PART 5 A couple hours went by. The dead man’s name was Frank; he was buried outside in the cold, Alaskan ground. Two of the men were unharmed, physically at least. The third was alive, but only barely. His body was covered in bloody slashes and one of his eyes had been gouged out. I managed to stabilize him, but only just. The other two men vaguely explained what happened. Apparently, subject one leaped out at Frank after the door had opened; only it wasn’t really subject one anymore. According to them, it had a hideously contorted face and long sharp claws.

They claim to have shot it over a dozen times before it fell dead, and then they emptied another dozen bullets into it just to be sure it was really dead.

Only once it was dead did they come back.

After tending to the wounded man, I went to investigate the monitors. As afraid as I was of seeing what those monitors may have held, I needed to see. Subject three was the only one left now and I needed to see it and make sure the creature was still in his room. It seemed to be more like a jail cell than an ordinary room at this point though, which was probably a good thing.

The cameras displaying subject one’s room and the hallway outside it still displayed a static filled screen. No one was sent to repair them or investigate; we just had to hope that subject one was well and truly dead.

Monitor three’s image was exactly the same as I had left it; subject three was still staring directly into the camera at us. He was still in the exact same position and if it were not for the small fan in the corner of the room, I would think I was looking at a still image. In a way, I felt relief at seeing this; relief that he was still in his room and had not escaped while no one was looking.

After everything quieted down, I noticed something especially unusual. There was a… strange sound emanating from somewhere. At first, it was barely noticeable. The only reason I heard it was because of how extremely quiet it was in the infirmary. But as time went by, it slowly began to increase in volume. After about an hour, it was loud enough that everyone else could hear it too. And after a couple more hours its volume had increased so much that we could determine what the noise was. It was a song; one of the staff members identified it as “Living in the Sunlight” by Tiny Tim. Apparently, his father loved the song and listened to it frequently. The song seemed to be on a loop and kept replaying itself. Although we were able to identify the noise, we remained unable to identify its source. We knew that it wasn’t coming from the speakers because we had turned them off, it seemed to be emitting from the walls themselves.

More time ticked by as we all began to become increasingly agitated by the song; I spent most of my time in the infirmary attending to Frank or in the control room. Fear hung in the air and the presence of unmistakable darkness and evil was no doubt its source. Subject three still had not moved; he had kept his unblinking gaze fixed on the camera the entire time. It always felt like he was staring directly at me, no matter where I was in the room. I think this effect was also felt by others due to the fact that they seemed to move around the room a lot and for seemingly no reason.

After a few hours, the song was so loud that people almost had to shout in order to communicate. We had been trying to find its source so that we could turn the song off, but it was to no avail; the source was completely unidentifiable. This added a level of extreme irritation to our already very present fear.

It was around 8:30 that the ground itself began to shake once again; just as it had done the previous night. Panic began to spread among my fellow employees and me as the shaking grew in intensity.

During this, I had the sudden instinctual feeling to look over at subject three’s monitor. It was gone. Almost as if on cue, the power went out. And thankfully, the song did as well.

Ever since the security team came back, panic had been slowly building up among the staff, and Zimmerman was powerless to stop it. When those lights went out, the calm projections that everyone had been trying to maintain left us and the fear in all our hearts took over.

The emergency backup lights kicked on shortly after the power went out, which I gave a silent thankful prayer for. The lights were dim, but they still allowed me to see a lot.

Total panic seized us as many of my fellow staff members began screaming and rushing to the ladder in an attempt to escape. But too many were trying to use it at once and no one was able to get very far on the ladder without someone else pulling them to the floor and taking their place. Zimmerman was shouting for everyone to calm down, but his dominating and intimidating personality had no effect here, and his demands fell upon deaf ears. It was total chaos. It wasn’t long until people actually started hurting each other in their desperate attempts to get up that ladder and out of this place; I could only stand against the wall and wait for my opportunity to escape up the ladder.

All the screams were soon silenced as the familiar hum of that unsettling song began to rise in volume again, only much quicker this time. And this time, it was clear that the noise was coming directly from the maze-like corridors. People stopped fighting and shouting as all our attention shifted to the door that led into the hallways.

The song quickly got louder than it had ever been before which forced many of us to cup our ears with our hands in an attempt to silence the noise. Then, suddenly, the song just completely stopped.

Silence. That was all that filled the room as we all stared at the thick metal door in anticipation for what was coming. It felt like ages had gone by, but in reality it was probably only seconds before the silence was broken.

The door suddenly and violently burst open and the music started again, louder than it had ever been before. The suddenness and the volume of this caused many of us to recoil by falling to the ground and grabbing our ears in an attempt to block out the noise. I glanced up for just a second and in the doorway stood a tall, smooth skinned figure with long limbs and eyes so dark and malevolent that you could clearly see them in the dim lighting.

After I got my bearings, I looked upwards at the creature once again just in time to see the thing pick up and rip Zimmerman in half in one fluid movement, dousing the room and everyone in it with his blood, intestines and organs. I was no stranger to gore, but the sight of that was too much for me to bear: I hunched over immediately after seeing this and vomited all over the cold cement floor.

That ladder is my only hope of survival… I thought to myself as I forced myself to a standing position. And as my eyes rose along with the rest of me, I could see the thing ripping and tearing through the people as they scattered in attempt to escape it. It was distracted, and as awful as it sounds, this was my only chance to get up that ladder. I forced my legs to move towards the ladder, trying to block out the terrified screams of my fellow staff members and the unbearably loud music. I could hear gunshots coinciding with the screams and terrible sounds of flesh being ripped apart somewhere in the mess of noise. I reached my hands outwards and felt a wave of relief wash over me as my fingers came into contact with the hard metal rungs of the ladder. I gripped them and began to climb upwards as quickly as I could in my disoriented state, all the while praying that the monster would not see me and pull me off the ladder and back into the slaughter.

It felt like at any moment I would feel one of its smooth hands wrap around my ankles and pull me to my death, but I eventually made it to the top. There was no question in my mind, I had to close the hatch and seal that thing down there; even if it meant certain death for my colleagues. I could not allow that thing to escape. I gripped the thick metal lid and began to push with all my might in an attempt to seal the underground complex off.

Despite how dense and sturdy it was, the lid was surprisingly easy to move and did not take very much effort to push it over the hatch, even in my weakened state. In seconds, the hatch was completely covered by the dense metal lid.

I collapsed on my side and began to vomit some more as exhaustion overtook me. And as I lay there, I realized something; aside from my labored breaths, the only thing I could hear was the faint echo of that song from down below.

I felt as though I would lose more of my sanity if I continued to lay there and listen to that song, so I once again forced myself to my feet and began to make my way to the wooden lodge I had stayed in the previous night. It was where I had left my baggage and also where I had left the keys to my truck.