Download Pending… | Always Check the Driver

Graphic Horror/Erotica | You have been warned...

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He was working late again, of course. He never goes home before midnight, and the inbox never empties. The janitor knows him by name and sometimes brings him a coffee when coming on shift. Analysis summaries and emails, proposals, and memos. Who has time to rest in this economy? Besides, who does he have to go home to, his wife? She has had him in the doghouse for months, for who fucking knows what — when isn’t she mad?

“Hey, Jerry, thanks — you know, there’s a light flickering in the storage closet. Would you mind taking a look at it?”
“Yuh, sure thing.”
“That’d be great, thanks.” He sipped his coffee and dove back into his assignments. His wife was probably sleeping by now anyway.

A mix from his glory days hummed from his computer speakers while he tapped away at the keyboard. He was in the zone and building momentum. The buzz, buzz of a new notification cut through his focus. It was after one in the morning… He checked his phone to see a large file downloading to his Drive. His piqued interest shattered his rhythm, so he decided to start closing out for the night. Morning comes early. One arm made it through a sleeve of his jacket when the phone buzzed on his desk again. He adjusted his collar, situated himself in the new fit of his clothing, grabbed his satchel and phone, and headed toward the elevator. Jerry waved goodnight with a trash can in his hands and a toothpick hanging from his mouth. He popped his earbuds in and waited for the doors to open.

Ding!

He stepped into the elevator and pressed the lobby button until the doors closed, staring attentively at his phone. Several photos had uploaded from an unknown IP address, without context — no caption. He clicked on the first one to load and took a step back against the wall of the elevator car. Was this some sick joke? Who would send him something like this?? He closed out and opened another, then another — each one was somehow worse than the other. Grotesque images of a man bound to a boiler valve, a spit hood over his head and strips of fabric from his shirt draped over a badly bruised body. The last file to load was the worst. A video clip of the chained man absorbing high voltages from what looked like an old electroshock therapy machine. The longer he watched, the harder it was to look away. His eyes scoured each scene as if looking for the tell, frame after frame, convincing him that this was not a prank—a sense of obligation developed in his guts. A voice in the back of his mind began to whisper rationale into his twisted urge to keep watching. He had to know what happened. He had to see if it was real or a hoax.

Of course, the assailants kept out of frame or out of focus. This was no amateur production. Dark clothes; faces averted from the lense. Flat background — nothing but concrete walls and pipes. Run-of-the-mill boiler room setting. Bereft of signs or visible windows, nothing identifiable. Nothing useful. The stillness of the man’s battered body induced nausea, the coffee threatening to evacuate his churning gut. The commuter train rumbled around him, rocking him back and forth.

The train arrived at his stop, so he paused the video to call an Uber before resuming the video. He was invested now. He could not bring himself to watch fifteen minutes in and not finish the clip. Fellow commuters wove around his statuesque figure standing in the middle of the platform exit. Muffled screams and maniacally empty chuckles wormed into his brain from his ears. Gross fascination overthrowing his moral convictions. It was reinforced by a familiarity that he couldn’t quite put his finger on. The little hairs on the back of his neck stiffened just as an alert came through on his phone. The Uber was approaching.

The passenger window opened only a crack. An androgynous voice called out from the dark sedan and asked if he was waiting for an Uber — he nodded and slid into the back seat, his eyes still glued to his phone. He rubbed at an old scar on his shoulder. The child locks engaged as the car crept out of the pickup zone and edged onto the surface street. The driver said something, and he only passively acknowledged being spoken to. He was too engrossed in the video even to register what was said. Dark eyes peered at him through the rearview mirror, though he didn’t notice. Those eyes smiled.

By now, he was miles en route, and the video was nearing an end. The last forty-five minutes of relentless assaults coming to a head. He felt closer to the man bound to the boiler valve than he did to Jerry, and the man brought him coffee. Still, he didn’t know who was in the video or why the Drive was sent to him — perhaps it was a mistake? Of course not. What kind of story would that be? No, of course, it doesn’t stop there. Another download began as he scrolled between snapshots and rewatched segments of the clip. This one was smaller and somehow felt like it took longer to load. New file folder, same encrypted Drive. No video this time, but a series of pictures. Each one was labelled in viewing order.

The first one picked up where the video left off. A beaten body tethered to steel and bent over a boiler pipe. Pants around the ankles and a torso covered in deepening purple and blue hues with smears and black smudges. The contents of his stomach swished and churned again. He resolved to turn over the entire Drive to the police before work in the morning. If ever there was a reason to be late, this was it. The following snapshot was more graphic, leaving him feeling violated. Who the fuck could have done this shit to another human being? Anal penetration had not made his list of things to watch since high school and never of another man. A lump began to form in his throat, and he looked away. Those soul-piercing eyes were locked on him in the rearview mirror again, which he noticed this time.

“I’m sorry, did you say something?”

The driver’s head shook in denial, eyes returning to the road.
Creeper.

He shifted in his seat and opened the third file. The discomfort which developed from that last image still pulsating through him, searing itself into his physical memory bank. Every muscle in his body tensed, and his jaw clenched. Still, nothing could prepare for the third file. A collage of snapshots, styled like a polaroid — much like would be found on a teenage girl’s photo wall, except much more sinister. These snapshots captured various angles of the same limp, motionless body being violated and abused. Some with instruments he couldn’t identify, others with male appendages penetrating orifices unconsidered by most. Fingers and tongues well acquainted with parts unseen by the general public in perfect focus. The following jpeg left a rancid taste in his mouth. A bulging throat accompanied by two hands trying to wrench the connected jaw still wider, another hand on the back of a now half-masked man’s head. Blood smeared like fingerpaints by the hand gripped around that same throat in the fifth and final snapshot. Milky white fluid covering…his face.

“What the fuck?”

The car stopped in front of an alley, the back passenger door flung open, and he was ripped from the vehicle. A spit hood was placed over his head, and he was thrown into the trunk.
He banged on the back seat and screamed until his throat went raw. Laughter filled the air between the sound of his thoughts and the road.

“Hey, don’t worry, baby. I’m gonna take real good care of you this time. I missed that sweet ass…” the speakers blared some underground tune he’d never heard. Vomit forced its way up and splattered the interior of the hood. His fear overwhelmed his fragile ego, and he wept.

When the car stopped again, he had sobbed himself to sleep. A sharp pinch in his neck roused him, but he rapidly lost control of his motor function before he could orient himself. “Don’t worry, buttercup, you won’t miss a thing this time.” More laughter erupted, and tears streamed down his spew-covered cheeks. A large man hoisted his ragdoll form over one massive shoulder, the hood slipping off his face and falling to the ground. A lightbulb flickered somewhere off in the backdrop. He could hear it buzzing against the glass and wire.

His body slammed hard against the old wooden table, and searing pains radiated from his touch points. Rat urine-soaked splinters pierced his skin, digging deep into the dermis. The men stripped and ripped his clothes from his body. Images from the Drive playing on shuffle in his mind. He tried to move, willed himself to fight back, to no avail. Violent screams projected as only whimpers, mocked by the men on the other end of the pressurized garden hose. Icy cold water stung his skin and suffocated him. Still, they taunted him. Someone rolled him onto his stomach; someone else spread his cheeks. The frigid water assaulted his sensitive crevice.

The water cut off, and a strap snapped against his wet, bare skin. His numbed skin responded violently to the sensation. A sharp tingling pierced his strained musculature, radiating from the point of impact like a nuclear blast. Another whimper escaped his lips. “I sure have missed that sweet little sound you make when taking what’s coming to you — what about you, boys? Huh? Did you miss this fuck’s pathetic little cries?” They all chimed in like apes, beating their chests and unhooking their belts.

“Well, alright then. Let’s get started.”


Thanks for reading!