Slowly, like one backs away from a bear, Lavoie stood and 
smoothed down his matching sky blue pajamas. “I wanted to say I’m 
sorry.” 


Anselman lowered his hands, straightened his spine, adjusted his 
unstylish glasses. “For what?” 


“For what | said. | shouldn't have belittled—” 
“Not belittled,” Anselman said before he could stop himself. 


“Minimized,” Lavoie corrected, unaware. “I shouldn’t have minimized 
your pain.” 


That’s right, Anselman thought. You shouldn’t have. “Thank you.” 


Lavoie nodded and stepped aside for Anselman to get his candy. 
Anselman approached, dropped his coin in the machine, perused 
the options. He was about to press a button when Lavoie said, “You 


lost your son.” 


He said it softly. It was nearly gentle if it wasn’t so devastatingly 
accurate. Anselman swallowed. “Yes. He was eight.” 


“How long ago?” 
“Seven years.” 
“Were you married?” 


The hum of the snack machine, the bright white lights. Anselman 
jabbed at his selection. “Yes. She divorced me not long after. | threw 
myself into the Foundation.” 


Lavoie laughed, but this one was hollow. “Like embracing the void.” 
He picked at his granola bar. “Where is she now?” 


“Why do you care?” Anselman demanded. Lavoie shrugged. 
“Remarried. She has a new family. She seems happy, but | don’t 
know.” The Snickers bar dropped. “Now you.” 


“Now me what?” 
“Yours. Tell me yours.” 


Lavoie hummed, picked at his granola bar. Fine blond hair brushed 
his forehead, and Anselman wanted to touch it. “There’s not too 
much to tell. My siblings died when | was nineteen. Brother and 
sister. Car accident, they were hit by a semi.” He shivered. His voice 
was soft and factual. “I was in school, six hundred miles away.” 


Anselman placed a big, soft hand on Lavoie’s sky blue shoulder, 
and felt the thin man shudder. “It’s okay. It wasn’t your fault.” 


“| wanted to....” 
“I know. Me, too.” 


“And everyone here, we've all lost someone. In emotional or 
physical ways. Maybe it makes it easier for us to accept everything 
else here.” Lavoie’s voice dropped to a whisper, and he said, lips 


barely moving so the cameras wouldn't catch it, “I started working 
here because | loved it, the weird stuff, the wrong stuff—but when | 
met the humans they were all my sister, and they were all my 
brother. | can’t help but humanize them.” 


The hairs on Anselman’s arms stood on end. “Don't say that.” 
“Don't tell anyone | did.” 


Anselman nodded, and pocketed his candy bar, and went back to 
his dorm without looking back. 


They asked questions in the hallway, now. They crossed paths twice 
a day, once on the way to their assignments, and once on the way 
back. They each got one question a day, because they were always 
in too much of a rush to ask many more. 


Anselman asked, “Is that your actual hair color?” 


Lavoie tilted his fine blond head and said, “Yes.” On the way back 
he asked, “Do you really need those glasses?” 


“Yes,” Anselman said, adjusting his unstylish glasses. The next 
morning he asked, “Why do your pajamas match?” 


“| like the way they look, and how they feel. They’re very soft,” 
Lavoie said. He ran his fingers down his arms absentmindedly, and 
Anselman felt the hair on his own stand on end. He thought all day 
of what Lavoie would ask him that afternoon, but was still caught off- 
guard when he asked, “What did your t-shirt mean?” 


“Where’s the beef? Like Wendy’s? Come on, Lavoie,” Anselman 
said, laughing. They were falling into a rhythm, preparing questions 
during the day and overnight, presenting them like offerings when 
they passed, no longer parallel lines but overlapping waveforms. 
Anselman asked, “How do you stand those granola bars?” 


And Lavoie said, “I crush them up and eat the bits out of the bag.” 
And that evening: “Do you ever get cavities from that much candy?” 


“No, I’ve got strong teeth. Worst | get is a headache. Who do you 


hang out with outside of here?” 


“No one. My best friend is Dr. Wu, she’s in observation. What are 
you in?” 


“| got my doctorate in botany, so they put me with the plants a lot. | 
guess that’s why I’m with the lemon. You?” 


“Child psychology. Do you have any friends?” 


The question gave Anselman pause, ticking clock, furrowed brow, 
but he answered, “I have you, | think.” Lavoie made an expression, 
and Anselman couldn't tell if the expression was pity or fondness, 
and he tried not to dwell on it. He asked that afternoon, “Do you play 
any instruments?” 


“A little cello. Do you play sports?” 
“A little football. What’s your name?” 


Lavoie smiled. Anselman realized while he had seen Lavoie laugh 
many times, he had never seen him smile. The sight made his heart 
race. “Charles,” Lavoie said, and without pausing for the time to 
pass, he asked, “What’s yours?” 


Anselman swallowed and said, “Peter. Nice to meet you, Charles.” 


“Likewise, Peter.” Lavoie winked and leaned forward to whisper, “1 
like your silly pajamas.” 


“Thank you,” Anselman said. He was trying very hard not to blush. “I 
like yours, too.” 


They asked questions in the hall, but it was another two weeks 
before they saw each other at night again. This time, Anselman 
swung his door open, snack tokens tight in his hand, and found 
Lavoie staring back at him, fist raised as if to knock. They stared at 
each other, watery blue, unstylish glasses. Bated breath. 


Lavoie lowered his hand and raised the other one, proffering a 
Snickers bar. “I couldn’t sleep.” 


“So you came to me?” 


“Wu is in dorm C. You're closer.” He smiled again, and Anselman 
could not fight the blush this time. Lavoie didn't notice, or pretended 
not to, and he said, “Can | come in?” 


“Yes.” Anselman stepped aside, and he watched Lavoie walk into 
his room, a sight made real that had been plaguing his dreams for 
months. Lavoie’s hair stuck up at the back, and Anselman wanted to 
fix it. He wanted to touch it. He wanted to touch him. 


Lavoie had turned and was looking at him, eyes shimmering with 
their constant moisture. They almost glowed in the dim light of the 
glow-in-the-dark stars Anselman had stuck to his ceiling. Anselman 
closed the door. Lavoie blinked, and looked around. “Nice room. | 
like the stars.” 


“Thanks.” 


Lavoie poked at the desk chair, totally covered in dirty laundry. “No 
chairs.” 


“Didn't anticipate company,” Anselman replied, and he knew he 
sounded gruff, and he knew he sounded nervous. “You can sit on 
the bed.” 


“Thanks.” Lavoie did, he moved to the bed and perched on the 
edge, looking at Anselman with an expression he couldn't parse, like 
code, like anart. A self-contained anomaly. Anselman sat next to 
him, and their knees almost touched. Lavoie stared at them, at the 
knees that almost touched like parallel lines, and then he said, “I’m 


gay.” 
Anselman jolted like he’d licked a lightbulb socket. “What?” 


“I’m gay. | just...wanted you to know that. | thought it might be 
important.” 


“Why?” 


“Because—I don’t know. Because of what we’re almost doing.” 
Lavoie looked up into Anselman’s unstylish glasses. “What are we 


doing? | didn't... misread?” 


“No, I...” Anselman swallowed. “I haven’t, in a while. Not since my 
wife left.” 


“We've been flirting, right? In the hallways?” 
“I've been trying to. Have you?” 
“Of course. Do you want to...?” 


Anselman’s heart was pounding and his throat was dry. 
Unthinkingly, he tore into the Snicker’s bar, cheeks burning bright 
like the sun. He wanted to touch Lavoie. “Yes, | think so.” 


“If you don’t want to—” 


“| want to.” Anselman swallowed the bite of candy and set the rest, 
unwrapped, on his bedside table. “I want to, but it’s hard. Not 
because you're a guy, but because—l've told you things | haven’t 
told anyone here, and | don’t know why. | don’t talk to people, but 
you're pushy, and you're honest, and | like your smile, and | haven't 
kissed anyone in nearly ten years. It’s been a while. | don’t know 
how to do this anymore. | want to touch your hair.” 


Lavoie wasn’t looking at him, he was looking at his bedside table. 
He wrinkled his nose at the unwrapped chocolate. “That’s how you 
get ants.” 


Anselman laughed, a real laugh, one from his chest, and Lavoie 
looked up at him with his watery blue eyes crinkled in a smile. 
Without pausing to let his brain come up with more excuses, 
Anselman pushed his big hands into Lavoie’s hair, letting them glide 
over the fine blond strands, and he kissed Lavoie. He kissed him 
and it tasted like granola, and chocolate, and it knocked his unstylish 
glasses askew. He kissed him and he felt safe. He kissed him and 
light began to bloom inside of them both like the light from the snack 
machine, reaching down the empty corridors where terrible things 
were contained and beyond. 


Until Death 


She didn't hear it. Not at first. 


At this time of night, the labs were deserted. The whole of Site-120 
was practically empty: corridors dim and silent, offices shut, 
experimental apparatus crouched in shadowy chambers. There 
were no anomalies contained on site, so the only people left in the 
compound were a couple of security staff. And a sixty-three-year-old 
researcher, hunched over a bench full of notes and textbooks, a 
single desk lamp bright against the lab's enveloping darkness. 


She had always been wrapped up in her work, her colleagues said. 
There was no-one to go home to. She had been with the Foundation 
for many years, many late nights like this, engrossed in the 
calculations and correlations spread in front of her. And so she didn't 
hear the noise, not when it started. 


A soft, crackling hiss from the far corner of the lab, a sound like wet 
leaves in a fire. Like whispers from a dried-up throat, just at the edge 
of hearing. It wasn't until she breathed in the smell - faint but thick 
with rot - that she started from her work, turned, and noticed the 
sound. 


The researcher pulled herself down from her lab stool, that familiar 
stiffness in her hips an unwelcome reminder of the hours and years 
she had been in the lab. Absently she pushed her glasses back up 
and peered across the darkened room. The noise was still there. A 
few seconds of listening failed to resolve it into anything readily 
explainable. She had taken four steps across the lab when the lamp 
behind her blinked out. 


Swallowed in darkness, she froze. The noise had gone. Her 
breathing had grown rapid and shallow, and she forced two deeper 
breaths before taking out her phone and switching on the torch. 
After a moment's hesitation, she turned back to the workbench to 
see what had happened to the light. 


As the torch beam swung, the first thing she registered was that 
there was something different on her pile of work. Something 
foreign. Dark. Wet. Bloody. Her brain caught up: it was a human 
kidney, complete with ureter and a tangle of blood vessels. It 
glistened in the torchlight, a crimson stain seeping into the paper 
beneath it. Her throat grew tight. 


The noise started again. It was thicker, somehow. Moist. She looked 
over her shoulder, indecisive. Her brain was blank, reacting without 
thinking - a thousand other choices pushed out by the sheer 
impossibility of that noise, this mangled organ in front of her. Stay 
here or go there? Almost before she realised, she was walking 
cautiously across the shadowed room towards the source of the 
sound. 


The torch lit up the back wall of the lab, a corner behind the mass 
spectrometer. A black smear had spread across it, the paint and 
plaster bubbling and flaking in a slow roil. The whispering sizzle was 
louder, and the air was heavy with an oily stink of decay. Close to, 
she could see the surface of the wall had softened, sagging in wet 
bulges. She hesitated. 


The hand shot out of the wall faster than thought. Its fingers were 
broad and grey, sticky with black mucus, grabbing her forearm. 
Instantly her lab-coat started to melt, and as she yanked her arm 
away the sleeve tore off, disintegrating. The fingers snatched at her 
again, and she dropped her phone. As she stumbled backwards, the 
torch shone up from the floor, lighting the figure that pushed its way 
through the mottled, fleshy wall. 


It looked like an old man, decrepit and rotten. It was naked, its skin 
slick and shiny as pitch. Its flesh was withered and decomposing, 
with missing toes and misshapen feet. A distended gut protruded 
obscenely from beneath a narrow chest, arms spread wide ina 
mockery of greeting. Above a ruined throat, she saw a too-wide 
mouth locked in a rictus grin, and eyes - oh god, those eyes. The 
thing emerging from the wall before her looked like a man, but its 
eyes were grey and flat as a shark's. 


The researcher took another two steps back, reaching behind her for 
something, anything solid to hold. Her breath caught in her throat. 


unobserved section, at which point they disappear from the line and 
are no longer to be found. 


Items of luggage "produced" by SCP-985 (hereby collectively 
designated SCP-985-1) appear to exhibit mild inhibitory effects on 
certain areas of the human brain. This results in a general inability to 
distinguish SCP-985-1 luggage from normal baggage of similar 
appearance, resulting in SCP-985-1 items being mistaken by airline 
passengers for their own belongings and withdrawn mistakenly. The 
effect persists upon the luggage being opened, often resulting in 
accidental injuries to the recipients of SCP-985-1 when they attempt 
to make use of the contents. 


SCP-985 was brought to the Foundation's attention following the 
events of -19 , when apiece of SCP-985-1 luggage was retrieved 
by a businessman whose connecting flight was delayed. Upon the 
luggage being passed through security again before boarding the 
connecting flight, the presence of [DATA EXPUNGED] and electrical 
components, as well as high levels of gamma radiation, resulted in 
the airport being placed into lockdown and the man being detained 
for questioning. Foundation agents were called to the site following 
the discovery of the original luggage in the "unclaimed baggage" 
area, as well as luggage belonging to several other passengers, all 
of whom, when contacted, were discovered to have also mistakenly 
acquired SCP-985-1 luggage. 


Addendum 985-001: List of notable contents of SCP-985-1 luggage 


« Assorted scrap metal 

¢ Several sets of clothing, of various styles, composed of an 
unknown metallic fiber. On being worn, the fiber scrapes 
against the skin of the wearer, typically causing numerous 
shallow cuts across the skin and heavy blood loss. 

* One (1) United States Army-issue M16 assault rifle, fully 
disassembled 

* One (1) plastic water bottle, containing highly compressed air 
(est. pressure 400 kPa). Models suggest that any attempt to 
open the bottle would result in massive injury to the would-be 
consumer via the resulting pressure release. 

* One (1) steel crowbar 

* One (1) bottle of shampoo, identified by the label as 


The old man stood still, dripping black foulness onto the floor as the 
tiles began liquefying beneath him. Her phone sank beneath the 
surface; the torch flickered out. In darkness, she ran. 


She was panting by the time she reached the lab doors, ruing her 
age, the extra weight she carried, every exercise session 
postponed. As she turned to close the doors behind her she could 
see that hideous figure pacing deliberately across the room. 
Something about its lack of hurry unnerved her deeply. She forced 
herself to keep running down the corridor, calling for the night-guard, 
hoping he was close. 


"Frank! Frank!" 


After the second turn she saw him, halfway from the guard station, 
gun in his hand. 


"What's wrong?" Frank jogged up to her, and she doubled over, 
spots in her vision. 


"Frank, thank god. It's -" Her chest was heaving, and she could 
hardly speak. How could she describe what she had just seen.