Crazy, Crazy, Crazy
Where did it start?
I guess you could say that it started at my old job. See, I was working for the UPS. Yup, a postal worker. Bad job, lousy pay, but I liked it. LIKED it. Now I look back and am glad that I left. But should I have? After all, now that that happened, strange shit's been going on with me... figuratively speaking, but literally. You'll see what I mean.
* * * * *
The streets are all empty, and a sickly white fog enshrouds the whole place. There is snow falling from the sky, even though it's the middle of summer. Well, almost the middle of summer, actually. But let's get back on track. You can't even see the sky where all the snow is coming from. Fuck, you can't even see more than several feet in front of ya. It's terrible. And that's not the worst part. The whole town is deserted. I see asphalt, I see a car parked after running down this endless street for a bit, but other than that, I see no people.
No people.... but something else...
* * * * *
Anyways, I strayed off the subject. I was talking about how it all started, with me leaving my job. See, when I got the job at first, I was doin' the usual shit. Y'know, delivering packages and such to nice suburban homes and stuff. Then one day, things change. Why? I dunno. They just do.
Okay, so my old boss walks up to me, hands me a package. The package has no address or postage, just the same old brown paper package insulated by bubble wrap and plastic on the inside, the kind we always use. I say "Boss? Where the hell do I take this?". He says nothing, just hands me a piece of paper with an address written on it. I can't remember it, I ain't no fuckin' elephant. So while he hands me the paper, he's acting all nervous and all, his hand slightly shivering. He seems to sigh with relief when I say I'll do it, but only if he pays me double for a week. To my surprise, he says he'll pay TRIPLE for the entire time I deliver this. Of course, I eagerly accept this run. Piece o' cake.
* * * * *
It's really quiet here, except for the slight sound of howling wind, like the sky's being muted. Fuckin' crazy. Stopping my walk, I pull out the little pocket radio I've kept with me for my jobs since I started, since the vehicle I used had a broken one. Typical. Anyway, I'm flippin' the dial, trying to to get a good station, yet nothing pops up. Nothing, not even static.
Shit.
I keep walking down the same street I've been walkin' on since I got here. And what do ya know, there's a sidewalk. Good. Now I can see if there's another street coming up. There has to be. This is a town, after all. All towns got multiple streets... right?
Wait a minute. My radio's pickin' something up. Faintly, but certainly. It's static. No, it's more than that. It's white noise. Y'know, it contains all the aspects of noise, yet it is not. Maybe I'm wrong, I only know about it from what a friend of mine told me long ago. Anyway, there's white noise and faint static emanating from my pocket radio. What the fuck's this mean? It's not increasing in pitch or anything, so I keep walking... I should turn it off, but anything sounds better than the eerie silence of this place...
* * * * *
Okay, so I use some road maps to get to this address. It's in one of those old suburban neighborhoods from the 50's or so. Y'know, the kind where they closed off people of color in favor of white majority. Fucking racist assholes. It seems unchanged since those times, since I see several kids playing in the yards of several houses, and they're all white. 'Course, it ain't the kids' fault. So I'm driving for a while, and I find what I'm looking for. The house is in a cul-de-sac, all by itself, and it's fuckin' HUGE. I can't remember any details about how it looked, really. All I remember is that in the driveway, as if expecting me all along, is a man. Not dressed funny, not looking funny, just a normal, regular white suburbanite. And he scares me. Somehow, he just fucking scares me.
So I get down from the truck, my fright still there but fading away after I reassure myself that this is a regular old neighborhood, and that it's still daylight. The man stands there, immobile, until I get several feet away from him. Then, he walks toward me, smiling a plastic PR smile.
"May I?" he says, gesturing toward the package. Now that he's closer, I get a better look at him. His skin's a little paler than most of his kind. There's this funny, sickeningly sweet smell coming from him.
I say "Yeah," and hand it to him, glad to be rid of it, thinking over and over about the triple pay I'm getting for this. Normally I would have the recipient of a package give their signature as proof of delivery. But I didn't have the papers, I forgot them in the van. And I didn't want to go back, 'cos I knew that I'd have to see that guy again after I got the papers.
"I don't need a signature, Roland knows," the stock character says, reciting the name of my boss. Good. That means I can leave. Without a word, I turn around and walk swiftly to my car. I drive away as quickly as possible, not looking back. Not thinking about the package, about the normal guy that was so... well, so damn creepy.
Come to think of it, perhaps it was the fact that he was appearing to try and act so normal that I could sense his abnormality seeping through. As a matter of fact, I DO recall a bit about that house; it was old and dilapidated, but it looked almost… organic? That house looked alive, man! Shit, now I remember that there was this odd symbol on the door of the house, it looked like a… circle with… shit, I can't remember.
And then, as I am out of the neighborhood, I realize that it is night.
* * * * *
That fuckin' pocket radio's going off again. Not that it's been dormant; it's been going off ever since I've pulled it out. It's just that now, the white noise is increasing in frequency and getting louder. It's starting to get quite annoying.
I've found another street after following the sidewalk. Matheson Street. The guy who wrote Hell House. Creepy book. Why I thought of that now, I don't know. Same with everything here. I just don't know. I go on that street, following yet another long asphalt strip, staying close to the sidewalk to see when another street will pop up. So far, nothing. Fog and snow, nothing else.
My pocket radio's going insane, and it's taking me along with it. What the fuck's wrong with this thing? I should turn it off. As I reach to do so, I notice another sound. Not the static, not the white noise, but something else. The flapping of wings. And it's getting closer.
I hear a strange, birdlike sound. No, more like... I dunno. Kind of birdlike, kind of not. Wait a minute. That's not wing flapping. It sounds more like the dragging of material across a floor. Plush material, that soft synthesized material. Y'know like the stuff they use to make--huh?
What is that? What the fucking hell is that?!
* * * * *
I get my triple pay from the boss, who seems relieved now more than before. He tells me that if I keep on doing these "side jobs" (his own words), he'll keep on paying me triple, and not hourly, but commission. $100 for this package, $300 for the next, and he pays triple that. Where the hell does he get all that money? Ah, fuck it, I don't care. I need it. Sure, I say, I'll do the jobs. And so I did them. And I got paid a lot.
But the places I brought the packages to were weird, even more so than the place... or the person I brought it to. I can't remember. I don't want to remember. I just want to think of the money I got paid, how much I made. But curiosity is nagging at my conscience, and one day I decide to take a break. Hell, I got paid enough to make me live the good life for quite some time.
So I drive my regular vehicle, a standard car (don't ask me the brand or anything), down to the nearest Denny's-style restaurant, taking the package with me. I find a table in the smoking section with the help of a waiter and seat myself there, ordering a chicken-fried steak and eggs platter with some Coke. Many people are here tonight (I can't remember how the time passed from afternoon to night during my "workday", which is receiving a package and an address to take it to), eating, chatting, and laughing. Smoking their coffin nails. I feel comfortable here.
While waiting for my food, I take a look at the package I brought with me. It isn't really heavy, and the contents shift a bit, telling me that the package is bigger than what's in it. I don't want to shake it or anything, but I want to know what I'm being paid to deliver. I start to open it, but then my food arrives. I decide to open it while eating.
Sipping the Coke after a bite of the breaded steak and eggs, I use my fingers to tear open the paper package. It yields easily. And inside is a bag. A plastic bag filled with white powder. Drugs.
Drugs?
Of course that would explain all the money I've been getting as a courier. It would explain the shadiness of the type of work I've been doing. But how does it explain the countless houses I've been to that seem to emanate something... something dreadful from them? How does it explain the seemingly plain suburban male that was so damned creepy, or the other similar people I've run into? How does it explain that?
Did I mention that there's a symbol on this package of what appears to be blow? It's a circle with a triangle within, along with some other squiggly markings that are probably written language. Well, as far as I can tell it looks like language. Don't take my word for it.
My food is finished, but I didn't notice it. I pay the bill, and I leave in my car, taking the package with me. Nearing the bridge in this city I live in, I toss the package and its contents into the river below. Fuck it. It may be only drugs, but the delivering of it is creeping me out too much. I don't need it. I'm gonna leave this city, find another place, and another job. I drive away from the bridge, onto the interstate, and off to my next destination, wherever it may be.
* * * * *
Here.
Right fucking here, oh shit there it is. Oh God, of fuck, just LOOK at it!
It looks like a fucking large sized teddy bear from hell, bleeding from where its eyes should be, dragging its synthetic paws/feet on the asphalt, the ends of its paws/hands bristling with very long, very sharp claws. And it's RIGHT FUCKING IN FRONT OF ME. Opening its mouth, shamblin' forward, revealing a toothless, plush maw squirting more red liquid that could only be blood.
Well, fuck a duck, gotta keep my cool somehow. Of course, I turn tail and run. I don't know where I'm going, and I don't care. I just wanna get away from that thing. Holy shit...
My radio's going apeshit. I swear, it almost messed up my eardrums when that fucking toy bear thing hobbled toward me. It's still going crazy, spitting out static and white noise, but it's diminishing slowly, steadily. And that is good.
God, those drugs. Those goddamned drugs. I wish I never got into that courier shit. I wish I never got that job. I wish I never saw that person, that weird suburbanite person in the middle of the road when I got off the interstate to find a gas station. I wish I never swerved and crashed when I tried to avoid him. I wish I never woke up in my car and--well, you get the picture. Heh. I may be a dead man, but hell, might as well go down laughing.
Fuck it. I gotta keep my cool. I gotta. Still, that bear thing... oh man... what the hell is it? Why was it there? Why was it coming after me?
Oh no. The radio's going off again. I can hear the sounds of something--no, more like someone--making sounds with their vocal chords, not speech but something more primitive, like...
Like an ape. Or rather, an ape-man. Right behind me.
Oh shit... oh no please. This thing's worse. Far from your regular Planet of the Apes character, this one looks like a skinned man with a chimp's head; mouth open, blood-shot eyes wide open, running on all fours after me. It grabs at my foot, oh SHIT! A good kick sends its head back, cracking its jaw. It doesn't even cry out in pain, but falls to the ground, dead. I know it's dead.
I keep on running, I don't know where to. I can't remember where my car is, and my radio's being all weird still, Not intense like last time, but still crazy. And that's not good. Oh, FUCK! My leg! My fucking leg! And that bear thing's there, bleeding from its eyes and mouth, it's claws fresh with my blood...
I slip. Probably on my own blood, probably not. But there's a huge hole beneath me, and in it I fall. There's darkness for a long time, and my radio goes out. But not myself, I'm screaming, screaming...
Sharpened stakes wait below. I'm dead. End of the road, sucker. Wish ya never took those weird jobs, eh? Hope you enjoy your next appointment, pun intended. Might as well die a shitty joker than a regular guy. Here they come.
* * * * *
Light.
I'm in the Denny's-style restaurant. Wait, no, this looks different. There's no one here at all, and the seats and tables are in different places. A plate heaped with white powdery stuff lies on a table before me. My head hurts, and I remember...
I tense up, but there's nothing. My pocket radio is still on, but there's no sound emanating from it. Good. I stand up from where I am lying, a bench used for people waiting for their table to be ready. There's light in here, but outside the windows, there's fog and snow. Still. I'm still here.
There's something in my hand. Smooth, firm and reassuring. The hilt of a sword. A Japanese katana, the long sword that goes with the wakizashi. Single bladed, ancient, and VERY sharp. I feel a lot better. On the table beside the plate of white powder stuff (the drugs?) there's my pocket radio, along with a flashlight that goes on your breast pocket. A map is there too, and a first aid kit. As if something, someone, has placed it all there...
Fuck it. I need to get out and get away from this shit. I can do it. I know I can. I take all the stuff and hold the katana at my side. I kick the table with the plate on it, watching with fear, anger, and hate as the plate shatters on the floor, spilling white powder all over the floor. I am unaware that I am laughing the entire time.
I hate this place. And I'm gonna leave. Catch ya later, sucker.
Fin