Turn Off Cell Phones and Two Way Radios

Have you ever driven by a construction site and seen a sign that says, “TURN OFF ALL CELL PHONES AND TWO WAY RADIOS”? They’re kind of unnecessary nowadays, but back in the day, if the weather conditions were just right, a cell phone or walkie-talkie signal could set off a blast prematurely. My boss, Luke, says he saw a state trooper accidentally set off a blast with a cell phone back in the 80’s. Now the blasts are set off with different wires and blasting caps, so the only way to set them off is with a detonator box, or if something manages to electrify the wires. Luke could tell you more about it, he’s been in the blasting business since he was old enough to walk, and his father and grandfather were in it before him. I just drill holes, and load them, and stand back to watch the rocks fly.

The day I died, the day all three of us died, me, Luke, and Mike, the other driller, was hot, clear and dry. We’d spent six days drilling 150 production holes and spent the entire morning loading them with Blastex and ANFO. The detonator caps were hooked up with the proper timing wires, so the blast would start at one end of the long rock face and finish at the far end, blowing the huge chunks of slate and feldspar into small, manageable pieces. I remember they were teasing me about my shirt as we finished the last hole and gathered our stuff to head back to the first hole. It was a pink tank top, tied up in the back so the end didn’t flap around and get caught in one of the drill’s dozens of levers. They’d picked on me a little when I first started working with them, women’s lib my ass, female laborers were still easy pickings for big tough males in construction, but after a while they realized I was just as crude and perverted as they were, and I’d just become one of the guys. Who sometimes wore pink tank tops under my safety vest.

“You’re so purty today, Ronnie.” Mike was saying. Shouting really to be heard over the noise of machinery. Wait. There shouldn’t be any machinery up here, we were about to blow this ridge to little bits. I squinted down the line of rocks, and my heart stopped. A excavator with metal tracks was trundling up the ridge towards us. If those metal tracks hit the detonation wire and made a spark, it could set the whole thing off with us standing up here.

“Oh, shit.” Luke said weakly. Mike was looking around wildly. To our right was a rock face going up, which we had no chance of climbing. Behind us and to our left was a rock face dropping down 60 feet to more jagged rocks. We had nowhere to run but forward, into the blast.

“HEY! STOP! STOP!” I screamed, waving my arms and leaping into the air. “STOP! WE HAVEN’T BLASTED YET! STOP!” The operator didn’t hear me over the noise of his machine.

“JESUS CHRIST, STOOOOOP!”  As Luke screamed, I saw a spark of light flash out from under the excavator. I had just enough time to see the front of the machine disappear into a flash of dust before the blast reached us, 30 milliseconds later, just the way we’d set it up.

I don’t remember any pain, or how exactly it felt to be blown into the air on a wave of fly rock.

I woke up in a hospital. But not in a bed, I was sitting in the corner of an operating room, my knees drawn up, and my head bent low between them. When I sat up, I wasn’t in any pain, or have any cuts or bruises. My neck was a little stiff is all.

“Maybe it was a dream.” I said. Then I got a good look around. The floor was gritty with dirt and littered with all kinds of debris, scraps of rusty metal, IV bags of blood so old the blood had turned to loose flakes, a child’s picture book with all the pictures scribbled out with black crayon. The operating table in the center of the room was bent in the middle, like a giant had sat down on it. The circle of light fixtures above it was dark except for one flickering bulb. By the uneven light, I could see a set of foot prints coming in one door and leaving by another. There were no footprint around where I sat, though. When I stood, I left a trail of them in the grit, but there were none leading to the corner.

“Did I fall out of the sky? What the hell?” I thought. I couldn’t hear anything, no voices or sounds of anyone coming or going. I looked at the footsteps and decided to follow them, even though part of me was screaming that I was being a typical woman in a horror movie for doing so. But I couldn’t just sit there forever.

The trail lead into a hallway as filthy and littered as the operating room. A tangle of wheelchairs was piled at one end, looking like a nest of metallic spiders to me.

“Hello?” I called.  “Is anyone here?”  Silence. I followed the footsteps down the hall, and they turned into another room halfway down. There was a small glass window set in the door, but it was so dirty, I couldn’t see anything through it. I tried rubbing it with my palm, and the door swung open when I pushed. From inside came a rustling noise, then panting. I backed away from the door, but it continued to swing open.

It looked like a recovery room, with several beds lined up haphazardly along the length of it, and a few shredded remains of privacy curtains fluttering on rusted loops.  Three beds in from the door, Mike lay on the bed, his hands gripping the edges, his eyes open wide in terror. He was breathing harshly, and was trying to push him towards the head of the bed with his feet. I saw why.

Standing at the foot of the bed was a monster. It was short, it body rail thin, except for a round pot belly that sloped downwards, nearly touching it’s cocked, bowed knees. It was covered in sparse tufts of coarse hair that writhed with some kind of black worm-like insects. It’s face was thin and oozed with a noxious sweat I could smell from across the room.  It grinned at Mike with lazy pleasure, watching his struggles and teasingly plucking at his work boots with it’s long fingered hands. Suddenly, it leaned forward, seeming to elongate the length of the bed, until it’s face was hanging over Mike’s. Mike froze, his eyes locked onto the monster’s. The thing hadn’t seen me in the doorway.

I looked around for something, anything to get that monster away from Mike. I saw that part of the wall had crumbled, and a cinderblock had fallen out. I heaved it in my arms, raising it high and charged, bringing it down with a crack on the monster’s neck. It stood up, shrieking and clutching at the block, and I swung it again, sideways and smacked it across the face. It fell, and I brought the brick down on it’s head, again and again, until it finally broke in two. I turned to Mike, panting.

“I couldn’t look away from it.” He said in a voice that trembled up and down. “I went into it’s eyes, and I couldn’t think, couldn’t breathe.” I stumbled over to him and hugged him tight. He clutched back with shaking hands. He was shaking all over.

“Where the hell are we?” I asked. “I thought I dreamed we got blown up, but then I woke up here.”

“We did get blown up.” He said. “Is this hell?”

“I don’t know.” I said, and helped him stand up. “But if we did get blown up, where’s Luke?”

He shook his head. He was looking down, and I followed his gaze. The monster was laying in a messy heap, bits of bone and blood lay scattered around it. I looked at my hands, they were spattered with the same mess, as was the front of my shirt and pants. I realized it must be on my face too, and snatched at one of the dangling scraps of curtain. I squeezed my eyes shut tight and scrubbed at my face with it.

When I opened them, Mike was gone. The room was gone. I was now in what looked like the reception hallway, lit only by several red exit signs lined up over a heavy metal door, bolted shut with at least ten bolts. The long lines of bolted together chairs were shoved into the receptionist’s window, like someone trying to shove a whole handful of fries in their mouth at once. They stuck out in jagged angles that cast shadows across me.

“Mike?” I called. “Where are you?”  Only silence again. Maybe this was hell, after all. I looked around, but this time, there were no footprints to guide me. I turned away from the bolted door and began down the hallway, stepping quietly and listening for any sounds.

I passed two elevators, one set of doors gaped open to reveal a elevator car sitting crooked in the shaft. As I passed the other, the doors began to grate open, squalling in protest. I spun to face it, glancing around for a weapon, but there were no handy cinderblocks this time.

Squatting in the center of the car was another monster, his bony hands wrapped casually around Luke’s neck. Luke hung limply in his arms, his eyes big double zeros. The monster let out a rumbling growl, dropping Luke to the floor and leapt at me. I tried to throw my arms up, but it was too fast. It hit me in the chest, and I fell to the floor with it on top of me. I remembered how limp Mike had gone when he looked in its eyes and quickly shut my own. It was scrambling for my neck, it’s fingernails, ragged and broken, scratching my skin. I felt some of those black worms fall out of it’s filthy hair and land on my face. One tried to squirm into the corner of my mouth. I flailed blindly with my arm and it pinned it to the ground next to my head. It was still trying to get the other around my neck, and finally succeeded. It began choking me, and I almost opened my eyes in shock when it clamped down. It’s face was inches from mine, breathing rancid breath into my face. I could feel it rather than smell it, and reached for it with my other hand, just trying to get that stink away from me. My finger first bumped it’s nose, then the shelf of bone above his eye. I hooked my finger and plunged it into its eye socket.

I thought the other had shrieked when I brained it, but this one let out a screech so loud, I felt blood trickle out of my ear. It let go of my right arm and tried to pull back, but I twisted my hand, hooking my finger around the edge of his eye socket and pulled him back. I plunged my right thumb into his other eye, and felt it pop. It shoved me hard, my head slammed against the floor and I saw stars. I sat up, whooping in air, and finally dared to open my eyes. The monster was careening down the hall, it’s hands  clapped over its face, bouncing off of the walls, and wailing like a fire engine. Luke stirred in the elevator and sat up.

“Ronnie?” he asked.

“Yeah.” I answered. “Are you ok?”

“I think so. I think we’re dead, Ronnie. We got blown up.”

“Maybe. I saw Mike. One of those monsters was trying to get him, too. I bashed its head in. Then he disappeared.” I began to cry. “ Don’t know what’s happening. I’m scared. I don’t want to see anymore monsters.” I covered my face with my hands, sobbing.

“They’re gone.” Mike said. “They’re gone, Ronnie.”

I opened my eyes. I was lying in a bed, looking up at a white ceiling. I tried to turn my head, and couldn‘t. I was in a hospital, but a normal one. Everything was bright white and scrubbed to a sterile shine. Mike was sitting next to my bed in a big comfy looking chair. His face was a mess of cuts, both his eyes were black, and his arm and leg were in casts. Part of his head was shaved, and there was a big white bandage taped there.

“What-” I started.

“We got blown up.” Mike said simply. “The operator died in the blast. We were thrown up and into the field at the top of the ridge. We landed in those bushes we park our cars by. Me, you, and Luke, that is.”

“Is Luke ok?”

“Both his hips are broken, along with 3 shattered vertebrae, a couple broken ribs, and his face and body look pretty much like mine. You broke your collarbone, both legs, the right one in 5 places, the left one in 3, you cracked your skull, a couple of your ribs are busted, and your nose will never be strait again. The blast was 16 days ago. I woke up nine days ago, Luke a few days after me. ”

“How did we survive? We were right there, on top of the dynamite. We should be dead.”

“You were.” His eyes were serious.

“What?” I tried to turn and look at him again, but my head felt like it was bolted in place.

“You were dead for four minutes. While they were reviving you, my heart stopped for 45 seconds, then started again, before they could start CPR on me. Then a minute later, Luke’s heart stopped for almost a minute, then started again. A minute after that, you started breathing on your own, before they could give you a third dose of juice from the defibrillator.” He leaned forward in his chair. “I remember the other hospital, Ronnie. So does Luke. Our hearts stopped when we looked into those monsters’ eyes. It started again when you killed them.”

“That was a dream.” I whispered. “I was there a lot longer than four minutes.”

“It wasn’t.” Mike said, and struggled his way out of the chair. He managed to hobble over to my bed, and picked up a hand mirror from the bedside table. He held it up so I could see my face and neck. My face was a mess, cuts and bruises worse than Mike’s, and he was right. My nose had a definite tilt up and to the left.

Then my eyes dropped to my neck. Fading, but still visible, was a bruise in the shape of a long fingered hand, surrounded by long, nasty looking scratches.

End


*Here's a piece of trivia for you: What does Three Eyed Toad do when she's not writing creepypasta?  Answer: She's a highway construction inspector. I do a lot of stuff like earthwork and paving, but this past year I covered rock blasting for the first time. One day, we actually had a excavator run over some of the wires while we were still loading holes. Thankfully it didn't spark and blow us up, but it was a terrifying moment of us screaming for him to stop as we ran for our lives.  I had to write a story about it, and what could have happened.