01 Aug The Farmer

Abe knew something was wrong. He had a splitting headache, and everything was dark. He heard crumbling, and the ground beneath him felt like dirt. He had no idea where he was or what had happened to him. “Hello?” he asked.

No one answered. He was struggling to remember and coming up empty. He had a fuzzy memory of being at his coworker’s baby shower. He remembered thinking it was a little thoughtless to have a baby shower at a bar when the guest of honor couldn’t drink. Something must have happened. Maybe when he left?

Where the hell even was he? He was outdoors somewhere. He had to be. There was dirt, and it felt like rocks. His head was killing him. There was a sharp pain in his forehead like he’d suffered some kind of injury. Did he fall? Maybe he was drunk when he tried to walk home? Maybe he had gotten into some kind of altercation with someone. He would hope that he would remember something like that, but maybe the head injury was the reason he couldn’t.

He felt his head, gingerly fingering where the pain was, and he gasped, removing his hands quickly. There was something there, something….long. He felt it again, his breath seizing in his chest. It was like something long had been driven into his skull. It felt like metal, if he had to guess. Whatever accident he experienced must have been worse than he realized. He tried to reach for his phone to call for help and realized he was naked.

Jesus. No accidental fall after a party at a public bar was going to end up with him naked with something metal sticking out of his head. What the hell was going on? He tried to move, to see if he could find a light source or something to tell him where he was. Moving made him wince. His midsection was in terrible pain too, like he’d gotten stitches or something. He tried to feel the wound, the area where the intense pain was, and there was something else sticking out of him. Oh my God, what the hell is that?

He traced along the strange thing protruding from his side with his fingers. It went on for a long way, longer than his hand could reach. There was a bend in the middle, too, something hard, that felt like a joint in a pipe. He’d done plenty of plumbing. It came with being a homeowner. What kind of fall had he taken that pipes were running through him? The area all around it was so tender. He felt suddenly worried. What if he was bleeding internally or needed a hospital? He didn’t want to die. He wasn’t ready. He was going to ask his girlfriend, Selena, to move in with him. Being a homeowner almost felt wrong when you were living in it by yourself. It was too much space for one person, and things were going so well with her. Where was she now? How long had he been out? If he had gotten badly hurt, he could have been unconscious a long time. Maybe she was looking for him. He hoped to God she didn’t think he stood her up or found somebody else.

Abe didn’t know what happened, but he knew he couldn’t just stay put. He had to move. He twisted and groaned in pain, his hand immediately flying to his other side. There was something coming out of that side, too. Was it the same pipe? Had it gone completely through? Oh God. How could he live through something like that? How could anyone?

He touched the other side of his head to see, and sure enough, there was another thin metal pipe coming from his head as well. His injuries were symmetrical. That was odd to say the least. “Help me!” he cried. “I need help! Please! Can anyone hear me? I don’t know what happened, but I’m injured! Please!”

He heard more crumbling dirt and rocks, but no voices. Still, he took that as a good sign. He hadn’t moved. If dirt was falling, someone was moving somewhere. It meant he wasn’t alone after all. But where were they? Why weren’t they answering him? Maybe it was because they weren’t human. Anything could be out here with him. It could be a wild animal, something that would see him as a very edible slab of meat. He trembled and cried. He let it run its course until he felt calm again at last.

Then he tried to get up, to move again. His body was so awkward with the pipes protruding from his sides and head, but he was going to have to make it work if he wanted to survive this. When he tried to stand, his back hit something, and he fell down hard, crying out in pain as the pipes bent awkwardly and were driven into his body. His panic increased. What did he hit? There was definitely dirt beneath him, but could there be some kind of ceiling? A roof? Was he buried alive? Oh God. If he was, then all that crying and screaming just wasted so much oxygen. His fear of death came crashing back with a vengeance.

He reached a hand over his head and felt a hard surface. It wasn’t entirely smooth, though. It was bumpy and ridged, and as he dragged his hand across it, dirt fell. What was he under? Was he trapped? Were there people up there? “Hey!” he screamed. “Can anyone hear me? Please! I’m trapped! Down here! I’m down here!”

He could see a dim light ahead. Maybe it was a way out? He stayed on his hands and knees and crawled forward, trying to be aware of his newly added appendages. It felt too tight for him. He was so afraid of hitting another wall and finding the end of this underground chamber. At least he wasn’t in a coffin. He felt no wood, no interior, only dirt.

He realized as he oddly crawled forward that he was in some kind of tunnel. That was a good thing, he told himself, because tunnels led somewhere. When he reached the light, his suspicions were confirmed—it was indeed a man-made light. It allowed him to see a section of the tunnel that went forward and then dropped down. That made him nervous. Abe wanted to go up, back to the open air and the human race, not further down into God knows what. What if he got pinned or stuck down there? No one would ever find him. He would die down here for sure.

He might have been too afraid to traverse the tunnel, but at least he could use the light, dim as it was, to get a better view of his injuries. He couldn’t see his head without a mirror, but he could check the pipes in his sides. He tried to lean his side into the light, which forced the opposite side into the ground and made him wince in discomfort. Jeez. How do bugs do it? He wondered. Then he saw the one pipe he was angling toward the light and realized how close to home that thought was. The pipe protruding from his side was no accident. It was something he fell on or had been impaled by during a car wreck. It was coated to match his skin tone and appeared to be made of human flesh. It had fine leg hairs all along its length. Abe was horrified. He didn’t want to know who provided the flesh for his makeshift leg, but he did want to know who put it there and why.

Whatever had been done to him had been premeditated and done with intent. He didn’t have enemies, not in the traditional sense. Sure, there were people who didn’t like him or gossiped behind his back. There always was. Everyone had that, because it was human nature, but no one hated him enough to…. what? Do whatever this was.

“Hello?” he heard a voice call. “Is anyone there? I’m hurt bad. Someone did something to me…something terrible….please!”

Abe started. He looked around and realized quickly that the voice was coming from down the tunnel. Whoever was sharing this space with him must have gone deeper down or fallen over the edge. He crawled forward the best he could, his head pipes, he now assumed, were homemade antennas, scraping against the dirt and rock of the wall and ceiling above. Each time it happened, he felt a twinge of pain, and a trickle of blood ran from the base of the wound down his forehead. He tried to blink it away from his eyes.

The edge of the tunnel was past the light, and he almost went right over it in the dark. He gasped and slammed his hand against the dark wall beside him to keep from falling. “Hello?” she cried again from the darkness below. “Is someone there? I heard the dirt falling. Oh, God, please help me. I need help!”

“I’m here. I’m here,” he said, leaning over the edge. “What do you know?”

“What do I know? What do you mean?”

“About where we are? Who put us here? Why? Why the fuck do I have two additional arms or legs covered in human skin?”

“Wait…” she said. She choked on a sob. “You’re stuck here, too? You’re injured, too? You can’t help me? Oh, God….”

Abe frowned. “I know. I know. I’m sorry. But, hey, when I heard movement and dirt flinging, I thought it might be a wild animal or something that could kill and eat me, so I’m kinda glad that it’s you.”

“Well, I’m not!” she called. “I’m not happy to be your better option. I have a husband and kids who probably have no idea where I am. I’ve been mutilated and I’m trapped in some underground tunnel. I need to get the hell out of here!”

“I know,” Abe told her. “I know. Me, too. Do you have any idea who did this?”

“No!” she screamed. It almost sounded fed up, like she was yelling at him to shut up, but he told himself it was just the weight of the situation. He was freaking out, too. “I was at my sister’s bachelorette party. We were all drinking and having fun, but I cut out earlier than everyone because I had to get the kids up for school in the morning. Now I’m here!”

“Okay, well, we were both somewhere with alcoholic drinks. Whoever did this to us probably spiked them or roofied them or something. That’s something, I guess.”

“I don’t even care about that. I just want to go home. I want to return to my mundane life and get up and get my kids ready for school.”

“I want you to do that too,” he said. “Have you seen or felt anything that can tell us anything? All I’ve got so far is there’s a ceiling, dirt everywhere, and someone made me bug legs and antennas, which are very much attached.”

“Yes, me too, I think. I haven’t seen them, but that feels right.”

“There’s no light down there? There wasn’t any when I first woke up, but I just crawled a bit and there it was.”

“I don’t know. Maybe I could find one if I went further down, but…. I don’t want to do that. I’m scared.”

“Afraid you’ll drop off and get pinned or break a leg or something, and then you’ll get stuck even more than you already are, and you’ll die down here.”

There was a moment of heavy silence, then… “Yeah.”

“Yeah, I get it. You probably don’t want to see anyway. I’m pretty sure they’re made with human flesh.”

“What?” she cried, sounding like she was about to lose it.

“Never mind. Do you want to try jumping, and I can grab your hands to help you get up here? Or maybe the way out actually is down, and I should come to you.”

“I think you should stay right the hell there. You’re just a voice from a different tunnel. For all I know, you could be the person who did this to me.”

Abe sighed. “Seeing me with bug legs would probably dispel that idea,” he said, “but that’s fine. I understand your fear. I just….it’s dark and I’m alone up here… I think.”

“Hey,” she said, changing the subject. “Did you notice the wall that isn’t dirt?”

“What?” Abe asked. He suddenly moved away from the dirt wall he’d kept himself from falling with and crawled through the darkness to feel for the other.

“It feels like some kind of glass or plastic,” she said. “I can’t break it, though.”

Abe ran his hand over the smooth surface. He wished the light reached over there. “I feel it,” he said. “What the hell is this place?”

“I don’t know, but I think I know how zoo animals or sea creatures in the aquarium feel. I’ll never look at them the same.”

“Have you gone anywhere? Where does the tunnel lead?”

“It goes a long way and then drops off….I think into another tunnel, but I’m not sure. That’s why I turned around and came this way and realized it only goes up.”

“There’s a ceiling above me, but I didn’t go to the other end of my tunnel. Let me check it out, and I’ll come back.” He left her before she could answer and worked to turn around, which he found harder than he’d expected. The added legs just got in the way in the small corridor. He grunted and groaned as he worked to turn in the small space. Then he scurried along looking for anything of use. His eyes were beginning to adjust to the darkness, but he still couldn’t make out details. He crawled and crawled and crawled, until he hit a wall face-first. One of his homemade antennas snapped, and he cried out in pain.

“What? What is it?” he could hear her calling to him. He tried to compose himself and feel the barrier with his hands. It was smooth, unmarred, and foreboding. “Can you hear me?” he yelled.

“What?”

“I hit a wall. I’m sorry.”

“Like literally?”

“I’m afraid so. Dirt, not like the plastic or glass. The only way to go is down.”

“Alright. So I’ll wait for you. We can go exploring together.”

“Even if I might actually be a mad scientist?”

“Yes, fine. Whatever. Just come. I’m scared.”

Abe struggled to turn back around. Then he took his new artificial limbs with him through the dirt tunnel back to the other side, where the voice came from the darkness below. “I’m Abe,” he said.

“Jessica.”

“I’m coming down, but it’s hard to get around with these bug legs.”

“I know. I’m backing up to give you space.”

Abe wasn’t sure how to do this. It looked like it just went straight down. He decided to crawl headfirst like a bug and hope for the best. He started out okay, but then slipped and went down hard. Abe turned his head to try to protect it and drove his shoulder into the ground. When he looked up, he almost screamed. It was like a giant ant was towering over him. Then he realized that had to be her, Jessica. She was on all fours, with her two fleshy ant legs protruding from her sides and her pipe antennas, which looked frighteningly real in the dark.

“J-Jess?”

“Jessica, not Jess.”

“Noted. What now?”

“I don’t know. Let’s go down one by one. If there’s nothing, the other person can help us get back up.”

“Sounds good.” He made the mistake of instinctively trying to stand again and smacked the ceiling with a grunt. Then he dropped to all fours and followed her through the dark dirt tunnel. When they got to the end, they took the plunge one at a time. After two levels, he started to get better at sticking the landing, but he was still pretty sure his shoulder was never going to forgive him.

“How far down do you think it goes?” she asked nervously.

“I don’t know. It could go forever for all we know.”

“Well, that’s optimistic. Thank you.” Abe was glad for the darkness so neither of them had to be as embarrassed by their nudity. She made him go in front the one time there was enough room for him to pass. He understood and didn’t complain. He just wanted to find the way out and get to a hospital.

They crawled and crawled and down and down they went, level after level. “What is this place? What is any of this?” he moaned when he started to feel too tired to continue.

“Hell,” she said back. “I think you were right about it being never-ending. But there has to be an exit. How did they get us in here?”

“How would we even know in the dark? The lights are so few and far between.”

“Yeah. We could have passed it already…twice.”

“Do you think we can dig one of the lights out of the ceiling and take it with us?”

“I tried. There’s no stretch. It just tears free and goes out.”

“Damn it.”

“Did I hear someone ask for light?” another voice said. Neither of them was sure where it came from. It sounded like everywhere, the way Abe would have imagined the voice of God bellowing from the sky.

“Who… who’s there?” he asked.

“Was it you?” Jessica yelled. “Are you the one who did this to us? What did you do? What do you want?”

“I would prefer if you worked on chittering,” the voice said, “for authenticity purposes.”

“What the hell?” Abe barked. “Let us out of here! Now, dammit!”

They heard a low chuckle and the sound of slow clapping.

“There must be cameras or speakers lined up in here somewhere,” Jessica said fearfully. “He’s watching us, the sick bastard.”

“Actually, it’s quite dark at the moment. I can’t see you at all,” the booming voice said. “But I can fix that. Allow me. Let there be light!”

One by one, lights flicked on in a room beside the glass wall. It got so bright that Abe and Jessica both turned away. When they looked back, they were staring through a giant, unbreakable window at a room white enough to belong in a hospital. In the center of it was a black recliner. A man was sitting in it, holding a glass of wine in one hand and a cigarette in the other, smoke trailing up toward the lights above. There was a tiny table beside his chair with an ashtray in the middle and a coaster for his drink. It was the only other furniture in the room.

“I’ve got all the buttons right here on my chair,” he said. “Lights, camera, action. I control it all, right from my favorite chair. Isn’t that great?”

He was wearing a wide-brimmed white hat, so it was hard to see his face from where they were. His eyes were bathed in shadow. “What is this?” Jessica cried. “What do you want?”

“Entertainment,” he said, and they could see his smile beneath his shadowed eyes.

“This isn’t right. Why us?” Abe yelled.

“You don’t have to yell. I can hear you just fine. You were both easy. I didn’t grab you myself. No. I have people for that. It’s so easy to get people from alcohol-driven establishments when you offer to get them an Uber or take them home. Everyone just thinks you’re helpful.”

“So that’s it?” Jessica said, her voice filled with sadness. “You took us at random.”

“That’s it,” he said, that smile returning. It was the only part of his face he could see, and it was wide like the Cheshire cat.

“I have a husband and kids,” she said.

“I have a girlfriend and a cat no one is probably feeding,” Abe added.

“Had,” the man said. “You both need to start using the word ‘had’. You’re talking about your old lives. Those lives aren’t yours anymore. Now, you’re ants! It’s time you start getting into character. Be ants. Go… work, crawl, mate.” He set his drink down and clapped his hands eagerly.

“I’m not going to be your ant. Let me out!” Jessica yelled.

“There is no out, so you’d do better to just accept your new life,” the man said, taking a drag from his cigarette. When he exhaled the smoke, he sighed contentedly and sipped his wine. “Mm,” he said, licking his lips. “That’s good stuff. I always wanted an ant farm, you know?”

“I don’t care,” Jessica snapped.

Abe was just trying to take this all in. “Is that what this is? A giant ant farm?”

The man set his drink down on the tiny table beside him and clapped again. “That’s exactly what it is! Bravo! My mother would never allow me to have one. She said they were gross, bugs that lived in dirt. There was no way I was going to have something like that in her house. God, she was so prim and proper, like having money meant not having fun.”

“She sounds terrible,” Jessica said. “Why don’t you let us out of here, and we can talk about it?”

He laughed and pointed at her before picking his wine glass back up and taking a sip. He licked his lips and said, “You’re funny. We’re talking right now. I don’t have to let you out for that. Anyway, I’m never going to let you out. I’ve been waiting my whole life for this, so let me watch you. Go be ants!”

“Go to hell!” Jessica shouted back.

“You don’t seem to appreciate ants any more than my mother did. Ants have survived multiple mass extinctions. They lived with the dinosaurs. They can carry fifty times their own body weight. Do you know any human who can carry fifty times their body weight? No. Because they can’t. Ants are incredible!”

“Then wouldn’t it be better to have real ants, not lesser humans disguised as ants?” Abe asked. Now that the lights were on, he felt exposed. He was trying to hide his own genitals and do his best to avert his eyes from Jessica’s.

The man sighed. His excitement faltered. He sat there in silence and smoked for a while. Jessica and Abe were getting restless. They were looking each other in the eyes and murmuring about what was happening, and why he wasn’t saying anything and what they should do. Finally, he said, “I tried that. The real ants. I made a giant ant farm. They’re so tiny, I couldn’t even see them from here. When I put a whole bunch, I could see them collectively working, but I needed binoculars to see them up close, and then I couldn’t drink my wine or smoke my cigarette, and I am a man of routine.”

“So you decided it would be better to dress people up as ants? Do you hear how crazy that sounds?” Abe asked him.

The man gave a humorless laugh. “First, I tried to stick the big ants in with the little ants, but those ants worked fast to attack them. Apparently, the ants weren’t fooled at all. I thought maybe they would see the giants as their Gods, but nope, they just killed them.”

“Oh my God,” Abe said upon realizing. “You’ve done this before.”

There was that wicked smile again. “So let’s make this time better, huh? Entertain me. Go. Eventually, Jessica will be the queen ant, but you have to mate with her first. Create your colony. I’ll have my surgeon take care of the young, don’t worry.”

“You’re insane,” Jessica said. She spat on the glass wall, and Abe watched it slowly roll down like raindrops. “I’m not cheating on my husband to fulfill your sick childhood fantasies.”

Abe swallowed hard, but he felt like giving in wouldn’t end better for them. The man already said there was no way out. He was going to keep them forever, and this was no life he wanted to live. “She’s right. I’m not doing it,” he said.

“I urge you to change your minds. If you can’t be entertaining ants for me, then I need to start over again, and you don’t want me to do that.”

Abe looked at Jessica. He was envious of how hardened she was when faced with this man. She was so frightened and distressed, but all of that was gone now, transformed into defiance. He took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “You do what you have to do. We’re not playing.”

The man sighed. “Fine,” he said. “Maybe the next ants will be better. I brought you in from the top. It’s the same way the water will come in.”

“What?” Jessica’s eyes went wide. She hit Abe in the shoulder. “Go. Go!” He turned as quickly as he could and tried to scramble up. She was pushing him from behind, modesty out the window. When he got up to the next level, he reached down to pull Jessica up, and he looked over, staring through the clear glass wall at the man in his chair, the ant farmer. Finally, he saw the man’s eyes, and they were filled with anger. He jammed his finger down on a button on the arm of his chair, and Abe could hear a mechanical sliding. He knew without needing to see that it was the door opening. The sound of rushing water followed. He scrambled forward as fast as he could, Jessica rushing behind him.

“We have to beat the water,” she said. “Reach the door.”

In moments, the tunnels were filled with a rushing tide. They tried to hold their breath and keep climbing. Their heads were twisting back and forth as they struggled not to breathe as they crawled and crawled, climbing and digging.

When they reached the top, Abe looked back to tell Jessica they’d made it, and she was floating face down. He grimaced and turned back. He reached up to the door, and it slammed shut, taking two of his fingertips with it. He screamed, and his mouth filled with water. In moments, he was still, floating beside Jessica in the tunnel.

“Well, that was incredible,” the man said, clapping. “They acted like ants after all.” He lit another cigarette and hit a button on his chair. “My ants didn’t last,” he said. “I need you to get me more. Get a whole bunch this time. I think that will be fun. We’ll see if they can come together like real ants. Do you know that ants have a strong sense of community? It’s far superior to humans. They’re such fascinating creatures.”

“Yes, sir,” a voice said back. “I’ll begin retrieving them right away.”

“Splendid,” said the farmer. He sipped his wine and sighed.