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sirspazingtonthefourth · 6 months ago

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Olivia Is Missing

June 29th

Olivia is missing.

We don’t really know what happened, she just didn’t show up to work. It was fine that first day, we got the food out for everyone, only had some minor panic attacks, just a usual day. No one really noticed she was actually missing until a couple days later. Someone went looking for her, because Jake finally noticed she hadn’t been in for a few days, and no one could find her.

We packed lunches for the search parties an hour ago, even for the police and firefighters that showed up from town. We appreciate them coming to look for her. We’d appreciate it more if they let us look for her too. Instead we have to prepare dinner for when they come back. We’re setting a plate aside specifically for her.

July 5th

I thought I saw her. God, she was right in front of me. It was awful. She was right outside the door when I got up for work. I almost wish I hadn’t. She was all bloody and ripped apart and I don’t remember screaming but I guess I did, since I woke the others up.

She wasn’t there, not really, but I swear I could have reached out and touched her. Jasmine thinks I was sleepwalking, but I’ve never done that before and I don’t have the haunted bed (some poor guy in West 4 has it; I woke him up on the bridge one night).

They gave up searching a few days ago. They think she’s dead. I do too, now. No one could look like what I saw and still be alive.

July 12th

Everyone’s doing okay. It’s been two weeks since Olivia disappeared. Things are getting back to normal. Alice is still a wreck, those two were so close. Jake is too, she was one of the interns he already knew when everyone came back this summer. Sometimes they just sit together and look out at the lake.

It’s weird. I took the drive to town a few days ago and I stopped by that vietnamese place she mentioned. It’s as good as she said. I wish I’d gone with her and the rest, one of those nights in the first couple weeks. But town is so far away, and I had to get up early. I have the morning shift. Olivia never did.

July 14th

Jasmine is missing.

She wasn’t here last night when I went to bed, which isn’t odd because I’m the first to go to sleep usually. But I’m the first up and she wasn’t there and something felt wrong and no one saw her leave the lab under the dining hall last night. She doesn’t leave that late, there’s still people in the library. Mike’s called the cops again. I don’t get to be a part of the search. It’s Saturday, I still work. I’m stuck packing lunches and making dinner again.

July 14th

They found her. Oh my god, they found her. What’s left of her. She was still breathing when the helicopter got here, everyone told her to just keep fighting.

She won’t make it.

They think it was a bear turned maneater, but no bear could’ve done that. They’re going to let hunters know. No one’s allowed to walk alone anymore.

Her stuff’s still in the cabin. I don’t even want to look at it. We weren’t close, but she was still a friend, sort of. I just keep looking at her bed and seeing her lying on it like she was lying on that stretcher getting loaded into the helicopter. She’s not coming back.

Everyone else at the station gets the time to mourn. We still have to get up and make breakfast. There’s a truck coming in today. We’re going to make breakfast tacos tomorrow. She liked those.

July 17th

Everyone’s tense now. The hunters scoured every inch of land in the station proper and the prairies surrounding and said there’s no sign of a bear, or a mountain lion, not even a coyote. Some of them mentioned they were waiting for someone to get back before taking the hour and a half long drive to town again. Some of them didn’t show up.

Jake’s making chickpea curry for dinner. I know, I’m waiting for my cabin mates, Margret and Lisa, so that we can go to the cabin. Whatever’s going on, no one wants to be next.

Jake’s as pissed as the rest of us. Mike’s trying to get the station shut down for the summer until we can find everyone that went missing. We all know Yucca Peak demands blood, but not like this. People don’t die, they just get hurt.

July 20th

Three people went missing. I didn’t know most of them, they were just here for a class. Here for a moon cycle, as Mike likes to say. Liked to say. He’s talking to the university about shutting down the summer programs out here, but he’s not getting very far. The university doesn’t want to have to pay people back for the canceled classes. They don’t understand the situation out here.

I thought I saw them. All five of them. Margaret was sick and in the cabin, but Lisa was with me. She saw them too. Lake said they’re seeing the same stuff. At least I’m not the only one going crazy.

Some of the students are leaving. I can’t blame them. Five people in three weeks. More, if you count the hunters that didn’t come back. The professors are still teaching, but Margaret and Lisa say that not much gets done. Everyone’s too scared to go out looking for snakes. You get too far apart from other people, and no one wants to be the next missing person.

July 21st

Margaret is missing.

July 23rd

Something cut power to the station. No one wants to use their phones or computers. We don’t have wifi out here. We barely have a cell signal. Mike radioed the town to ask for help getting electricity back but he couldn’t get through to them.

Half the people are gone now. I was going to leave too, before Margaret. I couldn’t leave Lisa alone, those two were best friends. Some people are moving their things into the dining hall so they don’t have to go out at night. I’m trying to convince Lisa and Alice to do the same. Kitchen-Mike and Cole already have. We have to do it soon, or all the space will be taken and we’ll have to be in the library.

July 24th

Something cut the tires on all the cars left here. We don’t know if the water’s clean. We’re boiling it in the fireplace and letting it cool when we want a drink. We can’t run the oven or the grill. We haven’t been able to get food in.

Mike walked the two miles to get to the mailbox. We’re hoping the snail mail gets to the University, someone in town, anywhere. We’re trapped out here. Mike’s looking through every book he can with Jake to see what can be foraged, if we can find enough for the 45 people still here.

Jordan keeps saying this is all just a series of coincidences. Really unfortunate coincidences. I think he’s in denial. Especially since five more people are gone. Alice among them.

Lake said they saw the hunters coming back from the bathhouse with Kitchen-Mike. I’ve been seeing Margaret and Olivia the most. They look like they’re trying to say something, but I can never hear them.

They all look so horrifying.

July 27th

There’s not much to forage out here. At least, there isn’t enough for everyone. The water got cut off too, so we only have the lake. No one’s swam in it in years, not since it got treated for E. coli. We boil it for twenty minutes instead of ten.

Some people got fed up and decided to take their chances walking to town. I hope they make it. Heaven knows we need to help.

More people are going missing. Since the water got cut off the plumbing doesn’t work in the bathhouse. There’s no bathrooms, no showers, no real sign that help is coming. There’s 30 of us now. Some left, some went missing. People are starting to starve. It’s been a month and a half since this all started.

I want it all to be over. I want to go home. I want to hug my parents, my siblings, my girlfriend, my dog. I want to punch whichever university bigwig pushed back at Mike for wanting to shut Yucca peak down for the summer. I want to leave here and never come back.

The vultures are all circling over the mountain, day in and day out. We make up stories about why. It’s not like we have much else to do. Class has stopped and no one is out working, except for bringing in water and going out in pairs to try and find food.

A few people brought instruments. They play songs, but only during the day. Once the sun sets it’s lights out and we don’t dare make a sound.

August 2nd

Lisa had water duty with Jordan today. They haven’t come back.

I want to go home.

August 3rd

They found Jordan in the lake. Pieces of him. We buried what we could. Everyone’s seen them now, whatever you want to call these things we keep seeing. Ghosts, spirits, collective hallucinations. No one wants to open doors. They like to pop up when you do that. We’re stuck in the dining hall without food or water. There’s 24 of us now. There were nearly a hundred before this all started.

I want to wake up from this nightmare. I want to wake up and have this all be a dream, for Olivia and Jasmine and Margaret and Lisa to all still be here. Those of us left of the kitchen staff stick close. It started with us, and if nothing else it’ll end with us.

Jake tries to keep our spirits up, but it’s kinda hard, especially now that no one’s going out to get water and stuff. It always feels like there’s something watching us, waiting for a slip up, an opportunity to grab someone else. It’s already taken so many of us. I don’t think it’ll stop until we’re all gone.

August 7th

I saw it. I don’t know what that thing was, but I saw it. It got impatient, it snuck into the lodge. It grabbed Lake. I heard them screaming. They were out the door before I could do much, but the thing looked almost human. It was too long and too tall, though, and it’s skin looked like a corpse and the look in its eyes wasn’t human.

I froze. I froze as that… thing dragged Lake out the door. I saw their eyes. They screamed for my help. I can hear them still screaming a little ways away. Whatever it is, it wants us to know it’s there.

We’re barricading the doors tonight.

I don’t think I’ll ever sleep again.

August 9th

We can’t stay here. The barricades didn’t work. There’s 19 of us now. We’re getting what we can and we’re going to walk to town together. I hope we make it.

I’m going to use the last of my battery to call my mom. Tell her I love her and Dad and the kids and all that. In case we don’t make it. In case that thing gets to us first.

August 10th

It found us on the road. It got Mike and Cole, but it was too preoccupied to follow us. We weren’t carrying much but water bottles which is why we managed to get away. I can’t… I can. I can believe that all happened. I do believe it all happened. I have the malnourishment to prove it. Dad’s going to pick me up from the hospital once I get discharged. He’s across the state, but it doesn’t matter to him. He’ll book a hotel for the night and leave the morning after I get released.

None of us wanted to be alone. We’re all in adjacent rooms, two or three to a room. The nurses don’t like it, but being alone still feels like a death sentence. At least there’s sound here. Beeping monitors and footsteps all the time. The air is stale and cool, not free and warm like at the station.

We’re all having nightmares. I think we all will for a long time. The cops tried to ask us about what happened, but they don't believe us. You can see it in their eyes. We told them about the mountains, the vultures. They said they’d check it out, even though we told them not to. I don’t think they’ll come back.

We’re all trading numbers. Our phones are all dead, we left the cords behind, but when we get back from wherever we all came from we’re going to make a group chat. I can’t imagine talking about this to anyone who doesn’t know right now. Not after the cops.

No one but the nurses believes us. If we don’t stick together, I don’t think we’ll last very long. I’ve heard about tragedies happening, survivors killing themselves in the aftermath. We’ve been through so much, we have to survive. We have to. I’m scared that if we die that thing will come for us, take our bodies since it couldn’t take our lives.

I can still hear them, everyone who died. I swear I can hear a scream down the hall, like that thing managed to travel all the way here. I know it isn’t likely, but after everything that’s happened it feels more likely than not. No one’s died, though. We’re all hearing the screams. Even the nurses. I think it’s why they believe us.

I’ll be here for another week at least. Then I’ll have to figure out how to keep living. I don’t think I can go back to school right now. I don’t think I can do much of anything. Not when I can still see Olivia standing outside the door. I can hear her now.

She wants to know why we didn’t run when she told us to.

#horror #tw: gore #tw: death #tw: blood #Also posting on my main blog #writing #short story #fiction #do not repost

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