Work Text:
December 17, 20//, 12:40 AM. A teenager breaks into an empty race track for a dare - closed down for the winter.
They held their flashlight ahead of them as they looked at the fence, hesitantly reaching a hand out to it. It didn’t feel electric, but for safeties sake they stepped back and picked up the nearest branch, tossing it at the metal wire. It fell with a quiet metallic thud, but no crackles. They probably didn’t keep the fence on for the winter.
They squeezed their phone through the holes in the fence until it fell to the other side, landing face down on the grass inaudibly so the light faced up. Their hands almost shook as they grabbed the thin metal wall, hoisting themselves up to the top.
From here they looked into the track, then back out towards the trees they came from. Their friends stood right behind the first few feet of trees, giggling and whispering as they signaled him forward, a few small camera lights illuminating their waving hands.
They swung their legs to the inner side of the fence and jumped down, their sneakers and knees denting the grass as they grabbed their phone, brushing off and walking towards the barrier of seats. They couldn’t find an easy way through the metal seats, trying to squeeze their body through them before walking around and looking for a way through. They put their phone in their pocket and turned sideways, shimmying through a narrow crack between two rows of seats, their lungs feeling a little compressed.
It felt… massive on the other side. Empty, in a bad way but also in an exciting one, like how it felt to be at school after hours or sneaking back home after a night out. Their phone flashlight didn’t do much outside, but they pointed it to the ground in front of them anyway as they walked straight through the middle of the track. It was two semicircles met in the middle by two lines of concrete, which they cut through in the center.
When they reached the side of the pit with no seats, a concrete wall with a few doors. They tried a little too eagerly to open the first one, stumbling back as the lock clanked and immediately whipping around to make sure nobody saw that. No, they were fine. Their friends couldn’t see them here.
They walked a little more annoyed to the other two doors, kicking a stray pebble to make a point to universe. Call it rude for embarrassing them like that, even if nobody was to witness it. They felt mocked. The two other doors were closed too, great. He walked to the end of the wall to a large metal garage door with a handle at the bottom, black and work from years of usage.
They pulled on it with one hand, then put their phone away and pulled with two, tugging it up the best they could. It moved a little, just an inch with a large metal crank as the gears above the door audibly groaned at them, disrupted by their inadequate attempts. They could only convince it to open a foot or two, and it hurt to hold.
Eventually it managed to stay about the height of their knees, tilting the door a little so it jammed into the wall slider. They dropped down and crawled under the door, chuckling through sounds of exhaustion. That was easy.
They couldn’t see jack shit when they walked in, shining their phone around the room. It was a car garage, racers cars lined up on the walls in various states of service - some shining ready to go and some partially deconstructed or surrounded by tarp and “wet paint” signs.
They walked a few feet in and straight into a puddle, killing the cool vibe as they pointed their light down in disgust and then up at the ceiling. As they pointed it up, a big glob of slimy water dripped onto their forehead, startling them so much they almost dropped their phone flailing their arm up to wipe it off.
It was moldy, and a quick shine at the rest of the ceiling showed the same issue. Wet mold clung to the roof, occasionally dripping onto the floor in patches of puddles or small tinks onto the cars. They sidestepped the puddle below them, pointing their phone down so they could try and avoid as many spots as possible as they squinted.
They walked up to one of the cars, white and red with an open top, feeling it with his free hand. They looked around like they were checking for an adult before climbing into the car, sitting in the driving seat and laughing. They propped their phone up next to them and messed with the buttons for a second, putting it on an auto timer. They held the car and looked forward with a faux determination as the camera clicked, capturing a photo of them.
They grabbed the phone back, looking at the photo and taking two more as selfies with one arm on the wheel before getting out. They should head back now, they got the photos, and this was a bit creepy. But before they did, they shined their light in a circle across the room and caught eye of a tarp in the corner.
They walked over to the tarp slowly, and the air thickened around them. Their light felt dimmer, maybe it was. They only thought about it for a second, stepping forward slowly towards the tarp and reaching a hand out. A drop fell on their arm, followed by another. The barely colored water felt gross on their skin, but they shook it off without thinking. It wasn’t important.
The tarp felt important. Their hand only hesitated for a few seconds before they grabbed a fistful of the tarp and pulled it down. Another car was beneath it. They weren’t admittedly good enough with their racing knowledge to know who’s it was, but it felt weird to have under a tarp. They ran their hand on the front, over the headlights.
It was blue with a yellow sun painted on the front, small yellow lines illustrating the bumper and moving down the side. They followed the lines, putting their phone down on the hood so the light shone up and around them, their hand gliding over the car as they walked to its side. It was slightly discolored, they could tell in the dark. Another moldy drop of water fell on their forehead and they wiped it off, looking at it and then wiping it on their clothes.
The car had a dent on the car door, right where the discoloration was like it had been replaced poorly. They ran their hand over the small dip where the car door met the frame, black on the top like char. A few more small drops of liquid fell of their forehead and they wiped it off with their arm, a little annoyed it.
When they lowered their arm back to the car, their arm was red. Not red like a rash, red like painted. The side they had wiped their forehead with was smeared red from the wrist to the elbow. More liquid started falling, this time less like drops and more like a small pour.
They held both of their arms in front of them as red started to paint both of them, making the mistake of looking up as they were blinded by a downpour of liquid. Their eyes stung as they heard drops patter on the car and to the floor, forming into a macabre puddle at their feet. They wiped tears of pain and blood from their eyes, stepping back. Their entire upper shirt and head was drenched, blood pressing their hair to their neck and sticking it to their forehead.
It fell on their phone, and a large chunk landed on their camera, tinting the only light in the room a neon red as the spot on the ceiling grew, spreading in multiple directions like a flame instead of a puddle. They reached their arm out for their phone, their legs shaking as another arm mimicked it.
Almost erupting from the ceiling as their moved forward, what looked like it *used* to be an arm came from the puddle like it wasn’t even there, holding the ceiling like it was pulling itself out. It was torn and chunks of flesh fell onto the car as a larger shape fell out of the puddle as well. They didn’t wait to see what it was, their hand on their phone immediately bolting out the door.
They felt like they were barely going fast enough, practically diving out of the crack in the garage door and moving as fast as they could once their shoes landed flat on the concrete again. In the dim moonlight their arms in front of them were almost black, painted dark when they moved ahead of them.
The garage door creaked loudly and then slammed, sounding like it practically exploded against the doorframe with how hard it must have swung up. Not that they saw, their blurry and tearing eyes locked onto the crack between the seats. They almost dropped their phone as they held it white knuckled in left hand, pushing into the crack and shuffling through it sidewise like a snake in a trap trying to slither its way out.
They popped out the other side as the two sides of the seats slammed together, a shadow overtaking theirs on the grass ahead of him. Raising over them impossibly high like it was floating, it was all they could look at until they were almost to the fence, crying out loudly to their friends. They practically tossed their phone to the fence to make it through, but it didn’t. They didn’t care it didn’t make it through the wire, they would grab it later. They didn’t notice it crackling as it bounced off, hitting the grass and powering off.
They leaped at the fence and latched onto it, desperate to just get out. The moment they touched it their vision went red, their arm and legs burning like they were on fire before going numb as they fell backwards off the fence onto the grass, new blood joining their already tainted palms with the sound of a screaming strike of electricity.
They groaned in pain as they twitched on the grass, too tired to move to run. They heard their friends yelling for them, the sound of running. They must have seen them hit the fence, fall back in pain. What their friends likely didn’t was their phone, lifted off the ground.
They rolled their head back to the figure behind them, leaving an impossible shadow in every direction as it took their phone, lifting it. They couldn’t tell if it was the darkest and most intrusive thing they had ever seen, or blended in so well with the environment it didn’t exist at times. Sometimes it looked like their phone was lifting itself.
Two neon yellow squares turned to them from its head, looking at them with something only akin to mocking as its body faded from their view. They heard their friends cries of panic, talks of the cops, talks of help. But all of it was drowned by the humming of electricity in their ears as their vision faded out, black tainted by the neon yellow squares behind their eyelids.