Further Investigation

Sorry about not posting for a while. Been laying low for the most part.

I snooped around a bit and dug up what I could find. The town's called Moore. Moore, Oregon. The name didn't click at first, but I think I passed through here when I was first heading into Redwood. Whole place looks vaguely familiar. To be honest, I was getting pretty paranoid by that point, so I spent a few days holed up in a cheap motel out on the outskirts. Old habits die hard, I suppose.

My phone dying finally dragged my out of my self-imposed isolation, but only as far as a corner store on the road into town. After Redwood, I was uneasy about going inside, but the guy behind the counter didn't seem off or weird at all. Thank god for that. I still had some cash in my wallet, so I bought a charger and some snacks to get me through the week. Credit card wasn't worth shit; I couldn't get into my account or check anything. Whole thing was scrubbed.

Asked the guy if he knew anything about Redwood Falls, and he just shrugged. He couldn't have been much older than me. Mid twenties, scrawny. Yellow trucker cap with the words "Praxis International". That part was definitely weird. I pressed him about it, and he just said that as far as he knew, it was just some backwater town that everyone thought was run by a cult. Said he thought it was bullshit.

I sighed, took my stuff and went for the door. Just before I got outside, though, I had a thought. I asked him if he'd seen a woman recently. Kind of goth-looking, hoodie, that sort of thing.

He said he had. Said she'd come through about two days before, bought a small army's worth of snacks and water, then left. The clerk thought it was weird that she didn't have a car, what with being a decent way's walk from the highway. He didn't know what direction she was going, but I think I can guess.

If she's still alive, she probably came through here either looking for shelter, or trying to find me.

It sounds egotistical, I know, but it's a possibility.

I'm back at the hotel now, living off two slim jims and a gatorade. Checked the news again; nothing on Redwood. There was a bit about a military exercise in the Pacific Northwest, but not much else.

Wait.

Thought I heard someone walking around outside my door. Looked out the peephole but didn't see anything. Grabbed my gun and opened the door, but still nothing. Just as I'm about to go back inside, though, I look up and a pair of helicopters fly past. It was hard to see details in the dark, but they looked military. No markings, though. They passed over the town, then broke off in separate directions.

I feel like that's a bad sign.

Aftermath

Managed to hitch a ride back to a different town. Didn't catch the name on the way in, but they've got a cheap hotel, and I'm short on cash, so it'll have to do for now. All I've got left at this point is a gun, a wallet and a phone. The latter is actually the least useful, to be honest. Whoever took us days ago had the sense to wipe everything I'd saved. Pictures, notes, everything. Whatever backups of my data that I had were with me when they caught us.

So, I guess I'm just fucked in that regard. Typical.

I've been checking the news to see if anything about Redwood has come up, and there's nothing. Like the place just dropped off the face of the Earth. I can't say that surprised me, but I would've expected something, anything. You'd think someone would have noticed fucking bombs being dropped on an American town. Hell, it looks like even my blog got seized for a little while.

They didn't delete the posts, so that's something. Seems odd, considering how thorough they've been so far.

I'm going to try and get some sleep, then ask around this place and see if anyone knows about what happened. If Deb's alive, maybe she passed through through here.

I doubt it, but it's worth a shot.

Resurrection

I'm not dead.

At least, I think I'm not. It's hard to tell. I don't really know what to think anymore. Deb is gone. Everyone's gone.

I woke up in a ditch in the middle of the woods a few hours ago. They left my phone. I thought maybe they'd just forgotten it, but when I found it, the password was disabled and all my data had been scrubbed. Pictures, video, anything I'd taken in Redwood was gone. At first, I couldn't remember anything that had happened. It was like my brain was blocking it out, like on some subconscious level, I didn't want to remember. They left my clothes, at the least. I suppose if they had any real interest in killing me, they would've dumped me in the woods naked. Took my gun, though. I guess if I run into a bear, I'm pretty fucked.

These are definitely the woods around Redwood. Same kind of trees, same landscape. I know I'm near Redwood for sure, though. Everything out here reeks of burnt meat. It's deathly silent; no helicopters, no fighters, nothing. Just me and the sounds of my breathing.

I didn't have a compass, so I started heading towards the smell. Only lead I had at the time, unfortunately. It didn't take long to figure out where it was coming from. There was a ravine, about five miles or so from where I started from. The smell was overpowering. I hadn't eaten anything for at least a day or so, but even still, I puked my guts up.

The ravine was full of bodies. Burnt human bodies. I recognized some of them. People from the town, mostly. No gunshot wounds, no bullet casings. They burned them all alive. The smell of gasoline was still in the air when I arrived. It couldn't have been more than a few hours since this happened. If Deb was in there, I couldn't see her. I hope she's alright.

Took another few hours to find the road. Signs leading out of Redwood and back towards the highway. Sticking near the trees in case patrols come through. There's smoke rising from where Redwood Falls used to be. I'm not really keen on going back and seeing if anyone made it out.

The road seems to go on for miles. No food, no water. Getting cold. I keep expecting to see figures in the woods, like before, but there's nothing. No eyes on the back of my neck, no uneasiness, nothing. For the first time in weeks, I actually feel truly alone.

I don't know if I like it.

Coming up near the highway on ramp now. I'll see if I can get a ride back to civilization.

IMMEDIATE NOTICE OF SEIZURE

THIS SITE HAS BEEN SEIZED FOR THE RELEASE OF POTENTIALLY SENSITIVE MATERIALS BY THE UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF ANOMALOUS AFFAIRS

ALL MATERIALS ARE SUBJECT TO REVIEW AND REDACTION.

ALL VISITING IP ADDRESSES HAVE BEEN LOGGED FOR LATER INVESTIGATION.

FURTHER VIEWING IS HEREAFTER A FEDERAL OFFENSE.

YOUR IP ADDRESS HAS BEEN LOGGED FOR POTENTIAL DISSIDENT ACTIVITIES

REMAIN CALM

PERSONNEL WILL BE ARRIVING SHORTLY

HAVE A NICE DAY

Still Running

I'm starting to think this is going to be my last entry.

Not, like, last as in on this blog. Last ever.

We've been walking out of the town for hours now and haven't seen anyone. It's getting cold out now too. The wind's kicked up and I can smell the town burning a few miles behind. It's an unmistakable smell. Ash has been falling like snow for the last hour now. Deb started crying. Can't say I blame her.

I understand, now, why the Church hadn't killed me. This blog, this whole thing was meant to be a message. I think they wanted me to come here, to tell people about them. Virgil wanted the truth to get out just as much as they did, I suppose. Maybe people will get word around because of this.

Sun's started coming up over the horizon.

We stopped at a gas station a mile or so back. Looked normal. Not off or strange like the town. Thought there might be people inside, since there were lights on.

There weren't. Not living people, at least.

Everyone was dead. Gunshot wounds. Normal folks, just a tourist and two old folks that seemed like they manned the shop. We grabbed what we needed and ran.

Normal people. They just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, I guess.

Helicopters keep buzzing overhead. We duck into cover when they show up, but odds are they already know where we are.

I wanted to go home at first, but I'm just so tired. I'm done with it all. I just want to get this over with and go home. If they're going to kill me, then so be it. I might be able to take a few of them with me when I-

oh fuck

there's a checkpoint up ahead. they can see us.

oh shit oh shit oh shit theyre coming what the fuck where is deb

please god im sorry dont

On the Run

It's been more than an hour. Still running. I've heard things behind us. Gunfire, shouts, screams. The soldiers are everywhere. Everyone is dead. They shoot them and burn the bodies. Like it was nothing.

Deb was shaken. Alive, but definitely in shock. I can't say I blame her. She's been crying since we got back up to the surface. Took some time, though. The tunnels were like a maze, like wandering the guts of some long dead corpse. For all I know, I was. The Town is- was- alive.

Everything on the surface is burning.

I've read stories about white phosphorus, even seen photos on the web, but I never imagined I'd be standing in the middle of it. The wind burned my lungs and scalded my eyes. We walked for miles, blind, through the storm of white hot air.

All throughout the streets, there are burned bodies. Some human but most not quite. Amalgamations of bits and pieces of people, sure, but not people. The town's monsters. It's immune system. The soldiers were still around, and every so often we'd hear another round of gunfire. Didn't take us long to figure out what they were doing.

They were rounding up anyone still alive in the town by the city hall; the only structure not burnt out or collapsed. It was hard to tell who was part of the Church and who wasn't. We ducked behind a corner-store that had mostly fizzled out and watched. The soldiers wore these hulking suits, like gorillas. Most were blackened by the smoke and soot, but it seemed like they weren't even affected. The masks they wore looked like a cross between a gas mask and a medieval knight's helmet. I could see tubing running up and down the suits, leading back to hefty backpacks they lugged around. Their guns were connected too. Big guns, like machine guns. We stayed low when I saw that.

With little ceremony, they put another round of people up against the wall and cut them down. Then another while the bodies were carted off and dumped into a crater in the street. Christ, I didn't think about it at the time, but it seemed like the crater was almost full.

We ducked out towards the motel. It took some time without a car. Not that it mattered, though. The motel was gone, blown away like god himself had just taken a vacuum to it. Both our cars along with it. We were both too tired to even be angry about that anymore. We just sighed, collected what we could, and started down the road out of town.

I'm not sure if this will even get out to anyone. For all I know, the fuckers are blocking my signal. Or tracing it. There've been a few patrols come through since we left, but we finally hit an intersection.

Seems like burning the town to the ground got rid of that bullshit road magic they pulled on us.

At least that's one good thing.

We're going to keep walking. With any luck, someone might pick us up. It's a long shot, but at this point all I can really do is hope now.

I made sure to save two bullets just in case.

Still Alive

The fuckers bombed us. Those fuckers dropped a goddamned bomb down here. The Initiative or the Government or whatever the fuck. Phosphorus. It had to be White Phosphorus. I've seen pictures of what that stuff does. 

The whole place was on fire. The freaks were dying left and right and I was hiding in a hole like a coward. My friends were dead, and I was probably going to join them. I was going to die here, in this fucking eldritch mineshaft shithole. I was about to put the gun to my head when something went flying past. It was Virgil. He hit a ridge of burning meat and fell, shotgun in hand to the ground. I got off my ass and ran to him. 

Just as I heard something slide down behind me. 

It was Whitewall, of course. Still burning. Shrieking like a cornered animal, he looked like something straight out of a kid's fever nightmares. This spasming mass of bones and teeth and skin. He was flailing and screaming just about every obscenity I'd ever heard, and some that I hadn't. Virgil and I started shooting, and Whitewall shot right back. One of his arms, with a few bits of flesh left over, flung out like a knife and impaled Virgil on the wall. I kept shooting. Whitewall closed in. He had the worst smile on his face. A halfway melted head, I could see the inside of his skull as he reached out for me. 

Something hit him from behind and he stopped, one bony finger just inches from my face. He whipped around and we both saw that the suits were lowering themselves into the chamber from above. Bulky forms in gun-metal gray armored suits, carrying machine-guns and flamethrowers. They went to work on the remaining freaks, and Whitewall turned to me. His voice seemed to crackle alongside the fire as he spoke.

"This isn't over" he said. "Even if we fall, another Church will just take our place. You've accomplished nothing." 

I wasn't sure what to say. My mind just kind of drew a blank, like the horror of it all had just knocked any sense out of me. All I could think to say was "Fuck you." He laughed. 

"You think they're going to save you, don't you?"

As if on cue, one of the suits shot off a rocket in our direction. It skimmed the ridge above us and struck the wall. As it did, a whole squad of the suits came around the corner of the ridge I'd been hiding behind. Up close, they didn't look like anything I'd ever seen. Heavy suits that looked like they were made out of kevlar or maybe even metal, guns bigger than my arm, and masks that looked like they'd be more at home in a lion taming show. They opened fire the minute they saw us. Whitewall tore at them, and they opened up with flamethrowers. 

I took my chance. Virgil was stuck to the wall fast, though the stomach. We both knew what that meant. He didn't say anything, just shook his head when I tried to wrench him loose. He pointed off in the distance. Deb was waving towards us, screaming that we needed to run. Virgil shoved me off of him, kicked the shotgun over to me and told me to go. 

I ran, again. Feeling a little less like a coward and a lot more like a bastard. 

Descent

We found it.

The center shaft.

It's...it's difficult to describe in words.

The Church- it's not a Church. It's the heart of the town. The living, breathing, beating heart of the town.

We came out of one of the tunnels into the shaft; there was a long sloping set of black stone stairs going down into darkness. I could still hear the helicopters overhead, the gunfire. I looked up, and I could see that above us the ground had been peeled open. Just like above, like a hand had just pulled it apart like it was nothing. We started heading down the sloping stairs.

The whole shaft was coated in every kind of bodily fluid you can imagine. Blood, mucus, shit, vomit. Huge swathes of the wall were made entirely of that pulsating, sickly pale flesh we found in the buildings above. The whole town is infested. That much is clear to me now. It'd been rotted to it's very core before I even came here. I think that's why Antlers drew me here, why there was such a surge in activity. If this had gone unimpeded...

I can't think about that. I can't think about much right now. The smell is so thick, and there's so much noise. The heart is beating so loud. I'm getting ahead of myself.

While we were descending, we heard something coming up from below. Virgil had us hug the walls, and just as we did, this bloated monstrosity clambered it's way up through the shaft and out the opening. It's hard to describe what it looked like. It was like an enormous, limbed maggot. I can't tell if I'm going insane or if my memory is failing me, but christ, I think I saw human faces on it. Wordlessly screaming human faces.

Every step I take deeper into this fresh hell, I regret taking this job. I'd switch positions with Dante himself if it meant not smelling caked human filth for a few minutes.

...the heart. Right. I'm getting to that.

After what felt like an eternity of walking down, dodging whatever freaks came out of the darkness, we ended up in total darkness. Even the sunlight didn't reach down this far. Everyone broke out the flashlights and we kept moving. Another hour or so, we were finally at the bottom. That was when we saw it.

At the bottom of the shaft was an even bigger chamber, probably a few miles across. In the center of it all was a human heart, suspended by tendrils of muscle in midair. I watched it thudding away, mesmerized before Deb broke me out of it. Nobody had to say anything; we knew what needed to be done.

The stairs fell apart right before we reached the floor, about ten or so feet up. We jumped down.

The ground was made of flesh, just like everything else in this godforsaken town. Not just flesh, though. The floor of the chamber was composed of hundreds, probably thousands of different organs. Human and animal alike. All were connected between one another under a layer of translucent skin, where you could sometimes see completely through. We spotted some of the freaks up ahead and hid behind a pile of strung-together stomachs.

Whitewall was there, I think.

It was hard to tell. Most of them didn't look like they'd ever been human. Just this troupe of wretches that shrieked and moaned hymnals in languages I won't dare attempt to recreate. The strangest part was that they weren't all individuals. Some were halfway melted into one another, others were totally fluid, intermingling with the flesh of others like melted gelatin. Deb started to vomit. That was when the congregation looked right at us. Whitewall, or at least the one I think was Whitewall, stepped forward out of the crowd.

He was wearing priests robes, sure, but he wasn't any priest I'd ever seen. His head was malformed, too many angles in places that shouldn't have angles. It morphed and mutated right in front of me, just as fluid as the others in his flock. The only thing vaguely human about it was a mouthful of teeth that spoke to us.

"There is nothing to fear, children."

I stumbled back.

"There is nothing but fear."

I ran. I ran for my fucking life and I hid. I don't know where Deb or Virgil are, I don't know if they're alive, I don't know how long I'll be alive. I hid in a nest of intestines and I can hear them fucking looking for me.

I want to go home. I want to go home. I wan-

Wait. Hold on. Something's happening.

Something just came down the shaft.

What is that? Is that metal?

Wait.

oh shit oh shit

it's a fucking bom-

Broken Masquerade Part 5

I'm not even sure how long we've been walking. This whole place is just enormous. The tunnels spiral off into more tunnels that spiral off into more. The roof shakes sometimes, no doubt from the battle going on above us.

The whole place has this organic feel to it. If I put my hands on the walls, they feel warm and moist to the touch. There's a heartbeat down here too. The closer we get to the center shaft, the louder it's getting. There are sounds behind the walls too. The smell is getting worse down here too. Everything reeks of meat and rot.

It feels like I'm walking through a corpse.

We started finding side rooms on the way, too. Filled with provisions and such. Lots of medical equipment down here too. Some of the rooms've been carved out and had decent, if crude, electrical lighting installed. One of the rooms was a storage room just filled to the rim with jarred food. At first we were excited. With everything going on,  I hadn't thought to each much, and from the look on Deb's face, neither had she.

It was only after we'd cracked open a few jars that we realized that it wasn't food. Er, it was. In a manner of speaking. Jars and jars stacked neatly on the walls, each filled with individually pickled and sorted human body parts. I think I understand what was happening now. They were turning people into those things and slaughtering them. For what, I can only hazard a guess. Frankly, I'd rather not given what I saw at the diner.

We found more of the things locked up in cages. Virgil put them down. I know I should feel better, I mean, they were begging us to do it, but I just don't. I just don't.

I just want to go home. That's the real truth here. I don't want to fucking know anything anymore. All this cult bullshit, the monsters, the conspiracies, it's just so much.

...

I can't stop now, though. I'm in too deep. The center chamber must be close.

We took stock of everything. Maybe a few dozen bullets, a handful of shotgun shells, and whatever we could scrape together out of the storage rooms. Looks like the altar boys didn't think to stock up on guns before they started this whole thing.

Or they did. And we're walking into a trap.

...

Fuck.

Broken Masquerade Part 4

There's a lot of unpacking that needs to be done, so I'll be blunt.

We were hiding out in the gas station when things started going south. Monsters, like the thing in the diner and Anne, bigger than anything I've ever seen, were moving throughout the town. There were black helicopters (unmarked of course) taking potshots at them, all the while I could hear jets going overhead. We kept our heads down. Soldiers were going through the town too, fighting with the things. They were using uniforms I've never seen before; big, bulky suits with face-masks and carrying flamethrowers. The things were all over the place, though.

I saw floating masses of organs that were hovering over the town. I saw a bodiless circulatory system climbing across buildings like a spider. It was fucking chaos.

Then, an antique shop across the street was hit. Grenade, or missile. I'm not really sure. Either way the whole building went up. The ground started shaking and I could see, in the fire and rubble, that the ground around the building was bleeding.

The road started to peel open, like god himself just unzipped it. I couldn't see the bottom.

Something was coming out of the ground.

I didn't get a chance to see what it was. Before anyone could react, Antlers was in the middle of us all. We all paused, and it felt like time did too. Next thing I know, I'm in a cave. It took me a long time to get my bearings. I had a flashlight in my bag, so naturally I turned it on and looked around. There was a little daylight from a few big holes in the ceiling. That was when I realized where I was. I was beneath the town. As far as I can tell, at least where I am, these tunnels were old mineshafts or something. The whole place looks, feels, and smells like a corpse. Where the walls aren't covered in stone, they're covered in rotted flesh.

I'm basically in the guts of the fucking town now. Literally. Fuck my life.

Found Deb and Virgil after a while. Virgil said that he figured Antlers didn't want us dead in an airstrike. I said that I might have preferred it, the way things were going. Based on the few signs left, we're nearing some kind of center shaft. Everything leads into it, like a big spider web. I'm going to take a shot in the dark and guess that the center is where we're going to find our church.

Updates as they come.

Also, no, I don't know why the last post was in the future. At this point, that's a benign kind of weird that I can live with. And no, I'm not really sure how I'm still getting signal in a mineshaft.

If I'm totally honest, I stopped asking questions quite some time ago.

interlude

the rest of the court is occupied for now, and thus I now have a moment of lucidity with which to speak. The others are safe. i have taken them to where the church cannot reach. the town is alive and it reeks with the stench of a hundred years of rotting flesh. the faithful have retreated to their hovels, so assured that the might of the flesh-smiths will protect the town, as they have protected it before.

how wrong they are.

the masked traveler was correct. even as these words are transcribed, men with guns and black masks pepper the town. they are delayed, for now, by the flesh-smiths, but even their arcane ability cannot stop them, for the men bring their own esoteric tools. it was as the most devout of our court feared; esoteric weapons in the hands of feeble men. 

i can feel the chains of my prison closing back in once again. the judge can sense my freedom. 

this shall not be my coda, nor shall it be theirs. 

i fear that i may not have a free tongue again, and it is in this time that i must hope they can forgive my transgressions. my actions have not been my own. 

if i had known the true nature of my oath when i had taken it, i would have killed myself while i had the chance. 

i am sorry for what i am. 

Broken Masquerade Part 3

Deb here, again. Gittes is stuck with the shotgun right now, so I'm going to type this out to keep track of what's going on. 

Like he already said, the town is totally abandoned now. Sometimes it seems like I see people in corners and back alleys, but any time one of us goes to check, there's nobody there. We headed into the town hall to see if there was anyone around, and, of course, there wasn't. What's odd is that it seemed like everyone just up and disappeared. Like, one minute they're here. The next, poof. Gone. There was even food in the break room. Still warm. We didn't touch it, and after that thing at the diner, a ham sandwich just doesn't look right anymore. 

The whole place was pretty standard for government buildings I've seen. Kind of ornate. A lot of marble pillars and this whole "rustic" wood aesthetic going on. If things were different, I'd say it was kind of nice. The walls were mostly this old wood, and they had portraits of the town mayors over the years. I didn't notice it at first, but that same symbol kept showing up in the background. A hand in a triangle with three dots. Sometimes it was on a window, other times it was a partially obscured tattoo. You didn't see it at first, but it was always there in the later portraits. 

In the center of the room was a little help desk. It was a large, cylindrical room that peeled off into smaller offices and storage rooms. Nothing really that odd about it. The architecture seemed really specific, though. Just looking at the geometry of the place gave me a headache. It's hard to describe. The hallways seemed a little longer than they should've been, the walls seemed to get closer and closer as you walked down halls. We were all pretty quiet, and there were a couple times that I swore I heard someone breathing right behind me.

I heard a helicopter go over while we were inside. We went out to check, and Virgil spotted a couple of unmarked helicopters flying over the town. We heard fighter jets too and went back inside. 

Just a week ago, I thought this was just some weird town in the middle of nowhere. Now I know better. 

The town isn't just wrong. It's alive.

We stayed in the town hall until the helicopters left. They looked military, and nobody wanted to chance getting shot. I started hearing this creaking noise from the walls. I mean, not really creaking so much as a groaning. Like a house settling but more protracted and consistent. Gittes went up the wall, he'd heard it too, and smacked it with the butt of the shotgun. 

It crumpled easily, and inside there was flesh. Not dead, alive. Muscles and veins that quivered when the cold air hit them. We were all in shock. Or, at least, Gittes and I were. It's hard to tell what Virgil is thinking most of the time. 

Then, an eye grew out of the flesh. A human eye. It looked straight at me.

I almost screamed. Gittes tried to stop me, but I stumbled backwards and knocked one of the portraits off the wall. There was that symbol again, painted on the wall behind it. 

I still don't understand what the symbol means. We didn't have much time to look into it, though, because blood started pouring out of that hole in the wall. Just gushing everywhere. Then, intestines, like snakes, started worming out and lashing at us. 

We ran. 

Now, we're hiding out in a truck stop, and I can hear something stomping around the town. We heard a loud crashing a few minutes ago. I looked outside, and there's something moving. Something huge. I tried to see what it was, but it was hard to tell. It looked almost like a gigantic mass of flesh jutting out of the ground. 

There's more crashing. 

oh my god

the ground outside just peeled open

what is 

Broken Masquerade Part 2

Alright. I think we're getting somewhere. Kind of. Sort of. Maybe.

I'm not really sure.

After we torched the diner, we headed into the town proper. The first place we tried checking was the corner store Anne was running before, but someone had broken every single gas can in the entire store. Boy, were they thorough too. Even the ones in the back. The only thing we salvaged was the gun from behind the counter (A Ruger, according to Deb), and a single can of propane from the dumpster out back.

So, not a total loss.

I spotted one of the kids on our way out, though, running through the shelves. I can't say for sure, because I started shooting before I got a good look. I think I hit it, though. I say "it" because I swear to god that the little bastard didn't have a face. I don't mean that it didn't have eyes; I mean that it had a hole for a face. Just-just a whole. Nothing inside but darkness. There was black blood on the shelves. Really hoping that's because I hit the thing.

I asked Virgil if he'd seen this kind of thing before.

He waited a long time before he answered. He took a deep breath, and as we were standing in that dark corner store, he told me that he'd seen all this happen hundreds of times. Hundreds of towns across the world. Virgil said that the things that did this were old, really old. He said that he'd traveled other realities where "the Church" had manifested, and everywhere it had manifested, it brought unimaginable suffering.

It always started with little things, and it almost always started in small towns like this. Virgil said that he wasn't sure exactly why they did it, but he theorized that it was because it kept them under "their" radar.

"They" were what he called "The suits."

The "Initiative."

I knew for a long time that DARKNET and myself weren't the only ones with a stake in this game, but Virgil said that it went even deeper than that. He said that there was an agency that handled the supernatural; that they would exterminate or exploit anything they found. The Church wasn't the exception. There had been a secret war going on for centuries, millennia even. The groups had different names, different doctrines, but the paranormal had always been the constant. I asked him how he knew that. He laughed.

Simple, he said. He'd seen it himself.

Part of me is thinking that Virgil is more of an "it" than a "he." Shocking idea, I know, but I just assumed that the mask shtick was just a quirk. I wonder if there's actually anything underneath. I don't really think I want to know. I know too much now, and the Church still lives. Not for long, I hope.

Left the corner store behind. Headed towards the library. Going to keep sweeping the town until we find the Church. It's my turn to carry the shotgun now, so I'm handing off to Deb.

Wish me luck.

Broken Masquerade: Part 1

Whatever facade this town was maintaining, it's completely gone now.

The streets are completely abandoned. I haven't seen anyone for hours now. I mean, I've seen a few people, but they're always hiding out in the shadows. Haven't seen any of the kids yet, though. I don't know which is worse, this town when it's populated, or when it's abandoned. Reminds me of Centralia in a way. You can look it up yourself if you're interested, but it was this little town in Pennsylvania that had to be abandoned. Supposedly it was a coal fire, but when they sent me out that way, it sure as hell didn't seem like it.

Anyway, I'm getting sidetracked.

I wanted to see if we could wrangle up any of the other folks in town. You know, ones that weren't drinking the Kool-Aid. Figured that Shirley, the gal from the Diner, might be able to help. Virgil told me not to count on it.

The diner was abandoned. Ransacked, really. Tables and chairs thrown about everywhere, pictures knocked off the walls. Nobody around, just like the rest of this godforsaken town. I did find something, though. On the door of the manager's office was a symbol, just like the one I'd seen on my hand. Written in red...paint, I hope. A triangle, a hand in the middle, and three circles. The back was similarly destroyed; there was food just thrown everywhere, the freezer was busted open, and the back door was knocked clean off it's hinges.

We were just about to leave when I heard one of the drains in the kitchen gurgling. We all stopped and just kind of looked at each other, not sure what to do. Virgil had the shotgun at the time (It was heavy when it was fully loaded, so we alternated), so he went to look. We stuck behind him; me with my handgun and Deb with a flashlight.

Virgil stepped closer to the drain. It was one of those big industrial sinks you usually see in restaurants, with a long spray nozzle suspended above a handful of washbasins. He didn't even have a moment to look. This thing burst out of the drain, throwing pureed garbage everywhere. It was hard to describe, but it was like a tentacle. Not like an octopus, though. It was made of what I can only guess was muscle tendon and fat. It whipped out, and before it reached any of us, Virgil shot it down.

My ears were ringing for a few seconds, but the disorientation wore off just long enough to see Virgil stuff the barrel of the shotgun down the drain and fire again. I heard a clanging, and a long protracted moan. Half pleasure and half pain is the best way I can describe it. I could hear this slapping noise, like if you threw ground chuck against a wall, coming from one of the freezers. I had Deb focus the light, and we saw this malformed thing dragging itself out of the darkness.

It had the upper body of a man, with arms and a torso and all that, but everything looked...melty. Like it's skin was barely holding on to the flesh. It was literally sloughing off as it crawled towards us. The rest of it's body was trailing off into the dark, like some kind of worm. It groaned, desperately trying to drag itself towards us. I could've sworn that it said "help me" before Virgil blew it's head off. I watched his head turn, and the shotgun nearly dropped out of his hands.

The freezer was full of bodies. Not corpses. Live, wriggling bodies, all meshed together. Just one enormous mass of flesh covered in arms and legs and faces. God, man, I barely even know how to properly describe it.  The whole thing reeked of blood and shit and vomit. Deb puked, then I puked, but Virgil just stood there watching. They were all still alive, and they were screaming and moaning and begging. They all wanted to die. Virgil took a lighter from the office and a propane tank, and we burned the whole place down.

I'm still not sure what I think. Part of me hopes that Shirley wasn't part of this, but those people had been back there for a long time, based on the smell. I mean, christ, they had bits of them sliced off. Like the fuckers had been harvesting them. How many people have come through here before me? How many people did these fuckers take?

I don't know. All I know is that I'm really glad I stuck to coffee when I ate there.

Revelations

Well, I went into the bathroom. Figured whatever was in there couldn't be that bad. I was really, really fucking wrong about that one.

Anne, or rather what was left of her, was in the tub. Virgil had hacked her apart and tossed what was left in the bathtub. The worst part, though, was that she still wasn't dead. Her eyes were actually watching me as I pulled the shower curtain. Her hands were grasping at me, and she had this wicked smile on her face. Not like a "ha ha I'm a head in a tub" kind of smile. More like a "I'm going to kill you when I get a chance" kind of smile.

Showed Deb. She puked, although I'm not sure why expected different. Probably would've done the same thing if this hadn't become normal for me.

Virgil came back. Climbed out from under the bed. I think I might be right about how he gets around.

He said that he'd taken a look around town, and that most of the adults were gone at this point. Said that the Church must've come for them. Fucked if I know what that means. He said that the town is practically abandoned now. I asked him what we should do, if we should just take off and hope for the best. Virgil said that the Judge wouldn't let us leave, and that "that looping road bullshit" was his way of keeping us in town.

"It didn't want anyone getting out to spill the beans."

Oh, well. That's just great.

Virgil went on to say that we were living on borrowed time. He said that it wouldn't be long before the "suits" would show up, and that when they did, they wouldn't discriminate. I hope that he means the government, but part of me feels like he meant someone else.

Deb wanted to know what the plan was. Virge said that if we wanted out of the town, we would need to fight.

We're headed back into the town proper. If we're going to fight, we'll need weapons.

Virgil said that we needed a load of aerosol cans, lighter fluid, and propane.

You know, I thought he was kind of a creepy asshole at first, but I like his style.

Still Alive

I needed some time to collect my thoughts.

First, I'm missing three days. I don't mean that they didn't happen, I mean that I have no memory whatsoever of the last three days. I get snippets here and there, but for all intents and purposes, I can barely remember anything. I don't know why the last post date is so fucked up, but they're fixed now. Nothing about any of that made any sense. I can tell you what I do remember.

I remember that we ran out of gas after a while, and Deb just crying and crying. We were stuck out in the middle of nowhere, and before either of us could do anything, the headlights died. Almost ten minutes passed with nothing happening, and then the headlights came back on. There was Anne, along with nearly a dozen children. I can remember screaming, because Anne's face wasn't' a face now. It was a hole. All their faces were holes. I kept screaming while they were tearing apart the car.

Then, I woke up this morning. On the side of the road. Again. Fuck me sideways that's getting old already. My bag, along with all my stuff, was in a ditch on the other side of the road.

Wasn't sure what to do, so I just started walking. Turns out, I was still in town, because of course I was. Took me hours to get back to the hotel, and lo and behold, my key still worked. I'm not sure why I was surprised that it worked, but at this point, I'm surprised I'm still alive. Deb was inside, sprawled out across the bed.

I woke her up, and she seems to be the same way I am. No memory of what happened. She said that she remembered Anne turning into something else, but that was it. Just as I finished talking to her, I heard a toilet flush and looked up to see Virgil standing in the bathroom. He was wearing a bulky raincoat, with that same mask as before. He was splattered with blood from head to toe. Big, dirty gloves on his hands. He nodded to me, told me to sit down. Told me that we all needed to talk.

Virgil said I should be thankful that I had "someone in my corner on this one" and that his boss didn't want me dead. On the contrary, he wanted me alive. I asked him what he meant by "his boss". Virgil said that he worked as a "fixer" for "things", that when these "things" wanted something done, he could usually do it. The thing that had wanted us alive (he wouldn't say a name) was also working with Antlers. He said that the thing and Antlers were "associates of the Court."

Deborah cut me off, asked if he knew where her boyfriend was. Virgil was really quiet for a while. All he said was that Ted wasn't "part of the game anymore". She looked like she was going to cry. I would've done something, but I needed to know more.

I asked him the simplest question. Why me, why us?

"We were convenient."

Virgil said that he'd tried setting this up before, but that Rosenberg was "out of the picture". He said that he'd failed before, and that I, and by extension Deb, were his "aces in the hole." Redwood Falls was just one of many places were this was, or was going to, happen. The Reverend was just one of many people under "their" control, and that I could use my connections to try and expose them.

Who were "they"?

"The Court of the Black King."

He said that I needed to expose the Court to everyone, to the world. That if I did, people in high places could bring down the hammer and destroy it everywhere it lurked.

So, Virgil wants me to help him save the world. Basically. He nodded, and started for the closet. Before I could even say anything, he stepped inside, telling me to stay out of the bathroom while he was gone. The door shut, we scrambled over there, and of course, he'd vanished. Maybe that's how he gets around so easily, maybe he can disappear when people can't see him?

I might just be losing it.

Virgil's been right so far, so I'm staying out of the bathroom. I can hear weird, squelchy noises behind the shower curtain. There's...a lot of blood. A lot.

Cards on the table, I kind of don't want to check. For now.

.

The road keeps going forever.

I saw Anne in the backseat last time. Looked again. She's gone.

Took over for Deb. She's been crying for hours.

Something is chasing us. Children in the woods.

Virgil, for the love of god, I know you can hear this.

Please.

Anyone.

It's getting cold outside.

I can smell blood in the backseat.

I want to go home.

I want to go home.

I want to

On the Road Again?

Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.

We've been driving for two hours now. We should have been out of town an hour ago.

There's nothing but trees all around us, and we're down to half a tank now. Ever since we left town, I keep seeing things moving in the woods around us. I can't tell what they are, but they're definitely not Antlers. My cellphone reception is spotty at best now, but we stopped just long enough that I was able to get my setup together and put this out.

I went to get the gun from my jacket, but it's gone. I don't know how, but it's just fucking gone. 

Deb seems like she's in shock. She's barely talking. I keep telling her that she needs to eat, to stop or something so we can figure this out, but every time I do, she just shakes her head and looks in the rearview mirror. I only looked once, but I could have sworn I saw two kids watching us from the side of the road. Anne was standing with them.

We're going on two hours and...four minutes. Every time I check the rearview mirror, Anne and the two kids are a little closer.

....

Fuck me. We just passed the Diner. I can't tell if we're going in circles or if they're just fucking with us now.

I've been telling Deb to stop for a while now, but now I'm telling her to keep driving.

I don't want to see what's in the rearview mirror next.

Strange Dreams

I know the title is pretty self-explanatory, but I had a really odd dream last night. With everything going on, I don't feel like what I saw was a coincidence. The weirdest part of the whole thing is how well I remember it all. I've never had a dream that felt this real. 

I fell asleep pretty soon after my last post. I know Deb made a post on here, though, honestly, I just don't have the time to be upset about that. She's just as much a part of this whole affair as I am.

In the dream, I woke up inside this huge chapel type place. It's hard to describe it, but I felt the heat of the place through my whole body, like it was alive. The walls were this thick, bony stuff and everything was covered in a thin layer of veins. There were organs interspersed among them, too. Hearts, sets of lungs, kidneys, bladders, anything you could think of. There were pews for miles, all made of the same bone as the rest of the place. The whole place would shudder occasionally, like a beating heart.

There was nothing else to look at, so I started walking. I must have been walking for a good few minutes before I started hearing wet, slapping footsteps behind me. Every time I turned, there was nothing there. The footsteps were mirroring my own, so I started trying to trip them up. Finally, after about ten minutes of doing that, whatever was behind me finally moved out of turn.

Everything went silent, and I felt in my gut that I had just done something really wrong.

The footsteps began sprinting after me, and I ran as fast as I could. I ran for what felt like hours. The footsteps only stopped when I tripped and fell, passing straight through the veiny floor and into some dark crevice. I fell for just a few seconds before something grabbed me in the dark, and before I knew it, I was in front of an altar.

It wasn't made of bone. It was made of this black stone. Totally seamless. No cuts or markings at all. I looked around, and behind me were the same miles and miles of pews I'd been traversing. In front of me was the altar. Behind it, was an enormous statue made of jet black stone. The veins had spread everywhere else in the cathedral, but they wouldn't spread onto the black stone.

The statue was a figure, like a man, but not. The statue itself had to have been sixty feet tall, at least, and just thinking about it now gives me a headache. The face was just blank, or rather, it wasn't blank. There was something there but I just can't remember. All I can remember was how wrong it was. It had a crown over it's head, and most of it's body was covered in a long cape-like thing. It had about six or so arms coming out of the cloak, three on each side. The bottom right was holding a book, while the top left was holding a sword. It took me some time after I woke up to realize it, but there was a symbol on the book. The same symbol is on the cover of the book I found.

A crown, with a worm around it.

I looked down at the altar, and there was the book. It was much newer than the one I had. Leather binding. Smooth, black, practically begging me to open it. I did.

It's hard to describe exactly what I felt when I read it. The best thing I can compare it to is a massive blast of information. Anything I could think about, the book had an answer. Yet, I can't remember anything I actually learned from it. Only snippets here and there. Fragments of whatever knowledge it contains. The copy I have is almost indecipherable, from what I understand. It takes someone who knows the language to get it. It's not a cipher, it's not gibberish. It's some kind of language.

Someone called out to me from behind. I turned, and saw a man standing in front of me. An older man, in a judge's robes. They were black, but had these distinctive orange accents on the sleeves and up the arms. He looked half-way between a judge and a priest, basically. He had a really narrow face, with balding grey hair and a thin neck. He was almost corpse-like in how thin he was. The Judge, since that's the first name that came to mind, spoke to me. His voice was baritone, commanding.

"Only those closest to the King can learn his teachings."

I asked him what he meant, what this was all about.

"Your mind is not open," he said. "As for what this is about, well, you're meddling. Too much for my tastes."

Again, I asked him what this was all about, and he just sighed again before he spoke.

"Jannura is busy preparing her assemblage in the desert, and she asked me to watch over her flock here. You are not the first to come looking into their midst, into our affairs."

Their affairs?

"Ascendance."

Before I could ask anything else, he moved closer, sounding almost angry as he spoke.

"You people live in decadence, in depravity. You've lost the very essence of the hands that bred you, that brought you from the mud and made you what you are. Your people are lost, tumbling in darkness, and He offers salvation."

I tried to keep pressing him, asking him what he meant by "your people" and "Him".

"The King. My Lord, and my Savior. He who lifted us from the yolk, and cast off our chains of mortality so we could better serve him. He who waits beyond the veil, He who will return to bring eternal salvation to sinner and saint alike."

Naturally, I had more questions, but before I knew it, we were both standing on a hillside. We were overlooking a field, but instead of grass or trees, it was hundreds of miles of nothing but people. All on their knees, all wearing nothing but rags and looking like starved holocaust survivors. They were all muttering prayers in nearly every language, all facing towards a massive figure in the distance. Just like the statue, but it had to have been miles tall. The Judge kept talking.

"It is said in the last passages of the Compendium that King will return someday, and that all men will gain a greater purpose. To serve his will. We must hasten his return."

I told him that that was a load of bullshit, and that they needed to be stopped. He just stared at me, and sighed.

"So be it," he said. "I thought you'd be a bit more receptive than the scientist. I'll ensure that Whitewall deals with you appropriately."

Then, something came from behind. It was fast, but it looked like some kind of hooded figure. It threw me down among the people praying, and they all broke off to come after me. Their cold, half-dead fingers were just digging into me when I woke up.

I was screaming when I woke up, covered in sweat, and I must have scared the shit out of Deb because she looked like she'd seen a ghost.

After a bit of prodding, I finally told her about the dream, and she went really pale. Said she'd had almost the same dream, verbatim, and that we needed to get out of town. Now.

I agree with the sentiment. Whatever this is, I need to get out of here and get help before whatever we're dealing with decides to really come after us. I don't know if I should take that dream as gospel, no pun intended, but if the Judge is really going to sic the whole town on us, then I'm going to need some more guns on my side.

We're leaving in a few minutes. I'll try and get another update once we're out of town.

Intermission

Hey. It's Deb. Gittes is passed out right now, and he left his computer unlocked. 

I know he's going to be pissed that I looked, but can you really blame me? When a mysterious man in a trenchcoat, with a beard like a homeless guy, enlists you to help him expose whatever is going on here, you'd want some answers too. 

I suppose you probably want just as many answers too, and I can tell you now that I don't have many. I'll tell you what I know. I know this all seems a bit weird, but I just really need to get this stuff off my chest, and Gittes isn't exactly the most talkative guy.

Hold on. 

Sorry. Somebody passed by the window just now. I think it was just the manager of the hotel. Er, I hope it was. 

I'd give you my full name, but I know that there's probably other people reading this that would go after my family if I did, so we'll stick with Deborah for now. I used to live in Indiana before this, in Gary. It's a total shithole, but it's home. My boyfriend was named Ted. He was cool. Really into movies, filmmaking, that kind of thing. We started dating when we were in high-school, and we would still be dating if he hadn't just disappeared. 

Something started following us about a year ago. Some creature. It was tall, maybe seven feet or so. Big, bulky, with what looked like a deer skull for a head. Bright, white eyes, like flashlights. Huge antlers. I started seeing it after we moved in together. 

I think it marks people. Nobody else I knew had seen it. Just Ted and me. I think he might have been marked before I was, and maybe it spread to me. I'm not sure. All I know is that it started watching us from the woods outside our apartment complex. It was just little things that happened at first. We'd both get headaches around the same time, we'd both start smelling nutmeg in weird places, we both started finding wet footprints outside our door. That really spooked Ted. He started going off about how it had "left him alone for so long". I never got him to explain what he meant. 

Things just went downhill from there. We started fighting more. Ted dropped out of his classes, I started flunking out of mine. That thing started getting more brazen. It would show up outside our bedroom window and just watch us for hours. I didn't say anything, it didn't do anything. It just watched us. For a while, at least. 

Then we started seeing it inside the apartment, and that was when Ted just disappeared. He left in the middle of the night, after he got up to check out some noise outside. We figured it was the thing. He was gone for a long time. Almost thirty minutes or so. Then, he just walked back in, really calm-like, packed some things and just walked right out the door. Not a word out of him the whole time. 

It took me a long time to start looking. He left a voicemail the very next day, saying he was ok and that he was going to Redwood Falls. I had never heard of the place, and it took me almost three days of searching the internet to find anything remotely useful about the town. This blog. Gitte's blog. 

You can call it stalking, but I followed the blog and managed to track him down. I thought that maybe, just maybe, this weird asshole might have answers. I don't think I'm wrong, but I don't think he was the answers I need. This town does, though. I've seen that thing in the woods when I look outside, but not as much here. This place has a strange aura to it. A weird feeling that something's just not quite right. It's hard to describe. 

I don't know. 

Sometimes, I think I really don't want to know. Maybe there are things that I'm better off not knowing. It's the lack of closure about this that keeps me going. I just need to understand why. Why would something do this to people? What's the endgame? Is Ted gone? 

I just don't know anymore.

Maybe that's the way it's supposed to be. 

I'm going to go ahead and post it. Gittes will be pissed, but I need to get this out there. I need to get this off my mind to someone. I just want someone out there to know what's really going on. 

Trailheads

Alright. Update time. I've been looking through some of the stuff we got out of Cole's house, and it's about what I was expecting.

Well, mostly. At least.

He had a printed off map of the world, which piqued my interest, because he'd marked a few specific locations. Markings in Greenland, Russia, the Caribbean, the Containment Zone, and, somehow, Oregon and Washington. I can't help but feel like that's a little ominous.

Then he had a shitload of incoherent notes. Doodles of antlers, spirals and stuff about Kings and Priestesses or whatever. Weird shit, but that's about par for the course lately. The name "Emissary" was mentioned. That name feels vaguely familiar, but I can't quite place it.

Other stuff wasn't nearly as useful. A copy of "The Temple and the Lodge". Conspiracy theory book, of course. Not a terrible read, from what I skimmed, but not really that useful. Found a gas mask too. Might come in handy. One of the notes mentioned the name "Rosenberg". Evidently Virgil isn't totally full of shit, because the note indicated the Rosenberg was the name of someone that get sent up this way by...someone. The name was scratched out, but I could make out something that looked like "Initiative".

Ok, good. I thought this would be a total bust.

So, as far as I can tell, I'm not the only person in this little charade that's come up this way. There's more children than adults. Rosenberg was working for some kind of Initiative, and I'm guessing he's probably dead. Call it a gut feeling. I've yet to see this Church, or this Father Whitewall guy. Anne hasn't come around the motel much, but I heard something scratching at my door last night. Other than that, it's been strangely calm. Not a comfortable kind of calm, though. The kind of calm that happens right before a hurricane.

I'm so tired, guys. Really.

Every time I go outside, I end up peeling back some new layer of insanity here. This town is like a vortex of crazy, and I'm stuck right in the middle. I haven't slept normally in god knows how long. Haven't seen Virgil much either. I just don't know about any of this anymore, guys. I really don't.

I'm going to try and get some sleep. Deb is keeping watch right now.

Lord knows I need it. I've been living on microwave mac n' cheese and soda for three days. If my cholesterol doesn't kill me, sleep deprivation will.

Cole

I took a few hours, but we found Cole's house. He lived out at the edge of town, on a street that was literally about a mile from the motel, because of course it fucking was. We had to ask around a bit, and I have half a mind to think that the townsfolk were sending us to every possible road except the one we needed to find. Hell, the only reason we even found the road was because I though I saw Virgil hiding behind a tree next to the turnout.

The house was completely untouched. Truck parked in the driveway. Pretty decent sized ranch-house style place with a tire swing out front. I almost thought that nothing was wrong when we got there, but the door was wide open and someone, or something had left a couple of letter blocks right in front of it. Like they wanted us to find it.

There was nothing out of place. No broken glass, no blood, no body. The house was totally fucking empty. Shit, there was even a half-eaten meal on the kitchen table. Cole's back office looked like something out of a conspiracy theorist's wet dream. Cork board on one wall with all kinds of pictures and notes. It looks like he'd been seriously digging into some shady government shit. Deb and I scooped up as many of his notes as we could, along with the computer and a shotgun.

I don't think the shotgun will be much help, but it's worth having.

Then, we found the basement. Holy fucking shit, this basement.

Cole must have been at this for a long time. A whole lot longer than I've been at it, and a whole lot longer than anyone at DARKNET's been around. He had stuff that I swear to god was from World War Two. He had piles and piles and piles of documentation, meticulously organized. He even had a couple dozen photographs of Antlers, and one of a woman that was burnt out as shit and covered in blood. We grabbed as much as we could, and went back to the car.

Just as we were leaving, I saw her. Anne. She was standing at the edge of the forest, smiling like a goddamned maniac. She was wearing the same hoodie as before, but there was a lot of dried blood on it. Deb saw her too, and she ran to the car to get it started. Anne went into a dead sprint. She had this weird, unnatural motion to the way she moved, and she was on top of me before I had any time to react.

Jesus christ, dude. There was something wrong with her eyes. Her jaw cracked open, and there were so many fucking teeth. This...tentacle thing came out of her throat. She held me down with one hand, and with the other she started trying to force my own mouth open. Her whole body was distorted and wrong. The arms were too long, the legs were too long. Everything was so abstract.

Anne was about to force that thing down my throat when I heard this loud bang, and her face turned into this red mist. She fell back, and I ran for the car. Deb was standing there, holding the shotgun like she'd done this before. I have to admit, I'm kind of impressed.

Anne was squirming around on the ground, flailing and shrieking. Those screams were just so wrong. It was like something that was trying to emulate a human, but not quite getting it. Deb pulled the car out onto the road, and I saw Anne getting back up to her feet as we punched it back to the motel.

Going to try and review some of the notes we found.

Going to try and get the image of Anne's face out of my head.

Deborah

Tried calling Cole again. Nothing but dial tones for hours. On what must have been the twentieth time I called, someone, or something picked up. Heard a woman breathing for a few seconds, then it hung up. Fuck. Took the gun and was going to try and find out where Cole lived, just so I could put a fucking bullet in that freaky bitch. Instead, I ran into Deborah again. She looked really tired. I feel a little hypocritical thinking that, because I've barely gotten much sleep myself.

We were shooting the shit, and I told her that I had somewhere to be. Just as I was starting to leave, I tripped over a package and nearly ate shit on the concrete floor. She laughed, and I just rolled my eyes. The package was this gross looking, dingy cardboard box. It fucking reeked of, like, nutmeg, I guess? Just this overwhelming forest smell like someone drenched the thing in air-freshener. I knew who it was from right at that moment.

Deb asked if it was from the Monster. I asked her how she knew about that, and she said that something had been stalking her and her boyfriend for months before he disappeared. Whenever it showed up, it always left behind that same smell. She said that whatever this thing is, it's interested in both of us. She said she thought it "marked" her, and that if the package is any indication, I'm "marked" too.

I'm not really sure what I expected to find in the package.

It was a dog collar, covered in blood. No tags. A couple of very fucking human looking teeth. A crumpled up note, which while it was mostly covered in blood, was still legible.

the jester has granted me a moment of clarity, and with that, i'm going to break some rules

the loyalists, the priestess, the judge and the others, have ventures all over the world

their king is dead, or as close as it will ever be to death, and so begins the dilemma of accession

we couldn't stop the monsters it created, because we were the monsters it created

you can succeed where we failed

please

not just for me, not just for us, for all of us.

the judge knows that you're here now, and i can only hold them off for so long

hurry, please.

p.s - when you see the nexus again, give the concubine my regards."

Ok, so, uh, not sure what to make of that. Antlers is trying to get me to help it save the world. Ok. Cool. Right. Fuck my life. I'm gonna need some time to stew on that.

Deb said that maybe we should work together. I told her that I work alone. She said that she didn't think either of us had an option anymore, and that if I was looking to get myself killed, there were far less complicated ways of doing it. I told her that, with the people I worked with, that having partners was kind of frowned upon. She just rolled her eyes and told me that we were going to find Cole's house. 

It's times like this that I remember why I'm single.

Leads

Went down to the diner again today. Met with Roger Cole again. He looked like he hadn't slept in days, and that with what I've been dealing with, I'd believe it. Guy kept looking over his shoulder and mine. I can only imagine why. Here's what I found out.

• Antlers hasn't always been in the town. He only started showing up a few years ago. 
• Cole mentioned something about a "guy in a mask", but he wouldn't say anything else.
• A few years back, the reverend at the town's Church died. It took a few weeks to find a replacement, but they did eventually. He said something was "off" about the new preacher, and that a lot of folks stopped attending the sermons after a while. I asked him why, and he said that he wasn't reading from any holy bible he'd heard of. 
• He also said that the Preacher had some kind of "sway" over people, and that folks that tried to get him excommunicated ended up skipping town or just vanishing altogether. 
• Cole used to be the sheriff. Said that before they let him go, he was really going after the new Reverend, apparently named Leonard Whitewall. 
• Apparently, Whitewall was either buying off or influencing the town's mayor, and probably others, and Cole was basically forced out of being sheriff. Said he kept getting bricks thrown at his windows and threatening letters. He never saw who was doing it, but he was pretty sure it was kids. I asked him how he knew, and he said that one time he caught sight of a couple of the people doing it, and they were too short to be adults. 
• A good chunk of the town's initial population left, and the ones that stayed are either too old or too young, Cole said that it had something to do with Whitewall, but he wasn't sure what. Getting some serious Jim Jones vibes here. 
• He thinks that Antlers was like some kind of errand boy for the Preacher, and that whenever someone skipped town, Cole always found the same kind of pictures I did nearby. He said that he'd never seen the thing himself, but his wife had once, and it'd scared her bad enough that she wanted to take the kids and leave too. Cold refused to be scared out of town. She took the kids and moved to Seattle, supposedly.

I paid for the food, and just as I was leaving, Cole grabbed by jacket sleeve. He said that I needed to watch my back around the kids in town. That something wasn't right with them. I told him that I knew, and he nodded. 

Is that what I'm destined to become? An old man, drinking away the horrors he's seen? 

While I was leaving, I looked back at the diner. Cole was getting in his car, this old shitbucket Chevy with a taped on side mirror. Just as he was pulling out, I saw someone in the backseat. Blonde hair. Dark eyes. Sharp teeth. I don't know if Cole didn't see her, or if he didn't care. I tried running after the car but he was already too far down the road.

God, I hope he's alright. 

Redwood Falls: Part Whatever

Met another outsider today. Deborah.

Was sneaking out of my hotel-room to steal some coffee from the office when I bumped into her. Late twenties. Beanie. Dark green parka. Skinny jeans with a bunch of ear and nose rings. She seemed cool. Still don't trust her, but she said that she had the room next to mine. I asked her why she was in town. She said that her boyfriend (of course) had gone missing, and that he'd left her a voicemail before he did saying something out Redwood Falls. I asked her if he mentioned anything about Antlers, or masked people.

She looked at me like I'd gone crazy. Hate to admit it, but I'm starting to feel like I might be.

Anyway, I spilled the beans. Who I was, who I worked for, why I was here. She almost laughed at me. Said I was working with a bunch of cyber-terrorists. I told her that was bullshit, and that the Feds were trying to make us look bad to keep us quiet. I don't know if she bought it, but she wished me luck and fast-walked back to her hotel room.

In retrospect, the fact that I haven't shaved for nearly a week probably didn't help my case.

Managed to snag a couple bags of coffee before the clerk noticed. Spotted Virgil watching me from around the back of the hotel. I followed him. He was hiding inside a dumpster, only peeking his head out to talk to me. I have to admit, I giggled a little bit at it. He held up one of the dumpster lids and handed me a hand-scrawled note on a burger wrapper. I caught a little bit of what he actually looked like in the light, and I think he was wearing one of those skin-tight green screen suits, only painted black. Up closer, I could see more of his mask and it looked old. It had this aged, yellow tint to it.

I started reading the note, and he whispered "better dead than red" before he slammed the dumpster lid shut and wouldn't come out.

Life's a circus, and I'm the clown.

The note went as follows.

"There's a Church in this town. You won't see it on any street corner or on any hills. You won't see it anywhere you might look, because it doesn't want to be found. She knows that you're here, and she knows what you're going to do. Keep that pistol close, because they're coming for you.

NO PICKLES, EXTRA ONION."

I think that end part might have already been there. There was another note scrawled on the other side.

"Present headed your way. Courtesy of my boss."

Next time I see that freaky fuck, I'm finding out what's really going on.

Coffee was good. Needs a bit more oompf.

...

I'm not even sure what to call this one. I've been hiding out in my hotel room ever since it happened. I think I can see people outside the windows sometimes, but whenever I go to check, there's nothing there. I don't know what to think.

The shower keeps turning on and off and there's no one in there and what the fuuuuuckkk.

Ok, context. Context context.

I'd been eating whatever fast-food I could scrounge up lately. I decided to finally just go to one of the convenience stores in town, just to buy some chips and a few two liters of soda. Just something to hold me over for a little while. The only place I could find that actually wasn't a sit-down restaurant was this little Dollar-Tree type place. I don't even remember what the name was at the time. I think I was more concerned with trying to figure out if people were following me.

I'd bet actual money someone was. Kind of hope it was Virgil. At least that's a familiar kind of creepy.

The store was about what I expected. Rows of knock-off toys, cheaply packaged cookies, and the like. A little display of party balloons in the corner next to some cans of creamed corn. I picked up a few bags of chips, some microwaveable meals, and a thing of Coke. Just enough to last me a couple days. There was nobody at the counter, so I figured I'd look around a little.

There wasn't much to really see at first. At least until I looked behind the register.

Behind the counter was a handgun, because of course there was, along with a two-way radio. That was really weird, but it started to explain some things. I was just starting to look at the radio to check the frequency when I hear this loud, wet thumping coming from the back office. Like if you threw uncooked beef at a wall. I started getting real uneasy. Even more than I already was.

Just as I come back around the counter, this gorgeous looking blonde woman comes out of the back office. She couldn't have been more than nineteen, maybe. It was odd, because she was utterly beautiful, but at the same time, there was something not quite right about her. She had this black hoodie on. Pure black, no design. It was stained. Stained with what, I'm still not sure. Jeans and old boots. Smile was a little too wide, eyes a little too big. All these little inconsistencies in the way she moved that lumped together into a ball of unease in my gut.

She was cheerful, bubbly, and rang me up with no issues. Said her name was Anne. Apologized about the noise. She said that they'd been having a real "rat" problem lately. The emphasis is mine of course, because that sound was a whole lot fucking bigger than a rat.

We had a little back and forth. Just idle conversation while she counted the money.

"You in town for long?"
"No. Just visiting."
"Visiting who?"
"Nobody."
"Then why're you here?"

There was an accusing tone to her voice,  and I could see her smile disappear for a moment. Her eyes glanced at me. It was hard to tell if she was checking me out or not, and if she was, I can't say if it was in a sexual way. It felt more like some kind of animal eyeing another before it attacked. I kept my hands close to me, so I could grab the gun if I needed to. Started checking the exits. Could see people passing the glass-pane window giving me sideways looks. Expected a shot, or a scream, or something.

Nothing happened. I took my stuff and went back to the hotel room. Been in here ever since.

I only tried to go outside once, and when I did, I saw Anne standing in the parking lot. Right next to my car. Just staring at me.

I know it might just be me going crazy, but I swear to god I know what I saw.

I could've sworn she had sharp teeth.

The TV just turned on by itself again. Tried unplugging it. Didn't work. Keeps showing old stock footage of grasshoppers being eaten by ants and animal carcasses decomposing.

I fucking hate this town.

Virgil

I went to the address that this Virgil guy (gal?) gave me. It was an abandoned gas-station, way out on the edge of town. I showed up at the time they wanted me to. Dead of night. Brought my pistol along with me.

The walk there was uneventful. Half of me thought I'd run into Antlers along the way, but he's been weirdly absent since our last encounter. I'd almost say that I miss him, but I'd rather not be nostalgic about being kidnapped and mind-raped.

The gas-station was totally wrecked. Fire-damaged, broken glass windows, the works. There was even a rusted out Ford in the front, near the pumps. I was a bit on edge, so I got my gun out as I was headed inside. At first, I thought this would be a waste of time. That was, at least, until I got to the back office. There he was, just kicking back in this half-broken metal chair.

Virgil, which is what I'll call him since he didn't give me his real name, said that I worked for DARKNET. I was a little surprised, and I asked him how he knew that. He had this eerie, raspy voice that was hard to describe. It was quiet, but not so quiet that you couldn't hear him. It sounded like he had fucking throat cancer or something, I swear. He had the same Noh mask on too, along with a hoodie and black jeans. It got a better look at it now, and after a bit of looking around, I think it's an Oni mask. Cute. It looked pretty old, though. Kinda yellowed with age.

Anyways, he told me that there was something wrong in the town. I told him that, no shit, of course something weird was going on. I had creepy children staring me down in the street like it was high noon and, oh, no biggie, but a antler monster stalking me. He just laughed at me. Said he liked my moxy. I told him to get to the point.

Virgil said that he wanted me to spread the truth, and that I could use my connections with DARKNET to get the story out there. I told him that was what I already intended to do. He told me that there were other folks that had a serious interest in making sure nobody ever looked into Redwood Falls.

He handed me a paper. One of the census sheets from the library, only this was the one for last year. There are only a couple hundred people in the town. So, how, then, are there more children then people?

Virgil was getting up to leave, and I asked him who exactly he was. He said he was "A friend."

I asked him what the hell that meant, and of course, he just laughed.

He's a creepy bastard, but I think he's actually trying to help.

Saw things moving in the bushes on the way back. Smaller forms.

Five bucks says those little bastards followed me out there.

History and a New Lead

I decided to start digging into the town's history more. Cole was a decent source, but I had to sift most of what I got in the last update out of his drunken ramblings about "Kings" and Heineken. Town library was all kinds of creepy. Really decrepit. Cobwebs on the older bookshelves. Not a computer in sight. Receptionist was some college age gal. Basically told me to piss off when I asked her where the town records were. Half of me wanted to slap that shitty blue dye out of her hair.

Kids these days, eh?

Anyway. After about an hour of searching, I found some of the town's records. Established in 1894 by some protestant settlers from out-east. Started out as a trading post for fur-trappers, expanded out during the gold rush and died down for a couple years. The strange thing was that all the census records were water-damaged, to the point I could barely read any of them. The ones that weren't water damaged had been, inexplicably, marked up with sharpie.

I'm getting the distinct sense that some shady shit is going on, if that wasn't already obvious.

The weirdest part was when I went back into the maze of bookshelves. While I was looking through their section on stuff about the occult, someone pulled a book out of the shelf in front of me. Through the hole, I could see they were wearing a mask. It didn't register at first, but it looked like a Noh mask.

You know? One of those creepy Japanese stage masks?

Yeah, I don't get it either.

Anyway, this creepy asshole suddenly shoves a paper through the hole and says, in this really raspy, perverted sounding voice, that "the children don't sing anymore". Before I can even say anything, not that I'm sure I would have even known what to have said, they were gone. I took the paper and checked around the entire library, but they must have known some kind of bullshit Scooby-Doo secret corridor or something because I couldn't find anything.

The paper they gave me said this:

"Rosenberg. Follow the Path. Do not trust the Judge. They will try and stop this, but what is set in motion cannot be prevented. You need my help, I need yours. Meet me at [removed the location for the sake of safety]. He knows what you're here for, and they will come for you if you're not careful. Dig deep enough and you put a bullseye on your back.

- Virgil"

Alright. "Virgil". I'll play along. 

Saw another kid on the way back to the hotel room. Was on roller-blades. Just keep rolling along, staring at me while I walked. Nobody seemed to notice it but me. Spotted that bastard Sheriff again too. 

He's in on this shit. I fucking know it.

Return to Form

I know I've waited some time to put something out there again. It's been a less than fruitful couple of days. I've been doing more digging around town to get more information on this thing, and the town itself.

Redwood Falls proper, the actual town-town type area, is actually kind of nice. Quaint little main street with people walking around, mom and pop stores and such. All very kosher. That said, after everything that's happened, I can't help but be a little unnerved at it all. For a town with a supposed monster running around, everyone seems really at ease. Like this is just normal for them.

I mean, I get that everyone deals with the paranormal in their own way, but a whole town just being cool with Antlers-guy bumming around?

There's still a bit of snowfall coming down from the mountains, so it's pretty cold overall. Got the idea to check out one of the local bars. You'd be surprised how much liquor loosens people's lips.

Bar was about what I expected. Kind of dingy. Pool-tables and oak stools around a small bar counter. Waitress named Deanna. Kinda butch, tank-top and a bandanna over short hair. Not really my type. I asked her if she knew any old-timers I could talk to. She just sighed and pointed to this old-dude in the back of the bar, nursing a glass of whiskey.

The guy's name was Roger Cole.

He wasn't really receptive at first, but when I told him I wasn't a reporter, he seemed to cave a bit. I asked him what he knew about the town, about Antlers. He froze up when I brought up the monster. Said it'd been around for a long, long time. Before the towns and the cities. He said that it had "a sway over folks" and that "there were other ones too". I asked him what he meant. Cole said that the thing was like an errand boy. I didn't get a chance to ask him anything else, because this big, beefy looking dude in a ten-gallon hat swept in and took me aside. Big bushy beard, looked like Charles Bronson.

The Sheriff, apparently. He told me that Cole was crazy, and that I was wasting my time. I told him that the only people that say stuff like that usually have something to hide. He gave me a dirty look, and politely suggested I leave. I happily obliged.

Been mostly walking around town, since renting a car is expensive and the budget of a freelancer is a tight one. Starting to think I shouldn't be. While I was walking home, I caught a glimpse of a bunch of school-kids, just staring at me from the other side of the road.

I swear to god, not a single one of them blinked. Not once.

Been keeping my gun on me ever since.

I know it won't help if something comes for me, but it makes me feel better.

Not by much, though.

Tired

I'm, uh, I'm fine. Guys.

I'm not really sure what happened.

I was in my hotel room, looking at those pictures that got slid under the door. Started getting a terrible headache. The worst one I've ever experienced in my life. Ears ringing, puking, the whole nine yards. I was stumbling out of the bathroom when I saw it. The thing from the woods.

It was in the fucking room.

I'm not going to even try and wrap my head around what happened. I looked at it, and it looked at me. It was tall, definitely more than six feet. Antlers on the head. Bright, white eyes. Like headlights. I don't know if they were really lit up or if I was just hallucinating. It had this shroud type thing on over most of it's body, and it fucking reeked of just...forest smell.

It's hard to describe. It was like, tree sap and that nutmeg-type smell you get when you're out in the woods.

After that, I don't remember much. I woke up on the side of the road, about five miles outside town, laying in a puddle of my own vomit. I kept feeling like I had just had a really long dream. You know what I mean, right? That feeling when you wake up and you remember snippets of a dream, but not the whole thing?

I also found this symbol written on my hand in what I'm really hoping is Sharpie. I recognize the symbol too. It was on the back of the book I found back in Mesquite. I'm not really sure what it means, but I don't really have much choice now other than to find out.

I have to know what happened.

This thing, it's something else. I've seen all kinds of monsters all over the country. I've seen shit you wouldn't believe, and very little of it scares me any more. This thing scared me.

There's something wrong in this town.

When I got back to my motel room, I found more of those fucking papers on the floor, along with a dead squirrel. Skinned. It was splayed out on a couple of the sheets, and whatever had done this had taken a pair of sticks and shoved them into it's head. Like antlers.

Talked to ALETHA again. She said that I wasn't the only one that had experienced this. Said she'd have someone drop off a fake license and some money for a pistol. I asked her why I needed one, since I figured this thing could probably take a few bullets.

She said it wasn't for the thing.

She said it was for me.

how much do you hate

it does not compare

taken

Stomach hurts. Can't see anythign

Whole Room smells like tree sap

whyam i outside

he's here

Redwood Falls: Part 2.5

I found these slid under my motel room door today.

I have a bad fucking feeling about this.

Don't feel good. Nauseous.

Redwood Falls: New Developments

Saw something today. Still not sure exactly what it was.

Followed Shirley's instructions to a backwoods road, even further out of town than my hotel was. She said it was called "Dead Man's Turn" or something. Said it had a single black tree standing at the turn where, apparently, a couple had crashed into it and died or some goofy shit like that.

Picture I got of the back of the camp. Most of the tents
and shit were behind me when I took this.

Found the tree, started digging around. Didn't find much at first. Stumbled into one of those campsites. Totally abandoned. Tents, equipment, all of it. Just laying around. Like they'd just vanished into thin air. There was even food still in one of the pots above the dead fire.

Got the chills really bad. Only got one picture before I heard something moving in the bushes behind me. Turned around, didn't see anything at first.

I only noticed the movement when my eyes adjusted to all the shrubbery. Something was crawling around out in the brush. Not like a bear, or a wolf. The movements were human. Like a person, awkwardly crawling across the ground.

Except, the movements were all wrong. It looked like it was injured or something. Moved with a weird loping motion that's hard to describe. Then, I saw it. The antlers. It looked right at me, and I fucking ran. I am not ashamed to admit that. I don't get paid to kill these things. I get paid to find them, and I sure as shit found it.

Still in the motel room now. Not really sure what to think. Head hurts like a motherfucker.

Redwood Falls, Part Deux

Diner story time.

So, morning rolled around and I decided to check out that Diner down the road. "Buckhorn Baths Breakfast". I don't even have a joke for that.

Whole place had this old-western style feel to it. Raw wood pillars and red felt carpeting. Waitress was a real doll. Damn fine coffee. Had a lot of cups of coffee in my time, and that was one of the best. Would've bought cherry pie too, but who the hell eats pie for breakfast?

Anyways, I chatted up with the lady that owned the place. Shirley, I think it was. Older gal, probably late fifties or so. Kind of what you imagine when you picture an old lady, complete with a big wig and glasses. She said she'd been in the town for nearly fifty years, and I asked what she knew about the Antler thing. I need to get a better name for that. Antlers? Buck? I'll keep working on that.

She said she'd heard about it, and that she'd seen it herself once when she was a girl. Said that one night, out on her daddy's farm, she'd gotten woke up when the dogs started barking. Went out to see what it was, and out at the edge of the woods was this thing. She said it was tall, with a big bulbous head and a pair of long, intricate antlers. She said that the antlers actually seemed fluid, like they moved on their own.

Shirley said that, just then, she started getting a really nasty headache. She passed out, and when she woke up, she was in the hospital. I asked her why, and she showed me one of her hands.

She was missing three fingers.

The doctors told her that, based on the wounds, it looked like something had tried to bite them off. They tried to keep the whole thing on the DL, but she said she overheard the doctors saying the teeth marks looked almost human. One of the fingers was already gnawed off, and they had to amputate the other two.

I was taking my notes when she mentioned something really interesting.

She said that the town reverend, a man named Parker, had visited her while she was in the hospital. He told her that a wolf had come out of the woods and bit her fingers off. Her father said the same thing too, and that the Reverend was really smart about these kinds of things.

That was that, she said, and she didn't see the monster for a long time afterwards. She said that she only saw it one more time after that, and that was when it was watching her from the road one night, coming home from the diner. I got the exact spot where she saw it. I'll take a look when I get a chance.

Paid the bill and took off. Got some of the coffee to go. Ran into some drunk asshole stumbling through the parking lot. The waitress was changing shift at the time, and while she was getting in her car, she told me that was "Old Matt Zadok". The town drunk.

How fascinating. I didn't even know having a "town drunk" was still a thing.