THE FOLLOWING CONTAINS GRUESOME DEPICTIONS OF UNREALITY.

--File 047: The Maggot Man--

When next the footage begins again, it is much brighter, and there is hard, labored breathing. Blaine once more has the camera; Alex is leading the way, with Emma in between them. In the brighter lighting, they look absolutely filthy, ragged, and exhausted, and they are breaking through a line of trees... straight into town. Blaine's voice is ragged and raw; all of their voices are.

Clearly, it has been hours of trekking through the woods, getting lost, and finding their way back into town.

Blaine: "What time is it?!"

Alex: "9:53!"

Emma: "We're not going to make it back to the motel! I don't even know where we are!"

Blaine: "Fuck. Pick a building, drop the game in the parking lot, get inside!"

Alex: "Go- there's the diner down the street! Get inside, Emma, now!"

They stop talking, stumbling across the solid pavement before breaking into hard sprints down the street. A car slams on its breaks as they dash in front of it, honking, but they ignore it, sprinting past. Emma has the game in her hands, and the screen in blinking as the time continues to ruthlessly count down.

The time it takes to reach the diner stretches on for almost too long; Emma manages to drop the game on the sidewalk without stopping, before the three of them barrel in through a swinging glass door, nearly collapsing on the floor. All sound in the diner halts on their shocking arrival, but the trio immediately scramble back up, with Blaine handing the camera to Alex and moving to drag furniture in front of the entrance. In a brief flash of the camera, the waitress at the front welcoming diners in is, again, Diane.

Waitress (Diane): "Excuse me, what the hell do you think you're doing?"

Emma: "9:55! It's 9:55!"

Diane: "What in the flying hell-"

Diane immediately stops talking as the lights in the diner flicker. A deathly silence falls on nearly everyone in the building, but for a few faces that suddenly stretch into the now-familiar, no-less-unwelcome smiles. A shadow passes over the sun outside, and the diner becomes unnaturally dark; Blaine pauses only for a moment to look around, before spinning back into action, running to a counter, grabbing hold of a stool, and dragging it over to the swinging door. The only problem with his plan is that it swings both ways, but considering their exhaustion and terror, we can assume he is not thinking straight.

The sound of a small, hard object plinking against glass reaches their ears in the silence, and Blaine freezes, looking up at the window that wraps around the front of the diner, making up the facade of the entrance they're gathered in.

The lights flicker again, and the faint sound of solitary buzzing can be heard in the vicinity, before it is electrocuted on some lightbulb; Alex turns in time to catch one of the overhead fluorescent lights fizzling out.

Support the creativity of authors by visiting the original site for this novel and more.

Blaine: "They're in the building."

Emma: "Fuck."

There is the sound of more plinking as more small objects smash against the glass. The bodies of flies are beginning to gather across the surface of the window.

Alex: "Everyone, get down, now! Get under a table! Cover your heads, your eyes, your ears, your noses!"

Diane: "What have you done?!"

Blaine: "Move!"

Blaine's command seems to send the locals scattering. Those still wearing the horrifyingly eerie grins don't move, though their faces turn with unnatural smoothness to track Emma as she turns to run toward the counter. Blaine stops her, however, grabbing her by the arm and pointing.

Blaine: "Stop! You can't go too far!"

The game has seemingly dragged itself across the sidewalk to keep within a specific pace of her, and it's pushed up against the glass door, the screen flickering sporadically through the pane.

More flies are beginning to smash against the windows; people are screaming as they dive under tables, and Blaine grabs Emma, dragging her to the floor in the entrance. Alex has doubled back, and the three of them huddle together, Alex and Blaine trying to shield Emma while the camera, pointed upright, continues to film.

A crack spiders across the glass as the weight of the flies continues to press against it. An outline is forming around the game console through the door. An increasing sound of buzzing reaches their ears, and swearing, Blaine rips off his jacket and throws it over their heads, momentarily obscuring the camera until Alex manages to fix it.

Flies begin pelting the jacket, and the screams of fear turn to unbridled terror and panic in the diner. Flies have broken in through the vents, it appears, and are dive bombing people. The camera remains pointed toward the front window and door, but the bodies of flies are beginning to squish through the cracks in the doors.

Then the maggots begin dropping.

Hundreds, if not thousands, of maggots start dropping out of the ventilation system onto the floor of the building; huge, massive, and vile, they thrash violently and begin an unholy wriggle toward, presumably, the people clinging to hope beneath the tables. The screams of fear are mixed in with sudden coughing fits and choking.

And then, it quite suddenly... stops.

Everything ceases, apart from the maggots already in the diner. When they realize that the flies have quit their barrage, Blaine throws the jacket back and pulls Emma to her feet, smashing the maggots already trying to climb up her legs. Alex, too, begins clearing a violent path around them; most of the maggots in their vicinity are making a beeline for Emma.

That's when Alex realizes that it's not done.

Alex: "Blaine!"

His shout causes the other two to turn and see what the camera now sees.

The door to the diner is opening outward, and the game is resting in the space just beyond the door, face up, the screen still flickering violently.

No one moves. People are still screaming, coughing, choking, and vomiting behind them, but they have eyes only for whatever horror is now standing before them.

A sudden cloud of flies explodes out of the screen, but what at first seems like a tornado of chaos suddenly begins turning into a shape- the shape of a man.

Emma: "Oh, fuck."

The flies are coalescing into a dark shape, a form, the colors of their oversized bodies shifting to imitate something like differentiating between the color of skin and clothes. The shape of a face appears in the swarm, the idea of eyes in the face.

Alex: "You've got to be fucking kidding me."

Blaine: "Tell me that's not who I think it is."

Emma: "Grantham. It's Jake Grantham."

The flies have collected into the recognizable form of a man, and while the features aren't exactly detailed enough to make out any sort of identifiable face, it is obvious that it can only be one person.

Jake Grantham, the serial killer known as the "Maggot Man".

Worse is that the being begins talking. Somehow, the collective buzzing of the millions of flies making up his form uses the rise and fall of the nonstop humming and buzzing to formulate real, actual words.

Maggot Man: "EmMa, My DeAr. YoU hAvE bRoUgHt Me HoMe."