Skip to main content

[FICTION] Tales From Port Astor | Whispers 6

 

“Hello caller, you are on the air.”


“I took this job about 6 months ago, and it’s been tough going. I worked security back east for years before moving out here to the West Coast; apartments, scrap yards, abandoned buildings owned by some investment company that is nervous that someone might have the audacity to go into an empty building. My ops manager said something about ‘liability concerns’, but honestly I chalk it up to old dudes in pinstripes being stingy assholes.”

“When I first came here, though, to my new site in town, I knew that there was something wrong here. They got me watching out at a waste dump; you know, like where shit flies outta the water system? It stinks, literally, hah! Slow work; easy work. At first. My first thoughts were that this was another warm-body site at another industrial zone where no one in there right mind, or their little brother’s, would ever think about fooling around. My first clue that this might not be true was in the post orders, which are pretty short; 'remove trespassers found on site, and call North Astor Police Department for non-compliant trespassers', and 'immediately call client if anyone is found exiting from disposal system.'

“The first one, pretty standard stuff. Some bum comes over the fence, you tell ‘em to scram, and go from there. The second one, not so much. That’s some Shawshank shit. I remember the first time I had to call on it, too. I was in the little guard booth watching some Top Ten video, and by the reflection of the moon on the water in the channel, I saw a big old chunk a’something come out of the pipes, then the splash in the muddy bank. I damn near spit my sandwich out. I went out to see what it was, and it was a grown ass man that had been birthed out of the municipal water system! I went down to check on him, to see if he was still alive so I knew who I had to call next, and that’s where this all gets weirder. See, first thing I notice is that he’s got these… holes all over him. Like he’s been stabbed all over his body. And how pale he was; even covered in god-knows-what, how goddamned pale he was. I’ve seen Irish people, but they can’t hold a candle to this son of a bitch. It’s like he was drained of all he was worth. He started coughing, which scared the ever-loving Jesus outta me, and just… Convulsing. Shaking.”

“I scramble up the hill to the guard booth, since my cell don’t work this far out for some reason, and use the old land line to call 911 for an ambulance. I figured that I could call the client afterwards to let them know what was up. The operator was real weird about it, though, asking me to restate the address a few times, which I first thought might have been because it is some weird site out in the sticks. After I got off with the dispatcher, I ran out to the bank to see if ‘Dufresne’ was still breathing, and I could hear the splashing before I saw him, so I took it as a good sign before going back to the shack. That’s when I saw the SUVs signed “MALAMEDI”—the client, pull up onto the site. Like six big dudes come out, four of them surround me and start asking these rapid fire questions: ‘When did it come out’, ‘did it say something? Anything?’, and I got real nervous and stammered out something sounding like an answer, when I heard a couple of loud pops come from the channel. They kept me there, like they was trying to keep my attention, when out of the corner of my eye, I could see the other two carrying off the guy. I think they noticed my noticing, and they asked me for my ID. I wasn’t sure, but they got real angry when I didn’t, so I ended up forking it out, and they took a picture of my card, and told me to never tell anyone what I saw here, otherwise I’d find myself in a real’ unpleasant situation’. I shut up, and nodded my head in agreement, and they soon enough left.”

“I noted this all down in my report. The next day, I get a call from the ops manager saying that the client ask that I don’t do that, and being thoroughly weirded out, I just agreed. That was about 5 months ago now. There’s been a whole group of people who come outta those pipes; I haven’t called anyone on them. The flop on out, and then some of them just drift out with the tide. Some get up, freak out, and run off into the dark. I don’t know where they go. All I know is that if I don’t call anyone about it, then no one shows up, and I don’t have to listen to someone get shot again.”

 

“Thank you, caller.”

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

[Guest Writer] Gemini by Brian Rydquist

Editor's Note: This is a content warning for those sensitive to certain topics; self-harm, child loss, graphic descriptions of violence.            Sylvia bent over the lifeless bodies of the newborn infants she had just spent six hellish hours delivering. Screams of anguish poured from her diaphragm, blood soaked her nightgown from the waist down. Her husband William knelt beside her, stroking her shoulder in a futile attempt at comfort. The midwife, an elderly Inuit woman, knelt on her otherside. “Please miss,  you must lay down. Your body has suffered incredible stress, the birth was not a good one.” “My babies, my babies, this can’t be!” Sylvia shrieked, deaf to the woman’s words. “Shh, shh,” William was muttering as he rubbed her shoulders. “Maybe it won’t be, I have already sent for the spirit leader of my tribe. He should arrive any moment.” “Don’t be a fool! How dare you give my wife this false hope! You can clearly see the babies are dead, and besides, no one cou
4 comments
Read more

[Guest Writer] Rain, Again by Charlena Kea

  Uncle, it is happening again. The rain has come. I have spent thousands of nights praying that the world would realize something when they pulled your small body from the river. How delicate life is. How precious. How it floats and swells and then vanishes in even the gentlest currents. I prayed you would be more than a forgotten proverb. In a story about big men in faraway places. Their empty fists and uncalloused fingertips meeting tabletops unscathed. And the rain falling faithfully in turn. They say they are here to protect us. That we are safe behind a blinding cloud of rubble and the dust of month-old bones. But I always wonder why they did not protect you; my most precious kin. I wonder what it is that must be offered to deserve their protection. Because your fluttering pulse and brand new eyes for an old and broken world were not enough. A child’s body and a child’s heart is not enough. They didn’t protect you when the squall of fire and metal touched down on the land tha
2 comments
Read more

[FICTION] Tales from Port Astor | Sepulcher

 This is part three, and the finale, of this year's mini series! You can read part two here .                Anton dropped his bag down the shaft. After jimmying the outside doors, evading city employees and security, and going in a general downward direction, he had found it; the Plague Tunnels of Port Astor. He then dropped down himself, kicking up dust that hasn’t seen the light of day in nearly a century. Anton turned on his headlamp, which only stubbornly obliged. It revealed where he was; in the alley way between two buildings. As he stepped out into the forgotten street, he could make out one of the ancient signs; “ARTHUR’S IMPORTS & RARE BOOKS”. He cleared some of the dust from the window, which hung in the heavy air.                 He shined a light into the store, and as he did, an immense clamor was heard from within. Anton jumped back, and would have screamed if he hadn’t stifled it. He was, after all, trespassing. The shop door was still in place, and secured wi
Post a Comment
Read more