Submitted by HughEhhoule t3_10phn14 in nosleep
Link to part 1
Hands up, how many of you thought that that part about scale last time was just some little zinger to end things? Some cryptic nugget that you'll never hear about again?
That’s not my style. Despite what I’m sure you all are seeing as evidence to the contrary, I have no interest in trying to spook anyone out. I’m relating my plan for as much of the world to see as possible. If I get taken away to some dark hole between heaven and hell, maybe the next poor asshole can at least have a head start.
And as for my plan?
That goes back to what we were just talking about, scale.
By the time I got to Johnny, I had plenty of unanswered questions, but you know what they say, a poor plan executed quickly is better than a perfect plan that never happens. All I needed to know was how deep the cesspool was.
I liquidated my assets, burned my bridges and set off on a course to ruin my life. Which seems like a pretty easy thing to do, but fuck, even without trying to gain the attention of whatever the hell runs the mountain, that shit hurts.
I thought of a few different ways to relate the physical effects of pumping this shit into yourself, to everyone here. An audience, I hope, for the most part, hasn’t lived the kind of life I have. And I think I’ve found a way.
It's cancer, or at least a stone’s throw from it, and you pay for it. It’s for fucking idiots.
I had a three page essay about how you could relate a year of killing yourself slowly, to the hours in a day, but no, there is no better explanation than fucking cancer.
You thin out, you get weak at first, your body burning through muscle mass. You forget to eat, you forget to sleep, you find yourself running in three day increments, your brain starts to misfire and slow down.
Then comes the fun part, after a couple of months, you just get gross. The amount of medical grade horror that comes with tapping into your own plumbing, blowing out your sinuses, and tossing battery acid and cat litter into your lungs? You are ashamed and you don’t care all at the same time.
Any time after that is just another nail in the coffin of any chance at a productive, happy life. Every day you become more institutionalized in a prison of 1 ml syringes and lighters that never God damned work.
But that isn’t the worst part of any of it, the worst part is that you get to watch everyone you care about see this happen to you. You see the looks, you know, family or friend, you’re the topic of gossip, and who can blame them? You aren’t the person they know and love any more, and you know it.
So, let’s get back to scale.
If this was just a local thing, some ‘place gone bad’ or resident demon, I’d have gone about things a different way. But whatever is pulling the strings here is old, dark, mean and everywhere.
Meaning, the first step is going to have to be, playing it’s game.
The first thing I found out the hard way, was that having to start this journey alone doesn’t mean solitude.
Three months in and 20 pounds lighter than I’d like to be I start to feel something other than opioid constipation and stimulant diarrhea.
People around me, they seem to fade into the background. Or maybe it’s me that fades, either way I find myself escaping notice, unless I try my hardest to do otherwise.
I’m not going to lie, it was nice. But I couldn’t help but hearing Johnny’s voice in my head asking me what did I give up?
My day to day routine becomes a gray drudge of shoplifting, scoring dope and waking up in a new city every few days, never quite sure of now I got there.
One of these those endless nights I found myself in the back corner of a small bar. Eating a plate of boosted bar nachos and drinking a bottle of forty Creek I took from behind the counter, within a couple feet of the staff.
It feels like the entire universe is giving me the cold shoulder, but that suits me just fine, when I look in the mirror I see the same type of junkie goof I’d have had no trouble rolling a couple years ago.
The man catches my attention immediately, unlike the thousands of folks that seem to blend into background noise, he stands out, stark, real, and he sure as hell notices me.
I don’t know his name, but I can tell at a distance his drug of choice can be found in an auto shop as opposed to a dimly lit alley.
His teeth are black, gums a sick construction paper brown, lips torn and lacking circulation. The end of his nose drops, and his eyes are filled with burst blood vessels, sharply contrasting with the man’s pale skin. I’ve seen it before, fucking gas huffer.
He's five foot seven, maybe a hundred and sixty pounds or so, and wearing a starched black overcoat. His body language, and the way he invades my space casually let’s me know he’s someone who’s comfortable spilling blood.
He looks to my bottle of booze and the tiny pile of white powder on the table and scoffs. He makes eye contact with me, and reaches inside his oversized coat, pulling out a leather bag, about the size of a purse. He puts his mouth and nose in the petrol reeking sack hyperventilating it’s contents before returning it to the depths of his coat.
“Your first time seeing someone else on the path, friend? “ the creepy little guy says, long, black hair patchy with white streaks, another side effect of long term gas huffing.
“Not interested in whatever it is you’re selling. “ I say, far from the picture of health, but still a few inches taller, and a lot heavier than the manlet in front of me.
The high-octane hobbit tilts his head like a confused dog, seeming to study me for a moment.
I see rage in those clouded eyes, and I expect him to pull a knife, or gun, maybe try and jump across the table, but the little man does none of these things. He reaches over, slowly, and drops something into my open bottle of booze.
This guy wants a fight, but for some reason doesn’t want to throw the first punch. I don’t take the bait.
“Just about done with that anyway. “ I say, calmly, as I slowly push the bottle off of the table. It hits the floor, shattering on the greasy brown tile. For a moment a handful of people look our way, but not one of them seems to see anything out of the ordinary.
I smell something, like knock off fruit cereal, rotten almonds, and paint thinner. My vision blurs, I try to stand, but my legs are wobbling.
I begin to lose consciousness, as the pint sized pale prick grabs me by the chin, hard enough to make me feel a shooting pain through the my rapidly dulling senses.
“You fucking druggies, you think you love chemicals. But you don’t.
You are chemical voyeurs so wrapped up in the spectacle of the end product, you’d never for a second think to appreciate the deep beauty of its components.
But, you got here, somehow, so you have value to us. And now, we get to have ourselves a little party.” He throws me to the ground head first, taking my last remaining bits of wakefulness.
My vision clears, the effects of whatever toxic gas put me out finally staring to wane.
It’s deep into the small hours of the morning, dew making my clothes damp and sticky in the mid summer weather.
It’s a public park, the type of place that had money poured into it 20 years ago but through abuse, neglect and circumstance serves as a nexus for the shady dealings of a city. The kind of place where no one is going to see what happens, and if they do, they know to mind their own fucking business.
The picnic table is rusted steel lattice, and the first thing I notice are the handcuffs I’m wearing, threaded through a crudely cut hole in the vintage metalwork.
The second are the 3 other people in more or less the same situation.
To my right sits a man in his late 50’s, long gray hair tied with a faded bandana, denim jacket and a face that says he’s seen a lot, but it hasn’t hardened him up much. He’s scared as hell, eyes darting around like the first moments of a seizure.
The guy in front of me is young, in his 20’s at most. And I can’t say much more than he looks like the kind of guy who spends a lot of time online getting really angry about topics he feels very strongly about. He spits curses and threats, but doesn’t waste energy trying to break the hardened steel cuffs.
The last man is calm, already looking at our captors, appraising the situation. He’s six foot plus, lean, but not lanky, almost an Abe Lincoln build to him. His nose has been broken, not recently, but historically, and often. His hands are calluses being kept company by layered scars, and as we make eye contact he smirks, one side of his grin is shattered, pointed and fang like. I’ve seen that injury before, curb stomp that didn’t go as planned.
I hope the guy still has a bit of that luck to spare.
I count five guys, all dressed similarly to the little bastard who played chemistry set with my bottle of stolen booze. I start to piece together a little bit about them.
They hunch over tables, giving each other a healthy amount of space. They seem to be working together, even have a hierarchy ( as another loogie in my face from fate, the puny poisoner seems to be king shit of turd mountain.), but there’s a half feral swagger to their movements, an aggressive animalistic edge to the way they hiss at their fellows who come close to the can or bag they loom protectively over.
They huff paint, sniff glue, take quick swigs out of bottles with MSDS sheets long since faded to nothing. Cans of nitrous and CO2 litter the area, like the aftermath of the world’s saddest frat party.
“Is everyone awake? Good, looks like we have a few new faces showing up to the party.
And you rabbit, you really just don’t have any luck do you old man?
Anywho, for those of you who don’t know, we are The Hatters. We are those who seek to find the quickest path to the mountain, who understand the base purity of poison, and the base level of use even weak mixtures such as yourself can have. “ The short man’s comment elicits a scattered round of laughter from his companions.
“You have no right to get in the way of my journey” The young angry man growls, he kicks out at one of the Hatters as it passes by pouring contact cement into a paper bag.
My heart stops, I can see the short man, who I dub ‘Danny’ suppress an eye twitch, his left hand beginning to open and close of its own accord.
But Danny composes himself, and holds out one hand expectantly.
Casually, almost effortlessly, a passing Hatter hands him an old brass alarm clock. He slowly cranks a dial on the back, showing us all the face of the clock. The night is silent, and the seconds he stands still stretch out into an eternity.
In a blur of motion he slams the timepiece onto the table, a loud, rusty sounding ticking begins.
“You all have one hour to tell each other everything you know about the path, the mountain, and the game.
We will be listening in, of course, and if we hear anything useful, everyone leaves just as happy as they came in.
I know, trusting us might seem like a poor option, but ask our friend rabbit, our standards are reasonable, and our fines fair. “ Danny grins a venomous leer toward rabbit as he produces a fist sized jar.
He slowly untwists the lid as the smell of formaldehyde begins to seep into the air. Danny takes a small sip before securing the lid and placing the jar on the table like a centrepiece.
Rabbit looks anywhere but at the grotesque contents.
Two human ears, removed with glee as opposed to skill float in the off green fluid. And as the aging, trapped man twists his head, I have my answer as to where the organs came from.
“I’ll tell you everything you need to know about me right now fuck-face.
I came here by my own fucking merits, and I’ll be God damned if I let some…. “ The angry young man is red faced with impotent rage, his monologue cut short.
Danny breaks most of the man’s teeth with a tarnished silver flask, the backhanded blow seeming almost reflex. He twists the top off, thin white fumes rise from within.
The scarred man seems to react for the first time, lifting his head slightly.
“Sulphuric acid? “ he says to Danny, his tone casual, curious.
Danny rolls his eyes with the distain of a microbrew fan hearing about the history of Coors.
“For jewelers and tinkers. This, is called ‘piranha solution’ in the gutter tongue. It’s purpose isn’t to clean or to mend, but, to teach…” with a rotten toothed grin that seems to split his face for a moment Danny turns, splashing the contents of the flask into the young man’s damaged face.
The reaction is instant and extreme. Violent sputtering makes liquefied flesh and muscle start to cover the table. For a few seconds the young man screams, but something melts, fuses or dissolves and turns that into a haunting, alien, Hollow sounding bellow.
If you asked me a few years back if I’d ever seen a person die, I’d have put on a tough guy look and told you ‘A few times’. But as I saw the brutal, mentally scarring spectacle before me, I realized how full of shit I was.
I’d been around death, twice, my only interaction being staying as far away as possible from an act that may or may not have happened. And I thought that made me Charles fucking Bronson.
This kid spends his last seconds trying in vain to cave in his own skull. Through the drugs, and the head trauma, I feel a little bit of my soul die seeing this.
tick tock, tick tock, tick tock
The melting corpse of the young man acts as a brutal punctuation mark to the sentence we find ourselves serving.
The old head speaks, up, clearly having been through this before.
“Been going by Rabbit since about 93, and all I know about the path is that going slow is the only way you survive this shit.
I know it’s not what anyone wants to hear, especially you guys with the detective coats, but it’s the truth. I’ve been on the path 20 years now, and every day I get a little closer, and every day I watch people kill or damn themselves trying to make this a sprint.
Being careful is the only thing I know about the path. “
Tick-Tock, Tick-Tock, Tick-Tock
I know it’s in my head but the seconds seem to be going by faster now. I take my turn to speak.
“I’m Kevin, I’m not really sure how long I’ve been on the path, a year maybe, possibly a little less.
I know that everything else seems distant, I feel like a ghost, except, you know, ghosts don’t puke if they can’t get a bag of dope. Not that I ever remember where I get my dope anymore.
But I think whoever is in charge here killed a friend of mine for a reason. I don’t know if that helps here, but it’s about the only thing I know for sure anymore. “
It's the tall man’s turn to speak, but he stays silent, he’d look relaxed if he wasn’t bent shackled.
The guy is dressed simply, he’s almost too generic looking for the story his damaged body tells. Jeans and a white t-shirt. I peg him as a lunatic, ex-military maybe, willing to let us all die to prove he’s a tough guy.
You’d think he would understand that doesn’t work.
Tick-Tock, Click-Tock, Tick-Tock
A barrel chested hatter begins placing copper cups in front of each of us. The silence is unbearable, the clock shows twenty minutes left, and no one has seemed happy with any of the information given.
A copper pot is placed beside the clock. I can only guess as to the horrors inside.
The tall man sighs, as if finally bored.
“I’m going to make things real simple for everyone here. My name doesn’t fucking matter.
Maybe who I am does, or where I’m from though. And if that gets everyone out of here quicker, I’m happy to share. “ The scarred man smiles making eye contact with Danny.
“ I come from a place where the world makes sense. Where monsters, ghosts, and whatever Twin Peakery this is, just doesn’t happen.
But one day through no fault of my own, I found myself in a place just a little off of normal, and once I got used to that, you confusingly themed Skid-marks drag me into the shadow realm or some shit.
I don’t belong here, I belong back home doing what I do best. “ The nameless guy lets this statement hang for a moment, inviting a response. Click-Tock, Tick-Tock, Tick-Tock
“Which is? “ Danny says with distain.
After a full minute of silence Danny laughs, turning away, assuming the verbal standoff won.
“Putting on a costume, and killing people. “ The late reply is followed by an explosion of movement from the scarred man.
One handcuff hangs open, a piece of wire sticking out of it at an awkward angle, it’s lock picked and jammed. The teapot tips spilling caustic fluid over the already rusted lattice top table.
The tall man uses his handcuffs as a bludgeon, bringing his fist down on the top of Danny’s spine with a sickening crunch. The evil little bastard hits the ground, motionless, the rest of his twisted gang not noticing till the Nameless man is standing beside their leaders corpse.
Rabbit and I begin to yank at the handcuffs, seeing an opportunity The weakened steel of the table begins to give way. We both brace our leg against the steel frame, trying to pull in unison.
The tall man stares down the 4 remaining hatters.
“Back home I never really liked code names, or media nicknames, all seemed, fake, forced.
Night stalker, Stormin’ Norman, The Ice Man, Angel of Death, fuck off.
But here, everything is so… camp? Maybe I do need one.
And all the best names, well they are about what someone makes. Cooper, Shueman, Fletcher, you get it. “ The acid rotted steel gives way, sending Rabbit and myself stumbling backward as the Scarred man talks, he closes the distance between himself and the hatters.
The first to try his luck, is the massive guy who was passing out the cups. He pulls a long thin knife from a sleeve, but it falls within a second as its owner clutches the gaping socket where an eye once was.
Rabbit and I are still cuffed, but free to leave, we find ourselves stunned, almost hypnotized.
The flury of violence that ensues isn’t one sided, the tall man is splashed with some kind of caustic foam, cut in a dozen places, at one point taken to the ground, but never taken completely out of the fight.
“So, by that logic, I guess… “ The tall mean spits a mouthful of blood on a fallen hatter, “ You guys can call me Sadhatter, cause I’ll be making a fucking lot of those. “
By the time I can look away, all of the living combatants are hurt, and struggling to move. The look in Rabbit’s eyes says “ Run” but as I see more hatters start to appear, walking toward us one of the last scraps of my soul tries to make me do the right thing.
“We’ve got to help him. “ I say, running toward our unlikely hero.
With no arms Rabbit tackles me from behind, he does his best to keep me pinned without use of his arms, I do my best to escape, neither of us are very successful.
“Kev, buddy, I’m inclined to believe that crazy bastard that he’s not supposed to be here. And if I’m right, helping him has a pretty good chance of launching us from the path.
You may not get it yet, but your body and soul are going at speeds they were never intended to reach, metaphorically. You stop that all at once? Everything that makes you up gets splattered across the cosmic fucking highway. “ As awkward hearing this an inch away from my right ear, is, Rabbit is the first person who seems to not want to kill me, so I figure I owe him a little benefit of the doubt.
I don’t like it, but we both stand, The Sadhatter has finished the last of the first group of hatters, and goes through jackets, I can see panic in his body language now, he’s looking for a weapon, something to even the odds. I count ten more coming in, all intent on avenging their pack mates.
I’d like to think that if I was a badass, if I knew what I was doing in a fight, I’d have went back. The fact of the matter is, Levi is dead, and saving some poor bastard that didn’t even try to get into this shit storm would be a much more noble hill to die on than a quest for trivia about my best friends death.
But I’m not, this isn’t a story about that guy. This is a story about me, and my obsession. So I follow rabbit as the sounds of violence start to ring out from behind us.
Link to part 3
SanZ7 t1_j6lyvln wrote
Are we having fun yet?(｡ŏ﹏ŏ)