Trigger Warnings: Unnatural Meat
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Scratch, scratch, scratch. Karl paused again. Looking up at the big round air ducts running through the entire factory. He swore something was crawling around inside of them. It had stopped. Again. Karl returned to his work, carefully picking out the parts for the air pressure gun he was currently working on. Careful, yet adeptly placing the body of the gun in the vice and placing the nozzle right up to its place. Scratch, scratch, scratch. This time in such a quick succession that it made Karl jump in his seat. “Goddamn it!” he swore under his breath. He had dropped the nozzle. As he bent down to pick it up, the sound of something heavy running sounded from the ducts. This job must be driving him crazy, Karl thought.
There had always been sounds coming from the air ducts, for as long as Karl could remember. He had worked at the company for almost twenty years now. In fact, Karl was pretty sure he could remember when the air ducts had been fixed up, to try to minimize the noises it made. But that was a long time ago now. It hadn’t been very long since Karl started suspecting that something might be living inside the vents. Not more than a month, he thought. Karl remembered the first time the ducts had made him suspicious. He remembers telling the foreman, Jack, about it. Remembers Jack laughing at him, telling him his mind was playing tricks on him. That he must be getting old. Stuff like that. Karl hadn’t talked about it to anyone else since. Yet he grew more and more sure in himself. Something was up there. And he was gonna prove it to everybody.
Dunk, dunk, dunk. Scratchscratchscratch. Clunk, ka-clunk. Dunkdunkdunkdunkdunk. Karl had just about had enough of this. He looked around. Everybody seemed to have left for the day. This was gonna be it. He was gonna solve this. Right now! He went looking for a ladder and a sharp knife. The air ducts were unfortunately high up. But made from luckily thin materials. He knew this because he saw what they looked like on the inside when they tried to fix them. A big, sharp knife should do the job.
Karl had chosen a platform ladder for the job. It would provide better stability he thought. Better purchase. And he wouldn’t have to fear plummeting to his sudden death as much. He placed the ladder as best he could, not too close to the duct, but not too far away either. Just right. Karl climbed the ladder. Knife in hand. This was gonna show them all. He wasn’t getting old. He wasn’t hearing things. He plunged the knife into the air duct.
reeeEEEEEAERRR. The noise startled Karl and he almost plummeted to his death right then and there. He must have hit the thing in the air duct already. This was gonna be easier than he ever imagined. He drew the blade down through the thin metal. And the metal started… bleeding? Karl stared at the thin line he had produced in the metal. Sure as shit. Blood was trickling slowly from the hole in the metal. He could feel his eyes growing in size. Was the whole thing rusted to shit? Goddamn, Karl was doing the company a favor if that was the case. It could have fallen on top of someone. Or even worse. Produced mold. Karl plunged the knife into the metal again. This time it made no screeching noise, but the rusty liquid now gushed from the bottom of the cut. Karl cut a square piece of metal. He now had that bloody red liquid all over his gloved fingers. All over the floor too. And the ladder. He prepared himself to remove the piece.
A sticky wet noise escaped the metal piece, as Karl carefully pulled it away from its rightful place in the air duct. It was harder than he expected. Like something was attached to the back of it. Karl angled the piece so he could see behind it. A red, sticky, pulsing maw. Karl dropped the plate. It clattered loudly to the floor. Karl stared into the abyss now in front of him. He couldn’t grasp what he was looking at. Red, slick tendrils fell out of the hole. Dangling lifelessly from where they had been attached to the piece of metal, Karl had removed. But inside. Inside the duct. It was disgusting. Like a slimy mold. But. It couldn’t be mold. It looked too much like. Like flesh. Like breathing flesh. Karl could feel his mind grappling with what his eyes were seeing. Could feel his tether to reality growing thinner. Like the tendrils now reaching toward the floor. Karl climbed down the ladder. He picked up the piece of metal. Climbed back up the ladder. And slowly scooped the tendrils up onto the piece, like it was a silver platter. They felt warm and slick even through his gloves. Then he placed the metal back into the hole he had created. A wet noise sounded from behind the piece and Karl let go. It stayed in place. Karl packed up the ladder, the knife. He burned his gloves. Almost in a daze, he walked home that night. Thinking.
Jack called the police about three days later. Karl hadn’t shown up for work. It wasn’t like him. Nothing at his station implied anything had been wrong. The air duct had been uncharacteristically quiet. Everything else was as it used to be. The cops visited Karls’s home. Nobody was home. A neighbor swore he had seen Karl leave the home in the dead of night sometime last week. He hadn’t seen him since. The police put out a missing person’s notice. Nothing came of it.
Four years later the air duct would need maintenance and Karl would be found.
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