Zach
sat in the clammy, spider-infested corner and thought to himself that he had to
find a way out before they caught him. To understand how we got to this point,
we have to start a couple of hours before. Zach was doing his daily routine
right before he began recording for his video blog. He noticed that his keys
still felt sticky from the Coke he had spelled on his keyboard the day prior,
but that would not keep him from reading the comments of his last video. Today
he was extra careful and put the Coke in a water bottle. In the previous video,
he said he would do whatever the most liked comment said. The most liked
comment said to explore the closest abandoned building to his apartment. The
closest abandoned building was a rundown prison right next to a deep brown
alligator-infested swamp, thus making the ground extremely uneven and making it
way too easy for prisoners to escape. However, few prisoners tried because of
the swarms of mosquitoes, making it hard to see. It was about 1.5 miles away.
The road going through had multiple times where you couldn't even drive because
the swamp overran it.
Zach
decided that he would get a good sleep before he headed out the next day
because it was getting late. During the
night, he had a nightmare of being surrounded by shadowed figures that he
couldn’t make any distinctive features out of.
He woke up in a cold sweat but still decided to head out. As he started driving, about three minutes
into the drive, he came into the first patch of undrivable swamp. He parked his car and started walking through
the putrid and humid swamp while being attacked by swarms of mosquitos. It was at this point that he was glad that he
brought mosquito repellent.
After
walking for about twenty minutes, he made it to the prison and started walking
towards the front door. The only problem
was that the front door had been chained and boarded up. So, he walked around and found one door
hidden by vines and alligator nests that seemed to have been pried open
recently. As he started walking in, he
took out his camera and started to record.
He had done some research the prior night about the prison, so as he was
walking, he was explaining all about the prison. Just as he made it out to the first courtyard
at the center of the prison, he heard a strange noise coming from the smelliest
room that smelled like years of decomposing feces. As he walked in, he realized it was the
bathrooms, and one of the stalls had been broken open to reveal a giant press
used for pressing alligator leather.
When he saw that, the first thing that came into his mind was the law
that was passed about six months before that said no killing or selling the
leather of the alligators in the swamp because they had begun to become
endangered. It seemed that these people
here were continuing to press down the leather.
It smelled of a strange oil. Just
as he went to exit the bathrooms, he heard footsteps coming his way. He immediately went to hide in one of the bathroom
stalls.
As
he bolted towards the nearest bathroom stall, he heard their footsteps get
closer and closer. While he was closing
the door, they stepped foot into the bathroom.
Surprisingly, they did not notice, but it was enough time for him to get
a glance at them. The guy closest to him
had a pale, foggy cataract and a surprising lack of a jawline. The white cataract explained why they hadn’t
seen him. They both seemed to be wearing
different fast-food uniforms. One was
Subway, and one was Burger King. The second
guy reminded him a lot of his grandfather with a long beard and a short mustache
that didn’t fit him all that well. As
they were walking in, they were talking about the Blue Jays and the
Mariners. They walked right out and
through the bathroom into the press room.
Zach thought to himself that there had to be some way to escape. Just
then, he heard one of the men run out of the room and down the hall. The other guy ran the opposite way. He had been awfully confused but thought it
was the perfect time to make a break. As
he was running, he heard an engine start-up and get louder and louder and
louder until it was all he could hear.
He was trying to run, find an exit, and escape the horrific noise. Just as it started to get dimmer, he turned a
corner and ran face-first into a bright green wall.
He
felt arms quickly wrap around him as the guy dressed for Subway loomed down and
stared at him. The man first asked,
“What are you doing here?” in a raspy
but light voice. Zach immediately
started rushing through ideas on what to say and whether or not to tell the
truth or try to come up with some sort of lie. Zach said the first thing that came to
mind, “I was lost.” This seemed to surprise the man, and he loosened his grip
just enough for Zach to shimmy out. He
immediately bolted down through the mazes of hallways and rooms with the fading
light shining through the windows. He
finally stopped to rest about 100 feet from where he came in. But just sitting there and about to turn the
corner was the other man. Zach
immediately darted into the closest room, which happened to be one of the jail
cells. This jail cell seemed to have
been used for some sort of escape because there was a hole about a foot into
the wall. Instead of making a risky
break towards the man, Zach attempted to call the police. The moment he pulled out his phone, he
noticed there was no cell service, meaning he couldn’t call anyone. Just then, the sound of the machine cut to an
abrupt stop, and the other man started heading back toward the machinery. Zach immediately made a break for it and made
his way out of the building.
As
Zach was running, he heard a strange grunting noise coming from behind
him. He looked behind him, and there was
an alligator chasing him because of the placement of the door, which led right
to its nest. This fueled the adrenaline
already rushing through Zach’s body to push him to move even faster. This entire time, Zach had been trying to get
any type of cell service he could. Just
as he got a bar, he dropped his phone and tried to stop, but he kept sliding
forward through the mud. When he had
finished sliding and looked behind him, the alligator stopped on top of the
phone and stared him down. After
multiple painstaking moments of the two of them exchanging stares, the
alligator turned around. Just as Zach
picked up his phone, he heard noises coming back from the way he came, so he
booked it back to his car. Then Zach
started calling 9-1-1. After a quick
explanation to the operator, there was one police car sent out, and he was told
just to go home and rest. The next day,
the news was filled with some of the video footage Zach had taken and the story
of the alligator lether ring in their little town. After getting permission to use some of his
footage for his YouTube video, he posted it and decided that he would just
stick to posting videos about his normal life for a bit.
