John's Lawn

Something happened recently, something that would likely have me in a padded room faster than a murderer fulfilling “God’s plan.” I know I’m sane, the evidence is clear; despite that, I need to regurgitate everything somewhere, to get this virus out of my skull.

Name’s Jeremy, programmer, and certified recluse, and have only had the cops come to my house twice for screaming. You may call it sleep deprivation, but I like to think of it as brain over time. I don’t do drugs to stay awake or anything like that, I mostly just take heart-attack-inducing amounts of caffeine. I’ve been to the ER a couple times sure, but that’s just the price for not having to deal with anyone in person.

Human relationships have always struck me as weird and uncomfortable. I’m supposed to be myself but only to the extent other people are comfortable? Fuck that. Computers made sense, everything had clearly defined rules, and I dreamed of learning exactly how they worked. And come 5th grade, our school bought some for learning purposes. They were iffy, but my persistence led to a new computer teacher showing me the basics. It just took off from there, I got my parents out of debt and got myself a nice place to live. Blissful solitude encompassed me, and I only ever had to interact with a few people in person. I was riding high until the whiplash of reality smacked me in the face with all the weight of a brick through a window.

I have multiple work emails. One is specifically designated for receiving requests. Another is for receiving payments. The third is meant for high-end clients. Not many people have that one. I only really check it once a week to make sure my bot is properly filtering any spam and removing my email from spam rosters. On average, I get a steady trickle of one legitimate business email through it every couple months. I can not stress enough just how few people have it. But, to be fair, it had been a couple months since the last one.

At the time, I’d been working on a side project. I was on two days with no sleep and bags that implied it was five. I’d just shut off my computer and was about to get into bed when I got a notification on my phone telling me someone needed me for a project. It was sent to my high-end address, assuming it was a returning customer, I sighed, taking one last glance at my bed.

Sitting down at my computer, I started it back up and got ready to start on whatever they needed. Checking the message, I was surprised to see an email I didn’t recognize. But the message itself seemed legit enough, “Dear Mr. Riley, I am reaching out to you after getting a recommendation from [REDACTED]. It is our understanding that you specialize in all sorts of programming and can do special projects for large sums of money. Enclosed in this email is a description of an sFTP client that can be used on private servers disconnected from the internet. We are asking that you please look through the file enclosed in this email as it contains the description of how we would like it made, as well as what we are willing to pay. So long as you do not reveal this information to anyone, we will pay in full. If you are to accept this offer, half of the money will be sent to your account within seconds. If you do not fulfill your end of the deal, we ask that you send us the money back as well as additional fees for accepting something you are incapable of. This will entirely depend on how long you take to inform us of the cancellation. If this job is not accepted within an hour, it will be null and you will no longer be able to accept. Have a wonderful day.”

The language was odd, almost haphazard compared to most, but my bot was working just fine. I even messaged the person they mentioned in the email and they confirmed that they had told someone about me. After a discussion about giving out the address to people without my permission, I went back to the email. Scanning the folder for viruses, it was clean. Shrugging, I downloaded and opened it. They were going all out for such a simple client. I can’t disclose any details about the program itself, but I can say it looked confidential. Scrolling some more, the security details caught my eye, and I raised a brow. They specifically requested one that was, “Impenetrable.” I kept scrolling, taking glances at anything unusual for the service. Eventually, I reached the bottom of the list… 20,000 dollars. For a frame of reference, a client like that should be in the realm of “nowhere fucking near that,” and “that’s overpriced as hell.”

Then I saw the “Two Days” time frame that lay at the bottom of the offer. Wiping the drool from my chin, I swirled a pinky finger in my ear, trying to rub out a sickening ringing. I checked the time, “6:02.” A faint light shone behind the curtains to my left. I shrugged again, “Not like I’m getting to sleep tonight.” I cracked my knuckles, popped an Advil, and twisted off the cap of a fresh monster.

Opening my own programming software, I looked at the monitor to my left, then my right, squinting, “What if…” I opened a personal folder, then “WIPs” I grinned as I hovered over the program, Titanium. “Oh yeah, I got this.” With the security system already prepared, my ego fought the caffeine in my system, leaving me with a semi-relaxed/jittering.

An hour vanished into oblivion. Sitting back and taking the last gulp of the energy drink, I looked over my progress. Already ahead of schedule. I smirked, closing my eyes and leaning back. My eyes flicked open and I looked around. My kitchen, “Shit, not again.” I checked my phone, the room went dark, my eyes strained. I dropped my phone and sprinted to my desk. Rolling into place I opened another drink. Checking the time on my computer confirmed it, “10:00 am.” I pounded half the drink, my attention zoned into my central monitor, fingers slamming into each key.

A few minutes passed, and I grew aware of my surroundings again, aware of the dark figure to my right just out of view, the one roiling like a stationary vortex. The hairs on my shoulders stood, I rubbed them, wondering why the figure freaked me out this time. I readjusted in my seat, focusing on the program again.

Two hours slipped away as I shrugged the hallucination off, focusing exclusively on the project at hand. I made some errors here and there no doubt, but I caught up to where I should’ve been. Which is about the time the urge to piss overwhelmed my urge to ignore the thing that had only grown closer to me.

Washing my hands I glanced my reflection in the mirror, then doubled over, a mixture of two different hot sticky fluids spewing into the sink. I wiped my face down with my shirt, and tried to ignore the figure in the mirror. The smell of hot sewage and rotting meat that encompassed me as our eyes met.

Slapping my face as I sat down, I gurgled some monster, spitting it into the tiny trash can beside me. I shook my hands in front of me, taking deep breaths. Letting out one last yoga breath, I checked the time in the bottom right, my breath stopped. Three hours… I got a couple strong caffeine pills I had been saving and downed them with another gulp of anxiety juice.

Refusing the temptation of my bed, I typed relentlessly for the next three hours, getting far more done than I thought probable. I had more than made up for any time I could’ve lost. That’s when another dark figure outlined from the corner of my other eye. A double take of my peripheries and I noticed a difference, the angles they were standing at, both were closer, even more so than when I went to the bathroom.

“Fuck off you little-” They vanished, “Ye–” Exhale. Nothing. Inhale. Nothing. I was suffocating, squirming in my seat, I couldn’t move. I tried slamming my head back, but it was pressed into the ergonomic mesh, I couldn’t move anything but my eyes, and looking down revealed black, misty tentacles holding me in place.

Infected pus filled my sinuses as it hissed into my ear with the cadence and symphony of all those suffering in hell, “Time is running thin. Finish and I shall forgive.”

Struggling, I nodded my head. Sweat seeping from every orifice, they released, sketching their previous positions back into reality.

I checked the bottom of my main monitor to see another five hours had slipped between the cracks of my sanity. My brain was too overloaded to worry about the anomalies, I muscled through and soon enough, I hit the 24-hour mark with no more incidents. That’s about the time the third one appeared, at the top center of my perception. While the other two had taken to ignoring my threats they hadn’t come much closer, but this one, I could see its head right above my main monitor. It creased spacetime around it, slowly indenting its spot as I worked on a more tedious section of the program.

When I looked up at the thing, it didn’t go away, instead, it had a toothless grin that absorbed the light around me as I stared, meaty sewage glazed my tonsils, the air hot and humid. I heaved into my trash can, gagging away the knot in my throat along with the thick rancid air. 

9 a.m. 21 hours left. I was running on the fumes of caffeine and had to finish it, minimum it would be another 12 hours before that, under ideal circumstances.

I’d been awake for just over 3 days and was running low on drinks. On top of that, I had a migraine and back pains. To top it all off, the creatures were growing closer, their darkness encapsulating my vision, nothing but the monitors visible.

Four hours passed before the first one touched me yet again, it was the creature on the right. It dragged its dark, blistered, rotting finger up and down my arm. With each stroke, it absorbed a fragment of my sanity. The finger was cold, lifeless, and reeked of maggot-infested beef. “How are you feeling? I hope you’ll have the opportunity to apologize.” The thing hissed before letting out a wheezing laugh.

“W-What are you?” The knot in my throat tied my vocal cords.

“Yoooouuuu.” The voice was as smooth as sandpaper. As he wheezed out the single syllable my eye twitched with dwindling hope.

“What do you want with me?”

“Deeeeaaaath.”

I couldn’t talk anymore as the creature to my left aggressively latched onto my arm. It croaked playfully, “Sever the string.”

Then the right, “So we may live.”

The third vanished, and a deep, rumbling creek resounded, “It is best.”

They all hissed at once, “SEVER IT!”

I shook uncontrollably, the lights of my monitors like strobes. The things grabbed me, holding me in place, cutting me, the air creek water, I struggled to suck it in, each breath gagging me.

“None of you are real, I’m going to finish this and fall asleep. When I wake up you’ll be gone and there’s nothing you can do about it.” Tears stabbed my eyes, and with shaky hands, I managed to continue the project with only 12 hours left. By now I wasn’t questioning the lost time, I just wanted everything to be over with.

Six hours later I faded in and out of consciousness, the only thing keeping me awake was the constant whispering from the three entities surrounding me. “Sever yourself.” the creature on my right hissed. Then from behind me, “A knife in the kitchen is all.”

I fought their urges trying my damndest to ignore them. But anytime I would focus on their voices I would lose some time. Sometimes 10 minutes, once a half hour. Before I knew it, I only had 20 minutes left. I just had a few more errors to fix and a couple more test runs. Ten minutes left, one more test. There was another error. Five minutes left, test, one more error. Two minutes left, test, no errors in the code. I sighed smiling, preparing to hit send on the email when…

A stick through raw meat resounded through my mind, then suction and silence. The pain hit a few seconds later when a wave of heat culminated from under my right shoulder blade.

I don’t have any other memories from that night, just waking up face down on my keyboard, exhausted. I’d managed to click send at the right time since I now had 10,000 more in my account than I did the night before. That’s what I thought anyway until I checked the date to find that three days had passed. I went to the bathroom to… clean up.

I threw the clothes I was wearing out, brushed my teeth, showered, then got out to dry off and get dressed. But as I looked over my shoulder at the mirror making sure everything was good, I noticed a scar, right under my right shoulder blade.