While You Were Gone | a.k.a. (Lingchi)

I'd been gone for nearly six months. It was a long six months, mind you, and my girl, Jenny, had been home waiting for me the entire time. 

Well, I suppose that's what she wanted me to believe. Maybe she decided halfway through my time away that she was tired of being alone and wanted companionship from someone else. Maybe she just grew tired of waiting around for me to call. Or of talking on the phone and never seeing me in person.

Whatever it was that made her distant, I never really knew. I just kept trying to keep our relationship going, hoping I could fix it when I got back.

My return was a surprise. 

It happened to come a month earlier than we'd expected it to. The second I got out of the cab, I saw our house, and it made butterflies well up in my stomach. 

I was so happy to be home, the feeling overwhelmed me, brought tears to my eyes and made me shake a bit. But another feeling --mostly fear-- made me hesitate. I worried that I'd been away too long. Maybe I would find another man in my bed. Maybe I would find that my lover no longer loved me. 

I made my way up the steps anyway, all the while realizing that Jenny's rose bush hadn't been trimmed in a few days. I wondered what she'd been up to. She normally tended to her flowers religiously. 

I'd spoken to her only the day before, and she'd seemed fine. Everything seemed normal, (more or less) until I made my way up the steps and found a handwritten letter addressed to me wedged in our locked door. The note had a red smudge on the side of it. At first glance it looked like blood.

Dear Charlie, 

While you were gone, a lot of things happened. Most of which, I really don't look forward to telling you now. I've kept my mouth shut about it when you call because what's happened isn't the kind of thing you tell someone over the phone. But it's not something I want to tell you in person either. 

It all started about three months ago when Toby started scratching at something under our bed. He would meow, claw and make a huge ruckus at night when I was trying to sleep. Every time I'd try to catch him underneath the bedframe, he'd run. 

Finally, I looked under the bed. I brought a flashlight and shone it at the bottom of the mattress. It just looked like a black smudge. 

I couldn't understand why it bothered the cat so much. It looked like someone had dumped Vantablack ashes on the bottom of the bed. Even though my curiosity was quelled by investigating the bottom of the matress, it still irked me that Tobs wouldn't leave it alone, so neither could I.

One night, I decided to slide under the bed without the flashlight just to see whatever it was that he saw. Looking back now, I really wish I hadn't done that. That small decision changed my life. 

I laid on the hardwood floor under the bed and looked up at the black smudge. It was like looking through a black hole. The spot was so dark, it stood out in the rest of the darkness. I waited patiently and my eyes finally adjusted. 

I started to see shadows moving. It was as if the "black hole" at the bottom of the mattress was a window to somewhere else. I watched, my breath held, my heart beating like a ritual drum, beads of sweat starting to form on my forehead and under my nose. 

I saw the ceiling of our bedroom through the hole at the bottom of the mattress. It was quite possibly the most odd, bizarre thing to ever have happened in this world. I was about to scramble out from under our bed and make a frantic call to my mother, or a priest maybe, when I saw your face on the other side of the hole. 

I froze. 

Then I just watched in awe. From what I could see at this angle, you sat down on the bed and put your head in your hands. Maybe you were crying. 

I shot out from my spot and immediatley inspected our bedroom, but there was no sign of you. I called your name, but there was no answer. 

I cried for a while, because seeing you, after so long made me remember what it was like when you were here. I don't mind telling you now that our relationship was a vapid thing; full of unspoken words and half-hearted promises made over a pillow. Most of the time, I was just left wondering why you were still around, your underwhelmed look of confusion constantly reminding me what I really was to you, but you never actually said it. The truth, I mean. 

For some reason, before you were gone, I'd been under the impression that without you, I might fade into nothing. But obviously, I'd been wrong because even though we were together, I still was alone. But, I still was alive. 

Anyway, seeing a copy of a person who's away through a mattress really has the ability to fuck a person up. 

I went to a psychiatrist. I told her nothing, but also everything, in a way. She said it was a stress hallucination. She said it was anxiety from your absence. She told me I needed a hobby. I told her she was full of shit, but politely. 

I found myself under our bed most nights just looking for a glimpse of Other You. He seemed better, for some reason. More compassionate, less self-centered than the real you, I'm sorry to say. I was drawn to him. At first, I was horrified, but slowly, as time passed, I saw that he was just a human being. From where, I'm not sure, but he existed just like you and I. 

One morning, I realized that Toby had gone missing. I looked for him everywhere. Under the bed was the first place I looked. Nothing at first, but I had a hunch, so I waited. Sure enough, Toby came crawling out of the mattress. He had been to the Other Side.

This entire time I'd been watching the black hole thinking it was a window, but it was more than that. It was a door. The hole had grown the more I looked through it, and I thought for a long time on whether or not I wanted to crawl through.

The whole situation was stupid on my part.

All of this happened because (even though you didn't deserve it), I missed you, and I wanted more than anything to see you face to face. Even if it was a version of you from another reality. I weighed my options; hemmed and hawed until I was blue in the face. Finally, I just decided to crawl through.

It worked. I pulled myself through a hole and came out into a world I didn't know, hoping to speak to a man I also didn't know but somehow loved.

He was taking off his watch at the dresser when I popped into the reality adjacent to ours.

At first he screamed. Then he cried. He asked if he could touch me. He cried some more and told me his Jenny was gone. He didn't say where she was, he just said gone. 

I'll spare you the longwinded back and forth that went on, but he and I actually talked, which was bizarre in and of itself. He asked me about my life, about Other Him. He was so happy to see me, I think the feeling made me high a little. That was something I never got to feel with you: the sensation of being wanted. It was intoxicating.

There was one catch to Other Charlie. For all his kindness and genuinely loving nature, I soon found out the hard way that nothing is perfect and the universe will inflict its pain on you, no matter what.

Other Charlie was more devoted, kinder, grateful and a skilled lover, but every time I touched him, I'd find a tiny cut somewhere on my body. At first, they were so small, I thought they were just from where Toby and I had been playing and your cat had inadvertently scratched me, but as the days went on, I realized that was not the truth.

In the beginning, I was so in love with his new, better Charlie, I just ignored it. But before long, my forearms, back and sides were full of welts. They were angry and red. It became uncomfortable to wear clothes. 

One morning, after a particulary passionate night, I found a tiny slice on the inside of my eyelid. How many more cuts did I have inside me that I couldn't see? How much danger was I truly in? The questions bothered me and I needed them answered, but I was too scared to ask out loud.

I couldn't do the dishes without bleeding. I couldn't take a shower without bleeding. My rose bushes went untended. And through all of it, Other Charlie just begged me to stay here on this side of the mattress with him. 

But these tiny cuts just reminded me of the old you. The you on our side. I remember thinking 'there is no version of this man who won't hurt me'. And I was right, but my heart didn't want to listen to my head. As usual.

Days passed while I was in denial about the real you and Other Charlie, and still, I tried to ignore it. Until finally, it became too much to ignore. Too much pain and misery to endure. I woke up one day with blood trickling from the corner of my mouth and it was agony to move. 

The Other You tried to kiss me and tell me that he loved me, that things would get better, but I knew the truth. Even though I didn't want it, the reality of this twisted affair was that I wasn't supposed to be with you. Either of you. I told him not to touch me anymore. 

He listened, but clearly was hurt by it. Right in front of my eyes, I watched as a cut sliced across his face-- as if drawn by the hand of an invisble artist. He yelped and touched his wound with his finger tips. 

So many things were unsaid in a single moment of silence between Other Charlie and I. The fact that when he was the one to hurt, he was no longer willing to vehemently stress that I should stay. When he got his first cut, of course, the tables had turned. 

My brain wanted answers about the mechanics of it all. Where were these wounds coming from? Was it just the karmatic nature of the universe trying to pull us apart or something less meaningful? Was his love hurting me? Was my honesty hurting him?

In the end, it didn't matter.

I said nothing and made my way back home. The black hole under the bed seemed to shrink in the time I'd been on the other side with Other Charlie. It pulled at my cuts and made them bleed. When I got home, to my world, I lay there under our bed, naked and bleeding and scared for myself. 

I'd lost track of time. Of who I was, as well. And all I had left of it was pain.

It took a few days for my skin to heal enough for me to take a real shower again instead of just a sponge bath. And several more days before I could sit down and write you this letter.

Now, I'm sure you won't believe any of this. You'll probably think I'm crazy. That I'm trying to find an elaborate way of breaking up with you, but sadly that is not the case. 

The hole in the mattress taught me more than any book or other life lesson ever has before: that no love should hurt, physically or emotionally. And most importantly, that being alone isn't worse than a slow death by a million tiny cuts. 

≡

BernzOmatic Camping Gas

BernzOmatic Camping Gas is an extremely flammable gas contained in a metal canister. It is used for fueling propane patio heaters, small cooking devices like grills, camp lamps and portable stoves. Canisters can come in all different sizes and in A1, (the current dimension you reside in), these small fuel packs are a great and useful product.

In dimension J8, there was a situation that took place in early 2017. The event involved several of these canisters accidentally opening dimensional rifts. Most of the doorways from J8 (surprisingly) led to A1. These two universes are not located next to each other as one can see from the diagram.

(See dia. 7742Q)

The J8 rifts caused odd items to materialize in A1. Campers in J8 began to disappear. People would let their stoves warm up only to turn their backs and find their cooking devices missing completely.

Park rangers heard of these strange disappearances first in J8, then, some time later on, people in A1 would find things like camping stoves and random heaters melded into the walls of their homes or sticking halfway out of a rock face at their local park. A woman in Florida found the left arm of a hiker fused to the backside of her toilet and had a heart attack on the spot. She lived, the hiker didn't.

It was a conundrum for A1 scientists, so they set out to find an answer. Blockades were erected around affected areas, specialty teams were brought in; and in the end, the canisters of BernzOmatic Camping Gas were the only constant at each location.

More trouble started when scientists, military heavy-hitters and philanthropists all began poking at the portable gas tanks to find out why they were different from the ones you can buy at your local camping store here in A1. It did not end well. Most of them are still missing.

The reason for the camping gas anomaly is still unknown, but now both universes seem to be in a bitter political dispute regarding funding and the ethics attached to what is now known as the BernzO Epidemic.

Although scientists and other sects of academia scoff at magic and the manipulation of ether and/or other "non-existent" materials, it seems evident to some groups that there is more at play in our array of universes than we are currently aware of.

Obviously.

Unexplainable events have increased exponentially throughout the centuries. More people are turning to the 'unknown' to answer burning questions of a spiritual nature, and camping is less safe than usual.

The moral of the story? If you'd like to go camping and you live in J8, it may be safer to use good ol' fashioned regular wood to fuel your fires. There's probably never been a more dangerous time to be a nature enthusiast.

Cycles

My step dad goes through cycles of inflicting horror and abuse. When he and my mom first got together, he seemed OK. (I will admit, there was never a time I thought he was a ‘normal’ human being; but when they first got together, I still assumed he had some semblance of humanity…)

I was wrong.

Less than a month after they ‘fell in love’, he ‘cycled’.

Footprints

[A Have Tools, Will Travel... Story]

This is a very short story told to me by a guy I used to work with at “Have Tools, Will Travel” named Bryan. Bryan was a really nice dude. He doesn’t work with us anymore, but not because of the supernatural. 

Bryan had been estranged from his father (who owned a big time construction company), for years. After a few months of working with us, he and his dad started talking again and he moved back to Virginia to join the family business. I hear he’s doing well these days. He got married, had a kid; you know, the usual.

Anyway, I’m getting off topic. 

Here’s the story: 

Small Bones

[ A Have Tools, Will Travel Story]

She called about tiny bones being stacked against her window sill.

"I want them gone," she said.

Clara Guthrie was not a happy woman. In fact, she seemed livid. "These damn neighborhood kids. Screwing around, pushing tiny parts of mangled chipmunks through my windows at night." Miss Guthrie huffed. "If I could catch them, I'd spank 'em. I'd take the lawsuit that followed."

When she was finally done with her speech, I asked her what it was she actually wanted us to do.

☰ Melting

[A Have Tools, Will Travel... Story]

This e-mail/ response was sent to my girlfriend’s Reddit account a week ago, where I originally posted about the strange things that have happened to me on the job. I’ve tried to contact Bradley since, but I haven’t gotten a reply. To be honest, I’m worried about the guy. 

He seemed so hell bent on getting to the bottom of the ‘phenomenon’, I think someone might have ‘silenced’ him. 

Well, they’re going to have to silence me too, because until I hear from him, I’m going to blast his story on the internet until the exposure is so high, there won’t be any ‘containing it’ unless they kill us all.

Maybe I’m just being paranoid. 

Maybe not.

-Connor

☰ The Stick Lady

[A Have Tools, Will Travel... Story]

I got an email today from a guy who read my original posts about my experiences in "Have Tools, Will Travel...". It was the first of many emails I've received as of late. This is easily the least disturbing one.

-Connor

***

Hey Connor,

I'm 21, I live in Ross Creek Illinois, and I am a part-time handyman. I work for my dad.

My story is kind of stupid. It doesn’t really make sense, but I thought I’d share.

I went with my dad one Saturday to help this old lady that lives a few blocks over. He was just being nice. I don’t even remember what she wanted us to do. Alls I know is when we got there, her trees were full of red string dangling twigs that had fallen onto the ground. To be clear, she took every stick that fell into her yard and strung them back up into the tree with red twine.

When I saw that, I was like, “hell no”, but my dad said he’d promised her granddaughter or something, so we stayed. The whole time we were inside the house, that old lady just kept looking out into the yard at the tree. Just wringing her hands like she couldn’t wait to get back out there and finish what she’d started.

I’m the type of guy to live and let live. But I wanna know how someone that old and feeble could get high enough up in that tree to explain all the twigs that were hanging from the very top.

J

☰ Foundation Problems [Part 2]

On the way to the ‘other basement’, I felt disoriented and confused. If you can imagine trying to go down a ladder while at the same time feeling like you’re upside down, then that would explain how I fell: head first, and into what should have been the ceiling. 

It turns out the rules are quite different in the basement under the basement. I yelled up to Sam, who was just starting to make his way down the ladder after me. “Don't come down Sam, you're going to fall if you do.”

“Are you okay, we heard a thud...Where are you Connor?” I heard Sam say, his voice holding more concern than I would have expected. Don't get me wrong, Sam and I used to get along pretty well before he retired; and we still do, but ever since he's been back to work, his guard has been up and he has been non-committal in most situations. It's almost like he's trying to avoid getting close to me because he's afraid of all the on-the-job hazards we face so often. 

“I'm on the ceiling.” I pointed the flashlight down the hole from my side, and I could see Sam, Ellen and Mr. Cormick all standing around the hole looking back at me with shocked looks on their faces. 

☰ Foundation Problems [Part 1]

One

The Cormick’s were a nice family. 

They lived in a large farmhouse out in the country and owned a substantial amount of land. (I went to high school with their oldest daughter Lila, so that’s how I know them.)

John Cormick was Lila’s father and her mother’s name was Ellen. The family mostly kept to themselves and did their own maintenance and work around the house. They had a helper who worked for them, although I can't remember his name. 

There was hardly anything that John Cormick couldn't fix himself with a bit of time, some elbow grease and the right tools. So, when Ellen called us and said they were having foundation problems with their eighty year old home, I was surprised. I just assumed John Cormick had to come face-to-face with a job he couldn't handle himself.

Ellen spoke to Maria over the phone and wanted us to come out right away and take a look.

Little did any of us know how shocking that ‘look’ would become.

Maria said Ellen sounded stressed out and worried, but we chalked that up to the gossip going around town that the Cormick’s were a few months behind on payments and that suits were trying to pressure them into selling their farm. 

That would stress anyone out.

I didn't give much thought to Ellen's frame of mind until we arrived at the Cormick farm. The issue with the foundation was easy to see at first glance. Sam and I looked at each other for a long time and, finally, we silently agreed to go ahead, get out of the truck and speak to the owners; disturbing situation or not.

 The bottom of the Cormick's farmhouse was being pushed up out of the ground and into the air... by something that looked a lot like a huge slab of cement. They already had a ladder leaning against their front steps, which sat about 5 ft up off the ground, along with the rest of their house.

Now, I’ve been in the Cormick's home before, and I know that they have a basement.

The house was sitting atop the basement which was now nearly at ground level. Something else had taken the place of where the basement originally was, pushing the entire farm house up and out of the soil.

The rest of the area around the house was fine, so we could rule out that the ground was shifting or moving around in such a way that would explain why an entire farm house and its basement would be pushed up out of the ground like a damn daisy.

Mr. Cormick came out of the front door and waved us towards the ladder.

“I appreciate you guys coming out, I didn't know who else to call. The situation is so strange.”

Sam shook Mr. Cormick's hand and so did I. 

Lila’s father looked a lot older than I remembered him being, but then again, it had been a while since I'd graduated from high school. He probably knew I was some distant friend of his daughter’s, but he was so distracted, he didn't mention that we’d meet before.

“When did all this start happening?” Sam asked Mr. Cormick as the farmer lead us into his home.

 John Cormick's wife stood in the entryway rubbing her hands together out of nervousness. Her eyebrows were tightly knitted together and her face looked pinched. 

John gave his wife a reassuring pat on the shoulder and answered Sam's question. “All this has happened within the span of a week. When it first started, I thought maybe it was the ground shifting, but now I know different.”

Sam and I both donned looks of confusion.

“I'm afraid I don't understand.” said Sam.

“Well, if you two wanna come with me, I'll show you.”

Ellen crossed herself and followed her husband down the hallway. 

We followed her. 

Mr. Cormick lead us to his basement door, (which he unlocked before opening), then down the creaking steps and into the darkness. When we reached the cellar, Mr. Cormick pointed out a small trapdoor in the middle of the basement floor.

“In my experience, most basements do not have trap doors.”  I said.

“It looks like the kind of door you'd find leading into a storm cellar.” Sam added.

“That's right.” said Mr. Cormick. “The only problem is that,  in the twenty-five years I’ve lived in this house, this door was never here until two days ago.”

This was about the time I was sure this was going to turn into ‘one of those days’ if you know what I mean.

“Where does the trap door lead to?” I asked unable to hide my curiosity.

Mr. Cormick pulled a large flashlight out of the back pocket of his overalls. 

“To another basement, identical to the one we're standing in right now. If you can believe that.”

“Have you been down there?” Sam asked the farmer.

“No sir, I have not, all I've done was shine this light down into the hole to see what I was dealing with. When I saw what was down there, I decided to call ya'll.” John looked at Ellen who was looking down the hole with wide eyes. “You guys have a reputation for dealing with things that don't make any damn sense.”

Sam gave me a shitty look.

I suppose I was losing popularity at work for blabbing about some of our experiences on the job, especially with Sam after he'd decided to come back to work after retiring. 

Can anyone blame me? Half the shit I’d seen since starting work with “Have Tools, Will Travel” five years ago, has only led me to believe that the world is not what I once thought it was.

The world is nowhere close to what I thought it was. Things are constantly happening that we have no control over or explanation for. The least I can do is warn others about what's going on. The more people know, the more we may be able to protect ourselves against whatever the hell is happening. Because, believe this if you don't believe anything else: something is definitely going on, and from what I've seen, it's just getting worse.

“We've seen some strange things, but we are nowhere near specialists if that's what you were expecting Mr. Cormick. Now, if you've got some work that you'd like us to do, let us know; but other than that, this doesn't seem like a job for a handyman.”

Sam said it as gently as he could, but I watched Mr. and Mrs. Cormick's faces fall as disappointment washed over them.

“Maybe we could... just pop down there and take a look Sam.” I mumbled.

Sam gave me another look. This one suggested that I was a bleeding heart.

Maybe I am, but who the hell else are you going to call when you find yourself in a situation like this? 

The police would laugh you off the phone.

Sam grunted as he thought it over. Innocent curiosity in respect to things like this had long left Sam. He no longer had any interest in investigating the strange and the unexplainable, but I on the other hand, did want an explanation for this; and I was willing to go down into that trap door to find it. (Also, Lila was always good to me and I wasn't about to leave her parents in a potentially dangerous situation just because Sam wasn't interested in helping them.)

Mr. Cormick opened the trapdoor that led down underneath the basement. The old hinges creaked as the door moved and when it hit the cement floor, it did so with a loud crack and a plume of dust. He shone the flashlight down the hole and illuminated a room identical to the one that we stood in now, only everything was upside down.

“What the hell?” I whispered.

“That's exactly what I said.” Mr. Cormick​ mumbled.

“I don't think anyone should go down there. It's not natural. Going down there is only asking for trouble.” Ellen commented from behind me as she fingered a silver cross hanging from her neck. 

The woman was utterly terrified, and for good reason.

Sam scowled as he peered down the hole. I knew he was against investigating, but the look on his face told me he would not be sending me down into the darkness alone.

Mr. Cormick retrieved yet another ladder from the corner of the basement and lowered it down into the trap door. He gave me the flashlight, and with one last look around, I headed down into the darkness, feet first, into the unknown...

The Aftermath

Sometimes people call us after something horrendous happens, like a break-in or less often, a domestic dispute, and they need things fixed. You’d be surprised how destructive robbers (and drunk, abusive husbands) are.

It’s not enough for them to break into your home and take your stuff, they have to destroy the rest of your house too. They usually put heavy things through your sheet rock, break your windows and mirrors and try and make sure that none of your TV’s are still in tact. I don’t know why people are the way they are, I just know we do a lot of repairs made necessary by violence.

On one such occasion, I was still training under Sam, and we came face to face with what I can only explain away as a beast attack. Huge claw marks, tufts of fur everywhere, you name it. The whole place smelled like piss. When Paddy, (another guy on our crew at the time) asked the woman who hired us what happened, this is what she told us:

Ms. Burgess's Pets

My name is Sam. I’ve been a handyman for about 25 years now. I retired not too long ago, but I still think of myself as being a man who fixes things for a living. I always will. What I’m about to tell you happened a long time ago, but the thought of it still haunts me to this day.

Have Tools, Will Travel... Again

Huge Claw Marks on Rooftop

It was summer time when I started, hot as hell everyday, and we were roofing houses a lot. We did two big roof jobs back to back. The reason we were there was because (obviously) the woman needed her roof fixed, but why she needed it fixed was the weird part. The roof she had was relatively new, save for three huge gashes going down the front side of her roof. These "gashes" or dig marks would have looked like animal claws if they hadn't been a foot apart from each other and they were so deep, they went through the shingles, the felt paper and the roof decking. If the slashes had been going the opposite way, I think they would have tore right through the rafters as well.

Have Tools, Will Travel…

When I started this job, I was 23. Now I'm 28, and I have a fair amount of experience. I love my job. What I do serves a purpose. It's not like I'm saving the world or anything, but I do think what we do helps the community. It helps people. There's nothing worse than having your already busy life disrupted by an unexpected repair that you can't do yourself. That's where I come in. (My name’s Conner by the way.)