The factory was empty. There was no one working the assembly line inside. No foreman watched over the grounds. Yet all the machines were still running. Cans were stuffed with shredded tuna and cooked shrimp. The whole thing was entirely automated. The containers that were supposed to catch the cans at the end of the assembly were full. Cans had begun to fall to the floor around them.

The longer Henry searched the empty factory, the more unnerved he became. It had finally hit him that this was more than just a few empty shops. It was as if the entire town had vanished. When you add him seemingly appearing here in his sleep, the whole thing just made no sense.

Henry exited the factory feeling more uneasy than when he entered. What if there really wasn't anybody left? What would he do? He checked the large moving trucks parked in front and found they had no keys. Maybe he could walk to the nearest town. It would be a risk. He didn't know how far away it was.

A sudden idea struck him. A boat. He had seen a dock on his short walk to the factory. He could take a boat along the coastline and find the next town over. He would be able to call for help and figure out what had happened. His uncle had taken him sailing on a lake a few times. Henry thought he could drive a boat on his own if he had to.

With his mind made up, Henry made his way to the docks situated on the water, a couple streets down from the factory. A series of wooden docks rose out of the water in a maze-like pattern. A few old fishing boats were docked. They swayed lazily in the water. Most of them seemed to be in good shape, but that was not what caught Henry's attention.

A man in a yellow fishing jacket was crouched next to a boat. He seemed to be fiddling with something Henry couldn't see. This is the first person he'd seen since he arrived in the town. He decided to ask for help.

"Oh, boy, am I glad to see you. Listen, I don't know where I am, and I can't seem to find anyone. Is there any way you could help me out?" Henry asked the man.

The man in the yellow fishing jacket stood up when Henry called to him. As he did, his head came into view for the first time. His neck was broken, bent at an unnatural horizontal angle. Snapped shards of bone protruded from the leathery skin. A large brown rope was wrapped several times around the base of his neck. Henry was paralyzed with fear. What was that thing? It couldn't be human. No man could have survived with a neck injury like that.

The fisherman reached his hands to his own neck and began to loosen the rope. As he uncoiled it, he looped it around his arms. When he had completely untangled it from his neck, the fisherman pulled on the end of the rope, and a large steel harpoon was jerked up into his hands from the sea. Its sharpened barbed tip still dripped with salty seawater. He turned to face Henry, revealing a swollen, bloated face. Under the surface of the skin, something seemed to be moving. It rippled the skin like a fish swimming near the surface of a smooth lake. Henry turned to run, just too late. The monster lifted its arm back and threw the harpoon right towards him.

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He watched with disbelief as the harpoon plunged right through his chest. He didn't even feel it. Blood coated the barbed iron tip that protruded from his stomach. It dripped blood down to the cobblestone street below. Henry was so surprised, he barely reacted. He looked down lamely at the large sharpened piece of metal in his chest and tried to think of what to do. But in the heat of the moment, he couldn't think of anything.

The thought that Henry finally had is probably the same one you would've had. I've got to get this thing out of my body. He was just a bit too late to reach that conclusion. He tried to pull the harpoon free, but found it pulled back. He felt the harpoon slip free of his hand before sliding a few inches back into his body. It only stopped when its barb hooked on one of his ribs. Henry was jerked back off his feet by the harpoon now lodged in his ribcage. The pain was so excruciating that it was beyond description. Nonetheless, I'll try my best.

At first, the pain was only a dull ache as his body tried to figure out what was happening. Then, all at once, it became a flood of agony. When Henry was a boy, he'd grabbed his mother's clothes iron while it was still hot. That had left a horrible burn across his hand. Until now, that had been the most pain Henry had ever felt. This harpoon speared through his chest, dragging him across a street was worse. If you were to ask him to quantify it, he would say it was a hundred times worse.

He screamed so loudly that his voice grew horse in only a few moments. He scrambled at the ground until his fingernails ripped free, hoping to stop the pulling. The flow of blood from the wound in the chest made the street slick and impossible to grip. Whatever that thing pulling him in was, Henry didn't want to reach it. Unfortunately, that choice was out of his control.

The pulling stopped, and Henry was left laying on the cold cobblestone street. He tried to crawl away, but a boot pressed down on his back, stopping any movement. He could hear a wet, rasping breath behind him. His brother had pneumonia once, and his breathing sounded similar. He felt the pressure on his back lift, but before he could try to flee, he found himself being hoisted up.

The fisherman lifted him by the harpoon in his chest and held him eye-to-eye. The monstrous man's face was bloated and waterlogged. Barnacles and other small marine parasites Henry didn't know grew in patches across his face. The creature's eyes were a dead, milky white. Its jaw was completely dislocated and slackly hung open. Water flowed from it in a steady trickle.

The creature gurgled something that might have been words once. Then, it pulled Henry so close that water from it's open jaw splashed across his face. Henry let out a whimper. It seemed to sense his pain and revel in it. The Fisherman forced the harpoon up deeper into Henry's organs. Somehow, it didn't even hurt anymore. He could feel himself fading. Black and red filled the peripheries of his eyesight.

Henry was dying. He didn't want to die. There was so much he still had to do. All his dreams. What had he even done wrong? Tears fell from his eyes as his body went numb. The only taste in his mouth was blood. He could feel it running down his chin. It was so warm. Everything else was cold. He let out a shutter. He was growing so tired. too tired. He drowsily let his eyes close. Henry Becker didn't even feel his body get tossed to the floor, discarded like a broken toy. It was only a few moments later, as his crippled body lay on the now bloody street, that Henry died, cold and alone. Just as he had lived.