Young Writers Society

Chapter 2: This is Screaming Photo-Op

On an average day, Keith was dressed in layers of colorful clothing, with plenty of accessories to match. But today, he wore a plain long-sleeve shirt and steel-toe boots, for today was no average day.

He drove his car down a long, winding, and unpaved road in the woods. The sunlight flickered through the trees as he drove further and further in. Playing through his speakers was his favorite band, Avian Serenade—he memorized all the words to the song playing, "Hopeless Bird."

He rounded a corner, and the Sullivan Factory soon came into view.

Keith parked near the entrance. He got out, grabbing a duffel bag that held all of his gear.

He looked up in awe at the factory. It stood tall, towering 5 stories above the ground and casting a shadow over him. The rusted smoke stacks reached even higher than that. Ivy climbed the pale bricks, and the cracked windows were like little pools of darkness.

It was breathtaking.

The factory had big sliding doors, but they were locked up. A sudden sound from behind made Keith turn around. A white Mercedes-Benz was approaching. The car parked next to Keith’s, and a woman stepped out.

Gabriella Sullivan looked to be in her 60s. She wore a black dress with flats to match, as well as a pearl necklace. Judging by her expression, she had probably expected Keith to be older than he was; he got that a lot, just because of his old-sounding name.

He approached her, sticking his hand out. “Hello, ma’am. How are you today?”

“Good,” she replied, shaking his hand quickly.

She immediately walked over to the door, not stopping to engage in any small talk. She pulled a key out of a pocket in her dress and unlocked the door. As she did so, she tapped her foot impatiently and shuddered. The door slid open a tad bit with a screech.

She seemed like she wanted to leave this place as soon as possible, which was quite different from her positive demeanor in the email.

“I must warn you, Keith,” she said, not turning to look at him, “nobody has been in this factory for years. Nobody really knows what’s down there. I can’t be held liable if anything happens.”

Keith was taken aback by her cold demeanor. “Oh…well, it’s nothing to worry about, ma’am. I’ve—”

She walked straight past him, interrupting.

“Good day,” said Ms. Sullivan before hopping back into her car and leaving. He stared at her car as it got smaller and smaller, only looking away when he could no longer see it.

That was… strange, Keith thought. He looked up at the factory, and for once in his life, he felt nervous to enter an abandoned building.

Was Ms. Sullivan just being rude, or was there something else going on?

There was only one way to find out.

He pulled a paint respirator mask over his head and covered his hands with gloves. With a flashlight in one hand and a camera strap around his neck, he slid the door open. Broken pieces of glass and brick crunched under his feet as he walked inside.

The place seemed to be even bigger on the inside. Rusted steel beams could be seen overhead as dust motes floated down from the ceiling. The floor was littered with rubble. Green moss ran rampant in here, covering the machinery like a blanket.

Keith crouched down to take an angled photo, careful not to fall into any of the rubble.

There were multiple stories in the place, but Keith probably wouldn’t go that high up, since ladders and floors weren’t usually very stable after years of decay; this was, admittedly, something he learned from experience. He walked around, trying to find as many rooms that weren’t boarded up as possible.

Surprisingly, most of the rooms had open doors or no doors at all. Even more surprising was the fact that he didn’t see much graffiti—most of the time, these kinds of places were covered in it. Maybe it was for the better, though; he found it quite disrespectful to vandalize these beautiful places.

Something that he found a little odd was the lack of security. Usually, industrial places like this still had security even after they were put out of use. He didn’t see any cameras or meet anybody patrolling the grounds. Perhaps that was for the better, too; he wouldn’t have to have anybody breathing down his neck while he was here.

He took pictures of all sorts of things; huge buckets that once held molten metal, a large swinging hook overhead, and a ginormous furnace that loomed above like a dormant volcano. There were metal tubes with missing screws; there were light fixtures that had fallen from hundreds of feet in the air; there were entangled structures covered in dead vines.

And he had captured all of it. He had immortalized the wonder of this place for all to see—at least, all that visited his blog.

Venturing the factory brought him back to his childhood. When he was young, Keith, his siblings, and his father would take them on little adventures when their mother was working (she had never approved of these adventures anyways). They’d venture to abandoned businesses or ghost towns in the next state over. He’d tell them stories, sometimes of his own childhood, with exaggerated hand gestures and funny voices for different characters. 

Was it illegal? Probably. Was it dangerous? Definitely. Did breathing in all those chemicals have a life-long effect on Keith’s health? Perhaps.

But was it fun? Yes, and that’s all that really mattered. What was life if you weren’t living on the edge sometimes?

Even though the exact memories of his father were a little fuzzy after all this time, he could still remember the joy he felt back then.

Keith missed his dad, but he was just thankful for all the time they spent together. As he looked at these decaying walls, there were small pangs of sadness for the past—but it was a comforting kind of sadness, almost like a coping mechanism. And, sometimes, Keith felt that his father never really left—like he was right here by his side.

At least, that’s what he told himself. Deep down, he didn’t want to just imagine that his father was here; he wanted to see him again, to hear his voice again. He wished he could have done something, anything, for him to be here right now. But pretending helped him sleep better at night, so he stuck with it.

The final picture he had taken was of a control panel. It was raised a few feet off of the ground and had a small staircase.

He had explored all that there was to explore, and he was ready to leave now. He looked around for the entrance. He saw a huge block of outside light to his left and headed in that direction.

He wasn’t really paying attention to where he was going though, because he bumped right into the corner of the stairs.

It didn’t hurt too much, due to his steel-toe boots, but now something was off about the stairs. It was a little hard to notice at first, but it was definitely there.

There was a dim light coming from under the stairs

Keith bent down to make sure he was seeing things right. The stairs definitely weren’t broken or chipped; rather, they were raised up. He shined his flashlight into the little crevice, only to see more stairs underneath.

That was…strange. Very strange. In fact, this whole place was strange. From Ms. Sullivan’s behavior to the apparent lack of security cameras, there was something odd going on.

Every voice of reason in his head was telling him to leave this sketchy place, right here, right now.

Every voice except one, that is. His curiosity often spoke louder than reason.

He put down his equipment for a second and put both hands underneath the stairs. They lifted with ease (and an explosion of dust). He shone his flashlight down the long stairwell. He waited a bit, just to see if any sounds were coming from below.

When he heard nothing, he started to descend. The stairs were made of metal, but they weren’t rusty and they didn’t give under his feet. The ceiling was low, which meant that Keith had to hunch over a bit. Cobwebs hung from the ceiling—he avoided them as well as he could, but he freaked out when he walked directly into one.

After a few minutes of walking down stairs, Keith had finally made it to the bottom. He gasped as he rounded the landing.

The room in front of him was much larger than it logically should have been. There was debris scattered around and black mold growing on the concrete walls. Desks were cluttered with test tubes and scientific papers. Unlike the other parts of the factory, the lights were still on here, albeit quite dim.

What was this place? He really should have left, but he persisted.

He stopped as he walked past a desk. It was cluttered with test tubes and small lab instruments and notes. He took a peek at an open journal, which had yellowed pages and faint writing:

I think I have found a huge breakthrough in my research regarding the multiverse! I have been collecting data regarding radio waves in the atmosphere, and I seem to have found an anomaly. My scanners indicate a huge disturbance, possibly as large as the Earth’s moon.

—F. V.

He looked around at the surrounding notes, which were scribbled and covered in dirt from the bare floor.

…manipulation and measurement of subatomic particles… particle accelerator…

…quantum mechanics… string theory…

Half of the notes seemed to be about finding evidence for the multiverse theory, but some of them were about something else.

…philosophies…enlightenment…

…greater cause…mental blockages…

He walked a little further, and soon there were notes in different handwriting.

…genomes… gene editing techniques…

…synthetic cells are multiplying…growing at a higher rate than expected…

These notes were signed by Harrison Sullivan.

This had Keith confused. Harrison Sullivan? The original owner of this place?

What was all of this? What were these people talking about? He just didn’t understand.

His hands began to get cold and clammy, but he didn’t leave just yet.

The room he was currently in was large and rectangular, but straight ahead there was a hallway. Something glowed from within the hall.

As he went deeper and deeper into the lab, the research papers became increasingly more illegible; some were smudged, some were written messily, and some were even ripped in two. He picked one up. It had been bitten—presumably not by a human—, and the words were smeared with what seemed to be saliva. He dropped it.

Even though he had come here specifically to take pictures, he was not even tempted to take any now. He felt like he was looking at something forbidden.

When he finally entered the hallway, there were two doors: the closer of the two was already open, and the second one had something glowing green from inside.

He peeked into the closer door first, and gasped at what he saw. Inside was a huge machine in an even huger room. How could there possibly be so much space down here? It had all sorts of multicolored buttons and knobs. He wasn’t quite sure what the machine did, but it didn’t look as old as anything in the factory; it didn’t have as much rust, and its paint wasn’t chipping as much. How was that possible?

The other door was large and metallic with all kinds of warning stickers on it. It was closed, and something was glowing on the other side.

He stared at the door for a good minute, not sure if he wanted to go in.

Keith took a breath. He had gotten this far. There was no point in turning back now.

He slowly turned the doorknob and walked inside.

The room was the largest of them all. Many machines were scattered about, the functions of which he could not tell. There was a trail of green glowing goo on the metal floor.

He followed the trail and was met with a large glass tube. It was hooked up to many, many wires. The glass was cracked, and the surrounding ground was covered in the same green goo. He hadn’t got any on him, and yet his skin slightly tingled and itched in its presence.

He turned around. On the other side of the room was a giant triangular structure mounted on the wall. Incomprehensible symbols adorned the edges, and there was a yellow dashed line on the adjacent floor.

There were even more notes scattered around, but they were torn into shreds. He saw tiny glimpses of words. Creation. Ultimate life-form. Portal. Dimensions.

A shadow darted out of the corner of Keith’s eye. He quickly turned his head, but it was gone just as soon as it came. He looked frantically in every direction, but it was nowhere to be found.

His sense of fear finally kicked in. The incomprehensible scientific notes and machines were one thing, but finding another living being down here was something else entirely. There’s no telling what that shadow could have been—a rabid animal, a squatter, or something supernatural. He was going to get out of there, right now.

He quickly scooped up his bag. He started to run, but he tripped over some wires that he hadn’t seen.

He picked himself up, his face now wet with something. He touched his forehead, expecting dirt, mud, or even blood.

He looked down at his hand, which was covered in glowing green goo.

He jumped up, and to his horror, his whole body was covered in the stuff. Trying to wipe it off only made it spread more. It seeped through his clothes, making his skin itch and burn.

As if things couldn’t get any worse, he heard sparks. His head immediately shot to the adjacent wall structure—which he could only assume was some sort of portal.

His eyes widened as the ground began to shake. The portal-like structure emitted a low hum, and clumps of dust fell from the ceiling.

He booked it. He ran up the stairs as fast as he could without tripping. The respirator was making it hard to breathe. Once he got out of the secret lab, he dashed to the exit, swerving through large pieces of unidentifiable garbage.

As soon as he was out of the factory, he threw off his respirator, panting. He hunched over to catch his breath, taking off his gloves as his breathing slowed to normal.

With his heart hitting his ribcage like a hammer, he only had one question in his mind.

What. Was. That?!

More questions began to rush in. Had he hallucinated it all? Had he imagined it? Was this some sort of elaborate prank? Was any of it even real?

He looked back at the factory, and suddenly it looked a whole lot more terrifying. The tall structure—which he had once seen as beautiful—now looked monstrous; the sharp edges and corners were like dangerous spikes, and the gaping windows were like watchful eyes.

When he felt the subtle itch of something on top of his head, he immediately jumped up and panicked. He rustled his hands through his hair and shook off his hands and legs, trying to rid himself of whatever had latched onto him.

When he was sure it was gone, he sighed in relief. He looked down at the green substance on his hands. He couldn’t stay like this.

He didn’t have any other clothes to change into, but he could at least get the slime off of his skin. He opened the glovebox of his car and took out some hand wipes. He scrubbed quickly and vigorously, throwing the wipes to the ground when he was done. Were hand wipes biodegradable? Probably not, but this situation was too dire to think about things like that.

He did not want to stay here for another minute. He put all his stuff in the car and drove off.

The entire time, he was trying to keep his mind absolutely clear. He did not want to think a single thought about the factory or what he saw. It couldn’t have possibly been real.

Right?

The drive went smoothly. There wasn’t much traffic today. Keith didn’t even bother connecting his music streaming app to his car, so it had automatically been set to a radio station he never listened to. He ignored the way his skin itched and tingled. He ignored the way that it felt like little bugs were crawling on him.

The forest slowly transitioned into buildings as Keith approached Mayday City. He drove past all the stores and businesses. Trees started to appear again as he entered a more suburban area. In just a couple of blocks, he would be at his apartment.

But something was starting to happen to him. The itching sensation got stronger and soon evolved into burning. He got closer and closer to his apartment. A dull headache started to form. He saw little black dots in the corner of his eyes.

What was happening?

He was just now pulling into his apartment parking lot, parking right in front of his apartment—the fourth one on the first floor. He was going to go inside and take some over-the-counter medicine, and everything was going to be fine.

As he grabbed his stuff, his feelings only intensified. It felt like his head was spinning from the inside, and the black dots obscured more of his vision. The whole world was going blurry. He decided to just leave everything in his car; he’d get it out later.

Your keys, Keith, he told himself, get your keys. He fumbled around in his pockets until he felt them. It took a couple of tries to get the key in the hole, what with his blurry vision and shaking limbs, but he eventually unlocked the door.

He immediately collapsed onto the couch. Even though he was virtually blind now, he could generally sense where it was; it was a big blue blob in his vision that stood out from everything else.

He laid there, in a state that was between consciousness and unconsciousness. His limbs were heavy and hard to lift. He saw dots of all colors floating across the ceiling.

As he slipped out of consciousness, he thought he heard a voice. A girl’s giggling rang throughout his ears. At first it felt distant, but soon it was the only thing he could hear.

Suddenly, his eyes shot open.

~~~

Previous: Chapter 1

Next: Chapter 3