August 21st, 2021
Back in the 80’s, my father had built a nuclear fallout shelter to protect us. I remember being young and listening to him excitedly tell us that it was almost done, and that we would finally be safe. He was afraid of the communists, like many others. He ‘knew’ that bombs would drop any day, and that his bunker would save us all. Of course, no bombs ever fell, but still he would spend most of his time in the bunker, eventually growing old and dying there in his bunker in the woods of North Dakota.
He died in his sleep, alone, scared of a war that would never come. I was the only one in the family that had any faith that the bunker was safe. I was very close to my father, and his fears made a lot of sense to me.
I lived on my father’s empty property out in the woods, only a few miles away from the bunker, but eventually, life carried me away. I got married to my wonderful wife Mary, and Mary didn’t want to stay in the middle of nowhere so far away from her family, so we moved away. I talked less and less with my father, and almost never visited. He died not long after I had moved away, and his corpse rotted in that bunker for years while I had 6 kids.
I wasn’t the one to find him, but I still felt guilty. I felt like I was to blame for his death. Maybe if I had stayed I would have noticed the illness that killed him, but that was in the past now. Mary and I were getting older, and two of our kids had gone off to college. She asked me if I wanted to move back in to my father’s house, and I agreed. I had enough to retire from my work as a doctor, so I quit. Our kids weren’t the happiest, but they grew to love it.
I felt so free being away from civilization. It made me regret leaving my father even more. I decided to memorialize him, so I began renovating and restoring his old bunker. Mary, who hated the thought of even being in the bunker before, was now ecstatic about it. She helped me make the place a true home.
When COVID hit we started getting a bit nervous. We tried to play it off, but our two oldest children, Kate and James, were also having concerns. They had never even entertained the idea of a world ending event, and called their grandpa crazy, but they seemed scared. When I told them I had renovated the old bunker, they almost seemed relieved.
They began visiting more often, and on one of those visits, we sat on the couch late at night watching TV. It was me, Mary, Kate, James, and Caleb, our third oldest. Caleb had brought along his girlfriend, Sherry, for this visit, but she was already asleep. Saturday Night Live was interrupted by static and then a message.
THIS IS THE UNITED STATES EMERGENCY BROADCASTING CHANNEL. THERE HAVE BEEN SEVERAL REPORTS OF NUCLEAR MISSILES FIRED AT THE UNITED STATES. THIS IS NOT A DRILL, TAKE COVER IN A BASEMENT, SUBWAY, OR ANY UNDERGROUND BUNKER OR TUNNEL. I REPEAT, THIS IS NOT A DRILL.
The five of us looked at each other with a mix of panic and confusion.
“Was that… real?” Mary asked with an unmistakable tremble to her voice.
I shrugged my shoulders. “I… I don’t know but I don’t want to stick around to find out if it is.”
Neither Kate, James, or Caleb had any protests as we scooped up our other kids. Max and Austin, both 13 and Violet, who was 12. They were panicked, but they didn’t resist as we grabbed a few sentimental items and hopped in our van. We drove the 15 minutes to the bunker. Once we arrived, we immediately got inside and locked the massive door behind us.
That was about 15 minutes ago. We don’t really know what to say to each other. Everybody is pretty shaken up and we felt a massive tremor shake the bunker, so I’m assuming they weren’t lying. I don’t know what to do with all this nervous energy so I decided to start on this journal. I may update in a day, or a week, or a month. I don’t know yet. I am so grateful that we have this shelter.
- Damien
September 29th, 2021
Things have been going well lately, if not a little weird. I was going to write sooner, but I didn’t feel the need to on account of how boring it has been. That’s been changing lately.
But I won’t get ahead of myself, I should probably say how my family is doing. Violet is fine, if not a little whiny that she doesn’t have internet. Caleb seems actually happy down here. He works out and paints, and just about nothing else. James seems to be a bit stir crazy, but he always has been active. Sherry is upset, and I don’t blame her. She left her family behind and I would assume that it hasn’t left a positive effect on her mind. I have been woodworking for the most part, and I have rediscovered my faith. My father was a religious man, and I was raised religious, but I grew away from it. On the bottom floor of the bunker, my father had a room designated as a chapel. I decided to keep it a chapel to honor him when renovating, and I have been spending more and more time down there. Mary has been, too.
Now on to Max and Austin, the reason why I decide to write. I’ll give a little description of the both of them first. Max was is a normal teenager. Being 13 has it’s effects, but he’s a damn saint compared to other teens I’ve seen. Sure, he always wore darker clothes, painted his nails, was a bit quiet, but he never got in to trouble. The most trouble he gave me was pestering me to buy him hoodies with illegible band logos and the small fortune I have spent on guitars and drums for him. He always had trouble sleeping, and would often switch between nocturnal and diurnal sleeping schedules without a warning, but he did online school so that was fine.
Austin was similar to Max in many ways. He’s quiet without the edginess and loves animals, as does Max. We were able to grab Max’s cat, Kevin, and Austin’s dog, Almond, but we left behind 2 cats and a dog. Austin was obviously very upset at this, but he’s gotten over it. Austin has spent his time reading and attempting to learn guitar from Max.
Then about a week ago the weirdness started. Austin started having trouble sleeping, and Max’s insomnia got worse. I swear they’ve been staying awake for days at a time. I haven’t seen them actually sleeping more than twice this past week and I’ve heard them getting snacks in the kitchen at ungodly hours. They never seem tired though. No dark circles under their eyes, no lethargy. I must be making up problems in my head. Praying always seems to comfort me, though.
Max and Austin aren’t eating much, either. At least not from what I can tell. The bunker has 3 floors, each having a storage of food and water in case of emergency. I keep track of our food every other day, and I swear that they aren’t eating. But at the same time I hear them getting snacks every night, and they even admit to it. It must also be my mind making it up. I’ll update if anything else happens, but this is it for now.
-Damien
December 14th, 2022
Long time no see. I told you I would update if anything else happened, but that was a lie. Nothing else has happened, it just felt weird not writing for over a year. Everyone has acclimated to the bunker well. Max and Austin’s sleeping and eating have not got any better, but they seem fine. I mean, it’s been a year and they aren’t acting any differently. I assume it’s just their way of coping with the end of the world.
Will update if anything happens, or in a year if nothing does.
-Damien
February 2nd, 2023
I don’t even know what to write at the moment. I feel a deep fear that I haven’t felt since I was a child. I’m sitting in my bedroom too scared to turn the lights off, and far to scared to fall asleep, so I’ll write.
It was dinner time as usual, and all nine of us were around the table. Austin and Max hadn’t ate much, as usual, but everyone else was eating as normal. I noticed Austin and Max staring at me, and I met eyes with Austin. His gaze felt like it was staring straight in to my being, the very fabric of my soul. I felt uneasy. His expression was… unimpressed… it was like he was deciding my fate, like I was in front of the pearly gates and he was God, judging whether I would be able to enter.
I looked away, returning to my food, but I couldn’t make myself eat. I still felt them staring at me. I looked back up, and this time at Max. We made eye contact, and he smirked smugly. Right after he smirked. I felt a pain shoot through my head, enough to make me want to scream in agony. But I didn’t. My body went back to eating as my mind was filled with pain. The pain stopped, only to be replaced with one of the weirdest, most unpleasant feelings I’ve ever felt. It felt like a hand was digging through my memories, examining each one. Then it found what it was looking for.
I was transported back to one of my earliest memories. I was around 6 years old, and my mother was sick. She was in the hospital bed, her head void of hair and tubes coming out of her. She looked so weak, and then the heart rate monitor beeped, then settled on a steady beep as the line when flat. My father wiped a tear from his eye, and I did too, even if I didn’t fully understand why at the time.
Then, almost like a movie, the memory started to rewind. I was back at the start of my memory, but it was different. My mother wasn’t in a hospital bed, instead she was tied to a metal table. She was naked, and we weren’t in the hospital, instead, a dilapidated room with concrete walls, and no door.
The only similarity to my real memory was the heart rate monitor hooked up to her. I watched as a woman walked through the wall and into the room. I couldn’t make out any features of the woman, other than that she was a woman. I couldn’t peel my eyes away as the woman began to torture my mother. She cut, and sawed, and hurt her in every way possible. My mother screamed and screamed until she couldn’t no more.
When the woman finally left, my mother was in pieces. Most of her skin was missing, she had no limbs attached to the body, she was utterly destroyed. And yet, I still heard wheezing coming from her, and the heart rate monitor displayed her heart still active, well over 200 bpm. Then, I was back in reality.
Max gave me a smirk and shook his head, scoffing. I tried to think of the real memory, but it was gone. I couldn’t remember how my mother actually died, from cancer, only the vile memory that replaced it. Before I knew it, dinner was finished and I headed to bed. Mary came with, and before I could speak with her she was already asleep in bed.
What are my sons? I want to say they are imposters, but they aren’t, I know they aren’t… I can just feel it, feel that it’s them, not some monster.
I don’t want to go to bed, I’m afraid that they’ll come for me, or change more memories, but I’m so tired. I’m going to try to sleep, and I’ll update soon.
-Damien
May 13th, 2023
Well, I don’t know what to say… nothing has happened since February. May and Austin haven’t desecrated any more of my memories, and they seem normal. I still can’t remember the real way my mother died, but I can deal with that. Will update soon.
-Damien
November 1st, 2023
Why didn’t I do anything while I had the chance? The wasteland that waits outside my bunker’s doors would be heaven compared to what I’m going through now. God… where do I start?
Around mid June, things started getting weird again. This time with everyone. Nobody was themselves any more, or at least not fully. Everyone seemed distant, staring at nothing and being quiet. Everyone but Austin and Max. They seemed completely normal, energetic even. Over the next few weeks nothing changed. If anything, they got worse. They were like zombies.
Around late August it got worse… So much worse… I was in the bathroom brushing my teeth when I got that feeling like I was being watched. I felt like I couldn’t openly look for what was watching me, as that seemed dangerous. I acted normal as I scanned the mirror in front of me, looking behind me. It took a while, but I saw it. Behind the crack in the door, I saw the TV. It lit up the surroundings in flashes and straight in the middle, right in front of the TV, was a pair of white eyes staring at me.
I immediately averted my eyes, scared that whatever or whoever it was would notice me looking at it. I used my peripheral vision to examine it. I couldn’t make out much, but whatever it was, it looked human. From the silhouette I could see it had two horns poking out of the top of it’s head, both relatively thin and clean, pointing almost vertically. I could also see it breathing, as its whole body was moving with every deep, slow breath.
I broke my eyes from the mirror and spit out my toothpaste, and when I looked back, it was gone. Something deep within me told me I needed to get out of there. The top floor was empty, and I decided to just try to leave the bunker to get help, and if there was none, the wasteland would surely be a better way to die. I didn’t even think to go downstairs and get my family, I just needed to go.
I walked, wearing a t-shirt and pajama pants, up the stairs to the entrance. The lights for the stairs up were on, which was odd, as they never were. I walked up and turned the corner to see the door.
A pit of dread so deep it could swallow the ocean opened inside me. There was a long, metal bar jammed through a door handle and straight into the concrete wall. There was another bar jammed straight into the concrete stairs in front of the door, which would stop the inward swinging door from opening. I took a second to try to pull them out, but I realized that it was useless. I was about to go back down when I heard a voice behind me.
“Going somewhere?” Austin’s voice rang out.
I nearly started sobbing, but held it together. Austin was standing right behind me with a fake, innocent smile on his face.
“N-no…” I whimpered out.
Austin didn’t respond, only continuing to give me an innocent stare.
I was much bigger than Austin, Being 230 pounds of muscle and 6 foot 4 inches tall. But the 5 foot 7 boy that I would have previously called my son terrified me. I could have easily overpowered him, but even the thought of attacking him made me shiver. I don’t know if it was because of him still being my son, or that if I failed I would be trapped down here with him it. I know it’s still my son, but it is a monster.
I walked past him and back down the stairs. I felt his eyes burning through the back of my skull as I walked. I didn’t know what to do, but I wanted to see if the rest of my family was okay. I went down to the second floor and saw Mary. She was doing the dishes. I walked up behind her and tapped her shoulder. She didn’t respond.
I peeked in front of her to look at her face to face. She was normal, but her eyes were glassy, void of a soul. Her body scrubbed the dishes, but she wasn’t there, not mentally at least. Then I felt it.
The same, terrifying feeling of being watched. I decided to face it this time, so I spun around, expecting to see the monster in the dark room behind me, but there was nothing. I scanned the darkness and saw no eyes, no horned silhouette. I took a step forward and my last bit of confidence went out the window.
I wanted to sink to the floor and bury my head in my knees. I wanted to scream and cry. I was terrified. I felt breathing on my neck, along with deep, guttural breaths. The breath smell like watermelon, and it felt like the breeze of the breath surrounded my whole head. There was a wall behind me, so nothing should have been able to get behind me. But it wasn’t behind me.
It was above me.
Mary was still doing the dishes next to me, and the monster above me breathed, blowing my hair a little. I didn’t want to look up at the face I knew was above me. I knew that when people did that in the movies, they got scared and fell down. But I wasn’t in the movies. I knew my time was limited when I heard the metallic clang of the stairs as someone walked down from the first floor.
I looked towards the hallway in front of me going off to the left. If I ran down the hallway, I would get to the stairs down to the third floor, and I could close the massive metal door behind me, locking it. The footsteps got louder, so I ran.
I took off towards the hallway. Opposite of the hallway was the stairs to the first floor. I couldn’t quite make it out, but I saw one of those things, presumably Austin. I only saw a shadow before I reached the hallway and turned in to it. I heard the thing that was above me before fall to the ground, and it sounded like it landed on it’s feet. I’m assuming that one was Max. Then I heard a scream.
It came from Max’s direction. It was high pitched, but not a steady note like when a little girl would scream. It quickly ascended from a yell to a earshredding shriek. It was so loud that I had to cover my ears, but even that didn’t stop it. It sounded like the embodiment of what you might think the screams of hell sound like. I struggled to run as the scream made my ears bleed. I made it to the stairs and tripped, tumbling down them. I hit the bottom with a thud, but didn’t even let myself catch my breath before I was up. I ran through the doorway and turned to shove the door closed. It slowly squeaked shut as I heard inhumanly fast footsteps running down the stairs. Right before I closed the door, I saw him. I saw Max.
He was about 3 feet from the door before I shut it, but it was bright enough from the lights being on down here and he was close enough that I saw him clearly.
He was coming out of a sprint as he lunged towards me, one arm outstretched. His fingers were long, and clawlike, but his face will stick with me forever. His long, black and slightly curly hair was still there, and horns protruded from it. They were exactly the ones from when I saw it in the mirror in the bathroom. They looked be made of bone, and were quite tall and sharp. Under that, were his eyes, white and void of color. They stared straight at me with pure rage and hate. His nose was the same, but his mouth… His mouth was filled with long, sharp teeth. He had no lips and his cheeks were torn wide open, allowing his jaw to unhinge wider than I’ve ever seen.
I slammed the door shut just in time for Max to slam in to it. By some miracle, the hinges or latch didn’t break, but the door dented inward. I locked every part of the door as he repeatedly slammed in to it and scratched at it. I heard his voice, distorted, begging to be let in. He screamed between begs, and then the begs turned to threats. About what he would do to me if I didn’t let him in.
I shoved as much furniture as I could in front of the door. As Max kept trying to get in. It stopped after what felt like hours.
I’ve been down here for two months now. I have food and water, but they still keep trying to get in, both Max and Austin. Every once in a while, I hear screams. Not theirs, but Mary’s, Caleb’s, James’, Kate’s… All of them. They are the most pained, desperate, heartbroken screams I have ever heard. I can’t tell if Max and Austin are playing with me, after all, they were able to shove metal in to concrete, so this door should be no problem… or was it something else that did that?
I spend all my time praying, praying that this will be over soon. God help me.
- Damien
March 8th, 2024
It was all a trick. The bombs never fell. It was Max and Austin’s trap. They’re not my children, they haven’t been for many years. They got lost overnight in the forest when we went camping when they were around 6… That’s when they got replaced. They got in months ago. Only a couple days after I last wrote. I tried to run… and they let me, but the door was still jammed.
The only living things that are uninjured are Max’s cat, Kevin, and Austin’s dog, Almond. They live a cushy life in this big bunker along with Max and Austin. My family aren’t allowed to leave the chapel. The demons took their minds from them. Twisted every memory and thought in to pure agony, and when they were done with their minds, the demons tortured them for days as I watched. They didn’t take my mind.
Everyone in my family should be dead… Mary is only a head… but I see her looking around, begging for mercy.
When I first came up from the 3rd floor, the demons weren’t there. It was empty, except for Sherry. She lied naked on the floor, mauled. But it was precise. I remembered back to med school when they showed us a diagram of where all the nerve clusters in the body were. Sherry had deep cuts at each of them. She was begging for me to kill her… to end it.
I went to the gun locker and grabbed a shotgun. When I returned to Sherry… she was gone. I saw a blood trail leading downstairs to the 3rd floor. I followed, shotgun ready.
I first saw Austin. He was normal, smiling at me. I raised the shotgun and aimed it center mass. I pulled the trigger and Austin looked down, touching the bloodstain on his shirt. He then clicked his tongue in disappointment. His body began to twist and contort as he changed. He turned into the same demon Max was before.
I didn’t even think, I just racked the shotgun, raised it to my chin, and pulled the trigger. Everything went dark, then I woke up in the chapel. My family was there, too, all tied up and maimed. All except for Max, Austin, and… Violet? She was in on it? She never got lost in the woods and replaced… no…
She was just a sick and twisted psychopath who liked to hurt people. In the next few month, I learned the depths of pain. You would think that shock would help. Nope. Didn’t feel anything but pure agony. Even as I write this, I feel nothing but pain.
The demons feed on pain and fear, so they keep us alive and they will until they move on to the next victims. I am nothing but a messenger now. I have no skin, no mouth… No legs… but they left me an eye… and an arm with my thumb and pointer finger to write this last journal.
Don’t come and find me… please… please… please… plea