Step…
Step…
Step…
An open field. Thick, dark grass spreads across it as far as I can see, the ground is uneven and mucky from hours of rain and years of livestock. The sky and horizon blend into a perfect combination of blinding white cloud and fog, as it has been for months, nothing but impenetrable white. I swing left, the treeline looms there: rows upon rows of evergreens, their jagged tops disappearing into the fog, the darkness between the branches brings me a strange sense of unease. I don't look long. To my right, the same endless forest. behind me, more fog, something feels off about it, but I'm not quite sure why.
Its cold, very cold, rain pitter-patters against my jacket, slowly seeping deeper through the layers I'm wearing. My bag digs into my shoulders, I feel it pulling down on me, the weight more laborious with each step, my arms and hands twist and turn, trying to find a comfortable position to carry the shotgun I've dragged along, but it's a fruitless endeavor, every position just as uncomfortable as the last, and each new position makes me wish I had a sling. My head swings from side to side, scanning for the smallest movement, the faintest change.
Nothing.
All that can be heard is light rain and my own squelching footsteps, wading through the long, green, soaked grass. There's no noise beyond my own movements. no birds, no wind, not even the creak of trees swaying. It's impossibly quiet.
There's a strange smell in the air, apart from the usual scent of grass and earth. It's metallic, heavy, not a clue as to what it could be though.
Ahead of me lies more fog, despite the "tranquil" stillness of the scene around me, I can't help my paranoia as I wade deeper into the impenetrable white, having no idea what lies in wait ahead. Not much I can do though, I squeeze the grips of my gun, and continue my march, trying to focus on my task at hand.
It's getting late, and the later it gets, the more things come out, the more things change. My goal for the entirety of the day's trek has been to find shelter before nightfall, with the larger goal of making it to someplace safe. The last government broadcast I heard was that safe zones were being set up around the border. I've been heading there since. The reason I'm moving through this rural field is because it's safer than civilization, less people means less change.
My surroundings are starting to grow dark, my vision less and less clear as the blinding white sky grows more gray with every passing minute. I've never been caught out this late before and panic is beginning to set in. I haven't been outside at night in months, the sounds alone were enough of a deterrence, let alone the stories of what roamed around.
No cicadas greet the dying sun, the impossible quiet persists as the light further dims, and my eyes and ears are beginning to play tricks on me. A second footstep, a shadow in my peripheral, each little thing contributing to my growing panic. I need to find a sign of life soon.
And then, with almost comedic timing, a shape begins to form in the darkening fog, distant, low and wide, it takes my brain a second before I finally realize what it is, a fence. Ha-ha! Finally!
I make my way to the fence, a low, simple, barbed wire fence, with signs of rust and aging wood. Beyond it lies a dirt road, stretching into the fog in two directions. After a moment's hesitation, I choose left. The relatively smooth dirt road is all kinds of relief for my aching feet.
Each step on the dirt road feels lighter, but it's a hollow sort of relief. My mind won't stop racing. What if this leads nowhere? Or worse, somewhere I don't want to go? I can only hope I chose the right way.
My legs ache with every step. The road is easier than the field, but the damage is already done. My boots squelch with every movement, waterlogged and heavy, and the damp cold creeps deeper through my bones. My feet have felt numb for hours, "hope I don't get trench foot…" I mutter to myself.
The road stretches ahead, and the walk along it is nothing new. The elation of hope has begun to die out as the monotony of the walk returns, soon, I am once again left with nothing but my fear, and my exhaustion.
A point of concern is that the strange, metallic smell I picked up earlier is growing stronger, and I don't think it comes with the night. Wherever I'm going seems to be producing that smell, I grip my shotgun a bit tighter.
Step…
Step…
Step…
Another shape in the fog, large, imposing, I've made it.
At last, after hours of walking, I stand before a farmhouse, backed by trees and surrounded by fence, my savior just as the sun's protection faded. But it brings no relief, my hair stands on end, The smell is overpowering. Slick, metallic, heavy. Something awful is inside this house. But what choice do I have? I make my way to the front door, not wanting to spend any more time outside. But before I reach the entrance, I take a quick look at my surroundings. The trees surrounding the house are now dark enough that merely looking at them brings unease, their form fuzzy and unclear in the dimmed light. Even on my best trips I would have run into something by now, some sign of life, but there's been nothing. Have I just been lucky? As late as it is, I'm not sure. But there's no time to contemplate, it's far too dark, I hurriedly make my way over to the entrance.
A small porch with a swinging chair makes way for a large wood door, I flick on my headlamp to get a better look at it. The front of the door is covered in scratches, a few quite deep. What seems to be blood is painted along the top, akin to the stories from the Old Testament, didn't seem to do much good. Most concerningly, however, the lock seems to be broken, kicked inwards perhaps? After slight hesitation, I turn the doorknob, and the large oak door swings inward.
I am immediately greeted by a hallway, dark and dim, not a peep of light makes it into the decrepit home, all windows have been boarded up. The hallway floor is lined with carpet, a dull red attempts to peek out through layers of stains. Along the left of the hallway are 3 doors, with 1 to the right of me just before the stairs. As the door clicks close behind me, I find the nearest heavy object, a hallway table just next to the door, and push it against it. At last I have found shelter, and while it takes a weight off my shoulders, I don't like this house. My hair stands on its ends, below my feet I feel a faint pulsing. The smell is completely overpowering, and clearer now, blood and rot, like a decaying corpse still bleeding.
I have to find the source of this smell, I have to.
With shaking hands and a thumping heart, I search the house.
I stand before the first door, gripping the handle tightly. It doesn't budge. Locked. Taking a step back, I adjust my footing, raise my leg, and kick. The frame rattles, I wince at the noise of it.
One kick.
Two kicks.
On the third, the door bursts open with a sharp crack, slamming against the wall. I shoulder my gun, the flashlight beam dancing wildly across the room as I scan for movement.
Nothing.
The room is dusty, weathered, and unused. Broken glass crunches under my boots as I step inside. Broken window panes line the walls, large and wide. Rain slowly makes its way in from outside. The floorboards are damp, various pools of rainwater glisten at my feet.
Apart from couches and tables, it's clear. Place looks like an old sunroom.
Still, I don't like the shattered windows or the noise I just made. If anything heard that it wouldn't exactly be hard to get in.
I glance back at the door. I regret breaking the lock now. The noise, the damage—it was reckless. Shutting the door, I turn the handle to test it. Loose. No chance of sealing it properly again. I grit my teeth and move on.
My flashlight swings toward the next door, I keep my gun at chest height as I reach for the handle, The door clicks open as I turn the knob. The sound reverberates through the dead silent home. I check over my shoulders, the silence is making me paranoid.
After a second's hesitation, I swing open the door and raise my gun, heart pumping with adrenaline. I wait, I listen, but once again-nothing moves.
Slowly, cautiously, I make my way into the pitch-black room. The air is stale and dusty, I doubt it's seen fresh air in months. To my right lies a dusty fireplace, the entrance of it has been filled with an assortment of random items, as if to stop anything coming down. To my left lies an old couch, sagging in on itself. There are marks on the walls and objects strewn all over the carpeted floor. I follow the trail of bangs and bashes until I spot what I least wanted to see.
Dried blood
Alarm bells ring in my head as I gaze upon the splotches of dried crimson, there is a lot of it, and it spreads everywhere. I find patches on the floor, walls, furniture, and ceiling, though most is found in the left corner of the room. During my search for more of the blood, something glints under the light of my headlamp, small and golden, I know what it is before I even pick it up. A bullet casing.
I grimace at the thought of what occurred in the house, but the room is clear nonetheless, and at the very least the blood seems old. I head out of the living room, and move onto the third door.
I step back out into the hallway, closing the door behind me with a click that echoes through the silent house.
I stand before the door and listen… can't hear a thing. Steeling my nerves, I twist the handle, and push the door open.
My flashlight lands on oak floors and countertops. A kitchen. Tables, pantries, and cabinets line the walls, their surfaces coated in dust.
I step inside cautiously, the oak floors creak under my weight, each groan sounding akin to a gunshot in the quiet home. The air is musty, I can just barely make out the stench of spoiled food under the oppressive metallic, maybe. It's hard to tell. My stomach twists, but not from the smell.
The sight of the kitchen reminds me of something else: how hungry I am.
I haven't eaten in hours! All I've got in my pack are canned goods, and the thought of fiddling with a can opener in the middle of that open field felt far too risky. I rest a hand against the counter for a moment, taking count the supplies in front of me, but the unease in my gut hasn't lifted.
I'll come back later.
The room seems clear, and there's one more door left to check. For now, I tighten my grip on the shotgun and step back into the hallway.
I creep out the door, scanning the hallway up and down, and make my way to the fourth door. My hand hovers over the doorknob for a moment, and when I finally touch it, it's freezing. My heart races, my eyes shoot wide.
my gut tells me this is the one.
I try to compose myself, drawing in slow, deep breaths, but all it draws in is more of the stench. The smell is even more pungent than I thought possible, bile sits at the back of my throat. What I could faintly feel at the entrance is unmistakable here, in and out… in and out.
Pulsing.
My fingers tingle with adrenaline, hands clutching my shotgun's grip with all their might. Fear and doubt begins to cloud my mind, but before I let it envelop me, I force my wrist to twist, and shove the thick, wooden door open.
Gnawing. Heaving. Crying. Breathing.
Twitching. Cracking. Beating. Bleeding.
What lies before me was once a man.
The body of a man lies slumped against the far wall of the room. His skin is torn and flayed, hanging against his body in uneven strips, what little skin left is discolored and distextured, as if something has crawled inside it. Veins pop where veins should not be, his entire lower body is stringy and ripped. The upper body, however, is far worse.
Above his nose, the man's head is gone. replaced by a beating, tremendous, misshapen, wet mass of flesh that spreads and bulges across the entire far wall. Fleshy strands branch outward, connecting it to the ceiling. This is the source of the pulsing.
The pulse causes the entire mound of flesh to shake and expand, and as it expands, tiny pores are revealed across the entirety of its surface, including the man's body below. There must be hundreds of them, spreading across the mound with a slick squelch. A haze seems to seep from each of the pores as it expands, shimmering under my light. Each time this happens, the smell gets stronger.
His jaw, still intact, moves aimlessly, twitching and jerking side to side, up and down, as though attempting to speak. His teeth click and clack against each other as he scrapes and bashes them apart. Faint drool seeps from his mouth.
His hands rest at the base of his body, surrounded by blood and fluid that just keeps trickling out of him. They weakly clench and unclench as the pulse spreads through his body. In his left hand is a pistol, the slide is locked back, empty.
Bile slaps against the floor as I retch and cough at the sight in front of me. The smell brings tears to my eyes.
And yet, I can't look away. I can't even bring myself to think, frozen and entranced by the horror in front of me.
This is what man has feared for months.
This is the cause of my paranoia.
This, is the work of a devil.