The Unidentified Town

CW: The following story contains instances of Blood, Gore, and Abduction which may be too much for some beings to endure. Listener discretion is advised.

{Intro Music}

This is Queer Ghoul. An anthology of short queer horror stories written and produced by me, Adriana Oister, pronouns she/her and they/them. 

With various tales of horror, suspense, mystery, and science fiction, I in the role of “The Narrator”, will introduce you to a diverse set of characters each of whom trapped in their own hellish landscapes, and teeth-clenching nightmares.

{Intro Music slows down…then picks back up}

Monologue: Allow me to offer you a puzzle to ponder. How do you know that you’re not currently in a dream? You’re probably saying because you woke up after sleep, but how can you say that you’re not asleep now? How can you be so sure that you were ever awake? Dreams can be as vivid and real as reality, or should I say what we believe to be reality, but they also can be just as nightmarish. The main character of today’s story, Avi Fowler, pronouns they and them, is going to find themselves in a situation that we pray will never become of us. Dropped into a mysterious town with no name that can’t be found on any map, and without any recollection of how they got there, except that it was almost seemingly like they slipped away from a dream. I now present to you…THE UNIDENTIFIED TOWN.

{Lightning Strike}



The Unidentified Town

A sweltering fog dissipated in their head. The midnight black that was obstructing their vision swam to the edges of eyesight and faded. Each footstep that Avi Fowler took forward, became lighter as they seemingly awakened from the pit of a dream.

They stopped and leaned against a green piece of metal, which they realized was a streetlight. The honing buzz that drilled into their ears rattled their head and was shortly replaced with the sounds of honking cars and the chattering of characters. They blinked their heavy eyes, seeing their own brown shoes on top of a concrete sidewalk. They took a few deep breaths as they glanced around for the first time at each building and storefront that were so closely adjoined. The streets were bustling with people moving past them with shopping bags and suitcases in their hands, and cars waiting at a red stop light at a four way. The sky above was a light blue with no clouds in sight. They pulled up their sleeve to look at the smartwatch on their wrist.

It read 9:21 a.m.

A minute ago, when Avi checked it, it read 11:05 p.m.

They pushed themselves away from the streetlight and tapped someone on the shoulder passing by. “Excuse me, where am I?”

The man’s face was blank, and more than that, his skin tone was somewhere in the middle of a light gray with dark undertones of purple. His eyes were cold and motionless as he tipped his blue baseball cap in their direction almost like a robot, revealing his bald head. “Nice to meet you.” He said as he continued walking down the path. 

Avi caught up with him. “I’m sorry? I asked what town this is.”

The man’s face remained still. “Whatever makes you feel comfortable.” He said.

Avi stopped and watched the man mingle in with the rest, who they noticed also had similar skin tones with soulless facial expressions that matched those of department store mannequins. 

They were lost in thought and rubbing their neck when the honking of cars brought them out of it. A few feet away, at that four way, two sedans, both with dark tinted windows, revved their engines, and at the same time, one went forward, and the other made a left turn. Directly in front of the other vehicle. 

Avi stumbled over. “Wait! Stop! You’re going to cause an- “

Both cars passed right through each other, neither one pressing on the brakes. They only drove on down their desired directions.

“-Accident.” Avi finished in a whisper, twisting their head to see if anyone else had noticed the scene. But every person who walked down the street on both sides, kept their eyes fastened ahead.

Avi’s body shook as they backed up against a brick wall. Their hands viciously rubbing their eyes. They knew that they must have fallen asleep at the wheel, this wasn’t real, and if they don’t wake up soon, bad things could happen. Their eyes glanced back over the citizens living their average lives, the people who were unfazed by Avi’s panic. They let out a shaky breath and tilted their head up.

Only to see someone looking down at them.

Avi jumped, turning around to face the person, who didn’t even flinch at their reaction. Yet, they didn’t speak. They only clenched their jaw as they adjusted the sunglasses on the bridge of their nose. Black gloved hands curled around the balcony as they adjusted their posture, allowing Avi to notice the matching black jacket with the collar popped over the person’s neck. After a few seconds, another person approached them from behind on the balcony, wearing clothes identical to them. Although Avi couldn’t hear a word of it, the two whispered to each other. Each one nodded their head to something the other had stated.

“Hello!” Avi shouted to them. “Can you hear me? Can you help me?”

They didn’t get a response, not even an acknowledgment from the two, they only stared down at Avi like they were watching an animal in an exhibit.

“I can help you,” Avi heard a soft tone answer at their side.

They turned to the voice and saw a woman looking to be in her thirties, wearing a white maxi dress with a matching belt clenched around her middle. Her skin was incredibly fair, her face obstructed by a large black pair of cat eyed sunglasses. Her long white hair trickled down past her shoulders. A smile had spread across her face, elevating her high cheekbones.

“You understand what I’m saying?” Avi pointed at her.

“Of course, and it seems like you understand what I’m saying.”

“Thank God! Someone else here with sense!” They walked up to the woman. “I don’t know what’s happening! I don’t know where I am! I was in my car driving, heading to Pittsburgh, I didn’t want to stop and pay for a hotel room, so I decided to just keep going until morning. But then somehow, I’m here, and everybody’s ignoring me or not making sense, I watched two cars literally pass through each other- “They gestured with their hand back towards the balcony. “And these two people just keep- “

The two were gone.

Avi sputtered. “Well, there were these two people in black outfits, and they wouldn’t answer me, they just kept watching me.”

The woman blinked, grabbing for Avi’s hand, and holding it in hers. “Never you mind what you’ve seen, your eyes must be playing tricks on you from being so exhausted.” She laid her other hand on their arm, turning Avi around and threading her arm into theirs. “How about we walk around for a while, and you can keep telling me about yourself and your situation?”

Avi nodded, talking to the woman as she guided the two of them down the street along with the rest of the citizens. At one point she looked back to the balcony that Avi had mentioned and saw two people looking back.

Her eyes narrowed.

“I don’t understand,” Avi looked over at the woman, whose face was turned towards them. “How does a town have no name? You have to be able to find the place on a GPS or an Atlas?”

“Such things don’t matter to us. We just serve our purposes here.”

“But what about out of towners? Don’t towns want to attract outsiders, for economic purposes?”

“Economic purposes? Is that what you would call, the focus of your society?”

“Money is important to most, whether they want to admit it or not.”

She hummed. “We don’t get unexpected visitors.”

Avi found themselves giggling. “I love the weird way you explain things.” They said as they pulled their arm out from the woman’s. “But in all seriousness, I have to find my car and get back on my way.” They looked down at the smartwatch again. “We’ve been walking the streets now for over an hour.” They glanced over the woman’s head and noticed a large clock in front of the town’s bank. “The town’s clock is wrong.” They pointed out. “My watch says it’s a quarter past noon, but your clock says its- “

The clock’s face now read a different time. 

“It says what, Mx. Fowler?”

Avi swallowed, shaking their head. “I know I’m not just seeing things; something doesn’t make sense and I need to go. You’ve been very nice, but- “

The woman held on tight to Avi’s arm. “Please Mx. Fowler, there’s no reason to be so upset. But I’m sure it’s easy to be without nourishment. Why don’t we go get something to eat? I know the place.” She smiled, smoothing her hand down their arm, and intertwining her fingers in theirs. “Trust me.”

Avi pursed their lips. “You know, you’ve never told me your name.”

“My name?” She gestured to herself.

“Yes. You. Don’t tell me you’re just as nameless as this town. And it’s hard to build trust without knowing a name.”

For the first time, she looked away from them, only continuing to walk forward, dragging Avi by their hand. She adjusted her sunglasses with her other. “That makes sense, I suppose. You can call me,” She paused. “Jessica.”

They rounded the corner and came in front of a building largely labeled “DINER” in pink florescent lights. When they entered the establishment, they were met with nobody. No staff. No customers sitting and dining in the numerous empty booths. No signage or decoration clung to the walls. No windows. Only a large square hole close to the entrance. Avi walked up to it. The only thing they could see past the hole was a black oblivion, so they squinted their eyes and inched into it closer.

A head popped out.

Avi jumped, Jessica holding them close.

“Welcome Stranger!” The bald man said with a broad smile that didn’t meet his eyes, which were pitch blue and bug eyed. His skin tone was gray with blotches of purple, and he had a large vein in his forehead which popped out and looked to be pulsing. “What would you like?”

“Do you happen to have a menu that we could look at?” Avi said.

The man cocked his head. The vein moved. “Menu?”

Avi raised an eyebrow at Jessica, who still didn’t take off her sunglasses. “This isn’t like any restaurant I’ve ever been to.”

“What do you mean?” She laid a soft hand on their shoulder. 

“You can’t tell me this doesn’t look odd to you Jessica. There’s nothing but grayness to this place. No windows, no menus, no decorations, not even any napkin dispensers or salt and pepper shakers on the tables. This looks like a cafeteria you’d find on a military compound.” They turned back towards the man. “I’m not even sure there’s a kitchen beyond that hole in the wall you’re sticking your head out of. Does this place even have a name, or is it just as nameless as this town?”

The man’s smile never left his face. “If you’re looking for something different, you could leave and come back in a few minutes while we see what we can do.”

Jessica came towards the man.

“What did you just say?” Avi backed themselves towards the doors.

Jessica hissed, grabbing the man by his ear, and pulling it down. “Shut. Up.” She said.

The man shrieked, wincing through his happy facade. His mouth became circular, until it was the shape of a complete O. His skin turned completely purple, and his head rocked back and forth. The ear split away from the side of his head; the skin ripped like thread until the ear splat down onto the floor. A wave of black ooze pooled out of his head and gushed on top of the appendage.

“My apologies!” He said. His head was still shaking left to right in a hysterical manner. “I simply meant that we could serve you whatever your pallet desires. No need for a menu!” He turned back to Jessica, who was glaring at him.

“I don’t want anything from this place.” They said, continuing to back away towards the entrance. “Something’s off with all of this! I don’t know what it is, and I don’t care. I’m going to find my car and get out of here!” They pushed their body through the doors, running down the street, passing the other people who kept at their slow paces. Not one even turned their head at Avi.

They stopped when they saw two familiar figures towards the end of the street, facing them. Sunglasses still sitting on their faces. “Hey! Hey!” Avi shouted as they ran towards them, the figures moving around the corner. “Stop! Stop! Please! I need help! I need to get out of here!” Avi made the corner turn. The two figures were gone.

Jessica stood in their place. Black splattered across her dress.

“How in the hell did you get here?” Avi said.

Jessica smiled. “I was worried about you. You shouldn’t run away like that; you could get hurt. I don’t want that to happen.” She reached out her arms.

Avi swatted them away. “Cut that out. Get away from me! I saw what you did to that person! They’re probably dead because of you! You’re lying to me! You know things you’re not telling me!”

Jessica’s hands made their way to Avi’s forearms, holding their arms down in place as they fought back. “You don’t mean that.” She said, her hands becoming colder on Avi’s skin. “You’re just frightened. But there’s nothing to be afraid of. I’m here. I’ll protect you.”

A calm, soothing sensation spread through Avi like a chill. Anger towards the woman was snuffed out and replaced with a wave of security and safeness.

“Do you feel better?” She drifted her fingers through Avi’s dark hair.

“Better.” They answered with a small burst of air. Their mind clouded in a state of what Avi believed to be delirium. 

“Good. How about you and I go somewhere with a little more privacy? You can tell me more about your life.”

“Okay.”

She led them inside the building next to them, instead of opening a door and being greeted by hallways and a long staircase as anyone could imagine with a building so large, they entered a small bland room. Just as bland as the diner. Gray walls. No windows. Only a bed with no covers or pillows.

She motioned for them to sit on the bed, she shortly followed. Running her hands up and down their arms. Her lips curled in a smirk. “Your kind has always been so fascinating. The way half of you always question while the other half believe they always know.” She moved closer to them until she was practically sitting in their lap, moving her fingers over the buttons on their shirt, undoing them. “You yourself fascinates me. How desperate you are to go back to what you know. No matter how much we try, no matter how much I try, you’ll always find the faults.” She pressed her hand against Avi’s chest, watching intently the rise and fall, the strong sound of a hastening heartbeat. “That organ, do you call it a heart too?”

Avi nodded in a dreary state.

Jessica studied the heartbeat, before she began digging her nails deep into their chest. 

Avi cried out, wrapping their hand around her wrist. “Stop! That hurts!”

“I’m only testing something. You’ll be fine.” She said, running her thumb over the side of their face with her other hand. She didn’t let up, her nails were sharp and pierced their skin, drawing small droplets of blood.

“Stop! Please! What are you doing?”

A knock pounded against the door in the room. “Open up!” A harsh voice shouted.

A cold snap pierced its way down Avi’s throat and to their chest. Jessica pushed her nails deeper into the skin, seemingly deaf to Avi’s screaming as she clenched the hand into a fist and pulled back with force.

“I said open up! Immediately!” The voice outside the door boomed.

“Help! Help!” Avi screamed.

Blood, skin, and muscle peeled its way apart from the rest of Avi’s chest and balled up together into a pink and red blob in Jessica’s hand. She looked down at the swamp of blood that grew in the inside of Avi’s chest, swimming around the pink pounding organ.

She eyed Avi’s face, red with tears leaking out from their bloodshot eyes. Their hands shaking, wanting to touch their chest, but finding an unknown force keeping their arms to their side. “That hurts!” They screamed at her.

She nodded, waving a hand over Avi’s eyes. “Breathe.” She said.

Avi was met with complete body numbness which came with the darkness of Jessica’s hand over their face. When the hand was moved away and the light returned, Avi bent their head down towards their chest.

The skin was again attached.

The dark blood still dripped from Jessica’s pale hand, she rubbed it against the fabric of the bed, her head still pointed in Avi’s direction.

“What were you doing? That hurt!”

“I only wanted to analyze your heart. It was only going to be out of you for a few minutes.”

“What?” Any ounce of the calmness Avi had felt washed away as they regained strength in their arms and pushed the woman off them. “Are you out of your mind? You can’t do that to someone. You’d kill them!”

“I wouldn’t have killed you. You would have been fine.” She stood up from the bed, her body turned towards Avi. “You know, there’s a reason why it’s just the two of us here, out of everyone on Earth.”

            Avi rubbed at their chest, seeing that blood had strained through the shirt. “I want out of here! Do you hear me? I want out!”

            “I understand why you’re upset. And I understand now that numbing your mind will never work against the brashness of fear. I’m scared myself with how all of this has played out. I enjoyed the time I had with you when you told me about your life. Before that fear bubbled over.” She laid her hand back down on their knee. “We also have enough of what we wanted for today. They see how you’re reacting, and they’ll take you back. They’re preparing now, I know. You probably aren’t going to remember me, like I’ll remember you.” She sighed. “I have one more thing I’d like to show you though. My true form. It’s only right since I’ve seen a glimpse of yours.”

            She removed her sunglasses from her face, revealing to Avi the brightness of the flashing gold that were her eyes. Her skin went from fair to a dark grey, her long hair vanishing as did her white dress. Her body grew larger, taller until her head touched the top of the ceiling.  Reptilian scales appeared across her skin, the fingers on her hands turned into claws.

The door to the room rammed open and cracked against the wall. Two persons in black stood on opposite sides of the doorway. A flood of similar people rushed into the room, shouting orders at one another, a few dragged with them equipment that seemingly belonged in a hospital. Military personnel in Army and Air Force uniforms rushed in after them.

Jessica’s mouth was full of fangs across a flat face. It didn’t move when Avi heard her voice again amongst the chaos.

“Avi! Avi! Don’t resist them!” Her voice entered their head.

A group of people came up behind her and wrapped thick bands around her waist, pulling her away from Avi, but her voice didn’t cease.

Four people in the black clothing came in front of Avi and pulled them down to lay on the bed, the group holding down Avi’s limbs as they screamed and thrashed against them. 

Another person came up to Avi, with a mask in hand, connected by tubing to a tank. “Breathe.” They instructed as they pinched Avi’s chin to stop them from moving and placed the mask over their face.

The world again became blurry and black.

When Avi blinked again, they heard music playing through their car’s radio. Their hands on ten and two on the wheel. Their head faced forward, eyes thru the windshield and observing the road ahead in between the thick layer of trees.

“That was a weird light.” Avi found themselves saying for no particular reason, as the only lights in the sky was that of the risen sun. They looked down at their clock radio, a hand rubbing at their chest against the fabric of a clean shirt, where they felt a dull ache around the middle.

The clock read 12:46 p.m.

“This has felt like the longest drive of my life.” They said, continuing to drive the car down its path, and to their destination.

 
{Outro (?) Music}

 
Monologue: Avi Fowler, Age 32, Pronouns They and Them, found themselves in no extraordinary circumstances. Just on a long drive through rural Pennsylvania. They did find it odd that the timing of being in one place to another seemed inconsistent, but they knew that such things can happen when one daydreams behind a wheel. Eventually when they made it into a nearby town and stopped at a gas station for a quick fill-up, they were met with strangers all too eager to discuss the vehicle model of Avi’s car. One of them happened to find that the car had brown blotches of burning on the top of its metal backend. They all agreed that it must have been the doing of the sun and the wilderness. Things are simply end of story…Or is it?

 
{Suspenseful Music Plays. Story Picks Back Up.}

 
“Colonel, Sir?”

            The Colonel turned to the side to see the person addressing him, snapping him out of his daze of thought, and the person handed him the clipboard of information, which he clutched in his calloused hands. 

            The soldier nodded and marched on their way.

The Colonel decided to lean himself down over the metal railing, looking down towards the lower levels of the compound. He watched the military personnel bustling around amongst the computer screens and wires, some carrying with them concealed scientific equipment that even he quite didn’t understand. 

He rose to attention, sighing, as he rubbed his hands across the heavy bags under his eyes. The fluorescent lights gleaming off the medals on his jacket.

He heard slow footsteps approaching him, but he didn’t try to turn towards the being. Instead, he only kept his eyes down, towards the large empty platform that was set up to take up most of the entire second floor. “I was informed that the subject has been relocated back safely, no adverse effects this time.” He paused. “How is Jessica?”

The being spoke, yet their slit of a mouth didn’t move. Out of the corner of his eyes, The Colonel saw the large oval black eyes blink. “We request another subject in the next seventy-two hours. We wish to further this experimentation.”

“Of course. Just pick a location that suits you, and we will have our people trace any electronic presence in that area. That again, will be your next subject.”

“Your leadership stated that your kind would not interfere in our experiments, just as they have today, until requested. It was part of the deal between us.”

“I’m very sorry, I’ll see to it that they remain to themselves. Until requested.”

“Good.” The being said. “She has confirmed our suspicions today, the general population of your kind is not ready for the truth. Not even the ones who embrace what they know of the unknown. They’re not ready for even the confirmation of the existence of beings unlike them. Such talk of our real bodily forms, our technology, interbreeding. They’re not ready yet.”

The Colonel scanned his eyes back down towards the people at work. He shook his head. “No, they’re not.”

 
{Outro Music}

For the written version of the story you just heard and other Queer Ghoul originals, visit QueerGhoulPodcast.com.

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Until next time, thank you for listening…and that goes for all beings who have tuned in…regardless of if they’re human, paranormal, or extraterrestrial...