It Came Out of the Condenser

Things can get weird sometimes when you have to work midnight shifts. The old zombie feeling crawls over you. The last things in the world you need are problems of any nature! Yes, when working midnights you want things to be calm and easy!

Based on a true story.

Midnight shift sucks big time. I, Mark Johnson have no doubt about that! By the time 4:00 AM rolls around, I'm feeling like some zombie with a hangover, but I can't let that interfere with me; you see I'm an operator at a power plant. Thank God it's not a nuclear plant because when working midnights, I make so many mistakes and I'm so grouchy, that I'd have probably blown up the world by now! Hell, even the dog at home stays away from me that week when I work midnights, and the wife and kids treat me like a serial killer in dad's clothes, but I'm not, really I'm not.

It all happened at about 3:00 AM one midnight shift. Unit one of the two generating units that produced electricity at the plant was shut down for repairs--we call that an outage. For six weeks contractors and our maintenance department work seven-days a week, twenty-four hours a day to get the job finished and get the unit back up to making electricity. We were near the end of the outage when the control room ordered us to take off all red tags (safety tags) and prepare the condenser for operation. Emanuel Smith and I worked together that night and were halfway finished crawling around and over the condenser taking off red tags on valves and opening the values for operation when I said: "Let's get some lunch, they don't need this thing for two days yet!"

"I'm with you," Emanuel said.

We returned to the operator's shanty as we called it, sat down and started to eat.

"I'm glad it's the last one of our midnights," I said. My refection off the glass window showed how sunken my eyes were and how my dark hair held sweat like a mop. Emanuel looked like he just completed 12 rounds with the world champ! However, no cuts or bruises appeared on his face after close inspection--just sunken eyes and sweaty-black-curly hair.

"Yes, I'm glad midnights are over," I said again.

"You got that right," Emanuel said. "Me and the wife gonna hit Atlantic City this weekend. She's been bugging me all year. Her best friend lives there--I really don't care for her, but me and her husband are good."

"What you got planned?" Emanuel asked.

I told Emanuel that I'd probably work on the old Willy's Jeep since my wife hadn't planned anything, but on Sunday we had to help with the church supper. As we talked, I saw the walking bounce of our shift supervisor, Bert Lancer, through the window came down the steps from the control room. He came in and said, "Who wants to work this weekend?"

We both answered no, then Bert said, "You better get it while you can. You guys know after the unit's up and running they'll be no overtime 'til the next outage."

"I've had enough of it. Doubles and more Doubles and working my off days, then more doubles. Hell for five weeks that's all I've done. Never got a chance to watch Star Trek once," Emanuel said. We all laughed over that one.

"Okay guys, you know I had to ask. If you guys get the condenser untagged tonight, call me. I'll have maintenance bolt down the doors," Bert said. He left the shanty carrying the clipboard in his right hand and scurried for the control room.

I finished my sandwich. The old zombie feeling invaded me; I closed my eyes for a second. It really felt good setting back in the chair and closing my eyes, but, being in a power planet anything can happen. A sleepy feeling washed over me and dreamland approached with the sounds of the power plant became distant, quieter, and farther away.

However, I next heard the rush of sounds coming in as the shanty's door opened. I looked up and George Uggan was standing in the Shanty. Like always he followed his routine: George looked at the radios, looked at the log book, looked at my book, looked at the ceiling, looked at the floor, looked at Emanuel--Emanuel eyeballed him back with one eye; then George said: "Hey, what's up Dudes?"

Shifting my weight and adjusting my posture in the chair, I then looked up at him and said, "Nothing." George lifted weights since high school and it showed. Emanuel often said that somebody must have dropped a ton of weight on George's head once.

"Man, nothing happening outside. Like a graveyard out there," George said. George worked as the plant janitor. It was a loners job--one in which George was really good at! He wasn't married, no children that he knew of, and he didn't need much money. Since he left a good-paying-construction job a few years ago as a heavy equipment operator, he seemed content to work as a janitor. He never bid on a higher-paying job at the plant.

"Man, I just wanted to say--there is something funny about the condenser. Man, I'll tell you it is really weird. When I walked past it, it whispered 'George I want you.' Man, I never heard that before, you know things are getting really weird around here lately."

"George-- with the temperature changing outside and the wind picking up, air gets forced into the condenser from the cooling tower, you know that. You just heard rushing air. That's all it was! And all the other sounds are from steel contracting. We've been over this before," I said.

"You got that right," Emanuel added.

"I know that, but I wanted to tell you about it anyhow," George said.

I looked over at Emanuel; Emanuel met my eyes and we both realized that for the next half- hour or so, we would be entertained. One thing about George, when he got started, he was entertaining. He started telling us about some prostitute in Pittsburgh that followed him into the men's room-- trying to get his attention. What happened next was pure George telling the story--with him running out of the men's room, tripping over his own feet, and the prostitute trying to help him up. As she grabbed his arm, George screamed: "Just get away from me you disease infected retard! Get away!" George also pantomimed the whole experience for us quite graphically!

By the time George left, we were both wide-awake and laughing. George is really one of a kind.

"Well, I guess we might as well finish the condenser," I said.

"Yeah, I'm up now anyhow," Emanuel said. "After that performance I'll never catch any zeees!"

I grabbed the check off board and with Emanuel we headed toward the condenser. After a few steps out, I heard a very strange-clanging noise followed by rushing air, something not uncommon in a generating station, but yet these sounds were different. Shortly, we were standing in front of the large-round-inlet door that was open to the inside of the condenser on the sub-platform.

"Hear that?" Emanuel asked.

I listened and yes, I did hear something. Now it sounded like rushing water or a waterfall, then---Shhhhhh....Wehhhhhh...Dessssssss.... I never heard sounds like that before.

"You think we're being messed with? Are the plant clowns out tonight? You know who I'm taking about. Man, I don't like this," Emanuel said.

"No, they're off," I said.

Emanuel backed up a little, then said, "You think some contractors are still in there? Maybe they're still working on some tubes?

"Nobody should. All contractors should to be out," I said.

George stomped down the short-open stairs to the sub-condenser platform. He walked over and said, "I told you something was funny in here! Believe me now?"

We looked at George and said nothing. George walked over to the inlet door, stuck his head in, and yelled: "Whoever's in there better come out. You'll get drowned! Yes you will!"

"Oh, God!" Emanuel said.

"That's telling them. Hear how it echoed around? They'll hear me," George said.

"You know them butterfly valves are open from the cooling tower. Maybe a groundhog got in," Emanuel said. "Old goofy there might get bit again if he fools around. Tell him to take his head out. He never listens to me, but he will if you tell him!"

Before I could utter a word, tentacles, black, hairy, large, and muscular like a giant squid or octopus's shot out of the door. It slapped George over his hard hat and knocked it off, and he fell backward onto the grading.

"What the hell is that!" Emanuel screamed. He stepped back, grabbed a large valve wrench, and held it like a baseball bat!

George ducked the swish of another tentacle, got up, and started to get back from the door. Another smaller tentacle shot out. George grabbed onto a fixed-steel ladder surrounded by a safety cage that led up to the top of the condenser.

"Get back," I yelled; two maintenance workers started down the stairs on the opposite side of the sub-condenser platform.

"Watch out!" Eamnuel screamed. The lipped eyes of the two maintenance workers became round-jar lids once their brains got the image. They both shot back up the stairs beating one tentacle by only three feet. At the top they kept running, disappearing behind the vacuum pumps and their piping.

George climbed up the ladder. We could hear him screaming, "You'll pay for that!" He looked back and spit at the tentacles!

Emanuel and I scrambled up the stairs leading away from the sub-condenser platform.

A phone page was next to me on the H-beam. I grabbed it and called the control room. I know I screamed at the control room operator, but I can't to this day remember what I said. His answer, "What the hell are you talking about!"

"Man, the thing's after us!" Emanuel yelled.

I reeled around. A slimy head with five eyes, two ears, hair like small pieces of scrape mental wielded together, small tentacles for legs, short, muscular and hairy, emerged from the open-circular door by its larger tentacles pulling it out!

The cross between a blob, gob and jellyfish, looked up at me with all five eyes bulging. I backed away some more, but kept my eyes fixed upon the glob with tentacles that started moving across the platform toward me and Emanuel. It oozed with help from its tentacles that helped support it. When moving I noticed that it needed all its tentacles and couldn't use one to grab us. That might be helpful, I thought, and to this day I don't know why I thought that. Its progress was slow, but the tentacles could whip out at lighting speed.

"Mark Johnson--Mark Johnson," came washing over the plant from the intercom. When I realized that my name was paged, I grabbed the phone page again and said, "Johnson here!"

It sounded like laughter in the background, and before anyone could say anything over it, I screamed: "We need help down here--get Bert and tell him to stay clear of the condenser!"

Justin, a control room operator shot question at me: "You guys been smoking something that's not cigarettes?"

"Just tell him what I said," I screamed; then I threw the phone page so hard that it broke in half!

By this time, more maintenance guys and a couple of contractors were staring at the things from across the sub-condenser platform. Chester O'conner, an older maintenance worker, was waving a spade shovel toward it. The others were standing statue like and wide-eyed.

The glob thing grabbed onto a vertical support beam with a tentacle. Another tentacle grabbed onto the hand railing that led up from the sub-condenser platform, and the other tentacles grabbed onto anything that they felt were supportive.

An electrical breaker kicked in above me. I heard the hum of an electrical motor start, looked up, and George had the overhead crane moving. He was trying to position a full 55-gallon used-oil drum over the gob thing's head. His sandy hair looked wild, his eyes wild--fiery-hazel green, and his jaw squared, prominent, and protruding--all showed that George meant business.

"I'm gonna kill that retarded thing! You hear me retarded thing! I'm gonna kill you, you super-retard!" George said. His eyes sparked as he hit the quick release on the crane.

The oil drum fell and made a squish sound on the thing's head, it only sank in a foot or two. All its five eyes surrounded the oil drum.

Emanuel said it better than I ever could: "Man, that thing's eating the drum like a Twinkie!"

It was! Inch by inch the oil drum settled down into the head, but no crunching sound echoed. The thing absorbed the whole drum like chocolate does on the tongue.

Another one started coming out of the outlet door of the condenser on the other side. The maintenance guys peeping from behind the vacuum pumps, saw it and just stared, still wide- eyed. Long, black tentacles like the first one grabbed onto support beams and pulled itself out and onto the sub-platform grading. This one appeared bigger then the first one, but it didn't move any quicker. Its five eyes rolled around, searching for something, and I think that something was us!

Emanuel grabbed my shirt pocket to get my attention. Bert was standing next to us and his flashlight on, yet dangling from his hand like a severed finger being held by skin. His mouth wide, his eyes as big as hubcaps and glued to the front of his safety glasses, while his gray hair stood straight up--almost pushing his white hat off his head!

The thing near us continued to climb up, making a whooshing sound and whipping its tentacle onto new beams and handrails, slapping them hard. It started to get close to Emanuel and me; we backed away, but Bert stood frozen. We grabbed Bert and pulled him back with us. He snapped out of it, grabbed his radio, and called the control room. The next sound we heard were three short beeps, followed by three longer beeps followed by three shorter beeps. That meant Plant Emergency, Basement Area! The pattern continued over and over again.

I turned and gave one last look; then we ran down the walkway toward the coal mills. Once in front of the mills, we made a left and ran down the basement floor toward the machine shop. Once threw the machine shop, an exit door from the plant stood open and all three of us shot out with maintenance and contractors crews in second place. In the parking lot we stopped.

Harvey the guard who looked like a walking tree when moving, waved both of his hands at us. The three of us entered the guardhouse. Harvey stuttered, "--look--look--look!" He pointed his finger at one of the monitors that had a camera positioned toward the cooling tower. Twenty black-octopus-type blobs were oozing away from it, all headed toward the plant.

"Jesus Christ--what are those things!" Bert screamed.

"I'm getting the hell outa here!" Peter Carps a contractor said that had been standing outside the guardhouse. His long legs made him look like he was running on stilts as he lunged toward his SUV.

We ran to the side of the service building and saw the things in front of the cooling tower. They had about forty-yards to cross before they reached the main build.

From far down behind the plant and coming from the coal yard, a large Michigan Front Loader raced toward us. It's diesel exhaust sounded like it were an angry Mac truck looking for revenge.

"Who's that!" Emanuel screamed.

Then over Bert's radio we heard, "I a gonna kill every last one of those mothers! Hear me retarded-octopus-squid-things! Hear me!"

"George, this is Bert--stop--don't do anything! Get back!" Bert said.

"Hey boss---they asked for it!" George said. He was driving the Michigan!

The Michigan raced closer and closer and once it got within fifty feet of the first blob, George lowered the scoop. He ran the Michigan into the thing and pushed it into another one. Then he raised up the scoop, ran the Michigan over to a settling pond full of fly ash, and dropped the things into it. George must have thought that the high acidity of the settling pond's water will kill them. It didn't! They just started oozing out of the settling pond. He continued to run over them with the Michigan. When that didn't work too well, he said: "I know something that'll get them! He headed back to the coal yard at full speed.

We raced back to the guardhouse.

A volunteer fire company came racing in the main gate, an automatic response when plant emergency was sounded. The fire trucks stopped at the gate and their chief got down and ran into the guardhouse. "What the hell are those things coming outa of the river," Chief Barnes said.

"What!" I said.

"Look!" Emanuel screamed. He pointed his finger up at the plant.

Five of the things were climbing up the superstructure of the plant. Their speed remained the same whether crawling or climbing. One of the things started climbing up a main transformer that was energized! A lighting bolt shot out and engulfed the thing for a second, and the shorting out of the transformer caused unit two to stop running. We heard the safety valves on top of the boiler pop open, releasing high-pressure steam that echoed throughout the valley. Unit two was now down. The high voltage strike at the thing didn't stop it! It continued to climb up.

Peter Carps raced back into the plant; he almost crashed into the guardhouse. He jumped out and screamed, "There must be a hundred of those things coming up from the river! Look! We're surrounded! I can't get out!"

Harvey turned one of the river positioned cameras toward the riverbank. Immediately, "Movement Detected" flashed across the monitor, and dark blob like things appeared coming out of the river. Carps was right! Hundreds of them! All along the bank as far as the camera could view at night, they came. They lugged themselves out of the river and started to head toward the plant.

One thing from the cooling tower managed to get into the parking lot under the lights. It seemed to have trouble moving across the macadam, its tentacles couldn't adhere to the macadam much, and its progress slowed.

The firemen stood frozen, unable to respond to this emergency. Finally, the chief said, "Is everyone okay?"

We ignored him.

All the coal yard guys raced up in pickup trucks, stopped at the gate and screamed, "Are we being invade? What are they?"

I pointed over to the one in the parking lot and said, "That's what they are!"

"They're coming in from all sides of the coal yard!" Roger Stall, the senior coal yard operator said.

"I think the plant's surround! What the hell we gonna do," I said.

"Why are they here?" Chief Barnes said.

"I think they wanta eat us!" Emanuel said.

Inside the guardhouse, cameras picked up more and more things crawling around. Some were larger than others, some longer tentacles, and some appeared lighter in color or brown instead of black. Three were trying to get into the warehouse, and one succeeded in pulling off the corrugate siding. Bruce, the warehouse attendant after seeing the blob things, jumped on his tow-motor and raced through the outside lay-down yard in front of the warehouse. He turned toward us, almost tipped over the tow-motor when making the turn, then he stopped beside the guardhouse and jumped off.

We heard a rumbling sound coming from the coal yard side of the plant. Harvey turned a camera in that direction and King Kong (D14 Caterpillar dozer) was making the noise.

"I bet that's George! He used to run dozer one time when he worked construction!" I said.

The rumble from the dozer got louder and louder as it headed toward the large group of things in front of the cooling tower.

"George, if that's you just back away! Hear me! Back away now!" You wanta get yourself killed!" Bert said over the radio.

Bert's screaming didn't stick to George. We watched on the monitor as George raised the dozer's blade, then quickly lowered it and chopped one of the gob things in half!

"Take that, you mothers!" We heard George's voice over his radio, and after watching him chop one the things in half, Emanuel said, "Hey it worked, didn't it!"

George continued to chop the things in half, and with each slice of the blade, we heard, "Take that, you mother!" King Kong was living up to its nickname! However, we needed a hundred of them now!

The glob things went after George! All the glob things turned toward him and started crawling after King Kong. George continued to chop them in half and King Kong appeared invincible: The thick steel protective cage over the driver's seat stopped the tentacles from getting to George! King Kong crawled over them, crushing them with its tracks.

Before we knew it, the guardhouse was surrounded. Harvey closed the door and shut off the lights! The maintenance and contractor guys outside evaded them by running back into the plant. Too many of the things were now moving close together, side by side with no chance of evading them if they stayed outside in the parking lot.

"George, we need you at the guard house!" Harvey screamed.

"On my way, man!" George answered.

Tentacles started feeling out the guardhouse. The larger ones slapped at the roof and the smaller ones coiled around the stairs, inching their way up toward the door. One of the things lifted itself up on its tentacles, and with all five-eyes-wide open stared in the window at us. Another one started to pry at the door, and another one started to crawl up the side of the guardhouse.

"They're gonna get us!" Emanuel screamed.

Around the corner, King Kong rumbled toward us with bits of tentacles and other parts of the gob things falling off. George ran over another one and another one as King Kong made its way toward us.

It was too late. A tentacle crashed through a window and grabbed me. Its slimy, reeking, hairy-moist skin coiled around me three times and started pulling me out the window. I held on to the water cooler, but the tentacle was too strong. I yelled help and Emanuel, God Bless him, grabbed a fire extinguisher and started beating the tentacle with it. He then grabbed onto my arm and tried to pull me back in.

Emanuel kept pulling my arm. I kept saying, "Help!" My arm kept shaking more and more until my eyes opened and I was back in the operators' shanty again. I jumped to my feet, wide eyed.

"Man, you must have had one hell of a bad dream. I know I do sometime when I close my eyes out here. Hell, one time I dreamt that a giant valve wrench was chasing me down center isle and it swung at me by the elevator. Remember, I told you about that once?" Emanuel said.

With my eyes-wide open, and my brain starting to work, I sat back down in my chair. Out the shanty window, I saw George coming with three cups of coffee from the canteen machine. My God, I thought to myself, I gotta bid off night turn. I gotta get off shifts! This job pays too much to quit, but I gotta get off shift work. Fifteen years of shift work is too much. There should be some law that a person can't work more than fifteen years on shift work, and that includes shift work from other companies he worked at too.

George walked in and gave us each a cup of coffee. It tasted good. Funny, how after twenty years I started to like canteen coffee. I really do now. Too bad I'll never got to like midnight shifts.

"Hey, duds, the coffee's on me, enjoy!" George said..

I said, "Thanks," and Emanuel did the same, except he kept both of his eyes on George, like always!

I realized that this was the first time I saw George tonight, and the last time was in my dream. He had different overalls on than the ones in my dream, but he had the same broad smile that showcased his flashy-white teeth.

He is entertaining you know. He saved a groundhog once by rescuing it from the cooling tower. They gave him a nice write-up in the company magazine that comes out once a month. They had a picture of him standing in front of the cooling tower pointing at the spot where he saved it. He also got bit by the ground hog and had to get rabies shots!

"Man, you know when I was coming back from the canteen, I heard some strange, and I mean strange noises coming outa the condenser. Know what I mean? Keep your head outa the doors--know what I mean? Man, I wouldn't get near that thing until they checked it out! Something's really, really weird!"

I adjusted myself in the chair, took a sip of coffee, and then said, "George, I think that's a very good idea!"

THE END

Bio: In George's own words: "I've been writing for about fifteen years, occasionally, and enjoy every strike on my keyboard. I'm not sure why I write-- it's fun, I'm sure about that--and I intend to continue and learn. I worked at a generating station in Western Pennsylvania, and served in Viet Nam. During my last two years in the army, I played French horn with the army band at Ft. Monmouth, NJ. I attended the University of Pittsburgh for Mechanical Engineering, but had to quit after the Johnstown Flood of 1977. I worked in a coal mine, a steel mill, and a dairy once. Now I'm retired. My last story: 'Groundhog Days' [May 2015]."

E-mail: George T. Philibin

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