Still, the locals are pretty insistent about saying she exists. Normally you brush off this kind of talk because locals on every floor tell stories about someone they know or saw that got taken by the Creep. The thing is, we know what the Creep does to a person if they get trapped in it. They don’t change, they don’t get warped, and the stuff doesn’t grow on your skin. Again, six years of doing this, and I’ve never seen anything like that.
Now, I’m quite aware that it will lash out at you. It’ll even engulf you, and at that point, you’re almost guaranteed to die unless you survive the flamethrower we apply to get your body out. If so, count yourself lucky. People who get trapped in the Creep when it gets agitated normally suffocate.
What the Creep doesn’t do is grow on you. It doesn’t infect your skin or get into your blood. Of course, I’ve never chosen to barricade myself inside an infested room and waited to see if it’d attach to me, but we come across people on the lower levels that spend their lives in moderate Creep conditions.
No. They are most definitely not showing any signs of the Creep covering their bodies or any of that nonsense. Still, the people on Floor 16 are particularly insistent that Sally does exist. And I will admit, they have some rather interesting proof. In particular, the far western halls are littered with Security gear. Vests, clothing, gloves, that sort of thing. Security doesn’t simply take their clothes off to dump it in the hallways, and yet Tower Authority refuses to send a Cleanup crew to remove all of it. So, does that make me suspicious?
Well… slightly.
Of course, the stories of Creepy Sally are old. They were old, apparently, when I was a kid. Even my father remembered hearing them when he was young, so that means they go back at least three generations. Stories like these mean a lot more to people like me that actually had to grow up in the lower levels. I lived on Floor 16, so I knew more about Sally than most people. I knew you didn’t go into the west wing unless you wanted her to eat you alive.
So, we never did. I never stepped foot over there until I was part of a scavenging team. Thing about the west wing is that it’s not heavily inhabited. There are a few families and people over there, don’t get me wrong, but a lot of those doors are red lights. Nobody living there. That’s creepy enough, but the worst part is wandering around and just noticing the thickness of the Creep. Even by Floor 16 standards, it’s pretty dense, so the infestation in the rooms must be out of control. It’s not just the Creep alone, though, that’s disturbing. What’s truly disturbing is the Security armor trapped inside of it. I’ve said that you find it strewn along the halls, but it’s not as if it’s just casually lying around on the ground. It’s actually trapped in the Creep itself.
The locals say it’s from the victims that Sally claimed when she tried to force her way up into the upper levels. Obviously Security has a tight grip on any threats to the upper floors, but it’s apparent, from all the abandoned weapons and equipment, that there were some significant Security losses on Floor 16 at some point. The fact that nobody from Cleanup came afterward indicates that Authority felt they’d disturb or agitate the situation further by sending in more people. Even these days, we try to avoid the west wing. Still, every once in a while, I go through and look. It’s really more for people that live on that floor. It gives them some peace of mind.
Well, you can imagine that by the time we’ve finished our parades upstairs, then gone through checkpoints, and finally finished doing extended patrols, that we’ve already burned a lot of time. You’re right. This process is something that Authority might want to address later, but as for now, it takes nearly the entire day just to make our way down to Floor 21.
My personal recommendation is that Authority make a more consistent effort of using Security on the lower levels to assure the people living there that we’re actually protecting them. That they have no reason to fear the Creep.
Of course, I wonder if, by Floor 21, any of that would make a difference.
A description of the current condition of Floor 21 follows.
As Authority is well aware, Floor 21 has been the first line of defense against the Creep for as long as we can remember now. There are, of course, rumors that at one time we lived lower in the tower. However, neither I nor my team have found any proof of this on any of our excursions. The items we’ve found seem to have belonged to people that lived before the Before. Also, from a practical perspective, it seems as if it would be impossible to live any farther below due to the incredibly deteriorated nature of the deep lower floors.
The first time I set foot on Floor 21, I was eighteen. I’d volunteered for the Scavengers and was quickly accepted. I say quickly because some people are only conditionally accepted due to their mental state. Those that are prone to panic or fear are first put through more extensive training sessions to see if they can master their emotions. As Authority is well aware, I never needed this. Call it whatever you will. Perhaps I lack a healthy sense of fear or self-preservation. Whatever you want to call it, I don’t panic when things go sour, and I don’t lose my cool.
That stated, even I was slightly unnerved the first time I left for the Scavenging.
One of the first things I noticed, and it is still true today, is the rustlike haze that hangs in the hallways. Some say that trace elements of the Creep disperse into the air, causing the haze. Using the same logic, we assume that the Creep causes hallucinations because it hangs so heavy in the environment. If nothing else, the years have proved that the Creep has debilitating mental effects on human beings, due to its inherent properties.
Whether that’s true or not is for Science and Authority to determine. I simply know that the already rust and concrete walls of the Tower are that much more dim on Floor 21. This is the most despised rotation for all of Security, and you can see it in their posture at the door. Even though they have their gas masks on at all times, they’re rigid, yet constantly shifting around to see if anything is approaching. You’ll notice them take an occasional look into the stairwell to see if the Creep is coming up. It never is, but that fact doesn’t ever help to relax them. Or anyone, really.
The paranoia and fear are thick, and the shadow people sightings become a daily occurrence. The bases of the walls are lined with slimy piles of what looks like muscle pushing up from the lower floors, an infestation that has to be battled against on an almost weekly basis through the use of superheated rods. Of course, you don’t want to be using flamethrowers on open walls and risking the infrastructure of the building, at least not if you don’t have to, so one of the central jobs of people living on these lowest levels is to patrol the hallways and use those red-hot rods to force back the Creep. When it recedes, so does the sticky fluid it produces, but inevitably both return. It’s just a matter of when.
People living on these floors despise their jobs, and it is no secret that they often trade their rotations with neighbors. This does come at quite a high price, though. Given the lack of supplies provided to the lowest levels, a black market of sorts has sprung up as people barter among themselves for different goods. Sometimes a man is so desperate to stay away from the abandoned halls of Floor 21 that he’ll sell an entire week’s worth of food.
It is a problem, one Authority has not addressed either by finding permanent solutions to the infestation or by reinforcing the area with Security. Even the Morale officers rarely come below Floor 17.
To be frank, the infestation at these levels is simply too high for a representative from Morale that is adjusted to the upper levels. Without the proper training, they panic and run. It is a known fact that we have lost such men into the depths of Floor 21 when these untrained men or women have lost control of their emotions and, in a blind panic, vanished into the maze that is the Tower. Where they go is impossible to determine due to the failure of surveillance equipment on these levels, a failure that goes back before my lifetime.