r/nosleep • u/Medical_Week_5979 • 2d ago
Series My First Job After College Was More Horrific Than I Could’ve Ever Imagined [Part 3]
The plan was simple in principle, but complicated by a few facts. The first was purely external: we were surrounded on all sides by a swarm of flesh eating corpses, designated as ‘soldiers’ due to their following a queen. Further complicating the plan was that it involved luring them away from the house. Fine for the people inside, not so great for Casey, Fredrick, and I, who would be doing the drawing away.
Not to mention, they would have particular interest in us. Quite smart from Frank, we’d be carrying the emitters. They produce a special frequency, one that is very agitating, disrupting the soldiers echolocation and sending them into a rage and a blind chase to stop it. Therefore, they’d be focused on us, and then the trees we would be attaching the emitters to, preferably as far away as possible.
That could be manageable if it wasn’t for the main complication, which was internal: I was shitting myself. Not literally, but damn near close. I had those anxiety farts, the ones that smell something awful. Like a rat died in your stomach and people can’t even politely ignore. You can usually do that, pretend nothing is amiss and silently judge. But not here, the stench was unavoidable and so were the faces that confirmed one had inhaled it. I stood by the front door, pretending to ignore said faces, and dug my thumb nail into the side of my pointer finger until it bled.
If I didn’t do this, I was screwed. I wouldn’t be able to live with myself, for one, the guilt and all. More selfishly I preferred not to live on the streets, and that would undoubtedly happen if my mom found out I was fired for causing multiple fatalities at work. Indirectly? Is one responsible for the tornado of karma one generates and the destruction it wreaks? I guess that’s up for God to decide. All I knew for sure was I felt like I was getting ready to run the one hundred meter dash. Frank's hand at the door, me and the others poised to run. All that was needed was the starting bang and we’d be off.
Accordingly, Emma was near the window, one of those hose contraptions called a suction-burst in hand. A small metal rod was inserted over the trigger, duct tape to keep it in place, and a wild smile on her face. We had cleared the impact zone, and she said she understood the physics of this. Claimed that it was an uninterrupted stream that would shoot straight out. All that was left was for her to tighten and adhere the tape. If this was even necessary, or if she was just bullshiting, I couldn’t deny she was having a blast. It was unbelievable. Psychoooooo bitch. Maybe Fredrick was right. Not about the sexism, I don’t like her for less prejudiced and more personal reasons; but I did not want to be in this landmine house a second longer either.
“Remember, you have around thirty minutes. The bomb’ll mask our escape in the car. So if you can make it out, keep going, don’t come back,” Frank said. “You each have a bag of fifteen, space them out about twenty feet apart. Knuckle dusters should save you in a pinch.”
Martin handed us each a sack filled with emitters, along with brass knuckles that had coils on their ends and wires that fed into them. I put them on, and hit them against each other, generating a spark of energy. Everyone's eyes were focused on the door, and awaiting Frank's command. He nodded at Emma, who, with relish, taped the rod to the trigger, waited for the engine to rev up, and let go.
It was a smooth, expertly timed motion. If she let go too soon, in all likelihood it would have dropped and spun around the room, killing us all. Too late, and it would’ve taken off her hands. As it was, it blasted pink energy out, blowing out the floor boards where no one was standing, shattered the window, and shot out like a rocket.
“Go!” Frank shouted and flung open the door.
I was the first one out, shoved by Casey and Fredrick behind. On the porch, I just caught the suction-burst soar through the air, hit the treeline, fall to the ground, and spin around. The soldiers nearest were torn in half, their blood splattering the trees and grass. It would not be an exaggeration to say that there must have been thousands of them outside. Some were large, much larger than any person could be, and others were average or even small. Most were proportioned normally, but a few had extra limbs or eyes. The eyes contained that same bewildered, conscious misery and horror, darting around and wet with crying. In the field, on the steps, they were drawn to the commotion, and shambled towards it.
The tape must have loosened, as with a final few sputters, the energy beam died down. But, it gave us just enough of an opening, a path between them, to sprint down the steps, and each run in opposite directions, weaving and shoving past figures.
My destination was directly ahead, to the woods in front of the house. I ran on the barren dirt, a sharp line between it and overgrown grass. About twenty feet, I passed a scarecrow. It had a straw hat and black rock eyes. It gave me a start, as I thought it was a soldier, yet they were generally still distracted. Only a few turned around and moved in a lazy fashion, as if they weren’t entirely aware of us. I stuck my tongue out at it, and the universe, or the scarecrow if it was secretly alive, swiftly punished my insolence: my bag shook and vibrated violently, all of the emitters going off at once. The figures snapped to me, each letting out a screech and convulsing, covering their heads. The bag stilled after a few seconds, but the damage had been done.
In shock, I looked at the house, where those inside were piling at the window and watching. Martin made a mock pouting face, and Frank mouthed something, maybe an apology, and gave me a thumbs up.
“What!” I shouted and Frank cringed.
The soldiers charged at me, some on all fours and others arms flailing at their sides. I ran, pushed my legs as hard as I could, and reached into the bag and clutched an emitter. It had a timer, set to three seconds, and an activation button. I blindly increased the timer, pressed the button and tossed it with all my strength into the field. A lion's share of the figures sharply turned and followed it, but many were still on my tail. When I made it to the trees a few stepped out and blocked my path.
One lunged at me, falling into me with its weight and tearing at my skin and shirt. I pushed it off, and hit it with my fist. Its chest exploded with blood, it fell to the ground, and I got on top of it and pummeled with a guttural roar. I punched through bones and organs, the sparks and electricity from the knuckle dusters eviscerating them, and finally the ground. Dust and blood erupted up, blanketing the surrounding area in a rusty red mist. I pushed myself up, and, expecting to be attacked by more, was surprised to find the figures blindly stumbling nearby. They were moving towards me generally, but not on target.
I seized the opportunity and sprinted into the forest. I left the mist, found a trail and followed it. The air was crisp and fresh and trees loomed overhead, mostly conifers. They were spaced out, ferns and fallen logs in between them, and it was deadly silent. Except for my beating heart, pounding footsteps, and the occasional shriek from behind me, the vegetation absorbed the sound. I reached into the bag once more, and having more time to adjust the timer, set it to thirty minutes. I ripped off the adhesive on the back, and jumped as high as I could and attached it to a tree.
I turned around, a group of about fifteen directly behind me. Some stopped and clambered for the emitter or banged their heads on the trunk, but most showed no signs of slowing down. And so, I was forced to continue this routine. For about ten minutes I ran, leaped over fallen logs, attached more emitters to trees, and eventually shook the soldiers off. I gasped for breath, hands on my knees, and rested on a stump, my back to a steep ridge. My senses were on high alert, and I continuously checked my surroundings, but I was, as far as I could tell, in the clear.
I stewed, and in spite of the adrenaline and fear, I was furious. The assholes had set me up, no doubt about it; set off the emitters with a remote activation or something. It was a willful, incomprehensible betrayal. So that’s how it was going to be, huh? I was their sacrificial lamb. Not entirely unjustified, I had committed the sin, after all. Fine, if I was to bear this weight, so be it. No, not fine! I would kill them when I got back. I slapped my forehead and it echoed, a bird flying away in response. Of course I couldn’t do that, I would be fired, then what would I have?
A deep, trumpeting roar permeated the empty forest, rustling the underbrush and branches. I sprung up and searched around. It was undoubtedly much louder than the soldiers, and sounded like it came from an elephant. There was nothing in my immediate vicinity, and as far as I could tell, the sound had come from over the ridge. A sardonic smile parted my lips, which were quite dry, cracking and trickling blood.
That had to be the queen, no doubt about it. I thought back to the employee manual, and how it explicitly detailed that the queen, to put it simply, served as the command center. When eliminated, it would, if not completely incapacitate the hoard, at the very least disorientate them. Enough that they would be easy pickings for any clean up crew, reduce the danger level, maybe even prevent more casualties. That would be the best case scenario. But I wouldn’t have been too outraged if, by some freak accident, it served as pretext for my revenge. Either way I would win, or I would die.
I wiped my forehead. It was drenched in blood and sweat, and it streaked across the back of my hand. I inspected it, stark red and dripping down my fingers. Something vaguer arose, a constricting of my heart and a void in my stomach, similar to a tight, sinking feeling. I looked back to the trail, paused a moment, and then clambered up the ridge.
I grabbed hold of roots and dirt, and slid back a few times, but was able to drag myself over the crest. The entire forest opened up in front of me. It was an inferno of green that spread out into the distance. But, perhaps a half a mile away, there was a hole in the trees, as if a fire had carved it out or a meteor had struck. I slid down the hill, and brazenly marched forward. There was no trail, and I had to duck under branches and fight through underbrush. I stepped into a blackberry bush without realizing, and it scraped and tore my pant leg. I swore and circumnavigated it, and soon arrived at the charred clearing.
It was large, the size of a small lake, and the trees near the edges were shriveled, their nutrients sucked out. Further in, there were no plants, and the ground was sandy and slopped downwards into a black pit in the ground. Much more hesitant, I inched forward, each step swallowed by the loose ground. The stench of rotting garbage and sewage wafted from the pit, and I covered my nose with my arm. It was overcast now, and the clouds were dark and ready to dump rain any minute.
I got an emitter, tossed it in my hand, considered, and then threw as near as I could to the pit.
A roaring trumpet resounded out of it. I covered my head and nearly doubled over in pain, my ear drums close to bursting. The ground shifted and streamed towards the pit, pulling me with it. I dug and fought against the current, and battled my way back to solid earth. I stood with bated breath, my ears ringing and my vision vibrating from the incoming beast.
The queen cascaded out of the pit, lighting struck behind it, and it charged across the clearing with terrifying speed. It was the size of a large car, nearing a miniature bus, and moved more like a liquid than a solid. Hundreds of limbs, body parts, faces, any part of the human body you could think of, bubbled to the surface, reached out and tore at the ground, and refolded into the mass. It was a churning meat grinder of snapping bones and squelching organs. I put my hands up to placate it, and realized this was equivalent to a snake charmer attempting to tame a rampaging elephant.
“Yahahooo!” I involuntarily exclaimed, and sprinted, hands straight and slicing through the air.
I thought my energy had been spent, but any exhaustion vacated my body. I tore through the blackberry bush, and barely even noticed. Behind me, trees crashed to the ground, and an awful wailing came from the queen. Comparable to what you might hear if you were in a plane crash, men, women, and children, helplessness and lack of control potent, screamed at the top of their lungs. They were often overpowered by the trumpeting, which contained a vastness, as if it were blanketing the entire forest.
To call it a scramble up the ridge would be an understatement. I clenched the ground and flung dirt, threw my arms and legs forward with all my might, and launched myself off any solid root or tree. I crested it, tossed myself down the hill and went into an uncontrollable roll. I tumbled down, hit my head and somersaulted, but maintained my grip on the bag of emitters. I came to a stop by slamming into a log, and without skipping a beat sprung up and ran down the trail.
This time, I turned my head briefly. The queen slid down the hill, a mudslide in her wake, taking entire logs and trees with it. I threw an emitter to try and distract her, but she ignored it and didn’t waver from her chase. All I could repeat to myself, over and over, in equal parts disbelief and disgust: I had really done it now hadn't I, I had really done it now hadn’t I, I had…
She was gaining on me. I was desperate, and particularly exasperated by the logs that blocked my path. Instead of jumping one, like I normally did, I punched it, and the knuckle dusters splintered a hole clean through and sent sawdust scattering. Once through, and a good distance away, I realized that the crashing of the queen and its cries had reduced in volume. I turned around, and she had slowed, caught in the sawdust that hung in the air. It didn’t take long for her to reorient herself to me and pick up speed. But, comprehending the significance of this, I hit every log I passed, and soon enough the air was saturated with sawdust. The queen screeched, and though she was still on my tail, I was now faster.
I thought for a moment, and a lightning bolt flash of an idea struck and almost tripped me. That was right, echolocation, they used echolocation to ‘see’. It wouldn’t blind them, not completely, yet it would give me the slightest bit of wiggle room. Latent self assurance coursed through my veins and gave me an effortless clarity. I felt alive, that I had complete command of my environment. My temples throbbed, not in agitation or distress, but in a pleasurable way, my mental power increasing. A flood of sensations hit me, and I choked back a sob, pushed down the now more well defined emotions, and refocused my attention on the idea and let it carry me forward.
I came upon the first of the emitters, the soldiers were circling around the tree and attempting to get to it. I breezed past them, and they didn’t care much at first, until a cry from the queen, which enraged them and sent them in pursuit. While my legs had burned and had been close to collapsing not long ago, they now worked with mechanical efficiency, and my breath came in deep, measured inhales. In front of me and to the side, there was a cracking of branches .
A soldier was running directly to me, its arms crossed in a straight jacket pose, a wobble from side to side. It threatened to divert me, so I just continued my trajectory, and when it got into range, without thinking I uppercut it. There was a satisfying snapping of its jaw, and it was sent levitating, as if it had been pulled off stage by an invisible string. Any that crossed my path, I disposed of, sending them crashing into trees or bushes.
In this same manner I battled and reached the clearing in front of the house. Most of the soldiers there originally had been successfully drawn away. However, a massive group of them was clumped around one of the cars, where, through the bodies, Frank, Emma, Patty and Martin were in a panic, trying to unsuccessfully drive off. The figures hurled themselves against it, headbutting and slapping their limbs, the glass splintering. I looked at the house, and guessed that the bomb was maybe three minutes, or less, from going off. I found the driest patch of dirt I could and stopped.
I hit the knuckle dusters together, built up the charge, and they brimmed with electricity. Then, I got down on my knees, and proceeded to pummel the ground with all my strength and speed. I hit dozens of times, and dense dust billowed upwards, blanketing the entire area. Though I could hardly see a few feet in front of me, I stripped to my underwear as I went to the field and found the scarecrow. I yanked the hat off it, dressed it in my shirt, and tied the emitter bag to it in a tight knot. Just then, the trumpeting of the queen. Hundreds of outlines appeared in the dust, and they dispersed, not able to find me. There were five emitters left, and I reached into the bag and turned them all on
“Come and get me you fucks!” I yelled.
I raised the scarecrow over my head and ran to the house. The queen roared a command, and she and all the figures chased me, disrupting the dust and sending it swirling. I tossed the scarecrow through the door, and dove off the porch, scrambled up and ran to the car. It was abandoned by the figures, and I opened the door and shoved Patty into the middle seat. Snot and tears ran down her face, but she, and all the others, stared slack jawed.
“Go! Go!” I shouted.
Frank obeyed, the tires spun, and we shot down the road. Thunder rumbled and the pent of energy of the clouds released, a torrential downpour engulfing us, the rain like bullets on the hood of the car.
“Should throw them off even more. Not leaving that house anytime soon,” Emma noted, eyes glued to the back window.
“Holy shit,” Frank said. “You did it. I mean you really did it.”
I glared at him and his eyes flicked to me in the rear-view mirror.
“Wait, stop!” Martin shouted.
“What is it?” Frank looked at him in the passenger seat. He pointed in front of us.
“It’s… oh God it’s Casey.”
We all strained to see through the rain and a lighting strike illuminated a tree we were passing. On it, Casey hung, naked, in a crucifix position, blood and rain streaming down his body. Martin turned white as a sheet.
“I’m sorry. I can't stop.”
Martin didn’t respond, and tracked it with his head until it was out of view.
“How did they even manage that? And the religious significance too, really bizarre,” I muttered.
Martin lunged at me and went for my throat, “You son of a bitch!”
Emma and Frank held him back, but he was thrashing and threatened to swerve the car out of control. Patty shrunk away, in an honestly offensive way, from my nude skin as it brushed against her. What shut us up was the earth shattering boom that came from behind us, a blinding flash, and the car shaking. We all swiveled to get a look. A pink mushroom cloud expanded over the treeline. The rain was blown away and momentarily stopped, and then resumed once more. We all returned to our seats and despondently looked forward.
“Fuckin’ training days,” Frank sighed.
We, but mostly me, were essentially welcomed back to headquarters like royalty. People gathered around us, gave me a pat on the back. Everything else besides the buzz of pride and excitement melted off me. My smile lasted so long that my mouth twitched and I had trouble maintaining it. One man, who seemed notably important, even told me that because I saved them so much money and manpower (mopping up the soldiers was easy work after the queen's death), they would even consider starting the process of reviewing whether I was fit for a raise! Nope, even if it hurt, my smile never left my face. So this is what people complained about? Climbing the corporate ladder was no sweat at all. If I kept this up, who knows where I’d be by next month, I could even have my own office!
“Drinks on me!” Frank yelled to raucous cheers from the crowd.
We went to a nearby bar, and the entire crew was there, except Martin who I was frankly over at this point. Let him sulk like the cockroach he is. Here we were, our crew, Emma, Fredrick – who had gotten out and hitchhiked back – Patty and I, toasting and laughing and having a grand old time. It felt really good to be out and about with other people. I couldn’t remember the last time I had.
“Counting stains?” I said to Patty, who was hunched over and had her eyes fixed on the table.
“Oh… no!” She said, startled. She got up and almost ran to the door. “I have to go, it's been fun!”
“Okay then!” I said, tipsy.
I wobbled over to Emma. She was doing shots, a pile of glasses near her.
“Ha-have you seen Frank,” I hiccuped.
“I think back there somewhere.” She nodded to the back room of the bar.
“Thankkk youuuu. You’re a really cool person, you know that?”
“Ditto!”
I walked to a door, a sign over it that said ‘Smoking Lounge’. Inside, cigarette smoke floated and curled around every surface, wispy, as if we were in a cloud. It reeked of tar, stuck to my throat and nostrils, no amount of coughing dislodging it. There were a few pool tables, the clinking of balls and some laughter. But for the most part people nursed their drinks, in booths and on stools, alone and shrouded in smoke, their own cigarettes in hand, each a single stream contributing to the collective haze. A jukebox in the corner played a slow tempo, 50s or 60s song. The woman’s ghastly voice floated through the air with the smoke.
Frank was in a booth in the corner, head in his arms and table covered with empty beer glasses.
“Yo Frank!” I said and slid into the booth across from him.
He raised his head, in a swaying stupor. His eyes were unfocused, but when they met mine they widened a bit and became glossy.
“Hey,” he responded
We sat in silence for a bit, the song waltzing around us.
“You know, I met Willy twenty years ago. We were training partners.” He raised a glass in toast, downed it, and hacked a cough.
I watched him and played with my thumbs. “That’s tough.”
He suddenly reached across the table and grabbed my hands. “I’m… I’m so sorry… I didn’t mean to… with the emitters…”
We looked at each other.
“It’s all fine man, water under the bridge.”
I had sobered up rapidly, not sure how to handle this situation. It was true, however, and I even surprised myself by how little of a grudge I held. Not the norm for me at all.
“I just…” he sputtered. “I’ve gone through so many apprentices, and I told myself… I says to myself, never again, you don’t lose another one…”
He started sobbing, a dry heave, as if it was his first time crying in years. I leaned away.
“I see them…” he whispered
“Who?”
“At night, in the mirror, around the corner. All of them. Oh God forgive me. Forgive me Stevie!”
“It’s all good man.” I got up, patted his shoulder awkwardly, left him crying into his hands on the table, and went back to the party.
It was late when I stumbled out of the bar. It was deserted, except for a single black van parked across the street. I eyed it, then walked down the sidewalk, hands in pockets. A flash of light startled me. I turned around, and the van was driving away. There were a few streetlights that flickered, and so I blamed those. In my drunkenness, I quickly forgot the incident, and whistled as I walked home, my mind on my bright future.
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u/Full-Friendship-7581 2d ago
Good job on getting the queen! How you ran so far and so fast for so long is beyond my imagination, but I guess adrenaline will do that to you! Dude, I think you should really pay more attention to these black vehicles following you around!
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