Brad

Originally posted on Twitter October 31, 2020.

It was another late night a work for Brad Hellman. It was the day before sprint end and he was behind. His fingers clacked on his mechanical keyboard as he downed another can of Monster, his headphones blasting house music into his ears.

To be honest, he wasn’t really “behind”. But his mind had been plagued by… annoying thoughts, such as “one of our clients just scammed its customers for millions” and “we’ve just announced our partnership with a world-renowned weapons manufacturer.”

It wasn’t something he wanted to think about, and code was the perfect solution for that. Amidst the brackets and the hashbangs, he could just concentrate on the structure of it all and abstract away that pesky thing called “ethics”.

But finally, it was past the time where even he could justify staying. Unfortunately for Brad, the company had recently instituted a policy banning employees from sleeping at the office, so he would have to go home for the night.

He made his last commit, called an Uber, and made his way down the elevator and into the waiting area.

“Late night tonight, hun?” asked the building manager.

He ignored her.

Ten minutes, twenty. Trying to avoid the awkward stare of the woman at the desk.

He cancelled and tried to get another ride. And then the app crashed.

He tried Lyft.

And now he doesn’t have signal. Great.

“I guess I have to go take the train,” he grumbled as he made his way out to the cold city streets.

His office was close to the station, but still, he preferred taking a rideshare. There were… undesirable people in the city at this time of night.

He made his way to the station without much hassle, and lucky for him, there was a train about to go just as he arrived at the station. He went aboard, finding the emptiest carriage, and sat down as the train began to depart.

He felt the effects of a caffeine crash take over his body and his eyes started drooping. The vibrations from the train weren’t helping either. It was a while before the Palo Alto stop, so he figured he had time for a nap. He set an alarm on his phone and closed his eyes.

Brad awoke to the sound of a horn. “Shit, what time is it?” He looked at his phone. It was dead.

Fuck.

He was the only one on his train carriage. He looked out the window, but he couldn’t make out any familiar scenery in the darkness.

Fucking hell.

Guess he should find the conductor or something. He walked in one direction, then the next, trying to find other passengers, staff, or anything really. But every car he went in was empty.

Then, he finally found someone. A disheveled man tucked into one of the seats, mumbling to himself.

Great, it’s just one of them.

He walked past.

He checked a few more cars, but then he started to hear it. Over the screeching of the wheels and the chugging of the engine, what sounded like screaming.

“It’s probably nothing, you’re just paranoid.”

Was it starting to get hot in here?

He kept going, through more trains. How many was it now, 20? 30? He wasn’t sure how many cars a normal train would have but this seemed… too much. His sweat clung to his shirt as broke out into a sprint. There’s got to be a conductor somewhere, right?

And then he noticed, out of the windows, the darkness gave way to light. A vivid orange light, not unlike the sky during wildfire season, coming from all directions. But no, it couldn’t be daylight already, could it? What the fuck was going on…

“HELP!” he shouted, passing carriage after carriage. And then…

“What the”

As he opened the next carriage door, he sees the same guy as before still muttering to himself.

But there was no way… he was just going in one direction. There was no way that guy could have gotten there without going past him.

“Dude, what’s going on” asked a desperate Brad.

“Our-Father-Who-Art-In-Heaven-Hallowed-Be-Thy-Name-Thy-Kingdom-Come-Thy-Will-Be-Done”

It was no use. The guy was just repeating some sort of prayer bullshit over and over again. Brad kept going. It was getting hotter, the light was getting brighter, and the sound of the screaming was becoming deafening. Once every few cars passing by the same man, still murmuring.

The train began to shake and Brad struggled to keep his footing. The light was bright enough to where he could make out things, vague figures of faces staring in, laughing, maybe even licking their lips.

And then the intercom turned on.

But it was not any language Brad knew.

Strange, guttural, screeching, garbled noises he couldn’t make heads or tail of. Brad was now drenched in sweat, and the light outside pierced in and illuminated the car in a ghastly red glow. He reaches the door to the next car but it is now too hot and burns him.

“Jesus fuck!”

Now trapped in the flaming carriage, Brad crouches as the train shakes uncontrollably. “God, please, why me, please save me. I’ll recycle, I’ll go vegetarian just please don’t leave me here.”

The light from the outside now washed everything in a uniform redness that made it hard to make anything out. Brad panted and became weary from the heat as the screeching wheels and the screams and the guttural noise became deafening.

And he was consumed.

It was another day at work for Brad Hellman, who was having trouble staying awake during his meeting due to a particularly nasty nightmare the previous night.

“And so this is a pretty viable opportunity in the defense space. This deployment could…”

Brad dozed off as the boss droned on.

He was in a train again. And then in a flash, the heat, the red glow, those screams….

“Brad? Brad?” shouted the boss as he was jostled awake.

“Huh?”

“Looks like someone misses sleeping at the office”. His coworkers laughed.

Brad Hellman considers looking for another job.