My Dad Told Me To Never Enter The Garage At Night. Now I Know Why.

Though strange, I always abided by that rule. It didn’t make much sense to me. What could possibly be going on that I wasn’t supposed to see? Whatever he did there for hours every night was a mystery to me.

Things changed when I started hearing the sounds.

Clicking. Grinding parts. Wet squelches. Low groans. 

All coming from the other side of that garage door. I heard it when I snuck out one night. Pressed my ear against the sliding door. It sent a pin-prick wave down my spine. 

I asked my dad the next morning if he had been busy in the garage last night. The mood change in the room was instant and palpable. His cold glare was enough to shut down my question. He was never a violent man, but I knew at that moment that he could become one.

I snuck outside and listened through the garage door a few more times over the next couple weeks. I heard the same sounds each time. I tried to picture in my head what was going on. I wondered if he was a serial killer. The thought ran my blood cool.

I made and acted out a plan. To see what was going on. In the daylight, while my parents were preparing dinner, I carefully raised the garage door and lowered it just far enough to look closed while still having a tiny, almost imperceptible gap at the bottom.

After mom went to bed, around 1 AM, I snuck outside and went to the garage door. I could hear footsteps on the other side. I laid down flat on my belly over the rough driveway. My face squished up to the door, I could just barely see into the room.

I saw him walk over to a shelf and grab a black container. He unscrewed the cap. He then raised it above my field of view, which only extended as high as his upper arm.

Thick, laborious gulps. On the verge of gagging. He was drinking something. I saw long, yellow, viscous drips form and fall down the front of his shirt and onto the floor, making a small pool.

Motor oil.

 He was chugging motor oil. It made me queasy just hearing it. My stomach formed a knot. It felt hard and weighty as I laid there on the cold cement. I couldn’t stand it. I got up and left. I didn’t sleep that night. My stomach still hurt the next morning, the knot refusing to leave.

It was hard to look at my dad after that. He creeped me out. After seeing that, he just looked… different. I noticed the rigid, slow way he carried himself and spoke. It was just odd. 

The next night I was back. I had raised the door a little higher, just enough to see his whole body. I prayed that he wouldn’t notice.

He entered. Walked straight to the toolbox. Grabbed the power drill. Took off his shirt. Turned away from me, I saw him raise the drill to his chest. I hoped the pavement would conceal my intense heartbeat.

Vrrrrrrtttt! 

The drill made progress on something solid but fleshy. It sounded wet. After a few seconds, I heard and saw a bloody screw ping as it fell to the floor. Then another. 

Then I heard those jaw-clenching popping sounds. Like bones being snapped out of place.

He turned back to the toolbox, giving me a profile view. I could see his chest, swung open like a cabinet door. A rectangle of hairy skin faced me. The light diffusing through revealed the workings of a ribcage, and something else. Thin and dark under the skin. Like wires. 

My wide, unblinking eyes witnessed as he pried around and tooled with whatever was behind that cabinet door of flesh. I’d occasionally hear an odd tear or snap, followed by quick painful groans and heavy breathing. Sometimes blood would drip down. Other times, more yellow fluid would.

He eventually closed it up and left.

The knot in my stomach felt bigger, harder. It hurt. I was nauseous. I fought back the urge to vomit right there.

I talked to my mom the next day while we walked through the grocery store together.

“Has dad seemed… weird lately?” 

“Weird? What do you mean?” She turned to me, her brow furrowed.

“Like, is he okay, medically? Physically?” My nervous eyes diverted contact.

She scoffed. “Your father is a strong man. You know that. Where is this coming from?” 

“I just wonder sometimes… about what he does in the garage all the time,” I said, my voice quieting to a whisper.

Her voice took on a brighter tone. “Honey, he’s more than okay. He’s growing, big and strong, just like I did. Just like you are now!”

She pressed her finger on my nose and made a sickly sweet smile. My stomach spasmed and I knew if I pressed more, I’d be left even more confused. Regardless, her last statement left me bewildered.

Growing into what?

I tooled around some ideas and worries in my head as I stared at the ceiling each night, unable to sleep anymore. My stomach pains had progressed to the point of regular Tums consumption. But it remained. I figured, pleaded with myself, really, that this must all be a misunderstanding. And I needed to squash my doubts. 

Eventually, I decided on action.

A few nights after the conversation with my mom, I entered the garage just prior to midnight, before my dad showed up. I found a pile of boxes with a blue tarp strewn over and hid my body within it. It was at just the right angle to allow myself a full view of my dad from front on, assuming he were to face the same direction as last time.

I waited for two hours with vein-throbbing anxiety. When I heard the door swing open, I nearly had a heart attack.

He went about the same routine procedure. Toolbox, power drill, shirt off. He raised the drill, the screwdriver bit locking in place over a hard groove under the skin. He pulled the trigger.

The thin flesh tore instantly, wrapping around the bit and flailing loosely. Beneath lay a small, bloody screw. It quickly spun out of his chest and fell to the floor. I could see his grimace. He repeated the same procedure lower on his chest with a second screw.

When the other screw fell, he dug his nails under a ridge on the right side of his ribs, between the screw holes. He pulled hard.

I clenched my jaw and my teeth felt as though they could shatter at any moment. 

Rubbery flesh stretched and snapped. Rib bones popped and creaked. The door to his chest was opening. Stringy blood and oil and mucus dripped down and I was hit with a wave of this smell that reeked of gasoline, burnt hair, and cleaning chemicals.

Then I saw the inside.

His chest was full of these interlacing, shiny, metallic pistons. Gears. Belts. Black tubes. All coated in this brownish-reddish slime. A tangle of coppery wires snaked around a blackened, shivering lung. It expanded with each shuddering breath. There were no other human organs discernible amongst the mess, at all.

I gagged involuntarily. My hand moved to cover my mouth, my knuckles a blistering white. My heart worked overtime. 

He looked down, straight at the opening at the bottom of the tarp. Straight at me.

His hand grabbed the fleshy door and slammed it shut, clicking it into place, flimsy skin still hanging around the edges. He squatted down and lifted the tarp.

“Son,” he whispered, his dark eyes trained on me intensely.

“I, I, uh…” I couldn’t come up with an excuse. I’d gone too far.

“I told you not to come in here, didn’t I?” He shook his head angrily. “You just had to know, didn’t you? You’re no different than your mother.”

I tried to scoot backwards but I ran into a box.

“Does this scare you? It should.” He folded his arm over his mangled chest. “You are my son. You are me.”

“W-what? What do you mean?” I felt the knot in my stomach with my hand, feeling its weight and hardness.

“You get it now, huh?” His lips curled into a smile. “Don’t tell anyone about this. Family secret,” he said, raising a dripping wet finger to his mouth, shushing me.

I got up on unstable legs and ran out of the room.

After I went into my room and locked my door, I had to know. 

I grabbed my pocket knife.

My quivering hands guided the blade over the knot. I cut into myself, a hot pain radiating across my stomach. An inch long incision was all I needed. The skin peeled back, forming a football-shaped opening.

I saw a black tube, hard, plastic, covered in the same bloody mucus. It was deeply ridged and bent. I poked it, feeling its immovable, warm mass. At that moment, I almost felt oddly comforted by it.

I’m sending this here because I can’t keep this secret. I’m terrified. But I'm excited, too. I want to share this with people.

It must be what my mom said. I’m growing. Just like my dad. 

I’ll be big and strong. Soon.