The Lost in the Woods
by Thadeus Morticaine
It was in the October of 1998 that I was employed to produce a story about a Derbyshire based Satanist cult. This particular cult, whose members shall remain nameless for legal reasons, had been particularly bloody. They'd remained unchecked for many years and had performed many atrocities at their secluded woodland altar. It was when I gleaned their motivations that I knew a bigger story was to be had.
I went to interview the cult's leader in his prison cell one afternoon. I wanted to earn more perspective, why would this group commit such despicable exploits?
Thirty minutes in, he mentioned The Curator. He had ordered the cult leader to the woods the cult were later to meet in. With his flashlight in hand, he'd gone. He'd to find twelve CD's, each with a strict set of 'laws' to advocate. For the entirety of his search, he expressed the unnerving sensation of being watched.
Afterwards, I spoke to a number of his incarcerated disciples. Many of them told me a similar tale of being spied on, but in their dreams. They all felt they'd been forced into an organisation that they didn't have the desire to join.
What a amazing dream, I'd thought, that such dreams could have such power over people in their waking life.
At home, I started my computer up to begin my article and what was awaiting me in my email account? Twelve messages, each with the sender's address omitted. The body of each email was also blank and each had twelve word files attached.
Curious.
I skim read each attachment. Each was a series of twelve bullet points that inferred a cultish pearl of obvious lies parading as religious wisdom that seemed in turn to be misinterpretations of Buddhist philosophies.
I dismissed them immediately. That was, until later that same night. Something happened then that would mean my article would be delayed for years to come.
I was woken from a dream of silent, accusing human shadows veiled in deep mists by the sound of a window being broken.
Climbing from my bed and taking a nearby cricket bat for protection, I investigated. Half expecting an intruder, I was startled to find a brick had been thrown through my kitchen window. A note was attached: "I'll make you see!"
I rang the police, but this was to no avail. They'd not process the complaint, blaming it on mischievous youths. Dismayed and now worrying for my safety, I'd trouble getting to sleep once more that night.
This happened on twelve more consecutive nights. There was that number again - twelve! Each missive would refer me to the emails I'd received. All of the, except for the last, that is. "Dr H. West will help. Ask of the Beyond."
The police hadn't helped. I'd followed the email's instructions, perhaps I'd sleep soundly once this was all over.
A fellow reporter had written an article on Dr West so my offices at the newspaper has his address on file. The next day, after struggling to get some rest, I went to visit him.
He answered his apartment door with sleep blurred eyes, replete with soup stained dressing gown. He was expecting me to have made an appointment. Lack of rest was my mumbled excuse. I was to give him thirty minutes to get ready, then I could view his latest project.
Across town, his small privately funded laboratory annexed a nuclear power research facility, and there, I saw his machine. His baby had the power to truly hold a man in awe. But this device could do a lot more.
It'd been built from disassembled Russian atomic warheads sold by the Russian Mafia once the Berlin Wall had fallen. The Oligarchy had seen the Kosovo conflict as a way of making money. The refugees would camouflage the warhead's journey from the East. It'd seen far too much blood so far in its creation.
"I'd fire this thing up for you," the doctor told me, "so that you could see first hand what it is capable of. But the fluctuator needs replacing. They burn out so easily you see. But you may, if you like, flick through my journals."
It'd have to be a quick review of them though, his work must continue! he exclaimed.
Scattered among the scrawled equations and circuitry diagrams that were unfathomable to a layman, there were brief sketched of strange beasts. There were things like mythical harpies and walking trees dancing with fish headed men. But these were the least shocking creatures I was to find. A little after half way through the journals, these things were seen less often. Prism like things with corded tentacles sprouting from their edges and clusters of strangely placed eyes took over.
I queried him about where he'd sighted these... beings. The responce was astounding.
"They are from the beyond of course!" Dr West exclaimed. "That's what this machine is for... to break through to the beyond."
The beyond, the doctor explained, was our parallel dimension. It was a universe that occupied the same time as ours, but, it inhabited another aspect of space. This space still had our top quarks and photons in common, but little else. These were the foundations that both these universes were built upon, but shared little else. He'd used the plutonium fuelled drives to spark a controlled particle breakdown. Their re-jigging would create a 'safe' portal between the universes.
There, he could communicate with the beings on a whim.
Through the doctor's diatribe, he became increasingly more manic. If I spent too much time with him I would surely end up as crazed as he had become. I ran out, sending a trolley laden with mechanical spare crashing to the ground. As I fled from the building, I could still hear him screaming, "Ask the refugees! They'll show you I'm right!"
I wandered the streets trying to relax before returning home. Hours passed and the sun was setting when I found myself on the old, derelict Friar Gate Station site. A small community had set up a crude encampment out of what they had found in skips and from scrap yards.
A strange dialect was being spoken among the,, but I remembered Dr West's last bawled words to me.
A hunch struck me. I needed to be with them, though to this day, I can only guess at what drove that hunch so hard. I stumbled through am introduction. They were Kosovans I soon found. They presumed I was in a similar situation to them. A flash of indignation hit me. I realised perhaps how I must look, run ragged and with a haunted look to me. It would be hard to heal from what I'd witnessed.
I spent the evening with them, drinking and relying on the charity they could barely spare me. They told me, mostly through gesticulation at first and then with a few hastily took words, of their hardships and of a bloody civil war. they'd seen abusive human traffickers escaping their homeland. In a drunken haze, I remembered all the details of my morning's impromptu meeting. Did they know Dr West?
The question was met with a silence that carried on until I'd passed out from too much cheap cider.
I awoke the next morning with the previous day as a fragmentary memory. I left them, promising to return their kindness sometime.
I shook each of their hands, voicing a genuine appreciation for their hospitality. When I reached the last Kosovan, He secreted a paper slip to me, firmly hidden within the handshake. The severe expression he gave me told me the others didn't know of this exchange.
Once Home, I dared myself to read the slip:
Those which are not dead which should eternal lie,
In their realm of life, dead gods wait,
And from outer aeons our death may die.
The Curator
It was the last bullet point on the many emailed attachments I'd received a fortnight before.
They knew of Dr West and his experiment. Was West a fool to follow his obsession in this way?
This verse was the nearest to an answer I'd get.
I wanted to record my experiences for prosperity, but, maybe, I hadn't the story I first expected. I may be considered mad by my editors. I would have to struggle. But I would find a publisher for them.
There was still one thing I hadn't found. Just who was The Curator?
After vast amounts of research, I found the reporter responsible for penning this article. He;d been committed to a psychiatric ward in 2002. He'd been confined there after twelve unprovoked attacks on the homeless. He remains an inmate with no likelihood of release. He is deemed a violent risk to himself and others. It was recommended by staff that I don't visit him.
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