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The neon light of a flickering television pulsed in Kyle’s hypersensitive eyes. He brought one hand up, covering his face. With a squint, he read the message on the monitors.
<<>PLEASE REMAIN CALM. EMERGENCY PROTOCOLS HAVE BEEN INITIATED. REPORT TO YOUR SECTION SUPERVISOR IMMEDIATELY.<>>
“Welcome back,” a voice startled him, and Kyle turned to his right. A spectacled man knelt over him. The speaker had neatly combed hair and wore a bright white lab coat. He held Kyle’s wrist gently, and wore a nametag.
“Dr… Wellers?” Kyle squinted. The man looked down at his uniform.
“Ah. Yes. Are you feeling alright? Do you remember your name?” Dr. Wellers asked, his voice gentle. He peered at Kyle with a narrow-eyed sternness.
“I’m…”
Borrasca Kyle.
The name didn’t make sense, but it was the first thing to slip through his mind.
“...Kyle,” he answered, “Yeah. I’m chill.”
“It’s very nice to meet you Kyle.” Dr. Wellers stepped back, offering a hand and pulling Kyle to his feet. Kyle accepted the help, and dust fell from his body as he stood.
Many monitors decorated the bare concrete walls of the room, some flickering like the one he’d just read. Bits of concrete debris and scattered papers littered the area. Kyle gazed around the room with a wrinkled brow, confused.
“Dude, what is this shit?” He asked.
“I don’t know.” Dr. Wellers clicked on a flashlight, scanning the surroundings, “I woke up not long ago. Kyle, this is very important: Do you remember anything before waking up?”
Kyle was shocked by the question, nodding his head cluelessly.
“What? Yeah man, I was in… Drisking. With Kimber and Sam,” He said it like it was obvious.
“That’s fantastic, Kyle,” Dr. Wellers smiled, “That’s far more than either Jacobi or I remember.” The doctor nodded toward the door, and Kyle followed his eyes. A woman stood guard over a twisted and bent steel door. She held a rifle tightly against her shoulder, her eyes never leaving the open hallway outside the room. She had jet black hair, with dark makeup. She wore a black spaghetti strap top, and matching black cargo pants, a touch of her midriff showing. She was also strangely barefoot. When she heard her name, Jacobi nodded at Kyle, jiggling the enormous brass cross hanging from her necklace.
“What’s up?” she said.
“Hey,” Kyle said.
This chick is totally hot.
“Kyle, I know you’re probably discombobulated,” Wellers began.
“Uh…”
“But it’s very important. Neither Jacobi nor I remember how we got here. Do you?” The doctor laid a hand on Kyle’s shoulder, gently pointing to the goth woman and then to himself. His tone was patient, but firm and fatherly.
“Bro, I don’t even know where here is.” Kyle shrugged, raising his hands defensively. It was then that he noticed the over-large suit jacket which swallowed his hands. He took stock of his outfit, finding himself clad in his father’s suit. For a funeral.
Kimber’s mom’s funeral.
“She looked mad funny in that box,” Kyle said, looking down at his suit in confusion.
“Who did?” Wellers wrinkled his brow, peering curiously into Kyle’s face.
“Movement.”
The single quiet word, whispered from Jacobi, stretched a wide-eyed look of fear across Dr. Wellers’ face. He laid a finger over his lips, then hurriedly searched the room with his eyes. He dragged Kyle to an upturned table, moving quickly and quietly.
“Dude, wha-...” Kyle began to protest.
“Shhh!” Wellers ordered tersely. They scrambled behind the table, dropping to the floor and pressing themselves flat. In a barely audible whisper, Wellers explained.
“Jacobi knows how to use a firearm.” As he spoke, the woman slipped the magazine from the receiver on the rifle, eyed the cartridges, and gently locked her ammunition back in place. She braced the rifle to her shoulder and waited, crouched out of view. Something moved in the hallway.
Footsteps drew nearer, coming to a stop in the door frame. From beneath the upturned table, Kyle squinted at the dark shadow. For a moment, he thought the intruder was a human. His hair was blond and cut short, his two blue eyes pools of glowing brilliance set in a sea of snow. But then he noticed the oddities of this intruder: His skin was impossibly smooth, a clean, pink sheen of absolute perfection. His nose wasn't so much a nose as it was a nub jutting out of his face. His lips were twisted in a smile, revealing white strips where his teeth should have been.
Whatever it was, it looked human. Kyle’s eyes widened. The thing hadn’t seen any of them yet, standing stock still and swiveling its head side to side. The smile never left its face, an inhuman dedication to the facade of joy.
Jacobi peered at it from behind the ruined steel door. With her rifle at the ready, she slowly slid her finger from above the trigger guard, lightly laying the pad of her pointer finger across the trigger.
The human-like thing abruptly turned, leaving the small concrete room. Jacobi relaxed, sliding her finger away from the trigger. The group waited silently, patiently to ensure the footsteps faded down the hall. A door clanged, and it was gone.
The group released a collectively held breath, and they regrouped by the door. Jacobi kept her vigilant eyes on the hallway as they spoke.
“Yooooo, that thing was freaky as fuck dude,” Kyle’s eyes were wide, his voice cracking under the strain of fear.
“I almost spoke to the goddamn thing,” Wellers nodded in agreement, “thought it was a human.”
“Don’t take the Lord’s name in vain,” Jacobi chided.
“Do you guys know where we are?” Kyle suddenly felt very afraid. His father’s suit - the one he’d borrowed for the funeral - made him look as small as he felt. This concrete room, these strange people, that half human thing, all of it terrified him. He never thought he’d miss Drisking, not after Jimmy Prescott did… something? He couldn’t remember. But he did miss home, and Kimber and Sam and… the other people?
“I don’t remember much,” Kyle somberly added to his question.
“As far as I’m aware, I didn’t exist before this,” Jacobi shrugged. “Literally no memory at all. I woke up in 4-inch platform boots,” she said, lifting her bare feet off the floor, “absolutely miserable to walk in.” Kyle looked up at her, for the first time realizing how tall the goth girl was. She towered above him and Dr. Wellers both, standing well over six feet tall.
“I know I own and operate a blood bank.” Dr. Wellers agreed, “In Appalachia. I don’t know anything else, though.”
“Fuck,” Kyle shook his head.
“Language,” Jacobi reflexively checked him.
“Okay, so this blows. What do we do?” Kyle fought back a rising panic in his throat.
“We’ve got a map. Show him,” Jacobi nodded to the doctor, keeping her eyes locked on the hallway.
Dr. Wellers reached into his shirt pocket, retrieving a crinkled piece of paper. He unfolded it, showing Kyle the blueprint within.
“We’re on subfloor three,” Wellers pointed to a subheader with the name of the floor. Three different levels were shown on the map, each filled with extensive offices, conference rooms, and corridors. “I matched our surroundings after I woke up Jacobi. We’ve been awake for a couple of hours,” the doctor added the explanation as an afterthought. “The nearest exit is a service elevator in the laundry room on subfloor one.” He tapped the map, “so far, everything has looked like this room. Emergency power, some warning signs and notifications about lockdown. Does this name mean anything to you?”
Wellers showed Kyle the name of the facility.
SIMIODYN USA - UNIT 15 FACILITIES A
“Naw. That’s some spooky government shit for sure, dog,” Kyle nodded sagely.
“My theory is they were experimenting on us. Took our memory. Maybe we’re in Drisking, since you remember that,” Jacobi shrugged.
“Well, whatever, let’s get the fuck out of here.” Kyle hissed.
“Precisely,” the doctor agreed, “We’ll keep moving. If we find anyone, maybe they can tell us more. But be warned, we’ve encountered many people who have already passed. And Kyle? There’s more things in here than that creature from a moment ago. Terrifying things. Stay behind Jacobi. This girl knows her way around a gun.”
“Okay. Okay let’s go.” Kyle agreed, eager to be free of this place. Kimber was missing back in Drisking, and he needed to go save her.
“Stay close,” Jacobi nodded, holding tightly to her rifle. She pushed out into the hallway, checking both directions before scurrying to the far wall. She pressed to the far wall, moving quickly and keeping her head down. Kyle and Wellers followed behind, clumsily imitating their darkly clad leader.
They scurried along the dark corridor, past closed doors. Occasionally, Jacobi would stop. She’d motion for Wellers to check the map, and he’d give directions about a turn or twist in the endless labyrinthian hallways. Kyle noted even more spooky government bullshit. The doors had official sounding names like ‘Contact Laboratory C’, ‘Object Projections Storage’, and ‘Baño de Caballeros’.
“Something’s moving.”
The trio paused, listening. A shuffling sound emanated from a fork ahead, the noise of dragging echoed off the concrete walls. Without a word, Jacobi grabbed the handle of a nearby door, leading them inside ‘Interview Room B’. The handle was destroyed, and the door swung open without a sound. Jacobi veered into the room, silently waving Kyle and Wellers to follow. Once everyone was inside, she quietly shut the door and leaned her back against it.
Out in the hallway, the sound drew nearer. The shuffling, dragging noise. It sounded like a person with tiny legs dragging a refrigerator across an asphalt parking lot. They skittered, small feet tap-tapping, then dragged something forward, a long, slow scraping.
Scitter scitter. Drag drag. It repeated, growing louder and louder. Wellers stepped up beside Jacobi, resting a hand on the door beside her, preparing to hold it, should whatever was outside attempt to pry it open. They held their breath.
The noise grew in volume, until Kyle could hear the crunching of individual rocks as they were dragged around the hallway, and the tapping noise sounded like a resounding clapping.
But the sound passed. Slowly it faded, continuing the terrifying pattern.
“We’ll give it a moment,” Wellers suggested. He rested his back against the door, removing his glasses to clean them on his immaculate white coat. Jacobi nodded in agreement.
This room was nearly identical to the one in which Kyle had awoken. Grey and bland, with a few monitors displaying the same eerie message. Potted plants had been shattered and lay in heaps of soil on the floor. A single caged amber light was steadily pulsing, washing the room in sickly periodic light. Kyle’s eyes roamed the room, and settled on something that made his stomach pitch into his throat.
Leaping forward, he snatched up a grey plastic box from amongst the detritus (that means trash or garbage), a DVD case with a single word inscribed across the front: Borrasca.
“This is my name!” Kyle’s voice cracked, “Bro, this…”
“Shut up!” Jacobi hissed at him, her face twisting in a furious scowl. Kyle suddenly remembered where he was, and the dragging thing in the hallways, mere feet from where he stood. They waited in terrified silence, seconds ticking by. After a few moments, they relaxed. The noise was still moving down the hall, fading into silence.
“Your name?” Wellers approached cautiously, “You said Kyle was your name.” He set his glasses on the bridge of his nose, peering down at the box curiously.
“Yeah, totally. But when you asked, I thought about it, and I’m pretty sure I’m Borrasca Kyle. But that didn’t make sense, so I just said Kyle. Maybe it’s my last name.”
He snapped the box open, revealing a single unmarked DVD inside.
Doctor Wellers pressed his lips together tightly, considering. He looked at the door, and Jacobi gazed back with a raised eyebrow.
“It could tell us something. More than we have now.” She offered, still pressing a shoulder to the door. Wellers nodded.
“See if any of those monitors have a DVD player that works. I’ll search the room for anything else worth checking.”
With hands shaking, Kyle ran to the bank of monitors on the far side of the room. He searched the cabinet beneath them, finding each held a media player. With some quick thinking, he switched players and displays until he found a working pair, and hooked them together to the same power source. Wellers continued to dig through the rubbish pile on the floor. Kyle was too excited to say anything, he simply set the disc into the player, smashing the play button on the front. A card flashed on the screen:
PROJECT: STAR GATE 2
SUBJECT: BROWN, HOLLY
AGE:13
CAPABILITIES PROJECTION: EXTREME
INTERVIEW #4
DOCTOR [REDACTED]
11/04/25
The screen fades in, showing a young girl sitting in the same room the trio is currently occupying. She is young and pale-faced, wearing her blonde hair back in a ponytail. Her legs bounce nervously. A man steps in front of the camera, then sits down to face her, his back to the camera. His face is unseen.
“Good morning, Holly. I hope you’re well today?” He hands her a glass of water, and she accepts, drinking.
“Yes Mr…” A fuzzy noise plays over the name of the doctor.
“Good, very good. It will be an easy session today, Holly. I need to ask a few questions about some of the things we’re seeing in your thought-forms. Can you tell me about them?” He asks.
“I’ll try,” Holly appears nervous. Her legs cease bumping, and she looks away from the man, “sometimes I can’t remember. They put me to sleep when I do it.”
“That’s alright Holly, just do your best. Let’s start off easy - what’s your favorite story?”
“My favorite story? Oh. Uh… Well, you said you won’t tell Ms. Gina about this, right?” Holly sets the glass aside, leaning forward conspiratorily, “I listen to a lot of stuff on the internet that she wouldn’t like, and my favorite story is one of those.”
“Not a word, Holly,” the man promises, “This entire session is confidential.” Holly nods, agreeing with his assessment.
“Okay. My favorite story is Borrasca,” she says with a proud smile, “It’s for adults. But I’ve never read it.”
“You’ve never read your favorite story?” The man asks.
“No, I listened to CreepCast read it.” Holly confirms, “Do you like spooky stuff? You might like it too. And it’s funny, because the guys are so funny-...” Holly appears ready to launch into a long description of the ‘guys’ on CreepCast, but the interviewer interrupts.
“Yes, you’ve mentioned CreepCast before. You learned about Tommy Taffy on CreepCast?”
Holly’s face visibly falls. She was happy and excited to talk about CreepCast before, but when the interviewer mentions Tommy Taffy, a quietness presses over the child.
“Yeah.”
“And you didn’t like Tommy Taffy, did you?” The man asks.
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Tommy Taffy scares me.” Holly draws both of her legs up into the chair, resting her knees on her chin.
“Scary stories are supposed to do that, right?” The interviewer asks. Holly shakes her head.
“No. Scary stories are supposed to be spooky. Tommy Taffy wasn’t. He was scary. It reminded me of…” She fades to silence. Her eyes become wet, and the interviewer intervenes.
“We don’t need to continue talking about that,” he offers, and Holly nods.
“It’s fine. The guys made it really funny anyway, so I wasn’t too scared about it.” She forces a smile.
“That’s good, Holly. We’ll move on. Tell me about Borrasca.” The interviewer asks.
Holly nods, her mood improving, “That’s the funniest one! Funeral Kyle is the best bit in the whole show! …’I get high with my baby’!” Her voice has a sing-song lilt to it. It is such a strange thing to hear from a young, innocent-looking girl, that even the stoic interviewer tilts his head to the side.
“Tell me about Funeral Kyle…” he continues.
The monitor blanked out, and a tremendous crack split the room, so loud the walls shook and particles of dust pattered to the floor. Kyle jumped, and Wellers spilled onto the floor, bumping against a table. The power in the room blinked out in an instant. Even the stoic Jacobi cursed, in her own way.
“Crud!” She yelled, “What was that?”
“Bro!” Kyle shouted, so upset that he reached out and physically grabbed the blank monitor, “No way, man! That’s bullshit!”
“We should get moving,” Jacobi’s voice was nervous and low. She backed away from the steel door, allowing it to swing open on its own. The tall girl wasted no time scanning the empty hallway. Dr. Wellers touched Kyle's shoulder, nodding toward the door.
“Let’s go,” he said.
Frantically, Kyle mashed the button on the front of the DVD player, trying to eject the disk.
“Come on bro,” he grabbed it up in his hands, fidgeting with the player. Without power, it resolutely refused to budge, and Kyle tried to pry open the disk tray with a fingernail.
“Kyle,” Dr. Wellers said the one word calmly.
“I gotta know who Funeral Kyle is,” Kyle refused to move, cracking a nail to the bed against the disc tray.
“Just bring the whole thing if you need to,” Wellers conceded. Kyle paused, but nodded his head to agree. He unplugged the player, tucking the whole thing beneath his arm and following Jacobi.
The trio hurried further down the hallway, with Dr. Wellers finding a flashlight amidst the debris. He offered it to Jacobi, who accepted, leading their party around piles of debris and the occasional body. Dr. Wellers would pause briefly to check vitals, moving on when they were found to be deceased. At the end of a long hallway, they found a set of stairs, following the map down one flight. The maintenance elevator was one floor lower, but they found the stairs had collapsed below, blocking them from descending further.
“There’s another set of stairs at the far end of this level,” Dr. Wellers examined the map with Jacobi’s light. “Just a few more tunnels to go.”
They scurried down the hallways on this level, keeping the same loose formation. The hawk-eyed Jacobi led the way, her rifle sweeping side to side as they clung closely to the walls. Jacobi turned a corner and swore.
“Oh, heck!” She wasn’t shouting, but even the intonation of a normal speaking voice was shattering in the stillness of the corridors. Kyle hurried to see the scene.
He instantly recognized the near-human that had peered in on them when he’d first awoken. Its shiny blue eyes were dulled, but the unnatural carapace of its plastic-looking hair remained shiny and bright. The effect was markedly less intimidating when the head was no longer attached to the neck.
Jacobi shined the flashlight further down the hall, grimacing at the destruction. A portion of the ceiling had caved in, filling the hall partially with dirt and destroyed concrete. The chaos was so recent, dust still hung in the air. The smell of burnt motor oil drifted up the corridor.
“Well there’s our boom,” Wellers nodded to the destruction. Whatever had caused the monitors to blank upstairs had likely caused the roof to collapse here.
“Do we need to go this way?” Jacobi asked, warily eyeing the pile of debris.
“We’ll have to climb over,” Wellers declared, checking the map. Jacobi took a deep breath, edging forward. Her bare feet crunched against the stone fragments, and she grimaced.
“Four inch platforms or cut-up feet. It’s not fair.”
The trio picked their way gingerly through the rubble, Jacobi holding her rifle with one hand as she placed her bare feet on the flattest fragments of concrete. They came down off the pile one by one on the far side. The hallway continued, and at the end of a junction, another body lay against the wall. Dr. Wellers hurried to check the vitals while Jacobi cleared the T junction with her rifle. Kyle wandered around aimlessly.
“She’s alive,” Dr. Wellers crouched by the woman, his fingers to her jugular. She lay awkwardly against the wall, covered in dust. Her right arm was missing below the elbow. Dr. Wellers checked the stump hesitantly as Kyle made his way closer.
“Help me move her. We’ll get into one of these rooms so I can take a closer look,” the doctor ordered, waving Kyle in.
The two men carefully gripped the unconscious woman beneath each shoulder, lifting her between them and dragging her down the hallway. Jacobi picked an unlocked room at random, scoping it out with her rifle before motioning the rest of the party inside. They quickly turned a table upright and laid the woman on top. Dr. Wellers fussed over her intensely. He checked her pulse repeatedly, rolled up the sleeve on the truncated arm, checking the make-shift tourniquet that was already in place. Kyle, without a clue what to do, laid his DVD player on the table, reaching for the device in her hand. With some effort, he wrestled it from between her fingers. It was a bar of plastic with a trigger on one end.
“Can you show some respect?” Dr. Wellers stared at Kyle in disbelief.
“What? Oh. My bad,” Kyle clutched the device in hands loosely. Jacobi appeared at his side, pointing to the device.
“C4 detonator,” she identified immediately, “probably what killed the freak and collapsed the ceiling.”
“Based!” Kyle lifted the device in his hands, turning it over, “dibs.”
“It’s useless without the blasting caps and explosives,” Jacobi rolled her eyes. “How’s she doing, Doc?”
Doctor Wellers sighed. His glasses fogged with sweat as he focused on the incapacitated woman on the table.
“She lost her arm a short while ago, before the explosion. The stump isn’t bleeding. She’s got contusions across the body, definitely some deeper trauma, possibly internal bleeding… she was much too close when she detonated.”
“Is she gonna die?” Kyle asked.
“Without any medical equipment I have no way of knowing.” Doctor Wellers answered mournfully.
“Okay. We need to keep moving. Search the room for anything useful. I’ll watch the door. When she wakes up, we’ll head out.” Jacobi kept a level head, issuing orders comfortably.
Kyle dropped the detonator. While Dr. Wellers kept an eye on the woman and Jacobi watched the door, he searched the room. The area was in better shape than the others, with desk toys still standing upright. It seemed to Kyle more like an office than a storage room. He checked the desk drawers, finding nothing. He pulled open a filing cabinet, stared blankly at the reams of paper within, then closed the filing cabinet. Kyle dropped into a desk chair, kicking his feet up on the desk.
“Nothing here,” he declared.
“Did you check the laptop?” Jacobi pointed to the desk in front of Kyle. He turned his head, following her finger.
“Oh. No,” Kyle flipped up the screen of the computer, and the screen powered on. The owner had left the password on a handy sticky note, and Kyle quickly logged in.
“There’s some videos,” he announced, “Should I watch?”
“No, just stare at a blank screen all day,” Jacobi gave a deadpan delivery.
“Why would I do that?” He asked, frowning with confusion. Jacobi pulled her attention from the door for just a moment to glare at Kyle, who ignored her. He clicked play on the first file, titled:
TAPE 003 - orientation protocols GREYLOCK
“That must be what the monsters are.” Doctor Wellers watched over Kyle’s shoulder as the video played, “It makes sense. They’re thought-form manifestations. Someone’s nightmare.”
“The little girl. She knew my name! She said she watches scary stories online. I bet that’s where the monsters come from!”
Kyle leapt up, running to the DVD player he’d left on the table. He grabbed it, furiously trying to pry out the disc.
“Can’t open it without power… Jacobi,” he hurried to the door, presenting the player to her, “Can you shoot this open with your gun?” he asked. Without a word, Jacobi accepted the DVD player, smashing it on the floor with all her might. She bent down, lifting the disk from the fractured casing and handing it back to Kyle.
“Bet,” he replied, hurrying back to the laptop.
There were a number of files on the disk. Kyle clicked one labeled:
‘Manifestation 008 - Podcast episode.’
A voice begins to speak over a background image of the SimioDyn logo.
“Subject has produced her eighth successful thought form today, A DVD in a box. This DVD was an episode of her favorite podcast series, ‘CreepCast.’ The DVD contents follow.”
“WELCOME BACK TO CREEPCAST!” The background image changes abruptly to a close-up shot of a man. He has thick, curly hair and a wildly unkempt beard. His black T-shirt shows a series of white lightning bolts, spelling out gibberish. He stares into the camera with a comically serious glare. “Today we’re reading a story called “I Dared My Best Friend To Ruin My Life.”
“That’s right! This was recommended a lot on the subreddit by you all.” The camera view changes to show three hosts on the screen, each framed and filming themselves separately. Another of the hosts is speaking now, a man with short black hair and thin beard. He sports a Hawaiian style shirt, with green palm fronds.
“Yeah!” The third host squeaks. She is a young girl, about thirteen years old. This host has her long blonde hair back in a ponytail. She wears a bright pink shirt which reads ‘Seven Sisters’. “And it’s really bad,” she continues, “it’ll be so funny. We’ll make fun of it, because it’s not very scary at all.”
“You bet, Holly!” The first host, the man with the lightning scratches on his shirt, speaks excitedly, “It’ll have David fucking King in it, and we’ll make fun of it.” He agrees.
“Holly, your hair looks really pretty today,” The host in the Hawaiian shirt chimes in. The palm fronds on his shirt have changed to pineapples.
“Thanks Wendi! The girls at school said I was ugly.” Holly frowns, shaking her head.
“Well, if I ever met those girls, I would make fun of them too.” The other host adds in his deep voice, “They’d start crying because I’d be so mean to them.” His shirt has changed to a plain white text which reads ‘Meat Canyon productions’.
“I know, Hunter. I wish you could come to school with me,” she speaks with a frown. The first host, Hunter, makes a joke. It is not audible, but both Wendi and Holly laugh.
“Let’s start this episode!” Wendi says. The screen quickly fades back to the background of the SimioDyn logo, along with the text:
‘Manifestation 008 - Podcast episode.’
Wellers and Kyle stare at the screen in disbelief.
“That was unsettling,” Dr. Wellers finally says, shaking his head.
“Totally, dude. What kind of pedos would host a podcast with a kid?” Kyle wrinkled his nose. Wellers squinted at Kyle.
“I don’t… think…”
They were interrupted by a woman’s voice.
“Hello?” she called softly. Dr. Wellers rushed to the table, with Kyle not far behind.
“I’m Doctor Wellers - are you alright?” Wellers leaned over the woman, who struggled to sit up. Her stump moved as she tried to grab onto something, and she searched her person with her remaining hand.
“Calm down,” Wellers insisted, “we’re watching over you. You killed that thing. It’s gone,” She gazed around the room, dark eyes wide and curious.
“I’m Doctor Wellers,” he repeated himself, “This is Kyle, and that’s Jacobi. Do you remember-...” The doctor tried to ask a question, but the woman cut him off.
“We have to save Holly,” fishing into her pocket, she retrieved a scrap of notebook paper, forcing it into Wellers’ hands, “Not much time. If she dies…” her voice was faint, weakening by the word, but the woman pushed on. “We all die…”
“We know Holly,” Wellers accepted the paper, reading the page, “Do you know where she is?”
“Lower floor,” her stump continued to wiggle, and she grasped at Wellers’ shoulder with her good hand, “The Shambler is trying to find her,” she spoke with a British accent, her words slowing down.
“The Shambler?” Kyle asked.
But the woman didn’t answer. She laid back, glassy eyes staring up at the ceiling. Jacobi joined them at the table, looking down at the paper clutched in Wellers’ trembling hand. It was a printed sheet with a numbered list, though some of the numbered items were destroyed behind dirt and debris.
PROJECT: STARGATE 2
SUBJECT: BROWN, HOLLY
AGE:13
CAPABILITIES PROJECTION: EXTREME
SUCCESSFUL MANIFESTATIONS TO DATE: 27
SEMI-SUCCESFUL: 88
UNSUCCESSFUL: 11
SUCCESSFUL THOUGHT-FORM OBJECTS MANIFESTED
001 - A KITTEN
002 - HUMAN MALE, ‘THE PREDATOR’
008 - PODCAST EPISODE DVD
010 - HUMAN FEMALE, ‘MOTHER’
011 - HUMAN MALE, CREEPCAST CHARACTER ‘MR./DR. WELLERS’
014 - HUMAN FEMALE, CREEPCAST CHARACTER‘BRISTOL’
015 - HUMAN FEMALE, CREEPCAST CHARACTER‘JACOBI’
023 - HUMAN MALE, CREEPCAST CHARACTER‘BORRASCA KYLE’
The trio stared at the paper wordlessly. Finally, Jacobi broke the silence. “What are we?” she asked, tears in her eyes. “Some kind of…CreepCast?”