Dr. Creepen's Dungeon - S1 Ep26: Episode 26: Biohazard Horror

Episode Date: April 22, 2021

Tonight’s instant classic feature-length story is ‘Be Careful What You Bring Home from Work’, an original tale by the wonderfully talented Ryan Kinkor, kindly shared with me for the express purpose of having me exclusively narrate it here for you all.  https://www.reddit.com/user/RTKGuy/

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please contact Connix Ontario at 1866-531-2600 to speak to an advisor free of charge. BetMGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with Eye Gaming Ontario. Welcome to Dr. Creepin's dungeon. It seems to be an alarming level of ignorance about biological weapons. Even the very best scientists think it's virtually impossible to alter viruses genetically to make reliable weapons, or to store enough of a given pathogen for strategic purposes, or to deliver it in a way that assures maximum killing power. Tonight's feature-length story suggests this might be quite wrong.

So without further ado, I bring you tonight's first time. I bring you tonight's feature-length story. Be careful what you bring home from work by Ryan Kinkor. Now as ever, before we begin, a word of caution. Tonight's story may contain strong language, as well as descriptions of violence and horrific imagery. If that sounds like your kind of thing, then let's begin. Ray knew Sal wasn't home the moment he pulled up to his house,

and it immediately worried him. The driveway to their home was vacant. and unlit as he arrived in his dust-covered Ford pickup, the thin stream of waning sunshine illuminating the homestead. Sal typically parked her hybrid car in the driveway to allow Ray the garage, and she always turned on the porch lights for Ray when she got home. When she wasn't getting home first, she always texted or called Ray ahead of time.

This was routine for her, as predictable as spiders spinning webs. Ray set his watch to Sal's routine. Hell, he set his life to her routine. The garage door slid open to his remote, and her car wasn't there either. He parked his truck inside and pulled out his phone to check messages. No recent attempts from Sal. Her last text dated this morning, and relaying her desire for a dinner out on Friday,

someplace that serves Ty. Ray thought about calling her right then, but a quick glance to his phone's battery meter showed it was about to die on him, and the charger was in the house. He was also parched and putt, after a trying day of fighting with the idiot contractors who built the recent power relays over on the eastern end of the county's electrical grid.

He could get a drink while his phone charged a few minutes. Garage door obediently lowered behind him as he went inside his home proper. A dark hallway greeted him, soft blue light coming from the living room's digital devices at the other end. Sal really wasn't home. home. No possibility of having gotten dropped off and forgetting to turn on the porch lights.

Ray walked to the living room, turning on a ceiling light to brighten the homestead and his mood. Sal's absence bothered him more than he expected, but she was a grown, capable woman, a stickler for safety and someone who enjoyed bringing order to chaos. She'd whipped him into shape over the last two years. No dirty dishes could abide on the coffee table, no dirty underwear on the floor. Whatever it delayed her probably wasn't life-threatening. She worked in pharmaceutical developments,

a lucrative and demanding business. Long meetings and rushed deadlines popped up all the time. He'd had many a night to himself, especially in the last year as the company prepared a new drug line for commercial use. Still, pretty atypical of her not to let him know. Living on the edge of a forest carried a degree, of rustic charm, but Ray had never been thrilled with living the deep rural life, the nearest

neighbours are two-minute walk away, the nearest hospital ten minutes by car. Sal's company had moved its corporate headquarters out to the backcountry of California two years ago, and Sal transferred there for a promotion. The town of Grounder, like the influx of cash the company had brought, but Grounders and company folk didn't really mix. Ray had found himself unceremoniously grouped into the company folk category, so no real friends around these parts. He was close to sweet-talking Sal into letting him get a dog, though. But she was allergic. They did have these nifty pills that her company sold, that...

His thoughts broke apart as he entered the kitchen, preparing to grab a beer and charge his phone, when his boot crunched something underfoot. Ray flipped on a light and found the contents of the kitchen garbage on the linoleum floor. law. Chicken bones, brown lettuce, eggshells and other random trash lay scattered about. Ray groaned at the mess. Not the first time this had happened. Ray made the mistake of leaving the back door a jar on a hot night once, and the raccoon community invited itself inside. This had all the same hallmarks of a hungry scavenger intruding in his home again, and this particular critter had also opened a pair of cabinets under the sink.

Finding only household cleansers and knocking over a can of comet in its search for more edibles, sprinkling green cleanser onto the floor. So I do have company tonight, Ray remarked tiredly. Somehow, he or salad left a window or door open, even though it was far too cold to let in the winter air. Either that, or there was a serious structural failing somewhere in the house. The last thing he wanted for evening entertainment was to go on a critter hunt, but the longer you let an interloping pest make itself home, the bigger the mess it would

make. He left his cell phone charging as he started his critter hunt. First, he went to the back door, expecting an open entryway or even broken glass. The door was closed, locked and intact. No smudges on the glass, nor dirt or paw prints on the deck outside. The intruder hadn't come from this direction. The garage had been shut up tight when he arrived. The front door was still closed and locked.

That left a breached window or structural failure. He was hoping for a window. A quick glance around the kitchen, dining room and living room showed no busted windows. No critter signs either. No poor prints on the carpet. No tufts of fur, no filth trails left in its wake. No shredded blankets or pillows or knocked over furniture. As intrusive scavengers went, it was remarkably tidy.

He poked his nose around the rest of the house, bedroom, laundry room and office. Same deal. He stopped at the basement door and eyed it suspiciously, not ready to crack that note open just yet. He detested basements since his earliest memories and would have avoided buying a home with one had Sal not insisted on having one. It seemed a fair trade at the time. He got a garage, she got her basement.

But after two years of cohabitation, he'd yet to make peace with it. The basement remained Sal's territory. Garage then. Had he walked by the interloper unknowingly? He couldn't fathom how it might have gotten into the kitchen from there, but he was running out of places to look. The basement walls were solid concrete all around, so surely the critter couldn't have gotten into the house that way.

From his bedroom He grabbed a flashlight And Vandalbat Which was Sal's pet name for the baseball bat He kept near their bed Vandalbat Represented the sum total of their home security system He hated guns

And she hated alarms And since they lived in Nowhereville They both agreed that While home security wasn't going to be a major issue They needed something for protection And thus Vandalbat came to live with them You didn't think about freeloading critters, did you, Sal? Ray said to the air, liking the secure, solid feel of the wooden bat in his hands.

The garage hadn't changed in the few minutes since he'd last seen it. He clicked on the flashlight and scoured the various nooks and shadows, looked under his disorganized workbench, around the garbage cans, even scanning the ceiling for acrobatic interlopers. He found no critter and no signs of a critter's past presence. Ray now considered the possibility that Sal was behind this, orderly Sal, knocking over the garbage on her way out of the door, or somehow allowing a varmint to slip past her as she left for work.

He didn't think she was that capable of being distracted, but he was running out of ideas here. It'd be nice if he could talk to her, clear up the mystery, but the phone needed a few more minutes of charging to be useful. Besides, he'd afterhand in his mouth, Man-Papers if he couldn't find a simple woodland creature in his own home. Except that left the basement as the only remaining hiding spot. For some instinctual reason, he locked the garage door as he re-entered the house.

He told himself that a basement and a garage worked virtually the same way. The rooms you stuck all the crap that you couldn't find a place for in daily life. Yet for Ray, garage good. Basement, bad. He slowed his gate as he walked to the basement door. Stoped completely while several feet away. He stared at it, unable to compel himself to walk, and unable to define his hesitancy.

This wasn't feeling right. Sal's unexplained absence on the same night as an unexplained interloper had invaded his domicile, one that was remarkably quiet and neat for a scavenger. Ray did, in fact, believe in coincidences. Life was too random, weird and downright cruel to chalk everything up to a grand plan. But when mysteries started piling up at your feet all at once, you had to consider a connection. He might have stood there a while longer, his mind exploring this uncomfortable connection.

But the silence of the house was torn asunder by the ring of his cell phone. Eager and hopeful, Ray went to it and checked the call. "'Unknown,' it read. Usually that meant a robocaller or telemarketer. Ray normally blocked such calls, but right now he needed to hear another human voice, if only to dispel the uneasiness that was slowly claiming his mood. He answered, and his reward was not a sales pitch, but Sal's melodious voice. "'Ray, oh, thank God you picked up.'

He breathed out a sigh of relief. Good. She was okay, though her voice had a later of anxiety to it. No doubt she had a story to tell. Why wouldn't I pick up? He replied. My phone's been good all day. You're the one who went incommunicado. They took my phone, Ray. Static messed with her words, but not enough to prevent them. They took my laptop as well. I couldn't get in touch with you until now. She paused as someone in the background talked to her. The words garbled and unknowable.

She was in some kind of trouble. It was starting to sound like she'd been arrested. That might explain the lack of communication. Honey, what exactly is got... Ray, be quiet and listen. The urgency in her voice escalated. Are you home? Naturally, where else would I be?

I'd say the nightlife here is. dead, but actually we have... Ray... He did so, amazed at the vehemence of her voice. There was another pause and more garbled background words, but when she continued, her voice was softer than before. Ray, are the police there yet? Ray felt his anxiety return, and with reinforcements.

She really did get into legal trouble. Sal, why would the police... Are they there? She demanded. Her tone more strident than he'd ever heard before. No, Sal. Sweet, what the hell is going on? There was yet another pause,

and this time the background voices were rushed and angry. Okay, Ray, honey, you need to not interrupt or ask any more questions right now. She ordered. Two things are going to happen. First, the authorities are going to get to the house in less than two minutes. They are not the police. They'll look the part. They're going to surround the house, and they are not there to help you.

If you try to leave the house, they'll kill you. No matter what, don't go outside. Do not come out. Do you understand? This had to be a prank. Sal had turned over a new leaf and was pulling off her first practical jokes. Bad one for sure, but first-timers often went too far with their pranks. Sal, what the hell?

Do you understand? She practically screamed the words, and in that moment, Ray's notion that this was a prank immediately died. I, uh, yeah, honey, I hear you, he meekly replied. Sal's voice calmed, but her urgency remained. The second thing, the most important thing, is that you need to go to our office, get on your laptop, and look at your email,

find the email title, specimen, and print out the attachment. Don't bother reading it. You won't have time. It's printed out because the company is about to hit all our phones and computers with viral rooms, if they haven't done it already. They're scrubbing everything attached to a wireless connection. Then you need to read the first page of the document right away.

Follow the instructions exactly. If you do, then maybe you'll survive the night. Survive the night? How the hell did today go from, let's go out for Ty on Friday to maybe you'll survive the night? And that's when he heard the sirens. Faint now, but rapidly getting louder. He looked out a living room window aimed at the road and saw infrequent red and blue flashes in the dark. I think the killer police are coming, said Ray, barely able to speak through his day's state of mind.

How time's up? said Sal, and he could tell she was crying on the other end. They're going to block all communications, right? Nothing gets in or out. You won't be able to speak to me again until I want you to know that I'm sorry. I don't know if that'll matter to you after tonight, but just... The line went dead. No static or noise, just a final, unending silence.

He stood there in shock, still holding the phone to his ear. and might have stayed that way had the police not finally arrived. Sirens blared briefly, and then shut off as a number of vehicles screeched to a halt in front of the house, lighting up the night with headlights and flashing beacons. He absently put the phone back in his pants pocket and cautiously approached the living room windows, barely registering how exposed he was like this, how a sniper might plug him with little effort. He saw plenty of cops, along with four squad cars,

one police fan and an ambulance. You could see troopers cordoning off the road, taking cover positions and spreading out around the property. Most were outfitted like SWAT, as if expecting a war rather than a domestic disturbance. Nobody looked in a rush to come in, though, and while he was sure that they could see him, they didn't seem eager to talk to him or apprehend him.

He should go out there and talk to them. That was the rational course. Police certainly had bad raps at times, often deservedly, but they were still here to protect and serve. He'd done nothing, and even if Sal had broken the law, and this was all related to her crimes, they would have to take him in, not kill him. And yet, something was off about these guys. There was a militant air about them, how they were encircling the house defensively,

covering all the exits and windows. The squad cars had different paint jobs than one used by the town police, and the dark uniforms had no markings or insignia on them. Every officer he could see carried assault rifles and Kevlar vests. These were not local authorities. Then he spotted two figures exiting the ambulance. They stood out against their fellow troopers by being unarmed and being encumbered with full-bodied orange biohazard suits.

biohazard suits Fear grabbed his heart and gave it a mighty squeeze This was a biohazard scenario Had he been exposed to something When would that have happened? Of course This had to be about Sal and her work

But she was the most careful person he knew She never brought her work home with her She didn't talk about a work at all except him broad, vague terms. She never had any incriminating containers full of hazardous materials or viral samples. She had a briefcase and a laptop she'd brought to and from work, but that was it. She'd never bring home anything dangerous. Well, obviously, she had, or he wouldn't be in this fix, would he? Maybe the critter he'd been on the search for was in fact a lab animal from Sal's company. Maybe he'd just become a...

patient zero for a potential pandemic. Sal's dire warning did finally penetrate his anxiety, and he started lowering all the blinds in the living room. And if these guys weren't here to save him, he was going to make them work for it. His laptop, damn, the answers might be there. In his growing panic, he'd forgotten all about it. He raced from the living room and down the hall, nearly ramming the office door in his rush. He checked the room for the critter again, but it was the same as before. There was precious little space for hiding in here, mostly just a standard wooden work desk,

several bookshelves lined with medical literature, and a filing cabinet stuffed full of household records. His laptop sat on the desk. It was more Sal's office than his, but she mostly used it as a library. Ray had the run of it most days. The one window in the room afforded a great view of the forest. Ray lowered the blinds, but not before spotting a so-called cop,

taking position near an old pine tree. His rifle trained in Ray's direction. Trying his best to ignore his hammering heart and the gripping fear that made him want to start screaming, Ray opened his laptop and went to his email. Sure enough, nestled in his inbox was a message titled, Speciment. Though the sender's address was all jumbled up,

and nonsensical. He opened it. The body of the message was blank, but an attached file was present. He tried to get it printed right then and there, but he noticed the wireless connection was down. The computer was lagging as well, becoming slower and less responsive. And Sal's warnings about worms sped his hands towards his desk drawer, extracting a USB cord and manually connecting his copier to his laptop. Oh, please, please, please, please, please, please, he recited, a mantra to whatever God was watching over him right now, as the printer spalled up and spat out page after page of information. The printer stopped after six pages. It's display telling him that it needed more paper.

God damn it! He tore open the paper tray, grabbed a handful of printer paper from his desk and slammed it in. But the printer remained dormant. The display suddenly blinking an error message. Ray fumed, punched a few buttons on the printer, and then punched the printer itself. The error message remained, and a moment later the power on the machine died. Ray turned back to his laptop, and, shock of shocks, the laptop was just as powerless. He tested it, pushed the power button a few times, but to no avail.

Anger whirled up within him. anger fueled by the unfairness of it all but he held back on any smash and burn temptations raging wouldn't help him but some anger was good anger got stuff done oddly enough not anger at Sal not yet at least

he couldn't believe she'd intentionally put him in danger like this not his Sal there had to be a story here an explanation that exonerated her He sat down at his desk and looked over the papers in his hand. Hopefully the explanation was within these six pages. He began reading the first page. If you're reading this and you have a serious situation on your hands,

if the authorities haven't already arrived at your location, then they will shortly. They are not here to help you. They are a special division of the company, you or someone who lives with you, works for. Do not go out and talk to them. Cover all windows if possible and stay out of direct sight. They will not shoot you while you're still inside your home. They have particular rules of engagement. But the less intelligence they have on your situation, the more time you have. This wasn't reading like something Sal would write. No, this was more formal. Some kind of, in case of emergency document.

Before you keep reading, secure all external doors. Then find a room you know is safe or can make safe in short order. Make sure all egress points in the room are blocked against intrusion. This includes windows, air vents, and any holes big enough for a rat-sized animal to get through. Do this now. Rat-sized holes? Did he have a lab rat running around the house? That might explain why it was so hard to find.

But a rat couldn't knock over the kitchen garbage. The can was too big. He pushed the thought aside for now. First, secure against the authorities outside. He left the office and went to the living room, double-checking the front door. The one good lock on it was the linchpin of their grand home security plan. Then there was the kitchen with a sliding door. He lowered the blinds on the windows.

He thought about moving couches and other furniture against the doors to block them. but he knew it wouldn't make a difference in the long run. The house wasn't a fortress, and the authorities would barge in with little effort if they wanted to. Ray suspected that what held them back was bad press. They had to make the whole mess look like a by-the-book police raid should the media show up or someone upload a video to YouTube. Still, Ray fetched a pair of wooden stirring spoons

and used them to jam up the sliding door, just to make it a little harder on them. He moved to the hallway, intending to double-check the door to the garage when he heard it. A slithering, scraping sounds coming from under the hallway floor. He stopped and listened. The sound repeated a foot further along the hall. It had to be from the ventilation shaft that ran under the hallway, connecting most of the house up to the heating and AC system in the basement.

Of course, it's in the ventilation. ventilation, he mused glumly. Where else could it go to make his life harder? At least this reinforced the lab rat idea, because nothing bigger than a rat could fit in there, made the slither scrape again, moving further along, and he rethought his lab rat idea. Whatever it was, it didn't move with ease, more like something forcing its bulk through a cramped space. regardless he knew where the animal was and this was a good thing maybe he could trap it in the vents offer it to the authorities as proof that the biohazard threat was contained and there would be no need for any killing of ray to-night repeated the interloper and ray made his mind up strike while the iron was hot the saying went either he dealt with the lab escape or the authorities would go through him to do so All right. New plan. Direct the animal to a vent, coax it out and trap it. The first step should be to shut all the vent doors, but he didn't have time for that.

The thing down below continued its journey at a steady pace, and as he followed along, he realised it was headed for the laundry room and its sizable floor vent. Ray wasn't ready to confront this thing yet, but deter it he could. He stepped ahead of the thing and into the laundry room, tripping over the basket of whites he'd promised Sal that he'd fold this weekend. He caught himself before smashing his head on the dryer, laughing lightly as he steadied. Boy, wouldn't that be the way to go?

Surrounded by gun-toting troopers, a diseased thing spreading contamination through his house, and he gets done in by the corner of a household appliance. Why did he keep calling the lab animal? a thing. That word kept slipping into his thoughts. It was just an animal in the vents. Some poor test rodent inflicted with a nasty disease by scientists trying to create a vaccine and corporations looking for profit. He wanted to muster up some compassion for the animal, but it was hard to feel real mercy when its mere presence in your house threatens your life.

The shh below his feet motivated him back into action. He moved to the floor then, and he moved to the floor vent and made to close it when he got a whiff of the lab animal. He recoiled as flashbacks of feted mounds of trash came to mind. He'd worked a few years at a county dump, and the smell permeating the place haunted him to this day, putrid, rotting things all mixed together. If the odor was coming from the lab animal, then it was in bad shame. An atavistic chill invaded his body as the unseen creature crawled up the vent shaft. For this time, there was a vocal bit as well. A combination of hissing and wheezing,

utterly foreign to his recollections of animal noises. Suddenly, calling the animal a thing didn't seem like such a stretch. Ray closed the vent, but now he didn't think it was enough. He placed the full laundry basket on top, and then added a half-full tub of big box lawn. laundry detergent to the basket and stepped back as the animal thing crawled once more, the noise reverberating from under the vent opening.

Ray watched and waited, unconsciously stepping to the doorway in case he needed to make a quick exit. A long moment passed. No sound emerging from below, and Ray began to feel a bit silly about his reaction. It was a sick animal. He'd been here. He'd been here. He'd been hearing pained weising and smelling its sickness. It wasn't about to. The basket jerked upward. Ray almost fell backward into the hallway, his hands catching the doorframe. As he regained his footing, the basket lurched again and again as the animal thing banged into the vent over and over. White crystals of detergent flew upward, sprinkling down into the basket and onto the floor. The basket moving ever so slightly with each hit.

Ray watched, mystified, even downright horrified as the creature attacked its blocked egress point with clear determination. It can't be this strong. It's small, it's sick, it's stuck in a vent. It can't possibly get out. And yet, the basket shifted.

Another few hits, and it might be free and clear and probably in a foul mood. but the assault abruptly stopped the creature went silent motionless the basket remaining in place the thing was on the move again thwarted for now he stood there wide-eyed as he digested the strength of this creature only when the creature's movement echoed from under the doorway did he return to reality diseased or not this lab animal was not something he wanted to face by himself. He ran from the room and went all through the house, a new objective in mind. Garage door locked, no time for a door wedge. Trooper's not the issue right now. Vents in the kitchen and living room, closed. The couch moved over one, a smattering of heavy utensils and

cookware inside a large soup pot on the other. The bedroom vent neutralised, with a drawer pulled from Sal's dresser, to which he'd added some weighty bric-a-brac. The basements. Dead end for the creature. The furnace abided there. There were intake vents in the hallway, but those were on a separate vent system from the one the creature travelled in. Only the office vent remained accessible.

Ray jogged to the office. Before he went in, he detoured to the house thermostat controls, installed next to the office door and turned off the furnace. Tempted as he was to try and cook the thing in the vents, he was more concerned that the heat would make it redouble its efforts to escape. Better to leave it be for now. He secured the office vent by manhandling the filing cabinet on top of it. Ray then closed the office door and collapsed into his desk chair,

feeling raw and rattled. What the hell had Sal gotten him into? This thing wasn't your garden variety lab animal. Sal had clearly been lying to him about her line of work. All sorts of terrible imagery crept into his head. Notions of illegal experiments done by mad scientists and the brave but cruel military types who had to clean up after them.

The printed file on the desk beckoned to him, begging him to read it. Right now he wasn't sure he wanted to know anything more. once he read this once he knew the truth he doubted his life would ever be the same if he survived the night

Sal and him well no path forward that he could see not if she was both creating and working for monsters if he survived the night he could worry about such things but first things

first he gathered the pages found where he'd left off and resumed. He kept an ear out for the tell-tale sliver of the intruder as he read. At this point, you should have a secured room. You may have encountered the reason for your troubles. We call it the specimen. Now, this is important.

Do not touch it. No direct physical contact between you and the specimen and any secretions. If contact has occurred, immediately skip. to page six. Well, one thing had gone right. No skipping pages needed. The organism you are facing is a product of genetic engineering.

While you now have a thousand questions as to its origin and purpose, we have little time to cover this. We are here to save your life, and time is not on your side. You can ask your questions when you make it through the night. This is not the first time

that a specimen is escaped, and there are those of us trying to shut it all down, but that doesn't help you right now is the only way the team outside will let you live is if you show incontrovertible proof that the specimen is dead and that you are clean of contamination. I won't lie to you about your chances. Only one other person has survived the kind of scenario you are in now.

You, reading his words, follow them to the letter. Firstly, a specimen is contaminated, with a type of fast-acting disease. It is fluid-based, but has an extremely short viability outside the body of the specimen. You won't have to worry about contaminated services until the organism's maturity reaches stage six.

But you need to find and don't any protective gear you may have at the ready. Ray laughed out loud. Protective gear? He had some rubber gloves, but that was about it. This also means that you do not want to use knives or firearms against the creature. The risk of exposure to infected tissue or fluid is too great. Tazers have some effect, and blunt weapons are better than your fists, but your best weapon is avoiding contact

right now. Secondly, the specimen is going through massive... Ray jumped in his chair as the sliver scrape sounded out from the hallway, louder than before. He tensed, awaiting more activity from the specimen, but once a minute. minute went by with no further noise. He went back to reading. Secondly, the specimen is going through a massive growth right now. His lifespan has seven stages, and since you're reading this, you're facing a minimum stage three specimen. But to know how to safely neutralize a threat, as well as giving yourself a rough estimate of how much time you have left, you have to determine its exact life stage. Your only way to do this is to find its hatching spot.

You need to find his eggshell remains. Note their colour, then reference chart 1A to determine the life stage. There was a small piece of extra text added to the end of the paragraph. Note from Sal, the most likely spot would have to be my briefcase, and the black one. I left it in the basement today. Long story, no time for explanations. Look there first. They expected him to go sleuthing and conducting amateur science with troopers at his doorstep

and a bio-menace loose in his home. And from what he was now reading, that was just the first course of bad news. The company will go as far as they have to in order to protect its secret and stop further contamination. But they'd rather have your cooperation in the cover-up than do body disposal. Yes, this means you will have to kill the specimen.

But for now, walk slowly, stay quiet, we're pretation, and do nothing more than finally. action. If you don't provoke it, you should be safe. Now, get going. Shivers ran all through him. The biggest thing he'd ever killed was a cockroach, and that cockroach had given him hell. When it came to pest infestations, he called the exterminator. When it came to interloping critters, he opened the back door and gave it a way out. "'Ah, Sal was the one who could squish bugs with ruthless pragmatism.

"'One time he and Sal had woken up to the sounds of furtive rustling underneath their bed. "'Sall had gotten up, retrieved Vandalbat, "'and managed to brain the rat that was exploring their bedroom "'before it fled to its hole. "'And then she plopped back into bed and was asleep in two seconds. "'Well, she's not here. "'The role of killer was his this day. time. He folded the papers and placed them in a back pocket. He stopped at the doorway,

opened it a crack, and listened for the specimen. He continued its game of silence. Such silence worried him more than its grating slither. He took a deep breath, telling himself to stay focused. Follow the instructions. Take this step by step, and he'd survive the night. Rubber gloves awaited. him in the broom closet, and he donned them with all due haste. Vandalbat awaited him on the kitchen counter. He hoped he wouldn't have to use it, but it was best to avoid splattering specimen blood, but he felt safer with a vandalbat in hand. The door to the basement awaited him, as plain as every other door in the house and yet ten times less welcoming.

Might as well have been the cavernous moor of a hungry beast. Bacements were the domain of creepies and crawlies, the spiders that nested overhead, or the rats that used your belongings for breeding grounds. While the specimen was stuck in the vents, Ray had the high ground. Down here, no such luck. No matter how much he told himself that it couldn't get out. Going down felt like the wrong move. But then bravery was action despite fear, wasn't it? He pulled the door open and flipped on the overhead fluorescence, darkness dissipating into pockets of shadow littered across the cluttered room. Like most honest Americans, the basement was where Ray and Sal hid their latent hoarding habits, stuffing boxes full of mementos and left over dudars in preparation for a nebulous

future where they might be needed. Bandal bat in hand, Ray went down the steps as if proceeding into a minefield, listening for the specimens' movements. His feet, touch the slant floor and he froze it moved through the shaft above his head more rapidly than before and with a touch too much eagerness for ray's comfort the shaft led to the furnace on the other side of the room the device silent and still a stalwart sentinel blocking the creature's access he didn't dare relax but he felt a touch more secure for now halfway across the room necessarily between dusty boxes of old textbooks, was an old wooden desk that had once belonged to Sal's grandmother. Another fellow scientist, her late grandmother, working in botany or maybe geology,

Ray couldn't remember. Sal considered Graham the inspiration for her science career. Ray wondered what Graham would have thought of Sal's choices now. Ray really hadn't paid enough attention to Sal's life, had he? He'd seen her bring home this briefcase and not. number of times, but she always left it in the basement, the one room he avoided whenever possible. Logically, briefcases belonged in offices. While he doubted she'd been hiding little monsters this whole time, she had been hiding the truth of her work. He'd been so thrilled to have a girlfriend with a steady income and a predictable disposition that he'd ignored this, some quirk of hers. The creature continued its slither toward the furnace as he read.

of the briefcase, and if listening to the specimen wasn't bad enough, the state of the briefcase utterly removed any remaining calm from Ray's mind. There was a nasty little hole, the width of a silver dollar gracing its surface. The chewed edges of the hole were pushed out and upward, confirming it as the specimen's origin point. I stared at the ruined briefcase, shaking his head in disbelieve. Strong little bugger, and pungent as well. The same lovely smell of decay wafted from the hole.

He opened the case and immediately regretted it as the stink tripled in intensity. The material inside shredded and gooped up with dried yellow slime. Any expository documents he might have wanted to examine were too ruined to read.

Grimmissing, he began picking through the papers with his gloved fingers, breathing through his mouth as much as possible. Soon enough, the mess yielded several tiny green eggshell bits, some of which were stuck fast to the dried slime. Carefully pulled the shells free until he acquired half a dozen fragments. Focus as he was on his task, he took a seriously loud clunk erupting from the other side of the basement to remind Ray that he had company. He looked toward the furnace. The thing had reached it, and with another aggressive bang it ran down.

into the internal parts blocking its path. Again and again, the creature attacked the furnace interior with the ferocity of a starving beast smelling dinner and throwing itself against its prison. Ray could hear metal bending and grinding, could see the furnace shake and vibrate. Occasionally a raspy hissing floated out of the device, perhaps the voice of the specimen itself, venting its frustration. Ray nervously watched the assault on his furnace. knowing he should be heading for the basement door, but also feeling a bit curious now. He was tired of fearing a mere blank image in his head.

He had what he needed, but maybe he could wait a moment and see what he was up against. He gripped the egg fragments in his left hand, Vandal bat in his right, and tensed himself to run. The furnace furiously rattled several more times, but Ray didn't think it was making progress now. It almost seemed stuck in there.

Ray felt a stress-relieving laugh come on, and he let it out. Served you right, he said, scolding the thing in his furnace, you and your company are going to owe me a new furnace with this is all over. Hell, you might even make me a millionaire after it. The furnace's front cover abruptly bulged out, metal squealing on metal In the upper right corner Pop free and bent outward

The rest of Ray's comet died in his mouth As he saw movement Something tubular and snake-like Trying to force his way out The meager gap it had created The thing hissed angrily His voice laced with belligerent need Ray began backing up towards the stairs

His eyes fixed on the furnace His heart pounding his curiosity dead and buried for now. He held Vandalbad out like a crucifix as he mentally kicked himself for his complacency. But he'd be okay if he could get to the stairs before it got free. Then it got free.

The hole in the furnace had widened a little further and something long, slender and quick darted out of it. He heard it hit the floor behind a large collection of boxes. and went silent. He stopped and listened, afraid to move, afraid to turn his back and flee. He thought he heard a scuttle here, a skitter there, but it was a hell of a lot quieter out in the open and stuck in a vent. And he knew, he just knew, that he was its target. As if realizing that the balance of power had shifted, the specimen led out a long, slow hit.

This particular hiss felt relaxed, at ease, and Ray had the terrible idea that it was stating for the record how little it mattered whether he ran or stood his ground. It was liberated now, and it was coming for him. Instinct took over now, and he ran. His body felt too slow, the door too far away, as he reached the steps and began leaping up them two at a time, his head screaming with the certainty of failure. He heard its skitter slither after him, hissing in joy as the chase commenced. He pictured the creature grabbing his legs just as he reached the door, yanking him back into the basement, just so the universe could get its daily dose of sadistic irony.

But his feet made the carpet untouched, and he slammed the door shut, bracing it with his body. He stood there, back to the door, panting, listening for the specimen over his jack-hammering heart, but the creature had gone quiet. Even with a door between him and the specimen, he felt no relief. If the thing was strong enough to wreck a furnace trying to get at him, he doubted a door or a blocked-off air vent would hold it back forever. What hope he had was in his left hand. Keeping his back braced to the door, he dropped Vandal bat to the floor, ungloved his right hand and wriggled the file free of his pocket.

Glancing at the eggshell fragments, it was hard not to notice their dark green hue. Hopefully what he had was adequate, because right now he'd rather have the house burned down around him than go back into the basement unprepared to kill that thing. At least chart 1A was easy to understand. Apparently, the egg goes through rapid decay and discoloration after hatching. and the rate was so consistent you could use it like carbon dating. If this chart was right, then Ray's particular specimen was in stage five. With time at a premium, he skipped right to the stage five description.

No mincing of words here. You are in serious trouble. I wasn't before. Ray commented dryly. At stages two through four, it will see dark places in organic refuse or carry a, for feeding, but once it hits stage five, its metabolism will greatly increase as it prepares for stage six. It is starving all the time now, and it will pursue humans over all other food options. It was made for this purpose. Ray shook his head in disgust. The only purpose for something like this was covert assassination. Order your killer organism and wipe out your enemies like the professionals do. Order a dozen and get free shipping. They could have sworn that humanity had gotten

smarter than this, but the human ego, especially amidst with human greed, could make even the smartest of us incredibly stupid. The specimen will become increasingly aggressive the longer it goes without food. This will make it predictable, but it also means that it's going to come for you or anyone else in the vicinity. It has to feed and feed well to begin stage six. And that's your one advantage here. The security team at your location is only authorized to begin a cleansing action if a specimen has hit stage six.

You can still kill it if you... The door lurched, Ray yelping in surprise and dropping the eggshells onto the floor. The door lurched again, wood cracking and splintering as the specimen crashed into it. as the thing's enraged hissing filled the air around him. The damn thing must have crept up the stairs in stealth mode. A rapid succession of slams continued as Ray braced the door, swearing at the bastard to stop and go after one of the nice troopers outside. He glanced around for a means to jam the door,

but nothing within reach would work. The symphony of pandemonium filled the hallway as the door groaned in protests, The creature hissed in anger, and Ray yelled in fear. Rather abruptly, the specimen broke off its assault, the house falling silent again. The door ceasing his buckling. Ray didn't know what to make of it, disbelief forcing him to hold position, anticipating another attack. But a long minute passed, and either it had gone into silent mode again, or it was attempting to find another route out of the basement.

Not wasting the moment, Ray went back to his pages, taking too many precious seconds finding his place again, dread coiling within him as he expected the assault to renew at any moment. But there, staring him in the face was finally a glimmer of hope. You can still kill it if you apply liberal amounts of standard bleached with skin. Stage five specimen tissues are especially susceptible to the chemical. "'Bleech? "'A regular household bleach? "'Couldn't the writer have led with that? "'If you'd known this from the start,

"'he'd have gone into the basement with a bottle of the stuff "'and drowned the specimen while it was wrecking his furnace. "'Sall kept a healthy supply of it in the laundry room. "'I'd always wondered why she liked the stuff so much. "'Well, maybe she was preparing for a night like this. "'The laundry room was only one door away, "'but he'd have to abandon this door. which felt like a really bad idea.

He had no real choice though. Staying here was akin to eventual suicide. The room wasn't that far. One quick sprint and he'd be armed for battle. Easy, breezy and all that. His next potential heart attack came from an entirely unexpected place. His phone. Dropping the papers to the ground,

he yanked the device from his pockets and flipped it open. It was the same unknown number as before. It had to be, Sal. But how was this call getting through the wireless blackout? He answered, and the sound of Sal's voice sent a wave of relief surging through him. Oh, God, Ray, you're still alive. Please tell me you're not hurt. Tell me you're safe.

Yeah, so far and at the moment, he replied. Sal, how are we talking? We did it, Ray. She said, And he could hear the triumph in her voice. I had to strong on my friends, but we uploaded video evidence to several websites and sent companies to a bunch of major publications. The company's on the public radar now. It's in their best interest to keep you alive.

Ray's relief slowly curdled into suspicion. This had to be some kind of trick, an attempt by the company to lure him out. Maybe they coerce Sal into cooperating. Hell, how could he trust her about... anything anymore. They wanted me to told you before you did something dumb. She continued. They're sending two agents into the house, Ray.

They're going to escort you to safety. Or they're going to shoot me, Sal. They could shoot you right now. Sal had her, don't be a dumb-ass tone, engaged. They have a sniper with an anti-material gun and an infaroscope. They've known your location the whole time. Believe me, they were prepared to put you down the moment they got the thumbs up from the company.

The thought had occurred to him. It was getting harder and harder to hide in this modern world that could spy and rain death from unhigh. Still, he only had her word to go on. This feels too convenient, he said, resting his back on the door once more. None of this is convenient, Ray, and it won't be convenient for a long time.

The legal and media circus we're about to go through or make your night to night look like a fun house right, I helped make a monster, Ray. I'm probably looking at jail time, but right now, let's just focus on getting you out. Ray leaned his head against the basement door and blew out a long, aggravated sigh. He knew what Sal was saying. She was taking a legal bullet to save his skin, exposing her role in the company's experiments in order to end them.

Sal wasn't the person he thought she was, but she was still the woman who always cleaned up her messes. Okay, what do I do now? he asked. Don't do anything, but stay where you are and keep your hands visible. Sal explained. They're picking the front door right now. It'll take a couple of minutes. Ray looked down the hall towards the living room.

He thought he could hear distant noises coming that direction. Why don't they just batter the door down? We don't want to attract the specimen. and it tracks vibrations. We don't know where it is right now. Can't the Goonsquot see it on infrared? It doesn't show up on infrared. Ray swore into the phone.

He's bottled up anger on the verge of release. Damn it, Sal. What was going through your head? How could you live with this? She didn't reply. The pause putting Ray on edge as the seconds ticked by. He felt all kinds of vulnerable right here, waiting for a rescue from the very people who'd been ready to kill him minutes ago,

or waiting for Sal's genetic horror to reappear for dinner time. You ever play with Legos, Ray? Of all the replies Ray had expected from Sal, that wasn't one of them. Lego's Sal? I played with them all the time when I was a kid. I was never into dolls and fru-frew. I built things, all kinds of things.

Sometimes I followed the plants. Sometimes I went wild. But you can only build with the Legos you have. This wasn't any different. The company gave us a set of Legos, and we built with them. They gave us a plan, but the plan never quite worked the way we wanted. We made it smart, but then it got too smarts. We made it grow fast, but then it grew too fast.

We made it vulnerable to household chemicals, but then it developed a lethal disease. We shortened its life span to three days, but it develops day six. I never thought it would be viable. I never thought the company would ever approve it for sale. But then I found out my team wasn't the only one working with the specimen line, and that there had been breaches elsewhere. So, I kept working because I was building a case ray. I was so close to going public.

And then the specimen breached on my watch. Ray took all this in, and he certainly had an opinion or two about Sal's decisions, but then he heard the front door swing open, his hinges squealing and greeting to the two agents entering the house. They quickly came into view, two men in full puke yellow biohazard suits, trailing oxygen hoses and carrying assault rifles, quickly moving down the hallway. Ray held his hands up and tried looking as non-threatening as possible, daring to feel a little optimistic now.

After all, they hadn't shot him yet. They neared the hallway intake vents, and it was then that Ray had an unhappy epiphany. The younger specimen that had noisely squeezed itself through the vents had grown into a silent-as-the-grave kind of monster. The furnace was fully exposed. The intake shaft. Guys, wait a sec! Ray shouted, pointing his gloved hand at the vent. fence. Don't!

The two agents stopped in their tracks, training their guns on him and ordering him to raise both hands. Ray immediately complied, suddenly less confident that he wasn't going to get shot. These hair-trigger yahos were afraid of him. They were used to burning down homes and clearing up the dead, not selfless rescue. And the lead agent had stopped right in front of the hallway then. It was like the world's worst jack-in-the-box coming to life. The vent exploded outward, and Ray had a great view of the whole debacle, the specimen in all its glory. Something crossed and blended, a coiling snake-like form that housed hundreds of centipede legs,

scales the colour of tar, an orange underbelly caked with slime or mucus, and a head that was all mouth. For a split second, he saw the mouth open wide, revealing an overabundance of curved sharp teeth, right before the mouth found its mark. Oh, Sal, he mumbled in stark terror. What was going through your head? It punched right through the agent's suit and into his neck. The suit's visor quickly coated with blood, the agent dropping his rifle and struggling with the creature, falling to the ground as the two writhed in each other's embrace.

The other agent backed away and brought up his rifle, hesitant to open fire while his partner fought for his life, but clearly not wanting to rush in and grapple the creature. Ray stood and watched, frozen in shock, as the specimen poured itself free of the vent, all twelve feet of it, while it tore into the agent, smearing blood over the suit, the carpet, and the walls. The other agent snapped out of his indecision before Ray did,

and all Ray could do was cover his pained ears as the rifle spoke, filling the specimen with the lead and the hallway with intense echoes. But Ray noticed no splatter, no holes, no pain coming from the creature. Instead, it released its murderous hold on the dying agent, and swiveled its hideous, gorse-strewn head at the second man. The other agent had exactly one second to scream before the specimen did a repeat performance, this time burying its head into the victim's chest, toppling him to the carpet as he yelled out nonsensically. The second agent's suffering snapped Ray out of his shock.

Now he understood the mentality of the company's cleanup crew, why they'd treated him like a dead man. This thing was compact and powerful, a living weapon. It had one purpose, and it did it with amazing precision. He had no chance against it. He never had a chance against it. As soon as it got its fill of these two agents, it would likely want dessert. He could hear Sal yelling at him from the phone in his left hand.

She was literally so close and so far away. He looked down at Vandalbat, still gripped in his right hand, an ineffectual piece of wood against this beast. The laundry room. Running on an unstable mix of fear and hope, he ran to the laundry room door, flinging it open and darting inside while the specimen fared. The bleach bottles were easy to find, arrayed neatly in the cabinet above the dryer.

Sal loudly demanded to hear from him as he rested the phone on the dryer. The bottle he grabbed felt about half full. Hopefully it would be enough. He turned to the door, hoping to get at the creature while it was still feeding. But the moment he turned to face the door, a swift blast of horror froze him in place once again. The specimen was there, right before the doorway, reared up like a cobra, the insectile legs on its lower half, digging into the carpet to brace its upper half. its crimson-covered head level with his belly button, its mouth closed.

Ray couldn't say it was looking at him, as he couldn't see a single eye anywhere, but it knew he was there regardless. It swayed slightly, as if a little uncertain about his exact location, or perhaps debating which of his bits and pieces it should go for first. He should already be dead. This thing moved too quickly, too efficiently, to just stop and take its time with him like some B-grade horror movie creature.

Maybe it got sluggish after a good meal. Maybe it was looking for entertainment instead of dessert. Maybe he'd contemplate away this opportunity if it didn't act already. He had to undo the lid on the bottom. A simple act that felt as dangerous as plucking the correct wire from a bomb detonator. The specimen watched him as his hands slowly closed with each other, Ray shoving Vandalbat under his left armpit to free up his fingers on his right hand. Then it was one slow and gentle twist after twist as he worked the plastic lid off. The specimen stood there, quietly thinking whatever it was thinking.

Ray couldn't believe he was going to get away with this. just stay like that for two more seconds you piece of the moment the cap came free the specimen pivoted its head pointing right at the bottle a menacing hiss erupted as its mouth unfolded like flower petals at dawn giving ray a front row view of its several rows of sharp teeth all aimed at him For the one moment they had together, Ray and the specimen had but one thing in common. Instinct. It was instinct that drove the specimen's head back and then forward, striking out at Ray's chest region.

It was instinct that drove Ray's right hand to grab Vandalbats handle and swing away awkwardly, blind panic preventing him from aiming properly. The bat collided with the specimen's open mouth. The creature chopping down. and enfolding the bat within its mouth, its teeth ripping into the wood, demolishing it as if it were a twig. The creature's momentum paused.

Ray cocked his left arm back and flung a generous stream of bleach right onto the specimen's head, drenching it. For a long moment, the creature didn't react, seemingly confused by the combination of inedible splinters in its mouth and the chemical bath it had received. Ray dropped the remains of Vandalbat and backed off, preparing to douse the creature again as soon as it tried anything.

Then its mouth flew open, spraying the floor with bat bits and a nasty yellow liquid, a hideous cry filling the air. The specimen began a dance of pain, banging against the walls, crushing the hamper and scattering clothes, blindly striking its head against anything it could touch. Dents formed in the washer and dryer, as they bore the creature's fury, and now little wrents in the creature's scales could be seen, cracks forming and widening, with more of that noxious fluid spilling forth,

smearing all over the creature's upper torso and every surface it touched. Had to be dying. But it wasn't dying quickly enough for Ray's tastes. Ray flung more bleak, its way, but most of it ended up on the floor and the walls as the creature thrashed about. He emptied the bottle with one final fling, mostly giving the washer a good bleaching, and then moved to grab another bottle from above the dryer.

As he grabbed it, the specimen bashed into the dryer a few inches from him, pausing this time as it aimed its mouth in his direction, letting loose a hiss that spoke of deep rage instead of pain. Ray anticipated a strike and tried to dodge away, bringing the bottle to bear as a shield. The creature did not strike, but leapt forth from its bleeding, ulcerous mouth, a torrent of clear fluid, streaming out like a squirt bottle. It missed Ray's shirt by mere millimeters, but Ray freaked out just the same, and he rocked backwards from the fluid. The creature pressed its attack, switching off the fluid and lashing out like a snake,

once again, intending to take Ray with it no matter what. Whether it is instinct or just plain luck, Ray brought the bottle in line with its strike. Instead of a pound of flesh or a mouthful of splinters, it found a bottle full of poison. Its teeth penetrated the plastic container, vile bleach seeping from three dozen separate holes into its mouth and down its throat. Ray and the creature recoiled from each other. The creature shaking its head furiously to dislodge the bottle. Ray backpedaled for his life,

but his right foot found a small puddle of bleach and he had nothing to grab onto this time. He fell on his back and his head connected with something solid, pain surging all through him and blackness overwhelming his vision. He caught sight of the specimen going through a new bout of agony dancing as its scales flaked and disintegrated. But then blackness took over and he saw nothing more. Ray didn't have a history of migraines, but he certainly thought the headache he was feeling would qualify as he regained his senses.

He was slumped on the floor, the room quiet and his body remarkably intact, despite the throbbing in his head and back. He was alive. Somehow he was still alive. He sat up, noticing the dent in the dry wall behind him and the god-awful mess in front of him. He didn't think he was out for more than a few minutes, but in that time the specimen was, well, not really a specimen any longer. The creature's body lay half in and half out of the room,

as much a puddle of fluids and scales as it was a corpse. Even now Ray could see the scales dissolving, breaking apart and mixing with the yellow fluid that had stood for the creature's blood. He couldn't recognize a head, though he thought he saw a tooth or two floating near a perforated bleach bottle. He wanted to laugh, but the pain in his head made such a thing unpleasant, and so he smiled instead. He was alive, damned if he shouldn't be. He stood up, carefully avoiding any and all fluid contact as he surveyed the scene further. It was a janitor's nightmare in here, and he still had to make it out of the house before the security team changed their minds about saving him. But he couldn't see a clear path out of the room, not without stepping on a bunch of fluids.

Maybe if he flooded the room with bleach. Ray? The phone. Sal was still on the line. line. Ray glanced around and saw the phone still on the dryer, somehow having not been smashed or dropped between the machines during the chaos. It also appeared untouched by fluid. But to be safe, he left it on the dryer and leaned over. Sal? He heard her gasp with relief. Ray, Jesus, they told me the two agents were dead and the specimen was going after you.

He replied. That bastard you cooked up might be bulletproof, but it can't handle a laundry cycle. You're still okay? He felt very tired, a little itchy, and his head hurt like hell. But she didn't need to hear all that. I'm good, Sal. I just need to know if all this specimen blood on the floor is safe to walk through. It's not ideal, but as long as you keep your shoes on, you should be safe.

You're going to be spending the next few days going through decom procedures. so I hope you're not wearing your favorite cloth. Ray laughed at that. Close. What about the house? Safe to say, we'll have to do some remodeling. He absentmindedly scratched his left arm, the part between his shirt and rubber glove.

Then I get to choose the carpet this time. It was Sal's turn to chuckle. I think you've heard the right. They're not risking anyone else, and if you stay in any longer, they'll do any cleansing action any. Ray picked up the phone with his gloved left hand and started picking his way through the fluid-filled mess before him, avoiding the bigger puddles and mounds of dissolved flesh as much as possible. The disease this thing carries. What does it do to people?

You didn't read that section. Being busy trying to stay alive, Sal. Basically, it caused serious tissue degeneration. and your flesh starts to melt. Ray grimaced from the fort, and he added a bit more care to his steps as he cleared the laundry room. The hallway wasn't any prettier. The carpet and walls liberally stained with both human and specimen blood,

but there was a clear path through. Just don't trip over the bodies, and he'd be... His left arm suddenly got much itchier, and as he put his right hand to the spot, he felt something new. He looked down on his arm right at the itchy patch and saw a cluster of reddish bumps, each the size of a standard pimple. No pain, no flesh-mouting vibe coming from the spot, but for sure this wasn't normal skin behaviour. He felt the itching intensified briefly, but rather than scratch, he watched the bumps intently, a nagging fear,

growing within him. Then he saw one bump move. It was slight, barely noticeable, but it wriggled slightly. He watched, transfixed, as the other bumps followed suit. Each little tremor accompanied with an increasing itching sensation. While he couldn't be entirely sure, he thought he could see the bumps grow with each movement, as if he had contracted the world's fastest growing rash. But this wasn't a rash.

This was way worse. He almost told Sal what was happening, almost screamed at her to help him. But some part of him knew better. If he told Sal, they'd know. Be sure, before you went down that final road. The file pages lay scattered where he'd drop them, away from the gruesome battleground.

It only took a minute to find the page he needed, the information that he dreaded. He read with a grim heart, ignoring the growing crawling sensation in his left arm. He knew now why the specimen had hesitated before attacking him, why it had sprayed a clear fluid. The fluid was what separated stage five from stage six, and it must have gotten on him during the struggle.

The stage six specimen no longer hunted for food. It had other things in mind. He had, at best, an hour. And that hour would not be pleasant. Ray? You there? Sal's voice dragged him back to reality. Ray, he used to come out now.

I'm outside with them. We're not going to shoot, I promise you. His heart's already so very heavy. He nearly blurted out what had happened, but the words wouldn't come. His legs acted instead, moving him through the hallway, walking him through the path in the carnage, past the two dead agents, through the living room and up to the front door. Artificial light poured through the open doorway, the outside world awaiting his egress. He felt like a rock star.

making an entrance, only there would be no adoring audience here. Sal, I only want one promise, he said into the phone, keeping his voice steady to avoid alarming her. Promise me, you've learned from this. There was a long pause, and for a moment Ray wondered if she'd figured out his intentions. But when she finally responded, there was only calmness in her voice. things are going to be different from now on I'm sure they will be he remarked

he tossed the phone away then pulled the rubber glove off his left arm the bumps were even bigger now the Yahoo's outside couldn't possibly miss them they'd do what was necessary he raised his arms high took a deep breath and walked outside

well I hope you Enjoyed tonight's feature presentation. Be careful what you bring home from work by Ryan Kingor. If you did, please do me the tiniest of little favors. Leave a five-star review and some nice words wherever you happen to get your podcast from. It will really help me out. Well, that's it for this week, but I'll be back again next week. Same time, same place.

So until then, sweet dreams and bye-bye.