General Art Gang Aft Agley - A Horror Serial

[Garo]

I've been kicking around this idea for a very, very long time, and I recently sat down and banged out the story and wrote all of it in a frenzied afternoon. The result is a new, postmodern horror story in 20 parts, updated on Mondays and Fridays at noon for ten weeks. I've experimented with this form in the past - launching and subsequently running into the ground a small Slender Man alternate reality game called I Like Trees (I'm pretty sure there's no language in there, but I maaay be wrong. Be wary, and if you read through the awfulness make sure you start with the oldest entry and work forward) - but the demands to constantly change my story based on player participation resulted in the compromise of my initial vision and the ultimate collapse of the story out from under me, which is why it remains unfinished.

Which brings me to Gang Aft Agley. Each week there will be two posts in two separate stories with contrasting events and themes. I wanted to tell two very different stories with similar ideas, but couldn't find a way to connect them. This is how. The Jeff Jones story, the first entry of which is posted now, will update on Mondays, with the Jack story, the first entry of which will be posted at noon EST on Friday, updating on Fridays. As I said, it will run for ten weeks and a total of 20 parts, one Jones and one Jack part for each week. I'd post them here, but the blog format is something I think is somewhat key to the story itself, so I will be leaving the posts there and dropping the link here.

The series IS a horror series, and while I would be thrilled if people get chills from it, I do not care much for gore or cheap thrills; the horror will be chiefly psychological and character-driven. I hope you enjoy it, as much as I enjoyed writing it.

The first post, which is available to read now, and all subsequent posts can be found at Gang Aft Agley - enjoy, and please please please comment and offer criticisms in this thread! I've disabled comments on the blog for fear of gamejackers, but I would love to hear your thoughts!

 

[Garo]

Okay well four posts are up so far with another going up tomorrow at noon. I'm not getting many trackbacks so I'm assuming the lack of commenting is mostly people just not clicking through to the blog, and while I still think the blog format is a large part of it, I've decided that in an effort to get some feedback I'm just gonna post the full text so far here in this thread. Please please please please please leave some feedback.

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Week 1: Jones

“We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.”

When I awoke this morning, this message was displayed on my computer monitor in an ominous red scrawl. It wasn’t drawn onto the glass, but it wasn’t the computer’s display, either. It was as if the quote were trapped somewhere between, imposed over the display but behind the glass. I turned the monitor off and the quote vanished. When I turned it back on, it had been erased. I typed it into a search engine (yes I use Bing, get over it) and was directed to a T.S. Eliot poem. There appears to be no meaning to derive from the quotation, nor from its mysterious appearance on my monitor.

Just another oddity to add to a week filled with them.

It’s been two weeks since I moved, and the second week was far worse than the first. I moved here from New York to escape the annoyingly crowded environs of the concrete jungle, but little did I know that even rural America has far too many people for my purposes. I cannot do my work in these situations. Whereas the city was all stoic, apathetic hustle and bustle, rural America is small town hospitality and friendliness everywhere. It’d be one thing if there were few people out and about during most hours of the day, but oh no – 24/7 the streets are filled. The only thing that changes is who is filling it. During the day you get the unemployed or retired, amicably waving and asking how your day is. During the afternoon you get the working adults, fresh off the job, taking care of their daily errands. They’ll stop you to chat about the most mundane of things – I was stopped once this week by a man seeking to talk about the latest crop forecasts. I gave him a confused look and kept walking. Then at night you get the teenagers. For small town America there sure as hell are a lot of them. Some of them drunk, some of them stoned, some of them drunk AND stoned – it’s a mess.

So certainly not the change of pace I was looking for, and it isn’t doing my work any favors. Thank god my work allows me to stay inside most of the day and ignore the ridiculous population of this town. I think the problem is that the city limits are fairly small – hell, I’m even outside them technically – and thus the population of the city itself appears smaller, but with all the smaller areas outside it, there are a far greater number of people in the city than the population number would imply.

Whatever – I wouldn’t mind as much if it didn’t potentially mean a shortage of food. After the guy stopped to ask me about the crop forecast, I was curious about why he would ask a random stranger about it, so I did some reading. Crops have been affected by a particularly nasty drought this summer and there will be fairly substantial shortages. In a place with as many people as this, that could be bad. I’ve started hoarding non-perishables; god knows the last thing I need is a food shortage right now.

I have regrets about moving here. I should have stayed in New York. At least there, I didn’t have to worry about dying on my way into the city every day – I tell you, the idiots here cannot drive. I’ve nearly been hit three times this week alone. It’s ridiculous.

I’m done raging for now. I’ll get used to it eventually. It’s just annoying that I’ve left the tedium and irritation of the city, only to exchange it for the same thing in rural America.

Week 1: Jack

Jack had grown to hate the wind. When the red sun would creep over the horizon in the morning, the howling of the wind would dispel any sense of security that the light of day brought, maintaining the tyranny of the night. Whereas darkness impaired one’s physical sense, the wind’s howling impaired one’s security, weakening one’s mental function. The sound of the wind across the plains of the Midwest brought nothing but fear.

Ever since the Incident, Jack had been walking. He had no real goal in mind, other than basic survival. He hadn’t met another living human in nearly a year. The last contact he had was a brief stay in a small town high school with three others. A few supply runs into the nearby town, a few traps around the perimeter, and a shifting guard outside the sleeping quarters ensured that they were able to hold out in relative comfort for several months. But nothing lasts forever. As Jack had come to know, all comfort is fleeting.

After that had fallen through, he had stumbled across the plains for months, scavenging the ruins of small towns for supplies. He usually found enough to make it to the next town, but it was far from an easy existence. Eventually he had decided to make his way to the interstate – while the masses of abandoned cars and torn down signs rarely provided anything of benefit, there were usually gas stations or other locations near the sides of the road that would have some supplies remaining.

He had been on the interstate for a week now. He wasn’t sure which interstate it was, though he guessed it was I-55. At any rate, it was littered with abandoned, malfunctioned cars and fallen road signs. Navigating it at times proved a bit difficult – there was an overturned semi-truck blocking the path at one point that took a while to navigate around. He rummaged through cars from time to time, and one day found a small trove of books – mostly novels – in the back of a large van. Though he suspected it was an amusingly antiquated book burning van, there were a lot of classics in there. He took a leather bound copy of Of Mice and Men for himself, and continued onward.

Several days later he saw a large city in the distance. He again couldn’t be certain (given that the road signs were mostly destroyed by weather in the time since the Incident), but he was fairly confident that the city was once Chicago. Though his instinct told him to stay away, he felt drawn to the city, and walked in its direction. If anything, it would have plenty of supplies for him to stock up on, and he held out hope that it might hold a working automobile – but it was a slim hope at best.

He was right about the supplies – nearly every shop in the downtown area of the city was filled with goods of all kinds. He found a stash of working batteries – a rare commodity – and grabbed as many as he could carry before moving on to the supermarket nearby, where he stocked up on staple foods as well as a few necessary tools so he could gather and cook some of his own food. Rather than leave immediately, however, he opted to stay in the city for a few days and see if he could find anything else of interest.

He certainly did.

Week 2: Jones

“Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there, wondering, fearing, doubting…”

This was written on my monitor this morning, in the same red scrawl as the Eliot quote from last week. This one , Bing tells me, comes from Edgar Allen Poe’s classic poem “The Raven”. A bit creepier than last week admittedly, and the recurrence unnerves me slightly, but you know what? I’m not concerned, because it’s not the only strange and unnerving thing to have happened to me this week.

Before I get into that, though, let me share with you the mundane. The town continues to be busy and packed with annoying people. People continue to prove how awful they are at driving. The weather has taken a turn for the worse, with nearly constant rain and the occasional thunderstorm. Prices for produce are gradually rising, a symptom of both crop shortages due to the drought and rising gas prices. I’ve still barely moved forward in my work. I’ve still yet to make any valuable friends. In summation: **** sucks.

About three days ago, I was driving back home after having gone into town, and I witnessed a car crash. I knew it was going to happen, too, as I could see the car in the intersection turning and the car in the lane next to me not slowing to stop at the light. It’s strange, though – when you see a car crash on TV or in a movie, you always hear the screeching of brakes or the sudden turn of wheels on the pavement. But not in reality; no, in reality, all you hear is this sickening crunch. The sort of sound that makes you utter an involuntary “ooh,” cringing at the mere thoughts it inspires.

Nevertheless, the cars hit each other. But the strangest thing was that, as the car in the lane next to me passed by my car, I saw into it and saw quite clearly three passengers – a driver, a passenger, and a suited man in the backseat. When I pulled over to help the people involved get things out of the way and get everyone medical help, there were only two people in the car. We pulled everyone out, called highway patrol, and got the cars out of the intersection. I then turned to the driver of the car and asked him, “Wasn’t there a third passenger? A man in a suit?”

His eyes widened and he stared at me for a moment. “You could see him, too?” A strange look came over his face then – I don’t know why it would be, but it looked a lot like elation. His mouth widened and stretched into a grin, he tilted his head upward and clasped his hands together as he began to laugh rather maniacally. “Thank you,” he began repeating, “oh god thank you thank you thank you!” He continued laughing the entire time that I waited there for highway patrol to arrive.

I asked the passenger of his car if he was alright, and he told me, “No. I don’t know what’s wrong with him, but he hasn’t been ‘alright’ for weeks. I can tell you one thing, though,” he said as he lowered his voice and leaned toward me. “There was no third passenger. I don’t know what you saw and I don’t know what he thinks he saw. But there was definitely not a third passenger.” He then walked away without another word.

So that understandably unnerved me. But I put it in the back of my mind for a while.

Until just a few moments ago, when I sat down to write this. I walked from the bathroom into the study to sit at my desk, and as I did so I passed by the large window looking out on the street in front of my house. There, in the rain, on the other side of the road, was a very tall figure in dark clothing. I looked closer and squinted, trying to make out features, but couldn’t. Then the lightning flashed.

Standing there is a figure resembling an unnaturally tall man wearing a black business suit, but it clearly wasn’t that. No, that figure is certainly not a man; it has no face.

Note my use of the present tense: as I sit here, typing this update, he is still standing there, unmoving, staring through nonexistent eyes at my window.

Week 2: Jack

Jack was growing concerned.

He had been in the city for a week. It was a veritable haven of supplies; though he already had enough to last him well into the next month, he continued searching through, on the off chance he should find something particularly rare – some fascinating remnant of days past. He had a found a few curiosities thus far: a few MP3 players, a collection of actual compact discs, and several albums on SD cards awaited him in what appeared to be a former music store. They were all useless and little more than interesting curios at this point, but it still warmed Jack’s heart to be holding a relic of the old world to which he once belonged.

A few days into the week, however, he began to notice things. He had set up base camp on a high floor of a parking garage. He would venture out during the day, and return there at night. But after about three days he began to notice that things had been moved around just slightly when he would return. The first time it was just his sleeping bag had been moved outside the tent. As the week went on, it would get more drastic – the tent would have moved several parking spaces over, the sleeping bag would be rolled out in front of the tent – and it became clear that something was actively changing his campsite.

It was a strange curiosity at first, but nothing that caused him much concern – until he began to hear things. It started during one of his days of walking through the ruined streets. He wasn’t paying much mind to his surroundings, granted, but he had spent four days in the city without ever seeing movement – not even so much as wildlife. But then he heard something, like rocks sliding down the side of a mountain, from behind him. He stopped and turned around slowly, but there was no sign that anything had moved. He kept walking, stopping in a few shops to scavenge for more supplies and items of interest.

Then he began hearing the wind. Well, what he hoped was the wind. The alternative was not one he wanted to consider, but occasionally as he walked down the empty streets he would hear the low howling of the wind running through the urban landscape.

All of this was accompanied by an unshakeable feeling that he wasn’t alone. Even when he wasn’t thinking about his things being moved while he was gone, and even when he wasn’t hearing the wind and strange noises as he walked through the city, he had a terrible feeling in his stomach that he was being watched. One night he awoke from his sleep and was overcome with the sensation. He could sense a presence nearby, something watching him from close by. The wind howled and he could have sworn he heard shallow breathing.

Then it began to rain. The sound of the water falling on the garage floor above did little to assuage his growing paranoia. He heard a low rumble of thunder. Lightning flashed and illuminated the garage floor. He could have sworn he saw the outline of a figure through the thin folds of his tent. He opened his tent and turned on his lamp, shining it into the pitch darkness of the parking garage, searching for whatever could be watching him.

There was darkness there – but nothing more.

 

[Garo]

Week 3: Jones

“Who are these? Why sit they here in twilight?
Wherefore rock they, purgatorial shadows…”

There was another message this morning, just the same as before. This one appears to be from a poem called “Mental Cases” by Wilfred Owen. You know, with these sorts of bizarre happenings, there tends to be a progression from initial interest to disbelieving horror with repetition, and then further to frightened acclimation. I think I’ve skipped straight past that second step – these messages don’t horrify me. They unnerve me, but their like clockwork repetition has become just another part of my overall terrifying life. It doesn’t help that stranger things than literary quotes appearing on my monitor are happening as well.

The man is moving closer. I call him a man – that thing in the suit. The faceless man. He reappeared outside my home every single night this week – he’s there as I type this, actually – but inching slowly forward. He was across the street near the tree line last week. But as I type this, he is about three quarters of the way across the road, just past the shadow. The shadow is one of the most unnerving things about this whole ordeal, actually – while the man would always disappear by the morning, the shadow has persisted. I should explain.

One night, I parked my chair in front of my window. Yet another storm – it’s been incessant for the past week or so – had knocked out my power, so I was out of things to do, particularly since my work has been slow going and fruitless. So I sat in front of the window with a cup of coffee and watched the man. The lightning flashes would illuminate him for brief instants every few minutes, sending waves of horror radiating throughout my body with each flash. But at one point, I saw a car approaching from further down the road. It wasn’t unheard of, but it was rare that cars passed my way so late at night. The man was right in the car’s path. I sat up and gripped the sides of my chair. The car got closer and the man remained still. Thunder rumbled. The car was really close now. They were going to collide. The man would surely die. Lightning flash – and the car passed straight through the man, as if he weren’t there at all.

I sat there, petrified, my head in my hands for what felt like hours. I cannot trust the evidence of my own eyes, I reasoned – the man must be a hallucination. But of course, the words of the driver from last week came back to me.

“You could see him, too?”

I could see him, too. I sat there, wondering – was this some shared psychosis, or was there some worse horror at play? Am I insane, or am I hunted? I didn’t really care to learn the answer – neither one was particularly comforting. They say there is comfort in resolution, that the best horror movies are the ones that don’t resolve everything in a nice little bow. I disagree – resolution isn’t comforting at all. It’s a specific identification of what has befallen you. With your questions answered, there is nothing left but to accept your inevitable fate. No, not knowing is much better. It gives you something to hope for.

I went to bed not long after that, but of course I didn’t sleep. I got up and dressed the next morning, and started the drive into town when I passed the spot where the car had driven through the man the night before. I looked at the spot on the road and slammed on the brake. I got out of my car and stared at the spot on the road.

A shadow of the man was imprinted directly into the asphalt. It wasn’t some sort of substance or an actual shadow – it was as if his visage had been burned into the asphalt. I pulled out my pocket knife and started to scratch at the asphalt, but the shadow did not move. It reminded me of those images of shadows from Hiroshima, reverse burned into the ground as the bodies of people in the blast radius shielded the ground under their shadows from the immense heat. A chill ran through my body and I got back in my car and kept driving. When I returned home and had to pass the shadow again, the same chill ran through my body.

The man appeared again that night, like clockwork. Whatever forces have been allayed against me are rather punctual, though they show no clear motives. I fear for what they may cause and what they may want from me.

I am scared. Moving here was a big mistake.

 

[Garo]

:< Pwease comment? Even a "I don't like this" would be appreciated.

Week 3: Jack

Jack had changed his plans slightly.

Rather than simply scavenging for supplies, Jack placed a new premium on finding a functioning weapon. The rifle he had been using prior to his arrival in the city, while still functional, had run out of ammunition, and Jack was not familiar enough with firearms to know what type of ammo to acquire. He opted instead to just find a new weapon entirely. Unfortunately this proved much more difficult than he anticipated, as there appeared to be very few surviving arms dealers in the city.

About three days after the night of the storm, he found a rifle in the wreckage of a hunting supply store, along with a surplus of ammunition for it. He fired a few test shots down the street to ensure that it worked, and, satisfied, slung it over his back and resumed his previous scavenging.

Throughout the week he continued to hear the sounds of something following him, and continued to feel watched at all times. And as before, whatever the source of it all was eluded his sight. He had not seen a single living creature during his two weeks in the city. The longer he went without seeing something living, the more paranoid he became. He began holding his rifle at all times and firing off into the distance whenever he heard a sound. He began sleeping less and less at night, keeping his rifle close to him at all times and watching the darkness outside his tent.

He had stopped scavenging most days, as well, instead preferring to sit in the false sense of security provided by his tent and read the copy of Of Mice and Men he had found on the interstate. As he read, he was struck by this sense of crushing loneliness; a part of him wanted to find some creature, even one that would threaten his life, simply so he might know that he isn’t totally alone. Ever since the events of a few years ago, Jack had had only fleeting contact with other humans. He had never thought about it much – with the exception of the week after he lost Zack, George and Daniel in the high school – but it was clearly affecting him.

One day, he slammed the book closed in frustration, his mind having wandered into a dark place. Face resting in his palms, he began to weep silently. He regained his composure and reached into his pack, pulling out a small locket. He opened it and pulled out the contents: a small note, folded with great care into a very small square, and a very small photo of a young girl, no older than sixteen. He unfolded the note and read silently, tears slowly dripping onto the old paper.

It was at that moment that it began to rain. Jack hesitated for a moment and looked around the tent. He quickly replaced the note and the photo and stashed the locket in his pack before reaching for his rifle. He stepped outside the tent and scanned the parking garage for signs of the figure. He heard a noise behind him. He whipped around. There was a blur of motion. A mostly black figure dashed in front of him. He turned and fired. He missed. The blur moved faster. Jack aimed. Fired. Missed. The blur vanished. Jack searched frantically. Thunder rumbled and echoed through the garage as lightning illuminated the dark corners, revealing no sign of the creature. Lightning struck again, this time hitting Jack’s tent. The sound waves disoriented Jack and caused him to drop his rifle. As he slowly overcame his confusion, he saw an eerie orange glow coming from his tent – fire. He ran over to the tent and dove inside, pulling out his pack and dumping its contents before tossing it on the ground, stamping out the fire to protect his belongings. He quickly replaced the items in the pack and slung it over his shoulder, picking up his rifle and running down the garage floors to find the creature. As he did, he heard a loud rumbling overhead – it wasn’t thunder, though. He looked up the ramps and saw the floors above him were slowly collapsing. He began to run faster, hoping to escape the falling building. He wasn’t going to make it. He reached the second floor and looked outside, a dangerous idea coming to mind. He leapt over the barrier and jumped from the second floor, falling to the ground and hitting it with a roll, allowing him to get back to his feet quicker. Slowed by the physical trauma of the fall, he tried to run down the street and out of range of the massive debris cloud that was sure to envelop the block, but wasn’t fast enough. Inhaling sharply and covering his eyes, he braced for the cloud’s impact. Debris was everywhere, dust in the air kicked around by the wind and rain. He couldn’t hold his breath for much longer. Eventually he had to inhale, and he barely escaped the dust cloud as he did. After a brief coughing fit, he turned back and watched the dust settle.

The creature, whatever it was, had brought down an entire parking garage. Jack knew he had to get out of the city.

Before leaving, he took a quick inventory of his pack. Almost everything was unharmed – except the locket. He noticed it had been opened. He reached inside and opened the locket. Inside was the photo – but no letter. Frantically he rummaged through the rest of the pack and found the seared remains of the letter, almost all of it ruined by the fire. All that remained was the top of the page.

"Dear Jack,

Hey brother! I miss"

 

[Locke]

After reading the first week of each story, the contrast of the characters' situations - namely the number of people; also the narrative perspective - is powerful. I'm eager to learn what Jeff's work is such that it can be done "in these situations." The high school bit in Jack's story has me worried that the Incident has to do with zombies. I hope not, I don't really like zombie stories all that much. The condition of the interstate, with all the wrecked cars on it, suggests that some sort of natural (or supernatural) disaster struck suddenly though. I wouldn't imagine a zombie attack leaving that kind of mess. (People wouldn't be travelling.)

---

I don't particularly enjoy this genre, but I love how you've presented the two stories. It seems like every element in one story is a foil to the other. Too many people, not enough people. Monotony, action. Yet they're tied together by the common elements of the dark figure (whether it be the same or not) and thunderstorms. Now that I've caught up, we'll see if I get the same effect reading them four days apart.

 

[Garo]

Week 4: Jones

“He who was living is now dead
We who are living are now dying
With little patience…”

Eliot again. The Waste Land. Quite a long poem filled with nonsense. Nothing to learn here.

He’s still there. He still shows up every single night. He’s still moving closer. He’s in my yard now. If he were any closer I could see him from my desk. I still don’t know what he wants. But he’s clearly targeting me. Haunting me. Hunting me.

I’ve not gone out much this past week. I’m losing sleep so I rarely have the energy to leave the house. When I do I don’t stay out long. I go and get food to survive and then return home. You’d think that with this isolation and insomnia I’d be able to get more work done. Not so. I’ve found working even more difficult now. Even though I’m in the right state of mind to really hammer out some quality stuff. I just can’t bring myself to do it. I’m terrified 24 hours a day. I’m constantly looking over my shoulder. What sort of work would I be doing in this state?

But anyway. I’ve gone out three times this week. The first time was a simple food run. The second time was the same with one difference. I talked to the manager of the store I’ve been shopping at. His name is Roland. He was concerned about me because my visits had grown less frequent over the past week or so and because I looked really pale. I told him I was just feeling a bit under the weather lately. He gave me his cell number and told me to call him if I needed anything. I thanked him and left with my things.

The third time was just today. It wasn’t good. I was heading back to the store for more food as always. I walked to the back of the store and worked my way to the front as I grabbed things that I needed. I looked up after grabbing a can from the shelf. And I saw him. There across the street he was standing on the sidewalk. Staring straight at me. In broad daylight. In a crowd of people. With nobody acknowledging his presence. I froze and dropped the can that I was holding in my hand. I slowly walked toward him. I reached the door and opened it quickly before running down the street. I heard Roland calling out to me from behind but I didn’t stop. I ran for a good twenty minutes before I dared to turn around. There was nothing there. I had ducked down into a small alley so there weren’t even people around. Just silence.

That describes my week almost to a tee. Silence. Silence as I drove through the crowded streets. Silence as I sit at home unable to work. Silence as I stare out at my window at a creature that stares back. Silence as I sit here typing. Silence as I survive without living.

 

[Garo]

As a notice, a lot of new chapters are up on the blog itself. I'm in the process of making edits to the chapters that I wrote, as I had been doing before posting them, but after a Blogger crash erased all the queued posts I had to recover the file from a busted hard drive. I should be fully caught up to this week's intended schedule sometime this weekend, if not this evening!

So for the few of you who have been reading (<3 you Locke), hope you enjoy the most recent chapters, and I can assure you more is coming!

And here it is: the rest of Gang Aft Agley in its entirety. It was meant to be wrapping up today anyway, which is why I rushed to recover and edit the stuff I had written, as well as wrap it all up with the epilogues. Please read, comment, and most importantly, enjoy - I have had tremendous fun writing this, and the result is something I am insanely proud of. I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I did writing it.

Week 4: Jack

Jack turned to the final page of text in great frustration, disgruntled at the pessimism he perceived the novel espoused, and upon reading every bit of text on the page flung the book far ahead of him and let out an anguished shriek, having wasted his time reading the novel. Steinbeck was no longer welcome.

He had left the city some time ago and had been walking ever since. The plains that surrounded the city had given way to a heavily forested area, which seemed strange to him, but he was not particularly familiar with geography so he didn’t question it. The trees were tall and cast a large pall over the ground. Jack was for some reason reminded of a forest composed of giant mushrooms towering over swampland, with giant bugs and marsh creatures stalking him through the night, as the fear of something following him had not quite left itself behind in the city. What exactly is there to fear in the forest these days, he did not know and did not care to think, but he was fearful nonetheless. Despite the shade Jack found himself sweating nearly all the time, shivering and trembling weakly as fever raddled his body. As he fell to the ground one day he thought that for a moment he saw himself fall and then stand back up, outside of his own body, but as the figure that he thought was himself turned around it was just an average man from before the Incident, a pen in his hand and a fearful look in his eyes, which quickly vanished and gave way to a faceless creature in a business suit that reached out for Jack who recoiled and shut his eyes in fear, only to open them to emptiness.

He needed medicine. And he was searching every home, every building he came across for it. But he never found. Because he wasn’t really searching. He did find another book, Stephen King’s The Gunslinger. He read parts of it haphazardly, but the fever was sapping his resolve.

He made his way to a spot of higher ground, a hill of sorts within the forest, when he was struck with another hallucination. This time there were hundreds of figures like the one with the pen he had mistaken for himself surrounding him, so he ran towards one of them and it vanished in a puff of smoke, sending Jack tumbling down the hill uncontrollably, eventually crashing into a tree. He stood up, brushed himself off, and then walked a short distance before collapsing from exhaustion.

Beneath the tree he collided with lied a broken, shattered golden locket.

Week 5: Jones

“In the silence of the night
How we shiver with affright
At the melancholy menace of their tone!”

Poe. “The Bells” this time rather than “The Raven”.

Contact has been good for me. Having someone to talk to has restored some sense of normalcy to my life. The day after my last post, I went out to have a drink with Roland. He seemed genuinely concerned about me, which is good, but I wasn’t sure I wanted to confide in him every strange thing that has happened to me for fear I may be thought crazy. We had good conversation nonetheless, about city life and various hobbies and what not. He’s an avid reader, which is always nice to hear. I’m not sure he’s recognized me yet, thankfully. Moments like that night remind me why I moved here in the first place.

The creature was still outside my window like clockwork when I returned, however, and this night had approached close enough to where I could view him just by turning my head from my desk. I did my best to ignore him, a task I proved much more successful at than I expected, which led to my completion of a significant amount of work – the most since I moved here, actually. I was feeling pretty on top of the world at the time.

The rest of the week continued respectably well. I conversed with Roland a fair deal when I went into town to grab some groceries. No sightings of the creature in the town. I got a lot of work done. Life was, for the first time in a month, surprisingly tenable.

Until last night.

I was sitting at my desk, having been working for the past few hours, when I observed that the sun had set. Knowing what to expect, I turned my head to look at the window – but the creature wasn’t there. I stood up and walked to the window to gaze out and see how far the creature had retreated – only to find that he wasn’t outside at all. My heart rate quickened, and for a moment I experienced the briefest elation that the creature had finally departed, that I had somehow kicked whatever affliction had befallen me. I decided to be completely sure and go outside and investigate.

There was nothing but silence outside. No cars, no animals, and no creature. The shadows in the road remained, but there was no otherwise sign of the creature. Until I turned around to walk back into the house.

Cast across my door was the shadow of the creature, with its arm clutching the doorknob.

I stood there petrified in fear. I’m fairly certain the shadow wasn’t on the door before I exited my home to investigate the lack of the creature. Was it in the house? Was it still outside? I shut the door, got in my car and drove to a hotel in town, where I stayed the night. This morning I woke up and told Roland immediately.

Of course, I was still concerned he’d think I’m insane, so I fudged the details a bit – I didn’t mention his unnatural height or lack of face, nor the shadows that he seems to cast – which may have changed his advice. He told me to go to the police.

Of course I haven’t done that. And I don’t plan to. They’d think I’m crazy.

Am I?

Week 5: Jack

Day broke over the forest. The trees swam among a flood of sensation, with the smell of the sea drifting through the wood, carried on flower petals as they were blown in by the rapid gale. Frogs croaked, and with each croak erupted thousands of tiny crickets whose symphony clashed with the croaking of the quartet of frogs that swelled and deflated in tune with the gusting gale. Jack lie on his back and consciousness soon came to him, and with it all of the sights and sounds of the forest. The sun vomited colors in the sky and Jack felt his eyes struggling to adjust. The heat was unbearable.

Night fell. The forest was silent and the sky dark. Jack vomited. He felt sweat roll down his body in a vain attempt to cool him down. In the dark there was nothing to see, so Jack tried to sleep. Whether what he experienced would be better called sleep or unconsciousness he did not know, but the night passed quickly by his reckoning.

Day broke. The sky above was calm today. The frogs and crickets were in silence, not unison or clash. The sea scent was absent and no petals filled the air. Jack sat up for the first time in over a day, and vomited again. He needed to find food and medicine to survive. Did he want to?

He walked a few miles, probably in circles. He found some food but no medicine. He tried to read the book he had found the week previous, but found the letters danced too much, and when they were still, the words made him thirst. He searched for water, and found a small stream. He followed it for some time, doing his best to keep his mind coherent.

Night fell. Jack slept, drenched still in sweat. The heat remained unbearable, but he was so near death that sleep came easily to him, even with the heat. The fears that had kept him awake in the city had faded to barely a whisper in the back of his mind, drowned out by the screams of anguish and panting of thirst.

Day broke. Night fell. Day broke. Night fell.

It was a miserable existence, and Jack was losing the will to carry on. Nobody would know he died. Nobody would care. Those who would had perished long ago. He could join them. He could be free from this earth’s dreadful clutches. He could be bathed in the bliss of silence, and allow the chill of death to cleanse the heat that afflicted his body.

Day broke. Night fell. Day broke. Night fell. Day broke.

Yes. Why continue? What was left for him? He reached in his pack for his sister’s locket. He rummaged. He rummaged. He did not find.

Yes. He was sure now.

Night fell.

Week 6: Jones

“For in that sleep of death what dreams may come
When we have shuffled off that mortal coil
Must give us pause…”

I recognize that one. Hamlet.

Fate’s a *****. Easy come, easy go and all that, but to give me a week when things seem to be returning to normalcy, only to rip it right out from under me on the last day and then serve me a week of hell right back? That’s just cruel.

I’ve been in the hotel almost every night this week, and only dared return to the house once to get my laptop so I could at least try and work. The shadow is still on the door, naturally, but I’ve otherwise seen no signs of the creature’s entry into the house. I’m not sure if that concerns me more or less than if I did see signs.

I always sleep poorly in hotels. This week has been no different, and it’s had a measurable impact on my work. I’m just not producing at the quality I ought to be. It’s killing me, because I know I can do better than this and I know that better is expected of me, but these horrible things outside my control are preventing me from doing better.

Oh, and then there’s yesterday. That’s a fun day.

I was driving to the store to grab more food and speak to Roland. Traffic in this city is pretty terrible, but I’ve gotten used to it. I moved my hand to the side to adjust the volume dial, and saw a shadow cast over the console. I turned around, and saw, a few cars behind me, the creature, in the backseat of a sedan. The light in front of me was red, and it was bumper to bumper on all sides of me. I was trapped. I froze, terrified. I turned back, and saw that the creature had moved up one car – there were now only three cars between us. The light turned green, and my lane thankfully started moving quickly. I managed to speed up quickly and get in front of a car in the other lane and turn down a side road with fewer cars. I reached a stop light and slowly braked, then turned back and saw a car slowly pulling up behind me, the creature in the backseat. The light turned green and I slammed my foot on the accelerator, speeding down the road as quickly as I could. I didn’t look back, but soon I felt a cold hand on my shoulder. I turned to the side and saw the creature’s face, inches from my own. I screamed and didn’t notice as I barreled into the intersection, through the red light, and got hit in the side by a car crossing. I blacked out.

I came to a few minutes later, and was miraculously unharmed for the most part. A paramedic was placing a cast on my leg, which he told me had been broken, and that he would need to check for a concussion before I was free to go. A police officer was then allowed to come and question me. He asked me what had happened and why I had run that red light at such a high speed. I first asked him if the other driver was okay, and he told me that they all had only minor injuries – a father and his children. I breathed a sigh of deep relief, and then paused, unsure of what to tell the cop. I remembered the second week I was here, when the passenger of the crash I witnessed told me firmly that there was no third passenger. That driver was dragged away, kicking and screaming.

So I told him that I wasn’t paying attention, that I was talking on the phone and didn’t realize the light was red. I took full responsibility, was naturally given a ticket, but was otherwise allowed to go my way. Crutches suck, by the way.

Roland seemed concerned about my accident. I didn’t bother to tell him about the real reason I crashed.

Week 6: Jack

Jack had followed the stream to a larger river. He threw The Gunslinger into the river to gauge the current, and watched as the book was quickly carried downstream, and pulled under the surface. He walked a bit further down the river, searching for a higher vantage point.

So he could jump.

A day or so later he found a minor waterfall at what appeared to be the edge of the forest. There was a mountainous region in the distance. The river continued on for a few miles; if he jumped from this point, he’d be pretty much assured to die. He set his things against a nearby tree, and walked over the rocks to stand at the cusp of the falls. He stood still for a moment, reflecting, looking out at the world in front of him. It was a beautiful sight. Even with the crumbling interstate cutting through the mountains ahead, there was an awe-inspiring sense of nature to the sights that made Jack smile. He scanned the horizon, and suddenly stopped as his eyes landed on a cabin on the other side of the river, easily reachable by walking over the rocks he was standing on.

Jack stood, conflicted. To jump, or not to jump?

Moments later, as he was searching the cabin, his decision was justified: he, at last, found medicine. He found a weak antibiotic and some aspirin. He went down to the river and popped some pills into his mouth, swallowing them with a swig of water. He slumped against one of the walls of the cabin and waited for a few hours as the aspirin kicked in, and clarity began to return to him.

Why would he have jumped? To end the pain for a fleeting moment? He cursed his weakness, his inability to endure the illness. He had survived for a long time since the Incident – why should he abandon all hope because of a fever?

He stared out at the river and the forest from which he had emerged. The sudden silence of the world in the wake of his fever was shocking to him. A week of illness and he had already forgotten how tranquil this world could be. What made him think death would be better? Hope, desperation – or naivety? Death could feature many unimaginable horrors, he reasoned – and he wasn’t in a hurry to find out any longer.

Night fell, and Jack’s state had improved tremendously. His thinking was clear – but with that clear thinking came the return of the paranoia that had marked his time in the city. The silence of the forest that had struck him as tranquil in the day now struck him as foreboding. He retreated into the cabin and covered the windows and door, lighting a candle to provide some warmth and sight. He slept soundly that night, the medicine keeping the sickness at bay.

Throughout the week he began to improve, the antibiotics fighting the infection well and the aspirin keeping the fever down. He was making his way to the mountains in the distance, in the hopes of picking up an interstate again and finding civilization. He made sure to find suitable structures to camp out in at night, still worried about whatever creatures might have been following him.

One day he came to a road and began to follow it, which eventually led to a large tunnel through the mountain. The sun was setting when he reached it, and it appeared to be poorly lit. He resolved to camp at the base of the tunnel near a small guardpost (that appeared to have been built and abandoned post-Incident, interestingly enough), and venture through the tunnel the next morning.

Week 7: Jones

“As I lay dying, the man in the black suit would not close my eyes as I descended into Hell.”

Interesting. The first one that isn’t a direct quote. The source appears to be a quote from The Odyssey, but this certainly isn’t the exact quote. Nice to see there’s a direct connection between this and everything else that is happening; if the quotes were something else entirely I think I’d just end it now.

Speaking of ends – Roland’s dead.

I went in to the store this week to pick up my typical groceries, and Roland wasn’t at the desk as he usually is. There was another guy I’d never seen before, but he seemed to recognize me, and asked me as he rang up my purchases if I was the guy Roland had a drink with the other week. I told him I was, and he asked me to wait there for a minute. He came back a few minutes later with a police officer in tow, and I was asked to come into the station and answer a few questions.

They didn’t seem to think I had done it, but that may well be part of their interrogation technique. They asked fairly basic questions: where I was at the time, could anyone back me up on that, what was my relation to the victim, etc. etc. The whole time they were talking I was growing more and more fearful of what had actually happened. When they said they had no further questions and that I could go, I asked them if they had any crime scene photos. They showed me one of the body. It looked completely unharmed – he was lying face down. But the photo was still one of the most horrifying things I’ve ever seen. Cast over Roland’s dead body was a shadow.

I asked the officer what the shadow was, and he said they didn’t know. It appeared to be somehow permanently embedded within the floor, but they couldn’t determine the material and had sent it to a lab for examination. I thanked him and asked my final question: who found him?

“His daughter.”

I left the police station in a daze. He had a daughter and I never even knew that. He was the only person in this town who appeared to give a damn what happened to me, and I never even cared enough to ask about him. Maybe I deserve all of this. But he didn’t. And it’s my fault he’s dead. Whatever that thing is, it’s sending a message. Well, message received.

I didn’t even try to work.

Week 7: Jack

Something was off.

He had entered the tunnel that morning, as he planned to, and had seen, as he expected to, abandoned cars and decaying structure from a lack of maintenance over a long period of time. What he did not expect or plan for, however, is the tunnel being many miles long. He had walked for around eight hours and the tunnel showed no obvious signs of ending.

He began to think about turning back and finding a different route when suddenly the abandoned cars just stopped, and an empty road stretched ahead. The darkness of the tunnel seemed to deepen down that empty stretch, and Jack couldn’t see anything past a certain distance. He took the flashlight out of his pack and shone it down the expanse. While it lit up the sides of the tunnel, the beam vanished down the center, never illuminating anything but road and walls.

Jack turned back, determined to investigate the depths of the tunnel, but knowingly refusing to do so without ample supplies. The eight hour walk back put him back out front of the tunnel sometime after dark, so he quickly made his way to the guardtower to sleep.

The next morning, he ventured into the surrounding area to scavenge for supplies from both the abandoned cars and the lightly wooded areas. He found batteries, food, a few bullets (only a few of those for his rifle), and yet another book – this one a copy of David Mitchell’s Cloud Atlas. Satisfied with his scavenging after a few days, Jack prepared for his trek into the tunnel.

He opted to wait for a new morning, mostly to assuage the paranoia that was still associated with nights. He killed the time by reading the book he had found. He fell asleep quickly that night.

He was awoken the next morning by a strange crackling sound. He stood up and looked out the guardtower to find the plains at the foot of the mountain set ablaze, with the fire creeping up the side of the mountain. He quickly gathered his things and took off down the tunnel, looking back and noticing the glimmer of the flames on the tunnel walls.

This did not help his paranoia.

Week 8: Jones

“What brought the spider to that height,
Then steered the white moth thither in the night?
What but design of darkness to appall –
If design govern in a thing so small?”

Robert Frost. Part of a larger sonnet. Good for him.

Why. That’s been on my mind all week. I think it’s pretty clear that I’ve been a terrible person since all this started. I certainly feel that way. Alone is how I should be, now – nobody gets hurt that way, since the creature seems perfectly willing to enforce that I stay alone in its own way.

But why did this start? Did I do something to incur the wrath of this *******? Did I NOT do something that I should have? Is this some sort of divine punishment for sins?

Why. I cannot fathom why.

My week has been solitary. I ventured into town for groceries once, and did not say a word to anyone, or make eye contact. I can’t afford to get friendly. Nobody else will die because of me. I’ve tried to bury myself in my work, in the hopes that doing so will provide some reason to continue living. But I am pessimistic. I am damned to this slice of hell for reasons I have not been blessed with understanding of.

Last night the creature finally reappeared outside my window. I walked over to the window and stared it in the face. I’m not even scared of it anymore. I think it’s just here to taunt me now. As I stared at it, it moved its head slightly. It looked even more inhuman up close than it did from afar. I was suddenly filled with an unbelievable rage, and ran out my front door into the yard, standing feet away from the creature, with nothing between us but air. I fumed and balled up my fist, my fingernails digging into the palm of my hand, and in an instant all of my thoughts erupted forth.

I shouted at the top of my lungs.

“WHAT DO YOU WANT!?” The creature stared, unmoving.

I inhaled sharply and continued. “I DON’T GET IT, WHAT DID I DO? WHY ARE YOU DOING THIS TO ME? WHAT EVEN ARE YOU!?” It did not move.

“JUST GIVE ME A SIGN, TELL ME WHAT YOU WANT, ANYTHING AND I’LL DO IT, JUST PLEASE, LEAVE ME ALONE! I – I DON’T – JUST – JUST GO AWAY!” At this, it tilted its head to the side slightly, and continued to stare.

I stood, angrier now than I was when I went out there. After another moment of staring the creature down, I walked forward with as much solemnity as I could muster, and plunged my fist into the creature’s gut.

It was completely unfazed, and my hand felt as though it had passed through air. What’s more, the creature – with horrifying rapidity – wrapped its long arms around me in a dark embrace, and I lost consciousness.

I awoke this morning on my bed. I jolted awake and collected myself after a moment, remembering the night’s events. I curled up into a ball, and began to sob quietly, repeating “Why?” over and over.

Why indeed.

Week 8: Jack

The nights in the tunnel were the worst.

Jack had walked far enough down the seemingly unending tunnel to have lost track of the day and night cycle; what kept time for him was the sound of the wind. It kicked up during the night, and howled through the tunnel. The sound was deafening at times, and absolutely horrifying. Jack managed to fall asleep relatively quickly each night, but the moments when the wind would keep him awake were trying on his resolve. Coupled with the paranoia of something – the thing that seemed to be causing fires – following him, night was a terrifying concept even in the total darkness of the tunnel.

At first the tunnel was just like the previous section with abandoned cars. The emptiness was unsettling and unnatural feeling, but nonetheless – it was nothing particularly out of the ordinary. After two days of that, however, the tunnel became unnaturally smooth. It was much smoother than the manmade portions that had preceded it, and the stone had a bit of a reflective sheen to it, making Jack’s flashlight shine brighter.

Most unsettling of all, however, was that beyond that point, there began to be strange marks on the floor. Specks of blood would appear, and sometimes a long stain as if something had been dragged across the floor (or, in one case, the wall). At times, a single crack would appear in the otherwise flawless floor and walls of the tunnel. It would spiral around for a brief period, and then just end.

Jack soldiered on, however, growing simultaneously intrigued and horrified by his mind’s wanderings. The mystery of what lie at the end of this tunnel continued to drive him, as well as the knowledge that near a week’s journey back to the front awaited him otherwise, and beyond that? He had no real purpose in the world at the moment; this gave him something to do, something to explore.

One day he found something on the side of the wall. It appeared to be a shadow of a person – but an unnaturally tall person, with elongated arms and legs. But it was permanent – there was no person in the beam of Jack’s flashlight, but the shadow was still projected on the wall. Jack touched the shadow with his fingers, but the material felt the same as the rest of the wall. He bashed it with the butt of his rifle to see if the material would crack, but it was very resistant to the shock. It puzzled him, and unnerved him, but he continued on.

The shadows became more frequent, and appeared on both sides of the wall after a time. Eventually, the entire wall was littered with the shadows, one after the other, arranged in a terrifying line on each side, lining the path. Jack was growing increasingly concerned with what lie ahead.

But where else was he going to go?

Week 9: Jones

“You walk into the room
With your pencil in your hand
You see somebody naked
And you say ‘Who is that man?’
You try so hard
But you don’t understand
Do you?
Mister Jones…”

Bob Dylan. “Ballad of a Thin Man”. Horrendously apropos. My monitor is constantly afflicted with these quotes, but nothing about them seems to suggest some greater meaning. It appears to be further taunting.

Only one thing of note happened this week, but it was a substantial thing. Once again keeping to myself for the bulk of the week and venturing out only for groceries, I did some work – poor work, but work – and slept. But the trip for groceries ended up being much more.

As I was paying for my things, I glanced out the store window and saw the creature across the street – just like I had before. But rather than run from it, I just stared at it this time. It made a motion with its head – as if to say, “this way”. My eyes widened, and the store clerk seemed perturbed by my sudden fixation with the window. I paid him no attention and ran out the store across the street, nearly being hit by two cars, but not caring. Something was about to happen, and I dared to hope that it may lead to the end of this all.

The creature had vanished, but I saw him down a nearby alley, and walked that way. He sort of glided out of sight around a corner. I rounded that corner and saw him again in the distance. He was leading me. Eventually we came to an ostensibly abandoned office building. He led me up the stairs to the third floor – the top floor, I think – and to a hallway. Large windows covered the right side of the hallway, and a white wall the other side. It was rather imposing, as the creature sat in a room at the end of the hallway, unmoving this time. I walked slowly toward him, hoping he wouldn’t glide away. As I did, I became aware that the white wall to my left was populating with a familiar red scrawl – the quotes that have been appearing on my monitor. The scrawl was far more frantic and unnerving here, hastily written in a messy fashion – no neat line structure or order existed on this wall. Everything was written haphazardly, crossing over other words and taking line breaks at will. It was chaotic. The creature didn’t move, but it did tilt its head. I finally reached the end of the hallway, and in a clap of thunder – tacky, I thought – the creature vanished. In his place was an ornate box. I don’t want to call it a chest, because that sounds tackier than the clap of thunder, but that wouldn’t be an entirely inaccurate term. I opened it, and saw that it was filled with large stacks of paper – manuscripts, it appeared. The papers were of varying ages, and I didn’t have time to sort through them all right there. I closed the box, and picked it up – it was surprisingly hefty – and brought it back to my home.

That was twenty minutes ago. It is now night, and the creature is not outside. The answer to all of this hopefully lies within these manuscripts. I am going to begin reading them right away.

Week 9: Jack

The smoothed section of the tunnel lasted the bulk of the week. The shadows were consistent throughout, never breaking so much as a single shadow in sequence. Jack continued walking, but his pace slowed considerably the further he went with no change in environs, the tensions building inside of him becoming increasingly difficult to bear.

Eventually he reached something new, though it’s not something he was pleased to see. He found, lying face down and sprawled upon the floor of the tunnel, a human body, stripped of clothing and mutilated almost beyond recognition. There was no pattern to the marks on their body – it seemed to simply have been shredded by god knows what. Jack immediately clasped his hand over his mouth and nose, as the smell was revolting. He sidestepped the body, giving it a wide berth, and continued walking – only to encounter another body about 15 minutes later.

The bodies began to appear with increasing frequency, until eventually he came to the sight at the end of the tunnel – he hoped – and nearly vomited upon seeing it: a massive pile of the bodies, all naked and mutilated, stacked up on top each other, spilling down into a vaguely pyramidal shape, and obstructing all but an incredibly thin passage through the tunnel at the top of the pile.

That sight and smell was enough to make him seriously consider actually turning back, eating the two weeks of time he had spent walking down the tunnel (plus the two weeks he would spend walking back) and trying to forget it ever happened. The only thing that gave him pause was the faint glimmer of light from the other side of the pile of bodies. If it was the light of day, he felt compelled to press on and see what lie on the other side of the tunnel. If it was not, he did not want to imagine what horrors lie beyond the pile of bodies.

He ultimately decided to turn back. He turned, and began to walk, and did so for about half an hour before a sight far ahead in the direction he had come from caught his eye. A faint orange glimmer. Fire.

Jack’s eyes widened. He ran ahead to confirm his fears – and as he did, he saw a tall figure with elongated arms and legs standing at the front of the blaze, gliding toward him with the flames following rapidly in the creature’s wake. Jack immediately turned and ran. He did not stop for even a second, but he did glance back from time to time, and saw that the creature and the flames were advancing on him. The wind began to howl, bringing embers of flame with it, as well as the smell of burning flesh.

Eventually Jack reached the pile of corpses. He hesitated for a moment, but then gave in and began to climb the pile of corpses. The flesh was almost rotting, and peeled back when Jack would grasp it – he resorted to wrapping his hands around their skulls for support. The creature was really close now. Jack was about halfway up the pile when the orange glow of the flames completely illuminated the tunnel around him. Another minute passed and Jack was almost at the top of the pile, when he felt a cold hand wrap around his foot. He looked down and saw the creature climbing the pile, with an elongated arm grasping his ankle. Jack climbed down slightly, gave the creature a kick in the head, and climbed faster. The creature briefly released his ankle, allowing Jack the time he needed to get to the top of the pile. Much to his horror, the pile extended a great distance down the tunnel – at least 20 meters. He began to crawl atop the corpses as fast as he could. The flames were being held at bay as the creature struggled to fit through the opening. Jack emerged through the other side, slid down the pile of corpses, and ran as fast as he could.

Within 30 minutes the orange light of the flames had completely faded into the distance, apparently having stopped advancing. Jack allowed himself a moment to breathe.

Week 10: Jones

“And my soul from beneath that shadow
That lies floating on the floor
Shall be lifted – nevermore!”

Poe again. “The Raven” again. Not very creative creature.

I’ve read every manuscript in this chest that I am able to read. They’re written by significant individuals. T.S. Eliot. Poe. Robert Frost. Shakespeare. Wilfred Owen. Bob Dylan. Then there are a bunch in languages I do not know, but with names I recognize. Homer is one of them. Charles Perrault, Dostoevsky, Sun Tzu, and a few others also have manuscripts here. But they’re manuscripts by these people that were never published.

And the one thing they have in common is that they were all about a creature that resembles a man in a suit (though few of them described him with exactly those words, their descriptions match it) with elongated arms and legs and no face.

This frustrates me. I wanted to find answers, and all I’ve found out is that apparently this creature is a fan of my work, and considers my pathetic excuse for a novel to be on the level of these great men, and is having me read their descriptions of him. Did he think I’d enjoy this? Why kill Roland? Why taunt other people before me? Why why why why why why why why WHY DOES NONE OF THIS MAKE ANY SENSE

I am so tired of it all.

Just a few moments ago the creature appeared inside my very bedroom. I didn’t even pretend to act startled. I just fell to my knees and started pleading. Pleading for my life to be given back to me. Pleading that he leave me alone. Pleading for answers. Some sort of explanation of what I need to do, of what he will do to me if I don’t, of how I can get my life back. But the creature is an unfeeling ******* and just stood there, staring with that blank head of his.

I got angry and tossed all the manuscripts from the chest at him, but they just passed straight through him. I shouted more and started to destroy my room in a fit of rage. In a minute it started and then in a minute it was over. The creature somehow calmed me and made me face him, at which point I saw his hand was raised. A pen and a stack of lined paper appeared at his feet, and I felt myself forced down to my knees so that my face was practically pressed against the paper. I looked up, saw he had tilted his head to look directly down at me, and watched as he touched his finger to my forehead, and vanished in a flash of light.

All he left was the stack of papers, the pen, and a shadow in the center of my bedroom, cast right over my head.

I think he wants me to write about him.

Week 10: Jack

It took Jack another five days of walking to reach the end of the tunnel. The smooth walls and floor gave way to the empty but manmade tunnel after one day, and abandoned cars appeared on the last day. He emerged from the tunnel in the middle of a bright, clear day. In the light of the day, he took an inventory of what he had remaining. He had very little food left, but enough to last until he could find more. He hadn’t used his rifle in the tunnel, so he had plenty of ammunition still. He still had the book, though the cover had been singed by the blown embers while Jack was being chased. He smiled and placed the book on the side of the tunnel. He didn’t care much for it anyway.

Jack looked out at the horizon and saw a strangely pleasant sight – the empty city he had spent several weeks in previously. There was a strange sort of longing for the security that the city had offered for a brief period before the paranoia set in within Jack; he decided he’d revisit the city, and perhaps stay for a while longer.

The sun shone high in the sky every day that week, as Jack made his way back to the empty city.

Epilogue: Jones

When I came to this town, I said I wanted to work on my next novel. I wanted to get away from the city and get back to the core of the emotions I wanted to tackle in this novel. Isolation. Paranoia. Fear. I found all of these things in this town, just not in the way I wanted to find them. I was simply too preoccupied with what was happening to really notice that.

I’m writing again, and for once my work is going incredibly well. I’ve made incredible progress, and have worked out the issues I was having regarding the lack of an antagonist. The only thing I’ve not yet settled on is a character name. I’m thinking something with a J.

So yes. I’ve finally found what I came to this town to find. But I found it in a terrifyingly intimate way. I can now write a novel about isolation, paranoia, and fear – but only because my encounter with the creature created those things within me. Is that why he came to me?

I’m not sure. But in the end, I’m not sure about many things. There’s only one question that I am frustrated with my lack of an answer for.

Was it worth it?

Epilogue: Jack

Jack was back in the city, and likely for good this time. It offered a unique sort of protection that the wilderness couldn’t provide. He had plenty of supplies, food that was unlikely to perish shortly, and he had even found a greenhouse that was relatively intact, so he could begin to grow things and make his own food.

The nights were still marked by paranoia. One night, Jack heard noises from a nearby building. He began to pack all his things and started scanning the horizon for places to run – but halfway through packing, thought differently, and unpacked. Running had gotten him nowhere but back where he started and with a few horrifying memories to mark the journey. Whatever was in the building across the street could come at him – he’d be ready when it did.

Morning came. He walked around the city, taking in the uniquely beautiful urban environments. Reaching into his pouch, he pulled out an apple and took a large bite into the side of it. The sun was still high in the sky. The noises from the nearby building resurfaced, and he turned to try and find the source. Suddenly, climbing over the side of a fallen concrete support beam, Jack saw a small child, no more than 6 or 7 years old. The child dusted himself off and turned, jumped at the sight of Jack, and remained still, with a slight tremble.

Jack smiled softly. “What’s your name, son?”

The child stared at Jack for a moment before responding.

“…Roland.”

Jack grinned, and extended the apple to the child.

“We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.”

Shanti. Shanti. Shanti.