Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

[Transcript of Statement Number 18008316]

[JON] “Statement of one Keisha Taylor, regarding a… hungry man? Original statement given the 12th of August, 2018, direct from subject.”

“... Whenever you’re ready, Mrs. Taylor.”

[KIESHA] “Oh! Okay. I think I should start by saying that I’m a tourist. On vacation from the States, although I’m sure that you could tell that just from my accent. My wife and I, our daughter just went off to college, and we’re delaying the empty-nest emotions with a trip abroad. Alice wanted to go on the Eye by the Thames, but I’ve never been one for heights, so we decided to just split up for a day and explore the city. I happened to wander into this little pub and heard this guy talking, something about zombies and dull eyes and was ranting to anyone who would listen about this place. Looked you up, and you? You’re just up my alley.

Listen I know, this isn’t about my family and vacation and drunk paranoids, those tales are a dime a dozen anywhere you go.

This was years ago. I know you call these recordings, ‘statements’, stories? But this isn’t a story. It’s a road trip.

It started with my wife dying. She traveled a lot for work, and then one day she just didn’t come home. I mourned her, we had a funeral, I went to therapy, I missed her, and then I saw her on a news channel, in the crowd of horrified civilians trying to describe the shape of the monster that had killed someone with only their face. She looked into the camera like she knew exactly what happened to that victim. I began to watch the news religiously and then again, and again, over and over, all over the country, I saw her looking at me. I began to look through her belongings and found buried beneath the system files of her computer, payment stubs and documents for one Bay and Creek Shipping. So, what’s the best way to travel the country looking for your not-dead wife? Get a job that sends you across the states. So I applied, and was hired.

First came the omelet. He- it was sitting at some dingy diner and combined convenience store next to a gas station, shoveling yellow, rubbery omelet into its mouth like a caricature of actual eating. I couldn’t look away even as disgusted as I was. Its skin was yellow, sickly, as were its nails. Not cigarette yellow or nail polish, but beneath the surface. The whites of its eyes were yellow too, and it was filthy, coated in dirt and sweat and pieced of omelet that had fallen out of its mouth. It wore a dirt-covered tee shirt with the logo ‘Thistle’ embroidered on the breast. When it came up to me I could smell that sickly almost-sweet smell of decaying fruit and earth. Then it took another trucker, his- his name was Earl…”

[J] “Mrs. Taylor please continue.”

[K] “It led that trucker outside and I followed and then it- he- he took a bite out of the flesh near the man’s armpit and ate it. Earl whimpered, but couldn’t scream as the Thistle Man, what others call the Hungry Man, took pieces of him and ate it.

What I remember most about it was how real it felt. Some people say that traumatic experiences seem like dreams in their memories but what I remember most is how real it felt, how this couldn’t be a dream because it was so real. I ran away, leaving Earl to die alone except for the monster that was tearing him apart, the warm light of the diner a lifetime away and the only person who could do anything leaving in her truck.

Then he began to follow me, the Thistle Man. I would see him at stops, everywhere I stopped. I need you to understand is that when the Thistle Man attacked me, it was impossible. When he walked he heaved himself forward like there wasn’t any muscular or bone under his skin, just fat that made a cheap impersonation of it. But when he came at me he came with impossible speed and then he took my arm like a dance partner, like an act. There was no moving away from it and he choked me with his arm against my throat and that cloying scent of decay until a father with his children in the parking lot took pity on me and called the police. The cop didn’t help, of course. I’m not sure if he would have helped even if it hadn’t been a Thistle Man, but in any case, he just nodded at the monster who tried to kill me like they were old friends.

Soon after I met Syl- the Oracle. Or one of them. I learned there was a whole town of Thistle Men, Hungry Men. The Other Town, its neighbors called it. Victorville. They threatened a teen I had picked up, her mother had been killed by one of them, and I went to the town. I killed as many as I could, and then Alice showed up with a whole army of Bay and Creek employees. She told me that this is what Bay and Creek did. They fought monsters, Thistle. She told me to go back to my routes, to not be found. Alice said she didn’t want to be found.

I left Alice alone after that, but she couldn’t stop me from trying to learn more about Thistle.

I was hunted again, by something that called herself a Police Instigator, a watcher. I saw her rip a librarian’s ribcage open like on an autopsy table with nothing but her bare hands. But that didn’t stop me from figuring out what the librarian had been protecting. I learned that Thistle and Bay and Creek, the company I worked for, Alice worked for, the company that saved me? They were one and the same.

After that discovery, and her saving my life for a second time, Alice and I traveled together, learning what we could about the Thistle Men, about Thistle. I met with more oracles, beings who shifted time and didn’t live as we do. I’d say they were immortal but… that isn’t accurate. They are without end; because they are experiencing their own beginnings, their own death, and every moment in between all at once, forever. They are as much like us as a reflection is a sculpture, in practicality the same but in praxis uncomparable. [Soft laughter.] Sorry, I get a bit poetic when I talk about them.

These oracles? They were human, originally. But they have dedicated themselves to a cause greater than themselves and now they are more than they once were. It’s not a religion or a cult, I mean they are physically changed. I suppose it is its own worship, though. The Thistle Men? They are the same. Men who have become so driven by the concept of hatred and power that they become it. That’s what these monsters are. They’re men. The Thistle Man, my Thistle Man, he was known as Vector H. Originally he was Hank Thompson. Then, he wasn’t. He wasn’t dead, he wasn’t Hank, he couldn’t even form the syllables of his own name. I killed him. Then I- we- Praxis, we killed them all. All of the Thistle Men, all of Bay and Creek and Thistle. They’re not gone, but they’ve been subdued, for now, I believe. I think those monsters are lying low for now.

There is more to this story than just the Thistle Men but I don’t think the foundations of America and its monsters are your expertise, with all the politics involved. But Alice and I, we worked with a reporter and found proof. Hundreds of pages of documents and photos and bank statements that show exactly how entangled the US Government is into an organization of hypocritical war and monsters. [Rustling of papers.] I have a copy of the report for you. Well not for you in particular. Call it… an old sentimental. Alice wanted me to get rid of the thing a while ago, I suppose I’m just finally getting around to it.

I don’t expect you to be able to find anything about this outside of this report but I’ve missed this talking. I used to do this in my CB back when I was working for B&C. Talking to Alice before she wanted to be found. So, thank you for this.”

[J] “Statement ends. It has taken me some time to record these notes because I had to spend a considerable amount of time reading through this report given to me by Mrs. Taylor. Aside from the more personal aspects of this story, much of what Kiesha has said can be corroborated by this rather exhaustive report. The exact nature of what entity’s avatars she encountered may be difficult to determine without any of these beings left. Perhaps the Slaughter?

Nevertheless, all of Dekker’s talk of the Extinction comes back to me. What does it mean if it’s finally strong enough to create its own avatars? Will it attempt a ritual? Even thinking about what that could entail is enough to unsettle me.

End recording.”

Chapter Text

[?] “... like some tea? I always keep a pot on and I heard you talking in there and… You’re very brave, Mrs. Taylor.”

[K] “I don’t think I’m brave. Honestly, I’m quite scared, all of the time. My anxiety is a part of myself and I don’t think I’d be the person I am today without it. But thank you. Call me Kiesha.”

[?] “How could you do it?”

[K] “What?”

[?] “After your wife left you. You mourned her, but she came back. How were you able to take her back.”

[K] “You know, when I first learned that Alice wasn’t dead I hated her, just as I loved her. But I realized that after Thistle and Bay and Creek and every terrible thing I’ve seen, I deserved to live a happy life. I deserved to go home to a wife that I loved and I couldn’t do that without Alice.

So I forgave her. Not because she deserved forgiveness or redemption, but because I love her and it’s what I deserved. I think… I think that’s what you deserve too. Thank you for the tea, Martin, but I should be going now. I hope everything works out well for you, whatever it is that happens here. Goodbye.”

[MARTIN] “Goodbye.

Don’t think I don’t see you over there, you bloody tape. Does Elias think this is funny, watching us from his cell? I swear I’ll take your batteries out if you don’t shut off-”