EXCLUSIVE: Read Lee McGeorge’s ‘Tube Head’ Now!

Tube Head

by

Lee McGeorge

 

I’m not a killer. I know I’m not and in this diary you should see as much evidence as I can collect to show that I’m not. Except what you’ll probably see are the rantings of a madman. I assure you I’m not crazy, but by God, these experiences will eventually push me into madness.

The Tube-Head thing called me out again last night and I managed to make some notes and a few sketches. I haven’t been able to write for a few hours as I’ve been physically shaking and felt as though I was weakened by some kind of poison, maybe even some form of radiation as I’ll detail. My memories of last night are vivid, but as I look through my notes and sketches I question whether it really could have happened.

According to my notes the pull came around seven yesterday evening, the same way as always, with a tightening in my abdomen. It’s like there’s an alien hand inside my belly, squeezing my guts, putting painful pressure on me when I’m moving in the wrong direction and giving relief when I’m heading the right way. I got into the car and followed the pull which set me off driving West. This time, I managed to call into a few service stations that I passed along the route and bought a few simple items just to keep the receipts. I bought a chocolate bar in one and a drink in the next. I’ll attach the receipts to this diary entry as those receipts form a log of the journey with times and locations on them.

All I really recall of the journey is heading down the motorway for a long time in terrible weather. It was dark and wet and the road surface felt so bad that every driver out there was well below the speed limit. When I strain my memory and try to remember all I get is the hypnotic sound of the windscreen wipers, there’s no detail to the route I took. Then I remember driving along country roads and between farms. I remember a car coming towards me with its high beam headlights glaring at me and feeling as though I was at great risk of crashing. The shock woke me from the dreamy state and in the moment of blindness I felt the alien hand in my stomach tighten and relax as I turned the steering wheel to avoid the crash. Whatever this thing is that sends me on these journeys also makes sure I get there in one piece. Maybe that’s why the journey feels so dreamy. Its guidance is so firm that I suspect I could drive blindfolded and this thing would give me the sensations on which way to turn the wheel.

I went to Wales. That’s what the service station receipts say. I started in Oxford and drove West, the last receipt I have is from a place called Swffryd which I’ve learned this morning is a few miles West of Pontypool. I’ve been researching the local area on the internet to try and trace the route and the type of countryside and woodland I’m seeing online fits with my memories.

I brought the car to a halt by some woodland and began walking through forest. I had my waterproof coat which is generally very practical but it was raining so heavily that eventually the water began to seep into everything. My jeans felt wet all the way through and even the socks in my boots began to feel moist. I must have been outside for some time to get in that condition. I remember at one point kind of waking from the dreamy state to listen to the rain falling on my hood. The sound of rain hitting the fabric is quite loud and for a moment it woke me up. I remember looking down at my boots in the darkness in the middle of this forest and sensing they were caked in mud. I couldn’t see them of course, it was far too dark, but that sticky, claggy, muddy feeling was profound. They’re hiking boots but it felt as though all the tread had filled with earth and they now slipped in the mud.

I don’t know how long I waited in the forest but eventually I was coaxed onward and brought to a small cottage. It was quaint; a single story building painted white with a door in the centre and small windows either side. I suspected it was a smallholding or micro-farm. It was too dark to see properly but there appeared to be a field of vegetables and a chicken coop.

I made it to the first window and looked into a rustic kitchen. The lights were off but enough illumination spilled in through the door that I could see a solid oak farmhouse table with two chairs. There were patterned plates in racks, mugs on a mug-tree. The surfaces were clean and tidy but everything looked old.

The rain was incessant and as I moved to the other window I can remember skidding through the mud and almost falling. At the second window I saw an old woman sitting in a wing-back chair watching a small television. She had silvery hair and a weathered face, probably from working her farm to an age beyond which most people retired. As I laid my eyes on her I felt the alien hand in my stomach tease me back towards the edge of the woodland.

I knew that the old woman would be murdered, but there was a sensation I can only describe as emotional-muting, or dulling. She was going to be killed and I knew in advance, but the force that had brought me out here to witness the murder was trying to keep my emotions in check. Ordinarily I would be in a panic, as would any sensitive human being, but the force that was in control was keeping my emotions subdued. This thing wanted me here as its witness and it would make sure I was in an emotional state capable of recording the memory.

Again I must have tuned out and fallen into the dreamy hypnotised state as I was suddenly jarred from staring into space by the sound of rain on my hood and noticing that the cottage was cast in a yellowish to orange light, the sort of sodium glow cast by old street lights. Now I could see that my hunch was right, this was a micro-farm. There was a short field of root crops growing in furrows, there was a chicken coop fenced off with wire to keep the foxes out. I could see the shadows moving as the light above swung around and positioned itself directly above. I knew not to look up. I wasn’t supposed to witness the source of the light.

Then the cottage front door opened.

The old woman came out holding her hand to her eyes, looking up to the orange light above her home. She was dressed as though ready for bed in a white night-gown with a dark robe over her shoulders; she’d put on wellington boots to come outside. She moved quick and spry and I imagined her aged appearance came from working outdoors for many years but her wrinkled face gave way to an obvious physical fitness, probably from the exercise of farming and a healthy diet of homegrown foods.

She came right out into the rain with her hand up to stare at the orange light above her.

The poor woman. She lived alone, deep in the countryside. She was isolated. If she screamed there would be nobody to hear but me. In my recollections I imagined that I wanted to shout out for her to run, or that I wanted to help her, but these ideas I know are false memories. They’re afterthoughts. At the time my role was to witness and I felt that was all I could do. I had been brought to this spot to watch an old woman be murdered and as I watched her standing out in the rain to view this orange light I knew it would happen within minutes. I wish I could report that I was in some way frightened, I wish I could say I was terrified, but at this point I wasn’t. The thing that controlled me, the thing that had brought me out to witness was also keeping me in a calm and level headed state.

The orange light moved away, pulling back from the house.

That was when I saw it.

The Tube Head was here.

The old lady hadn’t noticed, but standing merely twelve feet away from her was the monster. Mostly human in form, it looked like a man in a black rubber suit. Only two things stopped it looking human. Firstly its fingers were long and thin and tapered to sharp points. There seemed to be no knuckles which made its fingers look like knife blades. They had the same shiny rubber or latex appearance as the rest of it. Then its head was more like an extended neck that curved forward. The front of its face, if I can call it a face, was completely flat and featureless. A blank circle on the end of an eight inch wide tube. It really looked like the neck of the thing had extended to several feet in length, then curved forward at ninety degrees; what should have been a head and face looked more like a fat drainpipe. It was soaking wet with rivulets of water running across the rubber surface and it suddenly gave me a bitter aniseed taste in my mouth. I sensed that, although its skin looked like rubber, it would really be like the shiny skin of a black slug. The taste in my mouth reminded me of liquorice and I wondered if that was what I would taste if I ever had to put my tongue against it.

It didn’t move.

The old woman remained outside watching the orange light until it vanished, but not a moment longer. I guessed she would have remained in anticipation of it returning had the rain not been so torrential. She turned to go back inside and actually turned towards the Tube Head but somehow didn’t see it. It was so close to her it was almost impossible to miss, but in the rain, in the darkness, its form was disguised against the dark patterns of the woodland.

The old woman went back into her cottage and closed the door.

Now the Tube Head moved. It took a step forward, its foot raising and reaching out with an odd flexibility. It’s legs bent in unusual places as though the knee was higher in the leg than a human’s and the hips were set further back on the pelvis, its feet had an extended heel that reached out behind it and it walked with its arms slightly raised and its palms facing forward. It never looked at me but I watched it clearer than ever as the water ran down its back and its knife like fingers flexed around the door handle to make its way into the cottage.

I was now alone and the wait was interminable; I was unable to gauge how much time elapsed, but the longer I looked at the cottage the more uneasy I became. The Tube Head had left the cottage door open after going inside and I found myself staring at the home with a sense that something horrifying was happening within. All I could hear was the patter of rain against my hood.

Then came a sudden flash of light from the living room window and a sound like crunching glass. I thought it could be the television breaking. Maybe something else. It was a somehow familiar sound and it reminded me of the old photography flash bulbs that made a chemically induced flash of light with a distinct popping sound; but it wasn’t the sort of sound you expected here.

Then from the door, Tube Head stepped slowly out and turned it’s flat face towards me. It had never done this before. Although I’m sure this thing draws me out to be its witness, it had never directly acknowledged my presence until this moment when it turned its head towards me. In the other killings it had quickly vanished, but this time, the loathsome thing watched me for a moment then began slinking forwards with it’s knife like fingers spread wide and it’s flat face locked on mine.

For the first time I felt something closer to fear. It was still muted and not the pure terror I always feel after the event. What I felt was a severe bout of anxiety. I was worried it was going to speak with me in some alien language and I was filled with an overwhelming dread that I wouldn’t be able to understand or respond. Tube Head moved closer and closer and I began to see that its skin was as smooth as glass. The rain was running over it in little streams and bouncing off the top of its head and shoulders. As it got to within ten feet of me the orange light appeared overhead, fading in like some alien spacecraft was arriving. As it got to within six feet it’s flat round face seemed to emit some kind of energy the likes of which I can barely describe. It was neither heat nor sound, but I felt it as a warm vibration; it was as though it was spraying me with a mild sensation of pins and needles, coming direct from its face onto mine and for a moment I suspected I was being irradiated by some form of radiological source. There was definitely something there, whether it was x-ray, radar, microwave, or some other power, it was emitted from Tube Head right into me. By the time it was three feet away from me I could feel my muscles losing their strength and I’m convinced the energy it was projecting was the cause of this weakness.

Never before had Tube Head approached me but this time it came to within eight inches and scrutinised me with a flat eyeless face for at least a minute before walking into the forest and fading away along with the orange light.

I now found myself alone.

Of course I was still under its control and I could feel the alien hand in my abdomen begin teasing me back into the forest so to guide me back to my car. I’d probably walked a half mile through pitch black forest and there was no way I’d find my car again without help, but before I left I had to look in on the old woman.

I expected the scene to be as bizarre and gruesome as the other four murders and, like the others, I was as astonished as I was repulsed. The remains of the old lady were laid on the floor and her garments opened. Her full torso from neck to groin was sliced open and the skin and bones of her ribcage peeled back to the floor to reveal the hollowness of her insides. Everything was gone. The organs. Her lungs, heart, stomach, intestines, everything that was needed to keep a human being alive were missing. Her eyes were closed and her wrinkled face looked serene, her arms were outstretched then below her arms were the neatly placed skin and ribs. Her spine still had some flesh to it as it ran from her head to her pelvis, but the otherworldly method Tube Head used to harvest from the old woman was ruthlessly effective. What he’d left behind looked like the cleaned carcass of a butchered animal. There was no blood to her corpse or to her surroundings. Tube Head had taken her fluids and organs and left just the head, arms, legs and skeleton, all neatly splayed like an anatomical drawing.

The last thing I recall of the cottage is glancing back one last time to view my muddy footprints on the carpet.

I can’t imagine what Tube Head did with her organs. It wasn’t carrying anything when it left the cottage, so what it did with her fluids and body parts is a mystery. There is no discernable reason why Tube Head should want to kill these people and there is nothing I can fathom that links the four previous murders with this one. There isn’t any kind of similarity between the victims. This black, rubbery thing just steals pieces of human beings, it turns its victims inside out and summons me to be its witness.

I don’t know how much longer I can keep my sanity whilst it continues.

This isn’t a dream. This isn’t a hallucination. Nor am I a killer fabricating new memories to explain these crimes to myself. As with the other deaths I’ve searched for evidence that I’m not insane and creating crazy memories. I’ve spent an hour searching my clothes and car but can’t find a single drop of blood. There’s mud on my clothes but no blood, the same as before. This convinces me I’ve never touched the bodies or interfered with the murder scenes. I know that the police will link these deaths by their sheer barbarity and viciousness and they’ll find forensic evidence, such as my muddy footprints in the cottage. They’re already talking about the previous murders on the television news and I sense the police are being coy about the details. They don’t want to alarm the public that there is a serial-killer on the loose. Little would they believe me if I told them it’s a rubber-like man with a tube-like head, a flat face and fingers like knives. How can I explain that it draws me out to witness what it does?

My God, I’m going to go mad if I can’t get this under control, but as I write this journal entry please believe me that I am not responsible for these murders. It’s this thing, this otherworldly thing that defies all logic and explanation. It pulls me out to witness its crimes by some ungodly force and then brings me home and makes me believe it’s all a dream; but it isn’t a dream. I know. I have service station receipts, I have my notes and my sketches and I’m writing this in advance of the old woman’s murder being mentioned in the press.

My God, please believe me when I say that I’m not a killer.
I think my worst fear is I’m being framed by this thing. It’s out there killing knowing full well that nobody will ever believe my version of events; but what you read in this diary is true.

I’m not a killer. I promise you.

I did not murder these people… I only watched.