Welcome to a Secret Subject Swap. This week 12 brave bloggers picked a secret subject for someone else and were assigned a secret subject to interpret in their own style. Today we are all simultaneously divulging our topics and submitting our posts.
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Ok, before I tell you what happened to me a couple months ago, I should probably give you a little background. I have a p.h.d. in microbiology. The lab I work in does all sorts of testing far beyond my realm of expertise and is in the same building as the medical examiner’s offices. It’s kind of smart. I mean, it’s easy for the medical examiner’s office to bring in samples to be tested by some of my peers, but it’s probably not politically wise. A lot of people say it makes our lab unbiased.
Most of my work involves testing for nearby medical doctors and hospitals, but occasionally I get a case from the medical examiner for cause of death. I also have an agreement with my employer—as long as it isn’t an inconvenience to anyone and no one complains, I can use the lab after hours to conduct some research I’ve been working on about superbacteria—in simple terms, the ones resistant to antibiotics. It’s the only place local with the kind of facilities that allow such testing without risking anyone. Otherwise I would have to travel for hours to a university to have similar access. So far it has all worked out well. My research is coming along nicely, and there have been no issues. All this is important for the story as you will see as it unfolds.
Because I work on my own research after hours and because the research is pretty intenstive, I am often the last one to leave the building. I’m there well into the night even after the night clean-up crew has come and gone. There are a couple security officers that patrol the grounds, but they’re not exactly vigilant, man. I once walked out the door to see both of them in the guard post at the end of the parking lot smoking a joint and eating nachos, so they’re just…there.
So that particular night I kept getting that feeling like someone else was there. I don’t really scare easy. I mean, I’m a 6’5” male, average build. I’m not ripped or anything, but I do alright, you know? Sometimes being in the lab so late was a little creepy for sure, but that night was a whole different animal. I remember getting chills several times when I was working, but I never really heard anything or saw anything. It was just that unending feeling of being watched. Bu then again I was really focused on my work. I’d thought at the time that I was making a breakthrough. I won’t say that I discovered anything that could kill the resilient little fuckers, but it was this tiny vulnerability in at least one strain that could have been manipulated to produce viable treatment options. And of course all that work is pretty much gone now. But I’ll get to that.
I have my petri dishes to make slides and see if I can find that same vulnerability in other strains when I happened to catch something in my peripheral—movement out in the darker hallway where the lights weren’t on. I watched the hallway for a moment, saw nothing else, and figured it was just shadows playing tricks on my stressed mind. I had been working long days and longer nights, and the whole schedule was taking its toll on me mentally and physically. I ignored it, went back to my research, and tried to shake that creepy feeling.
That’s when I noticed movement again but this time it was less shadows and more noticeable. I looked up straining my eyes trying to see what was going on. Where I did my research was a room off to the side of the other parts of the lab that were more out in the open. Out there were computer techs, fingerprint analyzers, document analyzers, the whole nine yards. It was in here where DNA and the like were conducted. Anything that needed a sterile area to prevent cross contamination was done here, so we’re talking a fairly large room. It was separated from the rest of the offices and work areas by glass walls and glass double doors, so I had no trouble seeing out. The problem was the hallway leading into this part of the building was across both this room and the next. It was enclosed by glass as well, but it only had low lights on at that hour for the cleaners. It wasn’t just a matter of looking up and really being able to see what the deal was.
Anyway, I was straining, watching, intent on figuring out just what the fuck was up when I heard it—just a soft sliding of cloth on carpet followed by a light thump. In the middle of the day there was no way I ever would have heard it, but being nighttime, it was dead quiet in that place. The sound came in slow and steady swoosh, thump, swoosh, thump. I’m scanning when I finally see him. There’s a guy, an older white guy with long stringy hair, crawling on his belly. There’s a large knife in its sheath in his teeth and a gun, some kind of automatic rifle, strapped across his back. That was the thump. Every time he pulls himself forward, it hits the carpet.
I was frozen in place. I mean, he was between me and the door, and I had no fucking idea what he could possible want here. There’s no money, nothing he could take. My mind was racing trying to figure out just how the hell I am going to get out of there. At that point my heart was beating so hard I can barely hear him moving anymore over it--THUMPTHUMPTHUMPTHUMP. My skin broke out in goosebumps. I knew whatever this guy wanted, whatever he was doing here, it wouldn’t end well. Without thinking I backed up knocking a couple petri dishes off the table as I did.
Of course he looked my way. Of course.
He didn’t even seem startled to see me there. He must have known I would be there and would be alone. His eyes took on this dead stare even as he smiled around the knife and stood. He was nearly as tall as me and wore all black like some kind of movie cliché. The look on his face almost made me piss myself. No exaggeration. It was that cold. There was no rage, no malice, only that maniacal smile. He dropped he knife in his hand then used it to motion me out there with him. I looked behind me at the mess I made. I couldn’t just leave it; I couldn’t be sure it wouldn’t cause a problem large enough to shut down the whole lab and maybe make some people sick. I had a hazmat suit just in case when I did my research, so I bent down to quickly assess the damage when he rapped hard on the glass doors with the butt of the knife over and over and screamed NOW! MOVE YOUR FUCKING ASS. NOWNOWNOW.
I pushed through the double doors leaving the mess behind me too scared of this guy to even take a final look behind me. He grabbed my arm as soon as I waswithin reach holding the knife in one hand, the gun still strapped to his back.
“Take that fucking shit off your face.”
I did as I’m told, then he tells me to destroy all the computers in the place.
“What?” I don’t have a fucking clue what he’s asking me for a minute. Stunned. Confused. Totally not with the moment.
“I said to fucking destroy all these computers, you fucking dumbass. NOW!”
I thought at that point that he must be incredibly insane, and that there was no way I would live through the night. I reached in my pocket and hit the side button on my phone 3 times which enables S.O.S mode. I had it set to sent video and photos to my parents and my roommate at the time who also happened to be one of my best friends. In my pocket, it wouldn’t send any video or pics, of course, but I was hoping it would get audio, and they would know what happened to me at the very least. By this time at night, my parents would definitely be asleep and probably my roommate, too.
I tried not to think about it too much, though. I was hoping I could get him talking and do what he wanted and maybe things would turn out okay…
So, I said, “You want me to…just…demolish all these computers?”
“Goddamn it if I tell you one more time, you’re dead. I can technically do this shit myself without you, but I don’t want to leave behind any evidence.”
The weirdness of that was not lost on me. Technological advances make it possible to test pretty much anything just by way of him being present in the room, but then again, we aren’t talking about the kind of guy who has it all together anyway.
“With what?”
“Whatever you can get your hands on, idiot. Just get it the fuck done and get it done now before those two stoners out there make their rounds again in an hour.”
My heart was beating even harder then. That one comment said he had been watching the place for god knows how long, and he probably knew I’d be alone in here.”
I picked up one of the office chairs hoping that the two stoners as he had so aptly named them would hear the chaos and come running to my rescue without dying in the process, and I let chaos reign with it. I smashed a whole line of computers in the back. I smashed every terminal at each individual workstation. I blasted through to the officer manager’s desk and smashed that one. It didn’t take long. I guess between the stress I was already feeling and the absolute terror this guy put me in, the whole process was cathartic. I honestly got a little glee out of demolishing the place which has only added to the bullshit I feel about the whole situation.
Once I was done, he actually said, “now I’m in the clear. Good job, boy.”
What the fuck was that even about? I had no idea at the time. He then told me to get on my knees and put my hands behind my head before laughing like some kind of evil super villain. That was it for me. I just knew it. Right about then though, I heard voices.
The stoners.
Then I heard sirens.
There was no way out for this dude. I mean, I was there on the ground, hands behind my head, absolutely vunerable, and I just knew there would be a gun fight. My thinking was that he would absolutely have to fight his way out the door past the stoners to try and get out the building before the police broke in.
It didn’t happen that way though. I watched in absolute amazement as this guy ran over to one of the workstations, hoped onto the desk, and pulled himself up through an open ceiling tile I hadn’t even noticed was open, and slid it back into place behind him.
The stoners burst through the doors with absolutely no chill at that point. It was incredibly stupid. The both of them would have gotten shot if that guy had still been on the floor. The looks on their faces…
Anyway, the police showed up. I filled them in on what happened, let them listen to the recordings which unfortunately resulting in my phone being confiscated for evidence, and was sent home.
So here’s where it gets even crazier. Last week I was contacted by the prosecutor’s office, and yesterday I had to go in to talk to them about what went down that night. What they said is that this guy thought that by destroying the computers, he would completely destroy all the evidence that had been tested concerning a quadruple homicide. The evidence ended up tying this guy to that homicide. He broke in, stabbed all 5 members of the family living there, but one of the children lived through it. Between the testimony of that child and the evidence (hair, skin cells, and DNA from a wound he caused to himself during the attack) at the scene, it was a pretty shut and dry case. So he was trying to destroy the evidence and god knows what he had planned for the kid, right? Then they tell me the most insane shit…dude had been living in this building for an undetermined amount of time. After searching where the guy crawled up, the police found this little nest area but no sign of the guy. There was a journal documenting my movements as well as the guards’ and a bunch of blankets, food wrappers, and bags of literal shit. Eventually he was caught near the hospital where the kid was still being treated for his wounds.
As of right now, no one has been back to the room I was working in at the office. It’s sealed off completely. No one knows what we’re going to do, and to be honest, I can’t go anywhere near the building without crumbling in a panic. Pretty sure I have PTSD.
That’s my story. Let’s just say I hope they put the guy away for a long fucking time, because I don’t think I will live through a round 2 with him.
Here are links to all the sites now featuring Secret Subject Swap posts. Sit back, grab a cup, and check them all out. See you there:
