Lord Theodore Thomas Blackwood, explorer and gentleman, crawled stealthily across High Value Storage Locker Room 23C, leaving a thin trail of slime behind him as he climbed up the table leg. The trip from his pen to the archives had taken hours, and adjusting the security cameras to hide his escape had been a Herculean effort in and of itself. Before long, his quarry was in sight - a small silver bell, carelessly left out of its case by a junior researcher after the completion of today's tests. With all the strength the Englishman's diminutive form could muster, he pushed against the bell and knocked it on its side, producing the distant, but distinct chime of a ringing bell. All was silent in High Value Storage Locker Room 23C for a moment, and Lord Blackwood feared the bell had lost its magic, or he was in the wrong room. But his fears were dispelled when the door to the room - the triple-locked, magnetically sealed door he had bypassed entirely on his daring expedition - effortlessly slid open, and an elderly man in a finely-pressed suit entered and approached the table.
"Good evening, Mr. Blackwood," said the man in a distinguished British accent. "How may I be of service?"
"By Jove, Deeds!" Lord Blackwood cried out, his exuberant aristocratic tones transmitting directly into Mr. Deeds' mind. "You haven't changed a bit! How the Devil are you?"
"Quite well, Mr. Blackwood," replied Mr. Deeds, "and may I say it is most pleasant to find myself in your company once again."
"Smashing!" said Lord Blackwood. "Now listen carefully. We've got to act fast, I don't know how long those buffoons in the guard-house will be deceived by my little trick. Tonight, Deeds, you and I are going to bag the biggest catch since I rounded up that herd of stampeding bunyips back in seventy-two."
"Indeed, Mr. Blackwood?"
"Indubitably, Deeds! Do you recall that blasted Tarasque that eluded me in France? I've learned from one of the researchers here that that same beast is being held in this very facility!"
Mr. Deeds nodded. "Indeed it is, sir. The Foundation refers to it by the name 'SCP-682'. It may also interest you to know that…"
"Dash it all, Deeds, this is no time for a history lesson!" The impatience in Lord Blackwood's voice was palpable. "The clock is ticking, my friend! Now, here's what I need you to do first…"
—-
Lord Blackwood paced, to the extent that a nudibranch can, back and forth along the table. Nearly a half hour had passed since Mr. Deeds had left on his task. Had he been captured? Was the jig up? Was he, after all this time, not as loyal as he had hoped? Footsteps rang out in the hallway, and Lord Blackwood looked around for a hiding place. None were within reach - but his fears were allayed when the door opened and Mr. Deeds entered. His suit was stained and wet, his previously immaculate coiffure a mess, and an offensively strong aroma of mint hanged heavily about him, but just as Lord Blackwood had hoped, he carried in either hand a large jug, filled to the brim with a viscous green liquid.
"As you requested, sir," Mr. Deeds said, gasping for breath, "two Imperial gallons of SCP-447-2."
"Spectacular, Deeds!" exclaimed Lord Blackwood. "The trap is set and the pieces are in play. The time has come for us to make our move. Tell me, do you still have the Bowie knife you won off that Indian in sixty-six?"
"Always, sir."
"Excellent! You and I are going to go to the Tarasque's lair. Once I get its attention, I want you to open both those jugs, pour them all over yourself, and then plunge the knife directly into your heart. Understood?"
Mr. Deeds sighed. "Yes, sir. What shall we do then?"
"Don't you worry about me," Lord Blackwood said. "Once you're dead, I'll take care of the rest. Within the hour, my old friend, the back-country horse-doctors that run this establishment will be patting us on the back and pinning medals on our chests."
"Very good, sir," Mr. Deeds said. "Shall we be on our way?"
Lord Blackwood crawled up Mr. Deeds' sleeve and perched on his shoulder as the trusty valet opened the door and made his way down the hallway. By jingo, the intrepid mollusk thought to himself, that old rascal won't even know what hit him.


Hello, my name is Ziggy. Well not really, my mother never gave me a real name, but Ziggy is what the doctors here named me and i think it is a good name so you can call me Ziggy. I am a bush baby and i am 2 years old, i was born in africa but now i live in america in a big building called the foundation that has lots of doctors and scientists, who spend lots of time studying extra special things and people and animals like me. The doctors asked me to write this so they can learn about my life and try and figure out if there are any more extra special animals like me where i came from. Im sorry if my writing is not good, im just learning to write and i dont have big hands like people do but the scientists made me a special keyboard so i can type.
Ever since i was born i knew i was smarter than the other bush babies. My mother and my brothers and sisters couldnt even understand me when i tried to talk to them, they could howl and screech about little things but they werent smart like me. The other bush babies knew i was different, theyd stay away from me when i was around. Mother protected me from them when they tried to hurt me but i think she didnt even know what to do with me either, so i spent lots of time alone as soon as i was old enough to wander around without her. I liked to sneak into the villages where people lived and watch them. I got really good at hiding because most of the people when they see a bush baby they get all angry and try to chase you away. I watched them for a long time when they were farming or cooking or eating or talking or doing other things, thats how i learned to talk the way people do. Doctor Samesh says the way i talked when they found me is called french, but most of the people at the foundation talk a different way thats called english so i learned how to talk that way too.
One day about a year ago there was a big fire, i was asleep and i woke up when i heard all the other bush babies screeching. All the trees were burning and everything smelled like smoke and mother was screaming for all of us to run. So i ran and i ran and i ran and i dont know how far i went because the sun was bright and there was smoke everywhere and i could barely see, but i ran until i was too tired and i fell over and went to sleep. When i woke up i didnt know where i was, there werent any trees just tall grass and bushes and a village far away, and i couldnt hear any other bush babies anywhere. I tried to call for mother and she didnt answer, i must have run in the other way from the way they went and now i was lost. I was too scared to go back the way i came because i could still smell the smoke and i was so hungry and thirsty i had to find food.
I found a stream to drink from but there wasnt any good food anywhere so i snuck into the village and stole some food from one of the peoples houses. I know its wrong to steal but i was all alone and i was so hungry i thought i was going to starve. I didnt know where to go so i found a place to sleep by the village and at night id sneak in and find food to eat. I did that for a couple weeks but then one night i got into a house and one of the people saw me and yelled at me. I was scared but i was really hungry so i asked him can i please have an apple or some berries im so hungry? But then he got scared and he started screaming that i was a witch, and other people came and chased me and i ran out into the fields and hid.
I dont know what a witch is but i know im not one because witches are bad people and im just a bush baby. It got pretty bad after that, i couldnt even get into the village any more because the people were always looking for bush babies and they were killing them all. I tried to go to a different village and i couldnt get in there either, i even found a forest like the one i grew up in and people were killing all the bush babies there. I had to hide all the time, they set traps all over the place to catch bush babies but i stayed away from them because i was smart. I couldnt find any good food though, i got thin and sick and i thought i was going to die.
One day people came who were different than the people in the villages. Their skin was white instead of black and they wore big bulky clothes and they had guns. They started setting traps and capturing bush babies too and their traps were better hidden than the ones the people in the villages made. They caught me eventually, i thought i saw a good place to hide for the day but when i went in it was a cage and it snapped shut on me. I was stuck in there for hours and couldnt get out, i was so scared they were going to kill me. One of the men came eventually and i started crying and i said please sir let me go i didnt do anything wrong. I thought the man would get scared when i said that but he looked happy and then he yelled hey guys i found the skip. I didnt know what a skip was but Doctor Samesh says it means something which is extra special. The man said he wasnt going to hurt me and that they were going to make sure i was safe from now on.
They put me in a car, i was scared because every time i ever saw animals going in cars they never came back, but they gave me food and water and told me not to be scared. They took me to a big city with more people than any of the villages i ever saw, then they put me on a plane and took me high in the sky for a long time. One of the people held my cage up to a window and all i could see was water.
I live at the foundation now, they made me a special room with a tree and rocks and lots of places to curl up and sleep, and they give me food and water when i need it and there are men in orange suits who clean the room every couple days. There are lots of doctors and scientists who talk to me and ask me questions, and sometimes they poke me with needles or put me in big scary machines which i dont like but they say they need to learn as much as they can about me. Doctor Samesh is the one who talks to me most of the time, he is very nice and friendly and he taught me to read, and sometimes he brings me snacks or toys like the stuffed monkey i like to curl up next to when i sleep.
I get lonely sometimes because there arent any other animals in here, but Doctor Samesh told me that i am extra special and they want to learn about me because they have other animals that are smart like me and they want to know if im like them or if there are more in the forest where i came from. He says there is even a whole bunch of them that live together, and they have a king and knights like in some of the story books he gave me to read. He says maybe i could live with them someday if i wanted to but i would have to be a christian or they wouldnt like me. I dont know what a christian is, Doctor Samesh said theres a book that explains it but i saw it its very long and has lots of hard words so ill have to get better at reading before i can figure out if im a christian or not. He says there are also bad animals here, like a big lizard that hates everybody even if youre nice to him, but when they find animals like that they take care of them too and keep them so they cant hurt anyone.
I hope this helps you understand me, i like the scientists and doctors here because they are nice and good and help extra special animals like me and i want to help them do their job good. I know im just a little bush baby but maybe someday i could be a scientist too and help other extra special animals that are scared and hungry. Doctor Samesh says that there is a dog and a slug in the foundation who are scientists, so maybe if i get better at reading and study hard someday i could be one? I hope so.


Check your weapon, soldier. And Flabgobbatron guide you.
Mercer checked his watch again. Once again, the digital display showed 0154 hours. He tried to think of anything except his own racing heartbeat and sweaty palms. Without moving his head, he managed a glance across the personnel carrier at the Captain. Her face was the same as ever, stony and unfathomable behind her GI glasses. On a lesser person the slightly magnified eyes imparted by the lenses would have made the wearer look comical, but on the Captain they were just unnerving. Mercer had made the mistake last week of asking his commanding officer if she needed a dispensation to come on this operation because of her missing left hand. She hadn't said a word. Just slowly advanced on him, her eyes locking on him like a cobra, backing him down until he tripped over a foot locker.
More than the entire room laughing at him, Mercer hated the feeling of being a new recruit all over again. He had twenty combat operations, more commendations than that prick Blakely back at Fort Benning and had a Distinguished Marksman Badge. And that was all before the "Classified Anomalous Event" outside of Ghazni. Yet here he was, just another FNG.
He saw the Captain say a couple of words over her shoulder, but he couldn't see at who. The watch mercilessly showed 0202 hours. The personnel carrier hit a dip in the road, and his stomach lurched. The phrase "remains unidentifiable as human" kept blaring in his head like a buzzing red neon sign. All that goddamn report did was ensure that he saw his lunch again this afternoon. Why would anyone even put something like "appropriate tactics unknown" in a report? Useless. Mercer wiped his brow and stuck his hand under his leg. If he couldn't see the hand, he could pretend it wasn't trembling.
Just 29 minutes now.
Mercer now noticed someone sitting next to him. He was too surprised to be grateful for the company.
"So, Mercer, is it? I don't think I've had the pleasure. My name's Rayburn, but you can call me Ray."
Mercer awkwardly accepted Rayburn's handshake with his left hand; it was the least sweaty.
Rayburn settled into the seat next to Mercer and stretched his legs out as far as the personnel carrier would allow. Mercer had seen him around the base a couple of times; he looked more like a farmer than a Mobile Task Force operative with his ropy arm muscles, cornfed physique and tanned, craggy face. He leaned in conspiratorily to Mercer.
"I hear this here's your first op. They sure picked a hell of a date for your first dance, Mercer."
Mercer stared straight ahead, his lips tightening as a fresh bead of sweat rolled down his back.
"Now, I want you to know that the fear? That's normal. I wouldn't want to meet the man who weren't afraid of what's in that building."
Mercer clenched. Rayburn continued.
"You may not suspect it, but even an MTF has got itself a chaplain. Even a rat-bastard outfit like the Repo Men. And son, yer lookin' at him. Now, I ain't sayin' that we ain't comin' back from this rodeo. But I am sayin' that maybe gettin' yourself right with the good lord might not be such a bad idea."
For the first time, Mercer turned to look at Rayburn.
"What, you're serious?"
Rayburn nodded gravely. "Like the man says, 'there ain't no atheists in 173's pen'. And it says in your dossier that you were raised a good 'ol Southern Baptist."
Mercer lowered his head.
"That was…before."
Rayburn sagely rubbed his chin, and a weary smile came to his face. "Yep, that's true of a lot of fellers that come to this outfit. Lord knows it's hard to keep the faith when you see yer buddies turned inside out, or when some godforsaken statue is tellin' you your innermost thoughts through a slide-whistle. Most guys? They lose it pretty early. They thought they understood the Lord and his ways, and then they signed up for Foundation detail."
Mercer looked up at Rayburn. "Man, before? I mean, I was scared, but I thought I'd be okay if I just remembered…remembered Jesus, like my mom said. Even when it was bad, it was like, it's been bad before for someone else, and they got through it. And if they didn't, well, they had God. But now? What kind of God does stuff like that? How can you ask that for protection?"
The watch beeped. Fifteen minutes now. Mercer sat up straight.
"What…what do you believe in, Ray?"
Rayburn's eyes twinkled. "I'm gonna let you in on a little secret, Mercer. These guys in here, these so-called hard cases? They ain't as hard as they think. They ain't got the real faith, the battle-tested faith that's gotten men through it since the beginnin'. You know what I believe, Mercer?"
Mercer nodded.
"I believe in Flabgobbatron, the night doorman at the Eau Claire Motel 6 and Harvester of Midget's Souls."
Mercer leaned back, his jaw slackening while he took in Rayburn's response. "Wh…What?"
"Oh yeah, he looks like Yul Brynner, and he sings just like an angel. He told me last night 'Ray, you've got some nerve ordering the special. The soup's the far better deal'. And when he departed in his tuxedo, I knew that everything was gonna be all right."
Rayburn put his hand on Mercer's shoulder. "And son, do you know what the most important part is?"
"Wh..wait…no, what is it?"
Rayburn lowered his voice to a whisper. "I stole your kidney last night and swapped it to the commissary for an issue of Details."
Mercer jerked back. "What the fuck, man?!"
"Heh, that's a joke, son! Though I have been gifted with visions of the future by SCP-2093."
Mercer looked around, seeing if anyone was laughing at him, but no one seemed to notice the conversation. Rayburn smiled at him beatifically. The personnel carrier seemed to be going faster.
"What the hell is wrong with you!?"
Rayburn's expression persisted. "Son, did that conversation go the way you thought it would go?"
Mercer frowned. "…No, no it didn't."
Rayburn grabbed an overhead strap and stood up. "That's right. Think of that when we get in there."
The passengers all lurched upwards as the personnel carrier hit a bump. The Captain began issuing orders to Sergeant Ramirez. Mercer realized that his stomach no longer demanded his constant attention. He held up his right hand in front of his face. Steady like the horizon. Rayburn addressed him over his shoulder as he made his way back to the front of the carrier.
"Check your weapon, soldier. And Flabgobbatron guide you."


Note: The following audio transcripts were recovered from an audio listening device found installed inside the home telephone of Arthur Windsworth during the recovery operation of SCP-1507. The origin of the listening device is currently unknown; investigation is ongoing.

"Hello? Are you there?"
"Hello, this is 911. What is the nature of your emergency?"
"Someone's gone and put flamingos all over my lawn! I don't know how they got there, but they're there and I want them gone."
"May I have your name and address please?"
"Arthur. Arthur Windsworth. I live at…. uhh…. well it's on 9th street. In Shady Oaks. I'm sure I can give the police officers directions if you would just patch me through. These birds need to be gotten rid of I tell you!"
"Are you able to tell me the condition of the birds? Do they appear to be injured?"
"Injured? What? No, no. You don't understand. They're not real birds."
"Not real?"
"Fake! Plastic birds, big great pink plastic flamingos cluttering up my lawn. Someone's put them there and I want them gone."
"Sir, that's not exactly considered an emergency. The 911 hotline is reserved for use in emergencies."
"Well I am ever so sorry, but could you at least send someone down? I'm too old to be messing about in the yard trying to get at a bunch of birds that some hoodlums put in my yard."
"Well Mr. Windsworth, I'll see what I can do. In the future, if you have any more problems with 'hoodlums' please contact the police department directly to file a report."
"Well…. I…. alright."
"Goodbye, Mr. Windsworth."
"What? Oh. Yes. Goodbye."

"Hello?"
"Hello, this is 911. What is the nature of your emergency?"
"Oh. Yes. Well you see, I called earlier about some flamingos. I just wanted to let you all know that you don't need to send anyone down. As it turns out, they're actually quite friendly. I've named one of them Dave. He's really very nice."
"Are you referring to the plastic flamingos that were in your yard Mr. Windsworth?"
"Oh. Right. Well I suppose they weren't quite as plastic as I had thought. Maybe they're only partly plastic."
"Well Mr. Windsworth, I've already filed the report, but I'll let them know. Good day Mr. Windsworth."
"Oh thank you. Oh, and umm…. Good day to you as well. I suppose. Yes. A good day indeed."

"911. What's your 'mergency?"
"The birds! The birds are attacking me!"
"What birds?"
"The birds in my yard!"
"Mr. Windsworth, flamingos don't attack people."
"But they did! Someone put them there, don't you see? First they were plastic, now they're attacking me!"
"That's what I'm trying to tell you Mr. Windsworth, flamingos don't attack people. Especially not plastic flamingos."
"But… but I saw them. They really did! One of them nearly pecked my poor eye out… All I did was try to give them some nice shrimp. I didn't mean to knock the poor thing over. I'm telling the truth you know. You have to believe me. I really am!"
"I'm sorry Mr. Windsworth, there's nothing I can do."
"This is preposterous! I am an American citizen. I shall not accept this kind of treatment… I'd like to speak to your Manager!"
"I'll put you through to my boss, Mr. Windsworth, but he'll just tell you the same thing."

"Hello?"
"Who is this? Are you the manager?"
"Yes Mr. Windsworth. I'm told you've been having some trouble with your lawn ornaments."
"Trouble! You don't know trouble. And they're certainly not mine. I don't know who put them there. Whoever did it, they're a terrorist. Those little monsters have been assaulting me. They're a public nuisance, I tell you!"
"Mr. Windsworth, you have to understand. No one is coming. No one will ever come. Give up."
"Hello? Are you still there? Hello? …Hello?"

"Is this Captain Jefferies?"
"Yeah Emerson, what's the problem? I've been trying to get a hold of you all day."
"Sorry, Cap, the damn thing died again. You should see this place though, fuckin' preposterous. There's these weird-ass flamingos all over the place. Whole house is filled with 'em. Old man must've been collecting the damn things."
"Have you questioned him yet? The dispatcher told me he sounded a bit out of it."
"That's the thing captain. The old man, Windsor or somethin', he's dead. Gaines found him out front, covered in these weird scratches. Must've been some crazy-ass gardening accident or something. I dunno. Anyway, the guy's dead. Looks like he bled out. I think the crows already got to him, the eyes and tongue are gone."
"No signs of forced entry at the house?"
"No. There's a broken window upstairs, but nothing bigger than, like, a bird or something could get in through there."
"Alright, Emerson, call the morgue and get back to work."
"Hey Cap, one more thing. The phone line's down here. Looks like something snapped it. Not sure what could have done it, though, no trees nearby. Maybe somethin' landed on it or something. Whatever, I'm out of here. These birds are starting to get pretty fuckin' creepy."


“We need to talk.”
The old lady raised her head from the crumpled document before her, blinking rapidly through massive glasses. She sighed, pulling them off and rubbing between her eyes, gray curls bobbing in the half-light of the desk lamp.
“Indeed we do. Have you seen some of the documents they've been pulling from the old Central Archives? It's a wonder we're all not dead by lunchtime, I swear. We're never going to complete the digital migration at this rate, and we're already nearly a year overdue. It's only time now before we spring a leak someone on the chain, and-”
“Dammit, Six, you know what I'm talking about. The goddamn Black Queen.”
She closed her eyes, breathing deeply, then looked back at the long, thin, black-suited man glaring across the desk at her. She tried to smile, then abandoned it, letting her face fall to a tired, resigned neutral.
“I haven't gotten the updated dossier yet. Give me the broad strokes.”
“Yesterday, an unknown subject, now known to be the 'Black Queen', accessed Site Thirty-Two. We're not sure how, but it appears she somehow entered the primary entry on foot. There's nearly twenty miles of bare rock and salt pan between that entry and anything even remotely civilized, so-”
“Please skip the editorial, Four. I'm not some layabout Agent.” she smiled wearily, head resting in her massaging fingers.
The lean man hrumpfed and re-positioned in his chair for several moments, then continued, voiced laced with a bare minimum of malice.
“She chatted with no less than two security staff and five members of personnel, and passed through several security checkpoints, one of which was level four. The security information she used was a combination of outright forgery and stolen identification. She… it appears that she killed at least three men that we know of to do this, and not just our own. The GOC has an open complaint against us over a missing squad member who was 'pulled off his assignment by a Foundation operative' and then found with a hatpin in his eye. We're still-”
“Get to the point, Four.”
He sighed heavily, shoulders slumping. “She accessed the observation area for the SCP-682 containment cell.”
The old lady suddenly sat up, eyes wide, every hint of annoyance and boredom vanished. “Good god, you're joking! What in heaven's name did she do?”
05-4 looked over to her, shaking his head slowly as he spoke. “She chatted with the oversight staff… then, in the spare second when they weren't looking, she put her hand over the testing containment shutdown panel… and put a goddamn chess piece on it. A black queen, appropriately enough. She then left… just walked out the way she came, long gone before we even knew what the hell had happened. This was a message, Six. She could have, and she didn't. She was looking directly at the camera when she placed it. She wants us to know that she can touch us, however she likes, whenever she likes. The worst thing is, I don't know if she's wrong.”
05-6 sat back, shaking her gray head slowly, eyes wide in disbelief. “How did it come to this? It's one little girl, how can this keep happening…” she trailed off, shrugging her shoulders in exasperation.
“As I said, we need to talk. We have to do something. We can't keep hoping the normal protocols just catch her… she knows us, somehow, inside and out. We have to do something more direct, before someone else gets killed, or worse, she starts breaching containment.”
They sat in silence, a unasked question floating between them.
“This isn't my call to make, Six. You were MI-5, I'm just the biologist. I hate to actually acknowledge one lunatic as a valid threat, but I don't see anywhere else to go with this.”
05-6 looked up at the ceiling, weighing costs and variables, meetings and resources… all of it academic, as the decision was already made.
“… Fine. I'm calling it up. I'll put counter-intelligence on alert, and get a team together. Lord help me, I'll send a department of skilled, trained individuals after one mad, violent girl.”

“What's this?”
“Your job, what's it look like?”
“We're putting together a four-man to go shoot one thief?”
“Have you not been paying attention in class today? This isn't some simple thief. Good men have died because of this lunatic bitch.”
“Who? Halgrave and Torn? They were sloppy at best, you know that.”
“Listen, it doesn't matter. It's your job, go do it.”
“Sir, yes sir, whatever you say, sir.”
“… Go get your men together, then get the hell out.”
“Sir, do we have a proposed location, sir?”
“Stop that. Now.”
“Where is she?”
“We have a partial trace hit near a hotel in Chicago. You'd know that if you read your goddamn paperwork.”
“Yeah… see you in a few boss.”
“… Hey, Rickter?”
“What?”
“I hope she sees you coming.”
“Love you too, boss.”

Recall…
Quiet Game
Or forge ahead
-soon-


Monday, 19:00
Another day, another dollar. Quite a few dollars, to be honest, I can't believe how well they pay me to sit on my ass in a tower and watch a fence. That's private security for you, almost makes me glad I left the army. I should really remember to thank David for setting me up with this gig. Just a few more months, and I can afford that trip to Australia I always wanted. Shift's about to start, better go and replace Anderson. Make the crotchety bastard wait on that tower a minute after his shift ends and you'll never hear the end of it. The captain is already here to supervise the shift change.
"Alright, Penn, you know the drill. Twelve hour shift. No eating, no smoking, no using your cell phone or reading. Just keep your eyes on the fence and stay awake. Ignore anything you hear from the facility itself- it doesn't concern you."
"You don't have to give the same damn speech every day, Cap, I got it."
"If you fuck up it's my ass on the line too, so I rather not take any chances. Now get up, Anderson is getting jumpy."
Climbing the tower, I see the captain is right. Anderson is even more restless than usual. He's smoking, of course, and I see more than one empty pack of crisps on the floor.
"You better clean this mess up, because I'm sure as hell not doing it for you again."
"Stuff it, Penn. I know what I'm doing. Just keep your mouth shut."
"I'm not going to rat you out for a few cigarettes, Anderson."
"Whatever," He really is a mess today. Is that a flask he's hiding under his jacket? "Just keep your eyes open. My knee's been acting up, and that means something bad is going to happen. Always does. I don't trust those eggheads inside, they're up to something."
"They could be cloning Elvis for all I care. As long as they keep paying me."
Anderson climbs down, and I check my gear to see everything is there: my rifle, combat vest with five magazines, flashlight, canteen, radio, med-kit, night vision goggles. All good. Now I just sit back and watch the fence.
Monday, 22:00
God, this is boring. Every time I finish a shift I forget just how mind numbingly dull sitting up here is. Mosquitoes are fucking driving me insane. What the hell did Anderson do to the chair? How can plastic be this uncomfortable? It wasn't this lumpy yesterday, I swear. Nine more hours of this shit. God dammit.
Monday, 23:30
Noises coming from the facility, sounds a bit like drums. Maybe the eggheads are starting a band, and I'm here to guard their sweet grooves. Heh.
Tuesday, 00:30
The noises are getting louder. Those are definitely drums, and I'm starting to hear this eerie chant too. What the hell are they doing in there?
Tuesday, 01:15
Silence again. Whatever they did, it's over now. I hope.
Tuesday, 01:30
Alarms! The entire facility is lighting up like a Christmas tree. Those spooks they keep to handle inner security are all riled up, swarming the entire perimeter with their jeeps. Radio is going apeshit too, but it's all code words. They even launched a chopper. Anderson was right, they were messing with something in there. Whatever it is, it's none of my business. I'm outer security, just a grunt. Better just sit tight, obey my orders and stay the hell out of the way. The spooks are going inside. They'll fix everything, nothing for me to worry about.
Tuesday, 01:50
They aren't coming out. Everything went quiet again, but no one has come out. All the lights are out too, that's not supposed to happen. It's okay, the spooks are probably just getting things under control, everything's cool. Oh God, what the fuck is going on inside?! Radio is totally silent. Something is very wrong here. Maybe I should climb down, sneak away before whatever did the spooks in gets me too. Wait, what's that? Someone is coming out. Jesus, that's a relief. Wait, that doesn't look like the spooks. Better turn night vision on. What is that thing?
????
The stone of the watchtower is cold beneath my fingers. Was it always stone? It must have been, this tower has been here for centuries. Why am I remembering metal? The solitude must be playing tricks on my mind. Being a royal scout is no easy task, but I perform it gladly. The King will be proud.
What's that? A horn! Scanning the road, I see a group of footmen making their way to my tower, carrying the royal standard and forming a protective ring around a majestic figure. Why, it's the King himself, here in my humble tower! What on earth is he doing here? A man approaches the tower, wearing the uniform of the royal guard.
"Good scout, the realm requires your services! In the name of the King, attend!"
I hurry to do as I was commanded. In the back of my head, a little voice whispers "Don't. You have orders. Something is wrong here", but I ignore it. How can serving the wise King be wrong? He is our just ruler, our savior. "Good sir knight, how may I assist your party?"
The knight had a grim look in his eyes. "I fear we come bearing grave news. The castle has fallen to the forces of the Adversary. We barely managed to rescue the King before we were overwhelmed and forced to flee. The Prince and Queen were killed during our escape. Now, we require your help and that of your cohorts to show us a safe way through the border. We already have them here." Indeed they have. Capian and Andres, my loyal friends, are among the party. "Very well," I say, "We must make haste before the Adversary and his minions arrive." Suddenly, the call of a dread horn. Too late!
The knight hears it too. "To arms, men, protect the King with your life!" We form a protective ring around the King, as the wretched forces of the Adversary descend upon us. Flying beasts with glowing eyes and fiery breath, hulking, crawling behemoths with skin like steel, chitinous footmen that scream at us in their alien tongue. They are trying to capture us alive, but we won't let them, we all know what they do to captives. We fight to the death, for the King! I raise my bow and take a foot soldier through the eye, and see Andres fall, a poison barb in his neck. Capian is taken down with a raw shock of power by one of their mages. I feel a sting in my neck, and see that I am the only one left standing, save for the King himself. He fights with the force of a typhoon, felling foul beasts left and right, ripping the behemoths to shreds with his mighty sword, even cutting a flyer from the sky, but they are too many. He falls, his body pierced with dozens of metal barbs. My tears are the last thing I see as the world turns dark.
????
"RthgEtTn Dra'k! NoR MoStdyX!"
A figure dressed in writhing shadows, its tongue demonic. The Adversary.
"I will never betray my King! Begone, cruel revenant."
"SRoTn, caBn yoEu heaWr meU?"
Not shadows. Black fabric. Wait, I think I'm beginning to understand…
"Son, do you understand me? Can you tell me who you are?"
"I am Veron Pennoren, proud scout of the-" No, that isn't right- "I… I'm Vernon Penn, sir. I think."
The man smiles, he seems relieved.
"I think this one is going to be okay. Leave him here for now, let him recuperate. I'll arrange for some class-Bs. Everything is going to be alright, son, Just lie down and relax. It's over."
Yeah, that sounds like a good idea.
Sunday, 07:00
Last shift is finally over. I can't believe it's been six months already. Time to leave this dirt hole behind and finally catch that plane. I can't believe they paid me so much just to sit on my ass and stare at a fence.


The Critic sat silently at his desk at the front of Room 238, his long gray hair in a ponytail, his wrinkled, septuagenarian face frozen in an unreadable glare as he drummed his fingers on the tabletop in rhythm with his stopwatch. None of the half dozen who sat silently waiting were more than half the Critic's age, and some barely a third. The Painter, the Sculptor, the Clipper, the Builder, the Composer, and the Director all sat at their smaller desks in the almost-empty gallery. Those were not their real names, of course, but they all knew each other by code names in this meeting. Most of the time, Room 238 was an ordinary classroom, in an ordinary community college, in an ordinary American city. Tonight, however, it was the world headquarters of an international terrorist organization (or at least one chapter of it), and the Critic was its leader, to the extent that a group such as this could have one.
What a bunch of failures, he thought to himself.
"Can we get on with this?" the Painter asked. "We've been sitting here watching you twiddle your thumbs for half an hour, and…"
"Be quiet," the Critic interrupted. "We are appreciating the silence and the sensation of unease. You'll know when the piece is over."
The Painter was silent, and the Critic timed another seventeen minutes on his stopwatch while the six waited and watched. Having completed his "performance", he rose from the desk, dimmed the lights, and powered on a slide projector that must have been nearly as old as the man himself. A press of a button and a photograph was displayed on the classroom whiteboard - a photograph of a pudgy cat with grayish-blue fur, frozen in time with an unusually happy-looking grin on its face. The question "I CAN HAS CHEEZBURGER?" was superimposed over the photo.
"Who can tell me what this is?" asked the Critic.
"It's a lolcat," the Painter volunteered.
"That's right, Painter," he responded. "And how long have 'lolcats' been around?"
"Well," he replied with the knowing confidence of an art historian, "the style of that particular picture originated in early 2007, but it had its origins several years earlier on 4Chan, and examples of humorously-captioned cat photographs have been found dating to the late 19th century."
"Very good, Painter," said the Critic. "Director, tell me; is there anything about this piece that you find particularly compelling? Eye-opening? Mind-blowing?"
The Director stammered, seeming surprised and alarmed to have been called out. It was a moment before he could muster a response; "Not particularly, Critic. It's just a cute little joke."
"Then how would you justify this, Director?" The Critic pressed a button and a new slide popped up. It was a photograph of a parking lot, taken from a camera a few meters above the ground. Dozens of cats lay on the ground, bloodied and dead, their bodies arranged spelling out a message - "NO U CANT HAS CHEEZBURGER". The Critic brought up another slide - the same parking lot, more dead cats, spelling out "DED CATZ IS DED". Another click and a third slide came up - more dead cats, arranged spelling out the message "R WE KEWL YT? LULZ".
"It was quite a bit of work acquiring these photos from the Man's database," the Critic said sternly. "Their intelligence indicates that we're responsible for this, and at our last meeting, you mentioned that you were working on a project involving cats. Can I assume this is your handiwork?"
"Yes, Critic," the Director said.
"Explain what we're looking at," the Critic demanded as he brought up a slide with more dead cats spelling out the words "INVISIBLE MORGUE".
"It's produced by a memetic agent that specifically targets felis catus," the Director said. "They're compelled to come to this particular site and fight each other until they're fatally wounded, and to lie down before they die in patterns that spell out the messages."
"I'm not interested in the how," the Critic said. "Tell me why we're seeing this. How does this installation represent our objectives?"
"It's recontextualization," the Director nervously replied. "By taking something meant to be amusing and adding to it elements of tragedy and horror, it forces people to look at lolcats in a new way, especially if their own pet cat is one of the ones involved."
"If I wanted to see funny things recontextualized as tragedy and horror, I could log on to Youtube," the Critic said. "Killing someone's cat to open their mind is more likely to produce such a base emotional response that it's going to drown out whatever message you're trying to deliver. What I'm seeing here is a bunch of dead cats being used to parody internet memes in a way that makes us look like a bunch of sadistic Anonymous wannabes."
"But, Critic, the current zeitgeist of the-"
"That will be all, Director," the Critic interrupted. "I've been part of this organization for a long time, and I'm not going to say this is the worst thing I've ever seen. It's ill-conceived, it's poorly executed, and it's not going to achieve what you want it to. If recontextualization is the direction you want to go, talk to Clipper - that containment file he garbled all up with newspaper headlines and sent right back to the Man's front door was brilliant."
"Thank you, Critic," the Clipper said.
"You're welcome," the Critic said as he turned the lights back on and sat down. "The reason I bring this up is because the problems with this installation mirror the problems I've been seeing in a lot of pieces lately. To be frank, the work that this organization has done in the past month or so has been very unimpressive. Sculptor, you made a fire hydrant that emits gamma radiation when connected to a firehose, correct?"
"Yes, Critic," the Sculptor responded.
"And Painter, you made a sidewalk mural that people get absorbed into like quicksand, which then adds their likeness to a crowd scene."
"Yes, Critic."
"And Composer, you produced a recording of an electric guitar solo that causes the listener's face to liquefy."
"Yes, Critic. The idea of 'face-melting awesomeness' was first raised by Blue Öyster Cult in 1972, whose debut single "Cities on Flame With Rock and Roll" included the line 'Three thousand guitars, they seem to cry, my ears will melt, and then my eyes.' By the mid-1980s —"
"Later, Composer," the Critic said. "All three of these works are severely flawed, and all in the exact same way. Who can tell me what that flaw is?"
The room was silent. None of the six knew the answer - or if they did, they feared to share it.
"I see the cat has gotten our tongues," the Critic said, casting a knowing eye at the Director. "All three of these installations, ladies and gentlemen, are artworks that kill people."
"Critic?" asked the Painter. "Isn't that what we do?"
The Critic sighed. "Let me tell you a story. Back when I was your age, artists, real artists, were all about what we used to call 'freaking out the squares'. Ask your parents or your grandparents sometime about how closed-minded mainstream America was back then - blue-haired grannies listening to Lawrence Welk and Liberace, who thought people like the fucking Kingston Trio were dangerous subversives and Jackson Pollock was just an idiot with too much time on his hands — if they even knew who he was at all. We were all about pushing the envelope, blowing people out of their closed-off worldview, making them understand how big and crazy the world really was. And you know what? We were doing it. Our generation changed the way people think of art. We really thought we were cool.
"I was doing things back then that nobody had ever seen. And when Andy - I'm sorry, that was what the Critic's name was back then - when he asked me to join this organization, I leapt at the chance. I did things that really had the Man running scared, things that really forced people to change their minds about how the world around them works. To me, that's what this organization is all about."
The Composer interrupted. "But doesn't the manifesto say…"
"There is no manifesto," the Critic said. "Now answer me this, boys and girls - how can we open people's minds if all that our projects do is kill them?"
"It isn't really so much for the benefit of the victim, right?" asked the Director. "It's more for the people they leave behind - the family, and the friends, and the people who happen to be standing in the right place. Why, that invisible shark that you yourself made back when you were the Director was pretty much the same thing."
"You could say it was," the Critic answered, "and I'd say you were right, and I'd also tell you that the shark was a masterpiece in the way it exposed the bystander phenomenon and the apathy of men to the problems of others. But that was in 1975. Are you telling me that the best projects that this organization can come up with are recycled ideas from before you were even born?"
The Director was silent.
"Look, there's more to this than just making a piece of art that kills people and then slapping our slogan on the end of it like some kind of punchline. Some of our most interesting pieces have never claimed a single life. Composer, have you ever listened to the interpretation of Cage that your predecessor recorded?"
"I can't say I have," the Composer replied.
"Good answer. If you had, you wouldn't be the Composer." The Critic opened his briefcase and withdrew a cassette tape, placing it on the Composer's desk. "Don't listen to that yourself — give it to one of your friends and get them to listen while you're not there. Or one of your enemies, if it suits you. Just give 'em a few days and ask them how it's sitting with them, because this — this is something that grabs the listener by the balls and forces them to forget everything they ever knew about what music is, and so far it's never killed a single person.
"I'm not saying that death can never be a source for artistic expression. I'm sure you all know about that contraption up in Alaska? My predecessor was furious at the old Builder when he pulled that one off. Tore him a new one right in front of the rest of us - how could you be so irresponsible, you could have killed us all, the Man is going to come down on us like a ton of bricks, and so on. I thought he was going to kick him out for good, or worse. But I found out later on that the Critic pulled him aside after the meeting and told him it was the most thought-provoking piece he'd seen ever since Chazdwick's buddy made that talking atom bomb back in sixty-three.
"I know most of you only came on a few years ago after what went down at the Baltimore Expo. I don't know why the old Critic picked you out of the hundreds of people he looked at, but I know he would have expected better than this. We can't just keep putting out the same stuff over and over again and slapping a new coat of paint on it. At this rate we run the risk of becoming predictable, and worse yet, becoming boring.
"That'll be all for today. Next meeting won't be until four weeks from tonight - the spring semester starts tomorrow, and I'm going to be up to my ears teaching Intro to Art History to a bunch of kids who don't know Fountain from a urinal. I expect to see some much more thought-provoking projects in the meanwhile. See you then."
The Critic made his way back to his desk and sat down to read over his class syllabi as the six gathered their things and made their way to the door. An overlooked thought occurred to him as he noticed the Builder making his way out. "Oh, by the way, Builder?" he said.
"Yes, Critic?"
"Those ancient statues you found and jazzed up? The ones with the rain and the starving children? Keep up the good work. That was pretty cool."


Private content

	This area of the website is private and you don't have access to it.      If you believe you need access to this area please contact the web site administrators.

    If you already have an account, please sign in.


Right, Stan, here's those notes you asked for. Keep in mind, double secret probation means the investigation is still ongoing, so some of the stuff isn't released yet. Best I could do. Good luck.
~Lyle

The following is a transcript of the voiceover from a video pulled from YouTube due to copyright violation by the Foundation in March of 20XX.

Male voice: Oh one eight. Four three three. Six one eight.
Short pause, soft beep, brief static which continues through the remainder of the interruption
Second male voice: Peoples of the world! Look at me! Look at this thing I did! There was once a man who spoke and in speaking he did say words and much wisdom was passed on by those who were patient enough to wait until the end to get the treat that they deserved, like so many rats in cages pressing buttons to get their treats which came from a man who spoke and in speaking he did say that it's total bullcrap that my education cost anything at all. Good night, dead society.
<Extended pause, rattling inhalation or sigh>

Female voice: And Then A Skeleton Jumped Out!

The broadcast consisted of man hung by the neck in a doorway softly twisting as the camera moved closer, at which point it became clear that he was mouthing along with the voice over. At approximately one minute and forty seconds, synchronized with the line "good night, dead society", a skeleton jumped out. [FURTHER INFORMATION IS ON DOUBLE SECRET PROBATION]

Overwatch Report of agent Manheim Steamroller:
After one of our intelligence persons operating in [DATA IS ON DOUBLE SECRET PROBATION] discovered that the numbers had a special significance which was completely meaningless we asked Agents Prince and Gaga to have the video pulled from YouTube.
We raided the building at approximately six in the morning. It was a bit before that, I'm not sure. I think that is what approximately means. It should be in the full report compiled after the incident. I'm sorry, it's not nerves, it's just that I need to say as many words as possible to make this sound natural before a skeleton jumps out. It was a small operation, not like the big SWAT style MTF things you hear about in the cafeteria or anything, just me, Trans-Siberian Orchestra, Canadian Brass and John [Tesh] posing as local detectives. We were expecting maybe a token resistance from the squatting skeleton before it jumped out, nothing fancy.
First thing we did was break the door down, flashing badges and yelling. We figured they'd come quietly. Didn't happen. Almost immediately a skeleton jumps out. After that, things went more or less as we'd expected. Wound up bringing in four subjects, three guys and a skeleton, all mid twenties. They're profiled in the mission docs, I'm sure. Just squatter artist types, locals. Probably recruited through [DATA IS ON DOUBLE SECRET PROBATION] but basically they said that they were trying to create a viral internet video but they didn't feel like developing any of their ideas to completion so they were basically going to half ass something and then have a skeleton jump out, because at that point you don't need to ask any more questions.
Anyway, I'll cut to the chase. The reason this operation became such a big deal is because of the box we found under the mattress upstairs, I think it's big enough to hold a skeleton.
[FURTHER MATERIAL REDACTED FOR BREVITY, WHICH IS SUDDENLY SOMETHING WE'RE CONCERNED ABOUT.]

Transcript from the notes of Dr. Syou regarding incident 1[THIS IS A REMINDER THAT AT ANY TIME DATA MAY BE UNDER DOUBLE SECRET PROBATION]
Crate appears unmarked on sides, bottom. Large banner style logo on lid reading "And Then A Skeleton Jumped Out" may prove significant, particularly in light of recent events. Crate contains one skeleton, which jumped out when the crate was opened.
Below the skeleton is a layer of packing material. I've submitted a sample for forensic analysis and incinerated the rest in order to avoid possible contamination. The packing material is wrapped around several modified jack in the box style toys which look to have been originally of Russian manufacture, except that we all know that the Russians have better taste than this. Weld seams visible where the boxes have been tampered with, I am going to turn the crank and see what jumps out.
Addendum 1 And then[REDACTED FOR SPOOKY PURPOSES]ut the skeleton of Dr. Syou remains at large.

Thanks Lyle. These Foundation types don't seem to appreciate our work much, either. But we're totally going to show them.
A few of the others say hi. Remember Lily from the thing in Alaska? Her skeleton jumped out.
~Stan


The following was flagged by Site 19's automated data filter (tagged with flags CLASSIFIED DATA, O5, SCP-682, SCP-173). As the following contains personal log data, only those with Site Administration clearance and above are cleared to view this document.
Personal audio log of Researcher Joshua "Watery" Hayes, June 7th 20██
Various banging and rustling sounds can be heard in the background. CCTV footage at this time shows Hayes retrieving a bottle of ██ █████ brand vodka from under his bunk. Questioning about this log revealed it to be imported from Hayes's homeland of New Zealand, and upon Hayes requesting that he be allowed to keep the bottle as a keepsake, it was not removed from his procession as per Site regulations.
A scuffing sound is heard, confirmed as Hayes sitting in his work space chair. Hayes then takes a drink from the bottle of vodka, and sighs.
"You know what's fucked about this world? Because I know."
"It's not the monsters that wish nothing but death upon our species, like 682. It's not that which we don't understand, 173. Hell, most of the Euclids. It's not the things that infest humanity, or use and abuse it. And no, it's not humanity itself."
"It's the things lurking among us. It's the ticking time bombs, like 231. It's the ones that can't control themselves, like 507, no matter how nice he is, poor bastard. It's the ones that can murder us all with a thought, and not even intend it, like 239."
At this point, Hayes takes another drink from the bottle of vodka, and sets the bottle down nosily.
"There's a security guard here. Runs the detail up at the main entrance. He's a great guy. Funny, pretty smart. Basically the kind of guy that nearly everyone can get along with. Today, I asked him if he wanted to have a few drinks after shift. Unwind, relax. He declined politely, saying that he would be abandoning his post. Even after I debated with him whether or not he would be abandoning his post or not, he still declined. So I gave up and went about my day."
"At the end of my shift, I was chatting with my superior. I asked her about the guard, and she gave me this funny look, then she said:"
"'He's an SCP.'"
"Gave me a number, a file and went on her way. I came back here, to my quarters and read the file. Turns out he's damn near 1000 years old. Turns out he can seal out a doorway or gateway completely with some form of forcefield. The Foundation found him at the last place he was guarding: Some old castle in Scotland."
"And that got me thinking. How many others are out there. How many people who think they are normal, who are living normal lives, with this one quirk that bothers them every once in a while are out there? How many are harmless? How many are dangerous? How many do we know about?"
"And how many of the dangerous ones know what they can do?"
Hayes chuckles at this point.
"Some fucked up world we live in."


December 25th, 1875:
As far and as wide as I have travelled in my years, there is nothing in the world quite like Christmas-time in London. The crisp winter air echoes with the song of carolers and everywhere one looks the eyes of his fellow men are filled with an air of peace and charity. I gave the help the day off after our early meal and have spent the evening in quiet reflection and planning - for this Christmas, the germ of a grand and glorious new expedition has presented itself to me.
Two nights ago I attended a Christmas party at the gentlemen's club. The food was fine and the drinks flowed freely, and I remained in conversation with several of my fellow naturalists until well into the morning. Shortly after midnight our discussion turned to the topic of the super-natural, and Mr. Wallace, the famed father of evolutionary theory and a noted Spiritualist, told me of a most unusual occurrence he had heard of recently. An associate of his had recently returned from the Levant with a most unusual artifact - a small red disc, fashioned perhaps of cinnabar, carved with runes he thought to be an early form of Phoenician, or perhaps Cretan. When left to its own devices, the object would roll about on its own and reach great speeds, breaking through walls and crushing anything in its path, until it came to rest upon a mirrored surface. A man could pick it up easily no matter how fast it moved, he claimed, and until it was set down it would glow brightly in strange colours. We found this account most curious, but what Mr. Wallace told us next proved even more interesting.
Two months ago, he said, his associate's maid had been cleaning in the room where the disc laid pressed against one of his dressing mirrors. Ignorant of the object's nature, the maid lifted it up to dust underneath it and set it back upon the mirror - whereupon, the maid had said, the mirror's surface rippled and a man in strange clothes fell through, as if he had been leaning upon a wall that gave way. The man panicked and began flailing about and shouting nonsensically, and tried to flee before the maid locked him in the room and summoned the police, who took the man away as he shouted and tried to run back in the direction of the room he had apparated in. Mr. Wallace's associate had thought him at first a common thief, but there was absolutely no way the man could have entered the estate without arousing suspicion, and the maid's account was most clear - he had come through the mirror.
I have long wondered if there were other worlds in Creation where man, or beings like man, have existed and thrived; but owing to the great vastness of space, I have long assumed that none of them would be within our reach for some time. If Mr. Wallace's account was true, there might be a way to travel to one of those worlds right here in London! I entreated with Mr. Wallace for some time to divulge the name of his confederate; he refused out of respect for his friend's privacy, but told me that the strange intruder, who claimed the name "Izikaiah Belson", had been declared mad by the court and sentenced to Bedlam, and that I might find him there if I wished to. After New Year's, I intend to call upon this madman.
January 3rd, 1876:
The fact that an institution like Bedlam is allowed to exist in our great nation is an affront. Were a man not already mad upon entering these walls, the circumstances of his internment would make him so. I did my best to avert my eyes from the lunatics packed into dingy cells and overcrowded wards as a porter lead me to a padded cell where the man called Izikaiah Belson had been locked away alone. None of the doctors had been able to speak to him, she said; if I wished to try, I was more than welcome to do so. A gruff-looking gaoler with a large and ancient-looking key-ring unlocked the door, and I invited myself inside, where Mr. Belson sat alone in the corner. I introduced myself and said I had come to learn what I could of who he was and where he came from. He did not respond at first and turned his head away, mumbling under his breath. I listened carefully and found that the tongue he spoke almost resembled the English language, but it was far from any tongue that has ever been spoken in the Queen's court; twisted and altered as if by centuries of deviation, not dissimilar from how the many and various Romance languages evolved amidst the collapse of the Roman Empire. I stood and listened attentively as he repeated a series of sentences three times, that I present below;
Hae who are bitwayn space, press'd is yir voce. Yi are watchen n' I yir vyss'l, here n' here n' there. Awaye wit' me sin, Vaader, n' shed for me yir sanggre weppin', n' I'll but do the word of the Vaaders b'low ye. S'beit.
The man's accent was strange, and it was part-way through his third recitation when it occurred to me that he was attempting to pray. I knew the prayer well, and when he finished his third recitation, I repeated it back to him in the Queen's English. He fell silent as he heard my rendition. His first reaction was more vitriolic than I expected - I believe he accused me of having "the speech of the old elders", and accused me of being a sinner or a witch. I assured him as best I could that I was neither; I am a naturalist. He seemed to calm himself somewhat when he heard that word; in any event, he no longer feared me, and over the course of an hour or two we worked out a pidgin of English and his dialect in which we could converse. In time, I came to the conclusion that he hails from a world which is surprisingly like, and yet completely alien to our own.
Mr. Belson claimed to have come from a place called "The City Where Elijah Fell". He describes it as a metropolis that would put London to shame; tens of millions of souls call it home, living in towers thousands of feet high, commuting on great trains and horse-less carriages that moved hundreds of miles per hour through the packed streets. Every building was wired with electricity, and possessed devices for receiving of sights and sounds from the other end of the world, for delivering the contained knowledge of entire libraries, and other incredible wonders. I showed him a map of the world and asked where this city lay, and he pointed to America, on the western coast of the Floridian peninsula. He claimed he had been at work in one of the city's great towers, momentarily leaning against a wall during a prayer break, when the wall seemed to fall away behind him and he found himself in a strange old house with a strangely dressed woman screaming at him, confirming Mr. Wallace's account.
I showed him a Bible I procured from one of the doctors and asked if he was a Christian. He recoiled at the proposition as he had when I recited the Lord's Prayer, and informed me that, while the elders had been Christians in days gone by, all of that had changed with the Second Coming and the authoring of the Third Testament, and that to openly proclaim to be a Christian was a heresy and a most heinous crime. I gather that in the nation Mr. Belson hails from, which he claims to control the entire world, the church and the state have been brought together in a way that would make the Archbishop of Canterbury himself a proponent of disestablishmentarianism. I asked what becomes of heretics when they are caught and he informed me that they are "made pure in S'Tears"; for if heresy is allowed to spread unchecked, then "the Unclean" shall come and bring destruction to the pure and the wicked alike.
Mr. Belson refused to elaborate further when I asked him what the Unclean were. He asserted that it was blasphemy to even speak of them, for to say their name might draw their attention. I assured him that nobody in London would harm him for speaking of this matter, and that, whatever an "Unclean" might be, there were none in any corner of this world that I have explored. Belson was visibly frightened as he told me, in halting whispers, that the Unclean were the Devil. But unlike the Devil of the heretics, who lived in the pits below, these Devils walked the Earth. They were giant creatures, behemoths of pure sin, all of man's unrighteous thoughts and deeds given flesh. They stalked the darkest corners of the world and their sin tainted the Earth itself so that no crop could grow and no man could live, and it took all the efforts of the holiest crusaders to keep them so imprisoned lest they break free and the world come to an end.
Until such time as the doctor assured me I must leave for the night, I remained in Belson's cell and learned as much as I could of this strange world he came from - matters of language, culture, fashion, everything a man might need to know to travel amongst its gleaming cities anonymously. I managed to cajole a young nurse at the clerk's desk into letting me review Belson's file, and I learned that the affray that lead to his arrest occurred in Notting Hill at the residence of a Mr. Weathers. Tomorrow I shall call upon him and state my intent to purchase this disc that turns mirrors into gateways to another world; for I intend to conduct a survey of this civilization to rival Sir Burton's forbidden journey into Mecca, and, if I can, find one of these diabolical monsters Mr. Belson speaks of, and make it my prey.
January 9th, 1876:
Mr. Weathers was quite relieved to be rid of the disc when I purchased it from him. It glowed an eerie purple as he handed it to me; and yet once in my own hand, its aura seemed to fade, and become instead a greenish hue. I took it home and placed it on a mirror in my study, and immediately the glass seemed to become as water. I saw a pastoral scene not unlike that which one might behold in our own country-side; a farmhouse in the distance, tilled fields with tall crops between. There were children running and playing among the crops, and in the distance, over the horizon, I saw in silhouette titanic structures taller than any building man on this Earth has ever made. For several days I observed through the mirror; on a few occasions the farmer and his hands came close enough that I could hear their speech; the accent not as thick as Mr. Belson's had been, but foreign enough that I strained to decypher their conversations. The clothes they wore were not unlike those a farm-hand might wear in England; but Mr. Belson had warned me the fashions in the city were very different from what he had seen in London, and I would be most out of place in any of my usual clothes. A visit to the Metropolitan Police, and after a lengthy conversation with the precinct constable and the promise of a sizable donation I was able to acquire the clothes Mr. Belson had been wearing at the time he entered our world. It was not dissimilar to morning dress, but to my eye it seemed less formal; there was no waistcoat, the jacket was shorter and cut more conservatively with broad lapels, the cravat was thin and a solid shade of black. I had Deeds tailor it to fit me, and I stowed it away for when I reach the city.
I have packed lightly, for I shall be travelling alone and I shall have none of the native currency, for Mr. Belson had carried no bill-fold when he entered our world. I have my clothes and rations for a few days, and I shall enter dressed in a farmer's garb and remain so dressed until I reach the metropolis. Gold and silver I have brought in the hopes of trading for currency (Mr. Belson having informed me that the principal form of trade is paper), and within my pack I have hidden my pistol and several of Mr. Moth's weapons. I have my compass, my sextant, my electric torch, a comprehensive atlas of the world, and my journal, and a few good luck talismans besides those. The cycle of day and night in this other world is some eight hours behind our own; from this I deduce that the scene I behold is somewhere along the western coast of America. I shall cross through the looking-glass under cover of night this evening, for fear of alarming the farmers of my presence, and make my way towards the city; where, hopefully, I can discover a library or an institute of learning and document the history and culture of this world - and where the so-called Unfertile Zones are located, so that I might observe these Unclean for myself.
January 10th, 1876:
What a world this is indeed.
This is indeed one of the more temperate parts of the world, for though it was past midnight local time when I entered this world, the air was perfectly warm. Based on my reading of the stars, I judge myself to be somewhere near the thirty-fourth parallel, in the region that must in this world correspond to the land of California. Here in the fields it is dark; but in the southeast I behold a stunning panorama of light shining into the darkness, the aura of the great metropolis bathed in electric light so bright that it shrouds the stars themselves above it. In the distance I heard sounds like great engines. The terrain was easily passed, even in the darkness, save for a fence at the edge of the farm I had alighted into, which I was forced to climb.
The sight I beheld when I reached the source of the noise was unbelievable. A great paved road lay stretched across the grassland, solid barriers at either side. It was wider than any road I have ever beheld, and stripes painted on the road indicated sixteen lanes for traffic - eight going in one direction, and eight in the other. The entire road was lit by giant lamps brighter than the gas-lamps of London or New York, and one could have read a newspaper comfortably by their light. Even at this late hour, I watched in surprise and wonder (and no small amount of terror, I must admit) as motor-carriages far more advanced than Mr. Bollee's steam-cars hurtled along the road at speeds faster than the finest locomotive or the fastest race-horse. They must have been travelling a hundred miles per hour or more - some of them small enough to carry a handful of people, others massive like train cars and looking to haul cargo by the ton. Some never touched the roadway at all, seemingly gliding on a cushion of air. I had to sit by the roadside, obscured in shadow, for some time while I took this in. Many times in my life I have encountered savage tribes that never before have seen the wonders of civilization. At this moment, I felt the savage myself, beholding wonders he has no hope of contemplating.
I dared not cross the road, and as it seemed like a straight-away enough path to the city,I walked for several hours along its shoulder. It was difficult to tell in the darkness, but it looked to be about thirty miles to the out-skirts of the city, and I judged it would take well past mid-day to reach the inhabited areas. I feared that any of the carriages hurtling by might at any moment careen out of control and catastrophe would ensue, and I wondered how any man could bear such speeds. The eastern sky was beginning to show the tint of dawn when one of the carriages slowed to a stop on the edge of the road, next to me, a door opened, and a voice from within asked if I desired a ride into the city. I have never been one to rely on the charity of strangers, but I was curious to examine one of the carriages from the inside and accepted.
It was scarsely a quarter hour before we were among the crystalline towers of the metropolis. I did my best to disguise my terror as the driver, who identified himself as Ben O'Kazzem, inquired of my business. I told him my name was Teodor Swarzrod (that, Mr. Belson had told me, being how my name would be presented in his language), that I was a farm-hand in the nearby country-side, and that I had never before been to the city but that I intended to research my family's history at one of the major libraries therein. We struggled to understand each other as I had yet to fully master the dialect, but his assumption that I merely had a "country accent" saved me any uncomfortable questions. I disembarked in the financial center of the city and offered to pay him for the ride with one of my gold slugs. He refused saying it was far too much for a simple ride, and I offered him a silver slug instead - which he accepted, and offered me a considerable sum of paper currency in the balance, while commenting that he never imagined the country-folk had such wealth at their disposal.
This metropolis, which I now know to be called the City of Angelic Glory, is easily larger than any city in all the world - I imagine the entire population of England could dwell within and find themselves wanting for neighbours. There is a great bustle everywhere I go in the city, and yet, there is a desperation and fear that underlies it all; nobody meets anyone's gaze, and every man seems constantly to fear and suspect every other. With the bank-notes Mr. O'Kazzem had given me, I breakfasted in a bustling cafe where I enjoyed a meal barely dissimilar from the full breakfast one can find at any reputable establishment in London, and I have found board in a grand hotel named the St. George. Imagine my surprise when I was told my room would be on the seventy-eighth floor! An electric lift that would make Mr. Otis green with envy whisked me to the impossible height in seconds, and I found myself staring out a window at the gargantuan city. Towers like the one in which I stood jutted out in all directions, many of them extending hundreds of feet even above my own vantage point. Highways not unlike the one that took me to the city cris-crossed the metropolis and formed a ring around its perimeter, and I beheld a massive network of smaller roads and railways. The hotel concierge has given me directions to the civic library - tomorrow I shall seek it out, but for now I must close the curtains on this impossible scene and rest, for I find myself overwhelmed and weary.
January 11th, 1876:
My findings at this city's great library have shed much light into the nature of the world I now find myself in. The library itself stood twelve levels high - not as tall as many of the other buildings in the City of Angelic Glory, but easily taller than any institution of learning in London. A librarian guided me to the eighth level where I would find books of history and geography, and I spent the day immersed in study. Though the books are written in strange letters that do not resemble any I have ever seen, I have found somehow that I am able to understand them as if it were common English writing.
A comparison of a world map to the one in my own atlas confirmed that I was in the land of California, in about the same area as a town that in our world is known as Los Angeles. Many great cities in this world stood in the same place as cities in our own, though none shared the same name - London was here called the City of Winston's Stand, and Edo the City of David's Triumph. I saw no national boundaries on the map, though there were many names indicating different regions - the United Lands of the Son, Huffasia, the Land Bountiful. The only divisions indicated were between the "Blessed Lands", colored green, and the "Unfertile Lands", colored red. There were Unfertile Lands spread across the globe, though I found the distribution most uneven - in North America I saw but seven, and in Europe four, while Africa had dozens, and almost the entirety of China was covered by them.
I found that the Bible exists in this world, but it is a Bible very unlike our own. It is about a thousand pages longer and is divided into three sections, named the First, Second, and Third Testaments. The First and Second Testaments are similar to the Old and New Testaments of our Bible, but have been extensively rewritten - all references to "God", "the LORD", or "the Father" have been replaced with a simple reference to "Him", and there is a greater emphasis on sin, uncleanliness, and purification than I recall ever learning in school.
The Third Testament appears to have been written in the seventeenth century; and as I had not the time or inclination to read it in full, I referred to a history book about what is referred to in this world as the Second Coming. Prior to the year 1621 or so, I found, the history of this world had been much like our own aside from certain linguistic and cultural details, and an indication that the wide-spread colonization of the Americas had begun several hundred years earlier. In that year, the being called Him made itself known to the people of the world, and nations worldwide proclaimed it to be their God. He provided them with great advances in technology and medicine, which were the impetus of the advanced civilization I now beheld; but war broke out across the world over the question of which nations were most worthy of His love. When He beheld the devastation that His children had wrought, He wept - and where His tears fell, those who tasted of them were purified of sin and lost their inclination to fight. But those who refused to cease in strife, those who were consumed by sin and evil, their wickedness was magnified in His absence and took form until it became the Unclean, the giant abominations that to this day lurk in the Unfertile Lands. All life that the Unclean encounter is destroyed utterly - men and women, animals, even plants, are all consumed by the creatures and vanish into thin air, leaving behind only the ichor of sin it discharges when it feeds. Agents of the church known as the Blessed Militia guard these lands, and do constant battle to keep the Unclean imprisoned within.
In time, the United Lands of the Son brought together the nations of the world under the rule of a theocracy, governed by a man called the Most Holy Father. There were ten ranks of the clergy, from the Most Holy Father himself to the Blessed Fathers at the bottom, whose hierarchy comprised not only the church, but the courts, the legislature, and the executive powers of government. The judicial system was not unlike English law, though it incorporated elements similar to the canon law of the Roman church, and the clergy were exempt from its direct judgment, for only the Most Holy himself could pass judgment on them. The death penalty was unknown - those who had committed great crimes were bathed in a compound called the Tears, supposedly refined from His own weepings, and if they survived the trial the urge to sin was cleansed from their mind.
As luck would have it, one of the few Unfertile Lands in this country is located in the deserts a hundred miles east of this city. On the maps I spotted a railway line that draws dangerously close to this border. Interestingly enough I noticed that almost every city had a rail line leading directly into the Unfertile Lands as well; but those were marked as for militia use only and I deemed them inaccessible. Tomorrow I shall travel on the train that passes this border and find a way to depart as close to the edge as possible, and determine whether I can smuggle myself into this forbidden land. I know not how much of the history I have read is true and how much is hagiography concocted by the church, but soon I shall find out.
January 14th, 1876:
I am lucky to have escaped the events of the past few days with my life, but even now I may be doomed.
My entry into the Unfertile Lands was uneventful. I was able to excuse myself stealthily from the train during a brief stop, and hiked but a few miles under the desert sun to the edge. The perimeter in this region was guarded only by a fence with prominent signage;

WARNING
UNFERTILE LANDS - UNCLEAN WITHIN
BLESSED MILITIA ONLY BEYOND THIS POINT
By order of the Regional High Father, City of St. Francis' Triumph

The Blessed Militia, I assumed, must have some means of tracking the Unclean and preventing them from crossing the borders of this country. I, on the other hand, would have to rely on luck and Providence.
I could smell the Unclean for hours before I spotted it. Nothing grows in this land and there is no running water, nor so much as a buzzard in the sky, but the air hangs heavy with the undeniable stench of death, worse than the foulest Scottish abattoir or the banks of the putrid Ganges. I could have been sick, but I steeled myself and pressed onward in the direction from which the stench seemed to be its strongest. I assembled and readied the destabilizing musket I had carried in my pack, a special model Mr. Moth had prepared especially for this expedition, and bringing to bear considerably more potential for atomic disassembly than the standard models.
I spotted it after climbing a ridge and almost turned around and retreated right away. I had expected a creature the size of a man or not much larger. The abomination I beheld was easily five hundred feet long and dozens of feet tall. It was almost the shape of a man, but it had no legs; two arms that seemed to grow and shrink as they moved dragged a massive trunk across the desert sands, while a head with no face seemed to lull and stare at nothing in particular. Its skin, the tone of a white man's, was smooth and hairless across its entire body, and it made no sound as it seemed to crawl about aimlessly, a brown ichor seeming to ooze from it before quickly evaporating. It was no wonder the people of this world thought these things to be devils made flesh. Even with my heavy destabilizer at the ready, I was obviously ill-equipped to hunt a creature of this size.
I observed for several hours as it seemed to crawl aimlessly in the same general area, with no particular direction or agenda, taking notes and making sketches. It was late in the afternoon when I determined I would have to turn around - a train bound in the opposite direction would pass by shortly after night-fall, and I intended to board it and return to the city. But luck was not with me - as I stood from my hiding spot upon the ridge, the Unclean's head turned in my direction and it stopped its incessant crawling about. Though it had no eyes or ears, it somehow knew I was there; and though it had no mouth, the abomination let out a blood-curdling moan that echoed for miles. One of the creature's giant arms stretched out in my direction and it began to drag itself my way. I had no choice but to stand and fight. I raised my musket at the creature's featureless visage, took careful aim, and fired.
The Unclean was wholly unaffected as the bolt from my musket passed harmlessly through it and dissipated in the atmosphere. In seconds it was before me and I was sure I was about to die. The creature loomed above me, resting itself on its giant hands, as the face bore down upon me. Before it could presumably devour me whole, I heard a massive report, and a giant shell struck the Unclean in the face and exploded. I was showered with foul-smelling brown ichor as the beast's face was torn open, and though the wound seemed to seal itself quickly, more and more shells struck it in the face, the trunk, the arms. It stumbled and I ran to avoid it falling on me, as men in dark-colored uniforms, decorated with symbols like those I had found on the disc in London, pounded it with artillery. It lurched at them, and one of the soldiers was devoured whole by the creature, its clothes and weapons falling to the ground as the man vanished. Soon it could take no more as the barrage continued, and it turned around and fled back into the desert.
I retreated in the direction from which I had come to find a convoy of armored motor-carriages armed with heavy cannons. I attempted to run, but in seconds the soldiers surrounded me and apprehended me in the name of the Blessed Militia. I was told I was lucky to be alive after attempting such a foolish pursuit and that I would be put to the question by the Court of Blessed Voices. My situation was compounded when one of the soldiers searched my pack and found one of my good-luck charms - a small gold cross that had been given to me by the Patriarch of Alexandria during my exploits there in 1855. The soldiers immediately declared me a heretic, and some were of the opinion I should be shot then and there, or taken back for the Unclean to devour. In either event, I was bound with steel cuffs and escorted to a prison cell where I now await trial. They do not know I still have this journal, though if I am convicted of heresy and put to the Tears it may not long matter.
January 16th, 1876:
I was brought before the Court of Blessed Voices yesterday. The scene I found myself in looked like a scene out of the Spanish Inquisition; three men in arcane robes beheld me from atop the judge's bench, while I stood in the dock guarded by the Blessed Militia. The senior judge advised me I had been accused of heresy and trespassing in the Unfertile Lands and that I faced the Tears, and demanded my plea. No lawyer had been provided of me, and I expected nothing resembling a fair trial if I contested the charges; yet if I plead guilty I would surely be put to the Tears and my mind torn apart by that mysterious concoction. Recalling that the laws of this land were similar to those of medieval England, and that no member of the priesthood might be tried by them, I took a gamble and insisted that I was a man of the cloth, and thereby was entitled to benefit of clergy - the ancient right of a holy man to avoid prosecution by proving his ability to read from the Bible.
The judges were most skeptical of this proposition; even in this nation, the benefit of clergy was an outdated rite, for many more people could read in these days than simply the priesthood. A reference to their legal texts, however, found that the rite had never been disestablished. I was told I could attempt to exercise that benefit if I wished, but that it would then be up to the Most Holy Father himself to judge my fate, and he would be less forgiving than this court. I hoped for nothing less than to play for time, and I agreed.
It was decided that I would be expected to read three verses. One of the strange Bibles of this world was placed before me and opened to the Third Testament, and I was asked to read a passage called Edward 7:22. As before, the strange lettering of this world's language made itself clear to me, and I read;
Be free of sin, therefore, as He and His angels are free of sin; for wherever evil transpires in the hearts of men, the Unclean walk among us.
Next the book was opened to the First Testament, and I was asked to read Psalm 23:4. It was most unlike the version I had learned in chapel many years ago, but I read it clear and true;
Though I walk in the land of the Unclean, I will fear no evil, for you are always watching; your voice and your sight protect me.
I was surprised when the judge closed the book and proclaimed I would have to prove myself by reciting the third verse from memory. I was challenged to recite Matthew 5:38-39 from the Second Testament. I knew well enough the verse in King James' Bible; but I had no way of knowing how it might have been presented in this world, or even enough of their strange theology to guess. I felt doom creep upon me and decided to do the best I could, and closed my eyes as I recited the verses I knew;
Ye have heard that it hath been said, An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth: But I say unto you, That ye resist not evil: but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also.
The judges did not at first respond to this reading. They retreated to their bench and discussed amongst themselves for a few moments, and one departed briefly, returning with a truly ancient book which they examined while conferring further. I wondered if reciting the verse in its original form might have only confirmed their accusation of me, when my bonds were removed and I was ordered to follow the chief judge to his chambers.
Seated behind a magnificent desk of fine ebony, the chief judge informed me that I had correctly recited the verse in question as it had existed in the ancient Bible, before the Second Coming. Those old texts were forbidden to the public; even the heretic sects made do with modern versions, and the only known copies in existence were in possession of the church fathers themselves for their personal study. The book he had examined was the only ancient Bible in the entire city, and before today had not been removed from safe-keeping for over fifty years; and yet, I knew its verses by heart. Therefore, he said, it was obvious that I was at the very least a Holy Father, one of the third-highest echelon of the clergy, who had travelled incognito to his land for some purpose. Though he had no power as a mere Blessed Voice to compel my obedience, he asked why I had come, and what I had been doing in the Unfertile Lands with a heretic's cross and a strange weapon that was useless against the Unclean.
An opportunity had been granted to me, and I chose to take advantage of it. I was, I informed the Blessed Voice, a senior member of the church's scientific research division, conducting tests on the development of improved weapons for suppressing or even killing the Unclean. I told him my destabilizing musket was the product of this project and it had shown promise in tests against tissue samples, and I had been delegated to test it myself in the field. Unfortunately, it had not lived up to its promise, and further refinements would obviously be needed before it could live up to its full potential. The cross, I claimed, was merely a trophy I had taken from a heretic in the priesthood after I exposed his treason.
To my surprise, the Blessed Voice did not question my account at all. So great the respect for and fear of authority is within this nation, I suspect, that the mere supposition that I was his superior was enough to put me beyond reproach. By the end of our meeting, he had offered me access to a laboratory in the Blessed Militia's base at the edge of the Unfertile Zone. I accepted his proposition and today I found myself examining a facility which makes the laboratory in my own estate look like a child's play-thing. It is fully appointed with every instrument a man of science could want for and several that I do not yet even understand the purpose of. There are full stocks of chemicals, as well as tissue samples acquired from the Unclean, samples of their ichorous discharge, and a variety of medical nutrients and fluids, including the mind-altering substance called the Lord's Tears.
I have been given private quarters within the base, and the militiamen give me a wide berth - I have noticed they avert their eyes as I pass them in the halls, and all conversation ceases when I enter a room. They believe I hold power over their very lives - for now, at least, I shall make no effort to disabuse them of this notion. It shall take me some time, but perhaps with this equipment and the samples provided me, I can learn enough of the nature of the Unclean to genuinely construct a weapon capable of causing true damage to them. If only Deeds were here - at least I would have a capable lab assistant.
February 27th, 1876:
I have made a truly horrifying breakthrough in my research today. I do not even know if the most senior leaders of this world know the truth - some of them must surely know, if a heretic from another world was able to figure it out so quickly - and they have gone to great lengths to hide it from the world in their lie of a religion.
The beings called Unclean are not devils or beings of pure sin, but gross mutations of the human form itself. The key is the Tears. I know not what the true origin of that compound is or from whence it comes, but it is more than a simple tool of mind control. When human flesh is exposed to a significant enough concentration, it changes - the bonds that hold the atoms together peel away, and it becomes mutable and elastic, folding around and absorbing all other life introduced to it. A single mutant becomes two, and then three, and four, growing larger and larger, becoming less and less human in form, until it becomes Unclean.
I wondered how these creatures first came to be created. Did the church fathers make weapons of them, to unleash upon those renegade nations that refused to submit to their will? Perhaps they use them for that reason still - I had found numerous reports in the history books of cities and country-sides being attacked by Unclean, suddenly loosed from their Unfertile Lands, whenever sentiment in that land had turned against the church. Even now they continued to throw millions of people into the Tears every year to better control them - some of them surely mutating as the result and becoming the basis of a new abomination. No wonder there were railways leading into the Unfertile Zones - it was necessary to dispose of the persons so changed. I wondered how many were sacrificed intentionally to make the Unclean more powerful and more menacing as weapons of terror.
I wondered what might happen if news of this horror became known to the people. How many more heretics would the elders throw in the Tears? How many cities would they loose the Unclean upon to suppress the threat to their power? How many uprisings could they manage, how many mutants could take form, before the Unclean became uncontrollable and society itself was brought to its knees? I shudder to think of it.
But with this horror has come revelation. The Unclean are born of using the Tears to allow people to absorb others into themselves. What if a compound could be produced that weakened those bonds? I think I can develop a way to produce a variant of the Tears that will counter the effect the original has had on these poor souls. I owe it to the people of this world to try.
March 20th, 1876:
Today is a day I shall remember the rest of my life. After weeks of research I have produced my weapon, a serum which I have with no small amount of pride named Blackwood's Tears. I have tested it on tissue samples of the Unclean and watched them dissolve before my very eyes. It took several days experimenting with one of the most sophisticated repeater-rifles used by the militiamen of this world, but I have developed a custom rifle that fires syringes filled with Blackwood's Tears. Upon impact, the force should activate the plunging device and inject the serum directly into its target. I have produced several hundred rounds of serum and loaded them into magazines; if my calculations prove true, it should take only a few dozen to destroy one of the abominations.
Yesterday, I spoke to a colonel of the militia-men who confirmed that the trains into the Unfertile Zones are used to carry people who the fathers have declared "incurably sinful", though he did not know the true meaning of that infamous phrase. He said a highly purified vial of Tears was contained on each train which lured the Unclean to it; thus, the incurable were disposed of and the Unclean were kept from wandering too far. I arranged for the train to be sent out this morning empty but for myself, my weapon, and the purified Tears. Before I left, I gave him a copy of my findings and made him promise to read it entirely, including my opinions on what might happen if this knowledge becomes widely known, and to make sure that Blackwood's Tears were being manufactured around the world before the day when that knowledge comes out. He nodded in silent agreement as the train pulled away.
Shortly before noon, the train parked itself at a dead end in the middle of the desert. I readied my weapon and waited in a blind outside the train as the stench of the Unclean began to fill the air. As I watched the abomination approach, I sighted its face through the remarkably sophisticated scope on the weapon and loosed the first round.
The Unclean screamed with a fury unimaginable. I almost dropped my gun and collapsed in agony; but as I watched through the scope, the creature lurched and seemed to grow a few feet smaller than it had been before. I fired another round and a piece seemed to vanish from its head; but now it had sight of me and it was coming in my direction. I loosed several more rounds before I was forced to run. Pieces of flesh seemed to be sloughing off the creature as it dragged itself in my direction, its screams piercing the air with a deafening madness. I ran blindly, turning occasionally to fire in its direction, changing magazines from time to time. Alas, I had been paying more attention to the creature behind me than the terrain in front of me; and I found myself boxed in. I turned to fire again, and to my horror I discovered the gun had jammed.
The Unclean was less than half the size it had been before. It dragged itself in my direction, slowed but still unrelenting as I furiously tried to clear the jam. It screamed as it raised itself up above me. Somehow, in its wounded state, the monster seemed more human than it had before. Across every inch of the giant's skin I seemed to behold a different face, and each furious proclamation it made seemed to echo with hundreds of voices in fear and agony. I was still trying to clear the jam when it began to bear down on me and I thought I was soon to join the souls that comprised that thing in their unceasing damnation. But when the titanic head was barely feet away from me, it stopped. The Unclean held itself motionless above me. It could have moved in for the kill at any time, but instead it waited as I cleared the jam, and seconds later, my weapon was ready to fire. I understood - the Unclean was an amalgamation of cursed souls in eternal pain and confusion, seeking a release that was forever denied to them. The thing before me wanted to die. I aimed my weapon, closed my eyes, and emptied the magazine into its faceless visage as it screamed a final time and the scream was instantly cut short, echoing across the desert before dissipating entirely.
When I opened my eyes a scene of utter carnage lay before me. Of the Unclean itself, there was no sign; but instead, hundreds of men and women and children, naked as the day they were born, lay sprawled across the desert plains, dead or dying. I walked among them and saw young and old, gasping for air in their final moments (for none of them lasted more than a few moments before expiring). Among the crowd I spotted a face I recognized - the soldier of the Blessed Militia who had been killed, so I thought at the time, in the attack that saved my life. As I looked at the dying man, his eyes met mine and he spoke two words;
Thank you.
I made my way back west in the direction I had intended to flee in January, and boarded the train back to the City of Angelic Glory. The faster I can put this scene and these Unfertile Lands behind me, the better it shall be for my sanity.
March 23rd, 1876:
I returned through the mirror to London before dawn in the morning of this world, arriving back in my study just after noon London time. I was most thankful to find the gateway still worked; I had not expected to be away as long as I have been, and feared it might have ceased functioning or the disc removed from the mirror. I immediately removed it from the mirror myself and set it on the ground, whereupon it rolled back to the mirror and attached itself; but having not been placed there by a human being, the mirror was only a looking-glass; and the portal to that world and the horrors that populated it was, for now, sealed.
I do not think I shall journey to that world again. The Unclean were monstrous enough, but there is a certain irony in the fact that, as alien and terrifying as they were, the greatest evil to populate that land was man itself, for it was the leaders of men who must have created the Unclean to begin with, and who continued to allow their existence in order to perpetuate their reign of terror. The gun and the Blackwood's Tears I have brought back with me shall likely prove of little use in this world; but I shall store them at my house in the country for now, for if the being that provided the Tears to that Earth ever visits our own, the compound may one day prove of great utility.
I visited Mr. Belson again today at Bedlam. I told him of my journey to his land (but what I had learned there, I kept to myself) and that I had the means to return him there if he so desired it. He declined; having been gone so long, and having vanished so suddenly, he would surely be under great suspicion if he returned, and would likely be put to the Tears, a fate that I now wished on no man. I have promised to vouch for him with the gaolers and earn his release; I told him that when and if he becomes a free man, there shall be a position available for him in my household staff if he desires one.
Deeds was very fascinated by my tale of my adventures in that parallel Earth and suggested I publish it; but who could believe such a fanciful story of worlds accessible through a looking glass and gigantic horrors? Perhaps I shall present it as fiction in one of the penny journals that have become so popular among the working-class; for whether they regard it as true or not, I suppose it does make a most entertaining yarn.