Taylor's Weird Uncle 2 (Patreon)

Taylor’s Weird Uncle

Chapter 2

-VB-

The Dockworkers didn’t know why they got involved with whatever shit that was causing things to stay the same. 

The union head didn’t know, the head of hiring didn’t know, most of the regular members didn’t know, and certainly the temps didn’t know. 

This did not change the fact that people didn’t look upon them kindly for it. 

Sure, whatever was ensuring their survival in this wretched state made sure nothing in the city got worse, but things also never got noticeably better. The city blamed them for the latter and completely ignored the former. Which was what people generally were like. It was always the negatives that came up first, and the positives came after, if it did at all. 

So they soldiered on in their day to day lives, from meager work to meager work, and from miserable job to the next. 

What’s worse was that because they were - and probably always will be - a fixture of the Docks that the city still ran on (having all of the warehouses, commercial districts, and logistics hubs in the area), they naturally got a good influx of workers as others left for one reason or another. 

This did not change the fact that people joined them reluctantly and usually as a second-to-last resort (the last being joining the gangs [assuming they understood why that should be the last choice]). 

Danny Hebert, the head of hiring and currently the second-in-charge of the entire union, sighed as he pulled his glasses off and set it down next to the keyboard while holding the line phone up to his ear. 

“And everyone is leaving the area?” he asked. 

“Sure are, boss. None of us want the Thing to show up,” the supervisor on the job site replied. “... Wait, where’s Leeroy?” 

He heard muffled responses from the other side. 

“Shit. Leeroy went back to the warehouse. The idiot thinks a potential fire in a warehouse is worth that Thing popping up. Fuck!” 

“Don’t go back in there,” Danny quickly hissed out. “You know what happens. It scales with how many of us get hurt or killed.”

“I know! But -!”

BANG.

Danny heard it even through the phone.

And with it, he felt his stomach drop.

“Oh no,” he heard James, the supervisor, mutter. “Oh shit. Oh shit shit shit -!” 

“Get out of there, James!” he nearly shouted as he shot up from his seat. “You get the rest out before that Thing shows up!” 

Danny nearly ran to the windows to see the direction that James and his people were working and -.

He froze as he saw eyes. Simple yellow and black eyes, almost too transparent for him to have seen but also impossible to miss because that’s just what they were like. 

Eyes that followed him. Eyes that were slowly growing in numbers all around the Docks. 

“Shit shit shit shit -!” he hissed out loud as he ran out of the room while grabbing his coat. He ran into the radio room/call center, one that the PRT paid the union to set up for their own sake. Inside, Laura was trying to keep the chaos contained. 

She looked up with tears in her eyes from being overwhelmed. “D-Danny, the eyes -!” 

“I saw. It’s all over the Docks already.”

She hiccuped while her pale face became even paler. 

“I-It’s happening again!” she nearly shrieked. 

And then she froze. 

Danny froze, too.

Because there were eyes in the room. 

Then the door began to close. 

Danny jumped.

His hands brushed against the doorknob… but missed. He scrambled while gritting his teeth to grab the door -.

But it closed with a soft click.

Immediately, the room plunged into darkness. 

“FUCK!” he roared as he whirled around. “Laura, don’t move!” 

Then light flickered back on.

Except it wasn’t the orange LED tube light of the radio room but a single dim yellow incandescent light bulb, flickering on and off. 

And he and Laura were no longer in the radio room. 

Instead, they were in a rickety wooden shack where the floorboards creaked.

And something started moaning beneath them. 

Danny gulped as he broke out into a sweat. 

He knew the rules. He was going to be okay. 

Laura…

She looked like she was going to cry.

He slowly reached over to her and held her. She buried her face in his chest and trembled like a fall leaf. 

The moanings got louder. 

And fingernails began to claw at the walls all around them.

Rule 1. Do not respond to the sound. Do not acknowledge it. Do not think about it. 

Rule 2. No matter what your condition was, wait out the Event. 

That’s all there was to it. 

But someone always never came back. Someone always reacted.

Danny gulped and waited even as cold sweat broke out.

The clawing sounds stopped. 

And then the dead began to speak.

“Danny? It’s me, Danny. Can you open the door?” Annette’s voice whispered. 

He closed his eyes and buried his face in Laura’s hair. 

‘Don’t respond. Don’t respond. Don’t respond.’

“Danny? It’s been so long… It’s so cold out here. The songs don’t stop.”

He felt goosebumps rising all over his body. 

“The drums… they rumble. Constantly. Forever. Danny, can you pull me out of here? Can you open the door?”

Then Laura hiccuped. 

Annette’s voice stopped. 

Then it was a man’s voice. 

“Laura, are you in there?”

Laura’s trembling arms tightened around Danny’s waist. 

“Don’t respond, Laura,” he whispered. “You know what happens if you open that door.”

“I know,” she whispered back, though she sounded tearful. “I know.”

“Laura. It feels so nice out here. I can walk again. The songs don’t stop.”

The songs don’t stop.

It was a phrase that the Voices all repeated. 

“We can be together again, Laura. Open the door for me, please?” 

They didn’t respond. 

Then fists began to bang on the walls. The entire room shook like it was in the middle of a hurricane. 

“LET US IN!” Annette shouted. “OPEN THE DOOR!” 

Laura openly sobbed. 

Danny held her firmly. 

The thin wooden plank door rattled violently. 

Danny couldn’t see anything beyond the cracks in the walls, floor, ceiling, and that door. It was all darkness. 

The only thing that gave them protection was the flickering incandescent light bulb. 

And that’s when he heard it. 

A scream in the distance. 

He closed his eyes. 

Poor bastards… Someone must have opened the door. 

The wailing screams morphed. Tortured. Then … deliriously happy. A dementedly happy scream as others were dragged out.

The one who opens the door surrenders themselves to the Void beyond. Others had a fighting chance.

But the demented scream was soon joined by others. 

The banging and rattling of their room stopped. 

“I’m so sad that you won’t open the door, Danny,” Annette’s voice bemoaned. It sounded genuinely sad. “I’m sorry I couldn’t convince you, Danny. The lights go out.”

He let out a sigh of relief. 

The lights go out. It was the phrase that told him that the Event was going to be over soon. When someone opened the door, it always ended faster. 

And then the incandescent light flickered just one more time before turning off. 

Dim light appeared around them and then it became bright. 

And just like that, they were back in the radio room.

Laura broke down, openly crying out loud. 

Danny patted her on the back.

“It’s okay. We made it through.”

Now, he’ll have to find out who didn’t make it through.

-VB-

Taylor sighed. “Do you have to go so soon, mom?”

“I do. We never have enough time.”

“I know. Next time?”

“Next time, Little Owl.”

And the comforting darkness receded, leaving her alone in her room again. 

She let out a sigh. “I wonder when it’ll happen again,” she hummed to herself before getting back to her homework.

She noticed Mr. Shade was back in her shadow, though.