Parker had been walking straight for hours when he finally heard something. It sounded far off, but this time he was sure it wasn’t his imagination. He stopped, straining to hear it again.
There it was, but just for a second. It sounded like a big chunk of concrete being slowly pushed on a basement floor. Either that, or a monster growl… but he was almost sure it wasn’t a monster… almost.
He stood, intently listening for another couple of minutes, but the sound didn’t come again.
Parker shook his head slowly, looking down at his now cold and damp feet, “This place really sucks.”
He continued walking forward, and finally saw a right turn in the hallway. The scary creepy rooms were terrible, but Parker almost missed them compared to the boring creepy hall of nothingness he was trudging through.
The turn was far off, but at least it was something.
Parker quickened his pace. As he continued walking, he shrugged off his backpack and pulled the half full bottle of Gatorade out. Three big swigs later, and it was empty. He capped the bottle and shoved it back in the bag.
One left, he thought as he threw the backpack onto his right shoulder.
When he finally reached the right turn in the hallway, on the wall facing him was another camera. Positioned to view the passage he walked down, this camera was pointed straight down at the ground. He glanced down the new hall, no signs of movement or yawning concrete monster. Back to the camera.
Looking up at the camera, Parker saw the glass pane was smashed exposing part of the broken camera lens within. The top of the rectangle case was dented badly. The whiteish paint was chipped off and the metal beneath showed signs of rust.
Yup, this one is definitely useful. Not.
There was a slight grey-red-brown discolored dent in the wall below the camera, like somebody smacked it with a dead black cat. “Oh Tabby, I never thought I’d see the day where I missed you, but here we are.”, talking to himself wasn’t very entertaining, but it was helping weed out some of the heebee jeebies.
What the hell happened here?
Turning in a pseudo-heroic, here I come to wreck the day kind of flourish, Parker was ready to take on the new evil hallway. All that was missing was a superhero pose with his fists on his hips, and a cape fluttering behind him to complete the picture. Then he saw what he had to deal with, and the pseudo-heroic turned into pseudo-horrified. This new hallway had at least 20 rooms branching out on either side, creating intersection upon intersection of bad decisions in the waiting.
“Yay?”, questioned our fearless hero… well, our hero wanna be.
Besides the numerous rooms to the right and left, the walls seemed a little different. A short way into the hallway, past the first set of rooms, Parker could see more discolorations on the wall where it met the floor.
Knee-jerk reactions were now Parker’s backrooms trademark, “This is simply lovely”.
It looks like mold? Parker lost his cape completely now, as the moldy looking baseboards and lower walls were the same color as the stuff on the crumpled camera.
“Holy shit, Tabby, what the Hell did you get into?”, another debatably humorous comment Parker made to himself. He wasn’t laughing, and he KNEW Tabby wouldn’t find it funny either… stupid cat.
It was at this point that Parker noticed that either he was getting used to this place, or he was running out of adrenalin. This new shade of nasty on the walls wasn’t hitting him as hard as it things been. The shear number of rooms caused him to pause though.
That’s a lot of space for more jump scares and pointless cameras.
Slowly walking toward the first set of rooms, Parker called out again, “Hello?”. Wow that came out quietly.
He cleared his throat, and tried again, “HELLO?”. Woah! Too much that time sparky, dial it back a little.
No response yet again, “I don’t know why I’m bothering anymore”. Parker peaked into the room on his right, seeing into a small empty doorless closet. The room on the left was the same, but without a light. Double stacking closets… how European.
He continued toward the next pair of rooms. The stain on the walls looked more like a water line than just mold, like this hallway was slightly angled and flooded with swampy carpet juice at some point.
Parker didn’t care, he kept moving. Rooms to check out, and pants to have the crap scared into, most likely. Then he heard it. Barely audible, was the distant lilting melody of an old fashion record playing…
“Ha”, he muttered under his breath, “… now what?”
The music seemed to rise and fall, like it was being carried by the wind. Parker wasn’t sure if the new addition to this place was frightening or comforting. Up until this point, all that could be heard was the light buzz of the fixtures above him. The music playing far away was just… new.
The song wasn’t something he recognized. It had a 1930s feel to it, with an accompanying scratchy old record undertone.
And then it skipped… yup, not comforting. His adrenalin supply was still very much intact.
The record played a short bit of music, skipped, played the same section of music again, skipped… over and over. It felt like an endless repeating loop. Unnerving as it was, Parker was grateful that there were no vocals.
“Because THAT would be weird”, Parker rolled his eyes.
Back on the hunt for sanity, he reached the next open thresholds. Two more closets? Well, what the actual fuck?
Parker felt another chill creeping into his skin. This time he knew it wasn’t fear that was causing it, it was his soaked feet and lightly damp shirt and pants combo. His pack seemed warm against his back, but the rest of him was quite chilly.
Eventually he knew his shirt and pants would dry, but these damn socks… why couldn’t I have fallen asleep in my boots?
“Annnnd, were walking”, he said like the self-guided tourist he was.
---
Parker was getting hungry. He traveled through his nightmare of soaked sock wearing, freaky ambient music listening, empty closet searching, for another hour or so. Each of the closets were about the same size, some lit, some not. None of them contained anything, how dull.
The music was still in its insane repeated loop of... “Stop the damn music already!!”, Parker finally screamed. Too much crazy was going on, Parker snapped.
“I’ve had enough of this crap! ENOUGH!” The distant but distinct sound of a record player’s needle being dragged off the record hit his ears. The music stopped. Parker froze, midstride.
“Ooooooh shit…” a wide eyed and stunned Parker said to himself.
The absence of the music was jarring. He heard the buzzing of the lights again, and they seemed louder than he remembered. Having the music playing for so long had apparently masked the annoyance.
His head began to swim at the prospect of someone hearing him flip out, and immediately reacting to his passionate demand. Who stopped the music? Parker wasn’t sure that calling out for help was a great idea anymore.
He could think of nothing clever to tell himself. Stunned silence…
He grabbed ahold of the straps of his backpack with each hand and steadied himself. He looked back from where he had walked amongst the empty cubbies. Nothing moving, but for the first time since being in closet-land he felt like he was being watched. Broken cameras withstanding.
He returned his gaze ahead of him, searching out the landscape. One more set of useless closet clones, and then a series of what looked like walls at odd angles. The walls reminded Parker of a huge restaurant with walls everywhere separating the tables. A large, haunted house looking, creepy-ass restaurant minus tables.
With these last closets inspected, it brought his running total to twenty four… twenty four empty, stupid closets.
The moldy water line had steadily risen on the walls to just above the knees here. No sign of what was causing it, or why it made it look like this place was weirdly tilted when the stain was made.
Okay, whatever. I just don’t care… his hunger snapped back and Parker decided to step into one of the last closet thingies to re-group and eat one of his Clif bars.
He leaned against the wall just inside the closet, keeping a partial view of the goofy partitioned walls in front of him. He pulled the backpack off giving himself an instant chill across his back. His shirt must be more damp than he thought.
Opening the pouch on the front of the pack, Parker eagerly pulled one of the energy bars out and put the backpack up on his shoulders again. It’s wasn’t a coat but it was helping him stay a little warmer.
“Oh man, Blueberry Almond Crisp?!” widely regarded as the worst flavor of Clif bars, Parker agreed. Why did I buy these again?
He tore into the wrapper and took a smallish bite. The mushy blueberries against the almonds weren’t nearly as unremarkable as he remembered. His stomach was grateful as he swallowed the bit of cookie bar, and his next bite was considerably larger. Even your worst flavor is pretty damn good Cliff bar people.
He had the better part of a case of these blueberry bars back in his dorm, he remembered regretting having bought them after trying the first one. Right now, he was reconsidering his earlier critique, believing he’d misjudged this creation.
The bar was gone in a matter of seconds. A brief impulse to pull his last Gatorade out and take a swig to wash his quick lunch down passed. I’d better wait on drinking any more.
Not being completely sold on this being the backrooms, Parker chose to ration himself. Unless he decided to wring out his socks and suck up the rug liquid, the Gatorade was all he had.
He looked at the empty wrapper in his hand “Well, now that’s sad… only one left.”
He wasn’t in the habit of littering, and even though this place was a disgusting wreck, he couldn’t bring himself to add to it by dropping the plastic onto the carpet. He balled up the wrapper and jammed it into his front right pocket.
“Let’s go check out the funky little restaurant down the road, SHALL WE?”, Parker said in his bestest Pee-Wee Herman impersonation.
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