long journey on rubber and iron, beating the asphalt back down into the dirt you rose up from - SCP Foundation

Rebecca Vanko had been working this job for the past six months and it was just not working out. Signing up for this gig had been about hunting down creatures that exist outside the hierarchical classifications of science. It was NOT supposed to be about giving tours to rich mythology enthusiasts and it definitely wasn’t about unclogging toilets or keeping all-night vigils for chupacabra droppings.

The pay was terrible, the benefits actually made your life worse, and it was nigh-impossible to get Swamp Ape stink out of a uniform. It was a great indignity, given they aren’t even real bigfeet. Given all of that, to find anyone toiling away in Marcus Ingram Special Preserve, known colloquially as the “MISP” was finding someone at a particularly deep valley inside the lowest point of their lives. Despite the fact that it was never lacking for applicants. It was a shit job, but it was a job. A rare thing to come by in this economy.

There were enough bougie business boys behind the veil to pay a group like MISP to see the things which should not be seen, in a controlled environment where they could have all the same thrills the normies get at Disney Land. Drunk tourists with wads of money spilling out of their pockets, asking for directions to see ”a real Bigfoot.” That was the first thing they asked, but unfortunately those specimens have never fared well in captivity. That hasn’t stopped the field warders from trying, but there hadn’t been any kind of Sasquatch in the MISP since 1994. A skunk ape made for a poor substitute, given that they stink to high heaven and looked like little more than overgrown monkeys. It’s the furthest thing from Bigfoot. They don’t even smell like feet.

The most popular attraction was, by far, the pool of many things. It was a reflection of happenings in other worlds, possibilities and realities that never realized themselves on this timeline. Usually the scenes had absolutely no pertinence to the viewer, even when they did it would only be to notice or remark on some locality that was familiar to them. Events on display were a random sampling of infinite possibilities across time and space. Banality is the glue holding up the wallpaper of the universe, peering in this pool was like watching it dry.

There were also some stuffed specimens, Rebecca’s favorite was the fake Barnum & Bailey mermaid. A monkey sewn onto a fish was a lot more creative than what really went bump in the night. This is what Rebecca was looking at when the latest drunk tourist grasped her by the shoulder.

“Excuse me miss- I mean sir- I mean, uh, whatever, hey, you know where the fuckinmnuhm, the hairy guy, you know, with the fuckin’ toes and shit I guess.”

Brushing his hand off her shoulder, Rebecca found herself looking into the eyes of yet another West Coast frat boy with too much of his parent’s money and time on his hands. Wearing a Hawaiian shirt so garish it would make Jimmy Buffet blush, half-gelled hair, and Crocs, he was the very model of a modern major male-brained douche. Sighing, Rebecca rolled out a well-trained script.

“While we don’t keep any Sasquatch specimens in captivity, due to issues with the species living in confinement, we do have a close cousin which you can-”

Staggering, the young man pulled a hitherto unseen plastic cup from behind him seemingly for the specific purpose of spilling a foul-smelling brown beverage onto Rebecca’s uniform. “Naw, dawg, I seen’t it on Facebloc, you got them hidden up behind these things and s’a big ol’ secret you gotta show me I give you a hundo if you do.” Jamming a hand into his pocket, the man produced a pile of receipts and pocket lint with a few large bills interspersed within.

“No, I’m good. Like I said, we don’t have any in captivity. Whatever you read online is erroneous. Now, I can direct you to the skunk ape exhi-”

Before finishing her sentence, Rebecca felt a hard shove in her chest. Stumbling backwards, she caught herself as the man put himself inches away from her face.

“You stupid trangoy bastards, s’always the same shit! I go to parties, tryin’ to trick me by being all pretty and shit but I know! You’re a man with a big ol’ weiner. You fucking freak. I’ll be waiting for you after ya lying sack of-”

The man may have intended to go on, as so many others had before, but that was when Rebecca hit him hard enough that he temporarily connected to heaven’s Wi-Fi.

It had been a good run.

Trying to keep an eye on the road, Rebecca ran through her finances in her head. There would be one more paycheck coming from this job, probably no severance pay, minus the cost of laundering the uniform. With that, if she went to the soup kitchen on Wednesday, she would have just barely enough to pay rent that month.

After that, who knows what might happen. There was still the back rent she owed. It’s not like her roommate would keep spotting her forever. They weren’t exactly chummy so pushing her any further might lead to trouble. The last thing anyone needs after losing their job is to have interpersonal conflict in the home. But thinking about that could wait until she actually got there.

Traffic in Neo-Portland was terrible this time of year, same as it ever was. They had just shut down the Charles Piggott Memorial Bridge for emergency repairs so everyone had to brave the side streets. Two-lane roads jammed with vehicles of every shape, size, and color. Automobiles, bikes, trucks, unicycles, Segways, skaters and skateboarders surfed from car top to truck bed as they flowed over top of her. Rebecca envied their freedom.

There were posters lining the brick walls on either side of the gridlock. No matter what side of the veil you lived on, politicians knew how to take advantage of a captive audience. A lot of the posters were laid over-top one another, but Rebecca could see the glossy portrait of Mayor Chester G. Randall Jr. peered out more often than any others. A clean shaven, smiling white face with the slogan “A Timecrowave in Every Kitchen” plastered underneath it, a thousand pairs of eyes cheerfully glaring every few feet.

Pulling off to her exit, Rebecca shook her head. Why anyone bothered trying to compete with Mayor Chet and his political machine was beyond her. Between the lower classes loving him for bread and circuses, and the upper classes loving him for keeping the lower classes too occupied to consider eating them instead, there wasn’t really a lot of room for anyone stuck in the middle to do anything about him. But that was a problem for her in the abstract. The real problem at hand was all of her possessions were lying in a heap outside her apartment building.

Slamming the car door shut, not even bothering to park straight, Rebecca ran and began inspecting her belongings. Clothing was fine, but anything that would be damaged after falling off a balcony had been so damaged. Cursing, she began to sort through it all.

“Sorry! It just wasn’t working out.”

Looking up, Rebecca saw her apparently now ex-roommate standing on the balcony of the apartment they had been sharing. “What do you mean?”

“Look, you were two months behind on rent. I’ve been paying for this place myself, and it wasn’t as hard as I thought. So, I don’t really need you. Locks are changed. You’ll be off the lease by next week. Bye!”

Before Rebecca could respond, her roommate had turned back into the apartment they once shared and was gone. Collapsing onto her pile of things, Rebecca was already sobbing. How could this day get any worse?

It was at that moment, as if waiting on a cue, that the sun went out.

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