Forget About Me: 6th Floor
I wouldn't want Jake and I to monopolize the submission board, here, but I am both eager to continue submitting as well as eager to hear your responses to the rest of this story. Due in no small part to the tremendous influence all of your feedback has had upon me and the inspiration I have derived from it, I have begun active work on the second story of three that I have planned set in this world. It's called Deliver, and it is coming so finely and so smoothly that I simply cannot explain how grateful I am to you, my brethren, for cultivating such an atmosphere of creativity, if only in my mind. Again, sincerely, thank you.
6th Floor
As you walk on by…
It was as if it had been playing in my head the whole time and someone had turned down the volume for a little while. The 80’s pop song and the images of Butcher Bart going through my head together were enough to make me feel sick. I stood in the foyer of the door to the 6th story leaning against a wall, trying to catch my breath and keep from throwing up.
I gave up. I didn’t want to go on. I was done.
GO.
I whipped around to see who was in the room with me. Nothing. I slumped down against the wall.
GO.
I looked around for a speaker, for a vent that someone could be talking through, but there was nothing. Just a resonating voice, deep and unearthly.
“Who’s there?”
I waited for a while. Nothing came.
“Who are you?”
THIS FLOOR IS NOT OPEN FOR NEW POSSESSION. LEAVE THIS PLACE.
Not sure who I was talking to, not sure if I was talking to my own addled mind, I pleaded,
“I can’t keep going. I just can’t. It’s too much.”
BUTCHER BART IS AVAILABLE FOR REPLACEMENT. TURN BACK.
I didn’t want to replace Bart, either because in some way I didn’t want to betray him after his hospitality, or more likely because I didn’t want to face him again.
BUTCHER BART IS A MURDERER AND A CANNIBAL. THERE IS NO SHAME IN BETRAYING SUCH A BEAST. IT GETS WORSE FROM HERE. MUCH WORSE.
It seemed to say the last line with dread. Not with fear, but almost appreciatively.
GO. TAKE THE PLACE OF BUTCHER BART.
I realized it had answered my doubts without me even voicing them. It seemed to have a response for everything I thought. Every minor idea that passed through my head, it seemed to have a grasp on. Maybe it was just due to the fact that a disembodied voice was ordering me to give up that I decided to do the exact opposite.
“Fuck you.”
I sat down and defiantly raised my head to the air.
GO NOW.
I sat still.
THE OCCUPANTS OF THIS FLOOR ARE PERSONAL SERVANTS. THE POLICING FORCE OF THIS PLACE. THEY ARE UNAVAILABLE FOR REPLACEMENT. IF YOU WILL NOT MOVE, YOU WILL BE MOVED.
For a moment, nothing changed. The same dusty stairwell, same failing light bulb, same wooden barrier preventing any further descent without going through whatever was waiting beyond the door. Then… a muted, squishing sound. I looked toward where the sound was coming from, and just barely noticed something dripping from a crack in an upper corner. I got up to look closer. The liquid dripping was a diluted pink color, clouded with gray debris. I looked closer, curious as to what it could be.
A tendril of… something came out of the crack. Thin and wrinkled, it looked like an unsegmented piece of raw sausage, pink and gray and bending at strange angles. As I watched it continued to feed through the crack and, as more of the substance arrived, it began to fold in upon itself, turning itself into some kind of misshapen ball of wrinkly raw meat. It looked exactly like a small, malformed brain.
This was not the terrifying encounter I had expected.
After everything that had been thrown at me so far in this place, the little brain gob was hardly disturbing. I continued to watch the ball with interest as it grew in size and changed in shape as more of the tube was fed through the crack. The lump started to lengthen and grow more oblong, and strangely enough began to resemble a dog’s head, with pointed ears and a long, thin muzzle. I moved closer to get a better look at the grotesque formation.
The head barked.
I nearly fell to the floor as I reeled back from the abomination hanging from the ceiling. It had opened folds of its own meat to reveal two blue, milky eyes that seemed to stare straight at me with as much blind hatred as any animal could communicate. The mouth had opened to reveal rows of jagged, broken teeth, gnashing at the air and flowing with saliva, or whatever the hell came out of the thing’s mouth, as it continued to bark and bite at me. I was scared.
The tube of flesh still came through the crack, and I could see the thing’s chest slowly taking form as well as part of a right foreleg. Deciding I’d rather not be there when the thing gets finished assembling itself, I excused myself quickly through the door to the 6th floor and held it shut with my back, looking over my shoulder through the small glass window.
When I first started down the stairwell of the building, the initial little room on the roof had reminded me of an outhouse. That description belonged on this floor more than it ever belonged in any fresh air environment.
The stink of shit was everywhere. Large, waist-high, open kennels ran between the four support pillars, and swarms of flies flew through the stark white beams of light that came from the poorly painted-over windows on the right wall. Even as I stood there, three or four flies came over to taste my sweat from the fear and the dried, rotting blood from the eighth floor. I heard growling.
There were two at first, each walking out of its pen slowly, patiently. Knowing that, if I were to run, they’d catch me easily. It was obvious that the monstrosity in the stairwell behind me had been on its way to forming itself into what now advanced on me. They looked, for all intents and purposes, like Dobermans made of brain matter. The pink-gray folds and wrinkles covered their entire bodies and, when they moved, seemed to lend them a flexibility unattainable through the hindrance of bone. Movement in another pen told me there were at least three.
The searing pain in my left hand told me there were four.
The fourth had pounced from just beyond my line of sight to my left. Reflexively I had thrown up my left hand as soon as I saw the movement, but I wasn’t able to move before the thing reached me. It snatched my hand, still stinging from the fall that seemed so long ago now, and started yanking horribly. Spastically. With each powerful tug, I felt it’s porous, shattered teeth sink deeper, tear more skin from the bone. I screamed.
It finally pulled free, taking my left pinky and ring finger with it, along with most of the heel of my palm.
Without thinking, blinded by sheer pain and instinct, I reached into my belt and pulled out the .44 I had taken from the arsenal upstairs. I pulled back the hammer, aimed, and squeezed the trigger all in one smooth motion that would have made Shane proud to see. I stood gasping, holding my badly bleeding hand under the jacket sleeve of my right arm to stem the blood flow, looking at the now headless mass of mind matter that had attacked me. It held perfectly still for a moment, then slumped to the ground. I was extremely relieved to know they could be killed. As I watched, the bits and pieces of the “head” I’d blown off, scattered around the floor, started to squirm and wiggle ever so slowly back towards that stump of a neck.
At least they could be slowed down.
Not wanting to waste one more second for fear of another attack, I charged at the two I could see, hoping the one I couldn’t would reveal itself before it had its teeth in my neck. I popped bullets at the remaining two dogs, managing to score head shots at each, though my first attempt had missed and struck one in the torso. It had sailed into its body and out its rear thigh, causing it disturbingly little distress if any at all. Apparently, only shots to the head mattered.
Foaming at the mouths, their cataract eyes rolling around in their heads, they each sank to the ground and I leapt between them, frightened of any near-death spasms. I could still hear the growling of the last one, though I had no idea from where. I stalked down the row between the kennels, peering into each one, hoping that it was in my head more than anything else I’d ever hoped before.
A loud bark from my right, and the thing was in the air over one of the poorly constructed wooden walls, it’s mouth wide open. I spun spastically towards it, wincing and throwing my arms up wildly, letting a spurt of blood come from my injured left hand. I managed to catch it in time, but even with all the force I had pushing it out of the way, it’s bulk still brought me down with it. It was wriggling against me, trying to turn itself to get a better shot at my throat with its horrific teeth. The pistol was trapped beneath it, and as much as I was trying to yank it free, the surprising weight of the thing kept the gun tightly pinned.
Finally, with one great wiggle from the brain-dog, wrenched myself free and fired a shot into it’s head, point-blank. Little bits of it were sticking to my jacket as I got to my feet, cradling my left hand under my arm in agony, and headed towards the exit door, limping out of sheer exhaustion more than any damage done.
From behind me, and above me, I heard a low, indistinct rumbling. Hoping that it wasn’t another one of the dogs, that maybe it was just the building collapsing or Bart with a chainsaw, I turned back to see what was making what had become, undoubtedly, a distinct growling. There was nothing behind me. I looked up at one of the large, concrete rafters that ran across the ceiling and intersected with two of the support beams that ran from ceiling to floor.
There, in the corner of the beams, was a mass of brain matter, all squished out like a pancake or like the shit of a very sick animal. Right in the center, as the pancake itself dwindled in size, I could see the head of a dog, growling and snarling, the chest slowly forming behind it. One leg gimpishly clawed at me, the other not yet fully formed.
I backed away slowly and left through the exit door. As I did, the first dog I shot had started to shakily try to get to its feet, and the dog in the stairwell had just finished slithering under the door across the room. I shut the door behind me and headed down.
6th Floor
As you walk on by…
It was as if it had been playing in my head the whole time and someone had turned down the volume for a little while. The 80’s pop song and the images of Butcher Bart going through my head together were enough to make me feel sick. I stood in the foyer of the door to the 6th story leaning against a wall, trying to catch my breath and keep from throwing up.
I gave up. I didn’t want to go on. I was done.
GO.
I whipped around to see who was in the room with me. Nothing. I slumped down against the wall.
GO.
I looked around for a speaker, for a vent that someone could be talking through, but there was nothing. Just a resonating voice, deep and unearthly.
“Who’s there?”
I waited for a while. Nothing came.
“Who are you?”
THIS FLOOR IS NOT OPEN FOR NEW POSSESSION. LEAVE THIS PLACE.
Not sure who I was talking to, not sure if I was talking to my own addled mind, I pleaded,
“I can’t keep going. I just can’t. It’s too much.”
BUTCHER BART IS AVAILABLE FOR REPLACEMENT. TURN BACK.
I didn’t want to replace Bart, either because in some way I didn’t want to betray him after his hospitality, or more likely because I didn’t want to face him again.
BUTCHER BART IS A MURDERER AND A CANNIBAL. THERE IS NO SHAME IN BETRAYING SUCH A BEAST. IT GETS WORSE FROM HERE. MUCH WORSE.
It seemed to say the last line with dread. Not with fear, but almost appreciatively.
GO. TAKE THE PLACE OF BUTCHER BART.
I realized it had answered my doubts without me even voicing them. It seemed to have a response for everything I thought. Every minor idea that passed through my head, it seemed to have a grasp on. Maybe it was just due to the fact that a disembodied voice was ordering me to give up that I decided to do the exact opposite.
“Fuck you.”
I sat down and defiantly raised my head to the air.
GO NOW.
I sat still.
THE OCCUPANTS OF THIS FLOOR ARE PERSONAL SERVANTS. THE POLICING FORCE OF THIS PLACE. THEY ARE UNAVAILABLE FOR REPLACEMENT. IF YOU WILL NOT MOVE, YOU WILL BE MOVED.
For a moment, nothing changed. The same dusty stairwell, same failing light bulb, same wooden barrier preventing any further descent without going through whatever was waiting beyond the door. Then… a muted, squishing sound. I looked toward where the sound was coming from, and just barely noticed something dripping from a crack in an upper corner. I got up to look closer. The liquid dripping was a diluted pink color, clouded with gray debris. I looked closer, curious as to what it could be.
A tendril of… something came out of the crack. Thin and wrinkled, it looked like an unsegmented piece of raw sausage, pink and gray and bending at strange angles. As I watched it continued to feed through the crack and, as more of the substance arrived, it began to fold in upon itself, turning itself into some kind of misshapen ball of wrinkly raw meat. It looked exactly like a small, malformed brain.
This was not the terrifying encounter I had expected.
After everything that had been thrown at me so far in this place, the little brain gob was hardly disturbing. I continued to watch the ball with interest as it grew in size and changed in shape as more of the tube was fed through the crack. The lump started to lengthen and grow more oblong, and strangely enough began to resemble a dog’s head, with pointed ears and a long, thin muzzle. I moved closer to get a better look at the grotesque formation.
The head barked.
I nearly fell to the floor as I reeled back from the abomination hanging from the ceiling. It had opened folds of its own meat to reveal two blue, milky eyes that seemed to stare straight at me with as much blind hatred as any animal could communicate. The mouth had opened to reveal rows of jagged, broken teeth, gnashing at the air and flowing with saliva, or whatever the hell came out of the thing’s mouth, as it continued to bark and bite at me. I was scared.
The tube of flesh still came through the crack, and I could see the thing’s chest slowly taking form as well as part of a right foreleg. Deciding I’d rather not be there when the thing gets finished assembling itself, I excused myself quickly through the door to the 6th floor and held it shut with my back, looking over my shoulder through the small glass window.
When I first started down the stairwell of the building, the initial little room on the roof had reminded me of an outhouse. That description belonged on this floor more than it ever belonged in any fresh air environment.
The stink of shit was everywhere. Large, waist-high, open kennels ran between the four support pillars, and swarms of flies flew through the stark white beams of light that came from the poorly painted-over windows on the right wall. Even as I stood there, three or four flies came over to taste my sweat from the fear and the dried, rotting blood from the eighth floor. I heard growling.
There were two at first, each walking out of its pen slowly, patiently. Knowing that, if I were to run, they’d catch me easily. It was obvious that the monstrosity in the stairwell behind me had been on its way to forming itself into what now advanced on me. They looked, for all intents and purposes, like Dobermans made of brain matter. The pink-gray folds and wrinkles covered their entire bodies and, when they moved, seemed to lend them a flexibility unattainable through the hindrance of bone. Movement in another pen told me there were at least three.
The searing pain in my left hand told me there were four.
The fourth had pounced from just beyond my line of sight to my left. Reflexively I had thrown up my left hand as soon as I saw the movement, but I wasn’t able to move before the thing reached me. It snatched my hand, still stinging from the fall that seemed so long ago now, and started yanking horribly. Spastically. With each powerful tug, I felt it’s porous, shattered teeth sink deeper, tear more skin from the bone. I screamed.
It finally pulled free, taking my left pinky and ring finger with it, along with most of the heel of my palm.
Without thinking, blinded by sheer pain and instinct, I reached into my belt and pulled out the .44 I had taken from the arsenal upstairs. I pulled back the hammer, aimed, and squeezed the trigger all in one smooth motion that would have made Shane proud to see. I stood gasping, holding my badly bleeding hand under the jacket sleeve of my right arm to stem the blood flow, looking at the now headless mass of mind matter that had attacked me. It held perfectly still for a moment, then slumped to the ground. I was extremely relieved to know they could be killed. As I watched, the bits and pieces of the “head” I’d blown off, scattered around the floor, started to squirm and wiggle ever so slowly back towards that stump of a neck.
At least they could be slowed down.
Not wanting to waste one more second for fear of another attack, I charged at the two I could see, hoping the one I couldn’t would reveal itself before it had its teeth in my neck. I popped bullets at the remaining two dogs, managing to score head shots at each, though my first attempt had missed and struck one in the torso. It had sailed into its body and out its rear thigh, causing it disturbingly little distress if any at all. Apparently, only shots to the head mattered.
Foaming at the mouths, their cataract eyes rolling around in their heads, they each sank to the ground and I leapt between them, frightened of any near-death spasms. I could still hear the growling of the last one, though I had no idea from where. I stalked down the row between the kennels, peering into each one, hoping that it was in my head more than anything else I’d ever hoped before.
A loud bark from my right, and the thing was in the air over one of the poorly constructed wooden walls, it’s mouth wide open. I spun spastically towards it, wincing and throwing my arms up wildly, letting a spurt of blood come from my injured left hand. I managed to catch it in time, but even with all the force I had pushing it out of the way, it’s bulk still brought me down with it. It was wriggling against me, trying to turn itself to get a better shot at my throat with its horrific teeth. The pistol was trapped beneath it, and as much as I was trying to yank it free, the surprising weight of the thing kept the gun tightly pinned.
Finally, with one great wiggle from the brain-dog, wrenched myself free and fired a shot into it’s head, point-blank. Little bits of it were sticking to my jacket as I got to my feet, cradling my left hand under my arm in agony, and headed towards the exit door, limping out of sheer exhaustion more than any damage done.
From behind me, and above me, I heard a low, indistinct rumbling. Hoping that it wasn’t another one of the dogs, that maybe it was just the building collapsing or Bart with a chainsaw, I turned back to see what was making what had become, undoubtedly, a distinct growling. There was nothing behind me. I looked up at one of the large, concrete rafters that ran across the ceiling and intersected with two of the support beams that ran from ceiling to floor.
There, in the corner of the beams, was a mass of brain matter, all squished out like a pancake or like the shit of a very sick animal. Right in the center, as the pancake itself dwindled in size, I could see the head of a dog, growling and snarling, the chest slowly forming behind it. One leg gimpishly clawed at me, the other not yet fully formed.
I backed away slowly and left through the exit door. As I did, the first dog I shot had started to shakily try to get to its feet, and the dog in the stairwell had just finished slithering under the door across the room. I shut the door behind me and headed down.
Submitted by DeadLanguage at 4:45 AM
3 Comments:
You don't pull any punches, do you?
I like that our hero doesn't make it out of this chapter unscathed, especially after the severity of the warnings he was given about continuing on. I also like that you've managed to make the alternative seem unappealing enough that continuing is understandable. Overall, the mood of slowly escalating horror you're creating here is very effective--and, I admit, not entirely what I was expecting when I started reading this story. Every floor really does get worse, and that very inevitability makes the whole thing even more horrific.
One minor criticism, take it or leave it as you will: during the initial description of the brain-dog coalescing, beginning to bark and bite at him, you tack on the sentence, "I was scared." To me, it seemed a little out of place and unnecessary. It goes without saying that he's scared--this is some seriously scary madness--and to simply state it like that, I think, weakens the effect of a passage that is vivid and frightening enough to speak for itself.
I can see what you're saying. I was actually trying to throw in a kicker to his previous notion that the thing coming out of the pipe wasn't so bad, Fig's morbid, fatalist sense of humor throughout all this horror being something that helps him cope with what he's been through. I can see now how that wasn't clearly connected to the previous statement, and will definitely take that into consideration. Perhaps more parallel word choice.
I love this group.
Very vivid chapter. I can tell you wrote it in a burst of vision, because in the more exciting places the language gets a little ragged. That being said though, this is the most brutal part so far, and bodily damage that would traumatize most people seems not to matter to Fig so much, and rightfully so, because he knows as we do, it can and will get much, much worse.
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