2010 Spooky Story Contest Winner

Excavation Find #4 (Handwritten note)
by Becky Devlin

I pray to God nobody ever finds this.

Weird, huh? To be writing something you hope nobody reads? Doesn't matter, I guess. I don't have a lot of time left and this is all I can do to keep from going crazy. I feel like I've been crying nonstop since yesterday.

It stinks in here. The Thing didn't leave a body when it died, it just sort of evaporated into the air. Smells like burning trash - it has for hours. It's making my head hurt.

I've double-checked the seal around the door and the walls God-knows-how-many times by now. I keep thinking about pharaohs' tombs and how they got to be buried with all that fancy stuff for the next life. I get to be buried with a table, a chair, and some empty filing cabinets. Lucky me. I've shut this place up tighter than a bomb shelter. Not even air is going to get in or out. If only I got to survive long enough to suffocate.

It's as dry as a tomb in here too. I wish there was something to drink but the Thing seemed to like water too much. Good breeding place, maybe. I couldn't risk it. No light but a tea candle, either. It didn't like bright lights and I had to lure it in here somehow. My handwriting probably sucks in the dark. Of course, what do I care? No one's going to read this.

I hope nobody reads this.

As long as the room stays sealed up, everything is safe. Even shadows can't walk through steel walls. Nothing safer than a lockbox, Stan used to say. Or was it Davey? Doesn't matter now, I guess. They're both dead. Everybody who worked on the project is dead.

Damn, my head hurts.

I know it's dead. Most of the past two days is a terrified blur, but one thing I can be sure about is that the Thing is dead. The stink is proof of that. No more people killed. No more missing persons reports filed at the police office. No more cops hunting around for remains they'll never find. Once the Thing got hold of someone there wasn't going to be anything left. Like Jonna. It slid over her and a few seconds later she was gone. Absorbed, maybe. But still screaming. She didn't stop screaming until after her body and clothes were gone.

I think I'm going to be sick. Again.

I don't have much longer. Dr. Andrews said that once the Thing lays its eggs, it dies. Well, it's dead. Dr. Andrews is the expert on this kind of thing. Or he was. So somewhere in this room are little baby terrors just waiting to hatch. That's why I hope no one finds this place. As long as the room stays sealed, they'll be trapped. I don't know where they are or what they look like. I've searched every corner and drawer a hundred times over. There aren't any puddles either. Maybe the eggs are invisible or gaseous like the Thing sometimes was. But soon they'll hatch and I'll be dinner.

God, my head is killing me.

If anyone finds this to read it, then it's already too late. If the room is opened even a little, the offspring Things can escape. They can go right past you without you even knowing it. They're made of gas, I think, gas and shadow. They can stretch out until they're barely a shimmer and slide around the corners of the walls, or bunch up into a black shadow-mass to consume you. If this room has been broken open, run. There's nothing you can do now except pray you're not the one they find in the middle of the night. If people start to go missing in town, get out. Don't let your house go dark. They don't like bright lights but light itself won't kill them. As far as I know, nothing can.

Except laying eggs. I still don't see the little demons. I don't get it, I can't find them anywhere. There's no source of liquid at all here. My head's not helping. It hurts so bad I can't think straight. I can't even see the paper clearly, it's making my eyes tear up again. I've never had a headache this bad, I don't know why-

Oh God.