I don’t know how long it was before any of us felt comfortable moving, but Clay was the first, shooting to his feet and hissing a string of expletives. His arms ran with scarlet ribbons of blood, trailing between his fingers as he picked out the glass that had caught him.
He’d been nearest to the door which had burst with the first few windows, and caught the worst of it, though all of our heads rang and stomachs turned with nausea.
“What - what was that?” Phil managed. His eyes were wide, with a look I’d seen on pictures of war veterans or victims of some disaster, a glassy far-away stare.
“There was something…in the sky. What was it?”
His voice shook as though he was close to tears.
“I don’t know,” I answered, surprised by the sound of my own voice.
“We - we should call the fucking cops or something, the - the National Guard, the goddamn Air Force!” Clay cried, his voice cracking as fear and panic still overwhelmed him.
I nodded, head still throbbing and mind racing as I went for my cell phone. A feeling like cold water being dumped overhead made the blood freeze in my veins.
No signal.
I shook my head.
“There’s no service.”
Clay’s face contorted into a look that was a mix of surprise, denial, and terror, as he pulled his phone from his pocket. Phillip did the same, hand shaking all the while.
No one said anything, the two of them staring at their phones with variations of the same expression. They didn’t need to say a word. I knew what it meant.
“Let’s just go.” I said.
I struggled to my feet, the world seeming to spin beneath me for a moment as I gripped a chair for balance. I helped Phil to his feet, his eyes never once leaving the skies beyond the broken windows.
Clay led the way, grimacing as his arms continued to run with blood. As we made our way outside, I could tell immediately that something was deeply wrong. That smell hung thick in the air still, but it was more than that, the streets were emptier than before…
“They’re gone. Everything is fucking gone…”
Clay spoke the thought aloud, just as a cold, awful realization dawned on me.
The cars were gone now. Both the empty vehicles that had previously lined much of the streets, and Clay’s own truck, all gone. All of the vehicles but one, my own sedan, left idling in the middle of the street.
With all that happened my memory was spotty, but I felt certain that was not where I had left it.
Clay shook his head, moving aimlessly about the street head on a swivel, searching for his vehicle to no avail. Finally, he let out a scream, long and full of rage that echoed through the empty streets.
Phil just kept shaking his head, muttering something to himself. I hardly had time to react as Clay made his approach, throwing up my hands to partially block the punch he threw. I felt a shock in my jaw, and for a moment I felt heat in my face, for a split second the world disappearing behind darkness and flecks of light.
The commotion seemed to kick Phillip from his stupor, and he grabbed Clay, pulling him away from me.
“This was your fucking idea!” He cried, accusation heavy in his tone.
I ran my hand along my jaw. My lower lip was bleeding slightly, but I was otherwise okay with the exception of the perpetual sting in my face.
I know I ought to have left it alone, but I was scared and angry, days and months of dammed emotions coming to surface.
“You didn’t have to come! I didn’t make you listen, what the fuck is wrong with you?” I cried, taking a step closer.
Clay laughed, but it was a sound without any genuine humor, mocking and belittling.
“You’re a snide, self-assured asshole man. Always have been,” he said, his words coated in a palpable venom, but even worse, a sort of confident assuredness that spoke of a conviction behind them, as though he’d thought these things for quite a while.
“It’s the reason we’re the only two people still willing to put up with you, it’s the reason for where you are in life with that dead end job, and it’s the reason Tracy left. You can’t ever consider someone else is right, you chide and chide, and make stupid comments until they finally give into you!”
I wanted to feel something, anger, hate, an urge to hit him back even, but I couldn’t. A part of me could only sit in the recognition that, in some ways, he was right.
“Stop Clay, this isn’t the time!” Phil said, putting himself between the two of us.
“We need to go,” he turned to me, “We’re going to have to use your car, are you okay to drive.”
I nodded, though my thoughts were still on Clay’s own words.
“Then let’s go.”
Clay’s eyes lingered on me for a moment, and I thought I could see his expression softening before he turned and made for the car. I followed, and until we reached the car, the faint winds moving through the buildings was the only noise to accompany us.
My mind raced, Clays words, the call from earlier, and whatever had happened in the diner all spinning through my head in a vortex of thought. None of it made sense.
This place, that thing in the sky, the cars, it was impossible. I knew that as we left it behind, it would always bother me, like a picture left askew, this blindspot in what I knew to be possible.
“Hello? Hello? Is anyone there?”
A voice echoed through the empty streets, a woman’s by the sound of it, carried from somewhere that seemed both near and distantly behind us. It froze all three of us in place, the same question passed silently between us as though no one wanted to be the first to ask whether anyone else had heard it.
“Hello?” That voice again, except this time I felt certain it was somewhere ahead.
Phil snapped to face it, the fear that had seemingly dissipated slowly returning to the surface, his eyes darting about nervously.
Clay looked at me hard, shaking his head slowly as though he could hear my thoughts. I narrowed my eyes, holding back none of the bitterness I felt.
“So some woman is alone wandering this place with…whatever the hell that thing is and you wanna leave her?”
Looking back, I can’t account for the sudden defiance I felt. Perhaps my ego had finally caught up with the earlier wounds, or perhaps the idea of leaving someone here felt too much like the failure of my relationship. I can’t be certain, likely I’d need the help of a therapist over days of work to understand, and days I do not have.
Clay looked as though he wanted to spit in my face, shaking his head, eyes filled with something cold and unrecognizing.
“You’re a fool.” he said. “And you’ll get one of us killed for it.”
“He - he’s right,” Phil stammered, though he looked as though he dreaded the words.
“It - it wouldn’t be right to leave her..”
Clay scoffed, looking between the two of us and shaking his head.
“Whatever.” he relented, climbing into the backseat and letting the door slam shut behind him.
Phil scanned the ground for a moment, sighing for a long moment, before looking back at me.
“He’s pissed, understandably…but I’m sure he gets it. Let just see if we can find…whoever that was,” he nodded for me to follow as he made his way towards the car, pausing for a moment.
He met my eyes.
“Just - promise you won’t get out of the car. We’ll drive around and look, and if we can’t find anyone, we go.”
I nodded.
“Yeah, okay. Promise.”
With that he made his way into the car. I followed, feeling suddenly very claustrophobic in the vehicle as we began to make our way through the streets.
“Just listen for her,” I said, rolling down all four of the windows as we began moving through the streets at random, listening for any sign of the person we’d heard earlier.
At some point, I began calling out, much to Clay’s dismay, shouting for anyone to respond.
It wasn’t long before eventually, someone did.
“Please! Help me! It’s coming!”
That voice again, much more clear this time, coming from a few streets away within one of the residential areas. I veered left, onto the road from where I could hear it coming. My foot settled on the gas, an unusual determination swelling in me as the calls grew louder, until we’d arrived outside a house.
It was no different than the others, a single story, red brick home, with all the windows drawn but one, and yet the sight of it sent chills down my spine. The front door sat wide open, yet I could see nothing inside.
Clay was already shaking his head when I turned to face them.
“Fuck no. No. Look at that place it’s…not right…” he trailed off, unable to put the feeling to words.
I knew what he meant, I felt it too. We all could, staring back at the entrance like the maw of some animal.
And yet as that voice echoed from within, I felt stirred by an uncharacteristic sort of boldness.
“It’s fine,” I said.
“I’m not gonna push it. Just…wait here. I’ll be back.”
Clay scoffed, and Phil just looked on with sad eyes, nodding almost to himself.
“Then I’m coming.”
Clay looked ready to explode, staring at Phillip as though he’d grown another head.
“You always go along with his bullshit.” He said, eyes narrowed as he looked at Phillip.
“Whatever. I’m staying here, you two have fun. If you’re not back in ten minutes, I’m leaving without you both.”
I wanted to argue, but knew it would accomplish nothing, so instead, I gave a brief nod and exited the car.
Phil hurried from the backseat, following behind and I could hear the sound of the doors automatic lock as we made some distance. The nearer we came to that front door, the more I could see the house inside, with a standard foyer and living room, nothing unusual but for the utter state of disarray it was left in. Shelves were toppled, and furniture overturned, various things scattered about the floor as though a tornado had somehow moved through the place.
Somehow, the opening felt…eerie, as though what lie on the other side was more than a mere house, but some other world in which something awful had happened. A part of me wondered if Clay wasn’t right, and considered turning back on the spot, but the idea filled my mouth with an awful taste at the satisfaction I knew it would bring him.
So, spurred forth by my own ego, I stepped inside. The smell was immediate, like sitting too close to an old television set just an acrid static that singed at your nose hairs, as was the feeling of a sort of chill that gripped me and made my stomach turn with nausea, my vision buzzing momentarily.
“Looks worse than the diner when we left,” Phil commented, looking over one of the few coffee tables still on its feet.
I nodded, the implications of the thought making me feel uneasy.
Broken glass crunched beneath my feet as I stepped forward, peering into the kitchen. On the wall hung a photo, a man and a woman, and three children. I felt something shift in me, as I wondered where all of the individuals were now, and if anyone would ever know. I wondered who it was we had heard.
There was another question that was clawing at the back of my mind, one I didn’t want to acknowledge yet couldn’t ignore. Would we join them if I couldn’t find her soon?
“HELP ME!” The cry echoed from somewhere deeper in the house, sudden and shrill, making me jump as I spun to face it.
Phil’s reaction was the same, our eyes meeting as we searched for the source, settling on a door in the hallway ahead.
Even at a distance, I could see the tremors that took him, and didn’t feel far off myself, but I was there for a reason.
“You don’t have to follow me.” I said in earnest, as I began to make my way forth. Somehow, by the echo from behind the door, I knew there was a basement on the other side. I didn’t have to look to know Phillip was behind me, breathing nervously and muttering barely silent prayers.
I opened the door, and we began to descend into the darkness below, hands feeling along the wall for a light switch.
I felt something brush past my cheek, a string hanging overhead, and upon pulling it a dim bulb sputtered to life, offering what little light it could manage.
It did little to illuminate what lie in the basement beyond, only really serving to cast eerie shadows along the stairwell, but at least we could see where our feet were to land.
“Help me….help…” that voice again but…not nearly as loud as before or as urgent.
I felt one of those unearthly chills, as though my body were warning of something I couldn’t yet perceive, and it frightened me.
“Do you see her?” Phillip whispered, voice still shaking as he stepped behind me, kneeling slightly as if worried standing at his full height might attract somethings attention, it took me a moment to realize I was doing the same.
“No. I can’t see a damn thing,” I breathed back, gritting my teeth at the squeal of the staircase beneath my feet.
Feeling its weight in my pocket, I remembered my phone. It had been all but useless sense we’d been attacked by…whatever that thing was, but the function of a flashlight was the one thing I knew it could still serve.
I shined the light onto the ground below, a gray cement slab that seemed to extend through the entire room.
“help…please…please help…”
That voice again, this time so small it was barely more than a whisper from…somewhere around the corner. We turned into the basement, the light exposing a small hallway ahead, leading to a boiler room.
In the hall sat a door, closed though I could see a light glowing beneath it, and hear the woman’s voice from within.
I glanced back at Phil, his eyes never wavering from the door, and he simply nodded. We pushed forth.
“help…please…”
The nearer I grew to the door, the more my skin began to crawl, something off about the voice in a way I could only now process. There was an odd…hiss to it, a mechanical crackle that I couldn’t place.
Hands shaking I pushed the door open. The room was dark, only the glow of an old television set to prevent total blindness.
“Do you smell that?” Phillip asked.
I nodded, that same ozone scent hanging heavy in the air.
It took a moment to process what I was hearing, but as it began to click, confusion and dread filled me in equal measure.
“Help me…help…” The voice echoed from the television.
“That…that doesn’t make any sense,” Phillip said, voice no longer a whisper as a familiar dread filled his words.
“We - we heard it from blocks away that…that’s impossible,”
The light on the screen seemed to shine with such sudden force it temporarily blinded us, bathing the room in an eerie white light, the old box set glowing like a supernova. The air seemed poised to set alight, the electric stench so strong I could feel my lungs burning.
CRASH
The house shook, threatening to collapse in on us as that awful sound rocked the earth. The screen of the old television burst in a shower of sparks and glass, scattering across the room.
Phil’s eyes met mine, a primal sort of terror filling them as his hands clasped over his ears. Something like a shriek, ancient and animal, but put through a computer filter or something of the sort pierced the air seeming to come from everywhere at once. All I could do in those moments was cover my ears and pray, until the awful cacophony ceased and the air took on that eerie stillness.
It took a moment before either of us moved, myself first, scrambling for the phone I’d dropped in the commotion before hurrying to help Phillip to his feet.
“What - what was it? What the hell was that?” he asked, shock still working its way through him.
“C’mon,” I urged, pulling him towards the way we’d come, and answer already in mind.
“We have to go check on Clay now!”
That seemed to stir him, and the two of us raced out of the house, in worse condition than it had been before, and out into the front yard.
The weather had seemingly shifted in the minutes we’d spent inside, the clouds dark and foreboding, wind whipping leaves from trees and lashing its tendrils across my face.
The car was gone. The space it had occupied almost mockingly empty, that fucking stench filling the air. There was no sign of Clay, and something told me, there wouldn’t be any longer.
“It got him…” I hardly realized I was speaking the words as I did, my mind putting two and two together.
“That thing…tricked us, and it got him.”
The swell of emotion I felt threatened to send me into freefall. He was here because of me, we were on this trip for me, and it was my choice that had gotten him into this and now…
God, and now what? I couldn’t even be sure of what I was guilty, couldn’t even be certain whether I’d gotten my friend killed or simply whisked off for some unknown fate.
“He was right…” Phillip breathed, tears streaming openly as he stared at the spot the car had once occupied, as if at any second it might return.
The wind picked up, sending ominous whispers through the trees and tracing an icy chill down my back.
“We should’ve left…we - we should’ve gone when we had the chance. It’s gonna get us now…” his tone was almost child-like, past the point of fear almost as though he were stating the dreaded reality.
I shook my head, stepping in front of him and gripping him by the shoulders.
“Phil, we have to go, now. We can - we can walk,” I spoke, though in hindsight I think even I wasn’t convinced by my words.
“This place isn’t that big, it would take maybe half an hour, forty minutes, we could just stick to the main road and walk out of here.”
Phil laughed, a sound devoid of humor or mocking or any sort of emotion, cold and harsh.
“It’s not going to let us go. It gave us that chance, and we didn’t take it. Don’t you see?”
The skies above seemed to groan and rumble as warning of an approaching storm and yet, no signs of lightning were to be seen. The wind grew stronger, whipping my jacket about with such force it almost moved me.
Phillip just shook his head, staring up at the sky.
“Too late…”
CRASH
The air itself seemed to shake as a sound like the sky tearing open above us threatened to deafen me.
The sky above was an ominous gray, every cloud swelling with the threat of a torrential rain, and at first I could see nothing but the sunlight filtered gray through the mist.
And then, there was movement.
Brief, at first, a flash of something dark enough that the sun couldn’t pierce it as it passed between an area where the cloud cover was just a bit lighter.
Everything shook, my very bones seeming to move out of place as the sky seemed to split in half. From the clouds above, I could see something emerge.
In that moment, it cast a circular shadow almost thirty feet ahead, passing over the street like some new celestial body.
If you’ve never seen something impossible, witnessed something your mind knows inherently to be wrong no matter how hard it seems to grapple for some sort of understanding, you can never understand what I felt in that moment.
I found myself grasping for answers, a nauseating sense of horror wracking my body.
“It’s - it’s a fucking weather balloon or - or…” I could find no words, every explanation falling flat in the face of the impossible.
Its shape was circular, a perfect sphere with nothing resembling a wings, or flaps, or rudders. It was a pale white, so much so that it almost reflected the light like another sun in the sky. The air hung thick with the smell and taste of ozone, so much so I couldn’t help but cough violently.
It was gone again, disappearing into the clouds, moving with such sudden speed I knew it depended on more than the wind. For several moments we saw no sight of it above, and yet the sound of its movement grew until the ground seemed to shake.
“It’s coming closer,” I spoke the realization, voice hoarse as I sputtered another cough, eyes meeting Phil’s.
He smiled sadly, and in that moment I understood that I had to flee.
I didn’t wait for Phil to follow, my legs pounding as I ran back towards the house, and away from that thing.
The entire entire world seemed to shake, the air itself somehow vibrating until I could feel it in my bones. A glance over my shoulder told me why, as I passed the side of the house we’d just exited, I caught sight of the object descending until it was barely thirty feet or so off the ground.
It was bigger than I’d imagined, at least the size of three school buses in length, and by the look of it, it seemed entirely composed of some pale metallic substance, almost like a reflective marble. I lost sight of it as I neared the car, but I knew very well that it was directly overhead.
It made a…a sound, like the bellow of some horrid, ancient beast had been run through autotune as it closed in on him, growing closer and closer until I could feel it, feel the static that seemed to radiate forth from it.
I didn’t stop, even as the mechanical roar rose to a fever pitch, combining with a human shriek to form a sound so awful I’m sure it would haunt me for the rest of my life, if I expected that to be long. I chanced a singular glance over my shoulder before passing behind the house and into its backyard, and what I saw I still can’t be sure of.
It was as though Phillip’s body was…dissolving, coming apart in ribbons of flesh, the air around it visibly warped by some sort of energy that seemed to pour forth from that….thing, floating like another moon a few feet over his head.
I kept running until there was nothing but the sound of my own breath and pounding heart, long after silence had settled over the town.
As shock began to take effect, the adrenaline wearing off and leaving me feeling bruised, battered, scared and alone, I found my way into the local public library.
That’s where I’ve been for the past few hours. I’m staying off the streets. It’s not safe, that thing could descend on me at any time and do…god knows what.
I’m writing this because…well, because I’ve done all I can to try and reach out for help, to no avail.
There is little else in the silence for me to do but perhaps try and write some account of what happened here, in the off-chance that anyone finds themselves wondering about the town of Criers Creek, or the even more unlikely scenario they’re wondering about me.
To Clay and Phil’s families, if you’re seeing this and still remember them, I’m sorry. I never meant for this to happen.
And to whoever is reading this, be willing to trust the people around you sometimes. And stay away from Crier’s Creek, there is something in the skies above, something that has claimed this place as its own.