Gary, Indiana

So, everyone knows how awful Gary, Indiana is. It’s not like there’s some f*****g secret about that. The secret is WHY it’s so f*****g terrible.

I worked in Gary for five years, from 2011 to 2016. I’m a government contracted worker, and let me tell you, it was a hell of a contract they gave me to work there. I had to sign all sorts of non disclosure agreements, privacy contracts, all kinds of s**t. But hey, my doc just gave me three months to live, so what the hell are they going to do about it?

Anyway, everyone has probably heard about Gary at some point in their lives, whether through passing conversations, travel guides for the worst destination in America, or just because the Jackson Five lived there. Hell, there’s a thread here on Reddit every other week about how awful the place is.

If you’re somehow uninitiated, Gary has around 78000 residents. They also have one of the highest murder and crime rates around. The place was booming around 1960, but since then has lost over half of the population and everything is rotting. You’ll see abandoned houses on every corner, rundown steel mills, and quite a few drug deals. F*****g paradise, right?

The government thought so. Thing is, there’s a lot more happening under the surface of Gary. Literally, under the surface. Around 1983 the US decided that Gary was the prime candidate for a new research base. I got hired on to work on their infrastructure. There’s miles of tunnels down there, going at least five miles deep and covering the entire area of the town. Pretty sure some of it even goes under Lake Michigan. I know I saw a few containment chambers full of water in there.

Everyone thinks that Area 51 is where the government keeps all of its secret stuff. The UFO stuff they think is in there is child’s play compared to Gary. This is where the government keeps their big guns. S**t not even the president gets to know about. When I was there the two big projects were genetic manipulation and inter dimensional travel. They were making monsters, and bringing them in from elsewhere.

They manage to keep it all secret because nobody wants to go to Gary anymore. Everyone in the town itself is paid by the government, employed to make the place look as awful as possible. They’re basically given free reign to run amok as they please, murdering and maiming whoever they want.

The facility itself can only be accessed through one of the run down steel mills. There’s a small lift that when you put in the right sequence on the control panel it takes you down to the first level. This is where they keep all the basic stuff they do, the low level s**t. Research into bio weapons and things of that nature. As you go lower things get more intense.

There are nine levels to the whole thing. The folks working there joked about them being called the “Nine Circles of Hell”. They weren’t far off. Level’s 1-4 are your basic secret government research fields: weapons research, biological warfare, espionage tech… basic s**t.

By the time I had been there for three years, I had been down all the way to level seven. I was working on expanding the tunnels throughout each level, but five through seven had a few other additions they wanted.

In level five they were working on the genetic experiments. From what I saw this involved all kinds of splicing DNA together and making entirely new creatures. I got contracted to build cells and containment centers down there. The things I saw still give me nightmares.

One of the creatures I built a cell for used to be a person. Emphasis on used to be. They had spliced the poor b*****d together with DNA from (what I could gather) was a shark, a bear, and some sort of bug. F****r was huge, at least eight feet tall. He was covered in fur, but had gills and teeth that would put the big bad wolf to shame. Its eyes were like a fly’s, bulbous and sectioned into smaller areas. That thing could see every which way and would follow you around the room.

I had the misfortune of being there when it broke its initial containment. They had been trying to train it, make it into some kind of soldier or something. They had it restrained and were giving it commands when it suddenly snapped. It started thrashing around, muscles bulging and teeth gnashing, then it broke the restraints like they were paper.

I’m not entirely sure on what happened next. I was too busy running the hell away. I did see one of the head researchers get grabbed. Next thing I knew there was a shower of blood coming from his neck. The thing twisted the poor f*****s head off and started drinking from the stump like a water fountain.

Once it had its fill it used the guys body to bat some others out of the way. I had barely reached the lift door when another body went flying past me, hitting the steel wall head first and bursting like a watermelon.

Security finally got him subdued. By subdued I mean “killed stone f*****g cold dead”. They fired off at least ten full magazines from their riles into the thing until it was no more than a twitching mass on the ground.

After that they gave me a couple of days off, I guess to deal with the trauma. Guess they didn’t realize that days off didn’t count since I was still stuck in f*****g Gary. I sat in my room all day, wondering if what I was doing was even worth the money.

When I went back in the next day they showed me their newest creation that needed a home. Some mad f**k had the bright idea to splice together a human with a tarantula, and give it wings. Spiders are bad enough on their own but holy s**t. They wanted me to build a huge containment area where they could let this thing run free and build its webs.

This is why so many people go missing in Gary. They want to make sure to keep the idea that you shouldn’t go there, so some agents will set up road traps around the town to catch travelers. The poor souls that get captured either get used in the experiments, or get fed to them.

There’s a lot more I need to tell about this place, but the pain is getting pretty bad. I’m going to have to take some of the meds the doc gave me and lie down. I promise to update this though. Everyone needs to know what kind of f****d up things America is doing to its own people.

  • Jai Lynn

    I like the story, please tell more😀

  • PurplexiaSphinx

    I’ll be fully honest, I didn’t know what to expect when I read this. Certainly not winged human-spider hybrid monster. In a good way, I like weird things. Splicing fantasy creatures is a hobby of mine. Would love to see what else is in store!

  • Daniel Di Benedetto

    This took a really unexpected turn. I liked the dryness of the main character, and it was a creative and original plot. Nice work.