51 Sleepless Nights

by Tobias Wade

  I slammed the car into reverse, plowing into the van behind me and finally edging out enough room to drive. The car shot off down the road like a stone from a slingshot, the bullets rattling off the back as we went.

  "Are you hurt?" I asked the man.

  "It'll take more than that to slow me down, so don't let it slow you either. Not until we reach the plant."

  "We can't stop. That's the first place they'll look," I said.

  "They've all had rounds, and that makes 'em targets now. We have to save as many as we can."

  "How do you know about that? Who are you?"

  "Dillan, I used to be called. Don't seem right to call me that anymore though. Not much of Dillan left."

  We didn't have long to compare notes before I reached the plant. Two of the other vans were close on my heels the whole way. I'm not sure if we can fight them off and escape, but having a whole crew that can take bullets like vitamins seems like a pretty solid advantage to me.

  I didn't slow as we passed through the checkpoint – rammed straight through the automated gate. I didn't want to risk crossing any more open ground than I had to, so I drove right through the glass door at the front of the building and parked inside.

  A bullet skipped by the ground near my feet the second I opened the door. I thought I had gained some ground on them – they couldn't be here already. Another bullet – this was coming from inside the building. They must have begun clearing the plant before I even got there.

  Dillan pulled me from the van and covered me with his body as we sprinted through the building. I saw him take two more bullets, both rattling to the ground after impact. Every room we passed was already strewn with bodies.

  Robert is dead. Elijah, Megan – both have been decapitated. Undergoing the treatments seems to have given these people a considerable resistance to injury and death, but there's no coming back from that. Dillan and I managed to get to the security surveillance room to see if anyone is left, but it's only a matter of time before they find me. All the video feeds showed men in suits fanning out through the power plant, most armed with long machetes still stained with blood. There's nowhere left for me to go.

  "Look! There's a few hanging on," Dillan pointed at one of the screens. Three plant workers – didn't even have a chance to learn their names yet – were huddled in terror in inside one of the supply closets. Dillan showed no hesitation, already bounding out the door as though he knew the way by heart. I started to follow, but he was quick to close the door behind him.

  "You stay hidden," he said. "I've been down there too long. There's nothing they can do to me that they haven't already tried, but you – you'll pop like a ripe melon hit by a hammer."

  That thought was vivid enough for me to stay put. I watched him on the security feed as he dashed through the hallways with inhuman speed. If you'd asked me before this started, I would have always told you the humans are the good guys and the monsters can go to Hell. Scanning the familiar workrooms and seeing the bloodbath, watching the men with machetes butchering corpses which still struggled to move, then following the trails of bloody footprints all over the building – well maybe there are no good guys here. Shit, I don't know, maybe I'd even be better off joining Nathan and the thing in the pit.

  Even thinking that felt wrong though. The visceral terror I experienced while looking down into that great red eye will be enough to haunt me for the rest of my days. If I could just get out of here, I could let the whole mess of them tear each other apart and stay out of it. I was just about to make a run when the door was kicked open.

  Francisco stood alone with a bloody machete in each hand. His eyes were wild, looking even less human than Dillan's vacuous stare. Red hand-prints crawled their way around his legs where his victims doubtlessly clutched at him right before the killing blow fell.

  "I thought I'd find you here," he said, his dress-shoes making a wet squelch as they plodded across the room toward me. I backed up against the wall, but I was cornered.

  "I'm still human. Nothing's been done to me yet," I said. "You don't have to do this."

  "I didn't have to kill the others either," he said. "I wanted to. The moment they were plugged into those machines, they were more beast than man."

  "We're both men though – we're both on the same side." I was throwing any words that came to mind into the space between us, but nothing seemed to slow his relentless advance. I picked up the office chair and brandished it at him, but he only laughed. Think again, smart-ass.

  I hurled the chair into the surveillance screens and watched it smash them to pieces. Francisco's smirk twisted into a snarl.

  "I know where the others are," I said. "You won't find them without my help. Not before they escape."

  "Fine – I'll let you live," he growled. "Just tell me who is left."

  "Not good enough," I replied. "I want to know what's been going on. I want to know everything you know."

  "There's not enough time –"

  "Then stop wasting it."

  He glanced at the broken monitors, then again at the long track of hallway where he came from. Francisco expelled an irritated sigh, propped the chair up, and had a seat. That's when I finally got the whole story.

  The valley had been the result of a primal asteroid smashing into the Earth. A scientific expedition to unearth fragments resulted in the discovery of unusual movement within the lithosphere of the Earth's crust. Two tectonic plates had switched directions and were moving against the surrounding mantel, which resulted in much of the mountainous terrain in the area.

  The government deployed a mining expedition, looking for clues as to the buildup of pressure. That's when they discovered IT - the Devil – the beast – the monster – whatever impoverished word man has in the face of such a cataclysmic being dwelling beneath the Earth. The scientists speculated that it was much too large to have been carried on the asteroid, but perhaps a seed or a hatchling had survived the journey and grown through the eons into the monstrous form that was uncovered.

  The mining further served to disturb the being, and its increasing activity threatened its pending escape. Nothing short of a nuclear weapon was likely to harm it, and this would be impossible to covertly detonate without radiating the groundwater and devastating the nearby population centers.

  The only method which seemed to slow the being down was crudely referred to as "sacrifices". The thing displayed considerable less activity after it consumed the initial miners, and subsequent experiments devised a way to feed it via the network of machines and mental energy which I had witnessed. They had powered the machines for the last 20 years, but the sudden cessation of energy seemed to have woken the creature, prompting the shaft's demolition.

  If there was more to the story, I didn't get a chance to hear. Francisco was getting impatient, and I didn't know how much more time I could buy. Luckily, I didn't have to. Dillan returned during the recounting, and while Francisco's attention was still distracted, he pounced.

  I say pounced, because only an animal could have flown through the air like that pale eyed Demon. Before Francisco could turn his head, Dillan had wrapped his thin arms around the guard's neck and snapped it like a twig. I would have been grateful if it hadn't been for what happened next.

  Dillan bit deeply into Francisco's neck while his limp form was still convulsing in Dillan's arms. Even with human teeth, Dillan was able to rip out great chunks of flesh from the man. The teeth sank through the mesh of veins and arteries, crunching through the spine, and straight out the other side. It took almost a full minute for him to gnaw his way through; I don't think he was even eating it, but simply reveling in the satisfaction of his power.

  I didn't say a word. I didn't look away. I just let it happen. Every time I thought I knew what I was doing, the scale of events far surpassed my expectations and I was left a helpless onlooker. After Dillan finished, he gave me a sloppy grin before leading me safely through the building. Heads were separat
ed from bodies everywhere we went, and it was clear which were cleanly severed with a machete and which had been gnawed loose. Dillan had saved the other three people though, and I owed him my life as well. That's how I learned the last part of the story that Francisco had left out.

  The people hooked to the machines – they weren't just feeding the thing. It wasn't just the human mind passing down the cables, it was also the mind of the beast passing up into them. With each round of treatment, the subjects became a little less human and a little more monstrous, until they became something like Nathan or Dillan that couldn't live and wouldn't die. Dillan had been one of the original scientists who sacrificed himself to the creature over 20 years ago, and he had voluntarily shackled himself to the machine all that time. He's right though, I shouldn't call him Dillan anymore. Dillan died a long time ago.

  As soon as I was out to freedom, I parted ways with the subjects. I got in my car and drove as far and as fast as I could. As far as I know, the creature is still down there, buried beneath countless tons of rock in the hills of Colorado. I don't know whether its body is still trying to get out or not, but I don't think it even matters. The beast thinks with Dillan's thoughts and moves with his body, and like an avatar of some forgotten God, he now freely walks the earth. His zealous protection of the other subjects makes me believe it is the beast's imperative to protect his own, so I can only assume that Dillan is now working to either free the creature, or spread its influence by bringing more sacrifices to its underground lair.

  I don't know that he can be killed – don't know that he can be stopped. He must feel some sense of human compassion or he never would have let me go as thanks for aiding him, so one enduring hope still remains to me: that once the beast has risen to the height of its size and power, it still finds enough room for mankind.

  The 32

  A lot of you probably know about the Chilean mining accident of 2010. It was also called the “Los 33” because of the 33 miners trapped underground. It’s amazing that all 33 survived the entire 69 days it took until they were rescued.

  There was a whole media circus about it with an estimated billion people watching the rescue on TV or the internet. There was so much news that one fact was completely drowned out – and to me, it’s the most important of them all.

  I became interested in the topic because of a school paper I was writing. I mentioned the project to my grandfather (which was a terrible mistake because he is ZEALOUS about school). He was trying to get my mother to enroll me in an international baccalaureate college prep school at FIRST GRADE. Education is my future – he wishes he had those opportunities when he was a kid – I’m an ungrateful brat for taking my fortune for blessing – you know the drill.

  Anyway, he wouldn’t let me use Wikipedia or any easy source for the essay. Instead, he called up his old friend who actually worked on the rescue crew in Chile. So what should have been an hour long paper turned into an hour phone interview, three hours of driving, and a whole BOOK about rescue operations. Who since the internet was invented ever needed to read a book about anything?

  Meeting the rescue worker guy was pretty interesting though. He had tan leather skin like you’d expect to find on a car seat instead of a person. His accent was a little thick, and sometimes he couldn’t find the right word so he had to switch to Spanish. I know next to zero Spanish, but my grandfather would make me write down everything he said verbatim so I could translate it at home. Granddad literally said “If you try to take the easy road in life, life is going to take the easy road with you. Right up your ass”. I don’t know what that means, but asking him to clarify didn’t seem necessary.

  About half-way through the interview with the rescue guy, my grandfather got up to go to the bathroom. I was asking questions about how many people were down there, and he kept saying “treinta-y-dos”, or 32. The movie is even called “The 33” – everything online says “The 33”, but he was adamant. Then he gave me this weird look – like he was shell-shocked or something. The kind of blank look you expect to see holocaust survivors wearing. He leaned in real close, and started rattling off some stuff in English and some in Spanish, and I did my best to keep up.

  It wasn’t until the car ride home when I was able to translate what he said. I checked it half a dozen times – I even ran the transcript by my Grandfather (who is fluent, but still made me do my own translating first). Here is what we put together:

  “All the media – the news – the story spinners – they all say 33 miners were trapped. And why wouldn’t they? 33 people came out of that mine. The miners were trapped 700 meters in the ground – there was no way in or out. But the miners who come out – right when I first pull them out – they all say the same thing.

  There were only 32 miners trapped. They count and they count – every day – every few hours, so everybody taken care of – and then one day they count again and there is 33.

  They were a band of brothers – you can’t go through an ordeal like that and not become family – and they stuck by each other. They never said one of them didn’t belong.

  But I heard stories. They say one miner didn’t sleep like the others. He just sat against the wall and hummed some tune nobody recognized.

  They say one miner didn’t eat like the others, but they didn’t complain because they had to save their provisions.

  They say one miner – they know who but they no telling – one miner didn’t talk about his family or friends or wanting to get out.

  All this one miner talked about was how comforting the darkness felt. How they – the trapped miners – were the lucky ones.

  That the earth only swallowed them to keep them safe.

  While all the rest would drown in a sea of fire of their own kindling.”

  This isn’t about the paper anymore. Next week I’m going to drive back to see my grandfather’s friend. I’m going to try and track down the unexplained miner and see what happened to him.

  Finding one of the miners was lot harder than I expected. Don’t get me wrong, I didn’t think it would be easy. I figured that most of them would still be living in Chile, and that’s still a Hell-of-a road trip from Texas.

  I didn’t think it would be this hard to just find a phone number or ANYTHING though. After the media storm died down in 2010, it seems like nothing changed for the miners. Most of them were laid off because of that mine’s closure, and those that DID find a new mining company suffered through the same intolerable working conditions.

  Even the Hollywood movie didn’t help them because their story rights were considered public domain after the massive publicity. All those men got was a pathetic 7,000$ compensation for their time spent in Hell. The more I searched, the grimmer the story became.

  Over the last seven years, they have been dying one by one. A few from other mine accidents, others from health complications undoubtedly exasperated by their ordeal, but more than anything: suicides. I get it – they’ve had a hard life – but it was the manner they killed themselves that was the most unsettling.

  Self-immolation. There were a few bullets, one poison, two jumpers – but mostly I found account after account of miners dousing themselves in gasoline and burning themselves alive. It was difficult not to connect the incidents with those haunting words from the 33rd miner:

  And all the rest would drown in a sea of fire of their own kindling.

  It was my grandfather’s friend (Vicente) who found a lead. Two of the miners who were invited to the film premiere in Los Angeles had decided to stay in America. Vicente found a recent article which followed up with the pair about the incident, although both had declined an interview.

  It was still about an 18 hour road trip, but after I shared my research with Vicente, he volunteered to make the drive with me. I convinced my grandfather that I wanted to use this research for my future graduation thesis, and he convinced my mother to let me go.

  “What are you going to ask them?” Vicente asked on th
e drive. One of the conditions for the trip was that I help him practice his English, and he talked non-stop the whole way.

  “I’m going to ask them to help me find the 33rd miner. The one who wasn’t human.”

  “El Diablo,” Vicente said. “And if he’s one of the two you meet? What do you say to him then?”

  “I guess I’ll tell him to go to Hell.” I meant it as a joke, but neither of us laughed. “Or find out why he’s here.”

  “And if you don’t like what he says? You will stop him?”

  I didn’t have an answer then, but I had plenty of time to think about it on the drive to LA.

  We found one of the miner’s address’s by contacting the newspaper which tried to interview him. Vicente told the reporter that he and the miner were old friends – an account made credible by his first person details of the rescue operation.

  Vicente told the reporter that he could persuade the miner into accepting the interview if we only knew where he lived – and voila. I guess private information is less important than a shot at a successful article.

  Vicente and I were soon walking up the dilapidated staircase of the apartment – although even calling this dump an apartment seemed insulting to all the other residences which share a name.

  The walls were covered with grime thick enough to sink a finger into. Trash, dirty diapers, and decaying leftovers littered the hallways, and on every floor we heard either couples fighting, women screaming at their kids, or loud drunken sex. I’m glad Vicente was with me when I knocked on the door.

  “Come in.”

  Vicente and I exchanged a quizzical expression. If I was living in this kind of neighborhood, I wouldn’t invite strangers in. Vicente shrugged and opened the door.

  It was almost surreal walking inside. Fresh white paint on the walls, spotlessly shined kitchen counter, a sterile chemical smell like a hospital – it was like stepping through the door into a different world.

  A middle aged man blinked his black, sunken eyes at us. His dark skin and hair looked a lot like Vicente – he could easily have been Chilean.