User:Beastazoid/Spooktober Horror Contest

THE VACUUM

“Nothing. That’s the first thing you hear. That’s the last thing you hear. It lurks. Not in one specific place. You can’t find it. You never can. But it always finds you.”

“The Vacuum.”

“Nothing.”

“You can’t go hunting for it. You can’t hear it. You never will. But it always hears you.”

“Nothing."

“It came from the stars. That’s what they say. Don’t believe them. It lurks. It’s looking for you. Hungry. Thirsty. But still smart. A predator until the end. 1 step ahead of you. 1 step behind you. Above you. Below you. Ahead of you.”

“BEHIND YOU.”

“Nothing.”

“Some say the Vacuum is a monster. It doesn’t take much convincing after a description like that to think so. But some might say it’s more human than we are for looking past our exterior, and what makes us who we are. The creature doesn’t care where you’ve come from, what you’ve done, or what you’re becoming. It doesn’t care if you’re trying to be a good person. It doesn’t care if you only believe in the here and now, and live on what benefits you. Saint, murderer, man, woman, celebrity, civilian; it does not care.”

“All it sees is spare nutrients. Food. Energy for the next hunt and the hunt after that. What do you see?”

“Nothing.”

“The way it captures you is interesting, to say the least. All sound gone in an instant. One heartbeat to the next, everything you hear is cut off. Muted. Stolen from you.”

“Nothing.”

“You’re not deaf. But you are crippled. 4 senses left at your disposal. All of them useless. You try to run, but you can’t even hear your puffing breath. Your panicked footsteps. The crunching of leaves, or the grind of pavement underneath your feet. You can run as far as your legs can take you. You can run until your eyes bulge, your lungs have no more air to give you, and the sweat runs down your forehead to sting your eyes.”

“It will chase you until you give up. It will chase you until you give in to your weakness. It will chase you until you fall to your knees and realize for yourself..

You were already dead when the sound left your ears.”

This excerpt was written in my notebook on November 13, 1990, not two hours ago by some strange woman. That newspaper ad I put in did the trick, I guess. Not a day after I put the request out for tips on the “Vacuum” that had been sighted a couple of times in this area, this woman had sent a letter to me, asking me to come meet her in this bar. She looked about 30, but her stress wrinkles and already graying hair suggested she was years older. She gripped one of her arms to her side as she wrote, clinging to it with a grip that threatened to tear her jacket sleeve clean off. I didn’t know what to say to her. One stray mention of this “Vacuum” to the bartender sent her running over to me from across the room, knocking her own drink and two women downing tequila to the floor. I should’ve been bustling with questions; though it wasn’t much, this whole poem thing she wrote was more than I could surely document about this thing in 2 years! But there I was, scared to take another swig of my drink, for I feared making too sudden of a movement would scare her off like a stray deer. As she finished up, she only looked at me with wide, empty eyes. She knew something else. More than what she wrote into my journal. I opened my mouth, preparing to ask her name, but she stopped me with a quiet “Sss…” She swiftly yanked out a pocket knife from her coat pocket, causing me to jump back a bit with a curse as she revealed the blade. She froze, unmoving and seemingly startled by my exclamation, but slowly turned away from me and shoved her knife into the wooden counter with ease, and all without a sound. Hunched over, the woman began to carve the wood, looking over her shoulder occasionally to make sure I was still watching. Was she on drugs? Drunk? After a few minutes, she pulled away and stared straight ahead as I finally got a look at what she wrote: “SHE’S GONE. IT GOT HER. MY DAUGHTER IS GONE. CAN’T HEAR YOU. YOU CAN’T SEARCH FOR THE VACUUM. IT LIVES EVERYWHERE AND KNOWS YOU’RE LOOKING FOR IT. RU-” I ran my hand over the letters before looking over again to the woman, who began to shake, slow at first, but soon jerking with violently jostles. I reached my hands over to grab her shoulders, looking her in the eyes. “Ss..SS…”, she kept squeaking and squealing. She began to point behind me, arm flailing as she kept her finger trained on the area behind me. “Ms, are you okay?! What's wrong?! What does all of this mean?!” She continued to shake and pull from my grasp until she stopped, and uttered one word from under her breath.

“Sorry.”

The pop filled the room like a gunshot.

Ears gone in a instant to opposite sides of the room.

The woman went limp in my arms, head leaning back and staring off into the air.

I accidentally dropped her in complete surprise, and started to scream. For anybody. The bartender. Those two ladies drinking tequila. Somebody.

Nothing.

The ladies started to scream as they noticed, finally. The bartender also ran over to my side with a horrified expression.

No yells. No footsteps. No voices.

Nothing.

“SORRY. SO-SORRY.”, I heard.

I whipped around to the sights of two glowing orbs, floating in the darkness of the night outside of the bar’s front window. Two large, spindly hands raised their way up the glass, and pushed through to the inside like a wraith. The fingers touched base with the ground and scuttled to meet me like spider legs, pushing through the two screaming women with ease. I yelled again, feeling the air escape my lungs, but no sound followed. I got up and ran, pushing past more gawking bar goers, running into the prep area. I shortly found the exit soon after, kicking it out and running out into the lot behind, just barely seeing as the hands made it through the entryway door, carrying the woman that I was talking to, the bartender, and the two tequila drinking women, dragging them all along like a slab of meat. I kept running and running and running. Lungs burning. Legs straining. I finally came across a roped off area, inside of what looked like a closed lumber yard, and hopped the fence. I lost all control of what I was doing. Fear had won, and had taken over, from my head to my feet. I found a scrap pile and jumped in, which is where I currently sit. I’m writing all this down...to document the rest of what I could find after seeing the beast up close. To keep my sanity in this silent trap where all I can hear is...Oh, God..I can hear myself talk. I can. But all I can say is that word.

Sorry. Sorry. Sorry.

If you find this journal, take it and run. Get out of that area. As FAR as you can. Don’t show this to anybody, or even speak it’s name. I was stupid, thinking I could find this monster and solve the “mystery”  of its existence. Get rich and famous with this discovery. And now the rumor dies with me. DON’T MAKE MY SAME MISTAKE. IT DOES NOT WANT TO BE FOUND. DON’T TRY TO SAVE ANYBODY WITH THIS INFORMATION. YOU HAVE T

sO

SOrRy