New Fears 2: Brand New Horror Stories by Masters of the Macabre

Q: (AFTER A MOMENT) …Joe?

A: (SOFT) No.

I didn’t—I don’t… I don’t feel good about it. But… I didn’t…

Q: You didn’t know him well enough to die for him.

A: Thank you for saying it.

(ANOTHER LONG PAUSE)

By the way, when I say “peeled”, I mean literally. Large patches of skin on my hand just—melted away, exposing layered patches of fat, visible veins and tendons. Nauseating, and painful as shit. I wound up having to have most of the rest of the epidermis debrided so the skin would grow back evenly, and I still don’t have any mobility in my right ring or little fingers.

By the time I got to the nearest ER, I’d been making a fist so long they had to sort of prise, sort of cut it open, because it’d already started healing shut. Human body’s an amazing thing, man. When they got my fingers uncurled, a bunch of stuff fell out: goo, pulp, faintly pinkish. Things that looked like bones, but soft—bendy. Like they’d been digested and shit back out. And something else.

It was a Ryerson University Engineering Department ring.

So yeah, nobody ever found much else of Joe. Just this… layer of sludge all over the apartment, unidentifiable, biological in origin. Just cracks in the ceiling and two broken bulbs lying in the far left corner, right by the window.

Adding insult to injury, the condo corporation tried like hell to blame me for the damage. They only gave up when I got a lawyer smart enough to point out that just publicizing the legal battle would tank sales in the entire building. That’s how I got out of my mortgage with enough money to do whatever I wanted after that.

But by that point I already knew what I had to do.

See, after that day? I couldn’t turn on an electric light anywhere—couldn’t even get near one—without hearing this… buzzing. Incandescent, CFL, LED, doesn’t matter. If I listen hard enough, like really, really hard, I can even hear it coming from computer screens or smartphones. And the buzzing… once you listen long enough, it sounds like—a voice. Whispering. I can’t ever make out what it’s saying, but I know it’s saying something. You know, how you can always tell?

And once it starts sounding like a voice, I know whose voice it is.

Has to be.

So.

(LONG PAUSE)

I quit my job. I bought a farmhouse—all stone and wood, not a bit of metal in it. I took up growing my own vegetables, raising my own chickens—they really are amazingly stupid birds, by the way. I made goddam sure they ripped out every piece of wiring in the building. I cut my own firewood, I buy oil supplies for lanterns and candles. Reading is the only entertainment I have. And when I’m too tired to read, I shut off the lantern and I sit in the dark, and the quiet, until I can fall asleep.

Because the grid is a web, a network of energies. Of ghosts. And things live in it, waiting for food. Hunting. Like spiders.

I mean, maybe I’m being paranoid. Maybe that thing was as ass-dumb as a chicken itself. But if it wasn’t… if it remembers there’s stuff here to eat, and at least one meal escaped… it might come looking. And I don’t want anybody else to die like Joe, eaten just because I wasn’t fast enough to get him to safety in time. That’s why I live alone. That’s the “conscience” part.

That’s why I’m telling you this story now. Because if it happened to me, it might happen again. To someone else.

(LONG, LONG PAUSE)

Hey. Did I lose you there, Doss?

Q: No. No, I just… um… I’m not sure what to say to all that. (PAUSE) I mean, I assume this is the reason for the anonymity and the alias. And the burner phone, too.

A: Bingo. (PAUSE) So how crazy do you think I am, now? C’mon. Scale of one to ten.

Q: Bronwyn, we don’t… look, that’s not…

A: Relax. I’ve heard your show before. You did an interview last year with those guys who’re waiting for the shape-shifting space lizards to reveal they control the world, remember?

Q: Well—yeah, but as long as they stuck to talking about building shelters and hunting schedules, they sounded sane. Maybe… maybe you could tell us a little more about your daily routine, the skills you use as part of your off-grid life…

A: Nope. I’ve already been on this phone too long.

Q: Wait, Bronwyn—one last question. If you’re afraid that this—thing, whatever—that it might come after whoever talks about it… should we be careful? What kind of… of risk would we be taking if we release this interview?

A: If you do think I’m crazy, then obviously none. Right?

Q: Bronwyn—

(DIAL TONE)