst: rogue bixbies dusted out of their minds, monsters half-hanging out of other planes of existence, bog-standard soldiers with suitcase nukes.
So when Mod-2 rounds the corner to find her target totally unarmed, kneeling on the floor with her hands behind her head: well, it's the natural response to raise her shotgun to bear and send fifty grams of beryllium bronze buckshot down the hall.
Which is exactly what Amitha is counting on.
The first law of magic is contagion. The impostor was a part of the squad, and Amitha's just literally made him a part of herself. In the eyes of magic she's now a standin for the blackout team.
The second law of magic is the rule of three. Mod-2's just blasted the ritual equivalent of her entire squad with a shotgun designed to supercavitate a reality bender. Multiply the incoming force by three and—
Splash.
The last thing that goes through the heads of each member of the blackout team is their own small intestine.
Reality reasserts itself. Light returns to the world.
And Amitha, losing blood from fifteen brand-new holes in her body, lets out one last laugh before she collapses forward onto the motel floor.

In the nightmare delirium of bloodloss, Amitha is the guest of honour at a wedding, or a masquerade party, or a high school dance. The lights are strange here, shifting between neon pinks, deep blues and a swirling mist of blood.
She's been eating plates of cake for the past three hours, but she still isn't full. The other guests are laughing at her. One of them cuts into their own slice of cake and she can see it's full of raw beef mince and weevils. Right as she locks eyes with one she can feel another squirming around in her mouth. She opens her mouth to scream but that only lets in more of them.
They're laughing, louder and louder and louder and—
—and Amitha jolts awake.
“Ami?” Egret asks, voice quavering.
It takes a couple of moments for her to remember where she is: the motel, the shotgun, the bodyguard currently cradling her body. For whatever reason, she isn't bleeding anymore—small mercies—but she doesn't remember having… lady fingers? in her mouth when she was shot.
Amitha continues chewing for a few stunned moments before she bites down on a bone, and the mystery of what she's eating becomes horrifyingly clear—it's literal fingers. Gagging and choking, she spits them out of her mouth and gasps for air, trying not to think about why they tasted like spongecake.
Her slapshod attempts to get the taste out of her mouth come to a halt when Egret finishes the job by kissing her. It lasts for a slightly uncomfortable amount of time, and Amitha swears she can feel something moving around in there that isn't a tongue.
Then Egret pulls her in for a hug so tight that she swears it'll reopen all her wounds.
Amitha grimaces. “Must we?”
“Yes, you fucking lunatic. Letting you get trucked by a goddamn Scranton 12-gauge like that: Three would've killed me if she was here! If I didn't just cut half the fingers off my hand trying to keep you alive I'd choke you out with it.”
“Those were your fingers?”
“No shit, idiot. One of us has a healing factor and it's not you. I had to improvise.”
As if in response, Amitha's stomach gurgles. If there's a recommended dietary maximum for homunculus flesh, she's almost certainly gone over it and then some.
“I need a drink,” Amitha mutters. “Tell me you didn't break the bottles in the pizza bag.”
“Sorry. Probably knocked them over with his body back there.” Egret fumbles through the corpse's pockets for a few moments, before her face brightens. “But guess who has the keys to the minibar?”

Mainline
« Prelude | Necropotence - The Coldest War | Tip of the Spear »


Escapism

'Close'

"Fae. Fae? Fae!" Alex Molina's voice was finally able to break Faeowynn out of the trance she found herself in.
"Huh? Oh hey, Alex. What's up?" She asked, moving her eyes up from the zoning permit she had been reading through.
"I was asking if you were still down for our couple's costume this Sunday."
"Huh? Costume? What are you talking about?"
"It's Halloween this Sunday, babe. Don't tell me you forgot."
There was a brief silence between the couple.
"It's okay if you forgot, I can help you get your costume together. There's still time."
"Sorry… It's just…" She sighed.
"I know you're very busy. And I know how hard you've been working behind the scenes. It's not immediately noticeable but trust me, I know you've been slaving away back here ever since… you know…"
"Dad."
"Yeah."
"I appreciate your offer to help, but I really need to finish reading the wording on this zoning agreement for the Aquatics Center."
"What you need is a break."
"But I need to finish reading this-"
"Is it due immediately?"
"No, but-"
"Then it can wait. Come on. I know you love Halloween. Let's work on your costume and forget about the paperwork for a few days."
"Alex…"
"Yes?"
"I…"
Halloween had always been Faeowynn's favorite holiday. Before she had come out she had used it as an excuse to wear dresses and skirts as a costume. She looked forward to it every year; a day where she could dress up as she always wanted to, free of judgment. Even after she came out she had always been known at her university for her elaborate costumes and generosity to trick-or-treaters. She still loved the holiday, but the death of Tim Wilson had really put her in a difficult situation.
She was effectively the new COO of Wilson's Wildlife Solutions, and the first thing she had discovered upon her promotion was just how much paperwork her father had let fall to the wayside. They were almost years behind, and her every waking hour had been spent trying to catch the Center up to date and keeping things afloat. And to top all of that off, she still had to keep up appearances for the Supervisors.
But Alex was right. She did need a break. She'd been at this for months with no end in sight. What would a few days cost her?
"I… fine."
"Really?"
"Yes. Fine. I'll go work on my costume."
"You'll make a great Lydia."
"Oh, hush you."
"It's showtime!"
"Nerd."

How To Summon A Demon

'Close'

"What's the matter Mikey, wore yourself out already?" Artie teased.
"Fuck you guys. You try carting five gallons of crap uphill and tell me how you feel after the fact."
"We only asked you to do it because we know you're the strongest out of all of us." Kevin joined in.
"More like the only one with money. I bet none of you guys are gonna pay me back for buying all this crap from the butcher."
"Sorry, Mikey, my mom doesn't give me my allowance until next week."
"Yeah, same here."
"Me too."
"Fuck you guys. Why do I even bother." Mikey stood up and turned around as if to leave.
"Wait, Mikey. If you leave now you'll miss the summoning." Kevin stepped forward to prevent Mikey from leaving.
"Yeah, I've got the book right here. Aren't you curious as to what will happen?" Artie reached into his bag on the ground and pulled out a rather old-looking tome with fancy lettering on the cover reading 'Fizzlebang's Guide to Magik'.
"…" Mikey stopped, turning around to look at the book. "Fine. But only because I already spent the money and I want to see what happens."
"Where did you even get that book, Artie?" Fred asked.
"My sister goes to Deer. This is one of her old textbooks."
"What's Deer?"
"It's a magic school or something like that."
"So let's get this show on the road. What do we need to do?"
"We need to draw a sigil on the ground using the blood. Did everybody bring their raincoats?" Artie reached into his bag again, pulling out an opaque white poncho and gloves.
"Yes." The other three boys responded, each of them producing rubber raincoats of varying colors from their person.
"Alright. So let's get cracking." Kevin, way ahead of the others, was already putting his coat on and reaching for the buckets.
The boys each put on their raincoats and set about illustrating a magic circle as outlined in the book. This took them about an hour to finish, guided by the light of the crackling fire they had started earlier. After a bit of a struggle and taking some artistic licenses with a few of the runes in the circle, the boys finished.
"There. Good thing we didn't need the blood of a virgin or we would have run out of Mikey's blood." Artie teased.
"Fuck you, Arthur."
"Come on guys, be nice. If it weren't for Mikey we wouldn't have had the necessary materials." Fred interjected, wiping the blood off his hands on his raincoat.
"So how about we get that incantation going?" Kevin reached for the book but was immediately stopped by Artie.
"Dude! Don't touch the book with your dirty hands. Here, let's clean up with some of this water." Artie reached behind the fallen log they were sitting on earlier and produced a bottle of water. The boys each took turns until their hands were as clean as they could be.
"Alright. Now let's see… 'How to summon a demon.'" Artie flipped through the pages until he found the appropriate spell.
"A… demon?" Mikey flinched.
"You're not scared, are ya?" Kevin grinned.
"No! It's just… a demon? Shouldn't that be a higher-level spell? And we're practically beginners. Wouldn't it be hard for us to summon and contain a demon?"
"Don't be such a pussy, Mikey. It's Halloween. A demon is only appropriate."
"Fine. But if it turns hostile, I'm the first one out of here."
"Your loss, dude." Artie shrugged. "Now come get behind me so I can start the ritual."
The boys all shuffled behind Artie, Mikey took a seat on the fallen log as the other two shoved one another to get a better look at the book Artie was reading from.
"Acov eidoh ihim muertic ,oseauq ,murotenicotua sued o!"
The magic circle began glowing a faint red as Artie read, a sudden wind current kicked up near them and began blowing leaves into the air.
"Melituni alucihev ihim ad te ,ididros icrop muicifircas coh emus!"
He continued, the glowing intensified as the wind now threatened to blow away the three standing boys. A dark fissure opened itself upon the ground where the magic circle had been drawn. It quickly expanded, plunging the area into darkness as it snuffed out the nearby fire. All that could be seen now was the glowing magic circle, its runes sparking with unknown energy as the spell drew to a close.
Suddenly, there was a loud 'clunk' and everything around them stopped and returned to normal as if nothing had happened.
"What happened?" Mikey asked.
"I don't know, I can't see shit!" Fred replied.
"We all have phones, idiots, turn on the flashlight app!" Kevin snided.
There was a small commotion as the boys tried to pull out their phones from over their bloodied raincoats. All of them ended up on the forest floor as they finally produced their cell phones and illuminated the scene. Before them lay an unusual sight, a 1996 Chevy Impala SS.
"A car? I don't understand." Artie stared at ahead of him, dumbfounded.
"At least now we can drive around town in style. It may be old, but hey, its vintage. The chicks dig vintage." Fred shrugged, approaching the vehicle and opening the driver's door.
"Hey, Artie, can I see that book?" Mikey stood up, approaching his friend. The boy handed him the book, still too confused to react.
Mikey pointed his flashlight at the title of the spell and read it several times.
"Artie, you fucking idiot. The spell was 'how to summon a lemon.' It was in cursive, you utter buffoon."

Tradition

'Close'

Grandma Molina hummed to herself as she spread cempasúchiles petals around her family's humble ofrenda. The old woman took great care as to not disturb the candles lit around the portraits of her deceased family. Finally content with her work, she slowly shambled her way over to the nearby rocking chair and took a seat. She admired the ofrenda at a distance, letting the memories of her family flood in.
Suddenly, she was a little girl again, walking alongside her father towards the cemetery with a bottle of wine and box of cigars in tow. She looked up to her father, a stern but loving man, with curiosity in her eyes.
"Papá, why are we bringing that to the cemetery?"
"It's for your grandfather, Araceli."
The two continued on their walk, watching as other families carrying similar objects left their houses and joined them in their walk to the cemetery. As a little girl, she didn't understand why the adults carried these offerings to the dead.
"Papá, isn't my grandfather dead?"
"Yes."
"Then why do we bring these things to him?"
"Because it's tradition."
Tradition, it seemed, was good enough for her father. It would have to be good enough for her too. She wasn't even sure she understood it now, but she did understand tradition. Tradition, of course, meant the continuing of customs that one didn't necessarily have to understand to uphold. It was done because your ancestors did it. And that was good enough for many. It would have to be good enough for her.
A gentle breeze carried from outside into the room with the ofrenda, blowing out one of the candles. Grandma Molina got up from her rocking chair with much difficulty, as her age was catching up to her something fierce. She reached for the matchbook in her sweater's pocket and struggled a bit in striking a match to relight the candle. Once her task was complete, she ambled back to the window and shut it. Again, she sat down at her rocking chair.
She was a young woman again. She was weeping, carrying a doll and a bag full of candies. Accompanying her husband on their way to the cemetery. They were silent as they walked, hanging their heads low in grievance. They entered the cemetery and made their way to a small grave in the corner. It read 'Maria Julia Molina, March 3rd, 1965- April 2nd, 1966.' The couple looked at each other and laid the doll and candies by the grave. She buried her face in her husband's chest seeking comfort, which he duly provided.
Tradition had carried her here year after year, leaving behind a toy doll and candies every year for her deceased child. Every year until she left Mexico. But she still kept her daughter in her ofrenda. Grandma Molina opened her eyes to look at her ofrenda once more. She saw photos of her parents, her daughter, and her sister staring back at her. She smiled, then shut her eyes again.
Some time later, her youngest grandson came into the room, waking Grandma Molina as he did so.
"Abuela, why do we make the ofrenda every year?"
She smiled and shared her tradition with her grandson.

More From This Author

More From This Author

Uncle Nicolini's Works

SCPs

SCP-1799 •

SCP-3923 •

SCP-4026 •

SCP-4003 •

SCP-ES-101-J •

SCP-3803 •

SCP-4176 •

SCP-5148 •

SCP-3863 •

SCP-6057 •

SCP-3874 •

SCP-7112 •

SCP-654 •

SCP-4934 •

SCP-3297 •

Tales/GoI Formats

Wonder World Dossier •

Chasing The Union •

The Hermit, Death, and The Devil •

Zetetic Bulletin: The Myth of the Wu Xing Iris •

Classy Carlos Goes To Therapy •

Animals, Shapeshifters, The Wilsons, And Faran •

Nico's Proposal •

(Too) Late Registration •

Parawatch Intro Thread •

#StormSite19 •

Gentle Wings Flutter Quietly In The Dark •

Masquerade's End •

Who Wants To Live Forever? •

Faeowynn Wilson's First Tamalada •

Gluttony Is Impossible •

Other

Sciptember 2022 Art Highlights •

uncle nicolini author page •

Ode To The Unknown Author •


Previously: Everywhere, NY

The motel is almost a hundred miles behind them when Egret finally bursts free of the delivery boy's body. Her twenty-third rebirth is no less messy than the twenty-two before it, and the explosion of gore stencils the shape of the seats in blood on the Oldsmobile's windshield.
It's a credit to Amitha's nerves that the car just kisses the dividing line of the highway instead of swerving off the road altogether. “A little warning, next time?”
“Harggggngh,” Egret gurgles, and spits up the small lump of meat that would've grown into her voicebox. She shuts her mouth, waits for muscles to knit into place, tries again. “I was waiting for hours inside him, Ami, just… sulking. How do babies put up with it?”
Amitha gives her an absolutely filthy look in the rear-view mirror. Her face is part-way through resetting into its former configuration: one eye's refused to change its color back, its iris still stubbornly sky-blue. Not a bad look on her, even if that's the ego talking.
On instinct, Egret grins back at her, but promptly stops smiling once she realises her backup canines haven't grown in yet. She has a reputation to uphold.
“Just- just shut up til your voice breaks,” Amitha says. “There's pizza in the back, knock yourself out. You're going to need the calories.”
Egret has to concede the point. A homunculus like her has about three times more muscle mass than the average delivery boy, and the energy to grow it all isn't going to come from nowhere. Said pizzas are piled four-high on the back seats Egret (and her host's human detritus) aren't occupying. She sniffs at them, first eager, then disappointed.
“Ami!”
“I said when your voice breaks, not while it's breaking. What now?”
“They're all vegetarian.”
“Great. I'll turn around and get you some pepperoni.”
“Could you please?”
“Eat what's left of him if you're going to complain.”
Grudgingly, Egret chews on a scrap of intestine from the seatwell. It's a little bit rubbery, but at least it's still lukewarm. “So what'd I miss?”
“Not much. Wasn't particularly difficult to escape when half of them had their guts hanging out their stomachs.”
“Yeah? Yeah.” Egret grins, tentatively at first, then wide and trembling. “I'm so good, aren't I?”
Amitha grits her teeth hard enough the muscles in her neck cord up.
Still unsatisfied, Egret reclines the chair back and puts her feet up on either side of Amitha's head. “Where to now, boss lady?”
“Hiding out. No sense making it easier on Two to take whatever petty revenge he wants to.”
“Boring. We going somewhere nice, at least?”
“Pennsylvania.”
“Should've let me rot.”

They're only halfway down the I-80 when the fuel gauge starts kissing empty. Amitha swipes a finger through the gore dripping off the inside of the windshield, sticks her arm out the driver-side window like she's feeling the breeze; half an hour later and like magic, the lights of a gas station appear just over the horizon.
Egret's been spending the last two hours catnapping through the pain of reconstruction. When the car starts pulling out onto the offramp, though, she snaps awake—old habits. Sudden deceleration never bodes well.
“You don't think we need to, uh—” Egret rolls her shoulders back, feeling the newly-formed joints crack. “—wash this thing out?”
“I'll take care of it. All you need to worry about is looking human long enough that the cashier doesn't call the cops.”
Egret slumps back into her chair, before the implication sinks in and she's back upright again. “Wait, you're letting me go inside? With- with people?”
In the rear-view mirror, Amitha arches an eyebrow at her. “Am I going to regret doing that?”
“Can I eat them?”
“If I buy you an icecream, will you put some God-damn clothes on and promise not to eat anyone?”
“No.” A beat passes. “Actually, yes.”
The attendant is a bored, middle-aged man too busy paging through the newspaper to look up when Amitha and Egret enter the station. While Egret pores over the freezer chest with ravenous fascination, Amitha loads one of the late pizza boy's bags with as much hard liquor as it can hold.
It takes her thirty solid seconds to place every bottle on the counter, and another minute ringing the bell on the counter to catch the man's attention.
“You throwing a party or something?” he grunts.
“Try a wake,” Amitha says.
The attendant gives her bloodstained attire a brief once-over. “For the poor guy you ran over on the way here?”
“It was a moose, actually.”
“That a joke?”
Amitha gives him a withering look, and he puts his hands up in the air. “Hey, hey, it's all jokes, lady. You gonna wait for your…” He leans around her to look at Egret, who's sniffing a Drumstick with obvious disappointment. “…uh. Daughter?”
“No.”
“Niece?”
“Also no.”
“…Wife?”
Sighing, Amitha fishes two hundreds from her pocket and slams them on the counter. “I'll let you keep the change if you stop talking.”

It only takes a couple more hours of driving before they reach their destination: a Motel 6 owned by a retired Zeta-Niner and Three-approved loyalist. Or rather—
“A Motel 5?” Egret says, squinting up at the sign. Its plastic is the color of overly chewed bubblegum, and the fluorescent tubes must've sprung a leak: most of the stars in the night sky look brighter.
Amitha follows her gaze as she pulls into the parking lot. “It's a… spiritually unwholesome version of a Motel 6. Usually you don't see them degenerate like this for another decade of operation, at least.”
“What did you expect, Ami? It's fuckin' Pennsylvania. State sucks.”
When they disembark, they find the former Sgt. Leo Henning waiting for them outside the reception, keys in hand. “Ladies. Ran into some trouble on the way here?”
“Could say that.” Amitha stuffs the keys into her pocket. “Tell me our room's a double.”
“It's a Motel 6—”
“5—”
“—you're not getting luxury accommodation. Hell, Three wasn't even sure if there'd be two of you making it out.”
Amitha sighs. “Christ.”
“There's a spare blanket in the closet if it makes you feel any better. Now git. I've got taxes to file.”
The room is the size of an overgrown wardrobe, and the bathroom has a pool table wedged between the toilet and the shower for some reason—Amitha chalks that up to the whole ‘spiritually impure' thing. But it's been a week since she's been able to get the scent of blood out of her nostrils, and a chemical shower is still a shower. There are even robes hanging on the back of the door, although when she puts one on, it becomes clear that its thread count is approximately two.
She steps out of the bathroom to find Egret sitting on the bedside table, thumbing the TV remote with a bored look on her face.
“Don't bother trying to find the adult channel,” Amitha says, digging through the pizza bag for the Scotch.
“Killjoy!”
“It's a Motel 5. I doubt it's even able to pick up emergency broadcasts.”
With a grunt Amitha collapses onto the bed and begins to crack open the bottle with her teeth, stopping only once she sees Egret moving to climb on too. “You're not getting blood on the sheets.”
“Oh, come on. Don't you want cuddles?”
“Christ, wasn't sleeping on the floor good enough for you before?”
Egret folds her arms. “Last time we were in a fortified compound in the middle of nowhere. Like, literally the middle of the abstract concept of nowhere. But we're in a shitty motel run by some guy whose eyes don't fit right, and you're telling me you don't need your faithful bodyguard by your side?”
“His—”
Amitha's blood runs cold.
“What color were his eyes, Egret?”

Elsewhere:
Local authorities find a gas station attendant with a hole in his head and two blood-stained hundred dollar bills in his pocket. When they run the prints, they get a match: a woman named Amitha Sanmugasunderam, former missing person, now the most recent addition to the United States' most wanted list.
In the parking lot of the Motel 5, a black truck bearing the seal of the Pentagram shivers into existence, its cloaking devices spinning down with a throaty hum. Its passengers are four members of the former Overseer Two's personal guard, each one strapped to the gills with enough paratechnology to buy an island.
And at the front desk, the man wearing Leo Henning tears his back open and steps out of the stolen skin, smooth as taking off a pair of sandals.

Next: Pitch Black


graveyard_crossing (deactivated) 29 Jan 2024 13:25 23:59:59 #90001159

Hi all,

Been a long time since I've used any sort of forum site. I don't post much on the internet anymore - used to, on the old Usenet networks and bulletin board systems - but life just got too busy for keeping up with those sorts of things. But those old precursors, well, they're what brought me here. From the quick skim I did of the place while waiting for my membership to be accepted - a hassle, really, you should consider making it a faster process - maybe someone here will believe me. I need to get my story out there, before it's too late, and this seemed like the place to go.

For a little bit of background, I'm a trained EMT working as an ambulance driver for whatever hospital is local to where I'm currently at - I move around a lot, living on the west coast is expensive as I'm sure some of you may know. No family besides a brother halfway across the world, but we don't talk much anymore. I called him a few hours ago, no response. I left a voicemail.

I hope he calls me back soon.

My last drive - I worked the night shift, and we (me and two other EMTs) were just a few hours in, a bit before midnight. We were a few blocks north of Union Station when we found him - a delirious older man wearing some form of old porter's uniform. Doesn't feel right speaking the name of a dead man, so we'll call him Lester.

We couldn't exactly tell what was wrong with him. The phone call that had guided us there hadn't told us much and upon arrival we didn't figure out a lot more either. He was delirious, shambling through the streets alone and rambling under his breath, his heart-rate elevated. It was a miracle he hadn't been hit by something. We thought maybe some form of dementia given his age, or perhaps old pops here had gotten the dosage on his medications wrong, but either way we loaded him up into the ambulance and began heading back to the hospital.

The screaming. How it went on and on.

Shrill, high pitched nearly inhuman screams. Throat going raw. Blood spurting out.

Even from my driver's seat, I could hear Lester screaming. Sometimes it was just noise. Other times it was words - “the 11:59”, “it's coming”, “we're out of time”, “do you hear its whistle too?” At first we thought he was obsessing over the time - delirious folks can sometimes hyperfixate on the weirdest stuff - but given the outfit and the further rambling about how his father before him had also been a porter, we figured it might be in reference to a train.

Something about Lester's screaming really got to me. It was loud, distracting, of course, but that's fairly common in this business. It was just, I could hear the denial in those screams. The primal urge of ‘this can't happen to me, I'm not going to die'. I hear it now, feel it now too. I couldn't focus on driving. It was as if the radio just melted into static, the other EMTs were nothing but ghosts, and the city before us just turned into blurs of black and grey.

Do you ever realize what it means for someone to die?

I've handled the dead before. Held the bones that once supported the stories and carried the viewpoint of an individual. But it's now. Hearing that fear. That denial. I can't die. My story can't end - but being there for its violent close anyway - that's what's chilling. Their entire perspective on the world, their entire way of seeing life, it's all gone. It all dies with them. And that me, right now, I'm responsible for saving that entire world by getting them to the hospital in time. No, not even that world, all the worlds connected to it too. Lester's, his family's, all his friend's - if I don't save Lester, then all those worlds are damaged significantly. It's just. Tick tock. Time's a passing and you have one foot in the grave. All of their grief. All of their suffering. You killed him. I killed him.

All the times if I had just been faster, just a bit quicker. Who would still be here? What worlds would have been saved? Could I have gotten past the train? Was this telling me that I deserved to die?

I don't want to die alone.

My life didn't flash before my eyes, but rather a strobing red light. It pulled me out of my thoughts and back to reality - the road in front us flushed crimson by a blaring railroad crossing signal. The gates, looming above us, began to lower as I cursed our luck, slamming on the breaks. A pale, rapidly approaching light split the shadows. Lester, the man that had not stopped raving for a second, fell silent. My eyes flicked over to the clock in the dashboard and I choked on my breath.

11:59

"It's here," came a whisper, and then he was gone. The shriek of the heart monitor flatlining was quickly accompanied by a loud whistle in a shrill chorus that drowned out all else. I turned around to see if the paramedics needed help in resuscitation, just in time to see them stop in their tracks.

A green light reflected off their eyes as they filled with terror and undistilled mania. One began to sob, silently. I turned to see what they were looking at, my mind too slow to tell my body to stop.

A hunk of creaking silver whizzed past, dilapidated but unobstructed. The wheels made no noise, but the scream of the fog whistle grew louder even as the engine got further away, mixed in with the cries of the passengers. There must have been hundreds of them, cramped in the carriages into a uniform mass of rotten and glowing flesh. Their faces pressed against the windows, contorted into shapes well beyond what could be considered human. Some of them were laughing.

There were four faces I recognized, though. In the last carriage. How did I manage to spot them amongst the motion? Did the train slow down? Did it want us to see? First it was Lester, thrown around by the old passengers, his face rotting in front of my eyes. Then, the two paramedics and finally, me. Our forms were hazy, like reflections on water. Like ghosts.

And then it was gone. One of the paramedics turned off the heart monitor, before clearing his throat into a recorder.

"Patient died in transit. Time of death… 11:59."

Nothing was said afterwards, but not all was silent. The whistle remained. Quiet and in the background, like tinnitus. You can almost forget it, for a while, but then something draws your attention back to it and you become painfully aware of its presence again.

I tried to ignore it. I really did. Chalking our experience up to an unfortunate cocktail of fatigue and fear. Having a patient die on you never gets less harrowing. But I can't anymore. It's been getting louder. It is 11:57 and the other two are already dead. I know they are. I can feel it. A cold creeping in as the line gets shorter. It is 11:58 and this will be my last post.

The train comes for us all.


by stormbreath

crewtime 10/31/21 (Sun) 20:30:19 #93482010

Happy Halloween, Parawatch. Today I'll be covering a case from exactly twenty years ago, one which is particularly interesting. This one is not just a true crime case, but also a conspiracy. I wouldn't go so far as to quite call this a conspiracy, but there is absolutely something shady happening here. The case also connects to a minor urban legend, making it all the more fitting for this forum.
Summary: Over the course of a 34-hour period, ending at midnight on Halloween 2001, Vietnam War veteran and current DARPA manager Silas R. Emerson III was seen acting erratically in and around Arlington, Virginia. Eventually, he was found dead under mysterious circumstances, which were officially declared a homicide, but for which the culprit has never been found.
One of the most curious elements of the case is how DARPA, the DoD and local police have seemed almost unwilling to comply with an investigation, despite the fact that Emerson was a high-ranking government official. The police was initially keen on investigating the matter — but soon changed their tune — and I was able to scour what was publicly released at the outset to get a writeup for here. I'll go over this element of the case in detail later.

Timeline of Events
Tuesday, October 30th, 2001

8:00 AM: Emerson arrives early for work on Monday. He says hello to his coworkers at the Department of Defense, none of whom report anything wrong at the time. Emerson is working on a classified project at DARPA - his direct colleagues on this project have not come forward about his behavior at the time.

1:16 PM: Emerson abruptly leaves the Pentagon (despite DARPA headquarters being located elsewhere, Emerson worked in the Pentagon itself. I have been unable to find an explanation for this discrepancy), in the middle of his shift. A security guard notes his departure as part of his job tracking all entries/departures, but nobody else does.

2:00 PM: Emerson arrives to his house in Washington, DC. His neighbor is outside and notices him enter the house. He lights a fire in his fireplace, despite it being just only 56°F outside — not particularly cold enough for a fire in the fireplace. He burns several paper documents in this fire. His neighbor sees the smoke and finds it unusual.

2:?? PM: At some point while he is home, Emerson retrieves a copy of his will and three letters — addressed to his ex-wife, his daughter and his son — from his personal safe and leaves them on his desk. All of these documents had been written in advance. Also at this time, he retrieves his handgun from the safe.

3:30 PM: Emerson arrives at the Washington D.C. Ritz-Carlton and checks in to his room. The concierge describes Emerson as having been anxious and nervous during the check-in.

5:00 PM: Emerson leaves the Ritz-Carlton and heads to The Oval Room — a steakhouse frequented by President Clinton — for dinner. He does not meet anyone, and has an expensive steak dinner alone, ordering several courses, expensive wine and multiple rounds of desert. Witness report him crying during the course of dinner.

8:15 PM: Emerson leaves The Oval Room and returns to the Ritz-Carlton. He enters the hotel without talking to anyone and spends the rest of the night in his hotel room.

Wednesday, October 31st, 2001

8:00 AM: Emerson does not show up for work. No one at DARPA - neither his subordinates, associates or supervisors - report his absence or appear to consider it unusual. Emerson had not called in to take the day off.

8:30 AM: Emerson walks down to the downstairs of the Ritz-Carlton to begin eating breakfast. He does not appear to be in any rush and remains in the dining room for several hours, until breakfast service ends, when he pays his check and returns to his room.

11:30 AM: At some point, Emerson leaves the Ritz-Carlton. He walks to the National Mall and is seen meeting with an unidentified individual, who has yet to come forward. They walk around the Mall and sit down on a bench together. The purpose of this conversation is unclear.

1:17 PM: Emerson purchases several bouquets of flowers from a near-by florist using his credit card. He returns to the National Mall and heads to the Vietnam War Memorial, where he spends an hour placing flowers underneath the names of all of the soldiers he had served with during the war. His family noted that he regularly did this on Memorial Day, but could not explain why he did it on Halloween.

3:00 PM: Having completed leaving the flowers, Emerson sits down next to the memorial on a bench. Witnesses report seeing him crying. He leaves shortly thereafter.

8:45 PM: The last known sighting of Emerson alive. He does not return to his hotel room at the Ritz-Carlton later that night, despite having booked the room. The father of a friend of Emerson's daughter spots Emerson wandering through DC, seemingly confused and nervous, regularly looking over his shoulder. Emerson briefly says hello but does not speak to the father for much time.

12:00 PM: Estimated time of death.

Wednesday, November 1st, 2001

8:00 AM: Emerson does not show up for work. Unlike the previous day, his colleagues at DARPA report him missing to their superiors — who immediately list him as a former employee.

9:07 AM: Washington DC police find the body of Emerson lying in an alleyway. His head has been cut off, with a jack o'lantern placed above his shoulders to replace it. His arms are sprawled out at his sides — in his left is the murder weapon, a scythe; in the right, his severed head. Emerson's handgun is located several feet from his body — it is empty. There is a magazine worth of casings nearby, but not a single bullet. The police begin an investigation immediately.

crewtime 10/31/21 (Sun) 20:33:37 #93482011

There are three topics that I feel necessary to discuss in this case: the actions of Emerson leading up to his death, the manner of death itself, and finally the DARPA response to the death. Of these, the last is perhaps the strangest, and I will be covering it in more detail.
The first matter: what Emerson did in the two days before he died. First of all: it seems obvious that he had predicted he was going to die. When he visited his house for the last time, he pulled out his will, and letters written to his family in the event of his death. He was fully expecting to die soon after. This raises the question of what he burned in the fireplace — given the warm temperatures, he presumably was attempting to destroy something. Whatever that "something" was is unclear.
The rest of his actions over the next two days confirm this. He spends a lot of money between the five-star hotel and a steakhouse that Clinton used to visit. The next day, he skips work and visits a war memorial for his deceased friends — actions of a man who knows he is about to die.
It is strange that he did not directly contact his family or any friends at the time. He spent the two day period avoiding most social interaction, with the exception of the one man he met at the National Mall. If he knew he was going to die, why didn't he talk to his family directly to say goodbye?
On the whole, his actions seem superficially suicidal. But they could not be - he was killed violently, with his head cut off. The scene as a whole was staged after his death, with the murder weapon left behind at the scene of the crime and the corpse posed with a jack o' lantern. The murder weapon had no prints, no identifying information and no maker's marks. The police collected it, but were unable to use it as evidence.
This raises the question of another weapon — the handgun. The bullet forensics are consistent with him firing the gun multiple times, shortly before his death. But no bullets have been found in the alley, only the casings. So he fired the gun multiple times, the bullets were embedded in whatever they hit, and then the thing he hit was removed from the alley. If he fired at his attacker, how did they survive being shot so many times? Furthermore, the bullet was evidently fired, but no sound was reported despite it being in the middle of Washington DC. Neighbors in the surrounding area did not report hearing any bullet noises from around the time of death. So how did the gun get fired? Where did the bullets go?
The official story from the police is that Emerson was killed in a random mugging or something of the sort. His actions before his death were simply a coincidence — he thought he was going to die in one way (not explained), but died in another (not solved). I don't buy it. It stinks of conspiracy.

crewtime 10/31/21 (Sun) 20:33:37 #93482011

The most straightforward explanation for the death of a well-ranking Washington DC official is that they were assassinated. That doesn't quite hold up here, for a variety of reasons. A lot of the official coverage on the case — and a lot of what you'd see on other sites that aren't Parawatch — attribute the death to assassination. I don't personally buy that.
The first major problem is that, whatever actually ended up killing Emerson, he found out about it during the workday. He rushed out of the Pentagon just after 1, well before the business day was over. The fact he went home and got out his will backs up the idea that the reason he left his job was because of his impending death — why would he have done that if he was just playing hooky?
The other major problem I have is with the manner of death. The kill scene had a carved jack o'lantern and a scythe — a clear reference to the day of the murder, Halloween itself. Why would an assassin have taken the effort needed to result in this detail? And why would they have killed him in such a brutal and inefficient manner? It was a deliberate act, one that was going for style over anything else — but not a style that sends a clear message, or one that makes the death look random or unrelated to the victim's identity.
Now, I will address the third major issue of this case: the response of DARPA and the Department of Defense to the crime. Everything surrounding their involvement in the case strikes me as suspicious, to say the least. If they were not responsible for the incident, then there was a cover-up.
The most suspicious thing is that his coworkers did not report him missing, or as having left work early, until the day after he died. They all told the police they hadn't heard from him after the time he left work on Monday (and didn't mention he had left early — that was confirmed by a security guard who saw him exit, and security camera footage of his car leaving the Pentagon). It seems as though they were waiting for him to die before reporting him gone — but if so, how did they realize he had died when he had? Did they somehow know what was going to kill him, and when?
Furthermore, his coworkers would have likely known why he left. They later refused to turn over any of his work computers or documents, claiming it was all classified. It very may well be, but the fact remains we cannot know what caused Emerson to leave the Pentagon on the 30th. His coworkers, however, seem nonchalant about it — as if they know and are not worried.
In the initial days of the investigation, the local police made several reports on the incident, and spoke about it on the local news. However, once they confirmed the victim's identity — and his employer — progress on the case crawled to a halt. The Department of Defense initially claimed they would perform their own investigation and work with the FBI on the matter, but this doesn't seem to have happened. I was unable to find any evidence the FBI was involved.
With the DoD and FBI intimidating them, the DC Police ended up effectively dropping the investigation. Although a perfunctory statement was made officially stating the "crime of opportunity" hypothesis, it read as abrupt and rushed: as if they needed to get something out quickly in response to the Department of Defense's actions.
It is clear to me that there is something unexplained happening. I don't know what happened, really. Maybe the DoD had Emerson assassinated themselves, or maybe he just learned of a coming assassination that they, for whatever reason, were powerless to stop. All together, it is a strange case. Many of the questions cannot be logically answered.
As for the urban legend that I mentioned when I began this tale. It is not particularly widespread, only circulating between a few people in the DC area. Every Halloween since 2002, at night, an unknown individual has left a carved pumpkin near the Vietnam Memorial. No one has ever seen who is leaving them, but the rumors say it is the ghost of Silas, returning on the night of his death to continue his tradition of honoring the dead.


LORDXVNV

Muddy Skies by LORDXVNV

LORDXVNV's Author Page

kenneth2332 2020/10/30 (Fri) 03:14:15 #92315237

The first time I saw the muddy skies, I must have been around ten. It was the great North American blackout of '03. That night, I looked up, expecting to see the stars. Instead, I saw deep brown, oppressive, the color of dry, dead leaves. The color of Mars. Heavy. Oddly jarring.

Thicker than this.

My dad said that it was light pollution, that it was city lights diffusing through particles in the air. For the longest time, I didn't question it.
But go outside and stare at the sky on a cloudy night. The clouds will be, for lack of a better word, normal. And it's not the pink or red of sunset, either.
It's hard to explain. Normally clouds are just grey or black or brownish-yellow, not this weird reddish brown. Try and go on a night where you can see bright lights in the distance, something that you know is just spewing light out into the atmosphere, and you'll see what I mean. Whatever happens in blackouts can't be because of light pollution.

Redder than this.

But I'd already forgotten. Until the next blackout.
This was way before cell phones and laptops were really a thing. When the power died, it really died. There wasn't a lot to do other than light the candles and go outside and look at the stars.
Except for those muddy skies. Those damnable muddy skies.
Every blackout, I would remember. Every dawn, I would forget.
That first blackout was when I started being afraid of the dark.

kenneth2332 2020/10/30 (Fri) 03:15:59 #65522371

I didn't start remembering for real until my first job, the summer before college. I was working nights as a watchman in a graveyard in the outskirts of the city. I got the job through my dad's friend, George. It was a weird job, but a safe one at the same time – nothing ever really happened. I just had to sit in the caretaker's shack, look out the window every fifteen minutes, and make sure nothing was happening. At most a few kids my age would get rowdy and drunk and I could usually stop them from doing anything really destructive by bringing them bottles of water.
Those were some of the coolest nights of my life, if I'm being honest. Graveyards aren't that creepy once you spend a lot of time in them. It's quiet, and you can see the stars. Some nights I would sit and read, and others I would wander between the tombstones. Sometimes I would hear rustles, but it'd usually be a rabbit or a dog. There wasn't any really dangerous wildlife where I lived. On the best nights, I could see the stars.
That's what I thought at the time. It was how I rationalized away my fear of the dark.
It was more comfortable going to bed at sunup and waking at sundown than the 9 to 3 of high school. Looking back, I'm not sure why that was even a job at all. George was a lonely guy – maybe he just wanted someone to talk to.
George and I didn't talk all that much. The man was basically nocturnal, and he kept to himself. Though I was perfectly happy patrolling the graveyard, he told me I could stay in the shack and do whatever I wanted while he went out on patrols. He would spend all night out there, clearing the paths or rearranging flowers or whatever took his fancy.
I was just starting my shift one night when a blackout hit. You know the drill. I wanted to preserve my phone's charge for the morning, so I went outside to look at the stars, and I saw the muddy sky.

Maybe even this. I barely remember.

I don't remember how long I stared at the sky – I almost never do – but the next thing I knew George was leading me inside, closing the curtains, and lighting the fireplace. He sat me down in a chair and poured us both snifters of brandy. I told him I was 18, but he didn't care, he said I needed it.
He flung some brandy into the fire. I thought he was crazy, that he was trying to burn the house down with us in it, but he barked at me to shut up. When the fire calmed down, he told me a story.
He told me that he'd seem the muddy skies for as long as he knew, but he never remembered until he'd started working as a night watchman. That the same questions which had always bothered me bothered him, wriggling away at the back of his brain, always on his mind. That though he hadn't realized it, that was why he'd spent his whole childhood sleeping so poorly, why he'd always, always, forced himself to stay awake no matter how bad it was for him, no matter how many classes he'd failed or jobs he'd lost, until he stumbled across night watchman. Until he had no choice but to stay awake and to stay sharp, his mind attuned to the night instead of the day.
Because he had to know why the sky changed.

kenneth2332 2020/10/30 (Fri) 03:16:58 #26151122

I thought he was crazy. I mean, I wanted to say it was light pollution, the scientific answer. And the fact that I couldn't sleep well either… that was because of my poor habits, not some repressed memory. But he gulped down another glass of brandy and shook his head.
How did the sky turn red from light pollution when the lights were yellow and white? And if it was just light pollution, how come it only happened when during blackouts, when none of the lights were on, when there was no light? And if it was my sleep habits, then why did I have the repressed memories at all?
And why was I afraid of the dark?

This is what Google says light pollution looks like. Not brown.

I wanted to go back to the window and open the curtains, to check and see if I could see the glow of lights from the next town over in the distance, to prove him wrong about my fears, but he pushed me down into my seat.
"Don't look at the sky again."
I asked him why.
Humans, he said, naturally evolved to fear the night. It's cold, and it's dangerous, and there's nothing to do. At least, that was how it looked on the surface. But we'd conquered that, at least for a few thousand years.
It didn't sound like this had anything to do with the sky, but one look from him shut me up.
The instant we'd discovered fire, we'd warded the night away, for six thousand years. We sat near the fire and told stories about how the night wasn't really that scary. That the monsters in the dark were just tales our grandparents made up to scare us. That the howling was just lions or tigers or bears. That darkness was just the absence of light.
We were fooling ourselves. We were hiding from the night itself. So when the lights faded, it called to us. Taking from us the lies that we'd told about it, so we would learn to fear again. Taking our stories away.
It was a ghost story, but not a very scary one, and I told him as much.
He looked me in the eye and asked me to tell him what I remembered about the sky.
I told him it was muddy brown, and that it scared me.
He asked me why.
I couldn't recall.

fabioleck 2020/10/30 (Fri) 03:17:05 #13642970

Thought this was going somewhere, but this dude just wants us to be scared of the dark lol

kenneth2332 2020/10/30 (Fri) 03:18:46 #90756321

Dude, what's wrong with you? I'm tryna be serious here and give a real warning… don't look at the sky during a blackout…

fabioleck 2020/10/30 (Fri) 03:24:33 #12436322

Other than this being obvious bullshit? Dude, I go camping all the time, I go campling every fucking month, you know? there aren't any fucking lights out in the wilderness. I'm going camping tomorrow. You know what I'm gonna do? Stare at the fucking sky. This mf really tried to make the night sky scary lol. Go write for the Backrooms, kid. You don't sound like you've held a job ever in your life.

kenneth2332 2020/10/30 (Fri) 03:25:59 #34623212

You're really hurting my feelings… I just wanted to spread the TRUTH about night…

fabioleck 2020/10/30 (Fri) 03:35:23 #45189723

lol alright. I'm going camping this weekend and i'm gonna look at the sky every single night. Might touch some grass while I'm at it, you should consider it sometime.

Moderator Post — CLOSED

🗿 LimpFirebird 2020/10/30 (Fri) 03:40:12 #13582989

fabioleck, this is unnecessarily vehement and unconstructive. Even if this story is fictional, this kind of response will not encourage writers to grow.
Please shut up.

fabioleck 2020/10/30 (Fri) 03:41:01 #46324521

How about you ban me for three days, I've got a camping trip to go on.

Moderator Post — CLOSED

🗿 LimpFirebird 2020/10/30 (Fri) 03:41:59 #82989217

This is a closed staff post. Do not reply.

fabioleck 2020/10/30 (Fri) 03:42:08 #46222131

lol this forum sucks

trisarahtops 2020/10/31 (Sat) 08:56:33 #54692173

Cool story bro. Not particularly convincing, but your prose is decent. Pity you wasted it on this.

Banamanam1202 2020/10/31 (Sat) 19:02:13 #64682162

I liked it.

RageTheComic 2020/11/01 (Sun) 11:03:40 #77723180

Good job for a first attempt, wish you'd told us more about George.

🗿stormbreath 2020/11/02 (Mon) 08:05:51 #78891183

Echoing what trisaratops said. I can't suspend my disbelief about this, much. The vibes are creepy, but I'm sure I've looked at the sky during a blackout, and I'm still here. This is too ambitious for something so short.

fabioleck 2020/11/02 (Mon) 18:36:02 #34534988

I'm sorry for dunking on your warning.

kenneth2332 2020/11/02 (Mon) 18:40:59 #54325912

That's okay honestly, it's really not my best work.. you were just the first to point that out.

fabioleck 2020/11/02 (Mon) 18:50:12 #34778453

Are you sure this is fiction?

kenneth2332 2020/11/02 (Mon) 18:51:33 #54321312

This is mostly made up. I took a few things that happened to me and made them spookier. I worked in a graveyard and the usual watchman's name was George, but it's not like he was really my dad's friend or anything. George didn't really have friends, now that I think about it. Kind of like me.
My dad hasn't bothered with introducing his friends to me, he's too busy with his work. I'm not even sure how I got the graveyard gig — guess not many others applied. Must not be all that popular.
I think the clouds do look creepy, but it probably is just light pollution. I don't really check tbh.

fabioleck 2020/11/02 (Mon) 18:56:33 #54692173

You just don't remember. That's how it works. You don't remember it except as a lie.
I looked at the sky and when i looked down I was camping alone. That's how it was. My parents have never been big on the outdoors which is weird, I was looking forward to spending time with them, but I don't remember the details. We hid from the night in lots of lights but we used to hide from the night with our family. And now when the light is gone the night takes away what we used to value.

kenneth2332 2020/11/02 (Mon) 19:10:21 #54321331

From the bottom of my heart, thank you!
I had no idea you would end up liking my story so much! Like damn, this is a better explanation than I had for it!

fabioleck 2020/11/02 (Mon) 19:15:09 #64267831

Listen to your own warning. Please.


An open Parawatch collaboration. Concept by Nykacolaquantum, with starting contributions from Fishish, Dr0shadow, and LORDXVNV.

[{$authorPage} ▸ More by this Author ◂]

{$comments2}

F.A.Q.

{$doesthisfixthebug}

Miscellaneous 'Net Spookums

Forum » Tales from the Internet » Miscellaneous 'Net Spookums

Rook ♖ #00000001

Hey there, folks. You might be wondering why this thread has been added, and pinned, to this subforum.
This is an experimental "gigathread" of sorts for people to post their stories. Maybe it's one you're nervous about making your own thread for, for one reason or another. Maybe it's a story that's too short for the minimum OP length we set for creation. Maybe you're in a hurry. Or maybe you're just not that great at writing long form prose (And that's okay!).
This is a place for you to be able to share your tales, regardless. Now, in addition to the overall site rules, there are some extra ones specifically for this, which will be adjusted for any further gigathreads staff creates.

All posts herein must focus mainly on this sub-forum's topic, that being spooky, mysterious or just bizarre internet culture. Whether it's forgotten Web 1.0 relics, a figment of a memory of a strange Flash movie you saw on Newgrounds, or even a video from the Weird Part of Youtube you can't find anymore.
No self-promotion or attempts to start Alternate Reality Games in this thread. Talking about ARGs is perfectly fine, but if it's deemed you're posting here to give traffic to your interactive analog horror series or something, we're giving you the boot.
No witch-hunting. There are no exceptions; don't be a rules lawyering smartass.

That's it; have fun, everyone.

kenneth2332 #79122145

Guess I'll start.
In the late 2000s, I was a fan of this internet horror site called "the Handlers." Not sure if you've heard of it – it was kind of popular, but very niche. It wasn't a big community of writers, so we kind of all knew each other.
The premise of "the Handlers" was that there were eight thousand humans who all personified—"handled"—a concept, which gave them certain powers. There were a few simple rules all Handlers faced. One, if you challenged a Handler to a game, and you won, you became the new Handler, but if you lost, you suffered a horrible fate. Two, when two Handlers met, they had to play the game with each other, and the winner would consume the loser's Handle. Three, when there was only one Handler left, they would become the Handler of All Things. Basically, God. Think of them as a cross between Yu-Gi-Oh and Highlander.
Most of the articles described what the Handler handled, and the game they would play. The games were creepy and surreal – metaphorical chess involving people in your life, ping pong where every missed swing destroyed a possible future, Pokemon where your mons were every pet you'd ever mourned.
The scary thing about the handlers is that they could be anyone. That busker playing chess in the park, the 14 year old shooting hoops in the basketball court, the ten year old shit-talking you on Call of Duty – any of them could be a Handler. If you challenged them to a friendly casual game or rose to their taunts, you could get sucked into a dark metaphor or your worst nightmare. And it wouldn't be easy to beat them. They would almost always win.
It sounds cheesy, but I was actually so afraid of running into a Handler in real life. I guess that's why I never bothered writing for the Handlers.
The community just sort of died off. Weirdly enough it was after someone proposed a ranking bot, something to track who the best authors were and how many handlers they'd written. You'd think that would have helped it rise – it works really well for Reddit – and everyone seemed really excited about it, but people just sort of… stopped. The community just faded away.
I haven't checked that site in a really long time, but the last Handler I read—the only thing posted in like a year— is something that I still remember. It was written by the same guy who proposed the rating bot, the last big author on the site:

"The Handler of the Ladder"
Wherever there might be a challenge, wherever there might be a hierarchy, the Handler of the Ladder plays his games. He will offer a ladder to climb, a destiny to attain – but he will always be there at the top. He will tempt you to chase him, and you will give away your soul upon the ladder that he creates – but it is an illusion. He sits at the top of the ladder, and always will.

FishTruther #72442724

Thought I'd share this here so more people can take a look.
About a week ago I was going on a YouTube binge when this weird ad popped up. It was around 7 minutes long and unskippable, which just made me think whoever posted it must really misunderstand how ads work. I decided to let it play for a bit (Busy day, I know.) to see what the ad's deal was, but I got nothing. The ad was just a blank screen, with the number 724 appearing in comic sans maybe once around the 2-minute mark? idrk, I only got through about 4 minutes before skipping it. I didn't catch the name of the channel that made it, which, looking back, was a bad move on my part. The weirdest thing started happening after I saw the ad though.
For some reason, the number won't stop showing up in my everyday life: I'll go to the store across the street and pay $7.24 for my things, drive to work and get stuck in traffic behind a car with 724 in its license plate, and wake up at 7:24 every morning.
At first I thought I was just being paranoid, I'd seen the number in a weird setting and every time I saw it now I'd remember it more easily, right? But I can't keep ignoring it. I've always celebrated my birthday in December, but my birth certificate now states that I was born on February 7. A few days ago I woke up in a different apartment, only to find that I now lived in apartment 72, on the fourth floor.
The number is everywhere and in everything. I've surrendered to the all-encompassing 724.
Won't you?

aqout #86730021

Ooo okay hmm
I swear I saw a few weeks ago this thumbnail for a classic Nostalgia Critic video about something called "Ron's Gone Wrong", like that new animated film that came out. It only shared the name from what I saw though. It had the critic character with an arm around this red-haired fellow and the other hand sticking a finger up the ginger's nose (you know how the earlier thumbnails were). At the time I vaguely recalled a move that was like Dumb and Dumber or the Ernest franchise, with this really annoying character named Ron. Think he was a genetic experiment or something. Anyhow at the time I thought "huh so they're remaking it in name only?", then moved on.
About a week after that when the film came out (haven't watched it, though my cousin loved it, unsure what that's says as-to its quality) I got curious and looked up the film on Wikipedia. What a twist, it didn't exist. I think what happened was that my memory mutated and combined the images of a few of the classic era thumbnails, specifically A Troll in Central Park and Drop Dead Fred, but I swear it was it's own video.
Not much to it beyond that but hey that's what's this thread is for.

UnterUns #36478628

When I was a kid, maybe like sixth grade or so, I had a friend named Jerrod whose family were really poor. I remember having to give Jerrod my lunch a couple of times that year, or maybe the previous year cause we might have gone to the same elementary school. But I remember it was like two months before the end of sixth grade and Jerrod came to school with a new lunchbox and it had a really nice sandwich, I think it might have been salami on a baguette or something, and fancy Trader Joe's cookies and some new Pokemon cards he immediately started trading.
I asked him how he got the cards and he got very excited and also very quiet, and he leaned in and told me his family weren't poor anymore because his dad invented a website called slombo.com and they were making lots of money, more money than they had seen in their lifetime. That day I think I went to look at this website because I didn't believe him. I'm not sure what I imagined, that he stole the sandwich or something? I must have gone and looked at it. This was like around just after the Dotcom boom or so, like early 2000s, so I didn't have a home computer I could use. But, the school did have a computer lab and so I guess I visited slombo.com there.
I don't remember very much of what was there now, but I remember this deep navy blue color to the site with these purple tabs. There were stories you could read, a shop you could visit, and a page of videos to download. I clicked on one of the stories first because that was what was on the homepage, and I read a little bit about a boy my age who was obsessed with very muscly men, like superheroes and wrestlers and stuff. I vividly remember being upset by it in a way. I guess it was fiction, like it was written like a short story with this odd dense writing I didn't really understand. In the shop section I also distinctly remember seeing Jerrod's exact lunchbox, and sandwich, and cookies, and Pokemon cards, and thinking that was weird, like you could buy the salami sandwich on the internet or something. I don't remember the videos, but I do remember unplugging the computer and being terrified I would be caught. I wasn't the most computer-savvy kid at that time, but there were some friends who were older and bragged about downloading files of gore videos and porn and that frightened me a lot as well, so it must have been something like that but I don't know. The only thing I can piece together about the video was that I asked Jerrod about it later and he told me very seriously that that was the one with "the trunt" (???) and he didn't like watching it. I don't know what that means.
I'm not sure of how much of this is real and how much I fabricated after the fact. I was kind of a sheltered kid, I had parents who wouldn't let me watch NickToons because they were "too cynical" and I was warned a lot about scary movies that I wouldn't like and of course my imagination always made them worse in my head than they were. I had nightmares easily, but after the slombo.com visit I kept having this recurring dream where I would be driving home at night with my family and we'd be pulling up to our house, but our front door would open and a black squiggly man would bolt out and drip slime behind him as he ran away. And the car radio would play this ominous tone that would boom out and I'd feel bone-deep terror but the car wouldn't stop and then I'd wake up. I had what I eventually called the "slombo dream" every couple of nights for like two years after that. The only reason I remember it well was because my mom took me to a youth psychologist when I was like 14 and she encouraged me to keep a dream journal, which I found recently.
I don't know if I ever told my parents about slombo.com, I think they thought me calling it the "slombo dream" was a reference to something that happened in it? But they must have been aware of slombo.com because they were friends with Jerrod's parents (it was one of the reasons we hung out so much) and so they were over at their house a lot. I remember they'd have these parties with champagne and the psychologist was there too, maybe for me? But when those parties happened Jerrod went to his room and didn't talk to anybody. I tried to look up slombo.com but the URL had decayed and it's not on the Internet Archive. I guess it must have been popular because one night we went over to Jerrod's new house and it was like a mansion, but I can't find anything today that refers to it?
Has anyone ever heard of slombo.com? What was it? Some kind of obscure fetish homepage? That's the only answer I can think of, but it doesn't really feel right.

fordunfocused #73019926

When I was about 20, I worked at a place called “Liminal Space”. It was a company that cleaned, more specifically, cleaned corridors. It was weird. But then one guy happened to want a corridor cleaned.
Of course, I had to do the job. It was a church, but like a really fancy one. It looked clean. It was all white and, from what I could tell, was Protestant? Like there was no fancy decorations like stained glass windows but was modern. It didn't look like a church. But it had all this chambers that led to each other. Some were horizontal. Most were diagonal. Some were even vertical (don't know how they built them.
I also remember the doors. Doors were everywhere. I got curious and opened a few up, but they all just led empty rooms. Some doors were on the ceiling. I opened one and saw the same empty room.
But I opened another door on the ceiling.
It was a bigger room. Like, as big as my house. I saw a chair in the corner of the room. I got curious.
I climbed up.
I quickly realised chairs were all over the room, facing away from the door. Some ceiling were on the walls or ceiling. One chair, one on the wall, had a person in it. A blue person. I went out of the room and ran as fast as possible. But then I saw the blue man was running after me, crying for help. I closed doors behind me, which slowed it down.
I never heard of Liminal Space again.
We had a website (https://liminalspace.co.uk) but it got taken down. And all I can remember is our mascot. Come to think of it, I can't exactly remember what the mascot was, but I'll update when (if) I remember

fordunfocused #73019926

IT WAS A BLUE PERSON


A Warning
We all have a chance somewhere
To reign eternal or just be fools
In some corner of the skies
One house for you, one set of rules.
But not since the knocks.
In the dark they saw nothing at the door
For the skies were clouded by paint
By the time the people knew their fate
Their cries were dim and faint.
They were never cool.
The next door fell and with a cough
The bleeding king rose from his seat
But had stumbled barely to the door
When trampled under its feet.
Disease was never a virtue.
The metal scraped and chunks united
The homes and people mixed
But iron still makes a fantastic knife
By their own hand the mechanics were nixed.
The pieces were never found.
A flamethrower and an atom bomb
Right at the invaders head
But only the boys in blue and white
Were stained in a moment with red.
They only Destroy, Destroy, Destroyed themselves.
The readers and the freedom fighters
Saw nothing else to do
So they opened the door with a smile and a tear
Knowing at least their aim was true.
The library WAS a space for peaceful study.
Greed and rage were all that lived
In old Cal and Aaron's domain
When the skies fell and smashed on the floor
Even the Red Right Hand was slain.
There will be no vengeance, intermittent or otherwise.
Our minds in the void are all that's left,
Nothing left in our magical hats
The final hope of all that thinks
Is with you, the world of bureaucrats.
Are you the ones chosen to lead?


MWAHAHAHAHAHA! The air is getting chillier, the moustaches are growing bushier, and the time of frights is UPON US! Yes my friends, I'm talking about HALLOWEEN!
As you all know Halloween is one of my favourite holidays (I doubt you haven't seen my yearly escapades dressed as a vampire, cyber-vampire, business-casual vampire etc.) and I'm very excited for this year as well! I bet you can't guess what I'm going as. (Edit: Of course my friend with the pet vampires guessed correctly. I'm going as Gomez Addams this year! Can't waste the stache, you know…)
For the next three weeks you may call me Vampousio Starswinger, practising ringmaster and clown breeder, seller and blogger! Because of the upcoming holiday, I'm writing to talk to you about the importance of your pet clowns safety during Halloween.
Listen To The Horror Stories: Listen Well.
You may know the basics when it comes to keeping your pet clown safe during Halloween: Keep them indoors and throw on a blanket, play the telly loud, don't let them into the sewers to have a swim etc.
This is applicable to other animals, too! But as we all know, pet clowns have got to be particular in SOME way…
Most clown breeds aren't famous for being little angels indoors. They love to bounce, cheer and party! Believe me, I know how exhausting it gets. Sometimes you just can't keep up with that energy, and it's okay, it's human nature to burn out. I burn out and then I can't write my little blog posts for you lovely folks to read! If you need to get away from the action for a bit, clowns can sense that and understand that you need some space, that's what I like about them.
But as a clown is loyal to you, you must be loyal to your clown. Chucking a clown outdoors on a Halloween night is unsafe and actually a very idiotic idea. SOMETIMES PEOPLE ARE VERY STUPID AND DON'T DESERVE TO OWN A CLOWN AT ALL. MAYBE YOU. Ask yourself: Do I REALLY deserve my clown? And don't just drop them off anywhere and abandon them, that's how we get stray clowns and even clown mothers come springtime!
(Edit: Don't cook stray eggs either.)
I apologize. I know my readers are responsible clown owners and none of you would ever be so silly as to even CONSIDER abandonment, but it does happen. Pet abandonment is probably one of the most heart-breaking concepts I can think of…
This clown, this little funny clown, who loves all that is good on this earth with all its heart… They wouldn't even understand why they were being left beside a sewer, or anywhere really…
That does remind me of the origins of Sewer Clowns. You may hear the stories circulating about them during Halloween, how they'll snatch up your children, and show you something to give you a big ol' fright.
This is all true!
Sewer Clowns are misunderstood clowns who have learnt to feed off the scraps of leftover emotions, rather than the usual optimistic and joyful emotions they'd be used to in a happy home. It's an upsetting story of survival, really. They are quite difficult to rehome as they linger on this sadness and develop some pretty serious trust issues. It is not impossible, however! My beloved acquaintance Ms. Presto Bandit (a stunning figure in the world of Clown Behaviour and Genetics) has an adopted Sewer Clown who is shockingly the most timid and gleeful clown I've met, and I've met a lot of clowns!
So many in fact, that my nephew has been doing what I call ‘observational studies' of various clown breeds. He's the greatest young artist I have ever seen! He's started drawing on the computer as well, my brother says, and he comes up with these stupendous ‘original characters'.
Here is one of his clown-acters, haha! He's very shy about posting his art, so if I see any haters trying to discourage this up-and-coming star I'm gonna be PISSED.

Xavier The Mime, awesome!

He says this one is called ‘Xavier the Mime' and WOW. I am SO INVESTED in this guy. He used a digital art programme to do the shading, and it looks so great! I can't even do shading like that. He even draws these ‘clown-cats', and my nephew must be the most creative boy on the planet because YES! The hair looks AMAZING!

'Jesterclaw'

I am so proud of my nephew. I was asking about the clown cats but he couldn't really explain it. From what I can tell, they're sorted into different circuses, and they…I don't know, but he says he plays as his character with his friends on an ‘RP forum' and by that time I zoned out a little bit. Do any of my readers have little artists too? I'd love to see their work (if they allow you to share it, of course!)
I think that is a nice spot to leave off on this spooktacular post! I'm going to be spending the rest of today decorating the front of the house and trimming my Addams mustache to PERFECTION. I wish you a happy Halloween!
- Bambousio Starswinger
Comments

Nancy Drew @nancy52761
Your nephew's art is wonderful, Bambo! So lovely to see the youth expressing their creativity through this new technology.

Bambousio Starswinger @StarswingerBigtop
Why thank you, Nancy! I can't wait to show him this!

Polka Glück @m1m3xrotx
Your misinformation on the Sewer Clown is so harmful. I know you're all about denouncing stereotypes but you get why they have that stereotype in the first place, right?

Bambousio Starswinger @StarswingerBigtop
Someone's still a little salty the Horror Clown nipped at them when they were eight, I see. Talk to the hand!

Durian @D5318008
Are these clowns dangerous, Bambousio? Please explain yourself. You have insisted they are not a danger to the greater public outside of your…community.

Bambousio Starswinger @StarswingerBigtop
Don't worry, my darling Agent. Some schmuck's just a bit jealous of how naturally good I am at handling clowns. But don't worry, I got this. *cracks knuckles*.

Polka Glück @m1m3xrotx
Typical Starswinger behaviour, smh. You want drama? Let's debate.

Bambousio Starswinger @StarswingerBigtop
Fine, I'll entertain you. Check DMS.

Guest
what the hell have i walked in on?

Bambousio Starswinger @StarswingerBigtop
The wonderful world of clown husbandry, my friend! Let me just- Oops! I dropped my introductory post on the floor! I hope no one clicks on it while I pick it up…

Levealuto3 @dnddksdnddneksdnaston3
Terrible post as usual. Stop blocking me.

Levealuto3 @dnddksdnddneksdnaston3
helloooooo

This comment has been removed by the creator or moderator. You cannot reply to this comment.

Guest
rude bambousio moments?!?!?!?

Polka Glück @m1m3xrotx
Noooo, he deleted it! Got a screenshot tho, Bambo you GOTTA be more ruthless! Get these weird sapient clown superiorists OUT of here!

Bambousio Starswinger @StarswingerBigtop
That was very unprofessional of me, sorry. But I will be up and arms with Levealuto if I happen to see him in person. You better not encourage me, Glück.


There are two types of animals that live in artificial, climate-controlled structures— humans and termites. Where they differ is that humans have developed architecture out of intelligence, whereas termites do so completely through instinct.
That was what stuck out to me in the book I'd read in the library, all those years ago. Before then, I hadn't really thought much about termites. I knew all about what they were, but as far as I was concerned, they were just pests— they ate your walls and your furniture, and forced you to have to fumigate your house. I considered myself what you might call an "animal person", though since I was living on a shoestring budget after graduating from college I couldn't have a pet. But termites were one animal I never had any sort of love for. If I saw any in my house, I would step on them, no questions asked. But by and large, I didn't waste many brain cells worrying about what they could do.
And then I moved into the townhouse.
Actually, that's a generous way of putting it. Ever since the economy crashed, I'd been doing all sorts of odd jobs to make ends meet. And unfortunately for me, those jobs weren't enough to pay the rent on my apartment.What really happened was my landlord woke me up that morning with an ultimatum that basically boiled down to something like this: "If you, Gary Hughes, do not pay that rent to me by this afternoon, I'm kicking you out of here before you can say 'homeless'". I didn't really have anything to say, because in truth I couldn't pay the rent, so out I went.
The only place I could afford to stay was a decrepit old townhouse, the kind that looked like it ought to have been condemned and torn down fifty years ago. But the rent was low and the neighbors were nice, so I set up there. It was still within driving distance of my job, so I was back on my feet soon enough. I thought I would make it past this low point eventually. Oh, how wrong I was. In fact, my troubles were just beginning.
Which brings me to those goddamn termites.
Termites and old wooden buildings go together like peanut butter and jelly, or like rednecks and Trump rallies. And also like rednecks, there's just no reasoning with them. It started out no different than any other experience with termites I'd had in the past. I found a couple of them in my dresser, and squished them as soon as I did. I wasn't sure if they were actually eating my dresser, or if they'd been tunneling inside the walls, but either way I wasn't taking any chances. I sprayed some insecticide everywhere I could and considered the problem solved.
It wasn't. The termites kept coming back. Termites, you need to realize, aren't like ants. Ants will just come in and nibble on your food here and there, then take it back to their anthill or wherever it is they live. Not termites. They'll tunnel right into your house, and tear the whole thing down. I'd read all about it, but I'd never seen it like this.
Still, it wasn't anything I was unprepared for. You know the drill, Gary, I kept telling myself. Just keep squishing and spraying. Eventually they'll just stop showing up completely. It was a good mantra, one that kept me from going insane as more of those damn insects started crawling into my house, but it ultimately never did me any good.
I'd endured about a week of this when I finally decided I just couldn't take it anymore. Calling an exterminator was strictly out of the question, given how little money I had, so I decided to talk to my neighbor, John McClatchey. He was a nice guy, though a bit prone to wild rants when he was drunk, which was a lot. Still, he was the first of the tenants in this townhouse I had befriended. I pushed the door open quietly— I could hear John's TV on, with a Panthers game playing— and walked inside, calling his name. John was obsessed with football, and didn't like being distracted from a game. I thought about leaving, but I decided this was too important, so I walked around in front of his chair to get his attention. Immediately, I wished I hadn't.
Whatever was sitting in that chair, it wasn't John. Or at least, it wasn't John anymore.
It was still shaped like him, and it still wore his clothes, but all the flesh was gone. In its place was a shapeless pile of something white that seethed and frothed, with a foaming, crackling sound that made me almost want to vomit. Without thinking anymore, I placed my finger into it, and held it up to my eyes as I examined what came out. My finger was coated with termites. Tiny, white, blind, no larger than grains of rice, but there was no mistaking them for what they were. They crawled all over my hand, the sensation of their tiny legs on my skin sending shivers across my whole body. Involuntarily, I screamed.
Back in my own apartment, I pinched myself to make sure I wasn't hallucinating. And then I pulled up the internet to do some research about termites. The results didn't help me one bit.
Termites feed on cellulose, which they get from dead wood and other plant material. They are often considered pests because they tunnel into the wooden foundations of buildings. The web sites I read all said the same thing. Absolutely nothing about termites eating flesh. Next thing I did was call the police, which didn't help either. I'm pretty sure the dispatcher thought I was on drugs or something when I told him what I was calling about.
John, it turned out, was only the first of many. The other tenants of the townhouse either didn't know about the termite problem, or didn't care. There were three of us when I moved in— me, John, and an 80-year-old woman named Jane Collins. Jane, I was pretty sure, was going senile, and I hardly ever saw her. So when I hadn't heard from her for several days, at first it didn't rank too high on my list of concerns. However, I did want to give her some of the cookies I'd baked, so I decided to stop by her house on the way home from work.
Jane was nowhere to be seen in her living room, or in her kitchen. Cautiously I made my way up to her bedroom, wondering if she was asleep. She was a very heavy sleeper. As I put my ear to her bedroom door, I heard the sound again— the same awful, seething sound that had come from the mass of termites in John's house. This time, though, it was much louder. I opened the door a crack, and there I saw it. Another human-sized congregation of termites, occupying the space where I was fairly certain Jane had been not so long ago.
Questions began exploding in my mind, bursting like kernels of popcorn. What was going on here? Why was this happening? How long had it been since Jane and John been… killed by termites?
The termites kept coming back, and I still did the same things I always did to keep them at bay. Except they didn't work, and the termites seemed bolder. They didn't just come in small groups of three or four. There were whole waves of them. Dozens, hundreds even, invading my home in waves much faster than I could kill them. They got into the kitchen, the bathroom, the living room, everywhere. The whole inside of the house was crawling with them, and there were times when I was afraid to go to sleep. And when I did, I didn't count sheep. I counted termites. Hundreds, thousands of them, marching across my field of vision in one massive swarm.
It was a few days after that— two weeks after I'd moved into the townhouse— that things became even more bizarre. The termites hadn't let up their invasion, and the wooden panels on the living room floor were falling off. One of them was hanging on by a splinter of wood, so I decided to just go ahead and tear it off. When I did, I wasn't prepared for what was under it.
The area under the loose board— and, it seemed, the whole ceiling— was full of termites. But these weren't ordinary termites. They were bigger, as big as my fingernail. Their bodies had the same glistening white color, but their jaws were much bigger. Huge, snapping jaws, more like a stag beetle than any termite I'd seen. There was a smell about them, too. Not the vaguely mildewy odor that I normally associated with termite infestations, but something acidic.
I began snapping pictures with my phone, hoping that people would believe me. I'd never seen termites like these before, after all. But instead of just sending them right away, I wanted to find out more. Looking through the hole in the wooden floor, I could see the crawl space under the townhouse— the termites, or whatever it is they were, had apparently eaten away everything else between that and the floor. Armed with that information, I decided to climb down into the crawl space myself.
The crawl space was dark, musty, and cramped. I had to bend over on all fours to move about, and even then I could barely see. What I could see, however, made me wish I hadn't come down there. The entire crawl space was filled with termites, blanketing every conceivable surface like a hideous living carpet. These were the same huge termites I had seen when I first lifted the board. As I crawled among them, they began to bite me. It hurt, but not enough to deter me from moving.
Termites were everything down here. The ground, the walls, the ceiling— all was no more than a seething, pulsing mass of termites. The very topography of the ground seemed to be made up of piles upon piles of live termites. And in the distance, I could see two, much larger objects jutting out of the ground. Feeling my way closer to them, and not caring how many termites I crushed in the process, I shined my flashlight at them, and nearly dropped it in shock when I saw what they were.
Jane and John— or rather, their emaciated, termite-covered bodies— stood at the far end of the crawl space, like statues guarding a doorway. Their mouths hung open and their eyes were gone. Instead, hundreds of the huge termites crawled in and out of their faces as they sat agape in silent screams. I nearly screamed myself, but exercised restraint. Whatever these creatures were, it would not do to make them angry.
I couldn't help but noticing, at the same time, that all of the termites seemed to be converging in one direction. They were moving almost as a cohesive mass, flowing like a river between John and Jane's bodies. Gingerly, I began to follow them. If the termites were focused on going here, this was somewhere very important to them.
This was where they had their Queen.
The termites poured down from all sides, resembling not so much individual animals as a torrent of pale waxy things. Some of them carried objects in their jaws, but with the poor visibility, I couldn't tell what they were. I followed them ever deeper, towards a chamber that I was sure took me below the main crawl space.
The thing that sat in the middle of that chamber was no mere termite, at least not from my understanding. All of my books told me that a queen termite is really just an egg-layer, that she doesn't have any actual control over the colony. That wasn't what I was seeing here. It was massive— its bloated, distended, throbbing abdomen was at least the size of an SUV, and that made up the majority of its body. The much smaller termites crawled all over it, as if they were performing various tasks on it. I had no idea how I knew this, but somehow I could tell that this creature hated me. It didn't have a face with any expressions I could read, but I could feel it radiating out from it, almost like a physical object.
I began to back away, but the swarm of termites surrounding it began to move towards me in unison, as if this thing was subconsciously commanding them to do it. And then they began rushing at me, like a giant wave. The sound, which up until that point had just been irritating background noise, became unbearable. Clicking, chirping, chattering, chomping, all of those words you can think of, can barely describe what it was like to have millions of voracious insects charging at me. I dropped my flashlight and my phone, and I ran. I didn't care that I wouldn't have any proof of what I'd seen. I just wanted to get out alive.
It's been a week since then, and the termites have only gotten more bold. They've been invading my house in larger and larger numbers, and I can barely leave my own room. All I have left is several gallon bottles filled with lighter fluid. I don't know if I'll make it out of this alive, but I hope they don't.