Bogleech.com's 2015 Horror Write-off:
" TRUCKER DIARIES: AN ILLNESS "
Submitted by Miranda Johansson
(Note: The following is a transcript of a broadcast made by an anonymous broadcaster on CB radio, somewhere in the American south or along the East Coast. It is one of a number of similar broadcasts made on a particular frequency during the late summer and fall of 2015. The broadcaster never reveals anything about herself, except for a few details: she consistently makes references to her job as a truck driver; she appears to identify as female and sometimes refers to herself as "Joanne" or "Jo"; and she claims to be haunted by a bizarre being which she refers to as "the Angel".)
(The recording of this broadcast begins in mid-sentence. It remains unknown whether the broadcast itself began this way, or if the recording is incomplete.)
…some kind of illness, one that isn't in the books, but he'd seen it in person. Apparently it makes your tissues go haywire, makes it so your body doesn't heal properly. Makes every little ding grow over with a totally disproportionate amount of scar tissue. Chop your arm off, the guy said, and it'll grow back all lumpy and wrong.
He told me he'd once seen a man, a British soldier who was stationed on the Western Front during World War I. He got tangled in barbed wire during a charge, and the Germans shot him full of holes while he was struggling to get loose. Made hamburger of him.
They keep him in an old hospital in Lyons, now. Or so the guy said. He told me they let him in there after he faked credentials, pretended he was a genius surgeon who'd spent a decade abroad with Doctors Without Borders.
The door to the hospital room was locked. The room itself was unlit. The guy told me they used to feed the soldier intravenously, since he couldn't eat anymore, but that they'd stopped. There was nobody who wanted to do the job, and anyway, it didn't seem to make a difference.
The thing on the bed, the soldier, didn't seem to react to the fluorescent light or to the voices, the guy at the gas station told me. But he could see its chest, what was once its chest, moving up and down. Rabbit-quick. Panic breaths.
(3 second pause)
There are others, the guy told me. Not many, but there are others. Sometimes people try to kill them. Relatives, mostly. Mercy killings. But chop their heads off, and they'll just get up and shuffle around until it's grown back. It's impossible to know if they're still conscious after something like that, but sometimes they scream, behind their fused lips.
(3 second pause)
Or at least, that's what the guy said.
(5 second pause)
I've never been to France. It would be neat to go.
(There is a 6 second silence, after which the broadcast ends.)
(The recording of this broadcast begins in mid-sentence. It remains unknown whether the broadcast itself began this way, or if the recording is incomplete.)
…some kind of illness, one that isn't in the books, but he'd seen it in person. Apparently it makes your tissues go haywire, makes it so your body doesn't heal properly. Makes every little ding grow over with a totally disproportionate amount of scar tissue. Chop your arm off, the guy said, and it'll grow back all lumpy and wrong.
He told me he'd once seen a man, a British soldier who was stationed on the Western Front during World War I. He got tangled in barbed wire during a charge, and the Germans shot him full of holes while he was struggling to get loose. Made hamburger of him.
They keep him in an old hospital in Lyons, now. Or so the guy said. He told me they let him in there after he faked credentials, pretended he was a genius surgeon who'd spent a decade abroad with Doctors Without Borders.
The door to the hospital room was locked. The room itself was unlit. The guy told me they used to feed the soldier intravenously, since he couldn't eat anymore, but that they'd stopped. There was nobody who wanted to do the job, and anyway, it didn't seem to make a difference.
The thing on the bed, the soldier, didn't seem to react to the fluorescent light or to the voices, the guy at the gas station told me. But he could see its chest, what was once its chest, moving up and down. Rabbit-quick. Panic breaths.
(3 second pause)
There are others, the guy told me. Not many, but there are others. Sometimes people try to kill them. Relatives, mostly. Mercy killings. But chop their heads off, and they'll just get up and shuffle around until it's grown back. It's impossible to know if they're still conscious after something like that, but sometimes they scream, behind their fused lips.
(3 second pause)
Or at least, that's what the guy said.
(5 second pause)
I've never been to France. It would be neat to go.
(There is a 6 second silence, after which the broadcast ends.)