It started with a cut. I had not thought much of it at the time, nor could I tell you where I even got it from. It’s the only thing I could think of that would explain it: how they got inside. It was a thin cut on the center of my right palm. It hurt more than my ego would care to admit. As a precaution, I cleaned it and applied a liberal amount of anti-bacterial cream before covering it with a bandage. It had been a nuisance while pushing my computer mouse around with it, constantly reminding me of its presence. I lifted my hand and rotated my wrist. A rough series of cracks sounded off with the sensation of dragging a stick through gravel. Papercuts and carpal tunnel: the hazards in my field of work. I turned my gaze to the bottom right corner of the screen. 4:48 PM. 12 minutes from the end of the shift. My supervisor had already slipped out. They had tickets to…something…it didn’t matter. I wasn’t paying too much attention at the time, truth be told. They had bragged the whole afternoon away and strutted out a full hour early. None of us had the desire to challenge the person above us on the food-chain. God forbid if they found out I took less than 15 minutes at the end of the day. Not the most pleasant work environment, but it was the one that actually hired me. Perhaps my exploitability was my key asset.
Most of the other workers had taken their chances and left soon after the supervisor’s exit, leaving me behind. Seeing no one was around, I signed out and turned off my monitor. Sliding my papers into my pack, I lifted it by the strap with my right hand, not giving much thought to the action. I dropped it immediately in response to a shooting pain. I looked at my palm. The bandage was virtually pristine, save for the wrinkles caused by the curvature of my hand. Odd. It had felt as if I grasped a curling iron, or at least I imagined that’s how it felt. I gingerly tested the strap with my right hand again. It seemed fine. The sensation had been far more severe than anything I had felt during the work day. I decided against putting further unnecessary stress on it. Using my left hand, I hoisted it around my shoulder. It had already fallen dark by the time I walked out into the office parking lot. I would have complained, but around this time last year we had a significant snowfall. I was just happy I didn’t have to drive home through the snow. My palm was throbbing. I had no gloves on me, so my hands were rather cold, but the sensation was far greater in my bandaged right palm. It was as if an icicle pierced right through its center. I hurried towards my vehicle in the corner of the empty lot. I flung the driver’s side door open and tossed my pack into the passenger’s seat.
…
My eyes opened; their vision consumed by a miniature mountain range of white that was a stucco ceiling. I blinked the sleep away from my eyes. A thought was developing, yet it dragged along, scraping the inside of my skull, refusing to form into anything coherent. I just laid still with an instinctual feeling that something was not right. Without my mind giving any definition to this feeling, I was unsure how to act. My eyes remained on the ceiling. It was much like that which coated the ceiling of my parents’ old home. I hadn’t seen much of the unappealing substance since I moved out. My apartment’s styling was an amalgamation of wood, concrete, and glass. Perhaps a few years ago it’s design would have been considered inspired…
I was not in my own bed.
My eyes shifted downwards carefully. Light shone through the window a few steps from the foot of the bed. The walls were lined in yellowing wallpaper. The scent of years of cigarette smoke hung in the atmosphere. My eyes tilted to my right. The red digits of a clock sitting on the peeling wood of a nightstand read 7:23 AM. My attention drifted to the left. The sheets were in disarray, leaving the impression of another body that inhabited the space moments before. I slowly sat up. I took in my surroundings. There was a brown rotting desk in the corner with a seemingly ancient metal lamp upon it. A black tube TV was wedged into a cabinet sitting in front of the window. To its left, a door, marked, beaten, wearing its years of abuse. The door’s painted white metal acted like a canvass for the dark streaks and other miscellaneous smudges that adorned it.
I was in a motel. A real dump of one at that. I waited for memories to materialize. Nothing came. The parking lot, then this. I felt my stomach churn. It was as if time lurched forward without warning. The room was dizzying. My head turned towards the left of the room. In the corner was the entrance to the washroom. I hesitated for a moment. Burgundy curtains were drawn part way across the window, cloaking the left side of the room in shadow. Despite my nausea, I had little desire to cross the threshold of darkness towards the washroom. Rubbing my face, a soggy bandage slightly caught on the bridge of my nose. A sharp response shot off from my hand, causing me to pull it a way. It continued to ache dully as I inspected the warped bandage. Past my hand, my clothing and shoes sat amongst the mucky brownish red carpet. Without stepping down onto it, I leaned from the bed and snatched up my belongings. Hastily throwing them on, I stood up and began to make my way towards the room’s exit. I heard something fall off the bed. A pillow or blanket perhaps? I wasn’t sure, but I heard something. I turned around, my back to the front door.
It was faint. A moan of sorts. Just barely audible. I wanted to pretend that I didn’t hear it. I stood still, unable to control my motor functions. I just stared into the dark. The moment hung in silence. A pale, wiry, hand slowly lifted itself from below the other side of the bed. Its digits clawed a crumpled sheet. Low moaning emanated from the dark. The noise sustained, becoming louder with every moment until, without warning, it became a shriek. I broke from my daze and spun towards the door. I grasped its handle and flung it back, fleeing out of the room. I refused to look behind me as I sprinted, creating as much distance as I could from the thing in the room. The chill ate at my skin as I ran through the outer walkway of a weathered green building. The winter sun was just beginning to rear its head. I approached a metal stair set leading down to the car lot below. My shoes clanged against the steps, echoing out into the silent morning. Once I reached the ground floor, I stopped and surveyed my surroundings.
I had no idea where I was. To add to my concern, my vehicle could not be found amongst the handful that were sitting in front of the 2-story relic of a building. I looked up towards a sign that sat atop a pole placed by the Parking entrance. “MOTEL” was written in filthy fluorescent letters. The “O” was flickering. Scanning my surroundings, I noticed that the motel seemed to be tucked away in some sort of industrial district. I turned around to face the building I had just come out of. My breath plumed in the brisk morning air. Looking past the second-floor railing, I spotted the room that I had fled from. The door was still open. I couldn’t make out much else beyond that. My legs began to move before my mind even seemed to command it. I had no direction, just the need to escape, to be somewhere, anywhere else than here. I was running towards the parking lot exit. In my mind’s eye, the foul creature had crawled out onto the balcony, leapt down to the pavement, and was chasing me on all fours, frothing at the mouth. Sound had been muted. All I could hear was the beating of my heart accompanied by rhythmic breathing. The air stung my throat as I ran straight into the street. I nearly caught my leg on a pothole as I ran helplessly without any direction. I could feel it gaining. My chest squeezed as I felt it right on top of me. I continued to run, heaving, nearly out of breath, like a race horse about to collapse. Electricity danced around in my brain. The scenery began to darken.
…
There was nothing. Just a sound. Liquid. Gurgling. Distant, yet all too close. A violent tremor. Something shaking at my feet. I could feel its vibrations, yet I could not see. The veil was slowly lifted. Concrete. Columns dispersed across a barren grey landscape, marked by yellow dividing lines. Pipes overlapped one another on the ceiling. Glaring light emanated from a strip of fluorescent bulbs hanging above. An arrow was painted in the middle of the path, followed by another which curved left, leading down a corridor that spiraled out of view. My entire body felt rigid. How was it possible that I arrived here unconsciously? I went to turn my neck, and met a mild resistance. An invisible force tugged in the opposite direction as I turned to look to my right. It dissipated. A parking garage continued for some distance before me, with only a few cars scattered amongst the stalls. My body ached and my eyes burned. I blinked a few times, trying to shake away my fatigue. The entire structure was silent save for that sound. Rustling intermingled with a low gurgling. A sound that in my stupor, I did not register. As my mind fought through the distress of finding myself in another unknown location, I finally fixated on it. The origin of the noise was close.
Incredibly close.
At first glance, it seemed as if I was alone in this structure. My gaze locked forward. Right where the arrows led off to the side, there was a concrete wall, broken up only by the pristine metal doors of an elevator. In its reflection, was an obscured picture of myself and a dark blob directly at my feet. If the image on the doors was to be believed, something was laying right in front of me. It was just out of my vision. All I had to do was look down. The sound became more violent. It was that of a struggle. I felt something brush against my left leg. I tilted my head and looked down upon it. On the hard surface below me, was a man. He wore a black raincoat and blue jeans. He had a thick brow and hollow cheeks. His eyes were light blue. These were the details that I attempted to focus on, trying to avoid processing the entire picture.
The man was convulsing in his own fluids, arching his back upwards and slamming it into the concrete. Streaks of blood came from the stripes that his nails had carved into his throat. His left hand gripped his chest as his right continuously raked at his throat. Saliva and bile dripped from clenched teeth that looked like they were on the verge of shattering. All the while his eyes were trained upon mine. I wanted to collapse, but my legs were locked in place. The body twisted and contorted to the point that I thought it was going to fold in on itself. Then it stopped. The man’s back fell flat on the concrete. Stillness. Life left his eyes. The pupils stared directly at the ceiling. For a brief moment, I thought I noticed something. Just at the inner corner of the man’s eye, something poked out. A bundle of dark strands, with distinct bends in them part way. Each of them had irregular jagged grooves. If I had to compare them to something, I would say they were almost like spider legs. They rotated and extended in each direction, then slid back inside from whence they came. The man’s cold blue eyes darted right, looking directly at me.
…
I stood in a dimly lit room. A warm liquid made its way down my right arm. There was a large gash in my bicep. I could see it, but could not feel it. A sensor light provided a slight amount of illumination from the outside. Glass was sprinkled across the carpet with intermittent blood stains. My eyes followed the trail of red which led to the remnants of a sliding glass door. It had been shattered. Something had even caught the frame, knocking it off the tracks. Past a bookshelf, just behind a sofa, something stuck out. I cautiously moved towards it. My legs stopped at the edge of the sofa. I leaned over. Not much detail could be discerned in the faint light, but I saw enough. A grown man, in a grey t-shirt and boxer shorts, lay on the floor face up, his feet sticking out just past the furniture. Behind me, a light wheeze glided through the air. I turned towards the noise. There had been a door behind where I had come into consciousness. It was slightly ajar. A few glowing stickers that depicted smiling planets, stars, and the like, were haphazardly thrown across it. At the center of the doorway was a small silhouette of a body. It twitched. I felt my insides nearly collapse on themselves.
A soft whimper echoed through the building. My body became rigid. The cry sounded off again. It was muffled, but I could hear it all too well. My legs began moving, but not by my command. My neck twisted to the right. A carpeted staircase was before me. I continued towards the noise. I tried to stop. My body continued. My arms, legs, nothing responded to me. I ascended the steps. As the stairs creaked, the cries peaked in terror. The sound which once seemed almost silent was now deafening. It was as if my hearing had blocked out everything else and isolated the noise. At the top of the steps, I passed by a hallway lined with family photos. My eyes remained locked forward. Stopping abruptly, I pivoted to the right. My vision was consumed by a door. Whatever was behind it attempted to hold its breath, but their heartbeat was painfully audible. Without warning, my body slammed repeatedly against the door. The person behind it began screaming. On the third try, the door flew off of its hinges. Inside, a street lamp shone through a window’s blinds revealing a dark-haired woman. She lobbed something. It collided with my left shoulder. I proceeded forward.
She backed into the corner of the room, unable to say a word. I lunged forward and threw her to the ground. My hands latched onto her head and began to pry her jaw open. Leaning above her, I felt my body shake as my mouth began to stretch open. Stripes of light from the window revealed the awful scene. The feeling of thousands of fibers dragging across my esophagus spurred my mind into a frenzy. A flood of minuscule wriggling masses came pouring out of my mouth, falling straight into hers. A few fell just shy of her mouth and crawled their way inside. I was able to spot one of them as it passed a blade of light. At its center, was a porous, white body. Sprouting from all angles were several dexterous strands that transported the grotesque masses at a disturbing speed and steadiness. Their form almost resembled the seed heads of dandelions in a hideous caricature of nature. Tears came from my eyes as I was helpless, only able to watch. My jaw then clamped shut and I let go of her. I watched as the last of the creatures crawled inside. Her jaw remained open, grotesquely askew. Eyes wide, her face locked into an expression of shock. My body stood up robotically and my gaze remained locked on her as she began to convulse on the ground.
…
I don’t know how much more time I have before I become nothing more than an observer. The hours that I am awake have begun to dwindle. I have lost track of time completely. I can not say if it has been days, weeks, or months. They know everything I intend to do. There is not much that can be done. There are others out there now who have lost their bodies and soul. All I can do is write about it with the time I have left. They sense no threat in these actions, perhaps because I know it is futile. What are they? How did they get inside that cut? I will never have answers to these questions. All I know is that they will continue to spread. Watch the people around you and take note of their strange behavior. I wish all of you well. If you do not heed these warnings, you may end up like me: A passenger.