Three Hours

      In all the years of being a cop, I’ve never had to do something like this. The cop is suppose to spend three hours in a empty store. This entire town is empty. But why? The same thought kept running through his mind like a broken record. He and five other cops came to this town to meet a brother of one of the cops. Yet, when they arrived the entire town was empty.
         This is a freakin’ ghost town. “No, that’s not true. A ghost town doesn’t leave butterflies in your chest and your stomach.” the cop said. These aren’t butterflies, more like wasps. “Okay, I’m here to search this creepy, black store, not to think to myself.” said the cop. “What does he expect me to find in a store with no lights? A fluorescent ghost?” the cop muttered to himself.
         All of a sudden, he started to hear static fill the room. It snapped his senses back to reality. He was in the back of the store. Using his flashlight, he could only see cardboard boxes stacked on top of each other. That still didn’t explain where the static is coming from. “John, come in.”. The voice quickly replaced the static. It was his handheld transceiver.  He pulled it of his belt and press a button. “I’m here, Ken.” the cop, called John, said into the transceiver.
         “Found anything?” the voice asked. “Nothing but a bunch of boxes.” said John. He paused to think for a second, then spoke into the transceiver again. “How’s Lenny?” he asked. Nothing. Nothing but static. “I haven’t gotten a response from him.” the voice called Ken responded. More static followed.
         John hung the transceiver back on his belt. When he put it back, his hand brushed against something. It was his gun. Even though the six cops were off duty, they formed a truce to always keep their gun and transceiver on them at all time. None of them really know why they formed this truce.
         John’s gun was a 9 millimeter handgun. Ken carries a semi-automatic pistol. Lenny, the cop John asked about, carries a .357 magnum that has been in his family for six generations. “I might as well look for a fuse box.” John said. He started to move through the maze, the box towers formed. He soon figured out the room is about the size of three walk-in closets put together.
         After tripping over several small boxes, and have something crunch beneath his feet, he found a old fuse box. Before he even opened the door of the fuse box, he wanted to see what he stepped on. He looked at the bottom of his right sneaker. The white bottom of the shoe was plagued with some red sticky liquid.
         It had a horrible smell. It smelled like cigarette smoke and a pot of tomato soup that has been sitting on the stove for six weeks. He cleaned the red liquid off his shoe with the sleeve of his brown leather jacket. As soon as the liquid got onto the sleeve of his jacket, it did something strange. It started to grow. It started to cover the entire sleeve. It then moved to the rest of the jacket.
         As quick as he could, he took the jacket off and threw it on a couple of boxes. The red liquid, within minutes, covered the entire jacket. The jacket then suddenly dissolved. Whatever the red liquid was, it dissolved the jacket like acid. The red liquid started to eat away at the boxes. Without thinking, John pulled out his gun and fired a few shots at the thing. The thing just swallowed the bullets. John could see the bullets dissolve inside the thing’s increasing body.
         John noticed something. He had his flashlight on, pointing at the thing. He turned the flashlight off. The thing glowed with a bright blue light. Knowing bullets wouldn’t stop it, he grabbed  something nearest him. It was a fire extinguisher. He  pulled the pin out, aimed it at the thing, and squeezed the handle.
         The white foam covered the red glowing dissolver. The second the foam came in contact with the thing, it let out a hideous screech. It got smaller and smaller until there was no sign left of the thing. John let the extinguisher drop with a loud noise. It echoed through out the room.
         He turned back to the fuse box. He just stared. The fuse box is gone. Not like it torn from the wall, more like it disappeared. He pointed to where the fuse box once. “Wasn’t there a…..?” he said, finding hard to speak. John looked to the right of him. There was a door. “Was that there earlier?” he asked.
         He walked towards the door. The door was made of polished wood. It had no doorknob. He tried pushing on it. He tried with all his strength. It would open. He backed a few feet away from the door. “I guess I’m going to have to knock it down.” said John. John spent ten years of his life learning the martial arts. He lifted his left leg and kicked the door as hard as he could. “OWWWWWW!”. John dropped to the floor.
         It felt like he kicked a door made of titanium steel. He tried to stand up, but to no avail, he couldn’t. He pounded on the door with his fist. All of a sudden, his fist went straight through the door. It was like putting his hand in gelatin. “HOLY SH---!” he shouted. Before he could even complete his sentence, on the other side of the door, something slimy grabbed his hand. He tried to pull his hand. He couldn’t. Whatever was on the other side was clearly stronger than him. Soon his entire arm was through the door.
         It hurts worse than breaking his legs. “AAHHHHHH!” he yelled as the rest of him was pulled through the gelatin door. When he was pulled through, he had his eyes closed.
After five minutes, he opened his eyes. He expected to see the face of whoever it was that pulled him through the door.
         Nothing was staring at him. He finally stood up. He turned to check out the door. He nearly jumped, when he looked. Just like the fuse box, the door was gone. “Something strange is going on here.” he whispered to himself. He turned back around. Unlike the room, he was just in, this one was brightly lit.
         The entire place had shelves filled with food products and other miscellaneous products. Towards the front of the store, there were cash registers and two glass doors leading the way out. Having enough, he ran straight towards the doors. WHAM!! Too excited to get out, John hit his head straight on. He rubbed his head. He looked up . “NOOOOOOO!!!” he yelled. The glass doors were gone. In their place was a long mirror. A twenty-five year old man with long blonde hair and blue eyes is staring at him.
         “What are you looking at?” John said to his reflection. His reflection put on a big grin. “Are you enjoying yourself, John?” the reflection ask. John was completely stunned. “LET ME OUT!” John said yelling at his reflection. When he said that, his reflection vanished. John stood up. All of a sudden, a hand grabbed his shoulder and twirled him around.
         This time, it was no mirror he was looking at. There was himself, staring at him. It had the same grin his reflection had. “I’m afraid I can’t let you out. You see, I’m not done playing.” it said. “My name is Zacteph.” The thing, that looked like him, said as he circled John.
         “Nice body, John. Do you have a girlfriend?” Zacteph asked. “What do you want with me?” John asked without taking his eyes off Zacteph. “You already want to get down to business? But we haven’t even finished playing.” Zacteph said sounding like a five year old boy. John’s anger-filled eyes stared at Zacteph.
         “Fine. I want you to give your buddies a little message. Tell them they must leave or they will get to spend the rest of eternity in The Fire of The Flies. That includes you.” Zacteph said. Before John could reject, Zacteph  placed his hand on John’s head and twirled him six times.
         To John, everything became a blur. He started to feel sick to his stomach. Soon, everything went black. When John came to, he was lying just outside the store he was just in. John realized he was lying in a pile of his own puke. He heard footsteps running towards him.
         He looked up. It was the owner of the voice that had appeared on his transceiver, Ken. Ken had his transceiver in one hand, semi-automatic pistol in other hand. Ken’s green eyes were filled with fear. His red hair looked like a cat had been licking it.
         “Oh my god! John!” Ken shouted. He knelt down beside John and held John’s head in his lap. “What happened? I’ve been trying to get you on the transceiver but you never responded. You were only suppose to be in the store in for three hours. Why did you stay in there for six hours?“ Ken asked, even his voice was filled with worry.
         John stared at him. “Six hours?” he said, puzzled as heck. Ken just stared at him. “Zacteph.” John muttered, before everything went black. Ken sat there thinking what Zacteph is.