The Conversation of Shadows.
(Based on this prompt : Eavesdropper: Create a poem, short story, or journal entry about a conversation you’ve overheard.)
A short story Mickie Pyro (@spacestatue)
I’ve never been a big fan of the city at night. It’s cold, it’s dark, and it’s just downright depressing. Everyone is so much more on guard when the sun goes down. You don’t trust anyone you see and they don’t trust you. Suddenly, this huge concrete jungle isn’t your home. It’s a wasteland infested with mystery and dishonour.
That’s what made tonight even worse. I was supposed to be at home, catching up on my favourite TV show, not crouching inside a rubbish dumpster with my hand over my mouth listening to the most scary conversation I’d ever heard.
I’ll start from the beginning of the night, after I’d decided that in order for this TV marathon to be a true success, I’d have to go to the local supermarket for some edible treats. This was my first mistake, but I did know this at the time, only now. Hindsight is an incredibly fickle thing.
I threw on my dark jacket and shuffled into my trusty pair of boots. It was summer; so luckily, it’d only be mildly cold at around 10 o’clock at night outside. A calming breeze more than anything else. Nothing inconvient. I kept telling myself this as I pushed out the front door and towards the walkway to my street.
I loathed not having a car. All of my friends could drive and had one. My mum said I didn’t need a car yet. I’m ‘only 17’. Which I guess is true, but that’s not the point. It was going to take me an hour and a half to complete the walk there and back to the supermarket. The local shops – which in comparison were a ten minute walk from my house- were closed now. There was the Italian takeaway by the shops but I didn’t want a meal. So the supermarket was my only real option where I would find variety.
The air was still tonight. I could feel the humidity of summer though. It was the middle of July, peak summer time. I let my hand drop from my zipper- I wouldn’t need it really. The street lights were bright against the houses and the road that connected my street to the main road. I looked ahead, down to the park that I would be walking through. There was one street light on the edge of the park, but the rest was shrouded in darkness.
A dog barked as I turned onto the main road that connected to the main part of town. I lived in a fairly suburbian area, but it was kind of inbetween. There wasn’t much money in this area, but it wasn’t awful either- just floating in somewhere in limbo.
As I reached the light in the park, I paused for a moment. I heard the familiar beeping of my phone and reached into my pocket. The screen was bright and a little 8bit envelope indicated I had a new text message.
WHERE R YOU?
MUM XX
Crap. I’d been so lost in the thought of not wanting to leave the sanctuary I called home that I’d forgotten to let mum know I’d be popping out briefly. Without hesitating, I started typing:
SORRY MUM. I’M GOING TO THE SUPERMARKET REAL QUICK- GETTING SOME MUNCHIES FOR MY TV SHOW MARATHON!
XXX
I pressed send and continued to look at my phone. Waiting for a response. A slight breeze had picked up and was rustling in the trees. I jumped when my phone beeped this time.
OH! OK! LET ME KNOW NEXT TIME! CAN U GRAB ME A BIG PACKET OF SALT & VINEGAR PLZ? XXX
I laughed as I read this one. My mum loved her crisps. I typed back ‘ok’ and hit send before putting my phone back in my pocket and pressing on passed the street lamp.
The light stretched just enough for me to see the split in the path I was expecting. It was split by trees running down the middle with two paths branching off from the left and right. The left side led you to the bus stop into the city centre. It was about 2 minutes down that path. The right side, the path I needed to take, lead you into the deeper park, with a kids park and fountains. I hesitated slightly, like I always did, shook my head and kept going.
In the daylight, this place was one of my favourite places to be. You can hear the sound of kids laughter as they spend their afternoon on the swings and slides as their mothers watch and play with them. You can smell the freshly cut grass of the gardens and feel the water from the fountains spray gently onto your skin. It really is a lovely place. Somewhere safe and peaceful and calm.
At 10 o’clock at night it’s the exact opposite. The kid’s park is barren, lit only by the moonlight which tricks you into thinking it’s been abandoned for decades. The fountains are turned off at night, but water is always leaking or dripping through, so you hear the water beat against the silence and it becomes eerie.
Sometimes other teenagers would be here, taking drugs or drinking or grafting. Giving fowl looks to anyone who dares to look in their direction or tries to invade ‘their space’. No matter how scary the silence and darkness was, I’d always prefer that to the gangs of teenagers in the shadows.
I picked up my pace as I got to the gardens. The fountains where making me uneasy. I hated how scared I got. Always so quickly and for any little change in the atmosphere. I’d walked this path at night so many times before, but every time always felt like the first. I could have taken the left path and gone around the path, but that would have taken even longer and I wouldn’t have been home until at least midnight. There’s where so many reasons to always take this path to the supermarket. To face my silly fears and to be more time efficient.
If I had a car, I would be home already.
I shook my head and tried distracting myself. This wasn’t gunna change my situation. All I ever think about is owning a damn car.
My hand was shaking ever so slightly as I fished for my phone in my pocket. The brightest stung my eyes as they adjusted back to the light. I fumbled my fingers around on the screen until the brightest faded back to black and the light poured through the front of the phone. This torch had been my saviour many, many times.
I paused to shine the light on the path in front. It was a five minute walk down this straight flat, tarmac path. Skaters and cyclists used this path in the day. Apparently the floor was ‘heavenly’ and ‘so smoooooth’. Whatever any of that means. It just seemed like a path to me.
On the right side of the path was a row of think bushes and trees. On the left, more trees, but less, stretching into a large open field. You could just about make everything out under the moon and even just the naked eye, but I was too anxious to stand around and gape. I wanted to do this as quickly as I could within reason. I was almost there.
Halfway down this path on the left, there is a little building which houses a small food place (mainly sandwiches, ice creams, that sort of thing) and two toilets. Just on the right of the building there are two black rubbish dumpsters pushed against the side of it. One for normal rubbish and one for recycling. There’s an extremely dim light that flickers a little, every once in a while, above the dumpsters on an extended out roof shelter, but it’s so dim it’s almost pointless being there. Locals use this as a marker in the dark. Everyone knows this broken light is the halfway mark between the fountains and the end of the other side of the park.
I’ve put my phone back in my pocket now so I could see the flickering light better. Sometimes I stop and stay here for a minute or two. On the triumphant return from the supermarket, I sometimes stay here for a full half hour at a time, depending on how I feel. Depending on if I feel braver that night.
I wasn’t going to linger tonight though. There was tension in my jaw I’d only just noticed that was beginning to vibrate in pain. I was so on edge tonight. It hadn’t been this bad since the first time. I felt the same stressful uncertainty as then, tonight. Like I had a vague idea of the way, but I could be very, very wrong.
Suddenly, in the quiet of the night, I heard footsteps coming down the path from the side I had come from. I froze. This was the first indication that anyone had been behind me in the park. I was alone by the street light. The fountains too. Even this straight stretch I’d been alone. Some sense appeared out of nowhere and washed over me. The field. It was big enough that it would take a little longer for someone to walk. I ducked in front of the recycling dumpster and peeked my head out ever so slightly to try and locate the owner of the footsteps I could hear. My hands were shaking violently now. I didn’t know what to do. Something about this didn’t feel right. Normally, I’d just keep walking and nothing would happen. There would be a little bit of tension, but nothing sinister. Right now though, something inside me was screaming not to be detected- that I was in danger. Acting on complete feared impulse, I opened the lid to the dumpster and jumped inside throwing green bags all over me, burying myself as far in as I could and I remained completely still as I heard the footsteps standing right out come to a halt.
And now we’ve gone full circle. All this over a TV marathon. I was buried underneath recycling bags in the middle of the night all over poor planning and an unnecessary fear of the dark and isolation of this place. I’ve never been a big fan of the city at night. It’s cold, it’s dark, and it’s just downright depressing. Everyone is so much more on guard when the sun goes down.
But maybe I was just insane.
My thoughts were cut off again by the sound of the lid being lifted. I caught my breath with my hand and kept it there over my mouth, pretending that I didn’t exist. That if I remained completely still I would be safe.
The bags above me started moving and tears began to well up in my eyes. My mind and body were screaming. Completely terrified. In that moment I wished more than anything I’d just gone the long way. Just this god damn once! Then this wouldn’t be happening. My lip is bleeding from my teeth clamping down onto it. My mouth is throbbing and I just want to scream. I just want to run into the huge field and disappear from this nightmare.
‘Leave your house keys at home?’ A low voice chuckled.
The bags came to a halt and tears of relief poured down my face. The lid was still open, but I had gained a little bit more time.
I heard a sigh from the one closest, the one who was rummaging. “I’ve told you that joke isn’t funny. I don’t live in a dumpster.”
The other one chuckled again, this time with a bit more bellow. “You need to learn to lighten up Axel. You’re always so uptight- have a bit of fun.” “We have a job to do Blake. The most high security job of our entire lives as agents!”
My eyes widened as the Blake guy stopped laughing. Agents? High security?
Axel finally dropped the lid of the dumpster and I jumped at the thud. After a moment I removed my hand from my mouth and took a deep, but quiet, breath. As long as I kept quiet, I’d be ok. I’d wait until they left and then I’d sprint to the end of the path, to the supermarket and ring my mum, begging her to give me a lift. As long I remain calm and explain it, she and dad will understand. I just have to keep quiet now to avoid any problems or danger.
“What was in the dumpster?”
“Nothing. Just bags. I thought I heard the lid open, clearly I was mistaken. No one’s been here for hours.’
If these guys were agents and genuinely believed no one had been around this area in hours, then I was either a hiding champion or incredibly lucky.
Blake (or Axel, I couldn’t really tell) cleared his throat. Axel sighed again.
“What are we doing in such a dead beat town, Blake? Why did they send us out here when we could be helping out back at HQ?”
“Things got complicated back at base. IX got out.”
I thought I heard Axel gasp, but it was difficult to know. Blake said ‘IX’ like ‘EYE-EX’ instead of 9. Who names someone IX?
“What?” Axel snarled. “How? How is that possible? It was on the lowest floor! Completely fortified underground! There’s no way it just ‘got out’!”
“IX started showing signs of abnormalities. Unusually high strength levels, even for the subject. IX started communicating with the researchers. Through speech. I-through VIII all perished far before the concept of speech for these subjects was a possibility.” Blake paused as if he couldn’t continue.
“Speech? Again impossible! They may have the human body but their brain activity has been subdued and heavily diminished by the researchers! We took it away for a reason! So we could continue testing on them without protest!” Axel was exasperated by this point. His anger pierced through the awkward silence.
Again, Blake referred to ‘I’ as ‘EYE’ and ‘VIII’ as ‘VEE-EYE-EYE-EYE’. I didn’t understand what was going on. Test subjects? The human body? Diminished brain activity? Why are these two men here in this park, in the middle of my hometown, talking about such things?
“Axel, it doesn’t matter!” Blake raised his voice sternly now. “It’s happened!”
“What did it say?” Axel demanded.
Blake cleared his throat again. “I will kill you all.”
The air became very still. Very lifeless. Neither of the men said a word, but you could feel the fear radiating from both of them. As Blake had finished the sentence, a shiver ran up my spine. What exactly was IX?
After an eternity of silence, Axel’s voice ripped at the air again. “HQ?” He spat.
“Gone.” Blake digressed.
Axel snarled deeply, making me shudder. “Alana?’
“She- she didn’t make it, Axel.”
Axel’s rage intensified. I didn’t know what was going on until the dumpster I was in started rattling, the metal clanking piercing my eardrums. Axel was beating the dumpster. You could hear the anger in his words but the pain in his cries. He was grieving this Alana. Who was she? How much of an impact did she have on his life for him to be reacting this way?
“NO!” He bellowed before he left the dumpster alone again “She’s still alive! There’s a chance! She’s not just some office worker she’s a fucking biological scientist! She would know what to do to keep herself safe! Even subdue IX again if necessary! She-“
“-She was part of the primary team working face to face with IX. IX also said something else.” Black interrupted.
“WHAT DID THAT WRETCHED THING SAY?” Axel despaired.
“You have been the ones to cause my fallen pain. To cause me pain. You shall be the first to die. Followed by the ones who help you.”
I think Axel drops to his knees now, because I hear a thud just heavy enough for that. I can only imagine the expression on his face. Helpless. Hopeless. Defeated.
“Why did this happen?” He finally whispered. It wasn’t so much a question, more a moment he allowed himself to be completely broken.
“We all fucked up Axel.” Blake panted, still fueled with adrenaline. “From the beginning, my gut’s been wary about this whole project. We shouldn’t be playing god! This is our punishment and reminder for that!”
Axel sighed again, but not in the same way he’d usually. This was a sigh in the place of a cry this tortured soul could not manifest.
“I’m sorry, Axel. I really am. She was my sister for god’s sake! I’m feeling pain too- but I know how much she meant to you. I’d never been happy with any of the men she’d chosen to be with, but I was happy she’d chosen a life with you. You were a good husband Axel. You didn’t fail her and this isn’t your fault. You need to always remember that, do you hear!” Blake’s voice was askew. Clogged by tears. His words were sincere.
Axel knew this and his rage disappeared into a sea of sadness. He’d gotten back up and had walked a few places from his original spot near me and the dumpster, closer to Blake by the sounds of his footsteps. “Thanks Blake.” He finally said. “I’m sorry. I just know if I’d been there, I could have saved her.”
“If you’d been there, you would have been dead. But I know you would have.” Blake reconciled.
Another stretch of time passed and Axel clenched his jaw as he spoke. “IX? Where is it?”
I could hear Blake’s breaths tighten again. “We don’t know.” Both men supressed different spectres of rage as the words escaped his mouth. “It’s not here, that’s why we are. We are part of the team. IX wants revenge on us too.”
“Let the abomination come! I will tear his unnatural red eyes from his decaying eye sockets!” Axel snapped.
“In our current situation, we’d be screwed! We have no guns, no protection! We are bait for destruction to a little city-town if we make ourselves known! We have to stay low and keep IX from causing as many injuries as possible! We need to save humanity from the end!”
My heart pounded in my chest to the point where I thought it would explode from my ribcage. The end of what? What dangers?!
“What is the threat level Blake? I know we were on the team, but we weren’t the scientists!” Axel pleaded in sharp tones.
“Humanity faces extinction if IX stays out of quarantine.” Blake stated.
My stomach started to turn, nausea filling up every fibre of my being. My brain stopped working and my senses were all over the place. I’d watched a lot of TV Shows, a lot of movies. The extinction of humanity seemed about as real in my head as unicorns did. To me that was just a scare tactic placed in stuff we watched and read to make you think ‘what if’? To scare us into being better as a race, collectively. Now the concept of mass race death was on the cusp of being reality and I couldn’t comprehend it calmly. I dug my nails into my jeans, desperately trying to relax and stop panicking. In that split second I believed it all to be a joke. I was expecting someone to come out with a camera screaming ‘GOTCHA!’ in to the lens whilst they pointed and laughed at my traumatized expression. As more and more seconds passed and turned into minutes, I realised that this wasn’t a joke. No one was going to break this reality, because this was the reality. I silently cried as I let this understanding sink in, not understanding why I had to decide to do this, why I didn’t just continue up the path to the supermarket, these two men would have kept their eyes on me until I was no longer in earshot, but I wouldn’t have gotten into serious trouble and I wouldn’t have made this horrific discovery tonight.
Time was meaningless by this point. Axel and Blake had been squabbling between themselves whilst I had been accepting what they already knew.
“But HOW Blake?! How does humanity face extinction? IX could not destroy the entire world!” Axel finalized.
“No. IX Can’t” Blake agreed “But IX can start the destruction. IX showed other abnormal activity. Its diet changed. It developed a tasted for human flesh after all the primary team had been slaughtered. IX ate half of the team, tried eating all of the team, but had to escape leaving the other half mangled in bites and gashes-“ Blake sounded horrified, terrified by the very mention of what happened at their base. “-A quarantine team entered the base after IX had been gone for an hour, the mercs made sure they were safe. They came to examine what was left of the bodies, to make sure nothing infectious was there from IX.”
“But IX isn’t a viral experiment! It’s biological! IX was an attempt as swapping consciousness from one body to another! Th-that’s what Alana told me!” Axel continued to squabble. He was running out of cuss words and things to scream at his partner. Blake was trying hard to remain composed, one of them had to, but you could tell in his voice his was starting lose his patience. I was so confused and so scared by this point I’m surprised I can remember anything; the paralyzing fear was what dominated me whilst they bickered.
“ENOUGH” Blake finally cracked. Axel stopped speaking and I think he took a few steps back. Blake huffed for a few seconds before he regained his composure and returned to his calm speaking tone. “Let me explain Axel! Stop trying to solve it when I can just explain it! Goddamit man!” Blake sighed in exasperation one last time, Axel continuing his silence. “IX WAS an attempt at swapping consciousness. We believed it was a success. It wasn’t, of course, but by the time we could abort, it was too late. Alana’s team had successfully taken the consciousness of a young terminally ill child and put it in a new and healthier body. It was a success. The family of the child had been told that their baby had died due to the original illness, and presented the original now dead body of the child to them as proof. They will never know that their child is in fact IX. IX’s body was made from other humans, I don’t know the ins and outs, I just know that it had always been empty before IX. They had tried the consciousness test with I-through VIII, but they all died before a consciousness transfer could be completed. Both the terminally ill donors and the manmade bodies I mean, no one survived. This happened eight times before IX. IX was the rain in the desert. The child who had been used as the consciousness transfer, the terminally ill child, had protested from the beginning. The child was brought here against their will after the doctors had declared them terminal. The child tried to resist and begged to be freed, to be killed, to be allowed to live out their final days in their own body. Of course, the primary team ignored this child. They continued to experiment on the new body and the child. Eventually, as you know, IX was a complete success. The consciousness transfer was finished. Primary team knew that IX would not speak, but when it did, they were inspired to move forward, even after IX had foreshadowed their deaths by its hands. The transfer did distort the manufactured body however- you’ve seen that pale, rotting crazy son of a bitch, I don’t need to tell ya.” Blake paused to catch his breath. “IX IS that child. The revenge comes from before the transfer. The child never consented to this, the child wanted to live out life in their own, original body- we took that from them. All of us. None of us protested or flinched when the child screamed or begged for their parents. We just carried on because our pay checks were gunna set us up for life! We were fools. IX escaped because the consciousness of that child yearns for their parents. They were taken half way across the world from them and they will never find them. The problem comes with the new and distorted body. There is a force that has manifested within that we think has something to do with its brain, Alana knew all the details, I’m a merc for a reason-“He caught himself on his words and sniffed, probably thinking of his sister. “-but this made IX behave abnormally, even for a test subject. One thing lead to another, once it had vocalised its desire for revenge and bloodshed, it’s like the body programmed itself to eat and kill…and infect. The body is housing extremely dangerous viruses, ones we haven’t even named yet. The primary team who were bitten, who weren’t eaten, they were dead but they were walking. It sounds like I’m fucking crazy I know, but this is the damned truth! Luckily, what was left of primary team was destroyed after we realised they were dead and one of them tried eating the guys in bio hazard. It’s infectious. One of them got bitten by primary team. They turned into what primary team was. They all had to be put down! It was the only way to contain it! If that happened in that damned base, imagine what would happen after a few DAYS of IX being out! IX needs to eat and now it will only eat human flesh!”
My head was spinning as Blake finally revealed what the danger was. I felt my stomach rising to my throat and I had to silently bend down deeper into the bin as I wretched my insides up onto the other side of the recycling bin. Keeping quite was impossible. I kept wrenching over until it was just stomach bile. I had managed to keep it relativity on the down low, because the lid remained closed and the two agents continued to talk. Blake didn’t need to continue any explanation. Axel let out a load roar of frustration that echoed across the field, making me feel queasy again. This dumpster was slowly starting to smell of what I had thrown up and I didn’t want to add more to the pile.
“We need to leave this place.” Axel stated. “We need to get away from civilization, away from anywhere IX can hurt people, we-“
“We follow orders.” Blake said firmly. “HQ have said wait here for a week, they will contact us. They have a plan, I hope.”
“Now I understand why we couldn’t have this conversation at the hotel.” Axel laughed helplessly. “But why here?”
“This is where Alana and I grew up until University.” Blake said in such a way that I knew he was smiling and he reminisced on memories of a simple childhood with his sister.
“She has mentioned this city to me so many times, I never realised.” Axel said.
Another pause in the air as a moment of peace and unity swept between the two saddened men. I’m sorry for what had happened to Alana. To her lover and her brother and team. But why did it have to happen? Why did they have to continue this ungodly quest? The outcome for this selfish curiosity was the end of our very race. I wonder if in that moment when IX got free and begin slaughtering the primary team, did Alana regret the events leading up to this? Did she feel remorse for the child and guilt for the destruction and pain she and her team had caused all humanity? Did she think of Axel when she died? Of Blake?
“What do we do now?” Axel asked, clueless.
“We go back to the hotel and wait for our orders. We sit tight. Stay unseen. IX can’t find us because we will die and so will everyone and everything around us. We leave when we are told to. I really am sorry Axel, this has taught me what price you must pay for godhood and we shouldn’t have dabbled in something we could never understand or control in the first place. Now all we can do is write the wrongs we have caused. We must dedicate our lives to destroying IX. For the sake of humanity.” Axel laughed his helpless laugh again. “These are dark times it seems Blake. I never thought we’d ever have to deal with something like this.” “Me either Axel. It’s a strange world.”
The two men stopped talking for the last time then. A few moments passed and then there was nothing but footsteps slowly fading away. I waited for as long as I could, until I could no longer bare the stench of my vomit. I stood up but my legs were like jelly and I stumbled out like I was drunk.
I lay there, crumbled on the floor. I’m lost in my own mind. In the chilling true story I had just overheard. No one would believe me. No one else would know. My family, friends and peers all seemed insignificantly small as my eyes found their way to the stars in the sky. There were so many, suddenly I was thankful for the darkness. Bright whites and silvers and greys scattered across the space above my world. I felt peace again for a little while, ready to brave the darkness once more.
I didn’t hesitate this time. I darted down the path, towards the supermarket. I’d probably never make my way down here in the dark again. I would never see this place dominated by the moon and the blanket of the night, all because of this conversation I had no part of, this conversation that I was never meant to hear.
I kept running, eventually sprinting. I could see the neon of the supermarket sign and I felt a spark of hope. I collapsed in front of the main entrance, shouting for my mother, until the darkness blinded me and I found myself in a void of black.
“Oh thank Christ!”
“M-mum?”
I looked around as my eyes came back into focus. I was still outside the supermarket, but I was not on the ground, I was in an ambulance. My mum was holding my hand and my dad was standing next to her, both of them riddled in relief.
“We thought we’d lost you dear- you’d been gone for so much longer than usual! And then when we got a phone call to come down here and you were unconscious, we did fear the worst for a while.” My mum looked away as if guilty to have this thought.
I grabbed her hand back properly now, “I’m so, so sorry mum, I’m not sure what happened- I just remember running to the supermarket and blacking out, I think something spooked me, but I don’t know what it was.” And at that moment I’m telling the truth. I can’t remember what had happened that night.
“It’s ok sweetie, we’re just glad you’re safe and no harm has come to you!” My mum rejoiced.
“Not a scratch at all. I’m proud you ran when you sensed danger, some wouldn’t have- you did the right thing, probably ran so fast that you dehydrated” My dad said, putting his arm on my shoulder.
I smiled at him and put my other hand on his hand.
“Can we go home?” I ask
“We can now, they wanted to take you to the hospital if you didn’t wake up but you did.”
Another half hour passes and we are travelling home in the car. I stare at the darkness of the park out of the window of the backseat, a weird feeling coming to me. I feel a huge lump in my stomach and I’m sucked back into my head again.
“Now all we can do is write the wrongs we have caused. We must dedicate our lives to destroying IX. For the sake of humanity.” Blake’s voice echoes in my head.
And then I remember everything from that night.
Axel and Blake: the strange agents in the park. IX is a real experiment and has been unleashed on the world. Infection of an extremely hostile nature is a real threat and humanity faces extinction. I can’t tell anyone. If Axel and Blake are here in this city, they will catch wind and I’ll be branded crazy, but they would probably take me somewhere and I would never be seen again. Just like IX. But then again, I could be dead within six months if the infection is not contained. Everyone faces that same very real, very possible outcome.
I’ve never been a big fan of the city at night. It’s cold, it’s dark, and it’s just downright depressing. Everyone is so much more on guard when the sun goes down. You don’t trust anyone you see and they don’t trust you.
And now the daytime won’t be safe either.
