Every day I drive to the local gas station and smoke cigarettes on my lunch break. I work in assembly on a clean campus, and there’s no smoking on the premises. Luckily the gas station isn’t far, and I get to have about twenty minutes of peace and quiet and decompress.
I do the same thing every time, meticulously watching the clock on the dash while my lunch break ticks away. There’s a line of parallel parking styled spots on the side of the building and I pull up there, enjoying my first smoke while I watch the corn sway in the wind while the radio plays softly.
The gas station is less than a mile away, but my job is located outside of town in the country, so the space between places is filled with nothing but a cornfield, trees, and a stretch of power lines running high above. It’s a very peaceful rustic getaway, and oftentimes I zone out staring off into space, watching the corn sway as my eyes wander aimlessly.
Three days ago, I saw something staring back at me.
I don’t know how long it had been standing there before I noticed it. At first I acknowledged it like one would notice a tree they hadn’t seen before. Suddenly becoming aware of an existence that didn’t matter; except this tree was humanoid in shape, and by the looks of it, didn’t have any skin. It was a few hundred feet away, but there was no denying the fact that something was terribly wrong with it.
An icy chill immediately ran up my back, triggering all of my nerves while I shifted uncomfortably in my seat. I looked around to see if anyone else had noticed it, but everyone was just going about their business, pumping gas or hurriedly leaving their car to head inside. I rubbed my eyes and looked again, swearing it had just been a trick of the light.
Not only was it still there, it had moved closer. It had drifted out of the corn slightly, leaning against the leg of the tall power line it was under. I could see the slight deviation of movement while it stood there, like it was breathing heavily and stopping to catch its breath. Even from so far away, I could see the specks of white for eyes staring at me, and an overwhelming feeling of foreboding tunneled towards me. It felt like I was going to get hit by a car, or a plane would crash on top of me. It’s hard to explain.
It just… stood there. Staring at me.
As the seconds melted to minutes, I snubbed out my smoke and did what every other rational person would do. I grabbed my phone, and tried to take a picture of it. It stood there while I opened the app for my camera, holding the same stare as I tried to get the camera to focus. It finally did and I slowly zoomed to try and get a decent view of it. But just as my thumb tapped the button to capture it… it disappeared.
Not like I looked away and it was gone. It just vanished into thin air. Like it ceased to exist.
I sat there for a time afterwards, unable to shake the feeling that something was very wrong. The longer I sat the more I wondered if I had just imagined it, maybe the days of lack of sleep, fatigue, and stress were piling up and I was starting to daydream. Maybe I had dozed off and didn’t notice? The days had felt so much shorter since daylight savings time, maybe it was just a case of the seasonals picking away at my brain. I kept thinking of scenarios to justify such a thing, even as I pulled out of my parking spot and headed back to work.
I kept looking back to the empty spot in the corn under the powerline expecting to see it again, but I saw nothing.
After I punched back in I asked some people on the same line as me, ones that I knew would also go and smoke during the allotted time on lunch. I wasn’t the only regular there, but I was the only person that saw it. Most told me I needed to get some sleep and stop staying up so late. Others suggested maybe it was just a deer, or maybe someone who lived out in the boonies trying to make themselves viral by scaring people in the corn.
In the end I laughed it off, but throughout the day I was unable to shake the feeling, stricken from what I saw. The dread continued to stay with me, even after I punched out for the day and headed home. It persisted through the night, and it made me paranoid when I hung out at home, and even as I crawled into bed.
I tossed and turned for a while, thinking of the red humanoid shape lingering in the distance. I kept waking up and looking at the doorway, expecting to see it. Each time, nothing. But the feeling of unease persisted, even as I felt myself succumbing to sleep.
That night, I dreamt of walking through the cornfield.
Chilly wind tossing my hair and whipping at my clothes. The corn swayed in the gust, a steady dance that moved across the crops as far as I could see. It was peaceful but engulfing, an intimidating embrace that made me feel small in the vast expanse of it. Dried husks crackled under my feet, and the mud tried to steal my shoes. I don’t know where I am, and I start to feel the swaying stalks close in on me.
Above, the power line reaches towards the sky, looming over me like a sinister lighthouse. I look away from the swirling gray overcast, following the legs of the powerline. I squint through the stalks to see, and I see a dark crevice in the ground ahead.
Beneath the power line there’s a cellar door, hanging open.
Beckoning me.
I wake to the sound of my alarm, drenched in sweat. A fog swirls in my head, oddly hungover from a sober sleep. I look to the doorway of my bedroom and find it empty. The sense of dread continues to loom.
I get ready for work and head in, thoughts of corn and the cellar door racing through my mind. I can’t shake the thought of it, and it proceeds to pester me through the beginning of my shift. I try to busy my mind and focus on work, tightening fasteners on the brackets of air-compressors and running rubber hoses as the clock ticks away. Even as my hands work monotonously, I feel the weight of eyes on me. I constantly look over my shoulder, but there’s never anyone there.
On my lunch break, I decided to return to the gas station. I convinced myself that I’m just being crazy, and there’s no reason not to go and enjoy my daily smokes on my break. Just of the thought of them sounds so nice.
I pull into my usual spot and light up, feeling the weight ease off my shoulders after the first drag. I sink into my seat, keeping my eyes closed as I ignore the cornfield next to me, telling myself over and over: there is nothing there.
I gather the courage to open them, and I look to the cornfield.
The power line stands definitely in the corn, and I feel myself sweating as I trace the length of the spire to the ground.
Beneath the tall structure, there is nothing.
I breathe a sigh of relief and laugh at myself, nearly coughing as I wipe the sweat from my brow. There is no skinned man. Only corn swaying in the wind.
I feel better having conquered the fear. I turn my music on, and a familiar song crackles over heavy static. I try to tune the dial, but the distortion only grows the more I tamper with it. In the end I turn the volume all the way down, and decide I’m gonna run into the gas station and buy an energy drink. I suddenly feel parched, and the feeling of ice cold electric carbonation sounds too good to pass up.
I shut off my car, get out of the car, and stop.
The skinned man is standing near the gas pumps, peeking out at me. His eyes are bright white and beady, his stare freezing me to my core. His limbs twitch, and he takes a step out from behind the pump, a bloody trail smearing the pavement with his footstep.
I break out of my fear and look around to see if anyone else sees him. But nobody does, it’s like he’s not even there. Even as he takes another step towards me, a woman in a hatchback pulls past him, nearly grazing him.
His skin is completely gone. Steam radiates from exposed bloody muscle, steady drips of red trickling down his arms and legs. He appears genderless, but his build is masculine. As the woman next to him gets out of the car and starts fueling, his mouth slowly hangs open, and he starts to scream.
A scream that nobody can hear but me.
I get into my car and I leave, tires squealing as I turn around in the lot. I keep watching him, terrified he’s going to suddenly give chase and rip me out of the car. But he only reaches for me slowly, like he can barely move.
When I haul ass down the road, I watch for him in the rear-view mirror. He lowers his hand, and vanishes.
Nobody believed me when I got back to work. I talked about the man with no skin, and his scream that no one could hear. The reactions were less entertained than the day before. Those who didn’t laugh excused themselves awkwardly. Those that did neither, just looked at me like I was crazy.
My shift crawled for the rest of the day. I was incredibly anxious, a cold sweat dampening my forehead as I looked around cautiously. Everywhere I looked I swore I saw the skinned man, but only to see an empty aisle or a part rack instead. People tiptoed around me or avoided me entirely, not wanting to draw attention to my increasing paranoia. I kept hearing his scream, the dry cry of an out-of-tune orchestra. Just thinking of it and seeing his open mouth made my skin crawl.
Once my shift was concluded, I punched out and left work without a word. On the way home I kept looking around, still unable to shake the feeling of someone watching. I kept feeling someone staring at me from the backseat, breathing on my neck. Each time I would turn to look, there would be nothing.
Once home I stayed inside for the rest of the day. I locked the doors and preoccupied my mind with watching TV, hopping restlessly from one streaming service to the next in search of something to draw my attention. I would occasionally peek out of the windows of my apartment to make sure he wasn’t there, but would only see the occasional passing car. Everywhere I looked, I saw those damned eyes staring at me.
That night I fell asleep on the couch, the muffled drone of an anime playing from the television. I don’t remember when I dozed off, but I soon found my tired paranoia easing into a restless slumber.
In my dream, I returned to the corn. I was looking at the power line, watching it tower above me. At my feet was the open cellar, an echoing wind whispering from the dark opening in the muddy earth. Above the sky swirls gray, and I look down just to see myself jumping in. I fall for a long time, plummeting through darkness silently.
There seems to be no end.
In the darkness below I see a faint red glow, a glimmer of light approaching me. I reach for it, hoping it will stop whatever is transpiring. As the light drifts closer, the darkness explodes with sound. The sound of an out-out-tune orchestra.
I wake up covering my ears, the sounds brutal and deafening now that I’m awake. My apartment shakes under it, and I look around to find the source, only to end up screaming.
The skinned man is on my balcony, his mouth opened wide in his silent tortured scream. He places his hands on the glass of the slider, leaning in to see me. The feeling of primal fear swallows me, and I fight the urge to cry. Vomit churns in the confines of my stomach.
As suddenly as my dream ended, the skinned man vanished, once again leaving an empty space in his wake. I spent the rest of the night cowering in my room, hiding under the blankets and flinching at every sound. I slept restlessly, plagued by thoughts of being burned alive, my screams echoing over the field of corn.
Today, I woke up to my alarms, flinching over the thought of the out-of-tune orchestra. I crawled out of bed slowly, my limbs aching from my restless sleep. The thought of getting ready for work fled my mind, and I thought only of the power line in the cornfield. I looked outside, and saw the sky was unusually gloomy. My skin crawled with goosebumps that refused to leave, and my hair stood on end. Even in my groggy state, the feeling of being watched refused to leave.
I looked everywhere for the skinned man, begging this to stop.
It has to stop. I can’t keep doing this.
Today I got dressed and headed to work, but called off in the process. I followed the same route in my car, but instead of turning into my worksite, I kept going until I found the nearby gas station.
I pulled into my usual spot, shakingly inhaling a smoke as I looked at the field of corn surrounding it. The power line stood tall, almost menacingly in the dark swirl of gloom in the sky.
It has to stop. It has to.
I snubbed out my cigarette and exited my car, feeling the chilly wind assault me as I closed the door behind me. I thought of calling the police, but I didn’t know what I would tell them. Every scenario I imagined ended with me just being called crazy.
My feet moved on their own, and I swallowed hard as I started walking in the direction I had viewed so many times on my lunch break. The grass faded and the corn began, and I made my way into the deafening sea of husks ahead. The stalks were loud and cracked under my feet, and the mud sucked at my shoes. I tripped and stumbled on the uneasy ground, and I grabbed the stalks in an attempt to keep myself balanced.
My legs burned and the crops scratched and whipped at me. Soon I felt lost in the corn, every step closing me off from the outside world. The corn stalks were taller the more you went in, until eventually I felt like I was being swallowed by it.
I kept my eyes on the power line above. I decided I would look there, and if I found nothing I would turn back and go back home. Maybe then I would get help.
Just as I was getting used to the crunch of my footsteps, the ground started to even out and I found myself in a small clearing. Four large metal posts stood on each side, posted at each corner of the clearing. I could hear the creak of metal swaying in the wind, and I felt myself shrink as I looked up.
I was standing underneath the power line now, next to the leg where I had first seen the skinned man a few days ago.
It was eerily quiet and cold in the clearing, moss and dead grass covering the churned mounds left behind by excavation. I felt the strong urge to run back to my car, but every time I closed my eyes I was reminded by the same piercing stare and scream. If I went back home, I would just go back to hiding in my apartment.
I looked for a disturbed dirt, for a grave, for a body. What I found was nothing but cold dirt and dried husks, with the occasional rock jutting from the earth. I didn’t know what I expected to find, but I found no skinned man, or signs of there ever being one. The corn swayed in the circle around the clearing, and I felt foolish for wandering out here by myself.
The wind picked up, and above the power line creaked. I watched the electrical lines sway in the sky, and I felt small and out of my depth. What was I hoping to find here? A skeleton laying in the grass?
Stupid, I thought to myself. Walking all the way out here, with not even as much as a shovel. My hands started to ache from the cold and I found myself shivering. There was nothing to be found here. Maybe I did need help after all.
I turned around to leave, my cheeks burning with frustration. I felt my eyes water, the helpless draw of tears ready to further my own embarrassment.
There is no skinned man. You’re just crazy. You’re fuckin’ crazy.
As I sulked back to the edge of the clearing, something caught my foot. I tripped and stumbled into the mud, looking back at whatever had a hold on me. It was heavy and cold, and it kicked up a line of dirt in its wake.
It was a metal chain.
I looked at it dumbfounded, the links heavily rusted and caked with dirt. I untangled my foot and held it up, and followed the source of the mysterious chain. I got back on my feet and gathered the slack, staring at it for a moment before tugging on it. The lead disappeared into the earth in front of me, directly under the power line.
The chain was cold to the couch but I wrapped it around my hands and started to pull. The earth fought against me, matted weeds and mud slinging as I ripped it from the ground. I pulled and pulled, digging my heels into the ground as I yanked it free. It caught suddenly, and I put all of my weight behind it, running backwards until it suddenly broke loose. In an uproar of debris, I felt flat on my ass.
And in front of me, a wooden door flung open.
A whisper cooed from underground, and I climbed to my feet and walked to it. It was the entrance to a dark pit, a crude ladder leading the way to an unseen destination. My mind begged to call the police, my body pleaded to go home. In the end I did neither, and my shoes soon found the rungs of the old forgotten ladder. The light above shows a floor of damp dirt and bones, long decayed and hidden in the dark.
The passage wasn’t as long as I thought. It went down about ten feet, and I expected it to open up into some grand chasm below. But when the ladder came to an end, I found only a corridor, a ten by ten room carved deep into the earth. The light from above pooled in, cutting through a haze of dust and stagnant air. I squinted through the heavy particles, in an attempt to see what the light seemed to be avoiding. Once the dust began to fade, I could hear the whispers growing, a hushed chorus that called to me from the corner of the derelict hole.
The walls are etched with erratic text, words toppling words in an indecipherable message. I want to read the words but I’m drawn away, my focus pulled to the corner where the light shines the least.
In the corner is a brass chair, and sitting in it, a corpse with dozens of limbs. I wanted to look away but I couldn’t, the mummified curled hands demanding my attention. It looked like a human, its skeletal frame filling the entirety of its throne-like seat. Empty eyes and a hanging mouth, its extra bony arms fanning out like wings. A gaping hole sits in the center of its chest, like something had been ripped out of it. Impossibly proportioned and long dead, the being dedicated several appendages to the object it held in its lap.
A glass orb, radiating the slightest shimmer of red. The whispers were coming from it.
I remember being unable to lift my eyes from the orb. It drew me in, its whispers beckoning me to the dying glow it held within. The corpse stayed frozen in place, its decayed frame getting larger the closer I got. It wanted me to take the orb. It was offering it to me.
I reached out and touched it, a static aura tickling my fingers as they drew near the glass. I wanted the orb. I needed to hold it. Nothing else seemed to matter. My fingers hovered around the glass in anticipation, and a strange heat billowed from it as I prepared to lift it. I looked into the corpses eyes, twin skeletal voids that watched from its petrified husk. Just as I grabbed the orb, the corpse’s jaw clacked.
The orb exploded with red light, and with it, and unimaginable heat. The red glow consumed me like a raging fire, engulfing me until it covered my entire body. I tried to swipe it off of me but it started to burn, a wicked chemical boil that seeped into my arms and legs like acid. I watched in horror as my skin started to part with me, bubbling and oozing until I was left with nothing but bloody meat. It collected and twisting in front of me like paint, a writhing mass that slipped through my fingers when I tried to grab at it. My strength began to fade, and my legs no longer felt capable of holding me.
I collapsed helplessly to the ground, glaring at the orb in betrayal as it shined bright and decadent. My muscles felt the pain of every speck of dirt, every piece of gravel that scraped mercilessly into my exposed flesh. The pain was unbearable, a never-ending scream across my entire body.
The mass of skin contorted and flexed, stretching across the corpse and its many limbs. It webbed between every finger and over every dried tendon, new life taking shape and cracking as it coated over the nightmarish husk. The arms, so many arms, assisted in the new fitting, pulling and tugging until the garb was complete. I could only reach out in my misery while it repaired itself, the horrible form worsening the longer I watched it mold.
Joints popped to life. Thin eyelids blinked. Once the form was complete, the gaping chest cavity quivered in agitation. Before my unclosable eyes, the being picked up the orb with its many hands and buried it into its chest. The cavity sealed on its own, tendrils of thin skin stitching itself until the red glow was no more.
While I lay helpless on the cold and painful dirt, the being rose from the chair, standing and stretching tall before hunching over on its multiple limbs. It looks at me for a moment, and emotionless clacking echoing in the chamber before it makes its way to the ladder, and climbs it like a spider. The last I see of the monstrosity is its appendages slinking into the light, right before the door slams shut behind it.
I’ve been in this darkness ever since. I don’t know how long I’ve been down here. Hours, days, weeks. All I know is my constant suffering, and my inability to escape it.. Despite my exposed body I am immune to the cold, immune to the prospect of perishing.
That’s not the only change. Since discovering the corpse I can feel an extension of myself, an ethereal tether that lets me move beyond my miserable form on this cold earth. Some kind of drift between time and space. I don’t know if it’s an aftereffect of the orb itself, or my fractured sanity in this tomb I’ve found myself in. I can do other small things, like move grains of dirt or sway the air in one way or another. In an attempt to recollect some of my sanity I have inscribed my story in the walls of this grave, but the longer time goes on, the foggier the memories seem to get.
I don’t understand it. I can only hope what I think is transpiring is real and not a fabrication of my delusional misery. I can’t go far, but each time I find I can get a little further. I can see the cornfield above my tomb, I can almost feel the air dancing across it. If I focus hard enough… I can see myself. I don’t know why they are there, or if it’s even real. But if I try hard enough… maybe I could reach them.
I need to warn them, and tell them to stay away from here. I need to warn them of the monster I set free. I don’t know what it wants or why it was down here, but I fear for the life I left behind above ground. Maybe someone can stop it. Maybe I can stop it.
In my shattered mind I remember where I used to work, where I used to live. If I can find them at the right time… maybe I can warn them. Maybe I can save them from a demise such as this.