Whatever facade this town was maintaining, it's completely gone now.
The streets are completely abandoned. I haven't seen anyone for hours now. I mean, I've seen a few people, but they're always hiding out in the shadows. Haven't seen any of the kids yet, though. I don't know which is worse, this town when it's populated, or when it's abandoned. Reminds me of Centralia in a way. You can look it up yourself if you're interested, but it was this little town in Pennsylvania that had to be abandoned. Supposedly it was a coal fire, but when they sent me out that way, it sure as hell didn't seem like it.
Anyway, I'm getting sidetracked.
I wanted to see if we could wrangle up any of the other folks in town. You know, ones that weren't drinking the Kool-Aid. Figured that Shirley, the gal from the Diner, might be able to help. Virgil told me not to count on it.
The diner was abandoned. Ransacked, really. Tables and chairs thrown about everywhere, pictures knocked off the walls. Nobody around, just like the rest of this godforsaken town. I did find something, though. On the door of the manager's office was a symbol, just like the one I'd seen on my hand. Written in red...paint, I hope. A triangle, a hand in the middle, and three circles. The back was similarly destroyed; there was food just thrown everywhere, the freezer was busted open, and the back door was knocked clean off it's hinges.
We were just about to leave when I heard one of the drains in the kitchen gurgling. We all stopped and just kind of looked at each other, not sure what to do. Virgil had the shotgun at the time (It was heavy when it was fully loaded, so we alternated), so he went to look. We stuck behind him; me with my handgun and Deb with a flashlight.
Virgil stepped closer to the drain. It was one of those big industrial sinks you usually see in restaurants, with a long spray nozzle suspended above a handful of washbasins. He didn't even have a moment to look. This thing burst out of the drain, throwing pureed garbage everywhere. It was hard to describe, but it was like a tentacle. Not like an octopus, though. It was made of what I can only guess was muscle tendon and fat. It whipped out, and before it reached any of us, Virgil shot it down.
My ears were ringing for a few seconds, but the disorientation wore off just long enough to see Virgil stuff the barrel of the shotgun down the drain and fire again. I heard a clanging, and a long protracted moan. Half pleasure and half pain is the best way I can describe it. I could hear this slapping noise, like if you threw ground chuck against a wall, coming from one of the freezers. I had Deb focus the light, and we saw this malformed thing dragging itself out of the darkness.
It had the upper body of a man, with arms and a torso and all that, but everything looked...melty. Like it's skin was barely holding on to the flesh. It was literally sloughing off as it crawled towards us. The rest of it's body was trailing off into the dark, like some kind of worm. It groaned, desperately trying to drag itself towards us. I could've sworn that it said "help me" before Virgil blew it's head off. I watched his head turn, and the shotgun nearly dropped out of his hands.
The freezer was full of bodies. Not corpses. Live, wriggling bodies, all meshed together. Just one enormous mass of flesh covered in arms and legs and faces. God, man, I barely even know how to properly describe it. The whole thing reeked of blood and shit and vomit. Deb puked, then I puked, but Virgil just stood there watching. They were all still alive, and they were screaming and moaning and begging. They all wanted to die. Virgil took a lighter from the office and a propane tank, and we burned the whole place down.
I'm still not sure what I think. Part of me hopes that Shirley wasn't part of this, but those people had been back there for a long time, based on the smell. I mean, christ, they had bits of them sliced off. Like the fuckers had been harvesting them. How many people have come through here before me? How many people did these fuckers take?
I don't know. All I know is that I'm really glad I stuck to coffee when I ate there.
