The most common time for fatal traffic accidents on the M1 is between midnight and 03:00AM, also known as the witching hour. The alleged common cause for this is fatigue, lack of concentration, driving under the influence of alcohol, drugs and other mind altering substances but none of these explain the state of the bodies found.
You see the road runs through some very old areas, one in particular being a place called Greasley, somewhere in Nottinghamshire. With a population of around 11,000 it is still recorded as being a parish, one that hasn't changed its name in over eight hundred years, or so the locals say.
They're so proud of their local traditions and mythology. One such creature known only as Swóretung and was said to live under hard ground, causing it to crack and split as she breathed deeply and heavily, partially crushed by the size of her own external lungs.
It was a colourful creation and one that was based on the frequent movements of the grounds around where the M1 is now built. Despite it being a poor decision to build over unstable ground cars continue to pass over it daily. Despite the frequent accidents and deaths caused by sudden collapses in the road or raised chunks of tarmac, it's more used than it's ever been.
The older people of Greasley will happily tell you that they've seen the Swóretung and she's starting to make her move out from her den, too disturbed by the traffic. When she leaves the town will experience luck like they've never had before, wealth beyond their wildest dreams etcetera.
Some whisper about the damage she'll leave behind when she goes. What trail of distruction she'll leave behind as she drags herself to quieter grounds, how the road will go altogether, how most of the parish may go - nobody knows how large she or her den are and nobody's ever wanted to find out.
20160430
20160429
Day 725
The London underground consists of 11 train lines and roughly 270 individual stations. At least it used to at its peak. To date they've closed almost 190 of these stations and separate train lines no longer exist.
You don't catch the DLR to Tower Hill, you just get whatever train arrives and wait until your stop comes by, if it comes by that day. It inconveniences a lot of people and the tourists have yet to stop complaining about it everywhere they go to whomever will listen. Most Londoners have gotten the hang of it now and are rarely late, unlike everyone else.
They refuse to share their secret, they don't want the rest of the world knowing the proper ins and outs of the labyrinth that is the London Underground. Maybe they want the rest of the world to get lost, literally. With all of the negative remarks about the increasing about of construction on the system, I can hardly blame their annoyance.
Still, there didn't seem to be any work going on at any point, despite the number of builders, plumbers, carpenters and even masonry workers employed by the council of London to work on the "Mass Line Improvement for 2020". Those who were hired refused to talk about what they do when they arrive at their designated stations, only saying the work is hard and they are grateful and humbled for the opportunity to serve their local community in such a vital way.
It's not like the station are even being improved, the remaining ones are falling into ruin faster than you can say "falling ceramic ceiling tiles". There were mentions of strange eyes peering out from underneath trains, holes in the ceilings, even bathrooms! According to rumour wherever they'd been seen, that station would close within the hour.
Apparently they're even the reason that every station is falling to bits. It's how they try to get in, they break through the concrete and metal from the outside by rotting it and then they just squeeze right on in, regardless of whatever chaos or damage they've done in the process.
Nobody's sure if it's some kind of prank like the alleged monster spied in the Thames or if the government is trying to contain some new kind of creature uncovered during an expansion deep down underneath London. If they've disturbed something there and it wants out and if it's anything like the Londoners on the surface then it's already out and about and having a ciggie.
You don't catch the DLR to Tower Hill, you just get whatever train arrives and wait until your stop comes by, if it comes by that day. It inconveniences a lot of people and the tourists have yet to stop complaining about it everywhere they go to whomever will listen. Most Londoners have gotten the hang of it now and are rarely late, unlike everyone else.
They refuse to share their secret, they don't want the rest of the world knowing the proper ins and outs of the labyrinth that is the London Underground. Maybe they want the rest of the world to get lost, literally. With all of the negative remarks about the increasing about of construction on the system, I can hardly blame their annoyance.
Still, there didn't seem to be any work going on at any point, despite the number of builders, plumbers, carpenters and even masonry workers employed by the council of London to work on the "Mass Line Improvement for 2020". Those who were hired refused to talk about what they do when they arrive at their designated stations, only saying the work is hard and they are grateful and humbled for the opportunity to serve their local community in such a vital way.
It's not like the station are even being improved, the remaining ones are falling into ruin faster than you can say "falling ceramic ceiling tiles". There were mentions of strange eyes peering out from underneath trains, holes in the ceilings, even bathrooms! According to rumour wherever they'd been seen, that station would close within the hour.
Apparently they're even the reason that every station is falling to bits. It's how they try to get in, they break through the concrete and metal from the outside by rotting it and then they just squeeze right on in, regardless of whatever chaos or damage they've done in the process.
Nobody's sure if it's some kind of prank like the alleged monster spied in the Thames or if the government is trying to contain some new kind of creature uncovered during an expansion deep down underneath London. If they've disturbed something there and it wants out and if it's anything like the Londoners on the surface then it's already out and about and having a ciggie.
20160428
Day 724
There are places where reality begins to blur and fade, dissolving into something more flexible.
Liminal spaces, we call them and never stay there for too long in fear of what we might see.
You've been to them before - bus stops, country roads, gas stations and public bathrooms.
Our story follows someone who waited for a bus for too long.
The roads were clear, the evening sky clearer still and the chances of things going wrong seemed minute.
Our protagonist is a student, nineteen and fed up after half an hour of sitting alone.
The small wooden bus shelter does nothing to protect them from the cold spring breeze.
Still they wait and wait, unable to afford anything else.
The evening began to wear on and they started wondering if the bus would ever show.
After all, nobody wants to be stuck on the outskirts of a village all night.
Especially one that doesn't have an inn.
They knew the last bus was due to arrive at 00:20 hours, not long left until then.
Bored of checking their watch every other moment they examined their surroundings.
Trees lined the opposite side of the road, thin little whips of trees, tall and barely blooming.
It only served to make the otherwise deserted area feel more bleak.
The movements through those trees, silhouetted by the sunset were just the wind, right?
It worried them that sometimes they thought they saw thin hands waving through the branches.
It worried them more that similar trees seemed to be growing through the bus shelter, so close to them.
It worried them most that their bus was an hour late.
The winds picked up and the sun sank further.
Those thin trees next to them practically vibrated in the increasing wind.
It looked like they were mixed with some kind of ivy as thick and almost-fleshy branches moved in tandem.
In fact, the longer they stared, the more the branches resembled a waving hand.
A waving hand that slowly, almost deliberately, raised itself and began to stretch out.
There was only so far back they could go, and with the low light they wouldn't be able to see where to run.
All they did was press their body to the opposite side of the shelter and hope the creature didn't come closer.
The air in their body left all at once in a half-shriek as the bright lights of a bus shone down the road
Just as the bus pulled up, the arm retracted and a large head appeared by the window, smiling widely.
It's a shame they didn't look back after running to the open bus doors.
These things are hard to come by, let alone walk away from.
They're the kind of being that's only in the corners of your eyes until you're too close to run.
The kind of being that waits in these liminal spaces, arms always wide open for the next stranger.
20160427
Day 733
When he went to sleep he knew the camping site was as average as could be and as empty as you'd expect for a typical English Spring. It wasn't the low temperatures that put people off or the biting wind (lazy wind, his granddad would say, as it didn't bother going around you - it went right through!).
No, what put people off the most was the drizzle. The on-and-off-and-suddenly-hail weather that confused and surprised even the hardiest of locals. What can one wear when the rain changes at the drop of a pin? The usual answer was why bother going out at all, much less camp in it?
It was the perfect camping weather for him, our John Smith of the day who is out to escape work drudgery by replacing it with mild physical labour and fishing in a river he suspects doesn't hold more than the fat ducks that flock to him every morning.
He found comfort in the monotony he'd created over the week, noting vaguely that the signs plastered all over the information building were for a circus set to arrive the night before he left. Perhaps he would find room to go along for a while, if he could put his busy schedule of long walks through farmer's fields, even longer periods of fishing and catching nothing only to end the day with "locally" sourced cod and chips from the on-site shop.
The night before the circus was due to open he noted one new tent among the lacklustre shades of green, beige and blue. A colourful monstrosity of a thing in neon pink and orange stripes, like a miniature Big Top. He never saw it set up, never saw anyone come or go but when he came back from his evening meal he noted that most of the tents now sported a small striped flag above them,perhaps in support of the circus or maybe to avoid it? It didn't bother him, in fact nothing about the night bothered him and he slept soundly throughout.
When he went to sleep he knew the camping site was as average as could be and as empty as you'd expect for a typical English Spring. The first thing he noted through sleep-fuzzy eyes was that the tent seemed to be in darkness still despite his watch reading 09:35AM. Peering through a mesh covered opening (designated South window by the tent manual) he saw the tent next to him had been replaced by a full sized Big Top.
He got dressed as quietly as he possibly could, not quite understanding why until he heard someone running past him, their light footsteps being closely pursued by slower and heavier thumps off into the distance. He waited, counting to ten in his head over and over until his pulse had slowed to a reasonable enough pace for him to leave the tent without gasping for breath.
The zip was painfully loud against the otherwise silent morning (assuming his watch was correct) and made him pause at the slightest hint of any other noise. Once the flap was completely open he found himself hard pressed to believe his own eyes. Where a muddy field with drab tents had been now stood sharp black grass and enormous Big Top tents as far as his eyes could see.
They were mostly in grid formation but with enough oddly shaped tents to make it impossible to see more than a few dozen feet in any direction. He aimed for the direction he remembered the information building being in, hoping they'd be able to clarify this whole situation. If they'd decided to move every other tent but his for the circus advertised for the neighbouring field without so much as a simple "by the way" then he'd have such a complaint to file!
His thoughts continued much along the route until he heard a loud snuffling noise behind him, like someone had a nasty cold and refused to blow their nose. Turning around without so much as a second thought he found himself face to chest with some kind of bear. It stood on its hind legs that had been stuffed into oversized clown shoes, its head shaved and smothered in greasepaint that was dripping off its sweaty face.
He wasn't sure if it was mimicking a grin or baring its teeth, he didn't stick around long enough to find out, racing away from its thunderous footsteps. Left after right after right after right after sudden dead end after frantic reversal after left, he found himself at the lake standing before a bridge leading to the biggest tent he'd ever seen.
There was someone in the distance making frantic hand gestures to him but he couldn't quite make them out. Given the choice between a human and a bear in pursuit, everyone would choose the human, right? It wasn't until he got over halfway across the bridge that he noticed they were trying to tell him in the quietest way possible to turn right and keep running.
The tent was fake - clever decoy to lure people towards before chasing them in circles until they tired.
No, what put people off the most was the drizzle. The on-and-off-and-suddenly-hail weather that confused and surprised even the hardiest of locals. What can one wear when the rain changes at the drop of a pin? The usual answer was why bother going out at all, much less camp in it?
It was the perfect camping weather for him, our John Smith of the day who is out to escape work drudgery by replacing it with mild physical labour and fishing in a river he suspects doesn't hold more than the fat ducks that flock to him every morning.
He found comfort in the monotony he'd created over the week, noting vaguely that the signs plastered all over the information building were for a circus set to arrive the night before he left. Perhaps he would find room to go along for a while, if he could put his busy schedule of long walks through farmer's fields, even longer periods of fishing and catching nothing only to end the day with "locally" sourced cod and chips from the on-site shop.
The night before the circus was due to open he noted one new tent among the lacklustre shades of green, beige and blue. A colourful monstrosity of a thing in neon pink and orange stripes, like a miniature Big Top. He never saw it set up, never saw anyone come or go but when he came back from his evening meal he noted that most of the tents now sported a small striped flag above them,perhaps in support of the circus or maybe to avoid it? It didn't bother him, in fact nothing about the night bothered him and he slept soundly throughout.
When he went to sleep he knew the camping site was as average as could be and as empty as you'd expect for a typical English Spring. The first thing he noted through sleep-fuzzy eyes was that the tent seemed to be in darkness still despite his watch reading 09:35AM. Peering through a mesh covered opening (designated South window by the tent manual) he saw the tent next to him had been replaced by a full sized Big Top.
He got dressed as quietly as he possibly could, not quite understanding why until he heard someone running past him, their light footsteps being closely pursued by slower and heavier thumps off into the distance. He waited, counting to ten in his head over and over until his pulse had slowed to a reasonable enough pace for him to leave the tent without gasping for breath.
The zip was painfully loud against the otherwise silent morning (assuming his watch was correct) and made him pause at the slightest hint of any other noise. Once the flap was completely open he found himself hard pressed to believe his own eyes. Where a muddy field with drab tents had been now stood sharp black grass and enormous Big Top tents as far as his eyes could see.
They were mostly in grid formation but with enough oddly shaped tents to make it impossible to see more than a few dozen feet in any direction. He aimed for the direction he remembered the information building being in, hoping they'd be able to clarify this whole situation. If they'd decided to move every other tent but his for the circus advertised for the neighbouring field without so much as a simple "by the way" then he'd have such a complaint to file!
His thoughts continued much along the route until he heard a loud snuffling noise behind him, like someone had a nasty cold and refused to blow their nose. Turning around without so much as a second thought he found himself face to chest with some kind of bear. It stood on its hind legs that had been stuffed into oversized clown shoes, its head shaved and smothered in greasepaint that was dripping off its sweaty face.
He wasn't sure if it was mimicking a grin or baring its teeth, he didn't stick around long enough to find out, racing away from its thunderous footsteps. Left after right after right after right after sudden dead end after frantic reversal after left, he found himself at the lake standing before a bridge leading to the biggest tent he'd ever seen.
There was someone in the distance making frantic hand gestures to him but he couldn't quite make them out. Given the choice between a human and a bear in pursuit, everyone would choose the human, right? It wasn't until he got over halfway across the bridge that he noticed they were trying to tell him in the quietest way possible to turn right and keep running.
The tent was fake - clever decoy to lure people towards before chasing them in circles until they tired.
20160426
Day 722
My parents vinyl collection came primarily from charity shops and car boot sales, places where they could buy a bunch of rarely-known or recycled discs for mere pennies. They got some proper little treasures along the way - solo tracks never before heard from famous artists or mucked up recordings from the studios that included them swearing up a storm for one missed note or forgotten lyric.
This all stopped after they were killed in a car accident. Three car pileup caused by some unlicensed old man who fell asleep at the wheel and drove straight into them. It took several years before any of us could bring ourselves to look at their old vinyl collection much less play a record.
After a few drinks too many my sister dared me to try and play one of our parents' decorative wall records to see if it actually had anything on it. It seemed harmless enough at the time and by all accounts it should have been, I mean they were just blank records.
They should have been blank. Neither of us expected the records to play let alone play what they did. At first it sounded like a song played backwards with someone whispering in the background. We reversed the way it played and heard a voice say hello.... so dark... where's Evie? Evie was our mum's name.
As a joke my sister replied to it, saying they passed away. Then the record's message changed and it began to ask us question after question. How, who, why, I can't see them so are you sure? We answered every one and heard the voice replied every time until I snapped and asked who the hell we were talking to.
The record stopped playing for several tense minutes before it responded with Angela. I asked who she was and where she was, hearing the record play I was a librarian...53....sitting by the fireplace. We both turned to the fireplace, seeing nothing out of the ordinary. My sister asked how long Angela had been sitting there. She said they hung it on the wall... Evie talked to me... We will go find her... she needs to come home.
From that moment on we didn't hear anything from that record or from any of the records. They all played blank- even the ones our parents purchased from online retailers. It seems Angela took every voice with her to go find our parents, whatever that means.
We don't know what will happen when she brings them home.
I don't plan on sticking around long enough to find out.
This all stopped after they were killed in a car accident. Three car pileup caused by some unlicensed old man who fell asleep at the wheel and drove straight into them. It took several years before any of us could bring ourselves to look at their old vinyl collection much less play a record.
After a few drinks too many my sister dared me to try and play one of our parents' decorative wall records to see if it actually had anything on it. It seemed harmless enough at the time and by all accounts it should have been, I mean they were just blank records.
They should have been blank. Neither of us expected the records to play let alone play what they did. At first it sounded like a song played backwards with someone whispering in the background. We reversed the way it played and heard a voice say hello.... so dark... where's Evie? Evie was our mum's name.
As a joke my sister replied to it, saying they passed away. Then the record's message changed and it began to ask us question after question. How, who, why, I can't see them so are you sure? We answered every one and heard the voice replied every time until I snapped and asked who the hell we were talking to.
The record stopped playing for several tense minutes before it responded with Angela. I asked who she was and where she was, hearing the record play I was a librarian...53....sitting by the fireplace. We both turned to the fireplace, seeing nothing out of the ordinary. My sister asked how long Angela had been sitting there. She said they hung it on the wall... Evie talked to me... We will go find her... she needs to come home.
From that moment on we didn't hear anything from that record or from any of the records. They all played blank- even the ones our parents purchased from online retailers. It seems Angela took every voice with her to go find our parents, whatever that means.
We don't know what will happen when she brings them home.
I don't plan on sticking around long enough to find out.
20160425
Day 721
It was that weird time of day when it's not quite sunset but the sky is tinged with orange. He was coming home from his last shift at the hospital - 5am to 5pm - and exhaustion filled his every pore and made his every move sluggish and ape-like.
Thankfully the walk from the hospital to his home wasn't too arduous and contained only one steep hill for him to lumber up and even then he could still cut through the woods. Sometimes there would be dog-walkers along there and their happy faces never failed to brighten his day after facing twelve hours of complaints, minor injuries and other people's bodily fluids spilling everywhere without so much as a "sorry!".
Usually 5pm was the peak time for people to be out and about around the hill area but apparently not today. The whole area seemed utterly silent save for the sounds of birds coming from the forest nearby but even they seemed muffled, like he was hearing them through glass or water.
The hill felt too empty, too exposed for him to want to walk his usual route to the top and along to his home so he chose to cut through the forest. It might not save him time but it felt safer. While he was debating this a stranger approached him from behind, leaned in and muttered "The air feels weird, doesn't it? Please say it isn't just me."
He confirmed that there was definitely something strange in the air but maybe it was just the time of year or the weather? The stranger shook their head and explained that the'd been having the same nightmare all week. "Somebody floats towards me, down the hill. She's this tiny little girl but she's hovering a good three foot above the ground and racing at me heck for leather like some tiny she-devil! I don't know what she'd do if she got to me - I wake up when she's close enough for me to see the whites of her eyes. The air feels the same now as it does in my dreams."
Glancing behind the stranger's shoulder he could see a black blob at the top of the hill and it seemed to be floating a fair distance over the pavement. He gave himself two options - warn the stranger and hope that they both got away from whatever that was safely or stall the stranger, let them finish their dream and hope that the floating thing didn't come after him next.
Choosing to be a coward he bid farewell to the stranger, insisting the air felt fine and it was such a lovely day for a long walk so he was going now, have a lovely day and good bye. The stranger looked a tad confused at his sudden change of opinion but said a shaky cheerio. He glanced back as he headed towards the woods and noted how sad the stranger looked.
Had be just condemned them to die by the hands of some horrible creature made to look like something so innocent as a child or was he humouring the delusions of a complete stranger?
The rest of the walk home was eerily quiet, he got to the stream by the middle of the woods when suddenly everything went deafeningly silent. The same silence that had permeated the hill. Perhaps this silence followed the floating creature and now that it was done with the stranger it was after him.
With this thought at the forefront of his mind he put his exhaustion aside for long enough to dash back to his home in record time. As he reached his front door all sounds returned to normal, birds sang and he saw people walking along the paths, their feet firmly on the floor, he noted.
He didn't find out what happened to the stranger until the following day's newspaper arrived. Their eyes had been gouged out, tiny red thumbprints ran all along their body that matched the small handprints bruised onto their neck - allegedly the cause of death next to shock and blood loss.
As he turned the page he noticed how loud the paper sounded compared to the utter silence around him.
Thankfully the walk from the hospital to his home wasn't too arduous and contained only one steep hill for him to lumber up and even then he could still cut through the woods. Sometimes there would be dog-walkers along there and their happy faces never failed to brighten his day after facing twelve hours of complaints, minor injuries and other people's bodily fluids spilling everywhere without so much as a "sorry!".
Usually 5pm was the peak time for people to be out and about around the hill area but apparently not today. The whole area seemed utterly silent save for the sounds of birds coming from the forest nearby but even they seemed muffled, like he was hearing them through glass or water.
The hill felt too empty, too exposed for him to want to walk his usual route to the top and along to his home so he chose to cut through the forest. It might not save him time but it felt safer. While he was debating this a stranger approached him from behind, leaned in and muttered "The air feels weird, doesn't it? Please say it isn't just me."
He confirmed that there was definitely something strange in the air but maybe it was just the time of year or the weather? The stranger shook their head and explained that the'd been having the same nightmare all week. "Somebody floats towards me, down the hill. She's this tiny little girl but she's hovering a good three foot above the ground and racing at me heck for leather like some tiny she-devil! I don't know what she'd do if she got to me - I wake up when she's close enough for me to see the whites of her eyes. The air feels the same now as it does in my dreams."
Glancing behind the stranger's shoulder he could see a black blob at the top of the hill and it seemed to be floating a fair distance over the pavement. He gave himself two options - warn the stranger and hope that they both got away from whatever that was safely or stall the stranger, let them finish their dream and hope that the floating thing didn't come after him next.
Choosing to be a coward he bid farewell to the stranger, insisting the air felt fine and it was such a lovely day for a long walk so he was going now, have a lovely day and good bye. The stranger looked a tad confused at his sudden change of opinion but said a shaky cheerio. He glanced back as he headed towards the woods and noted how sad the stranger looked.
Had be just condemned them to die by the hands of some horrible creature made to look like something so innocent as a child or was he humouring the delusions of a complete stranger?
The rest of the walk home was eerily quiet, he got to the stream by the middle of the woods when suddenly everything went deafeningly silent. The same silence that had permeated the hill. Perhaps this silence followed the floating creature and now that it was done with the stranger it was after him.
With this thought at the forefront of his mind he put his exhaustion aside for long enough to dash back to his home in record time. As he reached his front door all sounds returned to normal, birds sang and he saw people walking along the paths, their feet firmly on the floor, he noted.
He didn't find out what happened to the stranger until the following day's newspaper arrived. Their eyes had been gouged out, tiny red thumbprints ran all along their body that matched the small handprints bruised onto their neck - allegedly the cause of death next to shock and blood loss.
As he turned the page he noticed how loud the paper sounded compared to the utter silence around him.
20160424
Day 720
There are few villages so isolated as Rossokamensk, a few hundred miles north of Deputatsky deep within the Sakha Republic of Russia. The closest permanent settlement was Oymyakon many miles South and the only stable path there and back had been snowed under for almost three months.
Their supplies would soon grow scarce.
It wasn't the first time this had happened, after all living so far out was bound to have its downsides. Life there continued as it had for the past five hundred or so years with little outside influence or news and that was just how they liked it.
They neither wanted nor expected any great changes.
In fact when the ice near the Yana River began to melt they grew concerned, after all spring was still many months away. At first they wondered if there was some slim chance that a thermal vent was working its way to the surface and the thought of all that warmth right at their doorstep filled them with excitement and impatience.
As something worked its way up, they dug down to meet it.
By their process of lighting a bonfire and using the hot coals to melt the icy ground enough to dig combined with eagerness they began to make significant progress. It was almost spring by the time their shovels finally hit something too solid to dig through.
They poured hot coals down and saw sparks as they hit a metal hatch.
Few submarines still exist fromthe 1900s and yet according to the writing scratched onto the hatch this was one of the three Pravda Class built during world War II. Designed for surface combat and ruled a failure they were scrapped at the time and re-purposed for superior models.
Finding an old sub was one thing, hearing laughter from inside was something else entirely.
Over the next few days it continued to gradually surface and the sound of laughter grew in volume to match. Before long the otherwise empty fields of snow echoed with the revelries of seemingly hundreds of men, far more than could ever fit into such a thing.
Unless they were further beneath it, their cries echoing through its empt chambers?
Their supplies would soon grow scarce.
It wasn't the first time this had happened, after all living so far out was bound to have its downsides. Life there continued as it had for the past five hundred or so years with little outside influence or news and that was just how they liked it.
They neither wanted nor expected any great changes.
In fact when the ice near the Yana River began to melt they grew concerned, after all spring was still many months away. At first they wondered if there was some slim chance that a thermal vent was working its way to the surface and the thought of all that warmth right at their doorstep filled them with excitement and impatience.
As something worked its way up, they dug down to meet it.
By their process of lighting a bonfire and using the hot coals to melt the icy ground enough to dig combined with eagerness they began to make significant progress. It was almost spring by the time their shovels finally hit something too solid to dig through.
They poured hot coals down and saw sparks as they hit a metal hatch.
Few submarines still exist fromthe 1900s and yet according to the writing scratched onto the hatch this was one of the three Pravda Class built during world War II. Designed for surface combat and ruled a failure they were scrapped at the time and re-purposed for superior models.
Finding an old sub was one thing, hearing laughter from inside was something else entirely.
Over the next few days it continued to gradually surface and the sound of laughter grew in volume to match. Before long the otherwise empty fields of snow echoed with the revelries of seemingly hundreds of men, far more than could ever fit into such a thing.
Unless they were further beneath it, their cries echoing through its empt chambers?
20160423
Day 719
As she came home from work, she noticed something off about her house. The door looked locked so that wasn't it, the gate was closed lime she'd left it, the windows were shut and the curtains were open which struck something odd. It took her exhausted mind a few minutes to work it out but when she did she felt her blood run cold.
The curtains.
She'd left them closed when she went to work the previous evening like she always did. It made the house look occupied and therefore helped prevent any would-be burglars except that they were wide open now and there was a strange shadow in her living roo - no, a person. They were standing right in front of the window with their back to her.
Moving slowly and quietly through the gate, careful not to let it slam shut in the cold breeze, she crept up to the window. Keeping low and steady she tried to see who it was, after all her sister was due to visit some time during the week and she had her own house key but the figure wasn't her sister. The figure wasn't anyone she recognised and they appeared to be naked too.
Tiptoeing back out of the gate she headed round the street corner to call the police and report the intruder. Insuring they knew she was a lone female and that they were on their way she knocked at her neighbour's house and waited with them.
When the police came, two tired and slow moving officers by the name of Marplane and Swaithe, their first question was where she'd spotted the intruder. Glancing at the living room window she could clearly see their dark outline through the glass, naked back facing them. Apparently the officers couldn't see them and proceeded to ask if she'd been drinking.
She grew annoyed, had they been drinking? Could they not see the person so blatantly standing there? It was enough to make her snap at them and enough for them to decide she was being abusive, likely drunk and leave the area without so much as a cursory run of the house.
Now she wasn't just annoyed - she was annoyed and alone with a strange figure in her living room that nobody else could see for some reason. Gathering up her nerve she approached the window and tapped on the glass, holding her breath and waiting for the figure to turn.
They didn't.
Not so much as as a flinch when her hand rapped sharply against the cold surface. She wondered if her sister had decided to prank her with a mannequin of some kind until she noticed their ribcage moving in and out slowly and shallowly as they breathed. Perhaps they were unconscious or having a seizure?
She didn't dare call the police or anyone else in case Marplane and Swaithe had told them that she'd wasted their time, been "abusive" and asked that she be avoided for the time being by other officers. It was a risk she wasn't willing to take and so she went inside.
The first thing she did upon opening the door as quietly as possible was to grab her tall umbrella from the stand by the coat rack and grip it like a baseball bat as she headed for the living room and the unwanted figure within.
Deep breath after deep breath, she stalled for time as she approached the entryway, throwing scenario after scenario out until there was nothing left. What if they leapt out at her? How quickly could she swing the umbrella? What if she missed and they attacked her? What if she didn't and she killed them? Would it be murder, manslaughter or self defence? What would her prison sentence be? Do prisons have shared cells and open bars? Are they cold?
Shaking her head she took one final deep breath and jumped around the corner, yelling and winging the umbrella wildly until she realised she was alone. the curtains were still wide open and there was no figure in sight. Before she could further ponder anything she saw movement at the window - one of her small china ornaments began to float and twist in the air as if it was being examined by hands that she couldn't see...
Hand that she couldn't see from inside but saw from outside.
She ran for the front door, slamming it behind her before turning to look at the window. the figure was moving now, holding her knick-knack in an inhumanly long hand. Their face was utterly featureless, a smooth dark grey mass of flesh interrupted only by bulbous eyes that snapped over to where she was standing.
Its face began to split, starting from the left side and gradually meandering to the right as it smiled from where an ear should be to where the other ear should be. As she watched in horror, unable to bring herself to move further forward or away from the window its arm began to bend backwards.
With slow deliberation it hurled the statue at the window, shattering it and the only way she'd been able to see it.
The curtains.
She'd left them closed when she went to work the previous evening like she always did. It made the house look occupied and therefore helped prevent any would-be burglars except that they were wide open now and there was a strange shadow in her living roo - no, a person. They were standing right in front of the window with their back to her.
Moving slowly and quietly through the gate, careful not to let it slam shut in the cold breeze, she crept up to the window. Keeping low and steady she tried to see who it was, after all her sister was due to visit some time during the week and she had her own house key but the figure wasn't her sister. The figure wasn't anyone she recognised and they appeared to be naked too.
Tiptoeing back out of the gate she headed round the street corner to call the police and report the intruder. Insuring they knew she was a lone female and that they were on their way she knocked at her neighbour's house and waited with them.
When the police came, two tired and slow moving officers by the name of Marplane and Swaithe, their first question was where she'd spotted the intruder. Glancing at the living room window she could clearly see their dark outline through the glass, naked back facing them. Apparently the officers couldn't see them and proceeded to ask if she'd been drinking.
She grew annoyed, had they been drinking? Could they not see the person so blatantly standing there? It was enough to make her snap at them and enough for them to decide she was being abusive, likely drunk and leave the area without so much as a cursory run of the house.
Now she wasn't just annoyed - she was annoyed and alone with a strange figure in her living room that nobody else could see for some reason. Gathering up her nerve she approached the window and tapped on the glass, holding her breath and waiting for the figure to turn.
They didn't.
Not so much as as a flinch when her hand rapped sharply against the cold surface. She wondered if her sister had decided to prank her with a mannequin of some kind until she noticed their ribcage moving in and out slowly and shallowly as they breathed. Perhaps they were unconscious or having a seizure?
She didn't dare call the police or anyone else in case Marplane and Swaithe had told them that she'd wasted their time, been "abusive" and asked that she be avoided for the time being by other officers. It was a risk she wasn't willing to take and so she went inside.
The first thing she did upon opening the door as quietly as possible was to grab her tall umbrella from the stand by the coat rack and grip it like a baseball bat as she headed for the living room and the unwanted figure within.
Deep breath after deep breath, she stalled for time as she approached the entryway, throwing scenario after scenario out until there was nothing left. What if they leapt out at her? How quickly could she swing the umbrella? What if she missed and they attacked her? What if she didn't and she killed them? Would it be murder, manslaughter or self defence? What would her prison sentence be? Do prisons have shared cells and open bars? Are they cold?
Shaking her head she took one final deep breath and jumped around the corner, yelling and winging the umbrella wildly until she realised she was alone. the curtains were still wide open and there was no figure in sight. Before she could further ponder anything she saw movement at the window - one of her small china ornaments began to float and twist in the air as if it was being examined by hands that she couldn't see...
Hand that she couldn't see from inside but saw from outside.
She ran for the front door, slamming it behind her before turning to look at the window. the figure was moving now, holding her knick-knack in an inhumanly long hand. Their face was utterly featureless, a smooth dark grey mass of flesh interrupted only by bulbous eyes that snapped over to where she was standing.
Its face began to split, starting from the left side and gradually meandering to the right as it smiled from where an ear should be to where the other ear should be. As she watched in horror, unable to bring herself to move further forward or away from the window its arm began to bend backwards.
With slow deliberation it hurled the statue at the window, shattering it and the only way she'd been able to see it.
20160422
Day 718
The entire block of flats had been up for sale for years before anyone moved in. Honestly the apartment's price should have been the first tip-off that something about the area was very wrong but only £270 for rent and utilities was too good to pass up. Perhaps it was because the city zoo was just opposite and certain directional winds blew a somewhat fragrant aroma over from the many animals therein. Perhaps it was the somewhat remote location and the fifteen minute walk to the nearest bus stop.
It was certainly odd to have a zoo nearly in the middle of nowhere, or at least on the edges of nowhere. The surrounding areas (aside from the three blocks of flats) were the infamous Moors of many, many books. They weren't as bleak as they're described, at least not during the day. During the night all sorts of strange sounds float about, possibly from wild animals, local drunks or from the zoo across the road. There was no definite answer.
This aside the rest of the area seemed quote nice and living so close to such a pleasant attraction only made things better, even if he was the sole occupant of the entire five floor building. It was lonely but he hoped that more people would move in soon enough, bringing the familiar noise of busy lives and possible friendships.
Four years later he gave up on the idea that anyone else would ever move in. He began to doubt that the rest of the building was even up for rent. Perhaps he'd somehow rented the entire building and didn't know it. Perhaps there were hidden cameras everywhere and he was being constantly monitored.
Was someone putting something in his food or the water and seeing how it would affect him? Was the zoo just something to keep him distracted so he didn't suspect that something else had been going on the whole time? He had to know.
He purchased hidden cameras over the next few weeks (using cash, trying to be as untraceable as possible). He stopped using the tap water for drinking, cleaning or bathing in case it was contaminated with some secret chemical that would give him cancer or worse. He'd scoured every inch of the apartment, pulling up the carpets and stripping the wallpaper, removing as much potentially bugged furniture as possible until he was left sitting in empty rooms with a knife by his side at all times and a single computer showing him every room of the house that he wasn't in as well as the hallways of every floor.
He saw nothing for the first few days, just him sitting in his bare rooms, the hallways outside where he'd stacked his belongings and the other hallways that were almost clinically barren. What began to irritate him soon after was that he couldn't see outside, he couldn't see if anyone was loitering outside and waiting for him to fall asleep before they could break in and kill him.
Three days later every window he could access had two cameras on it, one pointing at the window and one facing down. A second monitor was added to fit all of these new videos on and he waited. It was only a matter of hours before he saw the first creature approach, his suspicions utterly shattered and his fears kickstarted into overdrive as more creatures joined the first, peering into the ground floor windows before one of them spotted the cameras.
It was certainly odd to have a zoo nearly in the middle of nowhere, or at least on the edges of nowhere. The surrounding areas (aside from the three blocks of flats) were the infamous Moors of many, many books. They weren't as bleak as they're described, at least not during the day. During the night all sorts of strange sounds float about, possibly from wild animals, local drunks or from the zoo across the road. There was no definite answer.
This aside the rest of the area seemed quote nice and living so close to such a pleasant attraction only made things better, even if he was the sole occupant of the entire five floor building. It was lonely but he hoped that more people would move in soon enough, bringing the familiar noise of busy lives and possible friendships.
Four years later he gave up on the idea that anyone else would ever move in. He began to doubt that the rest of the building was even up for rent. Perhaps he'd somehow rented the entire building and didn't know it. Perhaps there were hidden cameras everywhere and he was being constantly monitored.
Was someone putting something in his food or the water and seeing how it would affect him? Was the zoo just something to keep him distracted so he didn't suspect that something else had been going on the whole time? He had to know.
He purchased hidden cameras over the next few weeks (using cash, trying to be as untraceable as possible). He stopped using the tap water for drinking, cleaning or bathing in case it was contaminated with some secret chemical that would give him cancer or worse. He'd scoured every inch of the apartment, pulling up the carpets and stripping the wallpaper, removing as much potentially bugged furniture as possible until he was left sitting in empty rooms with a knife by his side at all times and a single computer showing him every room of the house that he wasn't in as well as the hallways of every floor.
He saw nothing for the first few days, just him sitting in his bare rooms, the hallways outside where he'd stacked his belongings and the other hallways that were almost clinically barren. What began to irritate him soon after was that he couldn't see outside, he couldn't see if anyone was loitering outside and waiting for him to fall asleep before they could break in and kill him.
Three days later every window he could access had two cameras on it, one pointing at the window and one facing down. A second monitor was added to fit all of these new videos on and he waited. It was only a matter of hours before he saw the first creature approach, his suspicions utterly shattered and his fears kickstarted into overdrive as more creatures joined the first, peering into the ground floor windows before one of them spotted the cameras.
20160421
Day 717
Ballet is beautiful, graceful and deadly to both dancer and audience when used correctly. The stages they dance on are ancient, full of old souls brimming with hatred for the new talent surpassing them and erasing their shining successes with each delicate twirl and step.
Every story has its fiction based on some obscure fact from somewhere and opera ghosts are no stranger to adaptions and remakes and new films when the theatrical mood strikes. Of course this well known tale has a very real birthplace in Bolshoi, Russia with 240 years worth of damned souls waiting for one wrong step, one single unbalanced entrelacé.
Stories of girls "collapsing under the pressure" are all too common and very well suppressed. Failure looks bad against such establishments, a blemish on their perfect façade and another thing to keep fresh blood out of their studios and stages.
The living were forever in competition with the dead, dancing with them in their reflections, trying to keep their own away from the dark blurry figures that moved with utter perfection as their mostly incorporeal arms reached for the reflection's necks. Their bodies were graceful curves and fuzzy edges, no real detail but for their eyes which were seen as clear as day, peering out from dark grey mists with utter loathing.
It wasn't uncommon for studios to be closed for an hour or a month, depending on how long the spirits lingered within the mirrors, pacing and waiting for someone to dance against them. Few people survive these dances unscathed. In fact this has been going on for so long that costumes which cover the majority of the body are seen as typical, just as the scars left behind by the dead are seen as signs of strength and courage against their predecessors. They show that the dancer is truly worthy of their place in the school.
That being said the occasional death hardly goes unnoticed, especially with the amount of blood that is so often left behind. The wooden floors would be better off stained a deeper shade of brown than their beige and cream with brownish red stains in all manner of horrific positions. In some of the rooms (usually sealed off to all but the most experienced of tutors) there are smeared handprints on the ceiling from where poor young dancers have been lifted clean from the ground by the envious dead.
Their bones are the loudest sound around - you never quite forget how the sound of someone's spine snapping as it collides with a metal rail over the sound of languid classical compositions. they don't always manage to scream, you see. The dead go for the throat first, keep them quiet and kill them quick. make every second of their afterlife hell. You can see them in some rooms where the bloodstains were fresher, chasing familiar looking blurry figures whose mouths seem permanently frozen in a wide scream of terror.
The older ones don't have mouths, they often forget that they once needed to eat or sleep and so their "bodies" adjust to fit their newly perceived self. The oldest of them all look nothing like humans, they've forgotten that they once were like us. How they tower and bend at impossible angles, contorting into terrifyingly beautiful dances as they perform to songs only they can hear.
So perfect and so grotesque. Everything ballet was ever meant to be.
Every story has its fiction based on some obscure fact from somewhere and opera ghosts are no stranger to adaptions and remakes and new films when the theatrical mood strikes. Of course this well known tale has a very real birthplace in Bolshoi, Russia with 240 years worth of damned souls waiting for one wrong step, one single unbalanced entrelacé.
Stories of girls "collapsing under the pressure" are all too common and very well suppressed. Failure looks bad against such establishments, a blemish on their perfect façade and another thing to keep fresh blood out of their studios and stages.
The living were forever in competition with the dead, dancing with them in their reflections, trying to keep their own away from the dark blurry figures that moved with utter perfection as their mostly incorporeal arms reached for the reflection's necks. Their bodies were graceful curves and fuzzy edges, no real detail but for their eyes which were seen as clear as day, peering out from dark grey mists with utter loathing.
It wasn't uncommon for studios to be closed for an hour or a month, depending on how long the spirits lingered within the mirrors, pacing and waiting for someone to dance against them. Few people survive these dances unscathed. In fact this has been going on for so long that costumes which cover the majority of the body are seen as typical, just as the scars left behind by the dead are seen as signs of strength and courage against their predecessors. They show that the dancer is truly worthy of their place in the school.
That being said the occasional death hardly goes unnoticed, especially with the amount of blood that is so often left behind. The wooden floors would be better off stained a deeper shade of brown than their beige and cream with brownish red stains in all manner of horrific positions. In some of the rooms (usually sealed off to all but the most experienced of tutors) there are smeared handprints on the ceiling from where poor young dancers have been lifted clean from the ground by the envious dead.
Their bones are the loudest sound around - you never quite forget how the sound of someone's spine snapping as it collides with a metal rail over the sound of languid classical compositions. they don't always manage to scream, you see. The dead go for the throat first, keep them quiet and kill them quick. make every second of their afterlife hell. You can see them in some rooms where the bloodstains were fresher, chasing familiar looking blurry figures whose mouths seem permanently frozen in a wide scream of terror.
The older ones don't have mouths, they often forget that they once needed to eat or sleep and so their "bodies" adjust to fit their newly perceived self. The oldest of them all look nothing like humans, they've forgotten that they once were like us. How they tower and bend at impossible angles, contorting into terrifyingly beautiful dances as they perform to songs only they can hear.
So perfect and so grotesque. Everything ballet was ever meant to be.
20160420
Day 716
When she went to London's National Portrait Gallery she found herself in the Tudor and Elizabethan section.
Literally.
Her own face stared back at her - painted in 1492 according to the sign. It wasn't like the portrait looked similar to her, it was her. From the way her nose crinkled when she smiled too wide to the blonde highlights in her hair and even the faintest glimpse of the tattoo she had by the base of her neck, peeking out through layers of beads.
The longer she stared at the painting, the more people began to stare at her and mutter about how similar they looked. A few even took photos, commenting loudly at their shared likeness until she couldn't stand it any more and left the gallery altogether.
Later she tried to fine more information about her portrait, though she'd never heard of the artist before. It was a matter of minutes before a small biography for him popped up, stating how he'd had a brief but successful career until he "developed a madness" and was sent to Bethlem Asylum.
Bedlum, as she soon found.
He'd seemed a perfectly normal man until he began to mutter about impossible things that "were yet to occur" as well as stealing the strangest items. His wife claimed he'd told her he needed them to go back to his time. From that remark it took mere days for him to be locked up and only a month before he passed away from "his madness".
She wondered if he really had been mad and why there were no portraits of him despite his apparent success. The need to see what he looked like, if she currently knew him, consumed her. For months on end she scoured the internet and libraries across Europe in the hopes of finding just one single depiction of the man from today who'd painted her six hundred years ago.
Ten months later she had success, an amateur portrait done by a friend of his that had worked its way into a small museum in Romania.
Three weeks, three days and three hours later she was finally there to see his face as close to in person as she could get.
All this time for one single painting that showed a face she could never forget, one she'd known all her life and one who had allegedly died in Iraq several years earlier.
So this is why his body had never been recovered.
Literally.
Her own face stared back at her - painted in 1492 according to the sign. It wasn't like the portrait looked similar to her, it was her. From the way her nose crinkled when she smiled too wide to the blonde highlights in her hair and even the faintest glimpse of the tattoo she had by the base of her neck, peeking out through layers of beads.
The longer she stared at the painting, the more people began to stare at her and mutter about how similar they looked. A few even took photos, commenting loudly at their shared likeness until she couldn't stand it any more and left the gallery altogether.
Later she tried to fine more information about her portrait, though she'd never heard of the artist before. It was a matter of minutes before a small biography for him popped up, stating how he'd had a brief but successful career until he "developed a madness" and was sent to Bethlem Asylum.
Bedlum, as she soon found.
He'd seemed a perfectly normal man until he began to mutter about impossible things that "were yet to occur" as well as stealing the strangest items. His wife claimed he'd told her he needed them to go back to his time. From that remark it took mere days for him to be locked up and only a month before he passed away from "his madness".
She wondered if he really had been mad and why there were no portraits of him despite his apparent success. The need to see what he looked like, if she currently knew him, consumed her. For months on end she scoured the internet and libraries across Europe in the hopes of finding just one single depiction of the man from today who'd painted her six hundred years ago.
Ten months later she had success, an amateur portrait done by a friend of his that had worked its way into a small museum in Romania.
Three weeks, three days and three hours later she was finally there to see his face as close to in person as she could get.
All this time for one single painting that showed a face she could never forget, one she'd known all her life and one who had allegedly died in Iraq several years earlier.
So this is why his body had never been recovered.
20160419
Day 715
There are only ten floors to this building yet the lift is currently heading to floor fifteen.
Now this may just be a glitch, after all it is an old building with circuits in dire need of a change.
It could also be that there are more floors in the building than can be seen with human eyes.
The small group waiting for the lift to come back down grow impatient.
None of them notice that the numbers are higher than they should be, only that the lift is not there.
When it finally arrived they didn't see that it wasn't made of metal nor was it attached to the lift shaft.
Floor buttons were pressed and the doors closed with a wet thud, small splatters of black sprayed the air.
Those nearest the door recoiled in disgust,trying to wipe away the stain only for it to burn their skin.
As they shrieked in agony, smoke pouring from the spreading wounds, the others began to panic.
It was then that they noticed the lack of an emergency button, telephone or any kind of safety signs.
They tried to back up as far from the now dying individuals only to be met with a gently moving wall.
Like lungs it moved inwards and outwards steadily while the smell of burning meat filled the stale air.
Everyone was too distracted to notice that they were on floor eleven already and still going higher.
By the time those nearest the door had succumbed to the burns, the doors had pinged open.
Everyone who could rush out did so, stepping callously over the steaming bodies.
They didn't think twice about how long they had been in the lift, nor did they take in their surroundings.
At least not until the lift's doors had melted and fused together, resembling a bowl of soap bubbles.
Through the thinner parts of the mess that was once the doors they could see the bodies moving.
Floor fifteen looked nothing like the university hallways they were so used to.
The carpets were damp, squishing and bending underneath them as they tried to find solid ground.
The doors were all warped and locked, the lights gradually growing dimmer and dimmer.
A clicking noise was heard from the far end of the corridor, becoming louder by the minute.
With no stairs in sight the group began to frantically try every door they could.
They even began to move towards the strange noise, desperate to find stairs, a hiding place -anything.
Now this may just be a glitch, after all it is an old building with circuits in dire need of a change.
It could also be that there are more floors in the building than can be seen with human eyes.
The small group waiting for the lift to come back down grow impatient.
None of them notice that the numbers are higher than they should be, only that the lift is not there.
When it finally arrived they didn't see that it wasn't made of metal nor was it attached to the lift shaft.
Floor buttons were pressed and the doors closed with a wet thud, small splatters of black sprayed the air.
Those nearest the door recoiled in disgust,trying to wipe away the stain only for it to burn their skin.
As they shrieked in agony, smoke pouring from the spreading wounds, the others began to panic.
It was then that they noticed the lack of an emergency button, telephone or any kind of safety signs.
They tried to back up as far from the now dying individuals only to be met with a gently moving wall.
Like lungs it moved inwards and outwards steadily while the smell of burning meat filled the stale air.
Everyone was too distracted to notice that they were on floor eleven already and still going higher.
By the time those nearest the door had succumbed to the burns, the doors had pinged open.
Everyone who could rush out did so, stepping callously over the steaming bodies.
They didn't think twice about how long they had been in the lift, nor did they take in their surroundings.
At least not until the lift's doors had melted and fused together, resembling a bowl of soap bubbles.
Through the thinner parts of the mess that was once the doors they could see the bodies moving.
Floor fifteen looked nothing like the university hallways they were so used to.
The carpets were damp, squishing and bending underneath them as they tried to find solid ground.
The doors were all warped and locked, the lights gradually growing dimmer and dimmer.
A clicking noise was heard from the far end of the corridor, becoming louder by the minute.
With no stairs in sight the group began to frantically try every door they could.
They even began to move towards the strange noise, desperate to find stairs, a hiding place -anything.
20160418
Day 714
Holes began to open up all over the countryside. They were small ones at first, littering the fields like acne until the fields began to sag. Through the small holes we caught glimpses of concrete blocks resembling stairs in some places and boxes in others.
At first we thought they were just old graves, perhaps an abandoned cemetery - it's not entirely unheard of for such things to be ploughed over or forgotten, especially for rural England. There have been entire villages found in the deepest depths of the forests, granted they were little more than stone floors and chimneys but they were still lost.
And so we thought to get a few vicars round the fields to reconsecrate the grounds as well as pestering local historical societies into checking if there was a mass grave about. It could have been the Plague for all we knew at the time but the sheer scale of the holes made even that seem a little unlikely.
It wasn't until one of the fields began to sag that we worried it was something far worse. After weeks of it being fenced off and investigated it finally collapsed altogether revealing a vast network of open staircases and small rooms all made from what appeared to be concrete. Careful excavation of the other fields showed they were all connected, running deeper underground than we were equipped to go and farther afield than we could have ever guessed.
Several groups from the local area volunteered their climbing experience to explore the new found subsystem. Out of the five groups that went down there only three have reported back. From our small base in Slaidburn (near the Ground Zero of the subsystem, conveniently quiet enough to escape mass media interaction) everything was monitored via walkie talkie and trackers on their gear.
Teams 1, 4 and 5 were tasked to head across the subsystem, keeping as close to the surface as possible to see how far out the tunnels went. Teams 2 and 3 went down and haven't been heard from just yet, their trackers went offline five days ago and we're still debating sending rescue teams down after them.
Team 1, also dubbed Team Alpha, found a rudimentary form of locomotive travel and followed the tracks all the way up to Nairn in Scotland, over 300 miles from Ground Zero. Teams 4 and 5 (Delta and Epsilon) reported finding no transport and returned to base having gone only 120 odd miles to Shrewsbury in Wales.
All three teams said there were signs of recent life down there, modern food wrappers and newspapers scattered near entrances to the surface but none of them ever saw any people or even any subterranean animals like moles or foxes who would surely have made some use out of the shelters found there.
One thing they all said they found that unsettled them deeply was lights coming from far below, farther down than they were assigned to go. It could have been teams 2 and 3 trying to signal for help for all we know, it could have been the inhabitants of the subsystem. All we know for sure is that the teams all reported different coloured lights following them (red, white and green respectively) from the furthest reaches to Ground Zero. They said the lights got closer and brighter over the distance so we reckon we'll be finding out who lives down there soon enough.
At first we thought they were just old graves, perhaps an abandoned cemetery - it's not entirely unheard of for such things to be ploughed over or forgotten, especially for rural England. There have been entire villages found in the deepest depths of the forests, granted they were little more than stone floors and chimneys but they were still lost.
And so we thought to get a few vicars round the fields to reconsecrate the grounds as well as pestering local historical societies into checking if there was a mass grave about. It could have been the Plague for all we knew at the time but the sheer scale of the holes made even that seem a little unlikely.
It wasn't until one of the fields began to sag that we worried it was something far worse. After weeks of it being fenced off and investigated it finally collapsed altogether revealing a vast network of open staircases and small rooms all made from what appeared to be concrete. Careful excavation of the other fields showed they were all connected, running deeper underground than we were equipped to go and farther afield than we could have ever guessed.
Several groups from the local area volunteered their climbing experience to explore the new found subsystem. Out of the five groups that went down there only three have reported back. From our small base in Slaidburn (near the Ground Zero of the subsystem, conveniently quiet enough to escape mass media interaction) everything was monitored via walkie talkie and trackers on their gear.
Teams 1, 4 and 5 were tasked to head across the subsystem, keeping as close to the surface as possible to see how far out the tunnels went. Teams 2 and 3 went down and haven't been heard from just yet, their trackers went offline five days ago and we're still debating sending rescue teams down after them.
Team 1, also dubbed Team Alpha, found a rudimentary form of locomotive travel and followed the tracks all the way up to Nairn in Scotland, over 300 miles from Ground Zero. Teams 4 and 5 (Delta and Epsilon) reported finding no transport and returned to base having gone only 120 odd miles to Shrewsbury in Wales.
All three teams said there were signs of recent life down there, modern food wrappers and newspapers scattered near entrances to the surface but none of them ever saw any people or even any subterranean animals like moles or foxes who would surely have made some use out of the shelters found there.
One thing they all said they found that unsettled them deeply was lights coming from far below, farther down than they were assigned to go. It could have been teams 2 and 3 trying to signal for help for all we know, it could have been the inhabitants of the subsystem. All we know for sure is that the teams all reported different coloured lights following them (red, white and green respectively) from the furthest reaches to Ground Zero. They said the lights got closer and brighter over the distance so we reckon we'll be finding out who lives down there soon enough.
20160417
Day 713
The first time she saw the white frog was by the creek that ran through the corner of her back garden.
It was sitting on top of a dead bird, greedily gulping down its steaming entrails .
She didn't think frogs did that.
Over the years she saw it come and go and lay its spawn, all the while bird skeletons began to build up.
She never questioned why they were left there, why her parents never removed them.
They were just another fact about the garden - one her teacher didn't believe and called her a liar for.
Her response was to invite her teacher over to see the bones for himself.
Back then it was fine, her parents thought it a great opportunity to talk about her grades and behaviour.
She just wanted to be proven right, to have her teacher eat his words.
He got so much more than that, right after he'd finished talking to her parents they showed him the creek.
She'd never seen her parents faces look so tense before, so grim and yet so calm.
They didn't try to stop her teacher from leaning right over the bones, leaning until he fell over.
While they may be hollow, a bird's bones are awfully sharp.
They pierced every inch of his face, neck and shoulders - going right through his eyes.
He didn't get up after that and the police tried to charge her parents with involuntary manslaughter.
It didn't work though, they argued that nature leaves things where they should be.
They said the teacher was careless and traumatised their daughter, said he'd bullied her for years.
The jury lapped up their sob story and let them go free.
All the while she wondered why the frog left the bones there and why she'd never seen the eggs hatch.
They gave her a week off school to allow for her to de-stress after the gruesome incident.
She used it as a chance to catch the frog-spawn and raise it herself, to see if they'd ever eat plants.
After a month of trying and failing to raise the tadpoles on varying forms of vegetation she gave up.
They were fed raw bacon until they grew into tiny white frogs and she let them all go.
The next summer they all came back, a small army of white frogs all feasting on meat and leaving the bones.
Sometimes she'd catch one and give them a drop or two of her own blood - they loved it.
They loved her, leaving behind small trinkets mixed in with the bones.
A ring here, ribbons there and even a gold tooth once.
It took her many years to match these items with the local missing persons reports.
Knowing how they died and where their remains were she did what she thought best at the time.
She never questioned why they were left there, why her parents never removed them.
They were just another fact about the garden - one her teacher didn't believe and called her a liar for.
Her response was to invite her teacher over to see the bones for himself.
Back then it was fine, her parents thought it a great opportunity to talk about her grades and behaviour.
She just wanted to be proven right, to have her teacher eat his words.
He got so much more than that, right after he'd finished talking to her parents they showed him the creek.
She'd never seen her parents faces look so tense before, so grim and yet so calm.
They didn't try to stop her teacher from leaning right over the bones, leaning until he fell over.
While they may be hollow, a bird's bones are awfully sharp.
They pierced every inch of his face, neck and shoulders - going right through his eyes.
He didn't get up after that and the police tried to charge her parents with involuntary manslaughter.
It didn't work though, they argued that nature leaves things where they should be.
They said the teacher was careless and traumatised their daughter, said he'd bullied her for years.
The jury lapped up their sob story and let them go free.
All the while she wondered why the frog left the bones there and why she'd never seen the eggs hatch.
They gave her a week off school to allow for her to de-stress after the gruesome incident.
She used it as a chance to catch the frog-spawn and raise it herself, to see if they'd ever eat plants.
After a month of trying and failing to raise the tadpoles on varying forms of vegetation she gave up.
They were fed raw bacon until they grew into tiny white frogs and she let them all go.
The next summer they all came back, a small army of white frogs all feasting on meat and leaving the bones.
Sometimes she'd catch one and give them a drop or two of her own blood - they loved it.
They loved her, leaving behind small trinkets mixed in with the bones.
A ring here, ribbons there and even a gold tooth once.
It took her many years to match these items with the local missing persons reports.
Knowing how they died and where their remains were she did what she thought best at the time.
She brought the frogs into class to teach the children about good and bad.
20160416
Day 712
Admittedly she was almost an hour late and admittedly she hadn't been to this particular swimming centre before but surely she had come to the right place? The signs outside and the texts her friends had sent collaborated perfectly so she must have been at the right pool.
The doors were wide open, the lights inside were dim and everything was quiet save for the faint sounds of rushing water and children's screams - presumably all in fun. The reception area was entirely unmanned and very modern. Every surface was either glistening black or some sort of neon with a strange white forest mural spanning the entire length of the room, bulking out into a 3D tree sculpture with large water-filled pods (again in varying neon colours). Upon closer inspection they almost looked like they had people inside them.
Hesitating she passed through the fluorescent green turnstile and headed for the changing rooms, following the little signs dotted about the place at strange heights and angles in the hopes that her friends would be somewhere inside.
The tree mural soon turned into a forest sculpture with dozens of trees filling the wide hallway, their pods glowing brightly in the dim lights. From one side the wall was a highly detailed depiction of some strange landscape full of glass hills and gigantic floating eels and the other side was a large window showing the pool within.
It was like nothing she'd ever seen before - the same colour scheme as the rest of the building but turned into some kind of absolute alien landscape. There were dozens of pools varying in size and depth connected by all manner of bridges, glass platforms, tubes, mesh walkways and stepping stones all glowing neon. There were even little huts dotted about the place where she saw a few people heading in from the otherwise deserted area, all the while the excited screams of children lingered in the air.
Thinking the place was closing down she decided to just turn back, her friends were nowhere to be seen even though they'd promised to meet her outside. The forest seemed a lot darker as she headed back, the lights throbbed to an unheard beat and the pods swayed to an unfelt wind. Everything she'd found fascinating before now seemed too unreal, there was something glaringly wrong with the place but she couldn't put her finger on what it was.
As her hand reached out for the turnstile, to head home and bubble in her anger for a whole before texting her friends to see where they'd gone, a voice called out to her. One of her friends was a few feet away in her swimsuit, soaking wet and laughing and asking where she was going. They'd been in a small room off to one side, she explained, in these sensory deprivation tanks. They were apparently amazing and she had to try them before they could all go swimming.
Grudgingly agreeing she followed her friend down a hallway she'd previously missed as they turned from the shiny black flooring to a rough wooden walkway leading to a couple of cubicles whose doors were made from the same wood and loosely nailed together. Her friend "stood guard" while she changed, all the while chatting away about the tanks and how the rest of the group were already in there and having fun.
Suited, clothing stashed in a nearby locker, they headed onwards to the sensory deprivation tanks and the alleged fun there was in store. The walkway took them to another turnstile (this one in orange) and from there to a well-lit small room full of the tree sculptures. The pods from these trees were pure white with a red band to show which ones were in use and which were not. She let her friend help her climb into one of the pods and seal it shut, agreeing to thirty minutes before the lid was screwed closed.
Inside the pod was a small bench where she sat, the water lapped about the bottom of her shoulders as she leant back into the reclined slope and closed her eyes. After what felt like a couple of minutes she was startled by a loud thumping coming from the outside and the lid was prised off by someone dressed as a policeman.
She was pulled out, wrapped in a thermal blanket and questioned by several other officers as paramedics checked her vitals, flitting about her like flies. They asked who she was, her age and home address, looking worriedly at each other until she snapped at them, asking what was wrong and where her friends were.
They asked her what date she had gone into the swimming centre, pausing for a few awkward moments before telling her the date wasn't 2016, it was 2046. She'd been in the pod for thirty years, not thirty minutes and she was one of two survivors. The whole place had been locked down until now, thick white vines had grown over the entrance and it had all been quiet. Missing people reports flooded the station and they all drew back there.
Glancing around her feeling terrified and numb all at once she saw all the other pods were open, from either having their lids prised off like hers or being smashed to absolute pieces. Bodybags were scattered about the floor, with soaking wet stringy remains being lifted into them. She recognised a few of the swimsuits.
The doors were wide open, the lights inside were dim and everything was quiet save for the faint sounds of rushing water and children's screams - presumably all in fun. The reception area was entirely unmanned and very modern. Every surface was either glistening black or some sort of neon with a strange white forest mural spanning the entire length of the room, bulking out into a 3D tree sculpture with large water-filled pods (again in varying neon colours). Upon closer inspection they almost looked like they had people inside them.
Hesitating she passed through the fluorescent green turnstile and headed for the changing rooms, following the little signs dotted about the place at strange heights and angles in the hopes that her friends would be somewhere inside.
The tree mural soon turned into a forest sculpture with dozens of trees filling the wide hallway, their pods glowing brightly in the dim lights. From one side the wall was a highly detailed depiction of some strange landscape full of glass hills and gigantic floating eels and the other side was a large window showing the pool within.
It was like nothing she'd ever seen before - the same colour scheme as the rest of the building but turned into some kind of absolute alien landscape. There were dozens of pools varying in size and depth connected by all manner of bridges, glass platforms, tubes, mesh walkways and stepping stones all glowing neon. There were even little huts dotted about the place where she saw a few people heading in from the otherwise deserted area, all the while the excited screams of children lingered in the air.
Thinking the place was closing down she decided to just turn back, her friends were nowhere to be seen even though they'd promised to meet her outside. The forest seemed a lot darker as she headed back, the lights throbbed to an unheard beat and the pods swayed to an unfelt wind. Everything she'd found fascinating before now seemed too unreal, there was something glaringly wrong with the place but she couldn't put her finger on what it was.
As her hand reached out for the turnstile, to head home and bubble in her anger for a whole before texting her friends to see where they'd gone, a voice called out to her. One of her friends was a few feet away in her swimsuit, soaking wet and laughing and asking where she was going. They'd been in a small room off to one side, she explained, in these sensory deprivation tanks. They were apparently amazing and she had to try them before they could all go swimming.
Grudgingly agreeing she followed her friend down a hallway she'd previously missed as they turned from the shiny black flooring to a rough wooden walkway leading to a couple of cubicles whose doors were made from the same wood and loosely nailed together. Her friend "stood guard" while she changed, all the while chatting away about the tanks and how the rest of the group were already in there and having fun.
Suited, clothing stashed in a nearby locker, they headed onwards to the sensory deprivation tanks and the alleged fun there was in store. The walkway took them to another turnstile (this one in orange) and from there to a well-lit small room full of the tree sculptures. The pods from these trees were pure white with a red band to show which ones were in use and which were not. She let her friend help her climb into one of the pods and seal it shut, agreeing to thirty minutes before the lid was screwed closed.
Inside the pod was a small bench where she sat, the water lapped about the bottom of her shoulders as she leant back into the reclined slope and closed her eyes. After what felt like a couple of minutes she was startled by a loud thumping coming from the outside and the lid was prised off by someone dressed as a policeman.
She was pulled out, wrapped in a thermal blanket and questioned by several other officers as paramedics checked her vitals, flitting about her like flies. They asked who she was, her age and home address, looking worriedly at each other until she snapped at them, asking what was wrong and where her friends were.
They asked her what date she had gone into the swimming centre, pausing for a few awkward moments before telling her the date wasn't 2016, it was 2046. She'd been in the pod for thirty years, not thirty minutes and she was one of two survivors. The whole place had been locked down until now, thick white vines had grown over the entrance and it had all been quiet. Missing people reports flooded the station and they all drew back there.
Glancing around her feeling terrified and numb all at once she saw all the other pods were open, from either having their lids prised off like hers or being smashed to absolute pieces. Bodybags were scattered about the floor, with soaking wet stringy remains being lifted into them. She recognised a few of the swimsuits.
20160415
Day 711
Know your place, keep it memorised and secret.
Visualise the number of paces it will take you to get there, the seconds it takes to conceal yourself.
Etch the number of breaths you can take into your memory, how much air is there.
Your place was far away from your family's places.
To be separate is to be safer, attachments are weakness, if you see your loved ones in the herd don't cry.
You grew up hearing that every day.
Your place was never as hidden as you'd like, never as secret as the others.
Sometimes when the crusty lumps that were once humans came looking, they'd stare right at you.
Their eyes bulged out of their heads, wide like a frightened dog and bloodshot like one drink too many.
You'd clench the blanket with seasonal leaves sewn into it to match the forest floor and count your breath.
The rotting log you were under concealed you well enough but for the small peephole you needed.
Nobody else would tell you when the herd had moved on, of it they had moved on.
One less survivor meant more supplies for everyone else.
Occasionally someone would do the underhanded necessity of sabotaging someone's place.
Their screams never carried on for long - the only mercy the herds knew was to kill quick.
They liked their meat fresh and bloody enough to stain all down their fronts.
At least it makes it easier for us to smell them coming or hear the flies that follow them in clouds.
Made it easier for your scent to be disguised or entirely smothered by their stench.
Sometimes when warning texts came through it wouldn't be a herd, just a couple of stragglers or freshers.
The freshers fumbled about, easy to avoid but the stragglers were the ones you had to watch out for the most.
If they were too brutal for a herd to accept you could be certain that you'd be better off killing yourself.
Then the herds began to disband, the straggling kind came every day with no respite.
Just as everyone had gotten used to the rules this new society imposed, just as a generation was raised on it.
It became easier to forget your place and work around them when there were fewer or otherwise camp.
New routines were established, new rules and lessons and things settled once again for a time.
The new code was to run, to lure the stragglers into pits under the settlements to tunnels that led far away.
Scores were kept and those who lured the most into the tunnels were considered heroes.
Then they changed the rules again, swept the rug out from under us and sliced our numbers in thirds.
Before they wouldn't look about too carefully, they saw something and stared until it was truly gone.
Now they turn their heads, tilt them 180 degrees and they plan.
You can see it in their eyes now when they look you up and down like they never used to.
The way they glance left and right as they head for you, watching for your potential exits or closer prey.
And believe me, there's always closer prey, always someone too young, to old, to fed up to run away.
Visualise the number of paces it will take you to get there, the seconds it takes to conceal yourself.
Etch the number of breaths you can take into your memory, how much air is there.
Your place was far away from your family's places.
To be separate is to be safer, attachments are weakness, if you see your loved ones in the herd don't cry.
You grew up hearing that every day.
Your place was never as hidden as you'd like, never as secret as the others.
Sometimes when the crusty lumps that were once humans came looking, they'd stare right at you.
Their eyes bulged out of their heads, wide like a frightened dog and bloodshot like one drink too many.
You'd clench the blanket with seasonal leaves sewn into it to match the forest floor and count your breath.
The rotting log you were under concealed you well enough but for the small peephole you needed.
Nobody else would tell you when the herd had moved on, of it they had moved on.
One less survivor meant more supplies for everyone else.
Occasionally someone would do the underhanded necessity of sabotaging someone's place.
Their screams never carried on for long - the only mercy the herds knew was to kill quick.
They liked their meat fresh and bloody enough to stain all down their fronts.
At least it makes it easier for us to smell them coming or hear the flies that follow them in clouds.
Made it easier for your scent to be disguised or entirely smothered by their stench.
Sometimes when warning texts came through it wouldn't be a herd, just a couple of stragglers or freshers.
The freshers fumbled about, easy to avoid but the stragglers were the ones you had to watch out for the most.
If they were too brutal for a herd to accept you could be certain that you'd be better off killing yourself.
Then the herds began to disband, the straggling kind came every day with no respite.
Just as everyone had gotten used to the rules this new society imposed, just as a generation was raised on it.
It became easier to forget your place and work around them when there were fewer or otherwise camp.
New routines were established, new rules and lessons and things settled once again for a time.
The new code was to run, to lure the stragglers into pits under the settlements to tunnels that led far away.
Scores were kept and those who lured the most into the tunnels were considered heroes.
Then they changed the rules again, swept the rug out from under us and sliced our numbers in thirds.
Before they wouldn't look about too carefully, they saw something and stared until it was truly gone.
Now they turn their heads, tilt them 180 degrees and they plan.
You can see it in their eyes now when they look you up and down like they never used to.
The way they glance left and right as they head for you, watching for your potential exits or closer prey.
And believe me, there's always closer prey, always someone too young, to old, to fed up to run away.
20160414
Day 710
The thing about building into cliffs is that you have to account for the water table shifting and draining. It's got to go somewhere and in our city we let it drain down between the houses. If it weren't for the thick layers of moss that build up all over the walls, sometimes causing the bricks to just crumble, it'd be perfectly fine. As it is we're struggling to keep the city afloat among the boggy marshland that's slowly swallowing us up.
We've already lost Earlbury Street and most of the riverside borough to last year's flooding and now the cliff rivers are flowing stronger than ever before. We're getting rapids through the gutters and it's sadly not uncommon to find a bloated face staring at you from a grate with their bruised fingers clutching the metal bars like they thought that would help them. It never does.
There aren't any places where you can easily get into the system of rivers and gutters that run underneath the city but that doesn't stop people from turning up uninvited anyway. We've have all kinds of people turn up there, the water doesn't care who goes in so long as they don't get out.
Have you ever seen a forensic team try to pull a water-logged body out of a hole far too small? They either end up cutting away at the torso and getting the poor bugger out in chunks or yanking and grabbing at whatever they can. More often than not whatever they don't collect ends up getting caught somewhere else, clogging the pipes and flooding the area even more.
It's getting to the point where we're using boats more than buses and having our cars raised so the underside doesn't trail through the water and break. All the while its rising and all the while everyone says they're leaving, that they've found a cheap place somewhere in the next county but they never go.
Even I've casually mentioned a flat I saw near Leingham-Upon-Crouch though I have no intention of moving out. Not just yet at least, I want to see how far this city will sink. Call it morbid curiosity, call it seeking a finite conclusion, call it whatever you like and let me wait and see.
I wonder how many bodies it will take to drown the city alive.
We've already lost Earlbury Street and most of the riverside borough to last year's flooding and now the cliff rivers are flowing stronger than ever before. We're getting rapids through the gutters and it's sadly not uncommon to find a bloated face staring at you from a grate with their bruised fingers clutching the metal bars like they thought that would help them. It never does.
There aren't any places where you can easily get into the system of rivers and gutters that run underneath the city but that doesn't stop people from turning up uninvited anyway. We've have all kinds of people turn up there, the water doesn't care who goes in so long as they don't get out.
Have you ever seen a forensic team try to pull a water-logged body out of a hole far too small? They either end up cutting away at the torso and getting the poor bugger out in chunks or yanking and grabbing at whatever they can. More often than not whatever they don't collect ends up getting caught somewhere else, clogging the pipes and flooding the area even more.
It's getting to the point where we're using boats more than buses and having our cars raised so the underside doesn't trail through the water and break. All the while its rising and all the while everyone says they're leaving, that they've found a cheap place somewhere in the next county but they never go.
Even I've casually mentioned a flat I saw near Leingham-Upon-Crouch though I have no intention of moving out. Not just yet at least, I want to see how far this city will sink. Call it morbid curiosity, call it seeking a finite conclusion, call it whatever you like and let me wait and see.
I wonder how many bodies it will take to drown the city alive.
20160413
Day 709
Somewhere along the line of our gradual change, our evolution, our progression to a better kind of creature, something went wrong. Sure we don't all believe we were anything but what we are now and we've always been this, never anything besides but that doesn't mean we aren't still changing.
We've lost our thick fur, our sloped down posture and even, at some point, the ability to fully rotate our ears(at least our remaining vestigial muscles suggest this).
With all this loss, all this shifting and elongating and shutting down of parts somehow found unnecessary, what have we gained?
Aside from the obvious language and technology arguments, those were bound to happen sooner or later anyway. We're becoming physically stronger, our bodies are exposed to more calcium and nutrition than ever before,accelerating the changes faster than we can fully comprehend but subtle enough that we won't always notice.
It starts in the odd individual born different in one way or another. Less toes, bigger lungs, more heart valves, an extra stomach - all things we might not be aware of at a passing glance but normal enough that they stand a high chance of passing their changes on. More and more people not quite resembling the people we see in our textbooks but never enough to warrant any global news report.
And so they carry on as if they were exactly the same as everyone else, with their superior low light vision and retractable secondary set of teeth. Who'd notice these things unless there was a medical intervention which accidentally highlighted it?
It's been going on for long enough that whole sections of our governments aren't what we'd classically call human, not physically at least. Their minds have changed little, one constant in the midst of all this biological chaos as nature sporadically tests out what will and won't survive. To protect themselves against nature, against those of us who aren't as changed as them, they make getting medical aid harder,make living harder. Weeding out the weak faster than nature could ever hope to while we pay them to do it.
If nobody can see a doctor, how will they know they're any different to anyone else?
How do you know you're not any different to anyone else?
Or are you one of the changed waiting for us to pass?
We've lost our thick fur, our sloped down posture and even, at some point, the ability to fully rotate our ears(at least our remaining vestigial muscles suggest this).
With all this loss, all this shifting and elongating and shutting down of parts somehow found unnecessary, what have we gained?
Aside from the obvious language and technology arguments, those were bound to happen sooner or later anyway. We're becoming physically stronger, our bodies are exposed to more calcium and nutrition than ever before,accelerating the changes faster than we can fully comprehend but subtle enough that we won't always notice.
It starts in the odd individual born different in one way or another. Less toes, bigger lungs, more heart valves, an extra stomach - all things we might not be aware of at a passing glance but normal enough that they stand a high chance of passing their changes on. More and more people not quite resembling the people we see in our textbooks but never enough to warrant any global news report.
And so they carry on as if they were exactly the same as everyone else, with their superior low light vision and retractable secondary set of teeth. Who'd notice these things unless there was a medical intervention which accidentally highlighted it?
It's been going on for long enough that whole sections of our governments aren't what we'd classically call human, not physically at least. Their minds have changed little, one constant in the midst of all this biological chaos as nature sporadically tests out what will and won't survive. To protect themselves against nature, against those of us who aren't as changed as them, they make getting medical aid harder,make living harder. Weeding out the weak faster than nature could ever hope to while we pay them to do it.
If nobody can see a doctor, how will they know they're any different to anyone else?
How do you know you're not any different to anyone else?
Or are you one of the changed waiting for us to pass?
20160412
Day 708
On the outskirts of the wood, far past the church's fence stands a mausoleum surrounded by tall, thin trees. They leave no room for anyone to possibly squeeze past and onto the iron grate that loosely covers the staircase that leads down to the unknown families' final place of rest.
Stories have gone about that it used to belong to a rich family that fell into poverty and disgrace, using their final ekes of wealth to have themselves buried in an unmarked grave stubbornly outside of, and painfully close to, the church's consecrated grounds. It's uncertain as to whether the family died of natural causes over the course of time or whether they died all at once (by their own hands or fate).
A slight twist on the story says there was one rich man who lost his mind and ended up having his fortune gradually "donated" to the church by the Vicar. The old man even wrote the Vicar into his will on the conditions that he be buried in a mausoleum of his own design or the remains of his fortune would be spread out among the town. Of course the townsfolk weren't explicitly told this and so the Vicar built the old man's tomb and made sure it was outside of the church grounds, burying the old man's will with his corpse and planting trees around it to prevent anyone from discovering that they could have all been rich.
A completely different rumour says the mausoleum belonged to the last members of a local coven of witches whose last spells caused the trees to grow around their graves to protect their bodies from the superstitious locals who would have dug them up and burned their remains to remove whatever natural misfortunes had happened just in case they were cursed.
Some people go so far as to say that the tomb is a cover for a secret smuggling operation who stash their bounty inside of the coffins. As for what's being smuggled, well it varies from story to story. It's been drugs, exotic animals, Nazi gold and even human corpses from deals gone wrong.
Whichever one of these turns out to be true, two things remain certain. Firstly that there is a concrete staircase leading to the mausoleum of an unknown person (or persons) covered by a thick iron grate and surrounded by tall trees that make it impossible for anyone to enter. Secondly that there is the constant odour of decay coming from the stairs, carried up the stairs by gusts of stale air.
Stories have gone about that it used to belong to a rich family that fell into poverty and disgrace, using their final ekes of wealth to have themselves buried in an unmarked grave stubbornly outside of, and painfully close to, the church's consecrated grounds. It's uncertain as to whether the family died of natural causes over the course of time or whether they died all at once (by their own hands or fate).
A slight twist on the story says there was one rich man who lost his mind and ended up having his fortune gradually "donated" to the church by the Vicar. The old man even wrote the Vicar into his will on the conditions that he be buried in a mausoleum of his own design or the remains of his fortune would be spread out among the town. Of course the townsfolk weren't explicitly told this and so the Vicar built the old man's tomb and made sure it was outside of the church grounds, burying the old man's will with his corpse and planting trees around it to prevent anyone from discovering that they could have all been rich.
A completely different rumour says the mausoleum belonged to the last members of a local coven of witches whose last spells caused the trees to grow around their graves to protect their bodies from the superstitious locals who would have dug them up and burned their remains to remove whatever natural misfortunes had happened just in case they were cursed.
Some people go so far as to say that the tomb is a cover for a secret smuggling operation who stash their bounty inside of the coffins. As for what's being smuggled, well it varies from story to story. It's been drugs, exotic animals, Nazi gold and even human corpses from deals gone wrong.
Whichever one of these turns out to be true, two things remain certain. Firstly that there is a concrete staircase leading to the mausoleum of an unknown person (or persons) covered by a thick iron grate and surrounded by tall trees that make it impossible for anyone to enter. Secondly that there is the constant odour of decay coming from the stairs, carried up the stairs by gusts of stale air.
20160411
Day 707
Three top places to never go in England:
Broad Muddleton- a small village just South of Bicester,or maybe Bradford. Quaint as most villages in that area with beautiful natural wellsprings that dominate its hilly fields. The locals don't seem to recognise them though, or remember them.In fact most people who go there to allegedly sample the water come back saying the place doesn't even exist. Most maps don't have it on there either. Only by the grace of neighbouring towns does the place officially exist by any measure and even then the discouraging glances given by anyone in the area are enough to put off all but the most curious of tourists. A truly hidden gem!
Old Sibbarow - a parish of five hundred in the Rendlesham area most noted for having one of the largest joint collections of headless Grecian-styled statues in England. The locals are so infatuated with them that they have cameras facing their gardens at all times, feeding them endless footage of their collections. This and their daily exchanges of varying stone figures is something that really brings out the sharing and caring nature of such a close-knit community. Please ignore the rust coloured stains on their clothes - it's a local thing.
Dighurst Upon Yarrow - a town that sits along the border between England and Scotland, renowned for the unique species of bio-luminescent river weeds now found to be a subspecies of sugar kelp (Laminaria Saccharina). Aside from the soft green glow it gives off it's also been found to be one of the largest of its kind, often blocking entire rivers and burrowing underground, The acres of land around the river Yarrow are said to give off the same pale light that the kelp does, as does the local livestock that graze by the river. Their meat is the most tender you'll ever have. You'll never want anything else.
20160410
Day 706
The bodies that are usually dotted about Mount Everest (two hundred and counting) have begun to move again. They've been seen slowly stretching out and up, reaching for anyone nearby with faces so contorted and frost-bitten they become caricatures.
Eventually climbers came back down without having gone farther than the Base Camp at 5270m, they said that there were clusters of frozen corpses gathering around the tents. They would huddle around fires, eventually thawing and even burning but all the while shivering and acting like a living person would in the extreme cold. The scent of burning meat lingered around the climbers for days after their return as they refused to leave the area or allow anybody else up there.
Of course nowadays people rarely believe anything without at least a dozen images from multiple sources. The last group of climbers came back with something more tangible - a video of one of the more famous bodies walking towards the cameraman with both tanned and shrivelled arms fully outstretched. His face the very definition of agony, mouth opening and closing as if he was chewing on needles.
The group also brought back an arm they'd found along the way. They said it had been crawling down so they thought they'd help it get to the bottom of the mountain, maybe give it a pen and see where it wants to go. Jokingly somebody did and much to their surprise it began to write about itself.
My name is Josh McKemby, it wrote, and I want to go home to Ireland.
Pleaser take me with you and I'll cause no harm.
20160409
Day 705
My body hates me, it makes sure to tell me so every chance it can.
People don't believe me, they can't see what my body tells me.
They can't see what it writes to me, on me.
Little, such tiny little words floating through my veins that they don't see.
They keep telling me my bloodwork is all normal, just cells.
Everybody knows cells look nothing like words right?
Then how am I seeing my own body talking to me?
Every inch of vein has something written on it.
I've taken to writing down what they say but sometimes the words pulse by too fast.
There was this idea I had based on an old film,something to make the words slower.
If they're slower then I'll be able to understand then and maybe even stop them.
I just need to stop my blood from moving, just for a little while.
Just long enough to know my body's language.
People don't believe me, they can't see what my body tells me.
They can't see what it writes to me, on me.
Little, such tiny little words floating through my veins that they don't see.
They keep telling me my bloodwork is all normal, just cells.
Everybody knows cells look nothing like words right?
Then how am I seeing my own body talking to me?
Every inch of vein has something written on it.
I've taken to writing down what they say but sometimes the words pulse by too fast.
There was this idea I had based on an old film,something to make the words slower.
If they're slower then I'll be able to understand then and maybe even stop them.
I just need to stop my blood from moving, just for a little while.
Just long enough to know my body's language.
20160408
Day 704
We had our new dining room carpet arrive today, a lovely rich brown that worked perfectly with the beige wallpaper. We'd been planning this for months, measuring and re-measuring to get everything exactly right for the space.
Everything was going so well too until we peeled off the old carpet and saw a sliding wooden panel in the very corner of the room where a large potted plant had been before.We'd been told that there were uneven surfaces all over the house and that it was a fixer-upper but we had the money and the time to work with it.
This was the first room we were changing and it's the only room we got round to changing, we moved out pretty soon after we went down the tunnel we found beneath the wooden panel. My husband Chris thought it could lead to an underground storage space, maybe even an old prohibition era liqueur cellar. With the age of the house it seemed plausible enough that we just headed right on down, torches in hand and hoping for wine.
The ladder took us into a room filled with boxes we easily recognised as being ours, clearly labelled with "kitchen and dining room". We knew these boxes would have been left in the kitchen, I know I'd left a couple in there and yet there they were under the house. The strangest part was that they hadn't been opened, just stacked to one side near a large opening, about the size of a door with cobblestone paved steps leading further down.
Chris went down in front of me with both of us trying to hold our breaths in case we weren't alone as we now suspected. The steps led to a metal walkway above a cavern that looked to be natural with the addition of metal support beams all across the top, or roof rather. We could see little lights below us (one recognisable as the standing lamp my mother gave us as a wedding gift), in fact once our eyes adjusted to the dimness we saw that the cavern had been sectioned off into several rooms.
It was basically a house right underneath ours and being furnished by whoever was dumb enough to buy it - this time it was us. I caught movement to the far right of the house, a large grey lump shifting and standing. It looked sort of like a dog mixed with a wild pig and dressed in layers upon layers of curtains. As its head rose it began to sniff the air, lolling its head around until it focused on our position.
Now I swear we headed up the same place we went down but somehow the ladder led into one of the kitchen cupboards and we had to squeeze our way through and back into the house, quickly blocking the door with a particularly heavy box just in case.
Despite the estate agent's pleas and protests we left within the month to a new place, a lot smaller than the first but on the eighth floor. At least we know that the person living under us now is human, though we've never seen them. All we know is that they like to move about late at night and they have difficulty breathing, they wheeze like a sauce bottle on its last droplets.
Everything was going so well too until we peeled off the old carpet and saw a sliding wooden panel in the very corner of the room where a large potted plant had been before.We'd been told that there were uneven surfaces all over the house and that it was a fixer-upper but we had the money and the time to work with it.
This was the first room we were changing and it's the only room we got round to changing, we moved out pretty soon after we went down the tunnel we found beneath the wooden panel. My husband Chris thought it could lead to an underground storage space, maybe even an old prohibition era liqueur cellar. With the age of the house it seemed plausible enough that we just headed right on down, torches in hand and hoping for wine.
The ladder took us into a room filled with boxes we easily recognised as being ours, clearly labelled with "kitchen and dining room". We knew these boxes would have been left in the kitchen, I know I'd left a couple in there and yet there they were under the house. The strangest part was that they hadn't been opened, just stacked to one side near a large opening, about the size of a door with cobblestone paved steps leading further down.
Chris went down in front of me with both of us trying to hold our breaths in case we weren't alone as we now suspected. The steps led to a metal walkway above a cavern that looked to be natural with the addition of metal support beams all across the top, or roof rather. We could see little lights below us (one recognisable as the standing lamp my mother gave us as a wedding gift), in fact once our eyes adjusted to the dimness we saw that the cavern had been sectioned off into several rooms.
It was basically a house right underneath ours and being furnished by whoever was dumb enough to buy it - this time it was us. I caught movement to the far right of the house, a large grey lump shifting and standing. It looked sort of like a dog mixed with a wild pig and dressed in layers upon layers of curtains. As its head rose it began to sniff the air, lolling its head around until it focused on our position.
Now I swear we headed up the same place we went down but somehow the ladder led into one of the kitchen cupboards and we had to squeeze our way through and back into the house, quickly blocking the door with a particularly heavy box just in case.
Despite the estate agent's pleas and protests we left within the month to a new place, a lot smaller than the first but on the eighth floor. At least we know that the person living under us now is human, though we've never seen them. All we know is that they like to move about late at night and they have difficulty breathing, they wheeze like a sauce bottle on its last droplets.
20160407
Day 703
A virus had been going 'round the circuits, the cybers called it " Mama Mabel's Curse". So far they were the only ones even remotely effected by it, 'bots and norms got left out entirely. So what my department was guessing was that somebody doesn't approve of cyborgs and wants them wiped out by their own hands but doesn't, or can't do it themselves.
The one thing all infected cybers have in common so far is that they've all been to the same nightclub in the Arcade Alley which is more of a slowly expanding neighbourhood where tech junkies and cybers thrive, swapping body-parts like regular Frankenstein's only well within the law. We've tried to regulate it, god knows how we've tried but not even Mama Mabel can put a stop to their endless modding and re-modding.
When they're first infected we often mistake them for Tweakers freshly woken up after a long crash and itching for their daily fix. So now we stop any cyber, no matter the age and we run the software test to check if they're "cursed", as the street term is. Honestly for all we know old Mama Mabel's hiding out in our scanners and jumping from victim to victim and at this point we're too busy to figure out anything more than where to put the bodies.
After the Tweak stage comes the blank stage where they just stare endlessly at bright light sources, damaging their eyes and/or optic systems beyond repair. They can never explain why, hell most of them don;t even realise they're doing it or deny they are. One girl managed to describe me perfectly while balancing on a chair and trying to press her face into the overhead light. When we managed to pull her down to sit and face us we saw her optics were totally shot, not just fuzzed out but shattered and shredding her eyelids with every slow blink.
From the blank stage comes the worst and often final stage, one we don't name specifically for this reason. It'd be disrespectful to give a joking nickname to someone's dying moments, you know. A few guys in the breakroom call it "Mice on the motherboard" which is how a great deal of the cases we've interviewed describe it.
You're not meant to feel sensations within the cybernetic parts, aside from the expected human ones of touch and taste but only on the outer parts. When they're not infected they don't even feel if they've been stabbed, believe me I've seen it often enough and in some gangs it's a sign of how high up they are. Nothing says "back off" like some guy walking toward you with a chest full of knives.
When they're cursed they feel every inch of their implants and, apparently, they feel everything everyone who's ever had the implant is feeling. Drives them nuts in a matter of hours, most cases end up shredding themselves trying to chase the feelings away. Some even go so far as to methodically take themselves apart until they're left as just bundles of meat and metal and even then with their dying breaths they'll ask you to keep going and categorise them to nothing.
The one thing all infected cybers have in common so far is that they've all been to the same nightclub in the Arcade Alley which is more of a slowly expanding neighbourhood where tech junkies and cybers thrive, swapping body-parts like regular Frankenstein's only well within the law. We've tried to regulate it, god knows how we've tried but not even Mama Mabel can put a stop to their endless modding and re-modding.
When they're first infected we often mistake them for Tweakers freshly woken up after a long crash and itching for their daily fix. So now we stop any cyber, no matter the age and we run the software test to check if they're "cursed", as the street term is. Honestly for all we know old Mama Mabel's hiding out in our scanners and jumping from victim to victim and at this point we're too busy to figure out anything more than where to put the bodies.
After the Tweak stage comes the blank stage where they just stare endlessly at bright light sources, damaging their eyes and/or optic systems beyond repair. They can never explain why, hell most of them don;t even realise they're doing it or deny they are. One girl managed to describe me perfectly while balancing on a chair and trying to press her face into the overhead light. When we managed to pull her down to sit and face us we saw her optics were totally shot, not just fuzzed out but shattered and shredding her eyelids with every slow blink.
From the blank stage comes the worst and often final stage, one we don't name specifically for this reason. It'd be disrespectful to give a joking nickname to someone's dying moments, you know. A few guys in the breakroom call it "Mice on the motherboard" which is how a great deal of the cases we've interviewed describe it.
You're not meant to feel sensations within the cybernetic parts, aside from the expected human ones of touch and taste but only on the outer parts. When they're not infected they don't even feel if they've been stabbed, believe me I've seen it often enough and in some gangs it's a sign of how high up they are. Nothing says "back off" like some guy walking toward you with a chest full of knives.
When they're cursed they feel every inch of their implants and, apparently, they feel everything everyone who's ever had the implant is feeling. Drives them nuts in a matter of hours, most cases end up shredding themselves trying to chase the feelings away. Some even go so far as to methodically take themselves apart until they're left as just bundles of meat and metal and even then with their dying breaths they'll ask you to keep going and categorise them to nothing.
20160406
Day 702
It's been raining for eight days non-stop yet the river is still little more than a muddy trickle in a damp trench. We know it's a blockage in the storm drain, could be anything but with the rain as it is nobody wants to go out and unclog it and out ourselves at risk. Too many people go missing in storms like this and turn up later as little more than bones tangled in the weeping willow branches down by the lakes.
Some people think there's a monster in there that can only come out during the storms. Mam says it's nothing for us to worry about, specifically our family. She says that the rain is the safest time for us to be outside and takes me and my sisters out for long woodsy walks right down to the lake where her brothers are always waiting for us.
They take us out on their boat to a small island a few kilometres out and leave us there with grandpa while they go fishing. They say storm fishing is what our family does best, it's the only time they manage to catch those huge fish, even if they do all the de-scaling, gutting and cleaning out on the boat. At least that's what they had us believe until we were old enough to be told the truth and too far involved to call the police.
At first we were so excited, Meg, Marlise and me (Mam had this thing for the letter "M"). Our first time storm fishing with our uncles and the first thing they told us is that we were now officially a part of the crew - we signed a contract and everything. Made it all official. Bad news later down the line but then we thought it was this cool secret club thing.
It went normally at first, we actually fished in the lake and managed to catch a few big ones. Then we headed for the river that ran through town centre, splitting off into tributaries that ran right through people's back gardens. The whole city was built in the middle of this network of rivers and we'd never thought to go fishing there before (never seen any fish there before) but our uncles insisted this was where they got their enormous ones from.
That should have tipped us off that something was wrong but we reckoned the rivers were just deeper than they looked and maybe that's how fish that big survived there. We kept thinking this until our uncles moored the boat outside a lone house right by the riverside and quite close to our own house. The folks had only just moved in, we'd seen their moving van heading down the street earlier in the day.
Uncle Shaun said he'd be back in a moment and left us with Uncle Tom to "guard the boat" like there was some kind of danger in the lake. With the size of the meat they'd brought back before, there could well have been some kind of danger about and the thought was enough to keep us in our place until he got back.
We thought he'd gone in to invite the new neighbours out to fish but he came back dragging them behind him. Uncle Tom helped him stash their unconscious bodies under the seats and we sped further down towards the area of the city that was mostly storm drains and filthy water, none of the good and clean lake water we were more used to.
They made us help skin, de-bone and cut "the meat". That's what they called that poor couple, refused to acknowledge them as human at all. I was picked to crawl through the storm drain in the pouring rain with the sack of "leftovers" (head, hands, clothes and organs) to dump back there away from prying eyes.
I thought about crying out for help until I remembered how many times I'd eaten the "fish" they'd brought back with them. How many times I'd asked for second helpings and even cooked raw cutlets for the rest if the family.
When I dumped the bag I wasn't alone. There were two young teens, not much younger than me at the time, soaked to the bone and waiting for me. They introduced themselves as Sara and Kyle - my cousins and well into "the family business" as they called it. Said they planned to take the leftovers to their Mam's butcher shop through the storm drains so she can make it into the stock she sells. Then they bring the bones back, all scrubbed with no trace of their prints, to hang on the weeping willows for people to find when the rain clears.
When I came out of the storm drain it all made so much more sense. I felt proud and disgusted with myself and helpless to change anything. What could I do? I signed the contract, we all did and now we're a part of this tradition for good.
Let the city think there's a monster out there.
Let them think it's not human.
Let them pretend to be safe like we pretend to be scared.
20160405
Day 701
The zoo had grown since the last time he was there, they'd added sections themed on koi fish, sun bears and eight different kinds of reptile among many others. Even during school days the whole place was packed full of shrieking children and tired adults, all clamouring around glass walls trying to see what new things the zoo had brought in this month.
He'd come here on a whim, with enough money and the day off from work he revisited the place he so fondly remembered in his childhood memories. Even back then it took most of a day to see the entire zoo, including brief stops for rest and play in the themed parks dotted about the place. Since then those parks had been revamped and expanded, just like almost everything else.With monthly additions there was always some new enclosure being built, some new pathway being paved and painted with a yellow line to differentiate it from the blue line Staff Only walkways.
Despite his initial difficulties in sticking to the yellow line areas (the blue was mostly faded in all the areas yet somehow everyone else seemed to know not to go there?) and general labyrinthine nature of the zoo, he'd managed to work his way down to the current end zone which contained a few warthogs and a pygmy hippo called Lola.
It had taken him almost eight hours in total, including brief rest stops along the multitude of benches scattered about the steep paths. Closing time was in twenty minutes and he had quite a way to walk to get to the entrance again. Along the way he noticed a new path he hadn't gone down before, its yellow line glistening as if it was freshly painted and leading down a series of glass windows made to look like they were holes in a cave (albeit a plastic cave).
The exhibits were some new kind of monkey called Rantering's Stitch Ape. According to the information boards they originated in a remote region of Russia and the markings on their faces resembled rough stitching. He peered into the dimly lit windows, trying to see these apes that were apparently eight feet tall when fully stretched but he saw only a thin layer of straw on the floor and claw marks on the walls.
Moving round the corner from the cave-based windows he found himself beside an enormous glass wall showing their main enclosure, instead of their apparent bedding area. It was made to resemble a winter wasteland with white dirt (or was it chalk?), sparse clusters of spruce trees and short grass all layered around the zoo's usual steeply sloped enclosure setting (with the usual wooden activity beams and ropes, of course).
He could hear them breathing, loud and deep panting from somewhere in the gloomy enclosure though the natural light was fading and he could only see a cluster of large black fur. The remnants of their food lay scattered along one side and mostly consisted of tough looking leaves and small chunks of dried meat.
While he was distracted studying their enclosure he failed to notice one large figure break away from the group and quietly make their way over to him, patiently waiting right beside him until it grew bored and slammed its fist against the glass barrier. He jolted and fell back, terrified and intrigued in equal measure. The Stitch Ape crouched down to mimic him.
Its face looked as though someone had roughly cut out ans sewn a human face on top of an ape's using the thickest thread they could find. It didn't help that the fur around its face was matted and glistening with some kind of thick fluid that gradually dripped down its body. The cluster of Stitch Apes all looked very much the same, he saw as they crowded around the window behind which he was still half laying on the floor, terrified and very much alone.
Gathering his nerves he stood up and they all copied him, right down to brushing the dirt off and pretending to adjust their coats. They continued to follow him all along the length of the glass window, waving as they reached the end of their enclosure.
Eventually the chills left his body as he found the main path and headed up hill once more, occasionally seeing a small family or group of people heading in roughly the same direction as him, petering off every now and then to see something they'd somehow missed on the way down. It took him a fair while to notice what they'd all been noticing.
The Stitch Ape's were in every enclosure, often cradling the mutilated bodies of whatever had been there previously or finishing it off. The metallic scent of blood filled the air as they slaughtered every caged creature, replacing it briefly before moving on. He'd never noticed them escaping from their own area, there was nothing to indicate they could and yet there they were playing with the broken body of a lion, its mouth caked in blood.
He wondered why nobody was rushing to the exit or panicking. Stopping a group of teens in front of him he asked how they were so calm and they told him that the information boards clearly stated the Stitch apes only reacted to fear. The group took him into their close circle and helped him remain calm as they approached the final hurdle before the gift shop and exit - the unavoidable butterfly walk-through.
As they swung the doors open he heard the now familiar sound of loud, deep panting and the smell of blood became overwhelming. Dark furry shapes continued to follow them closely from the shadowy areas until they reached the gift shop, skittering behind rows of stuffed animals, almost laughing at them,
As he finally reached his car he looked back one last time to see several Stitch Apes at the zoo entrance, holding uniformed corpses and making them wave.
He'd come here on a whim, with enough money and the day off from work he revisited the place he so fondly remembered in his childhood memories. Even back then it took most of a day to see the entire zoo, including brief stops for rest and play in the themed parks dotted about the place. Since then those parks had been revamped and expanded, just like almost everything else.With monthly additions there was always some new enclosure being built, some new pathway being paved and painted with a yellow line to differentiate it from the blue line Staff Only walkways.
Despite his initial difficulties in sticking to the yellow line areas (the blue was mostly faded in all the areas yet somehow everyone else seemed to know not to go there?) and general labyrinthine nature of the zoo, he'd managed to work his way down to the current end zone which contained a few warthogs and a pygmy hippo called Lola.
It had taken him almost eight hours in total, including brief rest stops along the multitude of benches scattered about the steep paths. Closing time was in twenty minutes and he had quite a way to walk to get to the entrance again. Along the way he noticed a new path he hadn't gone down before, its yellow line glistening as if it was freshly painted and leading down a series of glass windows made to look like they were holes in a cave (albeit a plastic cave).
The exhibits were some new kind of monkey called Rantering's Stitch Ape. According to the information boards they originated in a remote region of Russia and the markings on their faces resembled rough stitching. He peered into the dimly lit windows, trying to see these apes that were apparently eight feet tall when fully stretched but he saw only a thin layer of straw on the floor and claw marks on the walls.
Moving round the corner from the cave-based windows he found himself beside an enormous glass wall showing their main enclosure, instead of their apparent bedding area. It was made to resemble a winter wasteland with white dirt (or was it chalk?), sparse clusters of spruce trees and short grass all layered around the zoo's usual steeply sloped enclosure setting (with the usual wooden activity beams and ropes, of course).
He could hear them breathing, loud and deep panting from somewhere in the gloomy enclosure though the natural light was fading and he could only see a cluster of large black fur. The remnants of their food lay scattered along one side and mostly consisted of tough looking leaves and small chunks of dried meat.
While he was distracted studying their enclosure he failed to notice one large figure break away from the group and quietly make their way over to him, patiently waiting right beside him until it grew bored and slammed its fist against the glass barrier. He jolted and fell back, terrified and intrigued in equal measure. The Stitch Ape crouched down to mimic him.
Its face looked as though someone had roughly cut out ans sewn a human face on top of an ape's using the thickest thread they could find. It didn't help that the fur around its face was matted and glistening with some kind of thick fluid that gradually dripped down its body. The cluster of Stitch Apes all looked very much the same, he saw as they crowded around the window behind which he was still half laying on the floor, terrified and very much alone.
Gathering his nerves he stood up and they all copied him, right down to brushing the dirt off and pretending to adjust their coats. They continued to follow him all along the length of the glass window, waving as they reached the end of their enclosure.
Eventually the chills left his body as he found the main path and headed up hill once more, occasionally seeing a small family or group of people heading in roughly the same direction as him, petering off every now and then to see something they'd somehow missed on the way down. It took him a fair while to notice what they'd all been noticing.
The Stitch Ape's were in every enclosure, often cradling the mutilated bodies of whatever had been there previously or finishing it off. The metallic scent of blood filled the air as they slaughtered every caged creature, replacing it briefly before moving on. He'd never noticed them escaping from their own area, there was nothing to indicate they could and yet there they were playing with the broken body of a lion, its mouth caked in blood.
He wondered why nobody was rushing to the exit or panicking. Stopping a group of teens in front of him he asked how they were so calm and they told him that the information boards clearly stated the Stitch apes only reacted to fear. The group took him into their close circle and helped him remain calm as they approached the final hurdle before the gift shop and exit - the unavoidable butterfly walk-through.
As they swung the doors open he heard the now familiar sound of loud, deep panting and the smell of blood became overwhelming. Dark furry shapes continued to follow them closely from the shadowy areas until they reached the gift shop, skittering behind rows of stuffed animals, almost laughing at them,
As he finally reached his car he looked back one last time to see several Stitch Apes at the zoo entrance, holding uniformed corpses and making them wave.
20160404
Day 700
The old Fallowbury school bell had never worked until today. Ever since they set it up in the early 1900's the damn thing refused to ring. They only left it there for the look of it, made the place seem smarter they thought. The school was officially closed in 1937 and from there it was a pharmacy, fabric shop, library and for the last twelve years, a World War 2 museum.
They kept the classrooms as they would have originally been, the only newer additions being the information plaques all around the rooms and inside the desks. It was mostly visited by the older generations, the ones who'd lived through it and wanted to relive those fond days where everyone was alive and well and all their joints worked just fine.
Then the bell rang. Over the next three weeks children from London started vanishing and around the same time their shoes were being found by the village signpost. Tiny footprints were found in the mud all around the neighbouring farms along the outskirts and their little fingerprints turned up at glass shop windows but their bodies were never found. Soon enough the school's chalkboard was turned into a memorial for the lost children of London - both past and present.
This continued for around six years and then the new evidence stopped. No more shoes, no more tiny remnants from missing children hundreds of miles from home - no more missing children. However there were always new messages on the chalkboard, just little things like sums and letters. The sorts of things you'd expect young children to learn in school.
The desks seemed to grow more worn and used and nobody could figure out why. Visitors weren't allowed to sit on them but clearly someone was and they were scratching all sorts of words onto them, creepy little phrases like "I miss my mummy"and "Mrs Marsh made me bleed". It wasn't long before the staff set up security cameras trying to catch whoever was doing this, be they guest or staff.
They found the children then. During the night, when all the museum lights were shut off and it was locked until morning a hazy female figure in a long grey dress would come along to unlock the doors. She'd usher in different groups of children each night and take them to the classrooms. Her mouth moved and she seemed to be teaching them something but there was no sound save for the occasional scratching of pencil on paper or desk.
Sometimes it seemed the children, the very familiar looking children, would make a mistake and be beaten for it until they fell to the floor. From there the lesson continued as if nothing had ever happened. Over the school holidays she didn't come in but all the children would appear at their desks, staring at the security cameras with tears falling down their hazy, grey-tinged faces until morning.
They kept the classrooms as they would have originally been, the only newer additions being the information plaques all around the rooms and inside the desks. It was mostly visited by the older generations, the ones who'd lived through it and wanted to relive those fond days where everyone was alive and well and all their joints worked just fine.
Then the bell rang. Over the next three weeks children from London started vanishing and around the same time their shoes were being found by the village signpost. Tiny footprints were found in the mud all around the neighbouring farms along the outskirts and their little fingerprints turned up at glass shop windows but their bodies were never found. Soon enough the school's chalkboard was turned into a memorial for the lost children of London - both past and present.
This continued for around six years and then the new evidence stopped. No more shoes, no more tiny remnants from missing children hundreds of miles from home - no more missing children. However there were always new messages on the chalkboard, just little things like sums and letters. The sorts of things you'd expect young children to learn in school.
The desks seemed to grow more worn and used and nobody could figure out why. Visitors weren't allowed to sit on them but clearly someone was and they were scratching all sorts of words onto them, creepy little phrases like "I miss my mummy"and "Mrs Marsh made me bleed". It wasn't long before the staff set up security cameras trying to catch whoever was doing this, be they guest or staff.
They found the children then. During the night, when all the museum lights were shut off and it was locked until morning a hazy female figure in a long grey dress would come along to unlock the doors. She'd usher in different groups of children each night and take them to the classrooms. Her mouth moved and she seemed to be teaching them something but there was no sound save for the occasional scratching of pencil on paper or desk.
Sometimes it seemed the children, the very familiar looking children, would make a mistake and be beaten for it until they fell to the floor. From there the lesson continued as if nothing had ever happened. Over the school holidays she didn't come in but all the children would appear at their desks, staring at the security cameras with tears falling down their hazy, grey-tinged faces until morning.
20160403
Day 699
It used to be a church 'bout a hundred or so years ago and now it's just dust, stones and a market down in the crypts. It used to be a place where you could buy all sorts of unusual things from taxidermied animals whose eyes literally followed you around the room to front door mats that would make unwanted people turn around and forget why they were even there in the first place.
Saint Bartholomew the Apostle's Church Market is the official name but to us all it's just San Bart - the place we go to buy things we don't really need but will inevitably prove to be insanely useful at some point or other. At least until an earthquake caused one of the walls to crack and open, revealing a much larger section of the crypt that had already been set up as a market.
The tables were coated in thick layers of dust, the vendors all skeletons, propped up in their stiff clothes, calcified in some places from water gently dripping down from grey stalactites taller than streetlights. Some stalls were almost exact mirrors of the ones we'd grown up with, right down to that crystal necklace that one guy always wears or the colourful jacket she's never seen without.
Of course they cordoned off the stalls but left a path for people to walk through (for a price). The walk took around twenty minutes and wove its way in and out of about fifty different set-ups, some with signs about the "history behind the remains" but those were all made up by the same person that sells stories. You know, the one next to the strange tea and bead seller.
They never quite got round to making paths for the entire crypt, you know. It's so much bigger than they realised and there's things living in there that they don't want to think about, much less put flimsy rope around to try and keep them contained.
Whatever they are they've left no survivors as of yet. anyone who ducks under the ropes and out into the barely lit cavern can be found later on, from a distance, as little more than small puddles of remains. Little chunks of hair here, half a hand there, most a boot with the foot half dragged out and chewed on. Not that it seems to stop people heading out there, on the contrary is seems to make the whole thing more appealing knowing someone died less than a foot from the ropes you're standing behind.
It took almost a year before the mirrored crypt was named San Lucy from the Saint Lucia, patron of the blind. Partially to keep the religious-themed names going, what with it being in a church and all but mainly because only blind men and fools go there.
Saint Bartholomew the Apostle's Church Market is the official name but to us all it's just San Bart - the place we go to buy things we don't really need but will inevitably prove to be insanely useful at some point or other. At least until an earthquake caused one of the walls to crack and open, revealing a much larger section of the crypt that had already been set up as a market.
The tables were coated in thick layers of dust, the vendors all skeletons, propped up in their stiff clothes, calcified in some places from water gently dripping down from grey stalactites taller than streetlights. Some stalls were almost exact mirrors of the ones we'd grown up with, right down to that crystal necklace that one guy always wears or the colourful jacket she's never seen without.
Of course they cordoned off the stalls but left a path for people to walk through (for a price). The walk took around twenty minutes and wove its way in and out of about fifty different set-ups, some with signs about the "history behind the remains" but those were all made up by the same person that sells stories. You know, the one next to the strange tea and bead seller.
They never quite got round to making paths for the entire crypt, you know. It's so much bigger than they realised and there's things living in there that they don't want to think about, much less put flimsy rope around to try and keep them contained.
Whatever they are they've left no survivors as of yet. anyone who ducks under the ropes and out into the barely lit cavern can be found later on, from a distance, as little more than small puddles of remains. Little chunks of hair here, half a hand there, most a boot with the foot half dragged out and chewed on. Not that it seems to stop people heading out there, on the contrary is seems to make the whole thing more appealing knowing someone died less than a foot from the ropes you're standing behind.
It took almost a year before the mirrored crypt was named San Lucy from the Saint Lucia, patron of the blind. Partially to keep the religious-themed names going, what with it being in a church and all but mainly because only blind men and fools go there.
20160402
Day 698
The only way you'd know that the narrow, overgrown alley was the only path to the oldest part of the city was by the small signpost at the edge of the street.
OLD HEATH
It declares and nothing more. Plenty of people seem to use it, all ages and types. The only time I've ever seen people come out in anything out of the ordinary is for the mediaeval festival and oyster fayre every year. Their costumes are period perfect according to the online searches I've done.
They even talk to each other in 10th Century English from the snippets I recorded when walking behind them last year. Had them analysed by the local linguist department at the university who assure me that they're speaking what seems to be an unknown variant of the broadly known English, a local dialect perhaps.
I've never been down that alley myself but I've been browsing through a forum for and by people who've accidentally or purposefully gone down there and what they've found. After passing through the nettles, tall grass, bramble and other assorted difficult plants they often find themselves in one of five places, each quite different and not always possible.
The first is a wide open field, the kind with sparse trees on the distant horizon and not a cloud in sight out on the painfully blue sky. The temperature never changes compared to the other end of the alley. If it's hot outside then it's hot in the field, if it rains there then it rains on the field (somehow without clouds) and if it's painfully cold outside then it's painfully cold on the field.
One user called "WalksForDays" claimed to have walked to the horizon and found himself facing a small cluster of trees with the same alley he'd talked down now right in front of him. He said that when he turned around he was back to facing the same view he'd first seen.
The second place is a beach with a grey ocean that blends seamlessly with the grey sky and rolling mist that smothers the entire beach in a matter of seconds. Thick black limbs seem to contort and move about bloated bodies, always inches away from whoever finds themself there. Sometimes the mist rolls back before the wanderer backs frantically through the alley and onto the street at the other end.
They may find themselves looking at twelve sand-worn and dilapidated beach huts, according to username "IFishForFishingRods". She even went so far as to peer into a couple (after finding them all locked tightly with rusted chains). There were people inside who looked more like grey sheets draped over skeletons. Only one responded to her when she asked who they were and even then all they said was "Looks like t'mist is a'comin' o'er agin. Better run along now Missy." in a thick Northern accent. Sure enough it was, only this time it was screaming and the bloated bodies were running before the fog.
The third place is a town, specifically it's the local town centre but not at the current date. Horses and carriages romp along the cobbled roads while folks in top hats and bustled dresses walk sedately along the paths, unaware of the alley and whoever walks out of it.
Username "PloughboyGrant231" claims that the people aren't real and you can literally go straight through them but you can't with the buildings. He went into the town hall, now somehow opposite the alley, and marched right into the Mayor's chambers where they were holding a meeting of some sort. While he didn't hear much of what they said he recognised a photo on the table of the alley he'd just gone through, taken from the modern side he was from. He was standing in the corner of the photo, utterly unaware of the photographer.
The fourth place is an abandoned farmstead, an old one at that. The alley somehow leads to the inside of one of the stalls in the barn. Horse bones are all that remain in the others and by searching through the rest of the buildings they are the only remains about. The air carries a faint scent of burning wood though the source is undetectable.
All this according to the user "MyOtherAccountIsAPuddle" who brought their bike with them, thinking it was a nature trail and finding themself far from home. From the farm to the church nearby and even to a lake with a castle partially submerged castle with nothing living to be found anywhere. Not even birds or insects, just a faint breeze and the sound of the lake gently rippling. When they returned to the barn they found the horse skeletons gone and all the stable doors broken off with hoofprints leading through the door they'd come from.
The fifth and final place recorded so far is said to somehow exist in our current time and in our current country, deep beneath the murky waters of Loch Ness. It's some kind of research base but none of the writing is in English and while it's been shared on the website (user-to-user with strict promises that it never be shown to anyone outside of the site and especially not to anyone with an academic background) no translation exist yet.
"DueDue8" is one of the few people who has only encountered this place when going through the alley and claims She's seen some kind of eight-finned whale swimming around the small structure that's frankly more of a pod than a research base but with very complicated scientific equipment and computers. She claims the whale's calls sound like human speech. Like it keeps saying to her "I can hear you" in its distorted, languidly drawn out moans. She hasn't been active since she posted that she'd record it on her next visit, almost three years ago.
20160401
Day 697
Anyone ever tell you that you shouldn't meet your heroes?
I know they told me, even though mine were puppets and so I never listened to them.
Not even when I was persuaded by my mate Ryan to sneak into their old studio at night.
It had been closed down for so long we figured it'd just be walls.
We were surprisingly wrong.
It was just walls at first, the painted faces peeling off and the floor collapsed in places.
The smell of rusting metal was everywhere, seeping through our dust masks.
Still it was nice and nostalgic, we even found the main studio where they'd filmed it all.
Everything was going great until we went backstage.
Things scuttled around there, darting away from our torches.
We caught glimpses of red fur at first and thought it might be foxes but they were too quiet.
That and their eyes were far bigger, where whites should be there was grey looking pulp.
With a fair amount of teamwork we cornered one and saw what it really was.
One of the side characters from the old puppet show, Spogley I think.
She was breathing and blinking, her skin moving like, well, skin instead of foam and fur.
Still she looked like the puppet version we saw on TV, only real and bone thin.
Her chubby cheeks were sunken in, eyes bloodshot and bulging out with fear.
We made the mistake of talking to her and telling her we'd seen the show as kids.
In an instant the fear vanished, her famous toothy grin showed she had no teeth, only rotting gums.
At this point in the show she'd giggle and it would sound like bells.
This time she did not.
Instead she let out a piercing shriek, neck rolling loosely on her shoulders like she had no bones.
The sounds of scuffling, tiny feet running, filled the air as the rest of the cast moved in.
Ryan wasn't scared, not like I was at least, and he didn't immediately start running with me.
I haven't seen him since but I didn't hear him scream as I left.
Like the show said at the end of every episode:
And we'll see you (yes YOU) again tomorrow!
We'll always be around to see your face!
Our viewers are our favourite!
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