False Prophet

Jacob was your average guy. He didn't stick out much, going about the day to day life in the small suburb he called home. Wake up in the morning, eat breakfast, drive down to work, come home, eat dinner, and go to sleep again. He had a wife, the love of his life with whom he was rasing two kids. All seemed normal, to those that knew him at least. But then something changed.

Jacob devoloped a cough. Just a simple ordinary one that didn't seem to want to go away anytime soon. He tried various medicines, none of them seemed to help. As he arrived home one day, a week or so after the cough had developed he found an odd sign painted on his front door. He assumed it was some sort of prank, or graffiti by a neighborhood gang, going back to his normalcy until later that night.

The first thing Jacob noticed was a loud crash as his door was smashed in. Voices shouted downstairs, and as he got out of bed to investigate several men in masks and armed like military grabbed him and dragged him kicking and screaming out of the house and into a large van. The back of which was opened, two men aiming large guns into the back while the others dragged Jacob over and threw him into a pile of other people. Some neighbors, but most were men and women he'd never met. Before he could protest, the door was shut, and shortly after he heard the hum of an engine.

Jacob didn't know how long the van drove, other than it seemed an eternity. Countless minutes spent huddled together with far more people than such a van should normally fit. Occasionally the van would stop, and some new poor soul was hurled inside and the ride resumed. Hours passed before the van made one final stop. The back opened, and Jacob was greeted with the sight of an old, abandoned railway.

Rows of masked and armed men hurded Jacob and the others over to various boxcars, slamming the doors behind them once they were full. Some tried to escape, but the second they did three shots would ring out and halt them. Jacob followed the demands, afraid for his life, finding a corner in one of the box cars to sit in. The cars weren't nearly as crammed full as the van had been, but that's all that could be said for them.

Days passed, occasionally throughout the day more masked men would open the doors to a car, several with guns trained on the prisoners while the rest tossed in cans of food and bottles of water. They would also take groups of five or six out with them, never to be seen or heard from again. At night, screams would be heard throughout the yard. Terrible, horrible screams, like people being torturted in the worst ways imaginable. Few prisoners could sleep through this.

One day, Jacob was one of the unlucky, or lucky ones, to be taken out of the car. He followed the line of others as they were lead over to a large abandoned warehouse. Each was then singled out and lead to a small room along the sides of the building, before being locked inside. Hours passed, and through a window Jacob watched the sun begin to set. Finally, the door opened and in stepped a man Jacob had only known through televised broadcasts.

A tall, older man dressed up in fine clothing. He raised his hands, trying to calm Jacob, before instructing him to sit down. He obeyed, knowing this man and knowing he had no other option. As he sat down in the chair, the man stood behind him. Jacob leaned back in the chair, trying to relax and not panic as the man spread his arms.

A strange odor began to fill Jacob's nostrils, one so potent and so foul it made him choke. He coughed and wheezed, too stunned by the stench to question its origin. Then a sudden pain began rippling through his body, which spasmed and seized. Jacob screamed, in a mixture of pain and horror as his body began to change and mutate. His arm was first, expanding and hardening into a chitinous pincer like digit, before his leg followed suit. The bone structure altering, causing his knee to suddenly bend in the opposite direction.

All throughout his torment the man behind him screamed orders at Jacob, orders he couldn't make out through the horrible pain and his own screams of anguish. Screams that deepened over the minutes, sounding more and more like gutteral roars. The sounds an animal would make as it's slaughtered. Jacob finally slumped to the floor when it was over, his skin a pale grey, his lower jaw completely split apart into twin mandibles. All he could do was lie there, too weak from his ordeal to do anything more.

The man who had been behind him stepped out of the room, taking a swig from a hip flask before looking up at a window in the roof of the warehouse. He dropped his flask upon seeing someone there, and whispering "Cole....you bastard..."