In Fear - SCP Foundation

SCP-2006

Object Class: Keter

Special Containment Procedures: SCP-2006 is to be contained at Site 118 in an airtight containment cell. SCP-2006 must be constantly monitored for changes in form, which are to be noted immediately. All personnel coming into contact with SCP-2006 are required to enroll in an acting course with a focus on expressing fear…

Dr. Morris’s vision blurred as he lost his focus on the page, and soon the letters were as meaningful to him as a wordsearch. He’d been through the acting class with the rest of those assigned to 2006, the bi-weekly slog of half-hour sessions. He felt they could’ve been better spent forgotten down a bottle with his friends. He knew how to act scared. He worked in a place that would send most screaming with a trail running down their legs. As he walked, he fumbled with a little red can of the shittiest, syrupy cola you could afford on a budget dedicated to concrete and rebar. Morris paused near a water fountain, struggling to crack open the top with his fingernails. His frustration grew until he wrenched the top for leverage, jostling the can too far to the side, causing the can to spray.

“Shit.”

Morris reflexively swore through clenched teeth. The higher-ups were going to love this, Morris. He looked at the light caramel streaming down his starched lab uniform. He blotted at it with a napkin, but it still left a discolored blotch down at the hem where it landed. He licked his thumb, pinching the fabric between his fingers to try and clean the spot. He stopped after it made no immediate effect. Begrudgingly, Dr. Morris dropped the now emptied can into the nearby trash can. The intercom crackled to life again.

“Dr. Morris, please report to SCP 2006’s containment cell immediately. Failure to comply will be met with appropriate action.”

Morris sighed, he knew he’d have to make it there as soon as he could. He walked down the winding corridors at a brisk pace until he could see the solitary steel doors with the omnipresent foundation logo. He swiped his keycard into the control room reader, waiting with his eyes to a retina scanner. It flashed an epileptic series of lights at him, the photon mappers ensuring he was supposed to be here. He always thought it was superfluous they would put one in front of a keter-class entity, considering all the other credentials work a person would need to be god-knows-how-many miles underground in a restricted area. The doors shunted apart with a hermetic hiss. Dr. Morris began worming his way through a control room of near-identical men in coats bustling around with clipboards and legal pads. From the opposite end of the room came a call.

“Dr. Morris.”

Senior Researcher Crusoe was standing at the helm of the operation, a bevy of hunched figures at the console behind her. The storming sea of staff parted as she spoke, and Morris walked forwards, a bit guarded. Crusoe wasn’t in the mood. She was concealing her panic under a mask of friendliness. Morris knew that face, and he thought a silent prayer to gods he knew wouldn’t answer.

“Afternoon, Crusoe. What’s the situation?”

She feigned a half-smile, half-smirk. The plasticity of it only served to further his hypothesis that something was actually wrong. Crusoe was a cold bitch of a woman who had never smiled unless it was to send a researcher to certain death in the name of advancement. To see her smiling was a source of certainty that this wasn’t going to end well.

“At approximately 06:32 today, SCP 2006, who had been assuming the guise of an alien creature from the 1957 B-Grade horror film ‘Invasion of the Saucer Men’, disappeared. He is still on our pressure sensors, but he’s disappeared from our cameras. We’ve already had the techs come in to assess our monitoring hardware, and we’re all good on our end.”

Crusoe motioned over to a wide array of computer screens formed into a single viewscreen. To Dr. Morris and anyone else who looked, it showed an empty containment cell. Four enameled concrete walls and a bare floor. Crusoe cleared her throat with a sense of arrogance, snatching Dr. Morris’s attention from the screens.

“We're operating under the assumption he may be, waiting, per say, for someone to enter the room. We had to push back his last appointment after that scare with the toxin leak.”

Morris remembered that scare. Some dipshit contractor had installed pipes for site-wide gaseous kill toxins incorrectly. The pipes ruptured, sending all personnel into an evac. It pushed everyone's schedule back, after losing about a dozen staff in the event. Crusoe motioned at a clipboard on the desk like a mother pointing at a mess.

“So today, in lieu of Dr. Kilpatrick, we’re sending you in. You are the backup psychiatrist.”

Nothing got him more pissed off than her smug self-important attitude. She wasn’t just the Senior Researcher, she was better than you. If they sold framed posters of her, she’d plaster them over her office. Dr. Morris picked up the clipboard of canned interview questions, and the digital recorder on top. He clipped the recorder to his hip and mic’d up. Crusoe escorted him to the airlock, looking at him with the same caring facade. He stepped over the door bumpers, waiting for the lock to seal. Crusoe imparted a few words before the gates locked together.

“Remember, Morris, scary!”

Morris almost told her to shut up. He’d made the mistake once when talking to a senior, and while they had understood the stress of the situation, he was sure Crusoe would love to grill him for even the slightest insubordination. He turned around, anxious for the other set of doors to open. The intercom speaker above came to life, and a monotone voice spoke.

Opening inner seal.

The two doors pulled apart with a metal grinding and a bike-pump hiss. Dr. Morris took a few steps out into the chamber. His dusty white running shoes making soft falls on the bare concrete below. He cleared his throat to clear the apprehension that thickened the already stale air.

“SCP Two thousa-”

The jolting honk of a horn cut him off. He turned to face SCP-2006, only to come face-to-face with a horror fresh from his earliest years.

Blinding white makeup caked the unnatural rubber skin. The caricature stood before him, not enough makeup to cover the dirty folds on the mockery of a human face. Two Curious George ears too low on the face for real anatomy. Aggressive red hair sprouting from the back ridge of his skull, like a halloween mask. The garish comedy war-paint, smeared across the face, was dripping fresh, in detail unthought of to his formative memories of the creature.

Morris stumbled backwards, deeper into the containment cell. He almost tripped over himself, before finding stability on a wall.

“Fuck!”, he shouted, a bit too unrestrained. No one had sworn at SCP-2006 before. Crusoe would be thrilled.

SCP-2006, still in his twisted form, took a dramatic step forwards. Dr. Morris remembered his instructions, and screamed. It was only half-forced.

Morris could still remember: He was eight years old. His parents brought home the VHS from the rental store. It wasn’t like the low-budget schlock he’d waded through on cable, this was a new package of actual scares. After Mom had went to bed and Dad fell asleep in his armchair with an empty bottle of Pabst Blue-Ribbon in his hands, he got to watch the forbidden fruit of his youth. He didn’t remember much of the movie as an adult, having never rewatched it. If he entertained the idea, it was met with pure apprehension. It was the same apprehension one would feel when they hovered their hand over a sharp kitchen knife, or the car cigarette lighter. What he did remember were the Klowns. They came from the cold vacuum of space not to cause comical ray-gun effects and burn down a few cities, instead, they hungered for human flesh. His flesh, of course.

This childhood trauma before him had his image clawed from the reaches of his mind, using greasepaint and fear to fill in the gaps. SCP-2006 kept up his act. Morris struggled to come to words. SCP-2006 did it for him.

“Doctor, did I scaaaaaare you?”

Dr. Morris looked up at the nightmare clown, fumbling for words. His tone didn’t match his usual “concerned” voice, it only raised in pitch. Mocking.

“Y-yes, SCP-2006, yes you did. My God, I almost had a heart attack!”

A second passed before the edges of the crude grin on SCP-2006’s face rose. Underneath the lips were rows of teeth. The teeth of an alcoholic shark. Dr. Morris wondered who had shown him an actual horror movie, and who would be reprimanded for this. Fucking Crusoe, sending him in. Armin pulled himself from the floor, raising the clipboard to his chest, a show of control.

“Hello, SCP-2006, I am Doctor Morris. I am an analytical psychologist for the SCP foundation. I have a few questions to ask you, relating to your actions earlier today.”

The clown’s joyous expression stayed. Eager for his indulgence.

“Ask away, Doctor.”

Morris clicked his pen, a signal for his turn to begin.

“Earlier today you had morphed into a form invisible to the staff outside, I am curious as to what you had hoped to accomplish by doing so.”

He stood firm. The clown on the other end of the room broke his serious tone at the question. A quizzical look immediately wiped away all manner of hostility.

“I don’t understand.”

Dr. Morris repeated himself.

“Well, we can see you through the cameras. It’s how we know you’re still here. Why did you try hiding from us?”

It took him a few seconds, before an expression of excitement overcame his previous demeanor. Like a child who remembered the answer to the teacher’s question.

“Oh! You hadn’t come in last time, so I tried to get you to come in again. But you’re a new doctor. You’re not Dr. Kilpatrick, though.” SCP 2006 said, his tone drifting into wistfulness.

“No, SCP-2006, I’m not. I’m sorry to tell you.”

He was, in a way, sorry. SCP-2006 and Kilpatrick had, well, a bond. Dr. Kilpatrick loved getting into the whole act with 2006, and even volunteered to accompany him on “movie night” a few times. Kilpatrick had been an unfortunate casualty of last-week’s toxin leak. Armin would probably be filling in for him for the foreseeable future.

“Well, Dr. Morris, I miss him. I think he loved it when I scared him. I know he enjoyed getting scared just as much as I enjoyed doing it. I miss him, Doctor.”

Dr. Morris shot back, almost impatient.

“Yes, I am sure you miss him, but for now he isn’t going to be working with the foundation.”

Morris could’ve slapped himself. He always felt like he was overcompensating for moments of “getting to know them” with sudden shifts of cold clinicality. He had to remind himself no matter how much he could “warm up” his patients, he was working with a keter class entity. But the jarring shifts to a clinical tone always came with frustration, always at himself. He thought that you could make up for two weeks of missing reports by filling out four weeks’ extra.

“I’m sorry, SCP-2006. For snapping just there.”

SCP-2006 looked at him with the eyes of a stray to a dogcatcher. The greased clown took on a demure posture, trying to come to grips with this information. He looked back at Morris in confusion.

“Why did he leave? He wouldn’t just leave me like that!”

The clown continued to stare at him with begging eyes. Morris quickly scribbled down onto a blank section of paper “No concept of death?”, with an exaggerated question mark. Another line to pursue.

“SCP-2006, do you know where people go when they die?”

SCP-2006 took a few seconds to ponder the question.

“They get back up for the sequel?”

Morris scratched into his sheet a bit more. He decided to bite off a bit more. The question had been cleared with the higher ups. He looked down at the questions page to make sure he phrased it in the most direct way. It would be the fuck up of the century if he ruined it.

“What do you know to be the states of being alive?”

SCP-2006 chuckled. He relaxed himself and spoke to Morris.

“Well, there’s being scared! That’s my favorite, then there’s… uhh…”

SCP-2006’s face stalled like a choked engine.

“…breathing?”

Interesting. Very much so. Dr. Morris had everything he needed from SCP-2006. At least the bare minimum required by Crusoe and would still let him catch the tail-end of happy hour. He started writing down his closing statements onto his page.

“Now, SCP-2006, I believe our interview terminated. If you have anything else you feel you need to do,” Dr. Morris gave a coy, semi-forced wink, “before I leave, then go ahead.”

SCP-2006’s beady eyes lit up like a child on Christmas morning, though he stayed next to the door.

“Oh, no, Dr. Morris. I am sated. I think I’ve reached my, ehr, quota of scares today? Even if they weren’t all genuine. At least the clown outfit reaction wasn’t fake.”

Disbelief. Morris paused. He blanked for a few seconds, feeling his throat tighten as his mind searched for the correct path. His mouth was dry, even after he drank the generic cola crap. He felt the pen chained to the clipboard fall out of his hands and slide down the paper, dangling off the board.

“F-fake? SCP 2006, I assure you, what he felt was real. You are the best at scaring! I almost died from fear earlier! I-I, Y-you-”

The clown giggled in a gruff, menacing tone. He took a step towards him. Morris stepped backwards. He felt the cold enamel walls of the cell brush against the elbows of his coat.

“Dr. Armin Morris, born February 19th, 1980. Blood type A negative. Parents, divorced. I knew all that when you walked in. I don’t smell fear. I smell everything. And I know where that stain came from. Both stains, Dr. Morris. I also know Dr. Kilpatrick felt real fear when he began to choke on his own blood. It was like nectar. Water to a man in the desert. That’s actual fear that I smelt. But I don’t just smell these things, I understand them, too. A lot of things.”

Armin had never understood what people meant when they say time slows to a crawl. Every second passed with the feeling of pure fear. A hot, rancid sweat tingling with adrenaline ran in rivulets down his back. He was soon aware of how small the cell was. How close the clown was to him. How close those teeth were.

“You think I’m ignorant? You think I have no knowledge of what’s outside my cell? This chamber's sealed, yes, but I can use my eyes in spite of it. I smelled a lot of things. Senior Researcher Crusoe’s fake concern. The Camera Tech’s worry about his mother’s cancer. I’ve been around for so long, I’d forgotten what it was like to wallow in the fear of an entire village, and this is very close.”

Morris wanted to get out. But he was a cornered animal here. The doors behind SCP-2006 had shut, and the control room was, to his assumption, in a state of mass panic from what they’d heard. They couldn’t let him out, it would risk a breach. If they risked a breach of an intelligent entity, they risked a breach of every item contained within. Morris’s knees locked, stale. He felt small. So small.

“It’s been so long since I’ve smelled genuine fear. So long since I’ve peered out of closets. So long since the rustling trees and rainy windows. So long.”

Morris thumbed the intercom button on his two-way radio.

“Pull me out.”

He depressed the direct line. He knew they heard. That button broadcast his message across the observation room. They wouldn't pull him out. Not yet.

But to his disbelief, it wasn’t but seconds later that the doors to the lock opened. SCP-2006 stepped aside, gesturing at the open archway like a carnival ringleader at the main attraction. In the same moment, the light cut out.

Doctor Morris screamed. Before too much time had passed. The emergency amber lights had kicked on, showing the room he was in empty, save for himself. He fell to his knees, and scrambled away from the room. Both sets of doors were open.

The observation hub was a mess. The intercom repeating the same autogenerated containment breach warning. All monitors displayed: “CORE POWER OFFLINE - REVERTING TO SOLID STATE TO RETAIN FILE INTEGRITY”. The evac lights illuminated the room in flashes. Morris pulled himself up, seeing the orgy sprawled on the floor.

Crusoe's body slumped against the collage of monitors. An arterial spray served as the arrow to her slashed neck. A guard crumpled into the fetal position next to the sealed door, his P90 clutched in his hands, unfired. Armin felt the warm syrup and corrosive bile pull itself from his stomach. He doubled over, wet retching onto the linoleum.

Addendum: SCP-2006 breached containment on ██/█/20██. We now understand that SCP-2006 can manifest in multiple locations at once. While personnel may believe they’re conversing with the “Face” entity, referred to as SCP-2006-1, SCP-2006 is capable of creating an unknown number of secondary entities, labeled as SCP-2006-X. Possible redraft of containment procedures requested in light of recent events, as well as the loss of Senior Researcher ██████, Assistant Researcher █████, and assorted staff.