Last Night

Couldn’t sleep last night. I swear, I heard footsteps coming from the other rooms the entire night long. I would go to investigate, but the rooms were always empty…. Then I’d hear footsteps again, from a different room. Spent the entire night walking through all 28 (yes, I counted, it was a long night) rooms in this house, keeping the light on in every one. Some of those rooms, I haven’t been inside in over a year. The dust was completely undisturbed, but I could still hear footsteps coming from them….

Exhaustion took me around 7 in the morning, and I collapsed into a pile of books in the kitchen (of course I have books in the kitchen… I might want to read something while waiting for the microwave to finish cooking….) Woke up about an hour ago, lying on my bed.
…. I’m kinda starting to freak out a bit here….

-Lisa

I went to look through the black chest one more time before I put everything in it away for good. Glanced over the diary, reread some of the letters…. There were a few other letters at the very bottom of the chest which I hadn’t touched. Decided I might as well look at them now.

Opened on up…. And could tell something was wrong. The envelope was ancient, showing every sign of being a century old. But inside was a brand new sheet of computer paper. The writing on the paper didn’t look like it had been made with ink…. It was dark red, and looked painted on…. But I don’t think it was paint. The letter said,

I SEE YOU, LISA WELLS
I’M COMING TO GET YOU
YOU CAN’T RUN FROM ME
I’M GOING TO EAT YOU UP

I just…. I mean…. What?

I threw the letter back into the box and ran to my room as soon as I finished reading it. Haven’t left since….

-Lisa

End of the Journal

…. This can’t be real. None of the things I’m reading could have happened. It’s not possible. None of it.
….
The handwriting for this entry is new. Very neat and orderly; each letter has been formed with precision. Which means Samuel isn’t the one transcribing anymore….

Suppose I should go ahead and post it….



This wasn’t how it was supposed to go. Everyone… I’m so sorry.

Mid-afternoon, Thomas Baker arrived at the front door of Samuel’s inn. He didn’t bring anyone with him, not even cronies to guard him. It’s not every day that the Mayor of Albuquerque, whose brother just died because of you, shows up like that. It was curious enough that I, the poor crippled girl, got out of bed and went down to see him.

Dorian was already there, and both men were glaring at each other with equal contempt. I asked Thomas why he’d come here. Without breaking his glare from Dorian, he said to us, “The time has come for you to embrace the Archangel.”
“And what if we’d rather not embrace any Archangels?”
“Then everyone here shall embrace Him.”

That was the extent of the conversation, as he left as soon as he said that. Didn’t know what he meant then. Thought it was just some vague, generic threat.

Course, we weren’t complete idiots. We knew that something was up, and that we should prepare for it. Dorian made sure he had plenty of ammo, and I reapplied bandages to my hand…. I can kinda shoot with my off hand. Better than most can. Still not near as good as right handed shooting. But good enough to keep bullets in the air.

The day was quiet. Paranoid, but quiet. Kept jumping at noises, thinking something was about to go on. Looking out the windows, didn’t see it anywhere…. Nor did I see Thomas Baker, or anyone who looked like they may have been working for him.

Dorian was around me most of the day, trying to take care of my injury. Kept telling me that everything would be alright; I think, at the time, he actually believed it. Sweet, but somewhat overbearing. Getting an actual medical practitioner may have been better. And his attention on me was making him focus less attention on being paranoid. And at that moment, being paranoid was the smartest thing we could be doing.

The sun set without anything happening. That we had gone for so long without any payoff to Thomas’s threat did not alleviate our concerns. If anything, it only made them worse. If someone gives you a vague threat, you don’t want to have that threat be played out in the middle of the night.

Didn’t even try to sleep. Dorian was by my bed for most of the night, and Samuel was watching the bar. Still weren’t sure what we to be expecting. “Embrace the Archangel” isn’t very specific, honestly.

Heard the first screams just after midnight. Dorian and I ran out of my room and towards the source; another room in Samuel’s inn. When we got inside, we found a man, his head crushed in and his blood spread across the walls. Didn’t get a chance to investigate, as there was another scream from a different room. Ran there and saw the same scene: the occupant’s head had been bashed in.

The screams were waking up the others in the building, who came out of their rooms and looked around in their sleepy confusion. A few were awake enough to ask what was going on. Just as I opened my mouth to warn them that something was killing people, a figure in black just…. Stepped out of a shadow. He…. Had the same build and clothes as Pastor Gabriel…. But the pastor was dead…. I saw his corpse…. He couldn’t….
He was wearing something like a mask on his head. It looked like bronze, or copper, and covered the entire head, except for the eyes, which were covered by fogged glass. He grabbed the closest man to him by the neck, and started strangling him. Dorian opened fire. The bullets hit the pastor’s body, and I saw the blood from their impacts…. But it didn’t stop him. He just kept tightening his grip on the man’s neck, until it snapped. More people screamed, and everything dissolved into panic. Everyone screaming and running, and in the middle of it, Pastor Gabriel vanished.

Heard more gunshots coming from outside, so we ran out to look. Didn’t quite expect what we saw. There was another body on the ground, throat torn out, and a building burning further into the town. Of course, Dorian and I went running to the burning building. It’s the sort of thing we do.

A small audience had gathered around the fire. Some people were forming a bucket chain from the well, others just watching. As we arrived, a gunshot went through the head of one of the men in the bucket chain. I looked at the source to briefly see the face of Sheriff Baker, then it disappeared. The people around the fire started to panic…. Then two more shots were fired, striking two more people in the head, and everything went to hell. Some tried shooting back, and hit others. With the flames distorting the shadows, and the sound of gunshots surrounding everyone, it was impossible to tell who was shooting at who. Soon there was a full firefight breaking out, one without sides or logic. Just a bunch of scared men firing bullets at each other.

I wanted to try and stop them, but it didn’t look like there was anything I could do…. With no one left trying to stop it, the fire was spreading rapidly, destroying everything around it. Nothing I could do to stop it. Dorian and I started to run back to Samuel’s place. I tried to ignore the screams….

We say a woman, fleeing the fire with her son. A man…. Stepped out of the shadows, and began to brutally strike the woman’s face, over and over and over, until he had crushed her skull. The child was crying, gripped by fear so great he couldn’t run away when the man reached over to him and snapped his neck.

That was it. I drew my gun, and not even pausing to aim, fired it over and over at the man. Dorian was beside me, doing the same, both of us pulling the triggers until no more bullets came out. Round after round struck the man, tearing his skin apart, making him stagger, making him fall…. Then he stood back up. His body…. Changed. And suddenly he wasn’t the man we’d been shooting, but was the woman who had just been killed…. The woman whose body was lying on the ground next to it…. Then it stepped back into the shadows, and was gone.

Didn’t know what was happening. Didn’t have time to stop and figure it out. Started running again, back to Samuel’s. When we got there…. Maybe if we’d run a bit faster, maybe if we hadn’t wasted so much time…. The inn was burning when we reached it. A ring of bodies surrounded the burning building, and standing amongst them was the pastor. Motionless. Calm. Staring at us through those fogged lenses. Dorian ran at him and swung a fist at his face. The punch connected, and Dorian prepared for another, when the pastor’s body changed. Suddenly, Dorian wasn’t swinging at a masked preacher, but at Samuel. He hesitated, and in that hesitation, the thing which looked like Samuel grabbed him by the throat.

Hell no. Not him too. Tried to fire my gun, but it doesn’t work very well without bullets. Then I remembered another weapon which I had been neglecting. Pulled out the Doc’s grappling gun and shot it at that thing’s chest. Definitely not what I’d imagined it would be used for when I requested it be build, but it worked. The spike burrowed into the Samuel-Thing’s chest, and it let go of Dorian, who quickly stepped away.

Then it changed again. This time into…. No, it couldn’t have done that…. It couldn’t have turned into…. No, it isn’t possible…. Dad, you’re not dead yet, you haven’t even been born yet, how could it turn into you, you don’t die for another century, it can’t have….
….

Dorian got me to run away. If he hadn’t been there, I might have just stood and waited for that thing to kill me. Not that there was anyplace we could run to. The entire town was burning, and the streets were littered with bodies. It had become quiet, save for the sound of flames consuming wooden buildings.

We made it to the edge of town without seeing a single living person. Waiting for us there was Pastor Gabriel. Fuck, the flames reflecting off his metal mask…. Fuck. Not something I want to remember.

Nowhere for us to go. Weapons didn’t have any ammo left, and punching didn’t seem very effective. For once, it looked like I had run out of options. I…. Well, I…. Grabbed Dorian, shouted something stupid about in case we didn’t make it out of there, and kissed him.
MOVING ON MOVING ON MOVING ON.

And then, like a beam shining down from heaven itself, lights which were not from the fires suddenly lit up the area around us. Floating in the sky, glaring light down on us, was a large, metallic, oblong object. Haha! Finally finished that zeppelin I wanted, Doc!

And the look on Dorian’s face! I don’t know what scared him more, the madness we’d just gone through of the GIANT FLYING METAL OBJECT which was above us! Aha! That was great!

A ladder was thrown down, and I somehow managed to talk Dorian into climbing up it. And helping me climb up, because I kinda couldn’t use one of my hands. When we reached the top of the ladder and got inside, Doc was waiting for us. Don’t think I’ve ever been happier to see him than that moment.

Looked down, and saw the Pastor still standing in the same place. He hadn’t tried to stop us as we made our escape. Just watched us get away….

We’re in the air right now. Having something which flies actually makes my plans to investigate the desert feasible once more. Doc’s agreed to transcribe for me, though it took a while to convince him to write down everything I said accurately. Didn’t it, eh Doc?

As for Los Valle…. It’s… It’s gone. The whole city burned down. I don’t think there were any survivors.

…..

These things…. They’re going to pay for this. I promise that.



Yeah…. Interesting story, but…. I looked some things up. Zeppelins? Not invented for around a decade after this. Los Valle? No record of any such town. Mayor Thomas Baker? No record of him either. No record of anyone from the Baker or Gardner family living in Albuquerque. Nothing she talks about in her journal has any record of actually happening.

And that’s not even starting on the blatantly unrealistic things. At first I tried to ignore them… But this entry goes too far for me to ignore it.

This is the last entry. All the pages after it have been burned away. End of the notebook.

Feels really, really weird.

I’ve been obsessing over this for how long? Almost two months? And it’s over now? That’s it? No more?

I suppose there’s a few more things in the box which I haven’t looked at…. But I’m not sure I want to, now that I know how impossible this story is. I thought it was so cool, having someone like Elizabeth for an ancestor…. But it’s all a story. Much as I love stories…. For once I was hoping to find something real from this. But I guess the real world doesn’t have people like her in it.

Back to my fortress under the bed sheets, I guess. Don’t know when I’ll come out again.

-Lisa

I’m just going to ignore that last post. I’m not going to read it, not going to look at it, not going to acknowledge that it’s even there.

Like an addict, I keep going back to the black chest’s contents. Even when it seems clear that its contents can’t be factual, I keep reading them.

Picked out a letter at random from the chest. The message was from Doctor Jeter, addressed to Elizabeth. He’s explaining that he’s been forced to move production on the designs she gave him to a more industrialized location, but that it should be finished within her deadline.

There’s a problem with this letter: her designs. In her diary, Elizabeth said that all the inventions and plans were the doctor’s ideas. Yet here, he’s claiming the opposite….

The journal continues its trend of oddities. For a long times, Elizabeth’s preparing for this expedition into the desert. It seems like an awfully long time for a simple trip. Ever so often, she’ll mention “it” being around, but doesn’t go into any more detail. Whatever “it” is, doesn’t seem to have done anything important since she last talked about it.

The handwriting on this entry is different than normal. Bit messier, with a few spelling errors (most of which I’ve gone ahead and corrected, to make it easier to read). It’s still Elizabeth’s words, but someone else is writing them.



10:00 PM-Fuck this time keeping shit
I hate having to skulk around Albuquerque at night like some criminal. Yes, I technically am a criminal, but still.

Dorian and I had just finished speaking with some men about hiring a guide for our expedition. All done very discrete and hush hush like. Small room, barely lit by a candle, didn’t even get the names of the people I was speaking to. Dorian assured me we could trust them, but I have my doubts.

When we stepped out into the night and saw a tall, pale figure in black waiting for us, I thought it was back. But no, nevermind, this figure had a face. Just a preacher standing outside the door. Dorian respectfully tipped his hat and greeted the priest while I walked by, ignoring whatever response he had. Was about to tell Dorian to stop chatting and get moving before whatever law enforcement was wandering around caught us, when the priest said to me, “I see that you have come under the gaze of the Pale Prince.”

…..
Alright preacher man, you got my attention, now what are you going to do with it.

Introduced himself as Pastor Gabriel. Tall and skinny guy, not quite bald, but getting close. Easy to see how I mistook him for it when I first saw him. Told us that he could help with our problem, but insisted that we walk with him to his church first. We could talk on the way, he said.

For someone who promised talking on the way, he sure was quiet. I asked him dozens of questions. How did he know about it? What did he want with us? Why did we need to go to the church? All of my questions received short, vague answers. This was getting damn suspicious. I told Dorian to be on guard, but he seemed affronted at the idea that a man of God could be working against us. Damn it, Dorian…. Walked the rest of the way to the church sullenly quiet, while Dorian and the pastor engaged in small talk.

The church was a white painted wooden building, and one of the largest buildings in the city (although that wasn’t much of an accomplishment). Pastor Gabriel went in first and lit several candles to illuminate the place. All that managed to do was throw around a lot of shadows. The pastor gestured for Dorian and I to take a seat on the pews, which we did. He spoke, in calming, gentle tones. While he had never experienced any encounters with it, his time working as a servant of God had led to him hearing rumors about the being he called “The Pale Prince”. Tales had been few, a scattered handful of hastily scribbled notes here, the mad ravings of a man who long ago lost his mind there…. It was difficult, but he managed to piece together enough of the puzzle for his understanding. And enough, he claimed, to know a way to free the two of us from its hunt.

“What way?” I asked the pastor.
He smiled, looking at both of us with fatherly eyes, then he opened his arms and said, “You must embrace the Archangel.”

The door was thrown open, causing a gust of wind to blow out most of the candles. Sheriff Frederick Baker stood in the open portal, gun drawn. I saw him pointing the gun towards Dorian, the pastor giving a slight nod, the sheriff’s finger tightening on the trigger…. I lunged, pushing Dorian aside just as the gun was fired. Pain…. Worse pain I’ve ever felt…. My vision went red…. And I was on the floor of the church, blood dripping from my hand onto the wooden planks, pieces of my shattered bones sticking out of the hole which had been torn through my palm…. Dorian was shouting, there was more gunfire, but I couldn’t see any of it, all that existed was my blood soaked hand and the vomit rising in my throat….

I can barely remember Dorian picking me up and carrying me out of the church. The bodies of the sheriff and the pastor were left behind us…. I’ve never seen anyone look so happy when they died. They must have been in horrible pain, having been shot as many times as they were…. But both bodies were smiling. Not the insane smile of a psychopath, but content, peaceful smiles.

Passed out while Dorian was getting me onto a horse so we could escape. Came to back in Los Valle, lying in my bed. Dorian and Samuel were waiting for me when my eyes opened. My hand had been bandaged, but it’s useless. I cannot stress how much I miss pain medication. Even a doctor can’t do much to help it (if there are any doctors out there who would still help me after my involvement in two prominent deaths). Samuel’s agreed to write this for me as I dictate.

This…. Is not the best thing which could happen to me. It’s unlikely that I’ll ever be able to use this hand again. And with my current medical options, I’m running the risk of infection, fever, then dying a horrible death.
Well, a slightly less horrible death than what I was probably going to experience before this, but a horrible death nonetheless.
So. I’m crippled, in bed, hunted by a monster, just went from “Robin Hood Criminal” to “Evil Murderer Criminal”, and now I’ve got to figure out what the pastor meant by “Embrace the Archangel” (know I’ve heard it before, brain gets fuzzy whenever I try to think of where). I’m guessing my plans for an expedition may need to be put on hold while I think of some new plans.

Unless I get killed in the next few days, in which case, I won’t be needing those new plans at all.



So….. I have no idea what’s going on here. At least for once, Elizabeth also seems to be out of the loop.
I’m almost at the end of what’s left of the journal…. The way things are going, I’m getting nervous about what’ll come next……..
…..
No choice but to read on and find out….

-Lisa

September 7, 2011-Montreal, Canada

392

And now I’m in Canada.

Funny how that works out.

I’ll put up a post explaining why I suddenly left Germany and wound up here next time (whenever that is going to be); still sorting out the memories from it.Lots of explosions, gunfire, screaming, pain, I blacked out, and now I’m in a hospital. At least I had the good fortune to wind up in a place where, when a young woman is found unconscious and bleeding in a public park, ambulances are called and she is treated.

That was all a few weeks ago. I’ve been sitting in a hospital bed being useless since then. Having your arm torn up/being shot tends to make strenuous activity inadvisable for a period of time. I got questioned by a lot of people asking me why there was shrapnel in my arm, including the police (they tend to get curious about random people lying around the city with bullet wounds). I avoided most of the questions, kept claiming I couldn’t remember. Just wish I could be there when the cop’s ballistics people try to get a match on the gun that shot me. Imagining their faces causes me to burst into unstoppable laughter.

One of the nurses is pretty cute. I’ll confess: a few of the times I called her in have been just so I could flirt with her. She seemed flattered, but told me that she didn’t swing that way. Also, she had a boyfriend.

“Great,he can join in!”

Yes, I am a master at putting people into awkward moments.

……..

I’m avoiding the main subject, aren’t I.

…………

There’s a reason I try to never stay in one place for longer than a week unless necessary. Being hospitalized, I wasn’t able to follow that rule. Hilarity did not ensue.

Sitting awake in my hospital bed at night, only a skeleton crew staffing the building. Wasn’t paying much attention to what was going on around me; just lost in thought (I seem to be spending too much time lost there, lately). Then the lights started flickering, and survival instincts kick in. Looked out the door, didn’t see anyone. No doctors, nurses, janitors, no one at the phone, nobody in sight. Lights kept flickering, on and off. Obviously suspicious, so I decided to investigate.

There I was, in my hospital gown, left arm a useless mess of stitches, bandages allover my body, still limping a bit, walking down the halls of an abandoned hospital determined to confront whatever monster was causing this. Confidence,stupidity, both? You decide.

Lights off, back on…. And there it was. Hey there, Slender Man. It’s been, what, two weeks since our last meeting? Or was it seventy years? Math never was my specialty, you know.

Couldn’t really run away from it, not injured like I was. So, I tried to stare it down.Bit hard to do when you’re dealing with something that has no eyes, but I gave it my best damn shot. Course that didn’t work. It took steps towards me,sometimes flowing with impossible grace, other times with jerking and stiff movements. Six feet away from me, black tentacles exploded out from his back.Too many of them to count…. I could barely tell each individual one apart; as more kept pouring out, it looked like a wall of writhing blackness charging towards me. Braced myself for some kind of horrible pain when it hit…. If onlyI would have been so lucky as to have experienced physical pain from that….

The hospital turned black, with only the white parts of Slender Man’s suit and its pale head as contrast against the darkness. Then the eyes started to appear.Grotesque, ichor dripping eyelids burst from the walls like blisters, opening to show dozens of eyes, all staring at me…. Black tentacles rose from the floor and wrapped around my arms and legs, scorching every inch of skin they touched.They pulled me onto my hands and knees, pulling me down to the floor…. I fought, my arms struggling to prevent me from being pulled all the way down. Sweat dripping down my hair, muscles screaming, the tentacles burning my skin, slowly being dragged down…. Each moment, pushing to keep from being pulled into the blackness at my feet; each moment, inevitably being pulled further down. I looked up at its blank head, and growled. Not like this. No way in hell was it going to beat me at something like this. With a scream of rage, I started to push as hard as I could, ignoring the pain and the smell of burning flesh. It was enough to stop the constant pull, and slowly begin to bring myself back up,fighting for every centimeter I raised myself back from the ground….

Then the stitches in my arm tore open, and in that moment of shock and pain the tentacles pulled me to the ground, into blackness. That’s all I saw for a while:blackness all around me.

My eyes open up, and I’m lying on a stone slab in a dark room. Men wearing robes and ornamental metal masks surround me. I feel tired, can’t move at all. One of them speaks, voice muffled by the mask.

“She’s waking up.”

Another responds. “Already? It’s too soon. Sedate her again.”

And then my eyes are closing again, and I’m adrift in the darkness.

Open my eyes again, and I’m lying in a crater. There’s smoke in the sky, coming from infernos burning in the distance. I’m surrounded by bodies, torn to pieces in bloody and grotesque ways, thrown all over the battlefield. A man in a uniform comes over, and crouches down to inspect me.

“This one’s alive!” He shouts.

More run over, carrying a stretcher. As they lift me up, my eyes close again….Blackness….

Once more I open my eyes. I’m in a cave, face down in a puddle of red. Someone grabs me and flips me onto my back. I see…. Grendel…. Above me, shaking my shoulders,desperately shouting at me to wake up. I still can’t move, can’t do anything. He looks back, and starts to scream, then is pulled into the darkness. My eyes close….

And I woke up back in my hospital bed, screaming. According to the doctors, they found me thrashing and yelling, covered in my blood and with second degree burns on my arms and legs. They were able to put my stitches back in, and treated my burns as best they could. I’ve been told I’ll need to spend more time recovering. Gonna have to ignore that recommendation. I’m getting out of here soon, and don’t plan on taking any breaks like anytime in the foreseeable future. Got that lesson hammered into my brain…. Soon as I finish this post, I’m leaving. Not sure where yet, but anyplace that isn’t here sounds like a good start.

I-330

Well.... She's Crazy

I think I might try out a little talking about myself before I go more into Elizabeth’s journal. It’s…. Tangentially related to her, at least.

Just because I’ve been only posting the entries doesn’t mean my own problems have vanished…. Still unemployed…. Still wasting my time at home….

I realized I couldn’t keep that up forever. A diet of peanut butter and ramen can only get one so far. I’d need to leave this shell and go out into the world eventually….

It was this journal that let me do it. Ever since I’d started to really pour over this, I’ve felt like there’s a little voice in the back of my head. Always telling me, “Elizabeth wouldn’t be so scared. She wouldn’t be so paralyzed by shyness that she couldn’t even go outside. You think you have problems? This is nothing compared to what Elizabeth was going through.”

After a while, it started to get to me…. Which led to me finally leaving the house, walking down the street to that McDonalds, and filling out an application. I even squeaked out a little small talk with the people working there before running back home. That was the first regular conversation I’ve had with another person since July…. It’s nothing like robbing a bank or throwing people out a window in a bar fight, but it’s still a step closer than where I was before. Now I just need to wait for a call for an interview, and hopefully soon I’ll actually be capable of financially supporting myself. I’d say wish me luck, but right now the only active reader here appears to be a self proclaimed mass murderer….

Of course, all of this was done before I got home, read the next few days in the journal, and realized that the woman I was trying to be like may have been insane…. I won’t say anything here, just going to post what I read and let you see.

11:00 AM-12:00 PM

I’ve begun to receive replies from Miskatonic. I hope that with time, I can turn this into a regular correspondence. They’re probably my best avenue for information hunting.

Spent most of the morning trying to think of how to tell Dorian what was following us without sounding like an idiot. Didn’t find much success in that endeavor, really. Eventually I gave up and just decided to wing it, like I usually do.

When I managed to get ahold of Dorian, I nearly had a panic attack as my mind went blank. Couldn’t think of what to say. I’m starting to believe that maybe I should just stick to fighting things, and leave the socializing to someone else….

Eventually I did succeed in telling him. And he didn’t believe me. Thought I was joking. Joking? I was trying to save your life, and you think I’m joking?

That got me mad. I was going to make him believe me, dammit. I grabbed his arm, and pulled him outside. It had been out there, watching us from the dirt street the whole time. Strange how no one noticed it. People, horses, carriages, all made detours to go around the thing, but not one man or beast turned an eye towards it.

As we got closer to it, Dorian began to struggle, and attempted to break free of my grip. Some unconscious survival instinct, which understood better than he what he was looking at. I kept pulling him along, creating a bit of a scene on that street.

His struggles stopped once we were close enough to really see the thing. It stood perfectly still, arms locked to its side, that eyeless head gazing directly at us…. Dorian whispered something about it not having a face to himself, too shocked to do anything else but stare.

As I was really planning on not dying there, we ran back inside. It didn’t follow us. Dorian now believes me, which I guess means I won the argument. Hooray.

Okay, so something without a face. She’s still being vague on the details, but I didn’t see that coming. Kept reading the rest of the day’s notes to find an explanation, but there wasn’t any. Typical.

While strange, I can’t call Elizabeth crazy based off this entry alone. It’s too vague, and I really don’t understand what’s going on. So I continued to read, until I got to the night entries.

2:00-3:00 AM

Finally time for me to get to work. Living a semi-normal life had been fun for a while. No more time for that, now it was back to the realm of monsters.

Los Valle has a small cemetery connected to its church. Nothing that interesting, unless you know what to look for. Signs of digging apart from the holes made for the graves, stories about bodies disappearing, children with feral faces and alien natures…. Ghouls. I’d seen the signs of them, but they hadn’t attacked anyone while I was in town, so I’d elected to leave them alone. But now things were starting to get all eldritch around here, which called for a change in plans.

Brought Dorian to the cemetery with me. He was nervous, and still not over what he’s seen during the day. But now that he was involved in this, I couldn’t leave him behind. Told him to bring his gun, but under absolutely no circumstances to fire it unless I said so. Couldn’t have him starting a fight because he was being jumpy.

We went out an hour after midnight; me leading with a lantern, and Dorian behind me, carrying a bag holding a dead coyote we’d hunted early in the day. Once we reached the center of the cemetery, Dorian placed the bag on the ground, between the tombstones, and we stepped back. I shouted something to let them know we were there. Stupid. Of course they knew we were there. All we could do then was stand there, and hope that the ghouls didn’t decide that fresh human would taste better than the snack we brought for them.

Suddenly three figures sprang from the darkness onto the bag. Creatures with rubbery skin, slouched poses, and canine muzzles. They tore apart the bag, and started to feast on the dead animal inside, slurping up blood and cracking bones apart. Dorian shouted something and drew his gun, but I stopped him before he could fire.

Less than a minute later, the coyote had been devoured, leaving the ground covered in broken bones and dark blood. Their meal finished, the ghouls turned towards us, red eyes hungrily staring us down, blood dripping from their mouths. It was fairly obvious that they were measuring up Dorian and me for a potential second course. That both of us were armed with guns may have been the only thing keeping them back.

One of them spoke, in their meeping, gibbering language. Didn’t understand a word of it. Wish I had a translator with me, like the last time. Communicating was going to be very difficult without one….

Carefully keeping my eyes on the ghouls in case they tried anything, I started to draw in the dirt. A stick man, with disproportionately long limbs. Then I carefully drew an x over the face. The ghouls recoiled from it in fear. They knew what it was I had drawn.

There were dozens of questions I wanted to ask them. Stupid language barrier. Had to focus on the most important one; which was going to be damn hard using dirt drawings.

Did my best at drawing a crack, tear, fissure, whatever you want to call it. Came out just looking like a jagged line. Needed something better. Something to illustrate the jagged white tear floating in the air that I’d seen before I wound up here…. Sudden inspiration hit me: I poured some of the lantern’s oil down the line, then lit it. Fire was the closest I could come to emulating that white light.

The ghouls stared at my little fire show for a while. Then one pointed northwards, across the desert and towards the mountains. It also said a few words in its language, but I don’t have a clue what any of it meant, so I’m just going to hope it was relevant to my question. Then again, it’d be hard to imagine how it wouldn’t; it’s not like they’d mistake my drawing for the other reality defying burning tear in the air related to the tall guy. Because there’s just so many of those lying around.

Questioning done, time to leave. The ghouls still looked unnerved by my drawings, but I wasn’t sure if it was enough to keep them from attacking us. We left as fast as we could, and ran until we got inside.

So I’ve got a lead. Small lead, but a lead. Next step, start preparing an expedition north to the mountains.

So…. We’ve got her talking about meeting monsters called ghouls in a cemetery late at night, tall faceless things, and glowing white tears in something. Either she’s making all of it up, or she really thinks it’s happening and is insane. I don’t know which of those I dislike more.

Or….

She’s telling the truth, and I’m not going to sleep tonight as I think about the implications of that….

…..

I’m starting to think I may read too many horror novels for my own good….

-Lisa

And Still More Weirdness

So I read the blog that belongs to the guy who commented on my last post…. OnePoundOfFlesh….
Only got through the first three posts before I stopped. I hope it’s fictional. I really do. Because if it’s real…. That’s sick. Why does a blog about a serial killer even have so many followers….

Here’s the entries following the ones I posted yesterday. I still don’t really understand what’s going on. It’s almost unnerving, reading about this but not knowing what’s really happening. My imagination keeps trying to fill in the gaps. But my imagination never has been a place of happy things….



7:00 AM-8:00 AM
Woke up later than usual. Times like this, I wish I had some way to record what I was doing in my sleep. It would add a lot to my peace of mind.

Was still in the stable. Not the most comfortable places to sleep, but hey, I was tired. Barely even noticed the straw I was laying on stabbing me through the night, least not until I was woken and suddenly could feel every tiny blade poking into my skin.

I say “woken” because stables are not places designed for individuals to sleep in, and not long after the sun had risen someone was waking me up and asking why on earth I was asleep there. Didn’t give them an answer; just got up and walked out.

No sign of it as I walked away. And believe me, I was looking carefully. I was focused so much on searching for any hint of a tall and thin silhouette in the shadows that I jumped when Dorian called my name. I think it was obvious how nervous I was, but he didn’t press me too hard for details. The two of us walked down the road, chatting. Small talk. Nothing of much importance.

Until Dorian mentioned we were being followed. I looked over my shoulder and saw it, standing from a distance, watching us. Whenever I blinked, it would be closer. Felt like I’d been thrown into a bucket of ice; barely heard Dorian’s theory that it was someone hired by the Baker’s to get revenge on us for the bank robbery. He could see it. Dorian could see that thing. Everyone else on the street walked by, ignoring the towering, spindly, faceless figure amongst them, but Dorian…. He saw it, even if he didn’t understand what it was.

Dorian was still talking about our follower as we reached the center of town. Going through his list of suspects that the Bakers would hire to pursue us. Cept he couldn’t figure out what kind of person would walk around dressed as an undertaker….

Dressed as an undertaker? Yeah, dressed as an undertaker, Dorian confirmed. Hadn’t I looked at the man’s clothes? Well, yeah, I did, but….

Guess that confirms that the people here see him differently. Undertaker, though? Seems a bit cliché.

Don’t know what I should tell him. I feel obligated to warn him, but there’s nagging doubt that he won’t believe what I say. It’s not exactly the most realistic sounding scenario. And he’d find out on his own eventually….

I’m being selfish…. Because I don’t want him to look at me like I’m crazy. He’ll need help. I couldn’t have gotten through my first encounters if I didn’t have someone by my side. Could I put him through that? Make him deal with this on his own? Just because of what he’ll think of me?

Can’t do that. Could never do something like that. Even if he doesn’t believe me, I have to try. Give him any warning I can for what lies ahead.



Maybe if I’m lucky, when Elizabeth explains what’s going on to Dorian, she’ll be nice enough to give me an explanation as well.

Ah, who am I kidding. She’ll probably spend the rest of this journal cryptically referring to whatever’s following her as “it” and I’ll never figure any of this out….

-Lisa