You know, I've been in bad situations before... but never anything like this.

Here's some brief context:

About two weeks ago, I was running dangerously low on funds. I guess the demand for shady hitmen wasn't exactly at an all time high. At that point, I was wiling to take any job that was less difficult than assassinating the President.

I got exactly what I wanted about a week after the eviction notice came in. $20,000. One guy. And as far as I could tell, no baggage attached. It was just some random asshole. Or at least, that's how they presented it to me.

Now, the person(or people) who had sent me this offer seemed a bit more secretive than the usual customer. I mean, I usually expected a fake name at the very least, but these guys didn't even offer an alias. Whatever, I thought. It is what it is, right?

They didn't seem to have a name for the target either, simply referring to him as "the freak". It was... weird, to say the least. But beggars can't be choosers. They wired me $10,000 upfront. The rest would come after I'd finished the job. Those were their conditions, anyways.

I started driving out to the address they'd given me, where the target was supposed to be. They told me that I should get there by midnight, so I arrived at around 10 PM, in order to set up.

My load-out was a bit heavier than usual. I was thinking that this guy had to be armed and trained or something, since they were willing to pay me a shitload. I was packing a silenced Beretta, a fully automatic CZ-75, a Remington 870, a scoped M14, a butterfly knife, and some brass knuckles, if it had to come to close quarters. Well... that wasn't it. There was one last thing that I'd brought with me. It was a grenade. Now, I didn't think that I'd actually need it, and I didn't really want to use it. It was just there in case shit went beyond south.

I hid myself as best I could in the darkness of the dingy factory and waited until midnight. At about 12:11, the rusty doors flung open. I watched through my scope as an abnormally tall figure wearing a windbreaker and slacks burst in. From the description that they gave me, this was definitely the guy. I mean, how many people are 6'10?

The thing is, he was moving way too fast for me to get a clean shot, and I didn't want to risk blowing my position. In fact... he was sprinting, for whatever reason. However, he did appear to be unarmed, so I let myself relax a bit.

I lost him when he ran into a door on my left. Moving quietly, I pulled out the Beretta, stuck the CZ-75 into my holster, and followed him. Now, the place that he'd entered was pitch-black, but I'd planned for that. I put on a pair of night vision goggles and started traversing around the area. It appeared that he'd led me into a hallway. However, I couldn't find the guy. This is when the first peculiar thought struck me.

How the hell was he seeing anything in here?

My musing was cut short when I heard a shrill scream coming from somewhere at the end of the hall. Carefully, I maneuvered my way down there and peeked down both the left and right branched corridors. The screaming was definitely coming from a room to the left. As I got about halfway there, it just stopped suddenly. I froze in my steps.

What the hell?

It was at that moment when a body came flying out of the room. I nearly shouted out in shock, but managed to control myself. I watched as what appeared to be a 20-something male hit the wall just in front of me and bounced off, face-planting hard onto the concrete. It made a sick, squishing noise as it did. Getting a better view of the body, I noticed that one of the legs seemed to be crumpled. Like if the terminator himself had grabbed onto it and squeezed hard.

I could hear whatever had done this starting to come back out into the hallway. Feeling extremely disturbed and somewhat unprepared, I silently backed out into the main entrance hall. From there, I trained the CZ directly on the intersecting corridors and waited. I mean, there was no way that he could see me... right?

My heart skipped a beat with nearly every step that the guy took. He was getting closer. Closer. 3 more steps... 2...

As soon as he came into my view, I emptied the entire clip. My accuracy's always been pretty decent, so I'd say more than half of them hit. However...

He was still standing. And not just that, he barely even flinched. That's when I got closer look at his face.

All I can say is... nobody looks like that. In fact, nothing should look like what I was staring down in that dark hallway. His face was... incomprehensible. Not like the conventional demon or mutant that you see in the movies... it was something that the human brain wasn't meant to come face-to-face with. It didn't belong in our plane of existence.

The eyes were constantly changing... morphing, if you will. It was as if the two irises both shared one large, empty pupil. The mouth... if you could call it that, was twisted into a grin that seemed to wrap around its entire head, not just ear to ear. Those were the only distinguishable features. The rest of the skin on its face seemed to be constantly shifting. Sometimes it would be smooth, and sometimes it would look as if hundreds of tiny worms were crawling under it.

That... thing looked directly at me and let out this deep, throaty laugh that seemed to reverberate through the entire hall. I even had to quickly glance behind me because it sounded like it was coming from everywhere.

I could barely think. I dropped the CZ and pulled the Beretta. I emptied three shots right into the head, but the monstrosity barely reacted. It just started laughing louder.

Obviously, this creature wasn't going down any time soon. I bolted out of the hallway and back onto the main factory floor. My thoughts were a mess, but I managed to recall where I had left the shotgun. I hastily made my way over there and picked it up. I nearly had a heart attack when I turned around and saw that thing staring right at me. It was still laughing, in addition now to drooling this black, thick looking liquid. Some of it got onto my hand and instantly ate through my skin.

I winced in agony before firing a shot right into its face. This time, it actually seemed to react. I noticed that the bullets had managed to pierce its skin, but only slightly. It stopped laughing, instead letting out a shrill, deafening shriek that nearly burst my eardrums. It grabbed my arm and tossed me some meters away. I landed hard on my shoulder and I think it nearly broke. However, I didn't have the luxury of letting it rest.

I pumped the shotgun back and fired another shell directly into the creature's chest as it charged me. However, I couldn't move out of the way quick enough. The impact from the hit sent me flying about ten feet back in the air. I landed awkwardly, feeling my ankle dislocate as I did. However, I was also fairly close to the bag where I was keeping the grenade. There was really only one option left here. I scrambled over to it and feverishly grabbed for the explosive.

As soon as I got my hands on it, I pulled the pin. I could already hear the creature coming back towards me. I turned around and rolled it towards the thing. I barely got behind a pillar in time for the explosion.

I don't think the sound that it let out will ever leave my mind. It wasn't just a shriek. Not just a roar. It was as if all the air around me was being sucked into the thing's giant mouth and being distorted into some kind of otherworldly bellow. I crawled out from behind the pillar to see the thing stumbling around. It was missing a leg now. But instead of a bone sticking out, there was some kind of dark, shiny appendage squirming out of its severed limb.

Taking no chances, I emptied the rest of the shotgun rounds into the creatures head. However... it still wouldn't fucking die.

It was injured as hell for sure, but it kept moving. Tired as hell and in pain, I stumbled over and watched the freakish entity climb up a wall and out an open window. That was the last that I saw of it.

Immediately after, I packed up my things, got into my car and floored it home.

It's been a few hours since. I'm sitting here now, still in absolute disbelief at the events that just transpired. I don't even want to begin to think about what the hell that thing was. I tried contacting the people who had sent me after it in the first place, but they were giving me the silent treatment. Of course.

But there was something rather interesting that I saw on the news...

It was a report about a murder that took place in an abandoned factory. The same one that I was just in. Here's the kicker though... the person that I saw get splattered against a wall was actually a wanted enforcer for an local criminal gang. In fact, only a few days ago, another person had been murdered in a neighboring town. They searched his place and found staggering evidence that he was a contract killer. Just like me. But this wasn't even the end of it. Five hitmen/criminal enforcers had been murdered this month alone, all in the same state where I was. The authorities were suspecting that these had to be linked. I do recall hearing about them in some dark web circles a few weeks ago, but I didn't think anything of it. I just thought that they must have been incompetent.

I also watched a police press conference where some journalist asked if this might be some rogue vigilante on the loose.

"No" the Officer responded. "The manner in which these men are getting killed indicates that we've got something else on our hands. It's too brutal. Like the work of an absolute, unhinged psycopath."

That thing is still alive. And if it comes after me again... I don't think I'm gonna get so lucky. Maybe I'll just hire somebody else to try and kill it. Worth a shot.