Rivers of Blood

It was a warm summer's day in the city and you would not know it by looking at the pristine skyline of this city, but it hides a monster, this monster has a name. What is it's name you ask we call it industry, others call it progress. This monster is relentless in its path of destruction against the natural order of things in the world. It is unstoppable. Welcome to Chicago at the turn of the century, business is booming and the order of the day, blood. Of course more than enough human blood has been spilled here, and would continue be spilfor as long as the city stands in the place that it does. But the blood I am talking about is the blood of the beast, the blood of the cattle.

The stockyards of Chicago butchered over one thousand head of cattle, every day. A writer once called it "Butcher to the world." Business men grew with power and riches and the working man was lucky to make it home at the end of the day alive. Chicago has had many blots of terror and death in it's history. It was a place the natives avoided because the land was "The land of the spirits" and it was forbidden to settle there, so of course the white man paid no attention to it and did so anyway. They created a Military fort there in the early 1800's The first fort was a failure, and every human in it was killed. In 1816 the white man came back, determined to dominate the land, they did it this time. Chicago became official in 1833, or somewhere around there.

This place attracted monsters of all kinds, but it really began just after the civil war, in 1865 the Union stockyards seemed to show up and of course, blood meant money. This is when it was called the Butcher to the world as I mentioned earlier. Chicago was known worldwide for the wickedness it attracted. If you had money, or the courage to take it from somebody else, this was truly a paradise for criminals of all kinds. Along the Chicago river places called "The Patches" open up as a secret underground world where anything could be obtained. The police of the day when ever they would be forced to raid these places would only report seeing "The darkest crimes" To avoid spreading a panic in the city. The monsters of the city were in control then, as they are now, and will be in the future.

There is so much I could tell you about the evils of this city, the stories of the victims and the monsters that hunt them in the streets of the dark, but this is not why we are here. I am here to tell you my story, this is the one you wanted to hear, right? I thought so. You want to hear what I have seen, so let us begin my little story.

As I said, it is the Golden age of this city, and people who are making money, are making lots of it. Blood is still money. More so than ever now. My story begins with a solution to an annoying problem. The people in charge of the stock yards finally could not figure out what to do with all the blood from the dead things they had collected. When ever it rained the streets would run red with the stuff and the smell was horrible. It was not so bad in the winter time though, winter never lasts though.

The ones in charge had no environmental restrictions, or for that matter they had no thought of the results of their actions. They had to find away to get rid of human sized blood clots, so what did they do. The did what any other uncaring business man did, they decided to put the blood in the river. Thousands of gallons of blood in the river, every day all the time. Pray that you never in your life time have to see what I have. It defies description, save one. The old testament plague of the water turning into blood this is not good I know but it is nothing I wish to think about. Those Egyptians must have really wanted to keep those slaves to put up with that.

The blood flowed like a slimy beast, invading the river with no mercy or end insight. The river was powerful in its own right, but it was eventually no match for the foreign stuff and eventually began to give way. The Chicago river would turn into, what would look like a river straight out of hell. The blood was seldom empty, it often contained discarded animal parts that would float down get caught along the shore, and rot there. More was added everyday. Some people complained about the situation, but nothing was being done. The ones in power would do nothing to stop their money flow for any reason, and the river became darker still.

There was a fateful day, the day when everything somehow got worse. The river became so choked with carcasses and blood that the current somehow, reversed itself. The River began to flow backwards, although not many could notice because the surface was so covered with dead things and a film that birds and other light animals could sometimes run across the entire width of the river, and not ever touch the water once. It was too bad when drunk workers would see this and think they could do it too, they would run in to attempt the feat and the river would claim them to its vile collection. They would just become more rotting meat for the river. The day the river changed directions the entire city was beset by nature's wrath. Thunderstorms tore through the sky with no mercy, people died from lightning strikes and the rain came and the city was again taken over by those rivers of blood.

Of course nothing changed for the money makers, lack of a conscience meant more money. I was just a worker it was my job to make sure the blood flow remained smooth. This was an increasingly difficult job, the money was good enough for me to keep doing it, I suppose what happened is partly my fault, we are all to blame for this action though in the end. It was almost the end of my shift and something was reported in the river, they told me it was a blood clot, but what else could it have been, it was slightly larger than a human and it was a dark black in color. Something did not seem right with it though. I could not understand it at the time, but it looked like it was alive, and it blinked at me! If I had only listened to the screaming of my mind at the time, maybe we would not be here now. How could it have been an eye, it was impossible and the logic of my mind agreed. It was the end of the day and the light of the sun was beginning to fade away. It was a trick.

I told Jim to go get the prod, we would just push it away like we always had with all the other ones. Once Jim returned with the prod he and another worker who I never really met worked together to get this nasty thing away. I turned my back thinking the job was taken care of then that is when the screaming started. I turned around to see too Jim and the other guy get yanked off the line by a tendril that came from the bloody waters. The other worker, him I didn't know but Jim, he was a good friend of mine since I was fifteen years old, we had always dreamed of making it big someday, no longer. My eyes witnessed this...thing tear Jimmy off the line. I can only pray his death was quick, I will keep telling my self this even though I saw the outline of his body try to escape from the mass in the water, he looked like he was in pain. I only saw him, the other guy. I never saw him again. I froze only for a second before i started to run, back and away from the monster, thats all I can describe it as, what else do you call something like that? It had a noise it made as it rose out of the water, it sounded like somebody choking on their own blood. It is a noise once you have heard it, never leaves your mind, infact I can still hear it.

The men did not stick around to see what it would do next, of course you know what happened to them, it is why I am here, is it not? The thing had the consistency of oatmeal, it was as slimy as the river it came out of. What I thought was an eye was actually a mouth, a horrible mouth filled with what looked liked teeth, this is how I decided it was a mouth. And this thing seemed to be nothing but tendrils and mouths, that is all I could see, that and how it so easily plucked the men as they ran in terror as if it were picking up flowers in a garden. The material of the monster ate through the flesh and it left a burned smell in the air, human body parts littered the scene, but the body itself would be devoured alive. Some of the tendrils tore right through the chests of the people as they ran. This seemed to take forever in my mind, I would know. I keep playing it back in my head all the time now. I do not understand why, or the how of my actions, but something inside of me did the only thing I could think of. I ran to the valve that contained all the blood of a full tank and I opened it up all the way, something you were never supposed to do because the pressure of the blood was enough to tear the flesh of the bone. I figured this was my only chance.

The stream of blood slammed into the monster and it seemed to work amazingly, it was struck and thrown back towards the exit, and it seemed to fall apart under the pressure of my unusual weapon of choice. This id not take long, I did it for Jim, I had to get my revenge. Did I not? I struck the creature with all the force I had to offer, and it worked, it fled and was gone. We humans are not defenseless, I proved it.

That is where you found me, covered in dried blood just staring at the water, waiting for it to come back, I knew it would come back. It had to come back I had to finish the job. I do not care what you say or how many times I have to repeat my story. I did not kill those people, I was the hero, tried to save them, but by the time I opened the valve they were already dead, I didn't kill them, I swear It was not me! It was the thing that came from the blood, it was not me, I swear it was not me.

The last statement of the completely deranged Darell Hom before he committed suicide in his cell with the words "Blood Thing" Written on the walls over and over, save for the window, for underneath of the window is an arrow pointing up to it, under this arrow is written, "I still see it, it is still out there" His view as limited as it was just happened to be able to see the water of the blood stained river. All the words were written in blood, but the source of this blood is unknown, for Darell had no cuts on his body what so ever, where it came from is and remains a mystery to this day.

(Written by Jesse Wilson, 2007)