I Was Hired To Notice Things Out of Place

"Nature uses only the longest threads to weave her patterns, so that each small piece of her fabric reveals the organization of the entire tapestry." 

- Richard P. Feynman

Todays' story was written by D.D. Wikman, or as you might know them from Nosleep; U/Saturdead. 

Transcript

By D.D. Wikman or as you might know them from Reddit Saturdead

You just had to stay up a little bit longer, just a little bit longer and you’d have it figured out. Your living room looked like a tornado had swept through, there were torn-up books, and half-empty coffee mugs filled with every kind of caffeinated beverage. Your couch was where you were putting everything together, there wasn’t enough room on the coffee table. But it wasn’t until you expanded to the floor that you saw the true shape of the conspiracy. You blocked off the entrance to your door, but that was okay, it wasn’t like you were going to leave until you figured it out. And it was starting to come together beautifully. See, the maps were actually a code, the books where actually the maps, and once you started swapping them, that’s when it all started clicking. That’s when you felt your heartbeat hit a frequency that not even the caffeine could achieve. You started putting down the red yarn, connecting the finished clues, and you knew you were on the cusp of a great discovery, one that would change the world. But to do it, you had to stay up just a little bit longer. When you spilled your papers and maps and missing person’s posters out into the hallway and started creeping towards the kitchen you knew you were getting somewhere. It might take a few more days, but soon you would have a full picture of: The Podcast Inside Your House. 

By D.D. Wikman or as you might know them from Reddit Saturdead

As a kid, I was scared of pretty much everything. At night, I’d see faces moving in the wallpaper. I’d see branches slither like snakes. Piles of clothes turned to slumped bodies, lamps looked like heads, and the front of cars grinned at me with sinister intent.

I could also hear them. A creaking door would sound like a groan. The wind would scream, and floorboards would breathe heavy sighs.

To me there were ghouls, ghosts, and monsters around every corner.

Needless to say, I was a nervous kid.

Turns out it wasn’t just an active imagination; I have a condition. It basically boils down to chronic overactive pareidolia. You know that thing where you can see faces in cars, or shapes of people in trees? That’s pareidolia. It is a sort of defense mechanism that humans have evolved to notice camouflaged creatures, like jaguars and snakes, and to discern the sounds of encroaching predators. But to me, it is about sixteen times more noticeable than what is normal for the average person. I see things everywhere, all the time.

Of course, there were treatments. By age 12 I had tried six different regimens over a total of four years, and the side effects were brutal. Some would make me irritable, while others would make me hyper-focused. One type of medication just straight up put me to sleep.

By age 18, I thought I’d never get a job. I was barely dragging myself through school, and there was no way I’d make it through college. I was on a course of drugs that barely kept me together, but they gave me these awful tics. I’d drop things, I’d wake up in the middle of the night, my leg would shoot out and trip me… I was a mess. My mom had to cover the stairs and handrail in grip tape.

A few years ago, I had a standing meeting with the county employment services every Thursday. I hated it. On a particularly bad day my mom had to drive me there; the meds were kicking my ass. She dropped me off at the end of the street, and just in that short walk to the office I almost tripped into a brick wall. I was so flustered I knocked over a trash can.

But for the first time in a couple of years, I had an interview with a potential employer. I didn’t think much of her, she was just some old woman in a warm coat. She introduced herself as Teresa and told me that she’d heard a lot about me. She offered me a “trial”, and a hefty one-time payment. I didn’t get clear idea about what I was supposed to do, but she told me that secrecy was part of it.

The only demand she had was that I stop taking my meds.

Still feeling the trash smell on my pants, I took Teresa up on her offer.

On my first day of work, I had no idea what to expect. I’d been off my meds for a week, and I had barely slept. It was hard to wrap my head around the world as I’d seen it as a kid. I’d see faces in the walls, in the shadows, in the leaves, in patterns; pretty much everywhere. I’d hear voices and screams in every braking car, in crinkling paper, in creaking floors. It was hard staying focused, and I was so jumpy I could barely move without flinching.

Teresa picked me up in a grey sedan. She was wearing a headset and kept looking over at the GPS. I noticed her leg was twitching, and that she kept biting her lip. She barely looked at me that whole ride.

We finally arrived at a small yard, about a 40-minute drive off the highway. There were two large trailers and a single-story run-down prefab house from the 60’s. One of those things with cheap wood panels and matching broken windows.

There were eight other vehicles in the yard. Four sedans, two vans, a jeep, and a bus. They’d set up warning tape, a command tent with laptops and an antenna, spotlights, and half a dozen crates covered with blue tarps. There were armed men with assault rifles, security personnel with handcuffs, and a couple of medics standing by with first aid-kits and stretchers.

I was swarmed as soon as I stepped out of the car. They fitted me with a headset, protective gloves, a heart monitor, and tagged me with a plastic ribbon around my left wrist. All the while, Teresa was just looking around, a bead of sweat stinging her eye.

“What are we looking at?” she asked. “Three? Four?”

“Just one,” I heard in the headset. “We got it early. You got the spot?”

“On-site,” she responded. “Any blues?”

“No blues, we’re clear.”

Teresa finally turned to me. She faced me, put her hands on my shoulders, and talked slowly.

“This seems like a lot,” she said. “All I want you to do is to go inside, carefully, and tell me what you see.”

“Why?” I asked. “What’s in there?”

“I don’t know,” she sighed. “None of us knows. But we think you can see it.”

“Is it dangerous?”

She shook her head.

“We don’t know. We’re trying to get to know them.”

There was a flurry of instructions. I had to sign a waiver, they took pictures of me from six different angles, and took several blood samples. They took a swab from my tongue, checked my eyes, and fitted me with a pair of safety goggles. Teresa took them from me just seconds later.

“Nothing around the eyes,” she said. “You need to see clearly.”

They asked me to approach the door while they were running some kind of diagnostic. Weapon checks, system checks, ready checks. It felt like we were launching a rocket. I could feel my legs shaking.

“I’m with you all the way,” Teresa said over the headset. “You can leave at any time. Just tell me what you see. And I really mean what you see.”

A countdown began. At zero, the spotlights turned on, and the entire yard turned into a soundless ghost town. Everyone held their breaths.

It was my turn.

I stepped inside. A simple one-story house. Three rooms, a bathroom, a kitchen. Someone had clearly lived there until recently, there were still clothes flung over a chair in the living room. The power was off, but the pale spotlights coming in through the windows made it feel like I was walking through a hospital waiting room.

My heart was pounding out of my chest. I didn’t know what to expect, but this payday could be the boost I needed to get my own place. A paycheck with four zeroes, for a single day of work. But standing there, looking into the sterile living room, I was having doubts.

“What do you see?” asked Teresa. “Notice anything?”

“No, just… just furniture.”

A couch, an old TV, a fancy carpet… nothing out of the ordinary. I just walked around, saying out loud what I was seeing. As the minutes passed, Teresa was getting impatient.

“These are just things,” she said. “I need you to tell me what you really see.”

I entered the bathroom, and immediately felt this awful feeling in the pit of my stomach. A noise tickled my ear. Looking in the bathroom mirror, I could see something moving behind me.

In a heartbeat, I caught a glimpse of a pair of blue eyes.

I turned around, screaming.

“S-something! Something moved!”

I flung myself backwards, closing the bathroom door with the tip of my fingers. I stumbled, tearing down the shower curtains and crushing a cockroach. Laying there with my feet in the air, I tried to remember to breathe. Rarely have I ever been so scared that I had to remind myself to breathe. My fingers tingled with adrenaline.

“Tell me what you saw!” Teresa yelled. “What’s in there?!”

“Blue eyes! It had blue eyes!”

“Did you see where it went?!”

I didn’t. To the best of my knowledge, it was still outside the door.

“Look again!” she continued. “Look again, then get out!”

She had to coax me out of the bathtub. She encouraged me, spurred me on, and reminded me that I had to leave that room one way or the other. It probably took them fifteen minutes to get me out of the tub, and when they did, I could barely feel my feet.

When I finally opened the bathroom door, I couldn’t see anyone. The hallway was empty. I carefully stepped out, looking around. Nothing.

Standing in the middle of the living room, I felt like an idiot. This was exactly what I was taking my medication for; paranoia and sudden bouts of fear. It dawned on me that maybe I was influenced by all the people outside, and their preparations. I was walking in here expecting to see something. They’d worked me up, so of course I was seeing things.

But then again, there was an odd painting on the wall that I hadn’t paid attention to earlier.

It was the strangest thing. It was a sort of thrift-store painting, showing two women walking across a bridge on a hot summer’s day. It was sort of generic, but I’d been hyper-vigilant when I first stepped in.

You know that feeling when you say a word over and over so many times that it starts sounding like a noise? That’s the feeling that fell over my eyes. The picture started to blur and disappear, turning into swirling colors. And there, in that blur, I saw those blue eyes. There were small blue spots in the water, on the sides of the bridge in the painting. That’s what I’d seen, and there, I’d seen a face. Something blending into my sight, disappearing.

And for a second, I knew for certain, that I hadn’t seen this painting when I first stepped inside.

And now, it knew that I could see it. I felt it.

I slowly started to back out.

“There’s something in the painting,” I whispered. “In the living room.”

“You sure?” Teresa asked. “Absolutely sure?”

“A-absolutely.”

“Get out.”

I rounded the corner and heard the floorboards creak. I could no longer see the painting, and I could sense something move. Backing out of the front door and into the cool autumn air, I could feel hands on my shoulder. Armed men pulled me back, and paramedics started to check my eyes with flashlights. They asked me all sorts of personal questions, like my name, my mother’s maiden name, and the name of the president. I was told to lay down, as I heard a team breach the house with stun guns, cattle prods, nets, and a crate.

Laying there and feeling the pressure subside, I just cried and laughed. I didn’t even notice Teresa sitting down next to me. I was given a cold drink and a pill, and I took it without question.

“You did good,” she said. “You’re done, you’re done.”

“What was that?! What’s in there?!”

“Something only a special mind can see.”

That was my first time working with Teresa. Over the coming years, I would be called in about once or twice a month, and the pay I got from those few days were enough to get me out of my parent’s house. Teresa would check in with me weekly, and I had to submit to regular check-ups; but more often than not I was completely off the leash.

I started to learn a bit more about the company I was working for, and what they were doing. I started getting payments from “Hatchet Biotechnica”, a subsidiary of Hatchet Pharmaceuticals. My official title was “contractor”, a title that was repeated like a name. Teresa started going into greater details on what to look for and how to act, but that first mission was a sort of test to prove myself. I had no idea what I was actually proving, but it felt like my tendency to discern patterns and seeing dangers helped me along.

I learned a bit more about their procedures. For example, they were adamant about “checking for blues”. This meant surveying the nearby area to look for some kind of infection, usually taking the form of miscolored flowers. Most often blue, but not always. Sometimes tulips, most often sunflowers. Once they just found a bunch of teeth sticking out of the wall. Whenever they “checked for blues”, this is what they would look for; something overtly strange and unnatural. When something like this was found, the whole mission would be called off, and they would use controlled explosives to just take out the entire area. In more populated areas, they’d set up tents and use flamethrowers.

I remember once, the week before Christmas, when six men with flamethrowers were called in to burn down a greenhouse. I’ll never forget the way the flames reflected off their visors. To them, it all just looked like flames. But I saw something else. I saw bodies, wreathing in the flames. I heard screams in the shattered glass. And in the charred remains of melted plastic, I’d see pained faces glaring at me with hateful black eyes.

Up until a few months ago, I had worked a total of 33 cases over two and a half years. Every case, I’d step into a location and look for one to three “things” hiding in plain sight. Up until that point, I still had no idea what they actually were. Sometimes I’d catch a glimpse of something running past me, or see a pair of blue eyes looking at me from across the room. Every time, I just reported it and left. A chair. A fridge. A suspicious window. Hell, once it was a music box.

This time, we were just coming up to a house. It was a rainy autumn evening, and the area was already set up when we got there. I saw a “for sale”-sign knocked over by one of the jeeps who’d taken a wide turn.

I got suited up. Blood samples, plastic wrap, all that jazz. It was set up to be just another job. Although I was still nervous, I was getting better.

“No blues?” asked Teresa.

“None,” said one of the armed men. “We’re looking at a single tango.”

“You sure?” Teresa squinted. “First report said six.”

“Secondary reading says one. We might have runners.”

“Notify the Galapagos,” she sighed. “Put him on the hunt.”

She turned to me with a smile, tapping me on the shoulder.

“In and out, you got this.”

“I got this,” I repeated. “Yeah.”

Standard routine. Countdown, spotlights, game on. It felt like stepping onto a stage. As I walked through the door and saw my shadow stretch out across the floor, I felt like a hunter. That I was the one to fear, and that whatever stayed in this house tried to hide for good reason.

“The floor is crooked,” I noted. “Strange place.”

“You sure?”

“Yeah,” I nodded. “Definitely.”

I steadied myself and started checking the rooms one by one.

I waited for that feeling to emerge. My eyes seeing through the obvious and seeing the picture beneath the picture. The blue eyes emerging from nothing, and the patterns of shadowy figures growing clearer. Just relaxing and expecting that feeling to wash over me was enough to put me at ease, but I could still feel a primal part of me tickling my nerves; expecting me to panic.

But nothing happened.

I checked the kitchen, the living room, the bedroom… there was nothing. Just a strangely crooked floor, empty rooms, and the echo of my own footsteps. An empty guest bedroom with a single window. Through it, I imagined scowling faces in the trees outside.

Twenty minutes passed, and I got nothing. I reported to Teresa, and she assured me we were still getting readings from inside the house. Something was still in there with me, but I hadn’t seen anything. I went through cycles of denial, fear, and anger; over and over. What was I missing?

Finally, I just sat down in the middle of the living room floor. I scratched my eyes, sighed, and tried to relax.

“Teresa, I-I’m… I’m not feeling it. Are you sure?”

There was no response.

“Teresa?”

“Yeah,” she responded, absent-mindedly. “Yeah, no, I… we’re good. Hold on for a minute.”

“We’re good?” I asked. “What do you mean we’re good?”

Again, no response.

I stomped around for another ten minutes before I went up to a window facing the front yard. It was hard to see through the glare of the spotlight.

“Teresa? I’m coming out. The place is empty.”

As soon as I opened the front door, I saw two dozen faces fixed on me. Maybe they were surprised to see me, but I got the sense that there was something else. I could tell something was off.

They all looked at me with strange expressions. Some neutral, some smiling ear to ear. One of the paramedics just stared at me with slack-jawed terror. It was as if they didn’t know what to feel, or how to express it.

A hole sunk through my stomach. I got that hollow feeling as my eyes glazed over, like I was staring at something false, something hiding a pattern. This was the sense I’d been looking for inside, and now I was feeling it.

In the far back, I saw Teresa.

She stepped out from behind a jeep, smiling ear to ear.

Behind the shape of her face, her eyes emerged; glowing with a cold blue.

One by one, their eyes flared up in a blue glow. And there, in a moment, my paranoid sight registered human-like shapes in the grass around them. Headless, mauled bodies.

Imposters. Look-alikes. Mimics. Nightmare beings, having tricked us into a trap.

One by one, smiles started creeping across their faces. Rows of impossibly sharp teeth hiding long tongues. Their fingers growing longer, their necks elongating. They were losing their disguises and facing me, head on, unafraid.

Nothing was said out loud. Not a word. But to me, it was as if the wind itself was screaming for me to run.

I slammed the door behind me and ran. Faces were coming out of the walls. Door handles turning into hands, grasping at my clothes. My distorted face reflecting in windows and mirrors with jawless grins. I couldn’t blink. Every heartbeat, a new horror forced my eyes open.

There were more doors than I remembered. There were more windows than there should be. The kitchen suddenly had a skylight, and there were four fridges. Countless paintings had appeared in the master bedroom, depicting cruel and blood-drenched horrors. They were already here, trying to surround me, and my mind was racing to remember what was real and what wasn’t.

Rushing to the back of the guest bedroom, I remembered there being only one window.

Now, there were two.

I had to roll the dice. Take a guess. Do something.

As I grabbed the window frame, I imagined teeth slamming into my hands. Tongues licking across my palms. Wide smiles sating their hunger.

But this time, it was just my imagination.

I burst through the window and took off running into the woods.

Through the night, I just kept going. My chest hurt from holding the screams in. Without my medication, everything in the dark looked like something reaching for me, trying to eat me, trying to grab me. Creaking branches sounded like laughter, and howling winds were screams.

I must’ve run for hours when my foot got caught between two rocks. As I tumbled to the ground, twisting my ankle, I saw them descend on me. I felt their fingers scratching me. I writhed on the ground, screaming for them to just let me go; to just please, please, let me go.

But after a few seconds, I realized I had just scratched myself on the underbrush. There was no one there. I was safe.

I broke down crying, trying to ignore the twisted face reflecting off the full moon above.

Eventually, I made my way home. There were no messages waiting for me. All my work numbers had been taken offline. All ways to contact them were just gone, and there was no info on the firm that hired me. Hatchet Biotechnica exists only on paper; there’s no location, no contact info, and no names attached. It’s all a front.

I haven’t heard from Teresa since. I think that whoever I’ve been working for have just assumed I’m dead. That’s why I decided to share this anonymously; those who know who I am can reach out to me. And for those who don’t, I just have a word of warning.

Be observant. Trust your intuition.

It might save your life.

Until Next Time: Remember to try and look at things a little differently when you find yourself stuck on a challenge. You could be staring the solution right in the face and not even realize it, or perhaps it’s too late, and the solution is already watching you.