A Shattered Life
18 Oct, 2018
A Shattered Life
Reading Time: 14 minutes
I don’t know when you’re going to read this, but I can tell you when it started: I was out for a walk alone in the woods when the entity came for me. It was beyond a blur. It was, for lack of a better term, absence of meaning. Where it hid, there were no trees; where it crept closer, there was no grass; through the arc it leapt at me, there was no breeze of motion. There was no air at all.
As it struck, I felt the distinct sensation of claws puncturing me somewhere unseen; somewhere I’d never felt before. My hands and arms and legs and torso seemed fine and I wasn’t bleeding, but I knew I’d been injured somehow. As I fearfully ran back home, I could tell that I was less. I was vaguely tired, and it was hard to focus at times.
The solution at that early stage was easy: a big cup of coffee helped me feel normal again.
For a while, that subtle drain on my spirit became lost in the ebb and flow of caffeine in my system. You could say my life began that week, actually, because that was when I met Mar. She and I got along great, though, to be honest, I’m pretty sure I fell in love with her over the phone before we even met.
It was almost as if the strong emotions of that first week made the entity fight back—it was still with me, latched on to some invisible part of my being.
The first few incidents were minor, and I hardly worried about them. The color of a neighbor’s car changed from dark blue to black one morning, and I stared at it before shaking my head and shrugging off the difference. Two days later, at work, a coworker’s name changed from Fred to Dan. I carefully asked around, but everyone said his name had always been Dan. I figured I’d just been mistaken.
Then, as ridiculous as this sounds, I was peeing in my bathroom at home when I suddenly found myself on a random street. I was still in my pajamas, pants down, and urinating—but now in full view of a dozen people at a bus stop. Horrified, I pulled up my clothes and ran before someone called the cops. I did manage to get home, but the experience forced me to admit that I was still in danger. The entity was doing something to me, and I didn’t understand how to fight back.
Mar showed up that evening, but she had her own key.
“Hey,” I asked her with confusion. “How’d you get a key?”
She just laughed. “You’re cute. Are you sure you’re okay with this?” She opened a door and entered a room full of boxes. “I know living together is a big step, especially when we’ve only been dating three months.”
Living together? I’d literally just met her the week before. Thing was, my mother had always called me a smart cookie for a reason. I knew when to shut my yap. Instead of causing a scene, I told her everything was fine—and then I went straight to my room and began investigating.
My things were just as I had left them with no sign of a three month gap in habitation, but I did find something out of the ordinary: the date. I shivered angrily as I processed the truth.
The entity had eaten three months of my life.
What the hell was I facing? What kind of creature could consume pieces of one’s soul like that? I’d missed the most exciting part of a new relationship, and I would never understand any shared stories or in-jokes from that period. Something absurdly precious had been taken from me, and I was furious.
That fury helped suppress the entity. I never imbibed alcohol. I drank coffee religiously. I checked the date every time I woke up. For three years, I managed to live each day while observing nothing more than minor alterations. A social fact here and there—someone’s job, how many kids they had, that sort of thing—the layout of nearby streets, the time my favorite television show aired, that kind of thing. Always, those changes reminded me the creature still had its claws sunk into my spirit. Not once in three years did I ever let myself zone out.
One day, I grew careless. I let myself get really into the season finale of my favorite show. It was gripping; a fantastic story. Right at the height of the action, a young boy came up to my lounger and shook my arm.
Surprised, I asked, “Who are you? How did you get in here?”
He laughed and smiled brightly. “Silly Daddy!”
My heart sank in my chest. I knew immediately what had happened. After a few masked questions, I discovered that he was two years old—and that he was my son.
The agony and heartache filling my chest was nearly unbearable. Not only had I missed the birth of my son, I would never see or know the first years of his life. Mar and I had obviously gotten married and started a family in the time I’d lost, and I had no idea what joys or pains those years contained.
It was snowing outside. Holding my sudden son in my lap, I sat and watched the flakes fall outside. What kind of life was this going to be if slips in concentration could cost me years? I had to get help.
The church had no idea what to do. The priests didn’t believe me, and told me I had a health issue rather than some sort of possession.
The doctors didn’t have any clue. Nothing showed up on all their scans and tests, but they happily took my money in return for nothing.
By the time I ran out of options, I’d decided to tell Mar. There was no way to know what this all looked like from her side. What was I like when I wasn’t there? Did I still take our son to school? Did I still do my job? Clearly, I did, because she seemed to be none the wiser, but I still had a horrible feeling that something must have been missing in her life when I wasn’t actually home inside my own head.
But the night I set up a nice dinner in preparation, she arrived not by unlocking the front door, but by knocking on it. I answered, and found that she was in a nice dress.
She was happily surprised by the settings on the table. “A fancy dinner for a second date? I knew you were sweet on me!”
Thank the Lord I knew when to keep my mouth shut. If I’d gone on about being married and having a son, she might have run for the hills. Instead, I took her coat and sat down for our second date.
Through carefully crafted questions, I managed to deduce the truth. This really was our second date. She saw relief and happiness in me, but interpreted that as dating jitters. I was just excited to realize that the entity wasn’t necessarily eating whole portions of my life. The symptoms, as I was beginning to understand them, were more like the consequences of a shattered soul. The creature had wounded me; broken me into pieces. Perhaps I was to live my life out of order, but at least I would actually get to live it.
And so it went for a few years—from my perspective. While minor changes in politics or geography would happen daily, major shifts in my mental location only happened every couple months. When I found myself in a new place and time in my life, I just shut up and listened, making sure to get the lay of the land before doing anything to avoid making mistakes. On the farthest-flung leap yet, I met my six-year-old grandson, and I asked him what he wanted to be when he grew up. He said, “Writer.” I told him that was a fine idea.
Then, I was back in month two of my relationship with Mar, and I had the best night with her on the riverfront. When I say the best, I mean the best. Knowing how special she would become to me, I asked her to move in. I got to live through what I’d missed the first go-around, and I came to understand that I was never mentally absent. I would always be there—eventually. When we were moving her boxes in, she stopped for a moment and said she marveled at my great love, as if I’d known her for a lifetime and never once doubted she was the one.
That was the first time I’d truly laughed freely and wholeheartedly since the entity had wounded me. She was right about my love for her, but for exactly the reason she’d considered a silly romantic analogy. I had known her my whole life, and I’d come to terms with my situation and found peace with it. It wasn’t so bad to have sneak peeks at all the best parts ahead.
But of course I wouldn’t be writing this if it hadn’t gotten worse. The entity was still with me. It had not wounded me and departed like I’d wanted to believe. The closest I can describe my growing understanding was that the creature was burrowing deeper into my psyche, fracturing it into smaller pieces. Instead of months between major shifts, I began having only weeks. Once I noticed that trend, I feared my ultimate fate would be to jump between times in my life heartbeat by heartbeat, forever confused, forever lost. Only an instant in each time meant I would never be able to speak with anyone else, never be able to hold a conversation, never express or receive love.
As the true depth of that fear came upon me, I sat in an older version of me and watched the snow falling outside. That was the one constant in my life: the weather didn’t care who I was or what pains I had to face. Nature was always there. The falling snow was always like a little hook that kept me in a place; the pure emotional peace it brought was like a panacea on my mental wounds, and I’d never yet shifted while watching the pattern of falling white and thinking of the times I’d gone sledding or built a snow fort as a child.
A teenager touched my arm. “Grandpa?”
“Eh?” He’d startled me out of my thoughts, so I was less careful than usual. “Who are you?”
He half-grinned, as if not sure whether I was joking. Handing me a stack of papers, he said, “It’s my first attempt at a novel. Would you read it and tell me what you think?”
Ahh, of course. “Pursuing that dream of being a writer, I see.”
He burned bright red. “Trying to, anyway.”
“All right. Run off, I’ll read this right now.” The words were blurry, and, annoyed, I looked for glasses I probably had for reading. Being old was terrible, and I wanted to leap back into a younger year—but not before I read his book. I found my glasses in a sweater pocket, and began leafing through. Mar puttered in and out of the living room, still beautiful, but I had to focus. I didn’t know how much time I would have there.
It seemed that we had relatives over. Was it Christmas? A pair of adults and a couple kids I didn’t recognize tromped through the hallway, and I saw my son, now adult, walk by with his wife on the way out the door. As a group, the extended family began sledding outside.
Finally, I finished reading the story, and I called out for my grandson. He rushed down the stairs and into the living room. “How was it?”
“Well, it’s terrible,” I told him truthfully. “But it’s terrible for all the right reasons. You’re still a young man, so your characters behave like young people, but the structure of the story itself is very solid.” I paused. “I didn’t expect it to turn out to be a horror story.”
He nodded. “It’s a reflection of the times. Expectations for the future are dismal, not hopeful like they used to be.”
“You’re far too young to be aware like that,” I told him. An idea occurred to me. “If you’re into horror, do you know anything about strange creatures?”
“Sure. I read everything I can. I love it.”
Warily, I scanned the entrances to the living room. Everyone was busy outside. For the first time, I opened up to someone in my life about what I was experiencing. In hushed tones, I told him about my fragmented consciousness.
For a teenager, he took it well. “You’re serious?”
“Yes.”
He donned the determined look of a grown man accepting a quest. “I’ll look into it, see what I can find out. You should start writing down everything you experience. Build some data. Maybe we can map your psychic wound.”
Wow. “Sounds like a plan.” I was surprised. That made sense, and I hadn’t expected him to have a serious response. “But how will I get all the notes in one place?”
“Let’s come up with somewhere for you to leave them,” he said, frowning with thought. “Then I’ll get them, and we can trace the path you’re taking through your own life, see if there’s a pattern.”
For the first time since the situation had gotten worse, I felt hope again. “How about under the stairs? Nobody ever goes under there.”
“Sure.” He turned and left the living room.
I peered after him. I heard him banging around near the stairs.
Finally, he returned with a box, laid it on the carpet, and opened it to reveal a bursting stack of papers. He exclaimed, “Holy crap!”—but of course, being a teenager, he didn’t really say crap.
Taken aback, I blinked rapidly, forgiving his cussing because of the shock. “Did I write those?”
He looked up at me with wonder. “Yeah. Or, you will. You still have to write them and put them under the stairs after this.” He gazed back down at the papers—then covered the box. “So you probably shouldn’t see what they say. That could get weird.”
That much I understood. “Right.”
He gulped. “There are like fifty boxes under there, all filled up like this. Deciphering these will take a very long time.” His tone dropped to deadly seriousness. “But I will save you, grandpa. Because I don’t think anyone else can.”
Tears flowed down my cheeks then, and I couldn’t help but sob once or twice. I hadn’t realized how lonely I’d become in my shifting prison of awareness until I finally had someone who understood. “Thank you. Thank you so much.”
And then I was young again, and at work on a random Tuesday. Once the sadness and relief faded, anger and determination replaced them. After I finished my work, I grabbed some paper and began writing. While the weeks shifted around me, while those weeks became days, and then hours, I wrote every single spare moment about when and where I thought I was. I put them under the stairs out of order; my first box was actually the thirtieth, and my last box was the first. Once I had over fifty boxes written from my perspective—and once my shifting became a matter of minutes—I knew it was up to my grandson to take it from there.
I put my head down and stopped looking. I couldn’t stand the river of changing awareness any longer. Names and places and dates and jobs and colors and people were all wrong and different.
I’d never been older. I sat watching the snow fall. A man of at least thirty that I vaguely recognized entered the room. “Come on, I think I finally figured it out.”
I was so frail that moving was painful. “Are you him? Are you my grandson?”
“Yes.” He took me to a room filled with strange equipment and sat me in a rubber chair facing a large mirror twice the height of a man. “The pattern finally revealed itself.”
“How long have you worked on this?” I asked him, aghast. “Tell me you didn’t miss your life like I’m missing mine!”
His expression was both stone cold and furiously resolute. “It’ll be worth it.” He brought two thin metal rods close to my arm and then nodded at the mirror. “Look. This shock is carefully calibrated.”
The electric zap from his device was startling, but not painful. In the mirror, I saw a rapid arcing light-silhouette appear above my head and shoulder. The electricity moved through the creature like a wave, briefly revealing the terrible nature of what was happening to me. A bulging leech-like mouth was wrapped around the back of my head, coming down to my eyebrows and touching each ear, and its slug-like body ran over my shoulder and into my very soul.
It was a parasite.
And it was feeding on my mind.
My now-adult grandson held my hand as I took in the horror. After a moment, he asked, “Removing it is going to hurt very badly. Are you up for this?”
Fearful, I asked, “Is Mar here?”
His face softened. “No. Not for a few years now.”
I could tell from his reaction what had happened, but I didn’t want it to be true. “How?”
“We have this conversation a lot,” he responded. “Are you sure you want to know? It never makes you feel better.”
Tears brimmed in my eyes. “Then I don’t care if it hurts, or if I die. I don’t want to stay in a time where she’s not alive.”
He made a sympathetic noise of understanding and then returned to his machines to hook several wires, diodes, and other bits of technology to my limbs and forehead. While he did so, he talked. “I’ve worked for two decades to figure this out, and I’ve had a ton of help from other researchers of the occult. This parasite doesn’t technically exist in our plane. It’s one of the lesser spawns of µ¬ßµ, and it feeds on the plexus of mind, soul, and quantum consciousness/reality. When details like names and colors of objects changed, you weren’t going crazy. The web of your existence was merely losing strands as the creature ate its way through you.”
I didn’t fully understand. I looked up in confusion as he placed a circlet of electronics like a crown on my head in exact line with where the parasite’s mouth had ringed me. “What’s µ¬ßµ?”
He paused his work and grew pale. “I forgot that you wouldn’t know. You’re lucky, believe me.” After a deep breath, he began moving again, and placed his fingers near a few switches. “Ready? This is carefully tuned to make your nervous system extremely unappetizing to the parasite, but it’s basically electro-shock therapy.”
I could still see Mar’s smile. Even though she was dead, I’d just been with her moments ago. “Do it.”
The click of a switch echoed in my ears, and I almost laughed at how mild the electricity was. It didn’t feel like anything—at least at first. Then, I saw the mirror shaking, and my body within that image convulsing. Oh. No. It did hurt. Nothing had ever been more painful. It was just so excruciating that my mind hadn’t been able to immediately process it.
As my vision shook and fire burned in every nerve in my body, I could see the reflected trembling light-silhouette of the parasite on my head as it writhed in agony equal to mine. It had claws—six clawed lizard-like limbs under its leech-like body—and it cut into me in an attempt to stay latched on.
The electricity made my memories flare.
Mar’s smile was foremost, lit brightly in front of a warm fire as the snow fell past the window behind her. The edges of that memory began lighting up, and I realized that my life was one continuous stretch of experience—it was only the awareness of it that had been fragmented by that feasting evil on my back.
I’d never managed to be there for the birth of my son. I’d jumped around it a dozen times, but never actually lived it. For the first time, I got to hold Mar’s hand and be there for her.
No. No! That moment had shifted seamlessly into holding her hand as she lay in a hospital bed for a very different reason. Not this! God, why? It was so merciless to make me remember this. I broke down in tears as nurses rushed into the room. I didn’t want to know. I didn’t want to experience it. I’d seen all the good parts, but I hadn’t wanted the worst part—the inevitable end that all would one day face.
It wasn’t worth it. It was tainted. All that joy was given back ten thousand fold as pain.
The fire in my body and in my brain surged to sheer white torture, and I screamed.
My scream faded into a surprised shout as the machines and electricity and chair faded away. Snow was no longer falling around my life; I was out in the woods on a bright summer day.
Oh God.
I turned to see the creature approaching me. It was the same absence of meaning; the same blank on reality. It crept forward, just like before—but, this time, it hissed and turned away. I stood, astounded at being young again and freed from the parasite. My grandson had actually done it! He’d made me an unappetizing meal, so the predator of mind and soul had moved on in search of a different snack.
I returned home in a daze.
And while I was sitting there processing all that had happened, the phone rang. I looked at it in awe and sadness. I knew who it was. It was Marjorie, calling for the first time for some trivial reason she’d admit thirty years later was made up just to talk to me.
But all I could see was her lying in that hospital bed dying. It was going to end in unspeakable pain and loneliness. I would become an old man, left to sit by myself in an empty house, his soulmate gone long before him. At the end of it all, the only thing I would have left: sitting and watching the falling snow.
But now, thanks to my grandson, I would also have my memories. It would be a wild ride, no matter how it ended.
On a sudden impulse, I picked up the phone. With a smile, I asked, “Hey, who’s this?”
Even though I already knew.
Author’s note: Together, my grandfather and I did set out to write the tale of his life. Unfortunately, his Alzheimer’s disease progressed rapidly, and we were never able to finish. He’s still alive, but I imagine that, mentally, he is in a better place than the nursing home. I like to think he’s back in his younger days, living life and being happy, because the reality is much colder. It’s snowing today; he loves the snow. When I visited him, he didn’t recognize me, but he did smile as he sat looking out the window.
CREDIT: Matt Dymerski (Blog FB Tw.)
(Click HERE to pick up a copy of Matt Dymerski’s book, A Shattered Life and Other Stories)
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Tales from the Gas Station (Part Six)
17 Oct, 2018
Tales from the Gas Station (Part Six)
Reading Time: 14 minutes
*PART 1 // PART 2 // PART 3 // PART 5*
Hey everybody! It’s me, Jerry, from the gas station at the edge of town. Proud to be the newest member of the team. The owners were so impressed with how I managed to stay inside the store for several days without leaving or going insane that they offered me a full time position while the regular clerk is out recovering from his leg injury. Happy Monday, ya’ll!
The other guy asked me to do him a small favor while he’s getting some much needed “rest” and relaxation. He gave me the password to his laptop and detailed instructions to transcribe his journal entries from last week. In exchange, he agreed to keep me on as a full-time assistant after he gets back. I get to to learn what to expect on the job through first-hand documentation, and he gets to continue his weird little blog thing. Now that’s what I call a win-win.
If I’m being honest, this is probably the best thing that could have happened to me right now. Ever since the program mysteriously dissolved at the Mathmatist community, I’ve been feeling very lost and vulnerable. I’ve been losing weight and having trouble sleeping, and when I do, I keep having these weird dreams of some enormous being, deep below the gas station, waiting to devour us all. Clearly, a mistake was made and I was overlooked. If any of my old brothers and sisters are out there and see this post, please, please, contact me! Tell the seniors they forgot me! I’m not mad! I miss you! I love you!
Before I get started, some guys in suits came by and suggested that if this blog were going to continue, that I make a PSA. If there is anybody still alive that read the story about what happened here on Halloween, don’t wait for symptoms to start. Please go to the nearest emergency room or call the Center for Disease Control and tell them you are experiencing the effects of “Romald’s Syndrome.”
Anyway, back to the journals. I’m going to do my best because the guy’s handwriting is awful. But here’s the parts I could read:
11/07/07
7:00 PM
The man in the trench coat was standing out back when I went to take out the garbage tonight. I don’t know why the man in the trench coat keeps visiting my store, or why I’ve never gotten a good look at him. He was standing at the tree line just beyond the dumpsters, staring as he ever did. Tonight, I stared back.
The hinge of his jaw began halfway up his face, where his nose should have been, the edges pulled back to either ear in a skeletal grin. His tiny, milky-white eyes were beads behind the oily black hairline that hung down straight in bangs all the way to his cheek jowl. His impossibly-wide mouth bisected the head between greasy hair and wet flesh. Drool, I would assume…
We stood there, fifteen feet apart, staring at one another for what might have been ten seconds or ten minutes, until finally the man in the trench coat turned away. His legs bent funny, in a way that human legs shouldn’t be able to bend, and he landed on all fours before galloping off into the woods.
I don’t know if I’ve seen the last of the man in the trench coat.
Holy shit! Did you guys read that?! This is some crazy shit! Sorry, Jerry again. I promise I’m not going to do the running commentary thing, I just had to say… Jesus, you know? This is some weird stuff. I mean, I remember him telling me a couple weeks ago to go outside and talk to a man in a trench coat. Super glad I didn’t now. What the hell? Okay, that’s it, I’m done. Back to the transcriptions. The next page is soaked in blood and completely unreadable, so I’m going to have to skip that part:
…hundreds and hundreds of them. She had never seen so many in one place before, not even in her dreams. Before she left, she told me that I would see her again. Was that supposed to be a warning or a flirtation?
3:23 AM
It’s a quieter night than I’m used to. The package from yesterday afternoon still sits on the counter where I left it. The label is made out to me, with a return address I don’t recognize. The rectangular parcel is wrapped like a Christmas present with red and yellow stripes and feels heavy. I would say it’s just the right size for a dead cat.
I can’t think of any realistic reason I shouldn’t open the package, but there is something in the back of my mind telling me that to open this would be tantamount to opening Pandora’s Box. That the contents of this little parcel will irrevocably change the course of my life in a way that may have seemed impossible before. I feel like this box is full of butterflies ready to create tsunamis, and I’m just not sure I’m ready for that yet.
I think I’m going to teach Marlboro how to clean the drink machines.
3:47 AM
Marlboro is passed out in a hammock in the supply closet. I think he finished that bottle on his own. I guess I’ll go clean the drink machines by myself.
5:45 AM
The hand plants are growing faster than I had anticipated. They are now past the elbows, almost to the shoulders. I saw that the crop had caught a curious coyote that got too close. It was not pretty. I also noticed that Rocco is still alive. I caught him sitting on the roof, tossing food to the crop of hand plants.
This is why they’re growing so fast. They’re eating way too much. If this gets out of control, I may have to torch this crop just like the others. I don’t want to. It sends shivers down my spine whenever I hear the way they scream.
7:30 AM
Carlos came in for his morning shift looking pretty terrible. He filled up on coffee and told me that he hadn’t been sleeping too well. The bad dreams had been keeping him from getting a restful night.
I wonder if I should tell Carlos about my condition.
He asked about the gift-wrapped package sitting on the counter. I told him that it came with the post yesterday, and I didn’t know who it was from. He asked if I was going to open it, and I told him that I had a bad feeling and pretty much decided to never ever open it.
10:00 AM
I decided to open the package. Without any fanfare or drumroll, I’ll just tell you that what I found inside was a brand new laptop computer. I’ve never owned my own laptop before, and the only computer that ever belonged to me was a crappy little Tandy-1000 that I put together as a kid. I’ve always used the library computer lab or the browser on my phone to access the internet. This could be a game changer.
The box also contains a signal repeater and some other gizmos. I know this is crazy, but I think I may actually be able to access the internet from the gas station now.
There was a handwritten note at the bottom of the package:
Hello.
I left a comment on your page. There’s something I want to tell you. I’m enjoying reading these stories you’re writing, but I think if you actually sit down and write out one story at a time, that you will get a lot more upvotes. It’s very good, I’m not saying it’s bad. But right now it seems like a lot of half stories thrown together. I think you’d do great if you actually wrote out a whole story at a time. I bet you really could get a lot of upvotes and attention. It gets kind of confusing right now. Maybe start with when you got there and work your way up to now. I bet that would be super awesome. I’m so fascinated, but a little muddled as well. I can tell you have a great talent for writing, but I just thought maybe I’d offer a suggestion to help. Please do not take offense… it’s just something I was thinking. Hope all is going well for you!
Great. Another one of my readers tracked me down. I’m going to have to figure out how people keep finding me and put a stop to this. Thank you, whoever you are, for the laptop. I’m definitely keeping it.
10:15 AM
I turned on the wifi card and noticed that for some reason there are dozens of secured networks around the gas station, most of which have four or five bars. The names for their networks are pure gobbledy-gook like this one: “1E7G7C7TA11GUY232331324.” Who the hell is transmitting wifi out here?
11:00 AM
A man came into the store to buy a gas can a couple hours ago. I didn’t think much of it at the time, but then he came back in asking if we could help him out with something down the road. I never got his name, but he was a big guy, tan skin, and a thick beard. He said he was having “car trouble.” I told him I wasn’t a car guy, but he insisted that he didn’t need a car guy, he just needed someone else to see what he was seeing.
Marlboro agreed to watch the counter while Carlos and I followed the bearded man down the hill and around the curve, close to the spot where Carlos saw that thing in the woods.
He couldn’t remember what happened that night. After we got everything sorted out with Spencer and things started to go back to “normal,” I asked Carlos what it was that he saw in the woods that sent him running in such a careless panic, but he just shook his head and said he didn’t know. The mind is a funny thing, and memories aren’t the most reliable. I realize that I’m not the only person from the gas station with a list of “try and forget” stories.
The man’s car was parked on the side of the road, close to the same spot that Kieffer’s SUV was broken down.
“So my car started acting funny,” the guy said as we neared his vehicle. I began to wonder why we had walked this whole way, when our own vehicle would be quite useful in case of a dead battery or random bear attack. The guy kept going, “I pulled over onto the side of the road when my electricals all started going haywire. I killed the engine, then when I tried to turn it over again, nadda.”
I could see at this point that the hood was open. The man was driving a big black SUV similar to the one Kieffer owned, but newer and shinier.
“I don’t see what’s so weird about that. You need us to call a tow or-” the man cut Carlos off (rudely, I might add).
“I popped the hood, but everything was in order. I thought it maybe just needed some gas, so I went up to the station. Then when I got back, I saw this.”
We rounded the front of the car and saw the “this” he was being so vague about: A small oak tree, maybe four or five years old, was growing up from the ground beneath the car, through the engine, and stretched upwards at least nine feet. The trunk of the tree had swallowed a decent portion of the engine, and from the looks of it the car had been parked there for years.
“Interesting,” I said. “And you’re sure that wasn’t there when you started driving?”
Before he could answer, he spun his head around and looked at the forest.
“You boys hear that?” He asked.
We stood still and listened, but I didn’t hear anything.
“No,” I answered. Carlos shrugged.
“You boys know what an anglerfish is?” the bearded man asked as he walked to the back door and opened it.
“Yeah, I guess,” I answered.
The bearded man pulled up a secret compartment from beneath the floorboard and retrieved a large automatic rifle. I’m not a gun guy, and I can’t tell you what kind of gun it was, but it was big, impressive, and cool looking. The guy checked the clip and clicked something on the gun that might have been the safety. Again, I’m not a gun guy. But it sounded super cool. Carlos put a hand on my shoulder and slowly backed away from the man with the gun, pulling me with him.
But the man didn’t seem to mind us one bit. He was focused on whatever he heard in the woods.
“If I’m right, you boys have an anglerfish in them woods. It’s putting something out there to lure me in. Make me think I’m hearing something that I’m not. Then when I go looking for the one thing – BAM – it attacks.”
“Oh, like a siren?” I asked.
The man looked at me over his shoulder with a smirk and said, “Yeah. Like a siren. Ya’ll may wanna get out of here. This could get dangerous. Don’t worry about me. I’ve dealt with these things before, I’ll be fine.”
The man pointed his gun and marched into the woods while Carlos and I made our way back to the gas station.
2:00 PM
It’s time for me to go home. I haven’t used the laptop yet, but maybe tomorrow I’ll start to type up these journals.
11/08
6:00 PM
It’s getting dark so early these days.
I noticed that the bearded man’s SUV is still at the bottom of the hill with a tree growing through it. I wouldn’t call that a good sign.
11:00
I burned the rest of the hand plants. I finally know what’s going on.
A long time ago, I noticed what looked like strange mushrooms growing in a patch near the dumpster behind the gas station. I didn’t think much about it, except that it was strange that Rocco’s brood wouldn’t go near them.
When I took a closer look, I could have sworn that they looked just like baby fingers poking out of the ground.
As the weather got warmer, I kept an eye on the crops. They started getting longer and looking more and more distinguishably similar to human fingers. I swear they even started growing fingernails. Sometimes, I would see them bend at the digits to squash a bug that wandered too close.
Eventually, the mushrooms started sprouting leaves, and the finger sections continued to stretch out, creating what could only be described as hands. Human hands. They would ball up into fists during the daytime and open up in the moonlight. I dug one of them up one day when we were really slow at work, and I called Farmer Junior to ask for his professional opinion.
To the untrained eye, the hand plant looked just like a regular human hand. Smaller than an adult’s, but larger than a child’s. Adolescent. Teenager maybe. At the wrist it turned into a gnarled root that smelled like sassafras, and throughout the plant tiny leaves were sprouting.
Farmer Junior stood in the gas station looking it over for a while before asking me if we had any more of those things. I lied and told him no.
I asked the owners what they wanted me to do. They thought it over for a couple days and then told me to keep them. I think they expected to be able to make some money off of them somehow, but eventually everyone forgot they were there. Everyone but me. And Farmer Junior, of course.
I was thinking about the bearded man when I first heard the sound of a baby crying somewhere outside. I was alone in the store and my first instinct was not the heroic one that most people may have had: to run outside and see where the poor baby was. My first instinct was more callous and rational and in the form of a question: how the hell did a baby get way out here without me hearing it coming?
Something wasn’t right. The sound of the cries, which I could deduce were coming from the tree line, were getting louder and louder and more and more desperate.
I looked around for Marlboro, but couldn’t find him anywhere. If I was going to investigate the potential forest baby, I was going to have to do it alone.
I remembered the bearded man hearing the siren call of the thing he called an Anglerfish. I remembered Carlos’s sound of crunching and the “Strega.” And absolutely no part of me believed that I would be safe if I went into the woods or that there was really a baby crying out there.
But what if?
I grabbed a flashlight and went out back. The crying seemed to be moving deeper into the forest, quickly, like the crying baby were being carried off by something that didn’t have to stop and move around trees or physical barriers.
I walked into the forest just far enough to find the last thing I ever expected to find.
It seems that the hand plants had extended slightly further than the little patch outside the gas station. Those plants that I had been watching and burning whenever they got too aggressive were not as controlled as I had previously believed. Because out there, just a few steps into the woods, was a hand plant that I had missed, that I had never trimmed or culled or burned, that was left free to grow as large and wild as it possibly could. Out there was a handplant that had grown so large, it had fallen over. It had grown past the shoulder. It had grown its own head, and torso, and crotch and legs. Out there was a full human body covered in tiny leaves, huddled on the ground and attached to the soil by thick talons of brown roots. And the weirdest part of all? The body was one that I recognized.
The body of the fully-grown hand plant, was Kieffer.
I don’t know what possessed me to touch him. Maybe I just wanted to make sure that he was real, as if touching him would prove that one way or the other. When I did, his eyes opened and he cracked a smile. He could not move, the roots had him firmly stuck in place, but this kieffer plant could talk. And talk he did.
We stayed out there talking for over an hour.
I won’t go into everything the kieffer plant said, but I will say this. There is something under the gas station. Something big and powerful. Something plotting. And I’ve been working for years in a cloud of this dark god’s farts.
I felt extra terrible setting the fully developed kieffer plant on fire after I burned the rest of the crop of handplants, but honestly what choice did I have?
When I got back to the gas station, Spencer was waiting for me. He knew I knew. And I knew he knew I knew. I was halfway expecting what came next, but not expecting him to enjoy himself quite so much.
Spencer locked the front doors, then proceeded to beat the crap out of me. I’d like to say I got a few good hits in as well, but that would be a huge lie. I don’t think I laid a single finger on him. Although, I did mess his knuckles up pretty good with my face, so I have that going for me.
Spencer dragged me across the gas station to the hallway past the bathrooms, past the walk-in cooler, to that big strange door that I had only just noticed a couple weeks ago. If it were possible for me to pass out, I’m sure I would be unconscious right now.
“Why are you doing this?” I asked as he banged on the door three times. There was a sound from the other side and then Spencer yelled.
“Open up! It’s me!”
The door cracked open and Spencer dragged me into a room I had never seen before. It looked like an old office. There was a desk next to a wall of monitors with security feeds from all over the store and the perimeter. Security feeds from cameras I never knew existed. In the middle of the room was a large hole that looked like it had been created with a team of jackhammers.
“It’s time for you to meet my boss,” Spencer said as he dragged me to the edge of the hole.
“Kieffer.” I said, to which Spencer let out a hearty laugh.
“No, not Kieffer. My boss put Kieffer out there and hired me to watch him. My boss is much bigger than some idiot politician.”
I half expected Spencer to go into the cliche movie-villain exposition rant, but instead he Sparta’d me right into this hole.
I think my leg is broken. At least, I assume that’s what the bone poking out means, but hey, I’m no doctor. I would be really worried right now if it weren’t for the fact that I stole Spencer’s cell phone in the scuffle. Just as I expected, Spencer has the same network as Kieffer, which means he somehow has service. I put in a call to Tom’s direct number, so I’m sure he’ll be along shortly. Until he gets here, I’m just passing the time updating my journals.
Somebody just dropped the laptop into this hole with me. Maybe it was Spencer? Maybe he thinks I’m dead? Maybe I am. Again, I’m not a doctor. Whoever it was, I think I might have heard the sound of their boot spurs clicking against tile as they walked away.
I guess I’ll boot this thing up and start transcribing my journal before it’s too late.
Okay, so this is the last of his journals!
You’re probably wondering to yourself, where was Jerry while Spencer was beating the crap out of poor old Jack? Well, I had gone into town to see a movie. Yes, I went and watched Thor: Ragnarock. If you haven’t seen it, go see it! It was awesome! I guess I’m lucky I went when I did, otherwise this Spencer guy might have tossed me into that hole as well.
I was the one that found Jack. When I came back to the gas station, I couldn’t find anyone anywhere, so I went searching until I noticed that door at the edge of the hall cracked open slightly. I also found a really poorly made bomb behind the register, but it didn’t take long to disassemble. You can thank the mandatory bomb-building classes at the Mathmatist program for that. No big deal, just me being my typical heroic self.
I asked Carlos to help me haul Jack up out of the hole and then Carlos moved him to an “undisclosed location” for a few days while his leg mends. When he gets back, I’ll let him have his laptop to continue his little blog thing.
Until then, it’s just me, Carlos, and the raccoons.
How does Jack usually end these things? Oh yeah, “To be continued…”
Edit: I just caught myself digging.
*Stay tuned for Part 7*
CREDIT: Jack Townsend
Click HERE to pre-order Jack Townsend’s latest book, Tales from the Gas Station: Volume One, a collection of both old and new tales revolving around everyone’s favorite gas station clerk
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