I"m a security guard at a warehouse today because I drank and partied too hard in college yesterday. I work the midnight shift because I have the least amount of seniority. The job"s a breeze. I sit in a little shack and watch video monitors. Every two hours I walk the warehouse and the grounds looking for anything out of place.
Nothing is ever out of place.
Except at the 3AM walk-through.
And I"ve noticed that the 3AM walk is getting worse.
At first, it was subtle. Just little oddities I could chalk up to being tired or tricks of shadows. I would catch movement from the corners of my eyes, always just outside my flashlight beam. I"d swing the light to the movement and nothing would be there. Sometimes I would hear faint voices echoing through the building.
And, of course, there was the first time I saw a ghost.
That night, I thought we had a prowler, so I opened the door to the main warehouse and saw a person walking down the aisle. I yelled at him to stop, but he never turned around. Then he ran, and I pursued, with him screaming the whole time. Instead of going out to the docks, he turned left and I knew I had him. There was nothing down that way but a dead end. I rounded the corner, flashlight held over my shoulder, still lighting my way, but also ready to knock the prowler out, and skidded to a stop when I saw I was alone.
My knees shook and I had to put my hand on the wall to keep from falling. I stood there and took a few deep breaths, replaying the chase in my mind. I hated myself for not expecting something like this. The Corps had taught me to be prepared for anything and I should have known 3AM would send the supernatural after me. Then I thought of the thing screaming and I smiled. I had scared 3AM.
3 AM was becoming a thing.
The next night I decided to confront 3AM. After the little adventure the night before, I felt I had the advantage. I was wrong.
I had thrown open the door to the warehouse, feeling bold, and yelled at 3AM to talk to me. No more tricks, man to man, or as close as we could get. The warehouse greeted me with silence which I had mistaken as a good sign.
My confidence increased as I strutted down the central aisle. I felt nothing, saw nothing and the only sound was my shoes slapping the concrete and my occasional profanity-filled taunt. I was, if I do say, one major league Hip Cat.
Until I made it to the loading dock.
There, a semi burned with a strange black-red flame. I knew it wasn"t real; it couldn"t be. It was only another trick of 3AM, but I could feel the heat and smell the acrid smoke. I had stood, mesmerized by the strange ghost-fire, and then I was falling.
I screamed until my throat bled, a raw animal yell I didn"t think could come from a human"s mouth. I landed with enough force to shatter bone. Somehow I was able to stand up again and I was amazed that I was still alive.
But my screams had drawn attention, and dark forms moved toward me. I heard laughter tinted with screams and fell to my knees. As soon as I was down, the dark forms swarmed me.
When I was a kid my dad had taken me fishing every weekend. One misty morning we were in his jon boat, anch.o.r.ed under some trees and my rod tore through one of those spider nests you see all over the place. Thousands on tiny spiders rained down on us. I tried to brush them off, but they were everywhere. If my dad hadn"t grabbed me and thrown me in the river, I would have gone crazy.
That is what the dark forms felt like, only there was no river in that warehouse, so I had no escape.
I prayed my mind would break, but sanity remained. I don"t know how long the dark forms were on me. It could have been only seconds, or it could have been days. There was no perception of time. All I knew was that when the feeling stopped, I opened my eyes and I was suddenly back in my office.
When I pulled myself together, I looked at the clock on the wall and saw it was 3AM. I broke a little then; laughter and cries mixed together. But then the sound reminded me of the dark place with its creeping things and I shut my mouth.
3 AM pa.s.sed and I recovered until the next night. That next night, I was more cautious. I could still hear the echo of footsteps, but the warehouse seemed more normal, more real than it had for as long as I could remember. I started to relax, thinking maybe 3AM had used all of its power with the previous display.
I was wrong again.
The entire loading dock was suddenly covered with those black-red ghost flames. I could see shapes running in the flames. They looked human, but it was hard to tell. One shape ran at me and I let out a little cry when I saw it was Bill Lucas, the midnight shift dock foreman. I wanted to run, but my legs were frozen.
"You son of a b.i.t.c.h!" Bill yelled at me, and when he opened his mouth I saw the black-red fire dance on his tongue.
I backed away from Bill, shaking my head. "Not my fault," I said.
Bill had tried to grab the front of my shirt, but his hands were melting. He looked at them, confused, then gave me an accusing stare. And then, of course, 3 AM pa.s.sed.
But now, it"s 3AM more often than not.
I"ve almost gotten used to the ghost flames and all the screaming people. These nights, I try yelling back at Bill, and telling him that he is getting what he deserves. They"re all getting what they deserve. I often hope that my anger will drive the demons off, but it only seems to draw their attention to me. Now all of them run at me. I don"t know why I thought I could yell at 3AM and get my way, but it never works.
I am on my third 3AM walk through (I average five a night now), and things seem different. The warehouse is bigger for one. I don"t explore all of it; in fact, I am unable to make myself stray from my normal route, but it feels bigger. I pause at the loading door, preparing myself for the ghost flames as best as I can. It is pitch-black inside; the flames never burst into life until I enter.
I step through the opening and fall a good four feet to the ground because the docks are gone. I sit on the ground, more amazed that I am unhurt than anything, and stare at where the docks should be.
I can make out the concrete dividing walls that mark the lanes to the big over-head doors, but they are cracked and overgrown with weeds. I can see that the perimeter fence is about a hundred yards closer than it should be. I chuckle despite my fear. 3AM has outdone itself this time. I give a tip of my hat in the direction of the now-closer fence.
I get up and find my way back to the office, but it too looks old and worn out. The video monitors are off and have thick layers of dust on them. All the windows are broken and my chair is torn and rotten with mold. I am on the verge of panic when I look at the filth-covered clock and see it is 3AM.
Of course, I think, and a warm sense of the familiar washes over me. I am about to go back out for my 3AM walk-through when I hear a voice.
"You don"t have to do this any more."
I spin around. "Who said that?"
"I did," the voice says and a woman appears before me. She looks to be in her forties and is strangely dressed.
"Who are you?" I ask, even though I already know.
"My name is Madame Claire and I"ve been asked to talk to you."
"Oh yeah?" I say. "By who?"
"The owners of this property asked me to speak with you. They"d like you to leave."
That makes me angry. "I work here. If old man Benny wants to fire me, he can be a man and tell me to my face."
She shakes her head and looks sad. "You"re mistaken, my friend. You haven"t worked here for thirty years."
I laugh. "That"s a good one since I"m only twenty-eight."
"I wasn"t making a joke," Madame Claire says. "Do you remember the explosion?"
"What explosion?" I ask. A memory tries to surface. I reach for it, but grab only pain and creeping darkness.
"On June twelfth, 1981, you drove a semi-truck full of explosives into the loading dock, killing everyone working here that night."
"No," I say. "That"s not true. I wouldn"t do something like that. You ask anyone here. I"m a good guy."
"You had a breakdown and killed sixty people back then, including yourself. Now you"re scaring people. They can"t sell this property. They can"t even keep a night watchman. No one wants to walk in the warehouse at 3AM."
I almost believe her. Somewhere a blurry memory of hate floats and I can almost see the surprised look on Bill"s face when I slam the semi into the docks.
But two things stop me from listening to her sweet, commanding voice. One is I remember that it is 3AM and that whatever appears to be the truth at 3AM is most certainly a lie. And two, I notice that I can see her heart beating.
I smile as I advance. "I know what you are," I say and reach into her chest.
She screams as I grab her heart. I squeeze and she falls, dead before she hits the floor.
"My name is Henry Dobbins," I say, standing over the ghost corpse. "I know it"s 1981. And I know it"s always 3AM."
About James Marlow.
James Marlow fell in love with horror after sneaking over to a friend"s house to watch American Werewolf in London. He has been writing fiction in one form or another all his life. He lives with his wife and children in Indiana and is currently working on his first novel. He can be found on Facebook by searching James J Marlow.
JUDY.
by Andy Mee.
He could hear his Labrador barking, and the sound seemed to be traveling farther away. The man in the pale red Macintosh shouted the dog"s name. "Judy! Where are you, girl? Judy!"
Inquisitive at first, it was the sort of bark Judy made when questioning the sanity of her owner for throwing the evening"s leftovers into the bin; then the barking became louder, urgent, almost hysterical. The growing howls of canine angst were coming from inside the yellow-brown autumnal wood. That was the point at which the man in the Mac realized something was wrong. Judy sounded uncharacteristically agitated.
The man in the Mac had been careless, losing Judy ten minutes previously. The dog had been sniffing its way along the line of leaning brown-red oaks by the side of the half-frosted lake, searching for the last of summer"s old stale bread that the ducks had missed when people fed them. The night-lights from the old mansion house on the opposite bank shimmered on the gla.s.sy lake. Morning stars faded as the dawn"s light came on. The man looked down and was certain he saw ice forming at the lake"s edge. Cold enough, he thought, bitter cold.
Judy had wandered off, deep into the old oak and weeping willow woodland. The man in the Mac had been sitting on the bench smoking his rolled Swan Vesta and enjoying the beauty of the early morning. It was the only time he could smoke without his ears bleeding from the verbal abuse of his wife.
He sat, dormant in the cold morning rain, savoring each berate-less inhale, admiring the young mallards as they floated their way toward the old bridge on the southern side of the lake, and watching the swans as they bathed in the grey, autumn morning drizzle.
And then the ferocious barking suddenly ceased with a high squeal, concluding into an eerie silence; even the ducks became quiet.
He got up from the bench, and half cursing, threw his cigarette on the ground and began calling for his dog. He scanned the peripheries of the semi-leaved ashen-brown woods. No sign of her. "d.a.m.n dog," he whispered hoa.r.s.ely to no one.
She was a placid dog, and always had been, so all this barking had been uncomfortably unusual. The man in the Mac made his way over the frozen gra.s.s into the woods and felt sleety rain-specks fall on his grey-black hair, still calling for his dog as he half-strode, half-ran.
There was no answering bark, no howl, no whine. He changed to a semi-sprint and felt his heart thumping at his rib cage. He entered the brown wooded area, breathing heavily as he ran.
"Judy!" he shout-panted.
The sleet gave way to rain, and then a downpour ensued. The noise of the raindrops. .h.i.tting the broken woodland canopy made a low echoing rumble, making the man in the Mac think of tribal drums and, although he refused to acknowledge it, terror began to tug at his chest. Something was wrong.
Inside the woods, the grayness of mid-autumn had gotten much dimmer as he ran through the heavy browns of mid-winter. The further into the forest the man ventured, the darker it got, but still the d.a.m.n dog refused to acknowledge his calls.
The oaks and alders made way for the deep green pines, closing around him so that three to four at a time were within touching distance. Rain ran down the man"s face in blinding rivulets, his grey hair now soaked, eyes stinging. He shivered. The frosted, gla.s.sy leaves crunched and cracked under his racing feet. His calling had become a hard-forced wheezing, his lungs emptied by each cry. "Judy!" sounded more like a dead-beat, rasping "Hoodee." Still nothing.
Then came the buzzing.
It was a low humming at first. The man questioned whether he was just imagining it. Was it the head-buzz of exhaustion he sometimes got on that darn treadmill? The man in the Mac slowed to a half-walk, heading in the general direction of the strange, low humming.
The rain was starting to raid the forest, robbing it of its musky autumn aroma. Warnings were probing the back of his mind, telling him to go back to his bench by the lake, but he felt a strange compulsion to head toward the humming, an inquisitive yearning; and besides, he needed to find Judy. He loved that d.a.m.n dog. This was the direction where he"d last heard her. He knew it. But where was she?
"Judy?" he whispered, not realizing he even spoke.
As the man got nearer to it, the buzzing drowned out the noise of the falling rain. His eyes were half-blurred. Wiping his face with soaked coat sleeves had been effective before, but now it was futile as he squinted into the dark alcove of thick pines. The forest had a choking, deep musky taste, which was beginning to linger in the back of his throat as he gasped for another lungful of cold morning air, and he struggled to catch his breath.
The hypnotic, almost orchestral buzzing, slowly drawing him, appeared to be coming from behind a ma.s.s of evergreen bushes just ahead. There seemed to be life in them; they had a luminous greenness amidst the grays and dead browns. And, G.o.d, the buzzing! It was now almost deafening.
The man"s head began to throb. The loud noise, combined with the blanketed anxiety now smothering him, became ingredients for the dull pain witch-dancing within his temples.
Still, like a magnet pulling a cold steel tack, the man in the Mac was drawn to the green shimmer ahead. The pine trees closed around him and he felt sure they were gathering inwards. The woods grew even darker; a thick, purple-grey.
And then the man noticed the smell.
Decay. Rotting meat. The forest not only looked dead, it smelled dead. The only sense of life in the woods were the glowing evergreen bushes ahead. The bushes looked incandescent, too bright, like a beacon.
"Jooodeee?" he called, still feeling the fingers of fear on his spine.
The man saw small white stones on the ground, lying on top of wet leaves. Chalk or limestone, he thought. The stones seemed to have been arranged into the shape of some type of Celtic cross. Kids, the man thought, but still found himself looking over his shoulder to stare back at the stone cross many yards after he had pa.s.sed it.
"Jooo..."
The man noticed a small cloud of flies (too small for bluebottles?) escaping from somewhere inside the bushes. It was strange to see flies so late in the season. And certainly such small insects couldn"t be the cause of all that noise.
"...deee?"
The noise was now deafening, painful. He clasped his soaking sleeves to his ears. He had no idea what it could be. It sounded as if it might be something radioactive, and he kept telling himself that he should probably turn back. But he couldn"t; he had to find his dog. His wife would kill him if he didn"t come back with Judy.
The man in the Mac kept moving toward the light-colored bushes, unable to resist the draw of the buzzing.
The man reached the bushes.
He reached out to move a branch, touching it; inspecting it. It was then that he saw the larvae. Thousands of squirming white insect larvae were completely covering the leaves. The man had never seen such an infestation in all his life. The bushes looked alive, white with crawling vermin.
Repulsed, the man moved quickly past the bushes into the crow-black clearing beyond. And there on the ground was a mult.i.tude of milling insects; a swarm so grotesquely huge that it made the air seem coal-black. There were millions of them! The man"s mouth dropped open. He turned and looked to his left as the mouth of the swarm drew open around him.
And then he saw what remained of Judy.
A Labrador carca.s.s, almost devoured, was being impossibly held in mid-air by countless swarms of demonic flies.
The man in the Mac was frozen to the spot, eyes unbelieving. Then the swarm began to close its mouth around him, and his vision grayed like a television losing transmission.
From the depths of a slowly fading sanity, a voice in his mind screamed "Run!" His immobile legs suddenly obeyed.
Stumbling backward, he coughed out disbelieving monosyllables, unable to muster enough breath to scream, as his black boots drove his weaving body through the dense bracken. The rainwater in his stinging eyes made the world around him a kaleidoscope of browns, greens, and heavy grey blurs.
He scurried blindly into the thick bottle-green foliage of ferns and nettles, stumbling over vine tripwires, while the thunderous buzzing grew in intensity above him. Instinctively swatting, flailing like a drowning man, he hurled his rain-glossed red arms upwards, repeatedly throwing fists into the buzzing black blur as he wove through the stinging thorns of bramble and nettle. He ran blindly through the trees, branches slapping his soaked face.
Suddenly, burning pain flared as his ankle twisted, and he fell on the potholed forest floor. Thudding heavily upon the soft, mud-soaked earth, the last of the man"s breath was driven from his lungs, coming out in a groan.