[FICTION] Tales from Port Astor | Whispers 9

 “Hello caller, you’re on the air…”

 

"It was a weird time the other night, around Tuesday? I was taking a walk out near Mauricio and 9th, and it was real quiet. Sure, there were the usual tweakers and homeless, but it felt… I don’t know, just really quiet. In a way that it doesn’t really get in the middle of a big city."

"I was out walking just because, you know, there’s a lot going on in the world right now and I think staying inside and doom-spiraling isn’t really helping. So, even though Port Astor is shit, I decided to go out. When I moved here from The Bay Area, I was told about ‘a sense of mystery’, and that this was a different hub to grow in—and cheaper than San Francisco to a frankly gross degree. And, sure, I had heard it had problems, but what major city doesn’t? I’m sure we are all aware of apps that track sighting of homeless people pooping back home, and Fox hammering home how it’s a gay den of sin. My point—I thought I was prepared."

"Anyway, I am walking down Mauricio, and it’s too fuckin’ quiet. I start to wander, thinking about all of it going on; protests, crime, genocides, and all of that going on in the world. And like, I’m just a dude, one solitary ass dude. But there’s got to be something I can do?"

"I didn’t realize how dark it had suddenly gotten after what must have been over a dozen blocks, and I mean dark. Like, ‘I can’t see the next block’ dark. I think that’s what pulled me out of my head. I didn’t know if it was just that one, or all of the street lights in the area just stopped or if I was just hallucinating. But I swear, I saw some weird red eye-shine just out there, when I really started to look."

"Now, I have seen my fair share of critters in the city. Back home, we had coyotes, raccoons, and the odd feral dog that animal services missed. But this wasn’t that. It had an odd, ambling motion to it, with the red eyes bobbing in a hard to describe way, and clearly forward facing, but too big for either for a coyote or whatever. And it was staring right at my frightened ass."

"Suddenly very aware of how alone I apparently was, I started to back up, but not turning around. I half-remembered something about how running from an animal could provoke it into running, so I didn’t do that. I just sort of slowly backed up. And it kept moving out there in the dark. And then I remembered; if there’s no light, then how is there eye-shine? And it was so, so quiet. I could hear it, that chuffing, droning breathing. It sounded wet."

"I was getting sweaty and felt my back pinching in a way when you know you are somewhere you shouldn’t be, like a kid out passed curfew or ‘exploring’ the back area of a mall. I felt this weird stalemate with this thing, because it seemed to just be advancing just a little faster than I was retreating, and while I didn’t know what it was, I knew I didn’t want to know. I couldn’t not run then. But, wouldn’t you know it, it’s hard to quickly turn and run when you can’t really see. I instantly turned and smashed my nose on an unexpected wall that even now, I’m not sure how it could have been there."

"I heard the thing shuffling, grossly wheezing as it got nearer, and I looked up and saw those eyes moving more vigorously than before, nearly like they were vibrating up and down. I tried to scramble up, and I think that made it feel some kind of way, because it stopped moving. It just kind of stopped there however far away it was—it was so dark that I had no idea how far."

"When it did, those eyes instantly stopped their motion, and in a way that was way too smoothly, they moved straight up to about my height. Human height. The breathing noise suddenly stopped. And it was so quiet, I felt like I could hear my own blood moving in my body."

"It felt like a lifetime just standing there in the dark, pressed up against the surprise wall, and then I swore I heard something. It sounded like a car, like how a car when you are on a sidewalk and it has that loud approaching sound? The doppler-something effect? My brain was so pre-occupied being terrified to really put a lot of thought into it, but I noticed it."

"I’m watching this thing watching me, and that damned car noise sounds like it is right next to me, and then that’s when I see headlights. And… what it’s lighting up doesn’t look anything like Mauricio. It doesn’t look like a street. It doesn’t look like anywhere I was. I saw smooth concrete smeared with dark stains, black gunk, and for whatever reason the smell. Mother of Christ, the smell of acidic bile and tang just hit my like a truck, my nose and eyes watered in an instant. But it only did after I saw it. Was it there the whole time?"

"And then the light hit the thing. It didn’t have skin, and was shaped… like me? I didn’t have a chance to take it all in because as soon as the light hit the thing, I… was standing back on Mauricio and 9th. I turned my ass around and ran home."

"I don’t think I am going to take any more walks at night.”

“… thank you, caller.”