Future Day 2

Halifax awoke. It was very dark and hard to breathe. In fact it was pitch black. Something was smothering his face. He tried to remain quiet but was gasping for air. He couldn’t move his hand with the knob arm. He felt along his face with the other hand. A rubbery bulbous texture was covering the upper half of his head and creeping down over part of his mouth. He couldn’t see a thing. He gripped the edge of the rubbery mask and pulled with all his strength, but its grip only seemed to tighten and clasp harder onto his head. The throbbing sensation that pulsed through his arm now flowed through the top of his head as well. He gave it another yank and slammed his elbow into the desk resounding in a heavy bang. He froze in a panic realizing just exactly where he was again and what he had heard before he had fallen asleep. He sat silent listening and breathing as calmly as possible through the obstructing thing clamping down on his head and arm and waited for a reaction from the sound he had caused. No reaction came and he tried pulling harder and harder against his mask. He wondered if he was now alone. He grew bolder and decided to test out this thought. He knocked against the wooden table. He knocked again even louder. He nervously waited, but there was no reaction. Carefully he crept out from underneath the desk. As he lay on the floor he heard a faint scratching sound. He stayed still and listened. The sound continued on intermittently scratching away. He pulled himself up using the side of the desk and then softly stepped backwards until he reached the wall. Slowly he walked towards the door guiding himself with one hand on the wall. The scratching stopped and the sound of a sheet of paper being roughly torn from out of a notebook was heard. He stopped moving and cowered in his place. A few footsteps followed. “Misssssss….toree……” the voice of the creature that had hovered above his bedside when he first awoke uttered. From another direction the clear fragment of a sentence entered his hearing saying “…eson I have you’re list of…” and exited his hearing going another direction. He slowly continued walking away as the voice of the creature continued grumbling on. It stopped and he heard that gurgled sound of a fly buzzing again coming from the same direction. Then a chair scooted backwards scraping against the floor. He quickened his pace and reached the corner of the room. A set of footsteps began coming his way from the direction of the voices. A second pair of steps could be heard not approaching him but remaining around the desk. He cowered once more and leaned into the corner of the room holding his free hand up over his misshapen head. The scratching began again in the distance and the footsteps grew louder. The door was opened and with a buzz from this being and a grumble from where the scratching was it closed and the footsteps went with it. The rubbery bulbous texture that encased his head seemed to loosen its grip under the touch of his hand. It too seemed to be trembling. He pressed against the wall and rose up from off the floor following along the door side wall. The sound of another sheet of paper being torn startled him as he felt along the broken door. A few of its boards were jutting out of the middle into slivers of wood. Whatever it was at the desk had stopped scratching and took a few steps, sat down, and scooted their chair around. His hand felt its way to the doorknob and he slowly turned it creaking the door open and gently closed it behind him. In an almost euphoric daze he glided against the wall until he met the rubble of the ceiling that had been falling inwards and began to climb the pile. He thought he had now arrived at the spot he had been at before he had heard the thudding sounds of those things coming from the rooftop. It was more caved in now and he felt a little nook up in the wall which he pushed himself up into. The space was very cramped but appeared to lead gradually upwards so he followed it on his knees.

Carefully he maneuvered his malformed arm and head combination around the debris. He had ended up going backwards up out of the rubble as it was easier to maneuver his deformation around all the cracks and crevices he had to struggle through. Finally he kicked a leg back into what felt like a very wide open space and then felt the slightest of breezes flowing down into the hole he was in. He scooted back a bit further and reached with his good arm behind himself grabbing onto the rooftop. He pushed both legs up out of the hole and with all his might he swung his body up and backwards throwing his entire weight up and out of the hole, but his odd head and arm couple remained lodged in the exit. Exasperated he lay flat on the rooftop with his one good arm stretched out to his side while his unfortunately shaped head and arm combination held him pinned down to the hole.

Having arrived at his destination the scientist hopped off his bike and walked it across the sidewalk easily dodging a few stray phantoms. Carefully he entered a building pushing his bike along with him at his side. At the front of the entrance room were a few large sign in desks for the building. A shape wandered around this room, but he knew its movements. At the desks were lined up a few clients always waiting patiently for the customer at the front of the line to fill out his never ending paper work. The two shapes behind the desk shuffled around occasionally and spoke to each other. Once when he had arrived over zealously early he had watched one of them conversing very animatedly on the telephone. He stayed near the walls and walked past the elevators to the stairwell. Just before the steps was a utility room that’s lock had been broken off. He rolled his bike inside and closed the door. He had never encountered one of them on the steps at this hour, but still every time he had to make the trek it felt as if he was approaching his death. He pulled out his flashlight but didn’t turn it on to conserve the battery life and began his walk up.

He exited the stairwell coming out onto the rooftop. He walked right up to the edge and flipped the switch of his flashlight. A few planks of wood led from this rooftop to a small terrace of another taller building with a large radio tower at the top. A radio tower much larger and state-of-the-art than the town had ever required. Shining the light onto these planks he held his breath and began walking across them. The light shined in between the cracks of the planks and down into the narrow alleyway. He went through a door and into the building. He went up yet another stairwell with his flashlight off but in hand.

Arriving at the final floor before the rooftop there was a metal door that lay contorted on the stairway. It was a mistake to have thought they could keep it out of here. He turned his flash light on and went in the room. Immediately pointing it into the open door at the left he shined it onto the cause of the broken door. A tubby shaped being sat in a chair with a computer and a high quality microphone placed before him. His upper half was in much worse shape than the bottom. The light shone right through him as its pieces swirled around. He was the nighttime disc jockey and there was no way of keeping him from busting the door down to do his duty. Although this entire level operated on a backup emergency generator all but the main control centers equipment had been shut off to conserve power. When he wasn’t getting a flashlight shone on him this left the DJ in the dark pushing functionless buttons and mumbling to no one throughout the night. He shut the door on the DJ who liked to keep it open as he worked. Although he knew it was useless to do so it was far more comforting to have it closed than open, but he always remembered to open it back up for him on his way out lest he bang the door down when his shift ended and deprive him of this small comfort.

Flicking his flashlight off he walked on towards the faint neon glow of lights illuminating around the corner. Here could be seen the main control room through a soundproof glass door. It was filled with computers, monitoring equipment, and a few large mixing boards. He placed his bag on a table and pulled out a notebook and the sandwich. He walked over to a window and pushed it open letting in the cold air, there stood the tower he had rode by and will later find his way home by. It wasn’t as tall as the radio tower, but it loomed just as impressively in the glow of the smog. He opened up a small refrigerator in the corner of the room. Inside was a dark gray rectangular substance in a plastic bag. He carefully picked it up with his rubber gloved hands and tossed it out of the window. He shut the window and picked up the sandwich from the table and placed it carefully into the fridge in the exact spot where the previous substance had been. He took a look at his watch and grabbed his notebook quickly walking over into the control room and looking at the computer monitoring equipment. He carefully observed a series of waveforms that had been recorded throughout the day and were being recorded at this exact moment. He marked down the time, the durations, the frequencies, but most importantly he marked down the intensity. The intensity was now at its very weakest point from throughout the day which was consistent with the previous days. He looked at his watch again and got up from the computer. He let himself into one of a few isolated sound booths and sat in the dark watching and waiting.

 

Day to be continued...