[image error]

The rain was heavy that night, coming down in sheets across the empty street around him. Bryce was out of gas and of course, in one of the worst, most isolated areas, just south of the city. All the buildings he could see were dark, save for one.

It was set back from the road, at least several hundred yards. Despite the parking lot being empty, he could see lights on in several of the windows as well as distorted movement through the frosted glass. They would have a phone he could call for a tow.

He was drenched, even through his clothes, by the time he reached the building. Even over the noise of the storm, he could hear the sounds of heavy equipment coming from inside, but he had to take several laps around the building before he found a door. It was locked, of course, being so late, but as hard as he banged on it, no one came to answer. Either they couldn’t hear him, or just didn’t care

The noise from the equipment seemed louder to his right, and when he walked over to investigate, he discovered that a window was cracked open. It looked like an employee locker room, and seemed empty. He spotted a phone across from him on the wall and begin trying to worm his way through.

He eased himself down onto a couch, and stepped down, beginning to move towards the phone that he now spotted on the far wall. It was just out of his reach and as he inched closer, his breath caught in his throat and he froze as he caught sight, in his periphery of someone, sitting alone at a small table.

Bryce jumped back, too surprised to even yell, and managed to kick a book that had been dropped on the floor, which slid across and clattered against the legs to the table. The man didn’t seem even aware of his presence however, and just sat there, staring blankly into space in front of them. A thin line of drool formed at the corner of his mouth, and was drooping nearly all the way to the table.

As Bryce slowly regained his control. He saw for the first time the unfocused look on the man’s eyes, darting from side to side as if on a timer. After several elongated moments of this, he started to rock forward and back in the chair, moaning slightly as he did so.

Bryce walked past him, to the window that looked out over the factory floor. He cracked open the blinds, peeked through the gap and for the second time felt his chest seizing up, unable to catch his breath.

There were people emerging from the machine, rumbling out on a long conveyor belt.

They all looked like the man who was sitting behind him. It was like watching a string of duplicate copies, everything the same, down to the glazed look on their faces. After a few minutes, a buzzer could be heard and now, a female version began to come out of the machine, again all completely identical.

Whatever was going on in here, he needed to get away. Somebody had to be told about this place. He had no idea how he would convince the police to come down, but he had to try. He railed against himself internally, as the drive to do all these things simply wasn’t powerful enough to overwhelm the disgust and awe at what was happening in front of him.

As he pressed closer to the glass, he saw another group of the things climbing one by one, into what looked like large barbers chairs. Equipment lowered down and began working them over, adjusting their appearances. Hair color was changed, glasses were added, the bone structure under the cheeks was actually adjusted like clay, until each thing started looking like a different person. Arms dropped down from the ceiling, attaching different items of clothing, like some kind of life-size doll.

Bryce jumped at the soft moan from behind him. He swiveled his head around to look at the man seated at table, but he still gave no indication of moving. Bryce began to make his way back to the window, where he had crawled in from.

He stepped up onto the couch, and had started to pull himself through, when he heard the door banging open behind him. Someone yelled out, and he heard someone running across the room. He tried to pull harder, but a pair of pants took hold of his legs and pulled him back through. The side of his head knocked against the window frame and he saw darkness.

When Bryce woke up, he thought he had gone blind. He squeezed his eyes shut and opened them to make sure that his eyelids hadn’t just been dried shot. All he saw around him was darkness. The sound of his breathing echoed off what he assumed were the walls around him.

His hands had been tied behind him, to the chair in which he was seated. He pulled on them and twisted his hands, but to no avail.

“Hello?” he called out. What had he stumbled into? He was still trying to even reconcile what he had just seen with what he had always thought was even possible. People, being churned out of an assembly line like canned food?

He started to hear sound coming from the darkness around him. He couldn’t identify it at first, but slowly he began to recognize the sound of shuffling footsteps. Bryce strained forward against his restraints but could could not make any headway. Whatever knots were holding him down were not relenting.

He was about to scream out, when bright lights exploded around him and he had just enough time to take in what was going on in the room around him.

All he could see was a small mob of the faceless figures he had seen on the factory floor, still awaiting their final mold. The skin was stretched, grotesquely thin over them as they stumbled towards him. Their moans, which he could now just barely hear, was soon drowned out by his own screams.

All around him, the light retreated to darkness, rendering him once again blind. His shouts became high-pitched shrieks, and the last thing he felt was what seemed like hundreds of different hands grabbing him, and beginning to tear.

[image error]