On the dawn of the new day, Larry decided it
would be a good day. He got up, brushed his teeth, buffed his ego by talking to
himself in the reflection of the mirror, combed his hair until he was afraid of
losing any more of it, and tried his best not to remember that he was fired
just the day before. "You're a handsome one, you know that Larry?" He
struck a pose in the mirror. "Not only that, but you're so clever it hurts
sometimes! And... and... You don't have a job..." Larry deflated slightly,
but recovered quickly. "But that's because you didn't LIKE that job! You
didn't want to be there anyway! They were always so demanding! Asking you to DO
things. Not very nice, at all." He grinned, and punched the air with his
fist. "Now you're going to GO out there and get a job that you want! A job
that is MUCH better than the last one! You're going to be amazing! Knock those
guys dead!" He smiled.
What Larry didn't realize was that the people
he was going to see about a job were more sinister than they appeared. On the
front, it was just a building, a normal, average, every day building where
people would go work and nothing seemed odd to them. The only problem was that
in the background, in the basement, in the secret crevices of this building,
stranger things were going on. Men with white jackets and scarred faces would
slip past everyone and disappear through a wall, only to be remembered as a
ghost story by some delusional secretary and laughed about later.
Unfortunately for said secretary, it was not
just a shadow she saw or a trick of the light. Indeed, it was a man, just as
she thought she’d seen, and once someone had seen a man, this apparition, so
they thought, they didn't last long. True, usually it would be passed as a
candle bumped over in the night, or a kidnapping, or simply a car accident, but
one thing was true about all these cases, and that was that their human remains
would never be discovered but for perhaps a few teeth to identify them by.
In all the world, however, there seemed to be
only one man interested in these stories. His name was Jacob Moro, and he was a
journalist. At least, that's what he used to be, but he himself had come onto
some bad luck recently, and also lost his job as Larry had. The reason was more
diverse, though, for Jacob had been fired because he was tracking down too many
"ghost stories," and too many important people had politely requested
that he be thrown out of his job immediately. His bosses had eventually agreed
that it was time to cut their losses and let him go.
Jacob was in too deep by now, however, and
swore that he would find proof if it was the death of him.
Larry, as it happened, had acquired the job
he was hoping to get and started work immediately. His co-workers were like
everybody else, and his job was altogether mellow, but at the same time, he
always thought his bosses were a little strange..., A quirk here, a mishap
there, and those quirks added up to something not quite the level of
"average." Larry didn't think too deeply into it, though, ruling
their oddity as the reason for them being the bosses, and Larry... not so much.
But it occurred to him that perhaps if he
acquired some of these habits of his superiors, that maybe he would see things
just a little differently and would one day be a boss himself. Unfortunately
for Larry, these quirks of his bosses weren't very good ones, but he didn't
realize that, having only seen the shallowest of these habits, and all the
other, dreadful things remained a secret.
It was his third month at his new job when he
noticed Marvin, one of these said bosses walking into a construction area in
the office that no one was supposed to go into. With curiosity [having never
heard the adverb "Curiosity kills the cat"] he followed.
Jacob, on the other hand, knew the signs by
now of these strange men. You see, he had been watching and sneaking in and
pulling out report after report of unfortunate accident that fell upon the
employees of this building for a long time, and when Marvin disappeared behind
the yellow tape blocking off the construction site, he was watching. He waited
a moment, and saw someone else following the man. Jacob didn't know who Larry
was, of course, but didn’t he think that he was involved in the happenings.
Nonetheless, he was suspicious and waited another moment before following after
him.
Passing behind the tape and the plastic curtains
hanging in his way, he slipped into the construction site as quietly as he
could. He heard voices ahead of him and jumped to the side to lean against the
wall. Only peering around slightly with a recorder in his hand, to see the most
horrible thing he'd ever seen before in his life.
Larry couldn't contain the squeal of terror
that escaped him when he rounded the corner Marvin had turned. There were men
in white lab coats, splattered with blood, and there were knives and pincers
and tweezers and things to stab and dissect with, and in the middle of the room
was a drain with blood dripping through it slowly. Marvin had whipped around at
the sound of Larry's screech and caught sight of him, cowering, his hands
clutched to his chest in fright. Immediately he was surrounded and grabbed with
yells of, "Let me go, you monster! You horrible, disgusting- DON'T TOUCH
ME! OW! STOP! MARVIN! HELP! MARVIN!"
Marvin sighed, "I knew it was a bad idea
to set up here..., But what could we do with that pesky journalist on our
backs? Ah, well, we WERE getting low on test subjects anyway." He turned
his head, and Larry followed his gaze. There, in the middle of the room, was a
bloodied metal slab with straps, and lights above it and needles and liquids
bubbling on a table beside it with more knives that didn't look entirely
sanitary.
Larry's eyes got a little wider, and he
bucked and stretched and tried his hardest to get free, and actually seemed to
have a chance for just a moment, but was grabbed and restrained and strapped
much too tightly to the metal slab in just moments.
Jacob was trembling, shutting his eyes and
wishing he were somewhere else when the screams started. He had never imagined
things were this bad. But he stayed, getting absolutely everything on tape. No
one came his direction, which he was grateful for because he didn't know
whether he could get his legs to move.
After a while, the screams turned to
whimpers, and then went away completely when Larry had either fainted or died.
Jacob didn't know which it was. Jacob gulped, wondering if he should try to
move and get away, but they started talking again so he stayed.
"My word, has it worked?" Marvin
asked in wonder.
"I... think
we've done it," someone else replied in shock.
"Look! His eyes!
He's alive! We've done it!"
Jacob heard the men
clapping hands and slapping each other on the back until..., "Just a
second..." A female voice muttered. "He has no pulse."
"But...,"
Marvin spoke in confusion, "his eyes are open! Look! His head is moving!
What.... what is he?"
"Oh my... I
didn't think it was possible... Oh no... oh no!"
"What? What it
is?"
"We've
created.... a zombie... It's... it's a monster!"
Jacob heard the woman
who had spoken before suddenly scream and beg for mercy, and Marvin started
shouting "Kill it! KILL IT!" over the woman's shrieks. Jacob
collapsed on the floor, beads of sweat rolling off his forehead. He pressed
himself as close to the wall as possible, unable to do anything else out of
complete and utter immovable fear as more screams and thuds and crunching
sounds filled his ears.
Then..., suddenly.., all was silent. A moment
passed. Jacob swallowed, and a footstep came towards him, followed by
another..., and another. Slow footsteps that dragged a bit on the cold, bloody
floor.
Jacob was on his feet, shoving the plastic
curtains aside and running through them. He glanced over his shoulder but
didn't see anything, and with a cry, he collided with someone and fell on his
backside, looking up at Larry, who stared down at him with hollow eyes. Larry’s
clothes were torn apart from the "operation" the others had performed
on him, and there was blood everywhere and stitches. Larry stared down at him,
his eyes dead, uncaring.
Jacob was frozen, caught like a rabbit in the
eyes of snake. Larry's hand reached out...
Jacob Moro was never
heard from again.
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