Somatic Self Storage

I’ve been a security guard at Somatic Self Storage for a few years now. I’d lost my previous job due to the first round of Covid lockdowns, and at the time, getting hired here seemed like a godsend. It pays more than double the average rate for a security guard around here, despite it otherwise being a pretty standard job. The only catch was that I had to sign a non-disclosure agreement regarding exactly what it was we were keeping in storage.

Maybe I was naïve to think that nothing nefarious was going on, or maybe I’m just a selfish prick who was persuaded to turn a blind eye for a few extra dollars, but up until recently, I honestly had no solid proof that any of our clients weren’t here willingly.

Somatic Self Storage is located in our town’s old industrial district. It’s mostly abandoned, other than a few small manufacturing plants owned by a local tech company, and self-storage is just about the only legitimate business that can survive out there now. There are three or four other self-storage facilities nearby, and from the outside, ours doesn’t look like anything special. The entire lot’s bricked off so that no one can see inside, with several modern storage garages built around an old factory that was converted into our primary building.

The units that are accessible from the outside are perfectly normal, and rented out to the general public to keep anyone from getting too suspicious. But the indoor units are a different story. Some of our clients keep some personal items in them, sure, but the main thing we keep in the indoor units are people.

Our clients aren’t living in their storage units. I know that’s a thing that happens, but it’s not what’s going on at Somatic Self Storage. We aren’t keeping dead bodies there either. I wouldn’t have stayed there this long if that’s what was going on.

The first time the owner – a self-assured fop by the name of Seneca Chamberlain – showed me the inside of one of the storage units, I thought I was looking at some kind of wax statue. The body didn’t show any signs of life, but it didn’t show any signs of decay either. It wasn’t alive, it wasn’t dead, it just… was.

“There’s more than one way to live forever, some of them more enjoyable than others,” Chamberlain mused as he blithely lifted up the lid of the glass coffin that contained the body.

“I don’t understand, sir. Is this some kind of cryonics facility?” I asked.

“Of course not! Cryogenic temperatures turn living cells into mush!” Chamberlain replied aghast. “There’s also not a single cryonics facility in the world that currently offers reanimation services, which rather defeats the point, wouldn’t you say? Our clients expect their bodies to be kept in mint condition and reclaimable at a moment’s notice, and that’s precisely what we deliver! I like to call what we offer ‘holistic metabolic respite’. It appeals more to the chemophobic ‘whole foods’ types. For all practical intents and purposes, these bodies are alchemically frozen in time. There’s no damage and no side effects; just a single instant stretched out for as long as we wish. Go ahead and touch the body. You’ll notice there’s no heartbeat, no breath, but that it’s still warm.”

Hesitantly, I slowly reached out and pressed the back of my index and middle fingers up against the body’s neck. There was no response or pulse, but it was still warm and felt very much alive.

“How is this possible?” I gasped, pulling away in confusion. “Is the casket keeping them like that?”

“Heavens no! This Sleeping Beauty set-up is merely for show,” Chamberlain explained with a slight chuckle. “Well, that’s not entirely true. If they ever start to wake up prematurely, you’ll notice the glass above their face begin to fog. Keep an eye out for that or any other disturbances you may notice during your rounds and note it in your log.”

“But what do I do if they wake up?” I asked.

“I wouldn’t lose any sleep over that, my dear boy,” Seneca reassured me. “You see, my business partner is very adept at refining the humours of living creatures, amplifying desirable traits and removing unwanted ones.  In this case, he’s altered their thermodynamic properties to eliminate entropy without needing to cool them down to absolute zero. Or, if you prefer to think of it this way, he raised absolute zero to body temperature. Either way, their bodies are completely still on a fundamental level. A carefully prepared philtre must be specially applied to catalyze the reanimation process, ensuring that they remain pristinely inert until we desire otherwise.”

“Then… why the glass caskets?” I asked.

“Err… yes. Obviously, no process is a hundred percent effective, and occasionally the humours may not have been refined to the required purity,” Seneca admitted. “In these cases, it’s possible that certain impurities left in the body can catalyze reanimation on their own. But this is always a rather ghastly and drawn-out affair, giving us plenty of time to intervene. If you see any signs that a client is waking up, like fog on the glass, simply report it and we’ll handle the rest.”

“But, if someone does wake up, like, completely wakes up, what do I –” I started to ask.

“I said not to lose any sleep over it,” Chamberlain cut me off abruptly, his tone making it clear I was to let the matter drop. “Any more questions?”

“I… I still don’t understand why these people are here,” I admitted. “You called them clients. They’re here willingly? They paid for this?”

“They paid good money. Enough for us to throw in the glass caskets free of charge,” he nodded, gently knocking on the casket beside him with his knuckles.

“But, why? Are they sick? What do they gain by doing this?” I asked.

“It’s self-storage,” Chamberlain shrugged. “It’s where you keep things you don’t need at the moment but can’t bring yourself to part with. For some people, that includes their bodies. As a consummate professional, I never pry into the private lives of our clientele. I suggest you make that your guiding maxim, as well.”

I never got anything more than that out of Mr. Chamberlain, not that I ever saw him very much. Somatic Self Storage was just a turnkey operation for him. For the past few years, I’ve just shown up, made my rounds, helped the regular customers and service people, investigated anything out of the ordinary and dealt with trespassers. Other than the clients in storage, it was a pretty normal security gig.

There’s only been a few times that I’ve noticed any fog on the glass caskets, and each time I did exactly what Chamberlain told me to. I made a note of it in my report, and the next day everything would be fine. If that was the weirdest thing that had ever happened, I’d probably still be doing that job right now.

But yesterday, for the first time, I heard the sound of glass shattering.

The noise instantly jolted me out of my seat. My first and worst thought was that one of my clients was not only awake but ambulatory, but there was plenty of other glass in the building besides those caskets, I told myself. I checked all the camera feeds on my security desk, along with all the input from the door and window sensors, and quickly ruled out the possibility of a break-in. The place was as impregnable as an Egyptian tomb. Nothing could get in. Or out.

Grabbing hold of my baton and checking to make sure that my taser was fully charged, I set off to locate the source of the disturbance.

“Is anyone in here?” I shouted authoritatively as I marched down the hallways. “You are trespassing on private property! Identify yourself!”

My commands were initially met with utter silence, and for a moment it seemed plausible that some precariously placed fragile thing had finally fallen from its ill-chosen resting spot.

But then I turned a corner, and found a trail of bloodied glass shards littering the floor. The trail had of course started in one of the storage cells, where the glass casket lay in ruins, becoming sparser and sparser as it meandered down the hall before dissipating entirely.

“Hello! Are you hurt?” I shouted as I burst out into a sprint.

Receiving no reply, I headed in the same direction as the glass trail and checked every cell or possible hiding space along the way until I hit a dead end.

It didn’t make any sense. There was nowhere a human being could hide that I hadn’t looked. The vents were small enough that a fat raccoon had once gotten stuck in one, so there was no way anyone could be crawling around inside of them.

Deciding that the best thing to do would be to review the surveillance footage, I promptly made my way back to my desk.

I came to a dead stop when I saw someone sitting in my chair.

There was no question that he was the client that had broken out of the casket. I knew the faces of all the clients entrusted to my care well. He was an older man, balding with deeply sunken eyes and bony cheeks. I could see that shards of glass were still embedded into his fists, leaving no doubt that he had punched his way out. Though he sat expectantly with his hands clasped, I could tell by the look on his face that he wasn’t oblivious to the pain.

“Did you call it in yet?” he asked flatly.

“Sir, please, you’re bleeding,” I said as I let my baton clatter to the ground, slowly raising my hands over my head so as not to provoke him. “I know you must be disoriented, but –”

“Do disoriented patients leave false trails and then double back?” he asked rhetorically. “I know exactly where I am and what’s going on. More than you do, I’d wager. Now answer my question; did you call it in yet?”

“No. Chamberlain doesn’t know about this yet,” I replied.

“Good. Throw your taser on the ground,” he ordered.

“…Or?” I asked, as it hardly seemed that he was in a position to threaten me.

“Your desk phone here has Chamberlain on speed dial. All I have to do is press it, and if he hears even one word from me he’ll know what’s happened,” he explained. “He’ll be afraid of what I might have told you, and that wouldn’t end up very well for you.”

I considered the validity of his threat against any physical risk he might pose to me, and quickly decided to relinquish my taser.

“Trusting your life to a stranger rather than Seneca Chamberlain? You know him well, then,” the old man smirked. “Kick the taser over to me.”

I complied without a fuss, but he had made no mention of my baton, which I made sure to stay within easy reaching distance of.

He bent down and scooped up the taser, wasting no time in pointing it directly at me.

“Now tell me the codes to disable the security system,” he ordered.

“Or what? You’ll taser me? That won’t get you out of here,” I replied. “You talking to me is one thing, but if I actively help you escape, I’m definitely screwed. On the other hand, if I take a taser hit rather than let you loose, that might actually earn me some favour with the boss. So go ahead, fire away.”

The old man groaned in frustration, and it relieved me greatly to know we were at an impasse.

“Kid, do you even know why he’s keeping us here?” he asked.

“He told me it was some kind of alchemical suspended animation,” I replied. “He’s always been vague about exactly why you were in suspension, but he told me that you were here willingly. Said you even paid good money for it.”

“Oh, we paid for it, son. Believe me,” he said with a grim shake of his head. “Did he mention his partner Raubritter at all?”

“Yeah. He said he was the one who did this to you,” I replied.

“There’s an old abandoned factory not far from here. The Fawn & Raubritter Foundry, it was called,” the man replied. “Over a hundred years ago, there was a worker uprising and fire that killed Fawn. Officially it’s been abandoned ever since, but anyone who’s managed to get inside knows that’s not true. When there’s a lot of death in one place, especially death that’s sudden, violent, and tragic, it scars the very fabric of reality around it, weakens it, and Raubritter capitalized on that before the burnt and bloodied ground even had a chance to heal. He claimed the deaths of his partner and indentured workers as a sacrifice to… well, I suppose you could call them a ‘Titan’ of industry. The burnt-out interior of his foundry was hallowed and translocated to some strange and ungodly netherworld, one where acid rains fall from jaundiced clouds upon a landscape of ever-churning mud writhing with the monstrous larva of god-eating insects. I’ve been inside that foundry, and I’ve looked out those windows into a world where the ruins of both nature and industry rot and rust side by side, everything eating each other until there was nothing left, and still the god who calls it his Eden hungers for more! Using that Foundry as his sanctuary, Raubritter refined his alchemy until he could transmogrify any body, living or dead, into anything he wanted, and what he wanted was a workforce of mindlessly devoted slaves. Workers who could never even slack off, let alone rebel. I’ve seen them, the abominations inside the Foundry, and if I don’t get out of here, that’s what I’ll become!”

“Sir, please, you’re talking nonsense. You’re delirious from the after-effects of whatever was keeping you in suspended animation,” I tried to assuage him. “There’s no magical, extra-dimensional factory with zombie workers. And how would you even know if there was?”

“Because; I had a job interview there,” he said with a bitter smirk. “Everything I just told you, Raubritter told me himself. He’s quite proud of all he’s accomplished, you see. I wanted to know what the hell was going on in there and he was all too happy to explain it. All of his workers are technically there by choice, though it was usually the only choice they had.  I was… well, that doesn’t matter now, I guess, but if I didn’t sign up with Raubritter I knew I was a dead man. But it seems that Raubritter is facing a bit of a labour surplus at the moment, and since his labour costs are already as low as he could get them, he needed another way to turn this to his benefit. That’s what Somatic Self Storage is for, kid. Me, and everyone else here, are surplus population. For less than the cost of an overpriced cup of coffee a day, he keeps us tucked away for when the labour market becomes less favourable to him. He’ll never have to worry about being short on manpower so long as he has us to fall back on, and apparently letting us age like wine before rolling us out into the factory floor is great for productivity. But if we wake up, that means we’re more resistant to his alchemical concoctions than he’d like, and we’re no good to him as workers. All we’re good for is parts. I’m a dead man now whether I stay or go, so I may as well try to stay alive as long as I can. Tell me the codes, son, and let me out of here.”

“Sir, I don’t think just letting you walk out of here is the best option for either of us,” I tried to persuade him. “Maybe we should call Chamberlain and see if we can convince him to –”

He fired the prongs of the taser at me before I could finish. Fortunately, I was quick on my feet, and his aim wasn’t the greatest, so they just barely missed.

“Fucking hell!” he cursed as he jumped up from his chair.

He tried to make a run for it, but I grabbed my baton off the ground and struck him with it across the back of the head. I heard him cry out as he collapsed to the floor, and I raised my baton again, ready to strike him down should he try to get back up.

But there was no need. He just laid there on the floor, clasping the back of his head, softly whimpering in defeat.

With a guilty sigh, I walked over to my desk and phoned it in.

It was a matter of minutes before Chamberlain’s private security detail barged in. They swarmed the helpless old man and dragged him off out of my sight, while two remained behind to ensure that I didn’t go anywhere before Chamberlain himself came and decided what to do with me. They didn’t say much to me, and I didn’t say much to them either, but I caught the muffled shouts of the others as they interrogated the old man, whose soft and pitiful pleas were just loud enough to hear.

Though it felt like hours, it wasn’t much longer before I saw Chamberlain strutting towards me, clad as always in a three-piece burgundy suit and top hat. I mentioned that I started working for him during the Pandemic, and when I first met him, he had been wearing this snarling Oni half-mask made of gold laid over top of his black medical mask. It had made quite the impression on me, and it’s an image of him I’ve never been able to shake.

He was flanked by a bodyguard to each side, and behind him, I recognized the similarly dressed if much less approachable figure of Raubritter, who I saw was carrying an old-fashioned leather medical bag with him.

“Right this way, Herr Raubritter,” one of my guards said as he escorted him to where the old man was being held.

“I’m terribly sorry about all of this,” Chamberlain said without an ounce of sincerity. “It’s so rare for one of our clients to regain full consciousness this quickly, especially when they’ve been suspended for so long. Don’t you worry now, you’re not in any trouble for having to use your trusty nightstick on him. He obviously wasn’t in his right mind.”

“Obviously. Yes sir,” I nodded emphatically. “Everything he said was incoherent nonsense. I don’t think I understood a word of it.”

“Hmmm. Good,” he smirked.

He rambled on for a few more minutes about nothing of any particular relevance, either to my account or in general, before coming to an abrupt stop and looking over my shoulder. I immediately turned around to see the bald, bony, and ashen visage of Raubritter standing in the hallway.

“Well?” Chamberlain asked him.

“I’ve given him an extra dose. It should do for now, but I’ve taken a blood sample as well,” Raubritter replied as he adjusted his opaque, hexagonal spectacles. “I will be analyzing it to see what went wrong, and if necessary, I shall return to administer a modified version of the serum.”

He took a few steps towards the desk, then turned his head towards me in one slow, methodical sweeping motion.

“I think I owe you an apology, Guter Herr. It is rather embarrassing that such shotty workmanship has slipped through my fingers. I do hope my client did not give you too much of a fright?” he said.

“I’m security. It’s part of the job,” I said nonchalantly, trying my best not to look at him without coming across as offensive.

“Still, an uncomfortable situation for anyone to be in, and yet you did quite well, I think,” he said as he handed me an aged business card with an ornate, old-fashioned font printed on it. “If Seneca here ever lets you go, or you simply decide that you aren’t reaching your full potential here, I encourage you to give me a call. Not only can I offer you a more stimulating work environment, but my… health plan, I think is the right translation, is unlike anything anyone else could offer.

“I think you’ll find that I really know how to bring out the best in my employees.”