Chris and I had been friends since elementary school. We started out competing to be “best friends” with this girl Anna, who was the coolest (ever), but when Anna rejected us both we decided to just be best friends with each other instead. Chris had a severe jaw problem, to the point where his jaw was visibly misaligned. This made it so his teeth didn’t quite meet evenly, and gave him a permanent crooked smile - higher on one side, with a gap between the teeth of the other side that he would stick his tongue through sometimes. I loved that crooked smile.
We were both only children, and our parents were usually busy, so we did what kids do when their parents make them play outside - we went on adventures. At first it was just the woods outside our houses, but as we got older, we got a little more… urban. Old warehouses. Abandoned apartment buildings. Closed down businesses with dilapidated signs out front. It never seemed dangerous: the town where we lived was quiet, propped up by the college a few towns over and the last of the textile industry jobs that hadn’t been outsourced yet. We got run off by the cops once or twice (or maybe three times), but it all seemed like harmless good fun.
We added Mike and Ella to our crew over the course of middle school. Mike was a transplant from across the country; Chris and I decided he and his anti-authority attitude (as well as his black leather trenchcoat, post-Columbine, and a mom who didn’t really keep track of his curfew) would be perfect to join in our adventures. Ella had basically latched on to Chris one day at lunch - while Mike and I were in line getting food, she plopped down in the seat next to him and said, “You’re cute. I’m Ella. Wanna go out?” From then on, they were inseparable.
We were juniors in high school, all 16 years old (except Mike, who was 17), when Chris suggested we explore The Research Station. The Research Station was an old building towards the edge of town, which had previously been used for research (duh) by students from the college, but it hadn’t been in use since the 80’s. It looked like a regular old brick house, only a couple stories tall, with dark, narrow windows. It didn’t really look scary, just old. The gate out front was padlocked shut with a chain; a sign on the gate read, “Property of [Other Town] College NO TRESPASSING”.
“It’s haunted,” said Mike, matter-of-factly, when Chris suggested the adventure over lunch, “I read about it when I first moved out here. They had to stop doing research there because something was killing everybody. Bodies kept showing up, totally mutilated, but nobody was going in or out. They finally caught the janitor cutting up a graduate student in the basement, but he escaped before they could arrest him. But here’s the freaky part,” like that wasn’t freaky already? He leaned in conspiratorially, his voice lowering so we all had to lean in close to hear him.
“They went through the building again looking for him, and they found another body in the basement. One they couldn’t account for. It was really mutilated too, and really really old, so they couldn’t tell who it was - they think it was probably one of the first victims. But it was wearing the janitor’s uniform.”
We were silent for a moment, absorbing this new information.
“You’re full of shit”, opined Chris. He turned to me and Ella with a crooked grin. I smiled, too - Chris’s smile was so infectious - but Ella was frowning pensively.
“You know, it could be a shapeshifter,” she said thoughtfully. “They resent people who have a real face, so they take the form of people they know and then murder them. That happened on Supernatural.” Ella watched Supernatural religiously. “We can protect ourselves with silver, though. Silver burns them.”
“Yeah OK,” said Mike, snorting skeptically, “What if it’s like that Thing from The Thing? Silver doesn’t affect that. We’d need a flamethrower.”
“You don’t know that - ” Ella started, but Chris cut her off. “We can wear silver just in case it’s a shapeshifter, so we can prove we’re not like, a Thing. If it’s the Thing from The Thing, then we’re pretty much screwed anyways, right?” He grinned crookedly at me and Mike, rolling his eyes over Ella’s head like, “girls, right?”. We all nodded. Girls, right? Monsters aren’t real.
That Friday night we met up at Mike’s house - Mike was the only one with a car and his license so he drove us most places. In the car, Ella handed out friendship bracelets she had made, each with a little charm from a silver charm bracelet her grandmother had given her. I got a teddy bear, Mike got a turtle, and Chris got a heart (of course). Ella wore the original bracelet, with a little “E” charm. We all had flashlights, and walkie-talkies. I wasn’t scared at the time - I really didn’t believe in that supernatural crap. Chris and I had been on tons of adventures and never saw anything like that. And monsters aren’t real, everyone knows that.
Climbing the fence was easy. I was prepared to kick the front door down with the steel-toed boots I always wore on adventures, but Mike pushed it and it just swung open, creaking stereotypically.
“Dibs on the basement,” said Chris, shining his flashlight into the dusty foyer.
“We should stick together,” Ella said nervously, but Chris just laughed. His laugh echoed around the room, as he had already started walking.
“Come on, don’t be a baby,” he said, flashing us a crooked grin as he opened a steel door labeled “BASEMENT MAINTENANCE ONLY DO NOT ENTER”, and slipped into the darkness behind it.
Mike started wandering towards the back of the building, flashlight swinging back and forth over the walls and floor.
“Do you want to come explore upstairs with me?” I asked Ella, who was still standing in the doorway looking nervous. She had been on plenty of adventures with us before, so I wasn’t sure why she was so scared this time. Maybe all that talk about the Thing was actually getting to her?
She thought for a moment, then shook her head.
“I should go with Chris,” she said, moving towards the basement door. She had a little trouble opening it - it seemed really heavy - but then pulled it open enough to follow him down into the dark. I shrugged and went upstairs.
We explored for an hour or so, occasionally reporting interesting things we had found to each other over the radios. I found a centrifuge, still with vials of something congealed in it, and a few small refrigerators with more congealed vials in various colors. I was rifling through a bunch of lab coats in a closet (found some cough drops in one of the pockets) when my walkie-talkie crackled on again.
“Guys?” It was Ella. Her voice sounded shaky, and she sniffed hard like she had been crying. “You, uh. Need t-to, um. Come down to the basement. It’s… it’s important.”
Something about the way she said it sent a chill up my spine. She sounded terrified. I hustled back downstairs, flinging open the steel door leading to the basement, and stared down into the blackness.
“Ella?” I called nervously into the dark, dreading going down into it. What if this is a trick? This would be the perfect place for the Thing to ambush us, and the best way to lure us in. I pushed those thoughts out of my head. There’s nothing here but the four of us. Monsters aren’t real.
“Back here,” came Ella’s voice. She sounded far away, on the other side of the basement, her voice echoing hollowly off the unfinished concrete walls. I made my way down the stairs and caught the gleam of her flashlight down a far hallway. She was standing in another doorway, her back to me. The flashlight’s beam was aimed at something on the ground. Even from that distance I could tell she was shaking.
As I approached the room, I could see Mike was already there too, kneeling next to a pile of old clothes or something on the ground. He stood up as I entered, revealing what he had been investigating.
It was Chris.
He was dead.
His head was snapped back and to the right at a horrible angle, his crooked jaw broken and dislocated. His face and arms were covered in long, jagged scratches, as though he had been trying to defend himself from something with vicious claws. One of his legs was bent the wrong way at the knee, and one of his wrists was shattered. His ribcage sagged as though most of his ribs were broken. His mouth was filled with blood that dripped down the side of his face. The charm bracelet Ella had given him hung limply from his broken wrist, smudged with blood.
“We got separated,” said Ella shakily from behind me. She wasn’t crying, but she seemed to be in shock. “He - this door was locked. We tried to force it open but it wouldn’t move. He told me to go look for a key in the office, but when I got back, he wasn’t there. I did find the key, so I opened the door and - ” She looked at Chris’s body again, letting out a pained whimper. “I didn’t hear - ”
“Guys?” We all jumped in shock as the radios crackled on again.
“Guys, are you still in the basement? I’m on my way down.” It was Chris. It was unmistakably his voice. We stared at each other in confusion and terror, all having the same horrible thought. Mike was the first to say it out loud, in a frantic whisper.
“It’s the Thing.”
There was no doubting it now. There was a Thing here, and it had killed Chris. What were we supposed to do? We were a group of scared teenagers in a dark basement with our dead friend’s body, waiting for the monster that killed him.
“We have to get out of this room,” I said, terror spurring me into action, “If the Thing doesn’t know we know it got Chris, maybe we can buy ourselves enough time to get out.”
We scrambled out the door, Ella fumbling the key into the lock. I heard it -click- as the door to the basement swung open again, the beam of a flashlight pouring down the stairs.
“Guys? Are you still down here?” called Chris’s voice from the top of the stairs. Ella stifled a sob. Something came bounding down the stairs in much the same way Chris always did, taking them two at a time, the flashlight beam bobbing up and down, then sweeping across the basement until it landed on us.
“There you guys are,” it said, its face still obscured. It started towards us down the narrow hallway, and I felt Ella grab my arm. She was shaking again, but her face in the dim light seemed calm.
The other Chris arrived at our little group, crooked smile plastered on his/its face.
“Sorry I’m late, guys, I found this vent that leads to the ductwork - it goes all around the building, I ended up on the other side on the second floor. This place is a lot bigger than it looks. Anyways, what’s up?” The light from my flashlight hit it, finally illuminating its face.
It looked exactly like Chris. Down to his crooked jaw and the little scar next to his eye from where I hit him with a hockey stick during practice when we were 12. I could barely look at it, just picturing the broken body on the other side of the door, just feet away from us. Mike looked like he was about to throw up. But Ella was staring directly at him/it. Her eyes were red and puffy from crying, but now she looked focused. And angry.
“Chris,” she started, speaking with fake calm, her voice shaking a bit, “Where is the charm bracelet I gave you?”
It held up its arm, devoid of the bracelet.
“Ha, that’s right, I had to take it off to reach through a hole,” it said, patting Chris’s pockets. “Must have fallen out which I was climbing around in there.” Perhaps sensing that the atmosphere in the group was a little tense, it smiled crookedly at Ella, trying to be reassuring.
“You know none of that monster stuff is real, right?”
Before Mike or I could react, Ella went berserk. She screamed with rage, launching herself at the Thing, clawing at its Chris-like face. Taken by surprise, it threw up its arms to protect itself, then shoved Ella back into the opposite wall. Mike charged in, aiming a kick at its leg that sent it to the ground. I got caught up in the moment as well; it reached out a hand to grab my ankle, but I stomped it with my steel-toed boots. It let out an animal howl of pain as Mike, Ella and I stomped and kicked and clawed at it, letting out all our rage and fear on this murderous thing. Mike landed a kick to its back that caused a gout of blood to gush out of its mouth. It looked up at me one last time with Chris’s eyes, those eyes I had loved since we decided to be best friends forever, forever ago. It’s mouth opened as if to speak. With a strangled yell of pain, I let fly with a kick that caught it under the jaw and snapped its head back, breaking its neck with a loud -CRACK-
We stood silently in the dark for a few moments, panting heavily. Ella burst into tears again, slumping against the wall before crumpling to the floor. Mike and I avoided each other’s eyes. I looked over the body on the floor again, dimly illuminated by the flashlights on the ground, and another chill went down my spine.
It looked like the body in the other room. Not just that it was Chris; the head snapped back and to the right, the broken wrist and knee and ribs, the blood dripping from its broken mouth were all the same. The bodies were identical. They were even facing the same direction. As this realization passed coldly through my brain, I heard a noise from behind us.
We all whipped around to face the door. There was a noise coming from behind it, a weak, gurgling, coughing noise, barely audible over our ragged breathing.
“Oh my God he’s still alive,” whispered Ella, scrambling to find the key, but before she could find it, the door swung open. And there was Chris.
He wasn’t just alive, he was standing up. His knee, still bent in the wrong direction, seemed to have no trouble holding him up. His chest heaved in and out as though he was breathing, but half of his ribcage was broken and crushed in, sagging horribly and then protruding jaggedly outwards. His head was still snapped back, broken jaw flapping open, and now I could hear what the gurgling was. He was laughing. He stood there in the doorway, laughing and wheezing through his broken mouth, the scratches on his face and arms gently dripping blood onto the cold concrete.
“You guys are great,” the Thing wheezed, rolling its head around on its broken neck until it could look us in the eyes. “I haven’t had that much fun in years.” Blood poured freely from its mouth, staining Chris’s favorite adventuring shirt. “The silver was a nice touch. What, did you get that from a TV show?” It laughed again, blood bubbling out over its broken jaw.
“I know you think I’m supposed to like, kill you all or something,” it continued. Even its speaking style was Chris’s, to a tee. We were frozen in shock, but the word “kill” woke us up a little - Ella pushed herself up the wall into a standing position, Mike looked like he was getting ready to fight again, and I started trying to inventory our escape routes without looking around.
“But like,” the Thing continued, “That’s not my gig. I like, you know, terror. Anguish. Pain. Big, meaty, bloody emotions. And what you guys are feeling right now? That’s a fucking steak dinner.” It made a grotesque attempt at licking its lips, smearing blood across its chipped teeth. “I don’t want to waste that. I want to savor it. As long as you guys are alive, we’re connected.” It held up its broken wrist, where Ella’s charm bracelet still hung, and shook it gently, its hand flopping around as the little heart jingled quietly and sparkled in the low light. “Best friends forever, remember?” My stomach heaved and I felt bile rising into my mouth.
“That’s the one, buddy,” said the Thing, turning to me with half a crooked smile on its broken face, “Keep feeling that feeling.” It started moving towards me, its eyes fixed on mine. Chris’s eyes. I couldn’t -
Mike grabbed my arm and tugged, dragging me back down the hallway. He had his arm around Ella, holding her up as we stumbled back towards the basement stairs. The Thing made no motion to follow us, just standing there in the doorway with that broken, crooked grin.
“Don’t forget about me!” Chris’s voice called after us as we hauled ass up the stairs, heaving open the steel door, “Think about me from time to time! And remember - ” The door slammed shut, cutting off its last words. But we all heard them anyways, in our minds. In Chris’s voice, and it was such a Chris thing to say that Ella broke down crying again. She didn’t stop after we brought her home. Mike dropped me off, and I laid in bed all night, staring at the ceiling, thinking about everything.
The next day we reported Chris missing to the police, saying he told us he wanted to go explore the old research station. They found his body, but couldn’t find any evidence of what had attacked him. Eventually they concluded that he must have gotten mixed up with a bad crowd and ran afoul of a gang that had made an example of him. The case is still open, technically, but with no new leads or evidence in almost ten years, they aren’t trying very hard to close it.
Mike started hanging out with the druggies after school, then during school, numbing himself out constantly. He dropped out of school later that year and is now homeless, living under the bridge out of town. He can’t quite bring himself to leave. Ella never showed up to school on Monday; later I heard that she tried to kill herself and her parents had her committed to a youth psych hospital. I see her in town now and then, these days. She looks gaunt, her hair hanging in greasy strings around her face. Her eyes are blank, staring at nothing. If she recognizes me, she doesn’t show it.
As for me? It’s been nine years, and not a day has gone by that I don’t think about that night. The first thing I see when I wake up, before I open my eyes, is Chris’s ruined body lying in that hallway. And the last thing I hear before I fall asleep is the Thing’s voice, Chris’s voice, whispering to me in a sing-song voice, like a little joke just between the two of us.
“The real monster was inside you all along.” And all I see is that crooked grin.
Submitted August 13, 2016 at 12:36AM by fermatagirl http://ift.tt/2boLdhH nosleep
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