(Part 2) I'm a cable guy in the world's creepiest little town, Hollow's End..

Part 1

I haven't been sleeping much since my service call at the sisters’ house last week. Every time I close my eyes now I see a red unblinking eye, about the same size and shape as the one I saw that day – like the after-image of a flash bulb burnt into my retinas. It visits me in my dreams and haunts me every time I blink. I try to forget it's there but I am reminded of it constantly. It never leaves me alone, just sits there on the backs of my eyelids waiting for its chance to peek at me again.

I've started to avoid blinking as much as possible to avoid it, causing my eyes to become irritated and sore. But it's better than seeing that eye all the time... It’s spooky.

The sisters still haven't called or reached out to say they're ready for me to return to complete my service call. No one has seen them around town at all, or any of the other sisters for that matter. The coven was typically very involved in the local community, the weekly farmers market they ran was a mainstay of the town. No one from the group showed up to sell veggies this week in the town square.

I decided today to make my way back to the sisters’ house. I had to see if they were okay; they had always been good to me. If I saw a spreading black mass of malicious intent, heading from the fields towards me, full of red evil eyes and teeth, I'd just hightail it out of there.

I got to the street where the sisters lived. They had a few acres with no neighbours nearby so it was secluded and quiet. My windows were rolled down due to the heat of the day, currently at its peak in the early afternoon. Another sunny 100 plus degree day. It seemed to be either that or thunderstorms lately. Yin or yang.

I had stopped for longer than I needed to at the stop sign, lost in my thoughts. Just as I was about to start moving a black cat jumped up through my window and into my car.

The unspoken voice which filled my head sounded like a shout from an angry, gruff, middle-aged man. I looked over and saw the black cat staring at me intently, the scars across his face distinguishing him as “Scratches". One of the sisters' many black cats. Only Scratches was special. At this point you must surely think I’m insane, or outright lying about all of this. Welcome to Hollow’s End. Shit that shouldn't be real, well that's just another Tuesday here.

Fuck you! I’m only 32! And if I’m “gruff” and “angry” it's because there's a goddamn field full of evil black lava shit back there! Now drive!

Before I could even fully form my next thought I heard the black bastard-cat's retort in my head.

They’re dead! The sisters are all dead! Every last one of them. Now can we PLEASE- GET- THE- FUCK- OUT- OF- HERE.. NOW!

I looked past him and saw why he was in such a hurry. A black tendril of oily shadow was creeping its way toward us from the grass at the side of the road. Thicker globs of what looked like crude oil or hot tar approached beside it and all around it forming a line of growing black evil which was flowing slowly like lava towards town. A passerby from out of town might have seen it and thought, hmmm I guess a crude oil pipeline must have burst. I knew better. I had seen the eye, and it had seen me.

I didn't hesitate any longer and stepped on the gas. I looked behind me in the rearview mirror and saw the blackness was still flowing steadily. Trees had begun to fall over in the wake of its decay.

“We need to call a town meeting, whatever that is, it's out of control!”

Scratches sat there staring at me. His deeply scarred face was dirty and covered in mud, as was the rest of him. He smelled terrible.

Hey, fuck you asshole! And fuck the town meeting. We're going to see the Butcher. You know it's the only thing to do.

The Butcher. I shuddered thinking about the last time I had been to his place. The rats. The roaches. The never ending stink of blood and entrails. He had a point though. If anyone could solve this problem, it was him.

I drove west towards town and floored it, accelerating as quickly as the disorganized pile of heavy junk in the back of my van would allow. I looked in my mirror again, and saw the black stuff was spreading slowly and steadily, about halfway across the road now.

Scratches looked exhausted and even his thoughts sounded tired and disjointed once we were safely away. He lay down on the passenger seat and fell asleep instantly, his leg twitching occasionally as he chased mice in slumber land.

The town came into sight as we came over a rise and I proceeded down Main Street towards the Butcher’s Shop. We pulled up out front and I saw a few pigs turned inside out hanging from hooks in the front window, flies buzzing around them as they swayed slightly. The butcher could be seen inside, hacking away at something with a cleaver. Blood spray was flying up into his face and everywhere, spattering the walls behind him and the ceiling above.

He didn’t look up as I came into the shop, just continued hacking away with the heavy clever. It was enormous and looked too heavy for me to lift. The head of the cleaver was the size of a large encyclopedia. The butcher brought it up and down easily and effortlessly with his giant arms, dividing a primal cut of something into manageable pieces meant for sale. In the back freezer I knew he had plenty of cuts you wouldn't find at any grocery store. Hollow’s End specials.

“Sisters couldn't stop it, huh?” He spoke in a thunderous baritone.

“That's right. I was just there. Scratches and I barely got away.”

“You took that asshole cat with you? Why? You know what he is.”

I considered and decided not to explain myself. No one deserved to be killed by that vile black shit.

“Can you help us, or not? It's headed this way, it'll take out your shop the same as everything else.”

He looked up from his meat, set down his clever, and wiped his hands off on a bloody towel he had tucked into his apron. He seemed to consider for a moment whether his shop being destroyed meant anything to him. The Butcher was famously non-materialistic and known for his stoicism.

“You assume it can be killed. You assume too much. Same as the sisters.”

“I don't understand. If we can't kill it, how do we stop it?”

“You have to kill the source of it. This thing is not natural, it was created by someone. Someone here, in Hollow’s End.”

“Who would do that? Who would create something so evil?”

The Butcher shrugged. He looked at me and pointed with his giant clever.

“You're the one to check. You go around, tell everyone you're doing a free service upgrade or something, poke around and try to find this sick fuck. I’ll take care of the rest.”

He went back to his work again as if he had just asked for the simplest thing in the world. How was I supposed to find this mad scientist? Where do mad scientists even live? Do they have cable or do they use satellite? Heathens.

I got back into my van and saw I now had an upgrade call pending on my computer screen's worklist. The appointment was showing red, indicating I was somehow already late, despite the fact that the job hadn't even been on my screen five minutes ago. I silently cursed the dispatcher and took out my phone to call the number on the screen. At least this was going to check one house off my list of potential suspects. I could poke around and ask a few questions at this house as well. See if this guy knew anything useful.

“Hello,” the disgruntled voice of an older man picked up the phone.

“Hi, this is Jerome with the cable company, I was just about to head over to your place to set you up with your new modem. Is it alright if I head over now?”

“No, no, no. That isn't right at all. They told me they were going to give me internet. You know, I'm so sick of your company. I swear to God if you sons of bitches didn't have a monopoly out here..”

I tried to explain that we were going to “get him internet” and that's what the modem did but he just told me to get my ass over there and hurry up, since I was already late as it was. He then abruptly hung up.

I was left feeling slightly annoyed but only slightly. I was used to ignorant people berating me and ignoring my sensible attempts to educate them. It was amazing how many people still didn't know that internet was not something floating in the ether, that WIFI needed a connection via cable to a larger system to function. Those same people thought that as a cable guy it was your job to set up their printer, their new laptop they don't know how to use, and setup an email address for them. All because “They have finally decided to join the electronic revolution.” Of course none of these are things we are paid for or are trained to do. I try to politely GTFO.

I drove up to the address which was northwest, just a little ways out of town. It had been a slow day so dispatch had started to get creative with my service area. I was headed north of the black stuff, which I kept a lookout for on my right, paranoid its spread could have quickened.

When I arrived at the house I saw it was a simple bungalow with a big country lawn and a large black pickup truck parked out front, which appeared brand new. I saw a second driveway past the house led further into the property where several large trucks were parked near a large warehouse. They looked like oil tankers. Alarm bells began to ring in my head. Oil tankers would mean oil, and there were no oil fields nearby. But that black stuff did look like crude oil almost, except with the addition of evil red eyes that haunted your dreams.

I backed my van into the driveway and parked. I put out my useless orange traffic cones which were mandated by company policy to be used during service calls. One out in front of the left tire and one behind to the right. To protect the van and ward off- something.

I grabbed my work bag and put my tool belt on. I pulled a fresh modem out of the back and brought it up to the front door with me. The house was old, but well maintained. The owner was an odd man who kept to himself, and only came into town for necessities. The warehouse out back, the second driveway, the tankers, those were all new. I had never seen them before, it was as if they had sprung up overnight. Although it had been at least a month since I had been up this way, maybe more.

This sent the alarm bells ringing in my head into a full-blown wailing siren with big red flashing lights. Hollow’s End is a simple town, in many ways. There isn’t a lot of money here. Someone new was in town, and they were supplying this man (Bill Waterton according to his account info) with a lot of money and equipment. But for what?

I knocked on the door and the man who answered was dressed in blue jeans and a clean white T-shirt. He did not appear to be happy to see me.

“Hello, sir, we spoke on the phone. My name’s Jerome. I’m a cable technician for..”

“I know who you are, just get in here-“

We walked into his house and asked where he wanted the modem to be set up. I explained it needed to be in a central location to reach all areas of the house, since this one had a built-in wireless router. He seemed to understand that and directed me to his office. There wasn’t a cable connection in there, so I explained I would need to drill down to the basement through the floor boards. I wasn’t about to start fishing a cable line (creating a wall-outlet) for this guy, we don’t get paid to do that, anyways, since it’s much more difficult and time consuming. He agreed and pointed to a spot in the corner behind a plant, where a hole would not be visible in the wooden floor boards.

I went out and drabbed my drill and the 2 foot long drill bit I had for such purposes. I was trying to think of a way to get to this guy’s boss. I had a sudden brainstorm and tried to act as casual as possible when I was back inside conversing with him, after the job was done.

“So, this internet is fast, right? Like am I gonna be able to watch a movie without it doing that spinny loading thing all the time?” the man asked.

“Buffering. Yeah it’ll give you 500Mbps, which should definitely be fast enough to stream a movie or a YouTube video. By the way, I’m trying to spread the word about this, we’re doing upgrades for a huge discount if you’re referred through an existing customer, and I’d also give you twenty bucks cash, right now. A referral bonus. Do you know anyone who would want a cheap upgrade on their internet to give them a faster connection?” I hoped this didn’t sound too fishy.

He looked at me suspiciously for a second, then smiled. “You know, my boss was saying that his internet is way slower here than where he used to live. He told me not to go around talking ‘bout him, he’s real private-like. But I think he’d be alright with this. Let me call him, he just lives right up that gravel road, got him a nice pre-fab house up there, sprung that thing up practically overnight. Dropped in by big helicopters, believe it or not.”

The puzzle pieces were beginning to fit together, slowly. Now I just had to find out how this all related to the insanity that had sprung a leak out in the sisters’ fields.

“You know, I think it’s best I call him, don’t you? That way he doesn’t have to know you even said anything, how’s that?” I took out a crisp twenty and held it out to him. He took it and nodded.

“Pleasure doing business with you,” he said.

I left the house and headed back to the van. No way was I going in there alone. I was going back to town for backup. It was time to get The Butcher.

Part 3

JG