If that sounds like an odd title to you, believe me—we were just as surprised.
A couple weeks back my buddy Dave moved into a dilapidated trailer park at the edge of town. The premises were populated by all kinds of old junk—mostly rundown vehicles, but also some machines and appliances. Right outside Dave's door was a Pepsi machine that hadn't been used in years. If my knowledge of the Pepsi logo's history is accurate, the logo on the front was scrapped sometime in the late 80's or early 90's.
After several failed attempts to open the thing, we said 'fuck it' and hooked it to the back of Dave's truck, which solved the problem in short order. Inside was a single Pepsi bottle, but there was, thankfully, none left in it. Instead there was a piece of paper, upon which was a roughly drawn map and a set of coordinates, along with the words “I left it here. Come and get it.” It was clearly a printed copy of a much older document, with dark lines representing the original's wrinkles and tears.
Let's cut to the next day. It was about 10 am and I was flying down North Carolina Highway 41 at 120 miles per hour after getting in a race with some hippie motherfucker. My 1998 Nissan Pathfinder was keeping just about even with his much newer Volvo, and I was pretty sure I could beat his ass in the end.
But then, I shit you not, some idiot came walking right into the middle of the highway not more than a hundred yards ahead of us. I slammed on the brakes, and let me tell you, I didn't think that a car could go from over a hundred to zero that fast. Dave, who was leaning forward, got snapped back against his seat, and the line of coke he was preparing on the dashboard went just about everywhere. I wasn't paying attention to that, though; I was staring at the spot in the road where that fucking hippie had just run over the mystery jaywalker. At least, that's what I thought I'd seen. But there was no body in the road—nor was there anybody anywhere, for that matter. It was like the guy had just...vanished.
“What the fuck, man!” shouted Dave. “You just wasted the last of my coke!”
“You...you didn't see that?”
“See what, you getting curbstomped by that treehugger?”
“Shit, maybe I'm seeing things,” I muttered. I waited for Dave's inevitable sarcastic response, but it didn't come. He was too focused on the map.
“What is it?” I asked, leaning over to get a closer look.
Dave pointed a finger out the window. “We're here,” he said.
Off to the right, a dirt road trailed off toward a quaint little barnhouse. A tall, gnarled oak stood to the side. There was no highway shown on the map, but the rest was the same, down to the curves in the road and the placement of the barn and tree. If we'd continued the race, we would have passed it and been forced to turn around later on. Was that just a coincidence?
After I parked the car on the side of the highway, we grabbed a pair of shovels and a sledgehammer from the trunk and headed toward the barn. The map showed that the treasure—or whatever it was—was inside.
The barn was in far worse condition than it appeared from far away. The paint was peeling off, and much of the wood was rotten and mildewy. After smashing the lock on the door, we found the inside hadn't fared much better. Termites had made their home here, and had left the pillars so chewed-through it was a wonder they could hold up the ceiling. Flies and ants were equally abundant.
It didn't take us long to find what we were looking for. Thanks to the barn being empty, the metal trapdoor was easily visible in the corner.
The area underneath the barn was dank and rank, and yes, thanks, I know that's the greatest rhyme anyone's ever conceived. How rank was it? Well, I once left on a week long vacation and while I was gone, the neighbor's asshole cat got in and unplugged the power cord to my refrigerator, which was full of food. The smell of mold in this basement was ten times worse than what hit me when I opened that refrigerator door. It was bad enough that I thought I might pass out.
It was dark, so we turned on our flashlights. The scene that greeted us wasn't what we expected. We were in some kind of medical laboratory, I think, though the rusty, dust-covered equipment wasn't like anything I'd ever seen. There was a single bed in the room, and while it was too dirty to be able to tell for sure, I'm pretty sure there was blood on it. And then there were the jars. Dozens of them lined the shelves. Most were empty, but several had...things in them. I'm afraid I can't be more specific. Some were obvious, like a human skull, or finger bones. Others were amorphous blobs that could have been anything.
“This is messed up,” I said. “Come on, Dave, let's get out of here. I'm thinking this was someone's idea of a sick joke.”
Dave didn't appear to be listening. “Dave? Seriously, man. Let's go.”
“I think I saw something move in one of those jars,” Dave said quietly.
“All the more reason to leave, then,” I said.
He ignored me and walked over to an empty jar. Then he leaned over so his face was practically touching the rim. “What are you doing?” I demanded. “It's empty, Dave. You're fucking scaring me.”
Dave lifted his face away from the jar and turned around. He mumbled something which I didn't hear very well, but I'm pretty sure it was, “I don't want to die.” Then his body began to convulse and he fell over backward, hitting his head on the table before reaching the floor.
“Dave!” I shouted. I rushed to his side and turned him over so he was on his back. What I saw nearly made me scream. Dave's eye sockets were empty, with little black insects crawling around inside them. He opened his mouth, and—Jesus, there were his eyes, they were on his fucking tongue! I instinctively drew my arm away as he stuck his tongue out, but it grew out like Pinnochio's goddamn nose and he licked me just above the wrist.
I felt a burst of tremendous pain, and I looked at my arm to see what looked like a patch of rust, right where he'd licked me.
I hate myself for this, but I ran. I scurried up the ladder quick as I could and slammed the trap door shut behind me. We'd leaned our shovels against the wall, so I grabbed mine and made a beeline for the door. It was only once I was outside the barn that I turned around, and—I shit you not—right behind me was Dave, who only a moment ago had been incapacitated. I hadn't even heard the loud groan of the trap door being opened.
Dave charged at me and I took a stance, ready to hit him with the shovel if I had to. I didn't have to; a bullet did the job for me.
Apparently we'd been on some farmer's land. The farmer said Dave ran right at him, acting like a “murderous maniac”. That's not the version of the story I remember, obviously. But some details in my story are impossible to confirm. Like, when I think back, the barn we came out of wasn't the same one we went into. It couldn't have been—it was in far too good of a condition. So I doubt the laboratory is there anymore, if it ever was there to begin with. I wish I could tell the police about all of it, but I doubt they'd believe me—even without the results of the drug test.
What's the truth in all of this? I doubt I'll ever find out, to be honest. But there is one other thing; you know how Dave licked me on the arm? Well, that arm is dead. The doctors say I'll never be able to move it again, but they've got no clue what happened to it. So unless my arm decided to just stop working on its own, for no reason, then I'm thinking that the things I saw were real. And if that's really true, then I have just one response:
What the fuck?
Submitted January 30, 2017 at 06:54AM by Chezecaek http://ift.tt/2jkD3tP nosleep
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