Literature
Halloween at the Abandoned Factory
You where warned a thousand times. By family , by friends, by any stranger that knew of your foolish goal. Don’t go to the abandoned factory at the deepest point of the valley. It didn’t matter how many people told you though, you where feeling fearless. You wanted to prove to everyone it was just one big ghost story , just a bunch of superstitious hooey spread around by morons. Just to show everyone how truly committed you where , you went to the factory as the witching hour of Halloween night began. The cold autumn air bit at your exposed cheeks, the rest of you covered in a thick warm layer of clothes. The walk ahead of you was long, as no buses or trains went anywhere near the factory and no taxi would dare even enter the old industrial district. So , walking it was. You didn’t mind, walking past all the homes lit up with Halloween lights , spooky decorations and now empty bowls of candy. Only a few trick or treaters speckled the street at such a late hour, with a lot more of the foot traffic being adults returning from Halloween parties. Many of those parties still raged on as you walked past. You almost wish you was heading into one of those instead, but someone had to prove everyone wrong and that was going to be you. It had to be! Your resolve did take a bit of a knock as you hit the old industrial district. No one else dared go in , so it had fallen into a horrid state of disrepair over the last fifty years. It looked like rot creeping over the town, only getting worse with time. just to be sure you had brought a few things to ensure your safety. A med kit , a head mounted lamp and pepper spray to protect yourself. You didn’t imagine you’d see anyone though. Even those with no where else to go would dare step foot within the abandoned buildings of the old industrial district, not even during the rainy season where great storms rage through. They would rather risk the natural elements than the supernatural myths surrounding the grounds. Yet, you high on your own hype, walk through heading straight for the grim centre of the rot. You look around at the history and it does make you feel a little sad. Fifty odd years ago the factory , once known for the most fantastical candy the world had ever seen , had shut down to a series of accidents on its first tour. No body knew exactly happened on the tour. After it shut down , the once vibrant candy man was never seen again. Without him and his factory, the whole town took a massive economic hit. Especially as the rest of the businesses began relocating , no longer drawn in by the big factory. But that was long before your time. your parents would talk about the incredible candy they used to have. You smirk to yourself thinking that you would get them a souvenir from the depths of the factory. Something that would also be evidence of your victorious journey. Reaching the gates of the factory, you was stunned by the scale of it. All your life you could see it at the bottom of the valley. From your home it looked so small but now you where standing before it , you shuddered. Even if it was day , you would be buried in the darkness of its shadow. But it was the darkest hours of the night. Your meek head lamp couldn’t stretch its light to encompass even a small portion of the full thing. Something that concerned you is that as far as you could see , there wasn’t a single window. Meant you’d have to leave out the same way you came in, or a side exit if there was one. The gates where rusted , with only scraps of what appeared to be gold left upon the bars. Thankfully you had worn thick , resistant gloves just in case. You push them open with great effort. They where rusted in the hinges and the gate was already heavy. However with a kick and a shove, you made a gap just big enough to slip yourself through. You was now in the factory grounds if not in the building proper. The brick path towards the door was uneven, eroded by years of rain. You watch your every step as you moved. The last thing you wanted was a sprained ankle inside the factory. Reaching the main door, you hand shuddered against the wood. As much as you didn’t believe the stories you had heard , the building and its grim past was still intimidating. The tour, the candy maker, all of it. Mystery ran deep, the uncertainty brought doubt to your mind. Should you just turn back? Let the sleeping factory lie. Unfortunately for you , you had told damn near anyone who’d listen that you was going to conquer the myths. Myths you still didn’t believe. Whether it was arrogance , ignorance, or simply bravado you head through the doors with determination. You was going to do it. Even if your body trembled as it crossed the threshold into the factory. The first thing you notice is the smell. Chocolate. Even after all these years? It baffled your mind. Perhaps the last bit of the old majesty. You looked down the halls once filled with the joy of whimsical candy , now dark and silent. It was almost colder inside than it had been outside. There was old branding on the wall , although letters had withered off making it illegible. No one said the name anymore. It was almost a bad omen, like Macbeth at a theatre. Once it had been synonymous with childhood joy. You did your best not to think about all the troubles surrounding you. You kept your light forward not looking at anything other than the path ahead. You weren’t sure what you was actually looking for, the plan being just to look around until you felt tired. To give you as much time as possible , you had slept through most of the day. You where wide awake , even if part of you wished you overslept and missed the whole thing. Ah well. There was plenty of walking , so you didn’t hang around even while deep in your thoughts. You had always wondered what the inside was like. Not many people knew , as before the tour only the candy maker himself had come and gone from the factory. Then after , all the details within where kept private as part of the investigations. A few pictures floated around but you never sought them out. With all the uncertainty of what had happened , it wasn’t a question you needed answering. Swallowing your concerns about the situation , you press on into the next room. There was immediately a foul stink that filled your nose, like sour milk with a sickly sweetness cutting through making it even worse. You lift your hand to your nose in disgust as you look to the cause. A whole room smothered in old, rotten candy. Gagging, you begin to hurry through the room however you couldn’t see a single actual exit. The only thing that caught your eye was a tunnel , which seemed to link up to a deep pit. Almost looked like a dried up riverbed. Not wanting to stick around , you go to the pits edge and slide down to the depths of it. As you move towards the tunnel you hear a strange rumbling from behind you. Ancient machinery grinding the rust off as it began to work once again. Looking back to the sound you see a gate slowly opening. Before you could question it. You see a flood of molten chocolate begin to pour out into the riverbed. Your first instinct was to climb back up the bank, but as you stuck your hands into what you thought was dirt, it crumbles in your hand. Chocolate? With no other options , you run to the tunnel at full sprint. Your run was ended soon as you tumble down a sudden slope. It was steep, but you manage to right yourself so you could see where you was going. The dark tunnel rushing past as you slid down. Looking back , you could see the flood of spoiled candy racing behind you. Further and further you descended into the depths of the factory, entirely unable to stop yourself only able to pray that the chocolate would not catch you. You could still smell it even now. That was when you saw the slope suddenly end.. you do your best to roll as it does , however you just hit the ground hard ,winding you partially. Grabbing the ground you keep dragging yourself on desperate to escape the chocolate. Glancing up , you see a somehow illuminated sign near a door. The inventing room. You push yourself up to your feet before leaping up to the dock. Pulling yourself up, you feel the chocolate smothering your legs before you lift them to the docks. It was hot. Burning hot. You yell as you feel the heat burning against your skin. Desperately you begin to take off your pants , shoes and socks. Your skin underneath red with burns. Thanks to your quick action, you managed to stop any damage. But your clothes where ruined. The only upside was that with the hot river flowing , the room warmed up enough , you didn’t need them. You begrudgingly put your stained clothes, including your gloves, into your bag before taking off your coat and tying it around your waist for some sense of decency. Not wanting to hang around next to the river in case it overflowed, you nervously kept moving on. As the adrenaline faded, you came to realize that you couldn’t go back the way you came anymore. You’d have to find a new way out. You hoped there would be a fire exit or something soon, however given as the place was shut down because of bad safety standards. The thought of being stuck here sent a shiver through your body. You knew if you did, no one in that coward town would come to get you. The only hope in that case is that someone from outside the town would come to help , but you don’t know if your story would leave the town. It terrified you to think of yourself in the same vein as the candy maker and his name. never talked about, never to be helped. Once more , you swallow your fear and continue on. Now even more motivated to hurry along, you pick up your pace. Suddenly , all the lights around the room turn on, blinding you with your eyes adjusted to the dim light your headlamp had provided. You blink rapidly, trying to ease your sight back while looking around. This place still has power? You where baffled. You thought the river could have just been something more mechanical , but this was definitely electrical. As you get to look around you feel even more unnerved. The room was immaculate yet empty. Nothing but a singular table filled the room, which was spotlessly clean without even a spec of dust. Slowly , you move towards the one item of furniture to see a small strip of gum and a note. “eat me”. A sound fills your ears, and it takes you a minuet to realize that it was your own heartbeat pulsing through your whole body. You couldn’t hide it anymore. You was scared. Looking around you saw that there was no other doors than the one you came in. refusing to be trapped , you go back to the table and try to lift it. It wasn’t bolted down and you could just about move it. Whatever was going on here, you wasn’t sticking around to figure it out. You begin dragging the table over too the door, causing the gum and the plate it was on to fall to the ground. Maybe , if you balance yourself, you could use the table as a raft. While you hated the idea of going deeper into the factory, there was nothing you could do here. As you moved , you felt something strange. Like a hand on your shoulder made of ice. You turn immediately and see nothing. The feeling leaves but you still feel a chill over your body. You hoped dearly it meant the river had stopped flowing even if that meant it would be cold but… something in your core had been shaken and left you feeling uneasy. Grabbing the table you double timed it to the door. You wanted out and you wanted it as soon as possible. Pushing back out of the door, the lights in the tunnel where now on too. It exposed the violent stream of molten chocolate pouring down. With fear twisting your guts, you get onto the table and begin to scoot towards the river. You just had to get away from the room. The anticipation was so severe you didn’t realize that you was still cold. As the table hit chocolate it was dragged, pulling you with the flow. Small amounts of chocolate lapped over the edge , landing on you and burning you once more. Gritting your teeth, you ignore it as you steer the table to keep it steady. Thankfully it did float in the thick chocolate, but just barely. There was no going back, only further. Only deeper into the factory. Doors and lights flew past faster than you could read them. One after another with barely time to take a breath. That was when , with the lights now on, you could see the end of the tunnel. There was a sudden drop, steeper than before. The table wouldn’t handle that. It can barely take the slight decline you where on now. You look for the next door. The sign was broken , but it was open. You uneasily get to your feet and prepare to jump. Nerves shudder as you leap. Chocolate splashed over you as you did but you landed on the next dock. Hurriedly, you reach into your med kit , grabbing whatever you could to wipe the splodges of candy off of your legs. It burned , but it seemed cooler than it had been the last time even without the clothes buffer. A groan escapes your lips as you do. It was official… you regretted coming here. Avoiding the social shame of ducking out was not worth any of this. Why didn’t you just stay home and avoid all of this? Grumbling, you begin walking again , heading onwards hoping desperately for an exit. Maybe if you could find a way to turn off the chocolate , you’d be able to climb back up. Stumbling along , you nervously look around for anything. Machines that could help, doors to leave. Anything. The room was bizarre , nothing really made sense to you. It like the last was perfectly clear with nothing to define. A large strange contraption that almost resembled a big old timey camera pointing at a platform was in the middle. What it was or what it did was a mystery to you. On one wall there seemed to be a almost pristine screen. It was tiny, barely bigger than a modern computer monitor. It was fifty years old though, you guessed you shouldn’t have expected bigger. There was a single door on the other side that seemed to lead into an elevator so you decide to walk towards it. Hopefully you can get back to the floor you started on at least and find an exit on the ground floor. You had no idea how deep you had slid , the tunnel had been so dark it could have been a couple floors or a couple dozen. It was awfully cold again. You couldn’t wait to leave. Get home and get into bed and forget about everything you had gone through . That was when the television turned on, blaring loud static into the room. It made you jump, turning rapidly to face it. Immediately you felt drawn to the speckles of black grey and white on the screen. Unable to turn away. Unable to walk away. In fact, your feet dragged you towards it until your nose barely hovered a inch away from it. You swear that looking in , you could see a face in it. Cold hands grabbed your shoulders again, and began to pull. You looked to see what it was yet still there was nothing there . except…you could see depressions on your shirt. As if fingers where tugging at you. Screaming, you pulled against it yet the invisible hands were strong. Another set grabbed your ankles, and within the next second you was entirely off the ground. To try free yourself, you swing your hands around. But like all else , your wrists were grabbed and held. You couldn’t move an inch. The coldness sent shivers through you as much as your newfound overwhelming fear. In the corner of your eye, you saw movement. Looking towards it you saw…the gum? It was slowly floating up to you , moving to your mouth. Every part of your being told you to fight . to run. To not eat that gum. However as much as you fought , you couldn’t budge. The strip pushed against your lips. It pushed through into your mouth. A hand grabbed your jaw and began to make you chew ,filling your mouth with the intense flavour of the gum. Blueberries. Surprisingly fresh despite the rot everything else you had seen so far. Yet you didn’t trust the sweetness, you didn’t trust the juiciness , and you especially didn’t trust the freshness. Not In this rotten hell. You keep trying to fight your way free from the ghost hands yet you are helpless to watch as you are lifted in front of the weird looking camera. You hear clicks and buzzes before you notice that… you felt nothing pulling you downwards. No more gravity. The hands let up , their icy grips leaving your body. Immediately you try to swim out but for all your effort you didn’t move an inch. A blinding light shines from the machine , making you raise your hands to your face to block it. It grows more and more intense , so much so you barely notice that your hand was now a deep , rich blue colour. The light flashed before you could look closer , forcing you to close your eyes. When you reopen them, the room was in a vastly different place to where it had been. It took you a moment but you realized you where standing where the TV had been. Where… it was. You could just make out the thick layer of glass between you and the outside world. You run over and bag your fist on the glass , but this makes you realize just how tiny you had become. You was barely three inches tall. The gap between you and the ground felt like looking down the grand canyon with none of that natural beauty. Only a grim fear. Trapped within the TV, you can do nothing but look down at yourself. You see what you had only a glimpse of before. Your whole body was now a suffocating dark blue. Lifting your arm , you look closer at it. Swirls of purple ran under your skin , it looked almost like a bruise that covered your whole body. It was weird, you knew you should be screaming but you was near frozen in shock. Maybe… maybe that was it? Maybe you was frostbitten. Those hands had been incredibly cold after all. However even your own body wouldn’t let you have a moment of peace. A loud, rumbling gurgle filled the air. You feel it running through your guts, then steadily your whole body. It made you feel nauseous , almost to the point of throwing up . You slump back against the glass trying to steady yourself. That was when you saw the cause of the grim sound. Your stomach. It was bigger. Still getting bigger. You could watch it grow rapidly. It was like you had sat on a water hose on full blast. Gripping your belly , you could feel It pushing your fingers apart. The nausea got worse quickly and you feel something leaking from your lips. Wiping it off, you see that your hand was covered in blueberry juice. The gum…it had to be the gum changing you. You go to spit it out but you realize it was no longer in your mouth. Something about how you had been moved…you must have swallowed it. Helpless to your own body , you only watch as your gut swallowed up your lap as it raced towards your knees. Your skin felt tight and cold , it was incredibly uncomfortable. Before you could even try to get used to it , the same sickly sensation spread down to your thighs. Watching them, you could see them bulging either side of your massive gut. You ran your fingers over them , and it didn’t even feel like a person. It felt like a thick water balloon. Even your hand didn’t feel right. You reach over and poke your uninflated arm and even this didn’t feel right anymore. Did you even have bones anymore? Where you even human? Your body held no sympathy for your fear, it only accelerated outwards, pushing you upwards as your ass and thighs grow under you. What could you do? You go for your bag, rolling over to grab your phone from your bag. However the second you start grabbing it, blue juice sweat out from your body. It soaked into the device ,warping your screen. The last thing you see is your home screen, a picture of you but…it was cursed. Your skin blue. Your face swollen and the rest of your body trying desperately to swallow your head up. your screen dies and leaves you with the fear that you was going to get that massive. Feeling your swelling double in speed , knocking you onto your gut and leaving you facing out of the large screen. You get to look into your blue reflection and barely recognize yourself. Even your eyes where now a inhuman purple with speckles of blue. You reach up and hold your cheeks, the same empty yet full feeling the rest of you had. You wanted to throw up. Get all the juice out of you but it seemed that despite all the pressure building within you. Even as the juice began pounding into your arms and legs, fattening them up. It merely trickled from your mouth slowly, covering your chin and dripping over your neck. You felt disgusting ...and helpless. You....you was stuck here? In this tv. Swelling like a blimp and loosing more and more of your humanity. Everything was getting rounder, smoothing out into one central ball. The definition of your hips, your stomach and your chest vanishing. Even your arms and legs began to bulge up. desperately you slam your fist into the glass of the tv once again , desperate for help. But as your limbs filled with juice, they became harder and stiffer to move. They get dragged into place , unable to move. You could barely flap your hands. You are trapped. Stuck. Unable to stop growing still getting bigger and faster. Rounder. You realized quickly what was happening to you now. You was turning into a blueberry. How the hell was this possible? Why would anyone make such cruel gum. You shouldn’t have come…the stories where true! It … it was actually ghosts. You begin to cry out of terror, and it only made you feel even worse when you see that even your tears where blueberry juice. why didn’t you listen? Why was you so arrogant?! Now you was stuck forever , swelling up inside a TV. The idea makes you panic. How much bigger was you going to get? How much bigger could you get stuck inside the small tv? You was already looking fully spherical , with your meek little hands and feet poking out. That was when your swelling body pushed your face against the glass , smooshing your juice filled cheek firmly. As you grew bigger, you lost all idea on how large you was. You couldn’t see yourself and you already felt impossibly large, and impossibly tight. You might have stopped… you prayed you had but the rumbling groaning sounds coming from your berry of a body told you that juice was still stretching you to new , horrid extremes. Out through the glass, you watched as the door you had been heading too opened. Your heart began pounding, praying it was someone there to help you. Was you saved? Someone to get you out of the TV…and the juice out of you. However, your eyes widened seeing that it was in fact the candy maker. You recognized him only by the eccentric suit on his back, even if it was as rotten as the rest of this godforsaken factory. He walked over to you , looking at you through the screen. “Ah… seems another fool has decided to sneak into my factory. What a shame.” He mumbled before lowering down coming face to swollen face with you. “my god… they are cruel. If you can hear me in there… I am sorry. I tried to keep people away, but… I guess I cant stop everyone. I … I cant help you. I couldn’t get you out of the TV, your body is far too…volatile.” He told you. Your heart sank lower and lower as you realized that nobody could help you. Even if you where out of the damned factory , you’d be trapped in a screen. Inside your own body. The candy maker turned suddenly before looking back to you fearfully. “ they are back…I’m sorry I must run…” he told you before turning. You tried to scream for him to take you with him , but you couldn’t speak past your bloated cheeks and lips. Even if you could…would it make it past the glass. You whine as you are left to your fate, filling a television with tight , juicy flesh. the ghost hands appeared in a spectral white in front of you, only to taunt you. They began to poke your taut body through the screen, as if it only existed to you. Their cold hands chilling wherever they poked sending shivers through your body. This… this was it. How you would be stuck forever. You begin to cry in pure dread as the gravity of it all hits you. To any onlooker , they would just assume it was a blue screen. You could only prey that no one would come for you lest they befall the same fate as you. The same fate any brave fool that dare entered the haunted factory would have. The plaything of the ghosts seemingly loving every minuet of your grim transformation. On this Halloween… you learned a lesson all too late. Sometimes there is truth to ghost stories.
