I sighed, the apartment was really starting to smell and I was sure this wouldn't be covered by...
- Created
- Status
- Ongoing
- Watchers
- 3
- Recent readers
- 0
- Threadmarks
- 1
-
Statistics (1 threadmarks, 1k words)
User Total ptbptb 1 Threadmarks Reader mode
Impulse Buy
- Location
- England
I sighed, the apartment was really starting to smell and I was sure this wouldn't be covered by my insurance. Even if I would most certainly not call it an 'act of God'. How did I get in this mess anyway?
Spam, spam, fanfiction update, fanfiction update, Paypal receipt, spam ... I decided the last one deserved a second glance. 'Anything you want. Price: Your soul'. Sender was 'HellBay', so no points for originality. Maybe it was some 'scare them straight' spam from some kooky Christian site? The inside was surprisingly professional looking and not quite what I expected. Apparently I had been 'specially selected' as one of a 'lucky few' to be given a trial account prior to the official opening early next year. My account was credited with 100 'soul points' but you could bid as little as 0.01 soul points on items so that wasn't as limiting as it first seemed.
I didn't, yet, see any way they could get actual money from me. I was leaning towards the idea of this being a joke mail and quickly double-checked there wasn't an 'about the company' link pointing to CollegeHumor. Nope. As well as the link to the main site, which I wasn't going to click any time soon, there were a few introductory offers with 'buy it now' buttons. Sleeping pills, claimed to be 100% safe, tasteless and highly effective. X-ray glasses (there's a classic). And a fleshlight.
Oddly, none of the buttons or links would actually do anything - at nothing showed up at the bottom of my browser when I hovered the mouse pointer over them. It was a joke mail, after all, then. I casually clicked on the fleshlight 'buy it now' button to confirm that and nothing happened. At least that's what I thought until I noticed that my account total was now reading as 99.9 soul points. I had a moment of visceral panic and quickly deleted the mail and emptied the trash folder on my webbrowser. And that was that.
Only it wasn't.
The next day, after a good night's sleep, I had worked out how they did it. It was quite clever really, and didn't need any javascript or fancy html. The part of the image with my 'account credit' was an animated .gif with a fairly long pause before it started dropping. Hoping to catch out people just as it did me. Reassured by this logic it came as quite the surprise when a package arrived for me that afternoon. Whoever dropped it off didn't hang around to hand it over. When I came down the stairs to the lobby to pick it up, they had already left. It was a plain brown package with no return address or stamps. I was becoming increasingly convinced that whoever was behind this must be someone I knew, although I couldn't think who or why.
With some degree of trepidation I opened the package to find a perfectly normal torch, and no receipt. Maybe it was camouflaged? I considered, and unscrewed the head of the torch. But inside was only a couple of size D batteries and the switch mechanism. Shrugging I screwed the top back on, pointed it forwards and clicked the switch on.
No light came from it, but looking at the sight before me I could only wish that it had just been defective. In front of me the carpet was red and glistening, coils and lumps of vaguely familiar forms twitched slightly in time to an unheard beat. My armchair now appeared to be upholstered with intestines with liver and kidneys forming the seat while each arm was a solitary lung - slowly inflating and deflating as I watched in frozen horror. What had been the TV was now watching me, with dozens of unblinking eyes, pupils wide, shifting around to take in the unnatural scene before them.
I clicked the switch back off and, thankfully, my normal apartment re-appeared. I stood for a while getting my frantic breath back under control before tentatively reaching out and prodding my chair with one finger. The sensation returned matched what my eyes were showing - comfortably worn fabric over foam padding.
I don't know what prompted me to do what I did next. I turned the 'torch' back on. It was fascinating, in a gruesome way, as I shifted the cone of ... effect ... my familiar every day room changed to a scene from a butcher's nightmare changing back again as soon as I moved the torch 'light' away. Almost unwillingly I took a closer look at the surface revealed. There were patches of hair, of all natural colors, the odd ear and ... just then I saw a mouth and at the same time heard a wet, gasping voice, "Heeeelp mee".
"Fuck!" I swore, dropping the torch in my shock. The head snapped clear off it as it landed, releasing a small puff of greenish mist and an indescribable smell. From where the batteries had been two small creatures feebly crawled out making plaintive squeaks, shuddered once or twice, and fell still. The half of my room that had been transformed had not reverted.
Over the following days the plethora of unwanted organs that now made up half my apartment one by one slowly stopped moving. The death rattle from my ersatz roommate coming as a relief, to be honest. I didn't do anything for him?her?it? What could I have done? When I used a library computer to google HellBay it turned out that there was a hotel of that name in Sicily, but nothing more useful. I had no contact details. Maybe there would be a grand opening in the new year, as promised, but did I really want to go to their customer service department?
All I'm left with is a smell that even my lackadaisical neighbors will soon be complaining about, an interior decoration choice that my landlord will most certainly not approve off and now I'll never know how that two-parter Dr Who episode ended!
~~~~~~ Two Weeks Ago ~~~~~~
Spam, spam, fanfiction update, fanfiction update, Paypal receipt, spam ... I decided the last one deserved a second glance. 'Anything you want. Price: Your soul'. Sender was 'HellBay', so no points for originality. Maybe it was some 'scare them straight' spam from some kooky Christian site? The inside was surprisingly professional looking and not quite what I expected. Apparently I had been 'specially selected' as one of a 'lucky few' to be given a trial account prior to the official opening early next year. My account was credited with 100 'soul points' but you could bid as little as 0.01 soul points on items so that wasn't as limiting as it first seemed.
I didn't, yet, see any way they could get actual money from me. I was leaning towards the idea of this being a joke mail and quickly double-checked there wasn't an 'about the company' link pointing to CollegeHumor. Nope. As well as the link to the main site, which I wasn't going to click any time soon, there were a few introductory offers with 'buy it now' buttons. Sleeping pills, claimed to be 100% safe, tasteless and highly effective. X-ray glasses (there's a classic). And a fleshlight.
Oddly, none of the buttons or links would actually do anything - at nothing showed up at the bottom of my browser when I hovered the mouse pointer over them. It was a joke mail, after all, then. I casually clicked on the fleshlight 'buy it now' button to confirm that and nothing happened. At least that's what I thought until I noticed that my account total was now reading as 99.9 soul points. I had a moment of visceral panic and quickly deleted the mail and emptied the trash folder on my webbrowser. And that was that.
Only it wasn't.
The next day, after a good night's sleep, I had worked out how they did it. It was quite clever really, and didn't need any javascript or fancy html. The part of the image with my 'account credit' was an animated .gif with a fairly long pause before it started dropping. Hoping to catch out people just as it did me. Reassured by this logic it came as quite the surprise when a package arrived for me that afternoon. Whoever dropped it off didn't hang around to hand it over. When I came down the stairs to the lobby to pick it up, they had already left. It was a plain brown package with no return address or stamps. I was becoming increasingly convinced that whoever was behind this must be someone I knew, although I couldn't think who or why.
With some degree of trepidation I opened the package to find a perfectly normal torch, and no receipt. Maybe it was camouflaged? I considered, and unscrewed the head of the torch. But inside was only a couple of size D batteries and the switch mechanism. Shrugging I screwed the top back on, pointed it forwards and clicked the switch on.
No light came from it, but looking at the sight before me I could only wish that it had just been defective. In front of me the carpet was red and glistening, coils and lumps of vaguely familiar forms twitched slightly in time to an unheard beat. My armchair now appeared to be upholstered with intestines with liver and kidneys forming the seat while each arm was a solitary lung - slowly inflating and deflating as I watched in frozen horror. What had been the TV was now watching me, with dozens of unblinking eyes, pupils wide, shifting around to take in the unnatural scene before them.
I clicked the switch back off and, thankfully, my normal apartment re-appeared. I stood for a while getting my frantic breath back under control before tentatively reaching out and prodding my chair with one finger. The sensation returned matched what my eyes were showing - comfortably worn fabric over foam padding.
I don't know what prompted me to do what I did next. I turned the 'torch' back on. It was fascinating, in a gruesome way, as I shifted the cone of ... effect ... my familiar every day room changed to a scene from a butcher's nightmare changing back again as soon as I moved the torch 'light' away. Almost unwillingly I took a closer look at the surface revealed. There were patches of hair, of all natural colors, the odd ear and ... just then I saw a mouth and at the same time heard a wet, gasping voice, "Heeeelp mee".
"Fuck!" I swore, dropping the torch in my shock. The head snapped clear off it as it landed, releasing a small puff of greenish mist and an indescribable smell. From where the batteries had been two small creatures feebly crawled out making plaintive squeaks, shuddered once or twice, and fell still. The half of my room that had been transformed had not reverted.
Over the following days the plethora of unwanted organs that now made up half my apartment one by one slowly stopped moving. The death rattle from my ersatz roommate coming as a relief, to be honest. I didn't do anything for him?her?it? What could I have done? When I used a library computer to google HellBay it turned out that there was a hotel of that name in Sicily, but nothing more useful. I had no contact details. Maybe there would be a grand opening in the new year, as promised, but did I really want to go to their customer service department?
All I'm left with is a smell that even my lackadaisical neighbors will soon be complaining about, an interior decoration choice that my landlord will most certainly not approve off and now I'll never know how that two-parter Dr Who episode ended!
- Location
- England
The structural work is outsourced to China, who in turn outsource it to the United Arab Emirates. The health and safety regulations are laxer there.