Always Free Fiction: The Heads Don’t Sleep Either—SCP-5022, Ep2
"Uh-oh...the kids are awake..."
Who is ready for the conclusion to “The Heads Don’t Sleep Either—SCP-5022”? You are!
Not because you want it to be over, but because you just can’t wait to find out how this totally messed-up, completely whackadoo, WTF Jake, story is gonna turn out.
That’s the reason. Don’t argue.
This story is the last one I’ll share from They All Bleed: Ten NoSleep Stories, Volume Two. So far, I have shared three stories from Volume Two. That means there are seven more you haven’t read! That’s math!
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Alright, I think that’s it. Enjoy the conclusion to “The Heads Don’t Sleep Either—SCP-5022”.
Oh, and have fun and make good choices!
Cheers!
The Heads Don’t Sleep Either—SCP-5022
Episode 2:
They leave around four in the afternoon.
I see them pull away in the truck after getting up to fetch more coffee from the kitchen. The truck is a loud diesel, so it’s hard to miss. I pour my coffee and head to the front room just as they drive past my house.
They’ll be gone for a few days, which will be nice. No neighbors for a bit. Should be peaceful.
I need to really consider hunting. Now is a good time.
Except, it might be a good time to have a little peek inside that garage.
Nah. Nope.
I shove the thought away.
That’s how you get caught. You make stupid mistakes and push your luck. They’re neighbors, that’s all. Be friendly from afar. Don’t get involved.
But…
I finish up my work for the day, which was mostly meetings over Slack and Zoom. After grilling some lake trout I’d caught over the weekend, I relax on my deck with a tumbler of whiskey as the sun goes down behind my house.
The light is incredible on the water.
I think about what I might do tonight. I really should go hunting. It’s been building up in me for a while. If I don’t take care of the urge, then it’ll get to that point where I’ll make a mistake. Can’t have mistakes.
Speaking of…
The laughter from next door starts up. It’s earlier than usual. Or maybe I’ve only noticed it in the middle of the night.
The laughing gets louder and louder. Same with the splashing.
What the hell kind of recording is that? What could the husband and wife be researching that needs a soundtrack like kids playing in a water tank?
The sun finally sets, and I head back inside. I really hope that noise isn’t going to be permanent. I’m not a fan of neighbors to start with. But noisy neighbors? That’s not gonna work for me.
I grab a popsicle from the freezer and plop on the couch to watch a movie.
I startle awake and realize I have melted popsicle all down the front of my shirt. Look at me dozing off in front of the TV.
I’d be happy about the surprise nap except I’m feeling anxious like I woke up from a nightmare. I don’t remember a nightmare. So what woke me up?
Then I hear it. A far-off thud. Then another thud. And another.
I scramble off the couch and carefully walk to the kitchen, where I strip off my t-shirt and toss it in the sink. Then I grab some paper towels, dampen them, and head out onto the back deck. I can easily hear more thuds as I wipe stickiness from my chest with the paper towels.
I set the paper towels down and walk to the edge of my deck. I strain to listen.
Thud. Thud.
Laughter.
Thud. Thud. Thud thud thud.
There is no way that’s a freaking recording.
The night grass is damp with dew, and I check my phone. Three fifteen. I cross the small strip of grass separating the two houses and head straight for the window set into the side of the garage. We’re gonna see what’s happening. Yes, we are.
Of course, the window is blacked out by a trash bag taped over it. Hmmm. That’s one of my tricks.
Interesting.
I see the side door and shake my head. No way it’s unlocked. Too easy.
But it is.
I turn the knob and slowly push the door open.
It’s dark, and my hand hunts for the light switch on the wall as I slide inside the garage and carefully close the door behind me. The light illuminates the space, and I have no idea what I’m looking at.
There’s the trailer on one side of the garage, but that’s the most normal part of the scene.
What I’m really staring at is the large tank of water set between shelves and shelves of smaller tanks of water. Inside the large tank are heads. Inside the small tanks are heads.
Kids’ heads.
They all turn to look at me and smile.
Except for the ones on the ground. They sit there, dead and lifeless, on the concrete.
Yeah, just what kind of scientists are these freaks?
I move closer to the heads on the ground, and the heads in the smaller tanks start to get agitated. Their smiles leave, and they begin thrashing about in the water, sloshing some up over the edges of their tanks.
“Calm the fuck down,” I snap at them.
Surprisingly, they do.
I crouch by the heads on the concrete and study them. I don’t touch them. No way do I want my DNA on severed kids’ heads. That’s a rookie move.
The heads aren’t decayed. No water damage either.
“Huh,” I mutter as I stand up.
The kids are smiling again.
A couple of them press their faces up against the glass. How are they moving? They’re heads.
Maybe that’s what the new neighbors are studying. You know, how severed kids’ heads can move and laugh and smile while just being held in water tanks. I didn’t go to college, but I’m fairly certain that isn’t a discipline offered on many campuses.
I approach the large tank. While the water in the smaller tanks is crystal clear, the water in the larger tank is greenish and murky. I have to stand on my tiptoes and reach my arm up over the rim to dip my fingers in the water. It’s a big tank.
I pull my hand back and smell the water, then smile.
Lake water.
I look back at the kids’ heads on the floor. They have puddles of water around them. I look back to the large tank.
Then I look at the kids in the small tanks.
“Were they in there?” I ask and hook a thumb at the large tank.
The kids’ smiles grow wider.
“Should I plop them back in?” I ask.
They all nod.
Okay, this is kinda cool.
I shrug, lift the kids’ heads by their damp hair, and toss them into the large tank.
Instantly, they come alive. Their eyes open and they race around the tank, circling each other.
Then BAM!
They ram foreheads. They both bounce back from each other, nothing but smiles.
They do that over and over again.
The kids behind me start to get agitated again.
I look from them to the large tank and back.
“You guys want a turn?” I ask.
So many smiles.
It takes me a little while to figure out the swimming pattern, but when I do, I’m able to pluck the two heads from the large tank, place them in the two empty small tanks on one of the shelves, grab out two new heads from different tanks on that shelf, and drop those heads into the large tank.
Phew. Kids are a lot of work.
I let these two play for a few minutes before switching them out.
By the time they’ve all had a turn, there’s pink light coming in from around the trash bag taped to the window.
Dawn already?
“Okay, kids, that’s it for tonight,” I say, and grab out the last two heads from the large tank.
With everyone in their respective spots, I walk to the garage door, switch off the light, and say, “Sleep well, you little freaks. Maybe I’ll come back again tonight.”
Weird shit, alright.
***
The next night, I have a baseball in one hand and the doorknob in the other.
They are all staring at me as I walk inside, switch on the light, and close the door behind me. Some are smiling. Some look curious. A few of them are staring down at four heads on the floor.
But my eyes don’t stay on the small tanks or the heads on the concrete. No, my eyes are on the heads in the large tank. Five or six of them, it’s hard to tell because they are racing around the tank so fast I can’t get an accurate, uh…head count.
I become transfixed. I tuck the baseball into my back pocket. This isn’t just play. There’s purpose in the actions. I know it. I can feel it. I check the small tanks, and everyone is watching the colliding heads.
This goes on for over an hour before the pattern changes.
The heads in the large tank suddenly launch themselves upward. They breach the water and fling themselves out of the large tank and onto the floor.
The heads land and rest on the concrete next to the other ones. Five of them. They’re easy to count once they stop moving. Eyes closed, looking like they are asleep, the heads rest there as if they hadn’t been racing around a water tank playing extreme tag.
It takes me a few minutes to gather up all the heads and put them into their correct tanks. And it does matter which tank they go in, I find out. Put the wrong kid’s head in the wrong tank, and they go ape shit.
“Hey!” I snap when one of the heads almost knocks the tank off the shelf. I yank it out of the water and frown at it. “It’s not like the tanks are labeled with your names!”
They aren’t. Bar codes, yes. Name tags, no.
I finally get them all sorted and am about to call it a night when several of the heads decide to jump ship. Literally.
They fling themselves against their small tanks over and over until I’m worried they’ll either shatter the glass or they’ll knock themselves right off their shelves.
Then they stop, giggle directly at me, and as if they are one entity, they ram the lids of their tanks until one by one, each of them falls off.
I don’t see how anything good can come of this.
But the kids are all smiling, and I can feel the anticipation like they want to show me something, so I stay.
“Okay, okay, let me see it,” I say and spread my hands apart, palms up. “Do whatever you are going to do.”
I watch as one by one, the heads launch up out of their tanks and fly through the air. Straight for the large tank.
Three make it, four don’t. The ones that make it are now racing around the large tank, slamming their heads into each other over and over. The ones on the ground do nothing.
But I notice the pattern. It took me a bit, but I see it.
They are all facing toward the lake.
A new thought hits me, and I’m surprised it didn’t occur to me before.
I leave out the side door and make my way to my kitchen.
I’m going to need coffee. A lot of coffee.
***
It takes me all night, but I manage to do it.
The kids are so happy and playful that I’m almost sorry when the line pink arrives on the horizon once more.
I say goodnight to the kids and walk from the shore to my house.
I get inside, shower, and slide beneath my sheets.
What I should do is take some drugs and put myself into a coma. The kids have worn me out, but me being me means I’m not just going to drift off to sleep.
So, I get up, go back to the bathroom, swallow a handful of pills, gulp some water, and crawl back into bed. I’ll sleep all day, then go visit the kids tonight. It’s probably the last night before the neighbors get home anyway.
Then what?
That question is what I’m asking myself when the drugs kick in, and the lights go out.
When I wake up, someone is standing over me.
I go for my side table and the knife I keep in the drawer, but my arm is grasped, and I’m still a little druggy, so I can’t really fight too much.
“You went in the garage,” Logan says, one hand pinning my arm, his other pressed to my chest, holding me in my bed. “Why?”
My mouth is fuzzy and dry, but I wouldn’t have answered him even if I was wide awake and chipper.
“I told you we were leaving and there was nothing to worry about,” he continues. “I came over here and told you.”
I’m not sure how I missed it. I should have spotted it the other day.
He’s not just sleep-deprived, he’s fucking nuts.
And I’d know.
“Did you think we wouldn’t have surveillance?” he asks.
Nope. I didn’t. Wow. Talk about a rookie mistake. The heads took up so much of my attention that I totally forgot to sweep the garage for cameras and mics. Damn those kids…
I grin.
“What’s so funny?” Logan yells. “Do you realize what you have done? DO YOU?”
Then he’s pushed aside, and his wife is suddenly in my view.
“Hi,” I say. Seems polite. “We haven’t met.”
She responds by stabbing a syringe into my neck.
Rude.
***
My head is killing me when I wake up on my dock, sitting in one of the Adirondack chairs, the sun already set.
“We are sorry,” I hear from my right side. “We tried to find somewhere a little more secluded. Somewhere that no one could observe us, but those properties just don’t exist. Not lakefront and not in our price range.”
I swivel my head slowly and see Logan sitting next to me. I catch movement from my other side and pivot my head in that direction.
The wife is standing there, really pissed off. She’s holding a machete in her hands.
Well, shit…
“We only have a couple of minutes before he can feel everything again,” Logan says.
I struggle to stand up. But my body is jelly and refuses to respond. I slump in the chair.
Logan starts talking about saving the heads and acclimating them slowly to the lake water and how I screwed that up and some of them will die now and a whole bunch of other blah bah blah.
My attention isn’t on him, though. It’s on the wife and her machete.
I don’t feel it as they drag me over to the edge of the dock. I don’t feel it as they lay me down with my head hanging over the edge of the dock. All I can see is water.
Except that’s not true.
In seconds, I see six small faces staring up at me, smiling. They laugh and burble as they bob and float at the surface of the lake.
“This will be better for everyone,” Logan says from above me, from behind me. “You’ve been affected anyway. You’ll start to change, too.” He laughs. “You can look after them now. Our job is done.”
I don’t even feel the blade of the machete as it hits the back of my neck.
***
Two of the kids race up to me and bop me on the nose with their own. I can’t help but laugh.
They take off down into the deep, into the dark, and I follow after them. They want me to take them on the tour even though I’ve taken them on the tour so many times.
“Okay, okay,” I say, my words are just burbles and bubbles, but I know they can understand me.
I swim my head about a quarter mile away from my dock and down to a pile of bones.
“This was my fourteenth kill,” I say. “Lucinda. Oh, she was a fighter.”
The kids laugh and swim around me as I tell my tales, moving from one catch to the next.
Then we come to a skull that is my pride and joy. The kids stop laughing and stare at me, waiting for my tale to begin.
“If I wasn’t who I was, I think I would have married her,” I say as I smile down at the skull. “But she didn’t like the lake.”
The kids get agitated, but I know it’s a show. We’ve been through this story a hundred times already. But you know how kids like hearing the same story over and over…
A shadow passes over us, going way too fast.
Vacation renters not following the speed limits. That pisses me off.
“Who feels like fucking with the tourists?” I ask.
The kids laugh and cheer, and race off after the speeding boat. There’s gonna be some piss-soaked swim trunks real soon.
I watch the kids’ heads swim off to have their fun.
I never thought a guy like me would have kids.
Weird shit does happen at the lake, I guess.
***
Description: SCP-5022 is the collective designation for the disembodied heads of twenty-nine children of varying gender and ethnicity, all of which demonstrate the ability to reanimate when submerged in water.
When active, SCP-5022 will move around the available area despite the lack of any visible means of propulsion, inspecting any foreign objects in a curious manner. When more than one SCP-5022 specimen is active within the same area, they will interact by crashing into each other at high speeds. The reason for this behavior is unknown.
Although all SCP-5022 specimens remain silent when under direct observation, surveillance footage shows that when research personnel are not present, all specimens will giggle and laugh loudly, despite their lack of vocal organs. When removed from water, an SCP-5022 specimen will become inert and cease all signs of life until returned.