MEAT
I work for a call center that handles software issues. We deal with phone calls, chat and emails. Day in and out I listen to people that are upset and confused, and they use a lot of angry words. Even the people that aren’t upset usually start off with a few run-on sentences, flustered and trying to help me understand their issue. That’s why this email was so strange to me. For one thing, the source was blocked, so I couldn’t see its origin. Also there was hardly any text in it. The header was just one word- ‘Meat’. The text box just said ‘1067 lbs meat,’ with an address listed below that. I thought for sure it was just a joke. I sent it to my trash folder and went on with my day. That night the dreams started. I saw a brick wall. I heard pounding, like someone was behind the wall, using a sledgehammer on it. The pounding wouldn’t stop. That was the entire dream, and it felt like it went on for days. When I woke up, I felt horrible. I had a brutal headache, body aches, sore joints, and I was dizzy. I felt like I hadn’t slept at all, and when I looked in the mirror I saw massive dark circles under my eyes. This went on for a week. Every night I saw the wall- nothing but the wall. The pounding grew more and more insistent, the headaches worse. By the end of the week my dizziness had turned into vertigo every time I stood up. I barely was able to drive into work on Friday. My shift leader came to my desk, saw me, and told me to take the rest of the day off and see a doctor. Before I left, I went into my trash folder and recovered the strange email I’d received on Monday. I couldn’t shake the feeling that it was linked to my dreams somehow. I wrote down the address from the email and took it with me. I saw my doctor and told him about the headaches, body aches, joint pain and vertigo. He examined me thoroughly, took a blood test and x-rays. I would have to wait a few days for the results of my blood test, but he came back with my x-rays right away. “Have you been trying any new sports lately? Been taking any martial arts classes or boxing?” he asked. “No sir, nothing like that.” He put my x-rays up on the light board, and immediately I could tell something was wrong. “I’ve never seen anything like this. Your bones are bruised, but there’s no sign of how. Your skin and muscle tissue appears undamaged. It’s as though someone very powerful has been hitting your bones directly with a rubber mallet.” I remembered thinking that the sound in my dreams was coming from some kind of hammer, and shuddered as I looked at all the dark spots on my x-rays. The doctor told me he would call immediately with my blood results, and if nothing turned up, he would send me to an orthopedic specialist. I drove home and immediately laid down on my bed, exhausted and grateful that I wouldn’t have to try driving again over the weekend. Before I passed out I got on Amazon, ordered 20 lbs of ground beef and paid extra for it to arrive at the address from the email within a few hours. It was expensive, but I was willing to try anything at this point. That night I didn’t remember my dreams at all, and when I woke up I felt rested for the first time all week. My headache and vertigo were gone. It was as though nothing bizarre had actually happened. I decided that buying the meat must have acted as a placebo. I WAS under a lot of stress at work, and my body must have just been looking for an outlet. The strange email had messed with my brain, and caused my body to release it’s stress in a weird way, but I reasoned that by buying the meat I had cured myself. I went to bed that night feeling intense relief that my troubles were over. But the dream was back. The red brick wall filled my field of vision. The pounding was louder, and the repetitions were closer together. When I woke up I was in so much pain I sobbed a little. When I tried to get out of bed, fire shot up my right leg. I couldn’t walk on it at all. It was Sunday, so my doctor wasn’t at the clinic I normally go to. A nurse saw me when I limped in. Driving there using my left foot had been a real challenge. They took more x-rays and put me on an examination table in a room immediately, and the kindly nurse came back in with worried expression. “Jeff, I’ve been looking at the results from your previous x-rays, and these are no less puzzling. Your right leg is broken in two places, but there’s no sign of damage to the muscles tissue around the bone. I’m going to treat you here, but I’ll also call ahead to our orthopedic specialist and make you an appointment for tomorrow evening. I think it’s important that we get to the bottom of this right away.” I walked out of the doctor’s office on crutches, with a cast on my right leg. For the first time in my life, I was really scared. I had no idea what was happening. It seemed pretty likely that the specialist wasn’t going to be able to help me. When I got home I sent 20 more pounds of beef to the address from the email, same day express again. That night I slept without dreaming again. Monday at work, everyone gave me strange looks when I walked in on crutches, with a cast. My boss wanted to know what had happened, but all I could do was tell him what my doctor had said. He looked like he thought I was lying. The day went by in a blur. At three the orthopedic specialist called to confirm my appointment. I told them to cancel it completely. When the lady tried to ask me why, and if I couldn’t reschedule another time, I hung up on her. I was glad to get out of there at five. I checked my bank account, and realized that I was low on cash. It had cost me nearly $200 each time to order the beef. I was going to have to find another solution. I went by the local Hispanic meat market and picked up the cheapest meat I could find- some dark, ground chicken. Then I plugged the address from the email into my GPS and started driving there. Fortunately it was pretty close by, only about an hour away. I was able to use cruise control most of the way to relieve my left foot, which was tired of straining around my cast to reach the gas pedal. A feeling of foreboding settled over me as I got further and further away from the suburbs. As my car approached the address, I saw a large, dark, blocky building looming against a fiery sunset. I pulled into the parking lot, past several old, rusty warning signs for trespassing. The place was some kind of abandoned warehouse. The thought crossed my mind that no one knew where I was. Unfortunately my parents had passed a few years back in a car accident, I was an only child, and I’d never been very good at making friends. I really had no one to call. I hefted the heavy sack of meat onto the shoulder over my good leg, and grabbed one of the crutches with my other arm. It was slow going up to the old, rusty metal door. The place had very few windows. I could only see a few scattered squares very high up near the ceiling. The door was already ajar, and I used my shoulder to pry it open the rest of the way. It took a minute for my eyes to adjust to the lack of light. When they did, I froze in place and my heart started racing. Directly opposite me, across a huge room that seemed to comprise most of the building, was THE wall. It was the only red brick surface, and it stretched from left to right as far as I could see in the dark. Every other wall was smooth and grey. I must’ve been standing there for a few minutes when I realized I was shaking. Without walking any further into the room, I pitched the sack of chicken onto the concrete floor and got the fuck out of there as fast as my broken leg would carry me. That night I slept restfully and had no dreams. I kept my head down at work all the next day and managed to avoid my boss. At five I went by the meat market again and got the cheap ground chicken. By six I had left it at the old warehouse and was on my way back home. By eight I was passed out on my bed, completely overwrought with stress and the pain from my leg. Every night that week was the same- work, meat market, warehouse, sleep. Every time I left the meat, the previous day’s meat was gone. The only break-up to the monotony was when my doctor’s office called on Wednesday to tell me that the blood test was inconclusive- big surprise there. I had no dreams all week, and by Friday I had caught up on enough rest that I was finally starting to feel human again. When I got home that night, I did a little math and realized that I had only delivered 140 pounds of meat. That left 927 before I would have fulfilled the request of the email. I had just been paid, and only had $1000 dollars left after bills. I didn’t feel like going through this routine every day for the next few months. Saturday I got up and went to the nearest payday loan store. I put my paid off car title on the counter and walked out with $4000. Then I called the closest butcher who sold bulk supplies to the local restaurants. I quoted him the amount of meat I needed, and said I would be happy to pay for all his scraps and cast-offs as part of the deal. He sounded pretty confused and disturbed, especially when I insisted on exactly 907 pounds, but in the end he acquiesced, since I was helping him make a profit from his scraps, and paying him extra to deliver on a Sunday. I gave him the address of the warehouse and my number, with the instructions to have the driver meet me there in the afternoon and call me on his way. Since he needed the day to fill the order, I had to go back to the warehouse with the other twenty pounds by myself that night. After I slung the sack onto the concrete floor like usual, my curiosity got the better of me. I limped closer to the red brick wall, balancing on one crutch again. A few feet away, I could see that it was smoother than normal brick and mortar. When it was right in front of me, I reached out and put my hand on it. It was warm. It didn’t feel like brick at all. It had a little give to it, more like...a stiff sponge. As I leaned in closer to try and see the ‘brick’s surface better, I could’ve sworn that I heard low, deep breathing. A chill shot down my spine and animal instincts propelled me out of there immediately with barely any assistance from the crutch. I was shaking the whole way home. Whatever that stuff was, it wasn’t brick. I just wanted to deliver the rest of the meat and be done with it. Despite having no dreams, I tossed and turned all night. I had a feeling of foreboding in my guts that wouldn’t go away. When I got up to meet the delivery guy, my energy was completely absent. I downed some black coffee, perked up a little, found the last shreds of my bravery and hopped in my car. The delivery guy was nice, and made sure to call me well in advance. I was only at the warehouse waiting for him for fifteen minutes or so. When he got there, he seemed understandably perplexed, but I assured him that he had the right place, and that we were throwing a large party there later. I told him my buddy was going to show up any minute with a bunch of portable grills and coolers, and until then just to leave the meat inside on the floor. I waved aside his protests, wanting this over as soon as possible, and tossed one crutch in my car so I could help him lug in the sacks. When we were done I made sure he got out of there first. I was shaking again, and thoroughly creeped out, but I didn’t want anyone else involved in my weird dilemma anymore than was absolutely necessary. As I started up my car and made my way toward the exit of the parking lot, I heard a loud ***SLORP!*** I hit the accelerator a little harder. Monday I found another strange email in my inbox. This one had nothing in the text box at all, just a header which said: Thank You. That night I slept like the dead. People up at work are used to my crutches, and I managed to convince my doctor that my mysterious condition was clearing up on its own. I go in to the clinic in a couple of weeks to get my cast off, and hopefully I should be just fine after that. I went back once to the warehouse after I got the Thank You message. I know, it was stupid, but my curiosity is ridiculously persistent sometimes. I just had to know. I was shaking the entire time when I limped into the building. Sure enough, the red ‘brick’ wall was gone. It looks like there was a lot of space behind where it had stood, and the smooth grey wall material that make up the rest of the building now wraps all the way around the room. It’s Wednesday and my nerves are finally starting to settle, now that a night has gone by without any deliveries or terrible dreams with side effects. I have been wondering how this strange creature, whatever it was, sent me emails and damaged my bones. The only idea I could come up with is that it has some type of psychokinetic ability. I’m just super glad it’s not interested in ME anymore. There’s only one thing that’s still eating at the back of my mind. Today I drove downtown to meet someone for a blind date. I decided it was finally time to put myself out there. There was a new building among the skyscrapers that I could SWEAR I’ve never seen before- a building made entirely out of red brick. It doesn’t have any windows.