“They put something in the water, you know.”
The man’s voice, soft and yet still shrill in my ear, had woken me from a gentle, rocking slumber. Opening my eyes, I tried to get my bearings even as they started to water and my gorge began to rise. Oh God. What was that taste? Thick and smoky and bitter, I gagged a little as I took in enough to realize I was on a city bus. How did I get here? And what was this man saying?
I looked over at him and saw right away he was insane. A thrill of confused fear ran through me. He clearly expected a response, and I thought it best to play along.
“The water?”
He furrowed his brow in frustration as he dug a knuckle into his left nostril with a disdainful sniff. “Yes, yes, the water. Put drugs in it to make us docile.” He gestured at the bus passengers. Some were asleep as I’d been, while others were staring dully out the window or into their phones, eyes searching the glass for other wheres than here.
I wanted to change seats, but didn’t quite dare. “You don’t say.”
His nostrils went red as they flared. “I do say. I do say. They don’t want us thinking. Realizing what this place is. They just want us to blindly breathe and fuck and give in. Eat the shit they feed us.”
I was so drawn in by his strange passion that I didn’t realize the bus had come to a stop until the man jumped up into the center aisle. Glancing around uncertainly, I realized I was actually nervous about him leaving me alone. Leaning forward with a flush in my cheeks, I whispered to him, “Where are we?”
The man let out a shriek of laughter. “Where are we?” Stomping to the front of the bus, he ran down the steps and out to the sidewalk before running around the bus and up to my window. “Where are we?” He glanced to his right, grin widening as he rolled his eyes back to me. “We’re in Hell.”
The truck didn’t even slow down when it hit him. I heard the wet thudding scrape of him being drug between the wheels for a few yards before he tumbled out in a wet pile on up the road. A few people murmured or exclaimed, but there were no real screams at first. It was only when they saw each other that the rest of the passengers all started squawking like startled birds. I had the thought that no one really cared. There was no real fear or sadness, just performance for the sake of being seen or heard, or some insane impulse like a tuning fork that has been struck and now must hum along until enough time has passed to draw stillness back to it again.
I didn’t scream. I hated the sound of it all, and besides, I was distracted by what I had noticed in the seat next to me. What my brief companion had left behind. It was a notepad filled with tight lines of cursive that were very legible despite their small stature. It started with:
Fourth set of notes for article
I say fourth, though I can’t say for sure. These fuckers keep swiping them when they can. They want me to forget who I am and why I’m here. Make me think I’m like these poor people they’ve got trapped here. But I won’t. I can’t. People have to know that this place exists.
I think they’re pumping the stuff out in mists now. I smell medicine smells coming through the sewer grates. Fucking with my hed. Got to keep it together. I’m Peter Maywing. I’m a freelance investigative journalist that has covered two wars, a dozen corporate cover-ups, and stood down the fucking government when they came asking for my people. My sources. Shit. I need to get out of here soon. Why hasn’t anyone gotten us out of here yet?
I think months have passed. Just found this notebook again. I’d put the date or time, but I don’t know when it is. There aren’t any clocks or calendars here, and if you ask anyone about them, they just laugh. The only reason I remembered who I was is because Clint remembered who he was and came and found me. We have to escape.
Heart pounding, I glanced around to see if anyone was looking at me. They weren’t. Most had sat back down, though a few were still yipping like coyotes settling down for the night. Shuddering, I stuffed the notebook under my jacket and got off the bus.
Nothing looked familiar here. Not the places or the people, or even the air, which had an odd, minty smell when the wind blew right. Pulling my scarf up to my face, I walked along for a few minutes before finding a small diner to duck into. I had no money in my pockets, but I did have a white card, and when I pulled it out questioningly, the waitress took it with a nod and brought it and a cup of coffee back to the table. Once I was sure no one was paying attention, I pulled out the notebook and kept reading.
The Buddy System. That was always our idea. Me and Clint would go in separately, but we’d watch each other’s backs and make sure we both got out, or if shit went sideways, that at least one of us did. But they caught on to our plan, or they always knew. Now they just reset us periodically, like we’re computers that are acting up. Not exactly wiping the hard drive, but it’s harder to get back the important stuff every time I wake up somewhere not knowing who or where I am. I need to hide this somewhere safe.
I think I’ve been reset at least twice since I last wrote in this thing. The real me, my life and memories, why I’m here? It’s all like I’m remembering the memory of a dream. There are so many layers between me and the truth that everything is fuzzy. Clint has been reset almost as much as me, but he takes it better. He’s always been more resilient I think. I’m really scared, and I think if they wipe me again I won’t get myself back.
So I need to write it down right now. Maybe for me, but probably for you, Clint. If I see I’m not going to make it, if I can see it coming early enough, I’ll try to find you. On a bus or at your house, or somewhere. And I’ll leave this for you before I go. Because I have to go, buddy. I can’t take it in here any more. I have to get out, one way or another.
I am Peter Maywing. You are Clint Thurman. We are both writers and journalists. You got a tip about a secret place where numerous forces around the world were shipping off their lunatics and their undesireables to live. Not a prison or an institution, but an entire city. A sealed world away from everything where the hidden remain so.
They drug our food and water. Keep us confused and docile while doing a cruel mimicry of a real human life. It works well most of the time, but there are always episodes. People break down and start screaming or crying. Or hurting each other. Or stripping off naked. Or going on killing sprees. But everyone is so numb that no one really pays attention to what’s wrong around them for very long. These journals have been my intermittent lifeline, but I feel my grip slipping. You need to get out with or without me. Get out and tell what this place is. It’s Hell.
I think I’ll start drinking my piss. I know that sounds crazy. But I think if I drink my own fluid I’ll be more me? Because I don’t know who Me is anymore.
Piss and shit. Shit and piss. I only like one and the other I’d miss.
I just read what I writed. I can’t wait any longer. I have to find you. Give you a chance before I go bye. Stay me long enough to warn you.
I see you. They’re loading you and four other people onto the bus. I got you. The Buddy System, remember? Pissing shitters. Taking our air.
That was the last entry. I reread it all three more times, and every time I remembered a bit more. He was right, wasn’t he? We were journalists. This was an investigation. We were going to help people and get this all shut down. But first I had to escape.
I was terrified, but maybe because of the drugs they gave us, it was all in a very detached way. Swishing around the last of my coffee to get rid of the foulness on my tongue, I stuffed the notebook into my jacket and headed out onto the street.
The card was some kind of debit card I guessed. I was able to take taxis all over the city that afternoon. I didn’t know who was a patient and who was a guard, so I had to give vague directions, but my real intention was to see the edges of the city. How far did it go and what was the security like there? If it was made by humans it was flawed, and I could find some mistake to exploit if I was smart and patient.
Or so I thought. But everywhere I went, there were just roads that ended in walls, not of stone or concrete, but of glass. Black, featureless glass that went up as high as I could see. How was that even possible? How could you build something like that and have it not blow over or collapse under its own weight?
My stomach was churning as I hailed my fourth taxi. Evening was creeping in now and the light would be gone soon, but I still had South left. Maybe that’s where everything came and went. It took me a few minutes to realize that instead of taking me that way, the driver was headed to the heart of the City.
“Um, I think you’re turned around. I said I wanted to go to the southern edge of the City.”
The man behind the glass chuckled. “Oh, I heard you. But the radio man said take you to the Station, so to the Station you go.”
Heart pounding, I leaned forward. “What? Who’s the radio man?”
Another chuckle. “The man on the radio, of course.”
I slammed a fist into the thick pane between us. “Goddamn it. What’s the Station then?”
His eyes were yellowed and cruel when he found mine in the mirror. “It’s where they correct you.”
They pulled me from the taxi easily, using just enough force to get me to comply, no more or less. I’d been driven to an underground garage beneath a huge monolithic building I couldn’t recall in my spotty memory. Had it always been there, or had it raised up like a dragon’s head when it caught my scent?
What the fuck was wrong with me. I needed to stay sane and find a way out of this.
They drug me through several floors and twisting corridors before strapping me down to a chair in a black chamber lined with tapestries of some kind. Looking closer, I started to retch. They weren’t tapestries. They were the skins of people—whole skins, flayed from their bodies, stretched and dried before being hung on display. Trembling, I felt my bowels loosen slightly as a woman walked in from the far end of the room and made her way to me.
“Hello, Tony.”
I swallowed. “My name…My name isn’t Tony. It’s Clint. I-I’m Clinton Thurman. I know who I am.”
Pulling up a chair from outside of my vision, she clucked her tongue as she studied me with a concerned look on her face. “Oh, Tony. Not this again.” She shook her head and let out a small sigh. “I don’t blame you. I don’t. I honestly want to blame Peter, but he wasn’t well either was he? And my mother always said you don’t speak ill of the dead.” Leaning forward, she put a cool hand on my forehead. “But he is the one that always inflamed your delusions, wasn’t he? What was it this time? You were spies? On a t.v. show? What?”
I blinked, feeling tears in the corners of my eyes. “We…we’re reporters.”
She lifted her eyebrows. “Ah, that one. So you’re reporters. What’re you reporting on? The weather?”
Frowning at her, I shook my head. “I’m not telling you anything.”
The woman smiled at me. “That’s fine, Tony. I don’t need you to. I’ll tell you. According to Peter, you’re both investigative journalists, right? Here to expose the City as some cruel prison where the dark forces of the world hide their unmentionables? Is that about right?”
I felt a tear sliding down my cheek as I stared at her. “I am not crazy.”
Her smile fell away, replaced by a look of sadness. “Honey, yes you are. I know some people don’t like using that word, but of course you are. You have delusions and hallucinations. We’ve been in this very room so many times and you’ve said it looked like a spaceship, the inside of a tree, and those are just the pleasant ones. Your insanity lends itself to very macabre and paranoid flights of fancy.”
It felt hard to breathe now, and it took a couple of tries before I got my next question out. “So this place isn’t a city of crazy people?”
She patted my knee. “It is, but not in a bad way. This is a very exclusive, very expensive institution for those that have families that can afford to have their loved ones treated and kept in an environment that is minimally restrictive while giving them the treatment they need. They can live full lives without feeling isolated or stigmatized, and in some cases they can even be reintegrated into society down the line if they make enough progress.” She clucked her tongue again. “Progress that you seemed to be making before Peter got his hooks into you again. Shame on him.” The woman waggled her fingers in the air. “I mean it, I know he’s dead, but shame on him.”
My head was swimming, but I tried to focus on one thing she’d said. “I…I can get out?”
Pursing her lips, she gave a small nod. “Maybe. Some day. I hope so. But I won’t lie to you. This latest episode has set you back considerably. We need to do a reset again, which I really hate because we just did one.”
“A reset?”
Standing up, she pushed the chair back as she nodded again. “Yes, I don’t like doing them in quick succession, but I feel like getting this all out of the way now is better than letting it fester. Give you a clean start on the right track. How does that sound?”
I was sobbing now, terrified and grateful and ashamed. I sucked in a deep breath, the mint burning my lungs as it went down. “Yes, yes. Anything you say.”
Her smile was back now. “Very good.” Clapping her hands, she stepped further to the side as the two men who had brought me there carried in a thick plastic tarp and unrolled it on the floor before my chair. Once it was attached to hooks and firmly in place, she told them to “Bring him in.” They left quickly, heading behind me, and several minutes passed in silence as we waited. I wanted to ask a million questions, but I was so confused now and I worried that if I made problems I would only make things worse for myself. So I stayed quiet until some door opened behind us and I gave a startled coyote yelp.
I could smell it before I saw it. A ponderous pale mound of flesh three times the size of a normal man, rolls of fat dry and white and flaking on top and oozing clear and crimson lines from whatever raw rot lay underneath those folds. It had a head, but I only glimpsed its shape briefly as it was wheeled around and positioned so its stirruped legs were over the clear plastic tarp. Fighting back the urge to vomit, I looked over at the woman questioningly and whispered.
“What is it?”
She hit a button on the wall and all my straps unlocked and pulled away. I would have stood up then, but her angry gaze had me pinned to the spot.
“He is our god. And you will kneel to him. Now.”
Shaking uncontrollably, I pitched myself forward onto the tarp. How could any of this be real? It had to be more delusions. Was I really this far g…
Dark matter began to curl out of the shadowy, fetid place between his legs, plopping wetly to the tarp with an explosion of new corrupted scents that made my eyes burn. A second piece, and then a third, a fourth, and then no more. All the time, I was frozen on my knees, too afraid and disgusted to move or speak.
I heard the woman step closer now as she put a cold hand on my neck. “This is the reset process. One of the many gifts he gives us. This will put you back on the right path. Get rid of these delusions once and for all.”
“I…oh God…ah…what do I have to do?”
She snorted lightly. “Isn’t it obvious?” When I didn’t respond, she pushed my head forward gently. “Eat it. All of it. Eat it all right up.”
“Can I get some water please? My mouth tastes bad.”
The lady smiled at me. “You can when you get finished writing it all down. Everything you remember.”
I held up the laptop like a child who had finished an unsavory meal. “I did already.”
Her smile fell away. “Don’t be pert. You didn’t write this part did you? Keep going.”
“Oh. Sorry. Okay.” I paused, and then, “Why are you having me write all this? You told me it didn’t really happen.”
“No, I said that it didn’t matter that it happened. That no one will believe it. Especially if we tell it to them like its real. People are mistrustful of the truth when they want a lie.”
I nodded as though I understood, though I didn’t at all. “So what will you do with what I’m writing?”
She shrugged. “Leak it onto the internet maybe. I might post it on a forum. Nosleep maybe.”
“What’s that?”
She licked her thumb and rubbed something thick and gummy off my cheek before popping it back in her mouth. Sucking on it, she closed her eyes with a contented sigh. “I think that’s enough, Clint.”
“You said my name was Tony.”
“Did I? Well I told you there was a world outside of here too, didn’t I?”
I felt fear welling up in me again. “You did.”
She giggled, her eyes hard as little chips of glass. “I can’t believe you believed me.”
Jonny_Boy_HS t1_j6umkft wrote
Holy shit! This is terrifying…how would you ever know what is real or fake?