“Not again”, I exclaimed as Bobby yelled out “UNO”, leaping out of his worn-out old office chair, nocking it to the ground, as he slammed his last card onto the pile on the table. “THAT’S THE FIFTH TIME ALREADY” Rachel yelled out in frustration. “SUCK IT” Bobby yelled out form the excitement of his massive UNO winning streak. I’m getting another beer, Steve said, standing up from his camping chair, which was more duct tape than chair at this point. As Steve made it to the kitchen I yell out “Just make it quick, let’s keep some cold in the fridge please”. Today was Sunday which meant it was our weekly friend’s night, something we been religiously following ever since Bobby graduated a few years back. We were huddled in my tiny bachelor flat, sitting on the random assortment of ancient furniture I’ve been collecting ever since enrolling in university. We were tightly packed around an old rickety dinner table in a pitch-black room. A single half melted candle emitted a flickering orange glow, just partly illuminating our faces and giving barely enough light to distinguish between the numbers on the cards for our UNO game.
Now to an outsider looking in at this rag tag bunch sitting among my ragged assortment of various ancient bit and bods in the pitch dark, it must have looked like I simply couldn’t afford the power bill. But that was far from the truth I had a full scholarship to cover my studies and living, which is how I managed to sustain my horder-like tendencies of collect my various strange artifacts. However, we were in what was colloquially called loadshedding, or to the rest of the world, rolling blackouts. Every day for 2 hours the power would cut out, and that is if we were lucky. Recently we’ve had 3 sessions of loadshedding a day, 2 hours a pop. It was torture and absolutely killed everything from the equipment on campus to the entire industry in the area. The saddest part was it happened so often we had started to get used to it. There was a time when we would experience, maybe one or two loadshedding periods a year and still complain. Now it was only once a month we’d be grateful for the power filled month. The grid was simple deteriorating, and I even heard our one and only nuclear plant started to leak recently, but let’s not think about that. So that left us in the dark, scrambling to find some non-electronic way of spending the day, since we couldn’t do our normal routine of binge-watching TV shows or share random YouTube video. Hence UNO, which was a serious mistake since Bobby would not stop winning and I was about 3 seconds from throwing either Bobby or myself out the window. “Let’s do something else” Rachel whined, and I was in complete agreement with her.
Steve stumbled back into the room, he’d perhaps had one too many beers, which might have explained his next words. “Dude why don’t we just switch it back on”. I laughed, “sure why not” I said while causally flicking the light switch on the wall behind me, “OH wait, yeah NO power” I said in a dramatic fashion. However, Bobby interjected “Actually it might be possible, you know with our government, there so inefficient that they actually need to manually switch on and off the grid at the main substations”. Steve then added on “Exactly, like we could sneak in, and just you know, flick a switch”, he said point toward the switch I just toggled. Rachel gave a huge smile, “That sounds like an adventure, I’m in”, Bobby chuckled and added “I’m game”. I sighed, we were definitely a tiny bit drunk, but the idea actually seemed really fun “Sure let’s do it”.
Now this might just seem like some crazy drunk college antics, but it’s not as far fetched as it seems. You see South Africa is somewhat of a lawless place, if you had a few bucks, you really could get away with just about anything. I remember failing my drivers test spectacularly when I slammed straight through the orange cones highlighting the parking spot. The large burly instructor turned to me and said, “Ya your ganna be failing this one, but I could let you pass for lets say… 1000 Rand” Now that might sound like a lot but its only 50 dollars, and that the story of how the government officially licensed me to drive on our roads. I’ll stop telling more tales now before I say something really incriminating, yes there are worse and in South Africa no one really cares. The other factor in this not being tremendously stupid is Steve, you see he’s actually an electrical engineer doing his Masters. He knew his way around our grid, and just so happened to have coincidently visited our local substation, around a month ago to do something or another, not really sure sounded too mathy for me. “Wait, are we really doing this” Steve muttered, his main function in the group was to say absolutely crazy things and either see how we shot it down or turn it into a story. Like the time he jokingly said, “Guys I got an idea, lets have a sword fight”, and long story short were now on 2 mailing list of LARP groups, and one sunny day wound up at a medieval fair, must say they had great turkey.
Bobby snatched up his backpack from the corner of the small room, and took out his keys “Yup, you suggested it. it’s too late now. time for some light treason”. Rachel bolted out of her chair, and grabbed Bobby’s free hand, as they headed outside to fetch Bobby’s car, which was parked behind my apartment. Steve stared at me with some sweat on his forehead, his eyes pleading for some help. I could sometimes be counted on as the voice of reason, but not tonight, I was in one of those moods. The kind of mood that would usually find me the next morning waking up in a strange place, weird smells in the air and likely a police officer asking why I thought jury rigging a small bomb, or engineering a super virus was a good idea. And yes, that did happen once, don’t ask, all I can say the legal department gave me and earful about misappropriation of funds. However, in my defense we did get a publication off the spike protein I integrated into that… on second thought I should stop there before I get into more trouble again.
I gave Steve a devilish smile and said “Come on, you know its gonna be fun, plus I have this actuator connected to this little Arduino with a Bluetooth connector attached” I said holding up a small black box. Let’s install it under the switch then whenever I really need power, I can just press a button and it’ll fix the little grid problem. “Yeah, when I say switch, its not like a movie prop switch, its pressing buttons on a computer” he said exasperated, and I could see from that crooked smile, coupled with the torrent of sweat on his brow, that the fact that we were going to commit treason that night finally sunk in. “Really even better” I said grabbing a flash drive out of one of the piles of stuff in the corner, “I’ve got some remote access software on this, it’ll be even easier”. He sighed again “Do you really think the super important computer controlling the power grid is connected to the internet”. “Maybe”, I replied. “Okay, technically it is, but it’s got a massive firewall protecting it. So, unless you fancy also break into the government’s servers and whitelist yourself that’s not going to work” He immediately stated to panic as he saw my expression and quickly added “NO, NO NO, that’s not a suggestion”. “But come on, I did that to the campus servers already, what’s one more time” I said in a bargaining tone. “No way in hell am I helping you break into the government” he said with resolution then almost as an afterthought added a quiet “again”
A loud HONK came from outside, indicating that Bobby, had pulled the car up to the building. I hastily grabbed my keys and walked out the door, Steve trudged out after me. I quickly locked my inner door, followed by the outer metal door. Then we headed towards the small white VW Polo, idling on the street. We quickly piled into the cramped backseat, as Bobby floored the car with a loud “WOOOH”. Okay maybe I kinda lied about the part of this not being a crazy drunk college antics. We sped out of the small backroad onto the main street and zoomed off towards the substation.
We arrived at the unnamed substation, unnamed as its name pretty much tells you exactly which university, I’m in. With the stuff I’ve spilled so far, a quick google search will dox me. So were going with unnamed. Let me paint you a picture of the scene so you realize just how strange this whole thing was. It was a pitch-black night, a New moon in sky with barely a star in sight. All the lights in the area, including the substation were off (No power of course, ironic for the place suppling the power). We drove down the long tar road, only illuminated by the headlights of the car. The road was flanked with powerless light poles, interspersed with Jacaranda trees, spilling down their small purple blossoms, well at least the few that were still alive did, dammed shot hole borers, they been massacring so many of our local trees.
The twin beams of the car’s headlight illuminated the large building, as we pulled up to the front gate. It was a classic old timey South African government building, which meant tan bricks walls with dull orange brick pillars, accenting the flat walls. The building was surrounded by grey concrete palisade fencing with a motorized steel gate. However, strangely the gate stood wide open. Like it was inviting us to come into the property. Now I know I made a slightly exaggerated point of how much of a lawless country South Africa is, but this was really weird. Like immediate red flags weird, you see we have a chronic problem in South Africa, where people will steal power lines to smelt them for the copper in the wires (Sadly not a joke). So, anything to do with power is pretty well guarded. We were honestly counting on our very nerdy appearance coupled with the beers and the couple hundred Rand we brought along to basically worm our way into the hearts of the stations guards and get in that way, or if all else fails we use Steve. But there were no guards and the gate stood wide open. Peering past the fence towards the main building, dimly lit in the light of headlights, the main door stood just as open.
Honestly while our plan was by the by the technical definition “treason”, it was actually quite lighthearted and would at most get us a slap on the wrist. The power here is really bad but the rich people/politician’s neighborhoods don’t receive any power cuts, just us lowly peasants. A fact which pretty much annoys everyone we’d have to answer for our actions. Furthermore, while the power is officially off for 2h periods, it fluctuated between 0 minutes and indefinitely. That’s kind of a joke but seriously with the cumulative power outage time of 186 days this year, I don’t think a single one perfectly followed the official schedule’s time. Which is somewhat to be expected since its manually turned on and off. Chances are no one would even pick up on our little adventure. But this was serious, if the place was open like this it means one thing, crime.
The guards are gone, and everything is neatly opened with no signs of forced entry. Leading us to one conclusion, this is an inside job. The guards left it open for them, an all-too-common occurrence here. Now Steve’s work is quite invested in this place and if they broke the place (which they probably would) the area will lose power. Now this would be really bad. If they broke this place, it would mean the power stays off until replacement parts could get shipped in from Europe, which would take a minimum of 2-month. Sitting in a dark city for months was literally hell on earth, plus we cannot proceed with any parts of our research projects, without power. Which would put all off our studies on hold, (minus Bobby (the dammed graduate)). This was something we absolutely cannot allow.
“Guys, you’re thinking what I’m thinking, right” I whisper to the group. Steve whipped out his phone, dialing 10111 (the police), the phone rang for several seconds then disconnected. “Great towers are down again” he said in an angry but hushed tone. The cell phone towers are kept running through the loadshedding periods using diesel-generators, adding a massive cost to the cellphone carriers, so it was not uncommon for them to go down with the power. “Bobby you’re with, Telkom right” Steve asked, “Nah I’m with Vodacom like you” Bobby replied in a hushed tone. I pulled out my phone, checking the signal strength “I’m with Cell-C, but it seems like their down too” I whispered. Rachel said in her usually cheery but loud tone, lets just chase them out ourselves, it’ll be fun. Plus, we’d be Heroes, could even make the news”. I though about it but Steve added “What if they have guns”, Bobby replied, “That’s quite unlikely. This is an inside job, so there not expecting company. They probably left anything they didn’t need behind, to speed up stripping the place clean. I doubt they brough any serious weapons”. I peered over from the back seat making eye contact with bobby and asked, “You brought em?”, “Always” he replied with a dangerous smile. You see back in the day Bobby’s dad was chief of police of this region. Furthermore, he was an avid hunter, a trait both me and Bobby shared. A rather large part of my interest in biological science came from my childhood days of shooting antelope and dissecting/taxidermizing them.
Bobby slowly pushed his door open, trying to make as little sound as possible, but the old hinges still creaked in protest, possibly more so that normal since he opened it slowly, drawing out the creek. I followed suit, followed by Rachel, who flung open the door and excitedly dashing out the car. Steve hesitated for a second before shaking his head and slowly peeling himself out the backseat as well. We walked around the car to the trunk. Which Bobby deftly popped open, revealing its dusty empty interior. He then reached down to the upholstery covering the floor of the trunk and pulled upwards yanking out the floorboard, revealing a the usually spare tire spot. However, his was not the standard arrangement, instead of just holding the spare tire and some tools there was a second compartment. A large metal compartment built in below the wheel well, with a heavy-duty lock holding its door shut. Bobby fiddled with the nape of his shirt extracting the chain necklace that was always around his neck. At the end of the silver chain sat a tiny key, which he placed into the lock and with a sharp snap, sprang open. He grabbed the handle of the now unlocked door, and pulled it open, revealing a beautiful and well maintained Steyr Mannlicher SM 12 hunting rifle, his dads old Vector Z88 pistol (sitting in a belt holster), several boxes of ammo, and two police style flashlights (the kind with large heavy metal handles that can be used in self-defense).
Bobby gently cupped the pistol in its holster and held it out towards me. I grabbed the holster and buckled it to my belt, then drew the pistol, released its magazine with a satisfying click, then I gently pulled it from the gun’s handle. I reached into the car and grabbing the box of 9mm ammo, then started to fill the magazine with the bullets. Bobby gently lifted out the rifle and took the .308 ammo box, loaded a shot into his rifle, while keeping a few lose in his pocket for easy reloading, if needed. This was actually the best option, He was always a better shot with a rifle, a dammed good hunter, but I was always the better one at completion shooting. Steve was a tad afraid of guns and even with our prodding never really go into it. Although, Rachel was a pretty good shot, we only had two guns, and not to be mean to Bobby’s girl, but she was bit unpredictable which isn’t something you want when holding a weapon. So, this loadout made sense.
Steve grabbed the flashlights and held one out to Rachel, she took the flashlight and scurried back towards the side of car. Opening her door and rummaging around for a second before returning with a bottle of pepper spray and a small black and yellow taser. Rachel offered the pepper spray to Steve which he clipped onto his belt. “Okay everyone good” Bobby said with this devilish smile. We all nodded, and Rachel chirped out “LETS GO BE HEROES”. Bobby chuckled and gave Rachel a quick peck on the cheek, then said “Okay, lights on”, Rachel looked down and deftly flicked the torch on, sending out another beam of light onto the building. Steve fumbled with his briefly, before illuminating the building with another bright beam. We walked around the car and Bobby placed his rifle on the ground leaning it onto the side of car, then darted into the driver seat, and with a flick of the wrist, shut off the vehicle, plunging much of the surrounding back into darkness. He got out again, grabbed the rifle and we slowly moved towards the open doors of the substation.
Walking towards those empty doors, felt really eerie, there were no sounds, no insects chirping, no familiar hum of electricity. Just the footsteps of 4 idiots breaking into a seemingly empty substation. We finally made it to the front door of the building. The metal door looks in perfect condition, definitely no forced entry. We were walked in a single file me in front, Steve behind me, Rachel following him and Bobby in the back. I peered into the darkness of the doorway, as Steve shone the light slowly around the room. Everything was normal. The reception area stood empty, a large wooden desk dominated the room, with an old CRT monitor on the desk, and a massive number of papers stacked into multiple piles. However, the room looked completely untouched. However, what really stood out was the two metal doors on the back wall behind the desk. One looked like a normal entrance, which lead down a corridor, but the other was more heavy duty, with a card reader mounted next to it. But both doors stood wide open without any signs of damages. “What the hell” Steve mumbled, “this isn’t right, even during loadshedding the interior of the building is powered. It has to be, otherwise you can’t control the grid. That door is supposed to be magnetically sealed, and it’s on an external server too, not something that would be easy to arrange by just bribing some guards”, Bobby replied “We’ll if it’s so bad they must have taken something important already, we should hurry”, then to everyone surprise Rachel yelled out “COME OUT WITH YOUR HANDS UP, THIS IS THE POLICE”. Steve glared daggers at Rachel, even I was flabbergasted. But she just said meekly “Hey maybe they’d run away now”
Steve and I both sighed, and I called out to him “Okay I guess they know where here now, Steve what normally provides the backup power for the building and how do we get there”. Steve paused for a moment thinking through the problem then said “The substation routes power from long range power lines, transforms it and redistributed it to the local area, the buildings power is always on from the input power, but the connection out is turned off during loadshedding, this means the inlets or transformers are probably damaged. We need to get to the transformers first, that’s probably where the damage sits. If I recall correctly, we need to go through down the secure door, follow it down the hall, take a left, go up the stairs, another left then well get to the control room overlooking the transformers”. We nod at Steve, then head through the heavy-duty door.
We slowly walked down the empty corridors, illuminated by the white beams of the flashlights. It felt really creepy, a tense atmosphere filled the empty corridors, something felt off. It was too quiet, like there should at least have been some bugs or the odd rat, scurrying about. Yet everything was completely still, a very eerie feeling washed over me as we approached the stairs. I look backed and said “Guys, is it just me or is it like too quiet”, Bobby looked over to me and said, “Yeah I get the feeling either we’re too late, and they’ve already stripped the place clean, or maybe Rachel’s stunt actually worked and scared them off”, Steve whispered “Guys I don’t know but somethings off here, we gotta have a look at the transformers”. I nodded at Steve and quickly bolted up the stairs, taking two steps at a time, causing loud footsteps to echo out around us. I was moving faster than was really needed, but I did this for a reason. We we’re tense, like really tense and I could tell it. So I walking loudly, adding some more normal energy to this might help break the tension, and more importantly break that dense silence that surrounded us.
We finally reached the end of the maze of corridors and made it to the control room and just like every other door we encountered so far, the control rooms door was open. We slowly entered the room, fanning out checking the corners of the room first, making sure we were alone before surveying the area. The place looked perfect. The several large metal rectangles stood upright in the center of the room, covered in a myriad of switched and cables. Every gauge of these boxes read zero and every other display was off. Along the large glass wall, looking out over a massive pitch-black room, stood a row of computers built into a large desk, and every display was off. The strangest part though, was that everything looked pristine, no yanked-out cable, no stolen parts. If we weren’t starting at the room through the twin beams of light emitted by our flashlights, I would have expected it to be running perfectly.
Steve looked around “This doesn’t make sense every looks fine, its just off, they either severed the inlet or damaged the transformers” Steve mumbled, lets go downstairs and check the transformers. Steve moved his light to the end of the opposite end of the room, there stood another wide-open metal door. His beam illuminated the metal walkway which lay behind the door. We slowly walked towards to the door, exiting in a much larger room, cloak in darkness, the same one seen from the glass window in the control room. Ahead of us the metal walkway carried on into the darkness and to our left, facing the same direction as the glass window, stood a ladder heading down in the dark abyss below. However much to our happiness there was the distinct hum of electricity in the air, which gave us some hope that things might not be total broken.
Steve opened his mouth to say something but was interrupted by, a faint moaning sound, it sounded like someone in a lot of pain. I gripped the pistol in both hands aiming down into the darkness below, Bobby did the same, while Rachel and Steve, pointed there flashlights down, trying to find the source of the sound. There beams frantically moving around the room, illuminated the 3 large transformers standing in the center of the room. But something seemed odd about them, there was these odd lumps sticking to their sides. “Wa-it is th-a-at a…” I stammered out, “Person” Bobby finished the sentence. Looking closely at the transformers, those lumps where the bodies of people, clinging to the surface of the transformers, resembled how large group of snails would cling to a rock. There had to be at least 20 people hanging onto these transformers, some at very unnatural angles. They were basically floating halfway up the transformer, somehow managing to cling on the basically smooth surface of the metal plates.
This freaked us the hell out and Rachel let out a sharp scream. However, nothing happened, the people didn’t move, and room quickly returned to that eerie stillness from before. Bobby called out “Hello, are you alright, do you need any help”? No reply, but a few seconds later another moan, followed by eerie silence. Steve and Rachel both seemed to be freaking out, and I could tell Steve was seconds from bolting. Bobby looked the calmest of us all, and I hate to admit it I could kinda see why, this was something new, like never heard of before new. Which meant fascinating, I could see it in his eyes, that burning light of curiosity, and dammit all but I could feel it reflected in my gaze as well. “Okay, I’m going down there, you guys stay up here” Bobby muttered out, Steve was about to protest, when I added “The hell you are, like I’d let you go down there without me” I answered in a very pushy tone. After my words Rachel seemed to give up on her protest, understanding this was just us being us, she couldn’t spot it so might as well just let it happen.
Steve however said, “Are you guys crazy this is some SCP type shit, you’re gonna get us all killed”. Bobby patted Steve on the shoulder and said in his most charming voice “OH come on, it gonna be fun, plus we still gotta check out the transforms and make sure they work right, you can’t just leave them like this. Actually, come to think of it shouldn’t you go down first, you know to check the electronics”. I could tell Bobby was just messing with Steve, but Steve was oblivious “ARE YOU CRAZY, LIKE HELL IM GOING DOWN THERE, NO, JUST NO, WE SHOULD ALL BE LEAVING” Steve yelled out at Bobby venting the pent-up fear he was feeling. The moment Steve stop yelling, you could see he immediately regretted it and swung his head around to the transformers, which underwent no changes. Rachel and I burst out laughing, Bobby was very good at this sort of thing, and we could both see how well he played Steve, getting him to vent that pent up fear, and Steve was visually more relaxed afterword. He then said with fake anger still in his voice “Fine, go get yourself killed if you want, I’m staying up here”. Bobby turned to me with a smirk on his face, “you coming them”, slung the rifle’s strap over his shoulder and started climbing down the metal ladder, I holstered the pistol and followed right after him.
Steve kept his flashlight fixed on the odd transformers, which Rachel aimed hers Infront of us so we could see where we were placing out feet. We approached the middle transformer. We chose this one, because while all 3 transformers were covered in bodies the middle one had a person standing on the ground embracing the transformer, instead of floating/clinging halfway up it. We approached the body, it was a man, dressed in a blue jumpsuit, the kind often worn by manual laborers. He was gripping so tightly onto the transformer that his hands where bone white from the pressure. And his face was tightly pressed on the metal plate. As we approached him, I drew the pistol and held pointed down but ready to use if needed. Bobby nodded at me and placed his hand on the man’s shoulder, “Sir are you okay” he asked. No rely. Bobby pulled back on the man, but he barely moved, “Okay were doing this the hard way then” Bobby said with a smirk and grabbed the man by both shoulders and pulled him back, putting his all into dragging this man away from the machine. Bobby stood there pulling for a good 10 seconds then the man’s body pulled away from the machine with a wet sucking sound, and the next moment he twisted his body around and jumped onto Bobby. Bobby couldn’t support the weight of this tackle and fell onto the ground. His rifle knocked off his shoulder, sliding away into the darkness. The person slammed his face into Bobby neck, and a wet crunching sound emanated from them as a red pool formed around Bobby’s head.
I was stunned for a second, but then quickly snapped back to my senses, aimed the gun at the person and fired 3 quick shots. Everything seemed to slow down, and I couldn’t believe my eyes, 3 arcs of lightning shot out of the man, and caught the bullets, they held for a short moment then the bullets went flying off into the darkness. The thing raised his head and looked straight at me. Its face was wrong, sunken glowing orange eyes stared up at me, its mouth was a perfect circle sunk into his face, filled with tiny, but razor-sharp teeth, exactly like the mouth of a lamprey. Then I heard it, a sharp ping sound, of the bullet hitting something followed by a flash of light in the corner of the room causing sparks to fly out, lighting the dark room. Those sparks kept flashing, and the dull hum coming from the room stopped, that bullet must have hit the cable carrying power to the transformers, cutting off its power. Suddenly 20 pairs of glowing eyes were fixed on me and filled with absolute hunger. I bolted, running straight for the ladder. I could vaguely hear Rachel screaming something at me but kept running. I practically flew up the ladder, and when I got to the top, I tried to keep running but Rachel grabbed my wrist.
I paused and looked back. Steve was gone, he must have ran away. I looked at Rachel a second from yanking my hand back and running too, but she pointed back at the transformer. Only 4 pairs of eyes were still fixed on me, the rest were staring at the sparks. Now its only 3 pairs. Several of those things slowly crawled down from the transformers, resembling a swarm of geckos on the prowl for insects. I was getting ready to run again but they headed away from us towards the sparks. The slithered up the wall reaching the sparking cable. The mass of those things started to latch on the cable, and the sparking sounds stopped. But there wasn’t enough space for all twenty of them on that short broken cable. The extras slithered down the wall, and quickly vanished down another hallway leaving the building, towards what I would assume is where the pylons are kept. There were still 2 pairs of eyes on the transformers, 2 still staring right at me. Rachel shone the light down off the transforms, returning to Bobby. The thing still straddled his chest, face buried in his neck, red pool growing ever larger. I could tell Rachel was in shock, but she was trying to keep herself together, but her next words shocked me. “We need his keys”
“Dammit” I exclaimed, she was right we would be trapped here without his car keys. I looked up only to see one pair of eyes shining out against the darkness of the room. I stammered “O-kay bu-ut how do-o we get em”. Rachel yelled at me “HOW THE HELL WOULD I KNOW”. Tears were leaking from her eyes, but I could see she was fighting to keep them back. I took a deep breath, looking out into the abyss beyond the railing, showing no remaining glowing orange orbs watching us. “Okay, we get the keys, get out and go get help” I said steeling my resolve. “HOW” Rachel said, on the verge of breaking down. “Okay, I’m going to go hit that thing, when it chases me, grab the keys, then meet me at the car”
“It’s a terrible idea I know, but those things are slow. Look at how they moved to the inlet, its was slow, when they left the room, it was slow, the only reason that thing caught Bobby was because he was already holding onto it… and was caught unprepared, we can do this” I said in a falsely confident tone. Rachel looked at me with horror, “No ways, you’ll die”, she said, “Do you have another idea” I said probably too harshly, “No” she defeatedly said. “Okay then it’s my plan”. I turned back to the darkness, a faint moan echoed out. I took another deep breath, trying hard to keep my hands from shaking, succeeding somewhat. We slowly descended the ladder in darkness, the beam of the flashlight shining brightly above me illuminating only the ladder. My nerves were going crazy, I could feel every inch of me screaming to run and not do this, but what choice did we have. Rachel touched the floor behind me swung the light around the room, making sure nothing changed since we descended, but everything seemed the same. We slowly approached the thing latched onto Bobby neck. But it didn’t more or make a sound, just like it did when latched onto the transformer.
Rachel stayed behind not too far from the ladder, as I approached the creature. It didn’t react to me at all, I bent down and picked up Bobby rifle. I walked behind the creature, grabbed the rifle by the barrel and swung it down overhead towards the creature’s head. Another bright arc of lightning flew out of the creature’s shoulder and collided with the rifle knocking it out of my hands, throwing it toward the transformers and once again into the darkness. I stared dumbly at the creature, this made no sense, its not possible. However, the creature just kept its face plastered to Bobby’s neck like it didn’t even notice me. I hesitated, thinking about my options then made a decision which put my stomach straight into my heart. I knelt down next to the thing, and slowly reach out towards Bobby’s pocket. My hand move just past the things leg, and into Bobby’s pocket, I fumbled around for a while, every second felt like an hour as my fingers grasped the cold steel of the key. Then it moaned, and I froze, I thought it was all over, but it didn’t do anything else. I quickly backed up, slowly took my eyes off the thing, and waved the key at Rachel. Then she let out a blood curdling screamed, as another one of those things, this time a teen, wearing a school uniform, fell from the ceiling straight onto Rachel. It pinned her arms down to the ground with ease and slammed it gaping maw into her neck. Soon followed by the same red puddle. I froze I couldn’t think. I just stared at this scene for a good minute, feeling completely numb, not accepting the reality in front of me.
Then the creature let out another low moan. That snapped me back to reality, I slowly tip-toed around the second creature, trying to get to the ladder once my foot hit the first rung of the ladder. I bolted, full speed, next thing I knew I was standing next to the car, completely out of breath and feeling the urge to spill the content of my stomach on the tar. I threw open the car door and jumped into the driver seat. Now that I was somewhat safer, I took stock of everything, and remembered Steve. I peered out the windscreen, searching for any sign of Steve, but he was nowhere to be found. I then did something shameful, something that I will never forgive myself for. I started the car and drove full speed out of there.
I got home, locked myself in my bathroom, and wept. I couldn’t help it, I lost my three best friends in one night, all for what, keeping the light on. I sat in the darkness of the bathroom for hours, clutching the pistol, and flinching at every sound. Then around 06h00, the lights came on, I stared at the ceiling light. “HOW” I stammered, that should be impossible. I opened my phone and booted the power app. A notification on the app read, a coupling failed at the unnamed substation, maintenance has repaired the damage and restored power to the grid. I stared at the headline in disbelief. That’s not possible. I struggled to understand what was going on for a long time, but eventually passed out in the bathroom. I awoke later that day, the power still on, I contemplated telling the police what happened, but would they believe me, probably not. What am I supposed to do with Bobby’s car, or pistol? I sat spent the next 2 day arguing with myself about what I should do. I didn’t understand what happened, so I didn’t understand how to proceed. Then my phone beeped, national loadshedding is suspended. No more power cuts for a while, I would normally be glad about this, but not this time. Then my phone run, an unknown number, I reluctantly answered it “Hey Chris, its Bobby, Dude do you know where my car is?” he asked in a very confusion tone. I yelled out “BO-BO-BBY, YOUR ALIVE” he chuckled and said “Duh, by the way what happened yesterday, I don’t remember anything, and I can’t find my car or my phone”. I asked “Where are you”, he causally replied “At home, where else would I be? Dude are you okay you sound stressed”, “I’ll be there in 15” I yelled and hang up the phone.
I drove Bobby’s car over to his house, and rang the doorbell, Bobby sauntered out of his house, with a strange smile on his face. He looked perfectly normal, more pale than usual, dark rings under his eyes, but all in all looked like a normal person to me”. I jumped out of the car and gave him a massive hug, “DUDE YOUR OKAY” I yelled out, Bobby let me hug him for a second then said “Dude, like this is pretty weird” I let him go and said, “How do you feel, is everything okay”, he looked concerned then said “Yeah I’m good, some manic broke the down my door while I was sleeping but they didn’t take anything valuable so I guess its all good. Now why do you have my car”. I was worried but quickly made up a lie “You lent it to me remember”. He seemed puzzled but accepted the lie, “Well I guess that’s fine, but what happened, last thing I remember was apparently three days ago, and my boss is not happy with that at all”. “You really don’t remember” I asked. “Not at all”. I quickly made up a story of how we went out drinking, then shooting some bottles at lake and lost his rifle in water. He was pretty mad about it, but accepted it happened and vowed to go less hard on the booze. Rachel and Steve had the same problem, neither remember anything and woke up at home with a broken door, and both accepted my story as truth.
Things returned to normal like nothing ever happened and I started to question if maybe we actually just got some really bad booze which made me dream up that entire adventure. The more I thought it through the more sense it made. I accepted that version as true. Then it happened load sheading started up again, power would be going out again. That Friday, I gave Bobby a call to arrange the logistics for friends’ night, but he didn’t answer, tried Rachel no luck, same with Steve. I was really worried, so I got an uber and headed to Bobby’s house. I walked up to his front door, and found it broken down from the inside out, and he was gone. Tried Steve’s and Rachel’s same deal. They haven’t reappeared yet, and I cannot find any trace of them, there just gone. I don’t know what to do, or who to turn too, so I’m writing this here, I need help, someone anyone, please tell me what’s going on?