Mary: Leporidae Rex

It was like watching someone throw tinsel on the Mona Lisa. It was like serving Dom Perignon with Ritz crackers and squeeze cheese. The incredibly simple, elegant, profound rock garden and sacred shrine had been "decorated" with black velvet curtains adorned with tacky, tin foil moons and stars. A jade statue of the Buddha in the center of the room had been sprayed with rainbow glitter. From the rafters on the roof of the shrine, someone had hung colored streamers, including an incongruous banner that proclaimed, "HAPPY BIRTHDAY!" in big, red, block letters.

Smilers arranged themselves like ushers along the walls, and metal folding chairs had been put up in front of a raised dais that would be used as the stage. The curtains on either side of the dais provided an off-stage area that presumably led to other, hidden, adjoining rooms.

The samurai were directed to sit in the chairs, with the Emperor and his top men: Fukimitsu, Ota and Sato seated in places of honor up front on the left side of the center aisle. There were more chairs than there were samurai left alive, so some of the Smilers filled in the gaps to guarantee a full house.

On the right side of the aisle sat the Magician's lieutenants: Hollis, the veiled woman dressed in gray and the man I had assumed to be Taras. Hollis craned his neck to look at Yoshida and I when we entered, waving us over genially to the front of the shrine to two empty seats behind him. He was giddy.

"We saved these two for you, my dear. Oh, you will not believe this show, I guarantee it. Welcome, welcome." He rose as we approached, guiding us into our chairs. His touch on my hand as he helped me sit made my stomach churn, but I was determined to keep my composure, at least for the moment.

"And who are your friends, Mr. Hollis?" I asked, gesturing discreetly at the lady and Taras.

He shook his head in mock-disgrace. "My stars, where are my manners? Miss Mary Stroud, this is the Red Lady of Babil. Forgive the Lady, Miss Stroud, if she does not indulge in pleasantries. Like my master, she uses words sparingly." His tone grew sour as he added, "And this is Taras."

Taras brushed his long, wavy, silver hair from his face and turned to look at me with gray, doleful eyes. "Dobry vechar. Good evening."

Hollis began, "The show should begin in-"

Just then I stood and leaped up and over the row of chairs, landing on Taras and knocking him sideways onto the wooden plank floor. With my right hand I clawed Taras' face as hard as I could, carving four long, bloody slashes into his left cheek from his eye to the bottom of his jaw.

He didn't cry out, and he didn't fight- he merely slowly took hold of my wrists and lifted me up to my feet, his expression puzzled. With heavily accented English he asked, "And what have I done to deserve such special treatment, miss?"

As he held me with an iron grip that was still somehow gentle I leaned close to him, my face only an inch from his and hissed, "Because of all of them, I think you know better." Then I spit right in his face, tore my hands out of his grasp and retook my seat with head held high.

The samurai all tried to suppress satisfied grins as they watched me sit, with Fukimitsu even daring to give me a low, surreptitious "thumbs up". Even Hollis chuckled, clearly loving the exchange.

Meanwhile, Taras simply pulled a stained handkerchief from the pocket of his gray long coat and dabbed at the blood and spittle, sitting back down without another word.

Just then, a Smiler dressed as the captain of a cruise ship strode out onto the stage. Hollis rose, explaining to those nearby, "The Magician sends for his Master of Ceremonies. Excuse me." He moved to take the stage, but Taras stood up as well.

"I prefer to emcee." He spared a look back at me, his expression bitter and defiant.

Hollis was indignant. "I always emcee. Sit down, you old Ukrainian goat!"

Taras sneered, "I managed to kill one of them. You did not. The honor is mine by right."

"Tate? You're counting Ricky god damned Tate as one of them? He hardly can be said to count." The two men stared at each other for a long moment, glaring at each other balefully until finally Hollis begrudgingly sat down cursing under his breath. Taras nodded to himself, then paused to glower over Hollis' shoulder at me, and for a moment I thought he might spit on me in return, but in the end he just turned and took the stage, striding backstage accompanied by the Smiler Captain.

We only had to wait for a couple of minutes (during which time Yoshida leaned over to me- soaked in a cold sweat from the exchange with Taras- and muttered, "You are insane") before Taras appeared from the wings and marched to the center of the stage. He cleared his throat and all was silent, with the Smilers on the aisles reaching up and turning the lanterns down to a low flame.

"Ladies and gentlemen! Tonight you will see the greatest magic show of all time. The Great Gagasti will perform two magic tricks for your amusement, and the skill with which he weaves his spells will dazzle and amaze you.

"And now without further ado, I give you, the Magician!"

Just then, not so coincidentally, the castle shook with an enormous, booming thunderclap from the storm overhead, and the Magician/the Great Gagasti/Jeff Werth strode onto the stage, his dark eyes beaming. He wore the top hat and cape that Josh and I had until recently possessed, and he gave a deep bow to the audience which was responded to with synchronized clapping from the Smilers, enthusiastic applause from Hollis and seething resentment from everyone else.

The woman dressed in black robes and a burqa walked onstage next, and after a moment reached up and tore off the robes, revealing a second outfit underneath of a sequined bodysuit, fishnet stockings and high, stiletto heels. As my hands went to my face in shock, Taras continued, "And introducing the Magician's special assistant for the evening, the lovely Miss Cynthia!"

It was Mrs. Howland, her expression somehow dignified despite the gaudy, degrading costume. She struck a theatrical, sexy pose while keeping her head high, her lip curling with disdain. Unable to contain myself I cried out, "Mrs. Howland! What happened to you? Can you hear me?"

Her sharp eyes darted out to the crowd, and her face brightened for just a moment when she recognized me before her jaw tightened. She spoke with a severity and sobriety that was completely at odds with the spectacle she was a part of. "Mary! Stay back. I have no control whatsoever over my body, only my head. He moves me about like a marionette while I can merely observe."

My eyes welled up as I searched for words, but she cut me short. "No tears! We face this with dignity and composure. If the world is to end- if we are to die- then we will do so nobly. We will show him that despite all his little tricks and illusions, there is not nearly enough dark sorcery in the world to break our indomitable will."

Nodding slowly, my teeth clenched to stop myself from crying, I sat back down. To my left I could see Fukimitsu translating everything for Emperor Komei, who nodded sternly in approval.

Taras continued, "For his first trick, the Magician will saw a man in half." I thought of Josh and my heart raced, imagining all the horrible things they might do to him, when Mrs. Howland stepped off stage and wheeled out a four foot long box, about the size of a coffin for a child. Then from inside his cape, with a flourish the Magician pulled out a simple carpenter's saw and brought it down slowly on the box, tapping it. Then he slid the saw off stage right, and Mrs. Howland propped up the box so that we were seeing it from the top, where we could look directly into it as she opened the lid, revealing a man with both of his arms and legs freshly amputated and with iron, claw-like spikes driven into his eye-sockets.

It was Crayton.

I gasped as his mouth began to move, his lips quivering in anguish. "I- I humbly beg forgiveness of my master... I sent a slave to kill the old woman without his permission. I thought I knew better- I thought we should kill our enemies, oh, God he promised no pain. Oh, God..." He trailed off for a moment, and all was deathly silent in the shrine, with even Hollis holding his breath, riveted and I believe just a little horrified.

"I will listen to my master from now on... he knows best- please, please, please kill me. Please, someone kill me! Please! Please!" His agonized wails grew louder until the Magician slowly closed the lid of the box and gestured for Mrs. Howland to wheel it back offstage. Once again the Smilers performed their odd, synchronized applause, while Hollis could manage only a single, concerned clap.

Taras, also appearing just a touch taken aback from the display, gathered himself and said, "And now for the moment you've all been waiting for. The Magician will perform his second and final act of magic in this world: the rabbit out of a hat trick!"

Mrs. Howland exited stage right only to reappear a moment later pushing a large, flat wooden board about the size of a door, and standing upright strapped to it with leather cords, his chest bare, was Josh. He stared straight ahead with the same resolute expression as Cynthia, purposely avoiding my gaze lest he lose his composure. As we had from the beginning, we took our cues from Cynthia, knowing that even if our deaths were inevitable and out of our control, how we died was not.

She trotted offstage again, returning pushing an empty table on wheels and carrying the chest of bingo charms from Hollis Crossroads. With a twirl of his hand, the Magician removed his top hat and placed it upon the table. He reached into the hat, opened up the hidden bottom and removed the globe key chain and the rolled up newspaper and carelessly tossed them to the floor at the rear of the stage. Next, he bent down, rummaged through the box of bingo charms and selected one, dropping it into the hat. Then he walked to the edge of the dais to Hollis, who rose from his chair and pulled from his inside jacket pocket another, brand-new, still shrink-wrapped globe key chain and a fresh sheet of newspaper, one I thought I could recognize as the Kyoto Shimbun News, the local paper.

With practiced moves, the Magician rolled up the front page, then took it and the new globe key chain and placed them in the bottom of the hat, closing it up again. Then he stepped once again to the edge of the stage, his eyes focused on the Red Lady of Babil. She sat still for a long moment, then finally rose and pulled from her dress a small, brass-bound wooden box, holding it out to the Magician. The Red Lady's eyes burned over her veil like twin suns, her hatred for him palpable.

Even Yoshida, not normally the most astute observer of human interaction, noticed it. He leaned over and whispered to me, "She despises him so! I thought she was one of his people?"

"She does hate him... but only a woman who has loved in the past could hate with that depth of passion. I can only imagine how she must have felt about him... once." I glanced over to see Yoshida blinking confusedly behind his thick glasses and shook my head, knowing that he could never understand.

The Magician slowly opened the tiny box, and pulled from within a pure white rabbit's foot, with no chain or clasp on the end. As Yoshida leaned in again to ask another question, Hollis turned around in his seat and whispered to us. "The left hind foot of a rabbit captured in a cemetery on a rainy Friday the 13th, the foot cut off while the rabbit still lived." He added vindictively, "You see, this is the sort of information the emcee should be providing. I have a favorite quote during this part from R.E. Shay: 'Depend on the rabbit's foot if you will, but remember it didn't work for the rabbit'." He chuckled. "Love that line. God in heaven, but that Ukrainian is doing piss poor work, if you'll pardon my French."

We returned our attention to the stage, where the Magician placed the rabbit's foot carefully into the top hat, then withdrew his old rabbit-skinning knife from his cape. My breath caught as he held it up to the light in front of Josh, it's edge glinting menacingly, and then without hesitation he brought it down to Josh's chest and began to cut him, a trickle of blood working it's way down his stomach.

I put my hands over my mouth to stifle a scream, but after a moment it became apparent that the Magician wasn't killing him, only making shallow, surface cuts. Josh's face was contorted in a fierce grimace, but he never cried out; never gave the Magician the satisfaction.

When he had finished, the Magician cupped his left hand under Josh's chest and gathered some of the blood, then took it and poured it into the hat, pausing afterward to remove a blindingly white handkerchief from his coat pocket and dab the excess blood off of Josh's wound. Once it was clean I could see that the incision was directly over his heart in the shape of the symbol for infinity.

After the Magician had replaced the knife within his cape, Taras gestured into the audience, his face at its most morose as he intoned, "And now, the Magician asks for a native volunteer from the audience. Without a volunteer, his trick can not be performed. Everlasting life will be yours. You will- should you obey the Magician- feel no pain ever again. Armies of slaves will be at your beck and call, and you shall become the new Emperor of Japan." He scanned the crowd, saw no one move a muscle and his expression brightened with just the tiniest hint of hope. "I call again for a volunteer."

Without moving my head, I peered sidelong at Emperor Komei and his retainers, Fukimitsu, Ota and Sato, wondering which, if any, of the three would rise. As I stared, I caught the Emperor stealing the briefest of looks at Fukimitsu and knew in that moment that he was his most likely suspect. Curious to know who he thought would crack, I turned back to my right to ask Yoshida's opinion.

He was standing.

"Oh, God, Kisho. Don't... please don't." He said nothing. He merely stood with his head bowed, his expression a mask of shame. "For God's sake, haven't you seen how this ends? Take a look around!"

He spoke in a choked whisper, "You do not understand. I need more time. All the things I can accomplish... and the women, I can't-" He swallowed to hold back tears. "I have always been the weak, the bullied... it's everything I need-" A deep breath, and still he couldn't bring himself to look at me. "I am sorry. I truly am." He turned and shuffled slowly up the dais, looking less like a volunteer than a death row prisoner walking to the gas chamber. Yoshida spared a glance at Josh strapped to the board, but Josh spoke not a word- only gazed upon him with a combination of betrayal and pity that I'm sure was far worse than anything he could have said. His head sinking lower into his chest, Yoshida slunk to a position near the Magician while the Emperor and his men glared at him with helpless rage.

After Yoshida was in position, Taras stepped to the edge of the stage and began to wearily recite a speech he clearly had heard far too many times, saying:

"Ladies and gentlemen, the Magician will now perform the greatest trick you will ever be graced to see. He will bring this entire world through... to a new land. This world will surround that one, and over the next one hundred plus years he will infect it, conquer it and absorb it until the trick can be performed again ad infinitum. When we wake tomorrow morning, it will once again be July 21st, 1831, and the only difference in the world will be a new kingdom to overthrow-" he paused to gesture back to Yoshida, adding, "And a new Emperor of what was once Japan."

Realization dawned on Mrs. Howland's face. "He will draw us through to a new... dimension? The entire world, like a rabbit out of a hat, with him as the true king. The rabbit king. Leporidae Rex." She shook her head in mounting dread and awe, while at the same time her body continued to pose histrionically.

Taras paused to nod, muttering under his breath, "Same sh*t, different day- or close enough."

Holding up a hand for silence, the Magician stepped over directly behind the hat on the table as Cynthia positioned herself on his left. Josh stood strapped to the board behind him, and on his right Yoshida trembled, rubbed his hands together nervously and stared down at the stage. Taras was farther to the Magician's right toward the front of the stage.

All was quiet as the Magician closed his eyes in concentration, and suddenly from very far away we could hear the beginnings of a hum. The whales had entirely surrounded the island of Japan, and they sang their song over and over, louder and louder. Now the hum amped up to where we could feel it vibrating, and the curtains over the stage began to jiggle very slightly.

A high-pitched whine kicked in then, as it had back on the Dial Up when the whales attacked, and my teeth felt like they were rattling in their sockets. I remembered back to that incident, recollecting that Josh was unaffected by the whales and their song. Because he has the Magician's blood in his veins. That's why they left him alone. Mystery solved, too little, too late, I thought to myself bitterly as the whine elevated in intensity, with even some of the stoic samurai holding their heads and clenching their jaws.

The Magician held his hands over the top hat, and from within the hat came a faint, yellow glow that lighted his face from underneath. As the hum and whine from the whales grew to a deafening, knee-buckling intensity, the glow from the hat became brighter and brighter, until it was like a spotlight shining upward. His tiny smile widened into a demonic grin, and he ever so slowly began reaching into the hat with his right hand, his fingers twitching in anticipation.

I rose then, desperately attempting to keep my composure against the whalesong. Taking a deep breath, I called out, "You are not the only one here who has a trick to play, Magician!" The Great Gagasti spared only one, quick, annoyed glance up at me before immediately returning his attention to the hat. Hollis turned in his chair and hissed at me to sit down and shut up, but I remained standing.

"You read our archive over Mrs. Howland's shoulder. You know back when Agent Pierce forced us to destroy the Rabbit/Human Calicivirus, and we said we did?" Now it was my turn to smile.

"We lied."

Just then, Taras lunged at the Magician, reached into his long coat and pulled from it a thick, metal, hypodermic needle. With one, swift motion he reared back and stabbed it into the Magician's neck, pressing the plunger all the way down and injecting a viscous green liquid into him.

The Magician screamed in agony, the sound of his voice so loud that the very rafters of the castle shook and shuddered. He screamed and clawed at his neck, pausing only to lash out with the back of his hand at Taras, sending him flying to the edge of the stage where he smashed into the wall and shattered one of the room's thick, wooden support beams. He crumpled to a heap on the ground holding his belly, blood seeping from his nose and mouth.

Suddenly everything seemed to happen at once. Cynthia stared down at her body and held her hand in front of her face, realizing that she could once more finally control her limbs. Hollis and the Red Lady of Babil rose from their seats in shock and began to head for the Magician while the closest samurai, Fukimitsu and Sato jumped out of their chairs and leapt between the two of them and the stage.

In the next moment, Mrs. Howland clawed at the Magician's cape and pulled out his rabbit-skinning knife, immediately turning then and hacking at the restraints keeping Josh held fast. "Joshua!" she yelled trying to be heard over the hellish song of the whales and the anguished, enraged screams of the Magician. "He will infect us all with the virus! The entire world!" He nodded to her just as she finished cutting him out, and they reached out to grab the Magician together.

Meanwhile, as Hollis sprinted forward to assist his master, one-armed Sato snarled and attempted a kick up at his face. Hollis caught his foot with one hand and brought his other elbow down on Sato's knee, shattering his leg with a sickening crack. On his right, the Red Lady also stepped toward the stage, only to find her way blocked by Fukimitsu. He jabbed at her with a fast punch to the face, the blow spattering her veil with blood from the inside where her lip split, but in the next instant she pulled a small, sharp, black knife from her dress and drove it into Fukimitsu's stomach, the brave samurai staggering back and falling to the floor with a grunt.

Despite this, however, the Emperor's men had bought Cynthia and Josh the time they needed. The two stood on either side of the Magician, gave each other one last look and together lifted the hat off of the table and down onto the Magician's head as he bellowed in wrath and pain. In a moment, the yellow glow from the hat seemed to spread, the three of them bathed in it up on stage while Yoshida cowered off to the side.

I reached out to Josh and cried, "Josh, stop! It's... I think it's going to take you away with him! Let go!"

He turned to look back in my direction, but blinded by the light from the hat he couldn't see me. "Can't! We've got to take him away... anywhere but here, or the infection will spread." He and Cynthia redoubled their efforts, forcing the hat down on the Magician's head. Now the light surrounding the three was blinding, and even Hollis and the Red Lady put hands up to shield their eyes.

"Josh! Wait, Josh!" I called his name over and over again, tears streaming down my face. "Don't leave me! Please!"

Peering through my fingers I could just barely make out a sad smile on his face. The hum and vibration was out of control now, and I could hear an enormous crash somewhere behind me as entire sections of the castle collapsed. "Mary! If you can hear me..." I could just barely make out his form now, the entire stage ablaze with the light from the top hat. Somehow, despite the chaos around us, I heard his voice come through calm and clear. "Mary, they'll never understand. Never. The greatest magic I have ever seen is that of all the millions of women who were born and walked the Earth... of all of them... there has never been a woman loved as much as I love y-"

The light died then; the sound of the whales and the Magician's screams ended abruptly, and at center stage the Magician, Mrs. Howland and Josh had disappeared.

Tenno Heika Komei: The Unbalancing Of The Universe And The Invasion Of Most-Sacred Nippon

From the very instant of my birth in the city of Kyoto on the twenty second day of the seventh month of the Western year eighteen thirty-one A.D., I knew that the world was very, very wrong. While I still felt safe, warm and maintained by the aura of Nippon (or Japan), it was as if I was still in the womb, in a fashion- with a small pocket of comfort and, for lack of a better term, rightness- but just outside of this zone, just beyond a thin membrane was a tide of toxicity just waiting to crash down upon us and poison our very souls.

You may doubt that I could sense the wrongness of the universe in my first instant in the world, but I knew. Nippon told me.

From the day the divine sun goddess Amaterasu had blessed Nippon by making her great-grandson Jimmu the first Emperor, the land was good, the samurai did battle and honor reigned supreme. The land of the rising sun was complete and perfect under heaven. Then came the gaijin.

The word "gaijin" is often misinterpreted as meaning, "foreigner" or "barbarian". It is thought in most circles to be an insult, which it is, though some who have embraced the West foolishly believe it to be complementary. Gaijin means: "outside person", and never has there been a more perfect definition.

The invasion came on the twenty-first day of the seventh month of the Western year eighteen thirty-one A.D. Before this day there was only Nippon. Look back through history before this date and see how few real interactions there were with the rest of the world. How many tsunamis and earthquakes and natural disasters occurred that prevented the gaijin from having a significant impact on Nippon.

This is because before the year eighteen thirty-one A.D., there was no outside world.

There was only Nippon and her people and her divine Emperor, Shogun at his side. Then something changed, and the rest of the world suddenly, magically appeared.

The West (the term is used for familiarity's sake. For our purposes it is defined as, "that which is not Nippon") suddenly was vomited forth upon us, and we have been mystified, horrified and repulsed ever since.

A day after the invasion, Nippon gave birth to me to champion her in response. Nippon lavished blessings upon me, granting me long life, vitality and resources, and to my eternal shame it has not been nearly enough.

I attempted to warn my subjects time and again against the menace of the gaijin, but always the weakest of them have been seduced by the promise of an easier life that their clever contraptions could provide.

"But Emperor," My worthless Generals would whine. "Their guns would make our warriors so much better. It would allow them to defeat our enemies at range so much easier than with bows." Easier. Has any warrior ever been made better by walking an easy road? Nippon is Nippon because of its hardships. Our Samurai were supreme because while their choices were often the most simple, their paths they walked were hard.

At every turn we were seduced by the West, given promises and assurances that with every new adoption and integration into our lives that life would be easier. As easy as drowning. As easy as surrender.

In the Western year eighteen sixty-three A.D. I issued the Joi Chokumei, or the "Order To Expel Barbarians", but by that point even my Shogun had been enthralled by the outlanders, and while he paid lip service to the decree, by and large he chose not to enforce it. It was at this point that I meditated upon my failure as Emperor and came to the conclusion that I would be more effective operating from a position of secrecy.

The merchants were replacing the samurai as the dominant force in Japan, therefore I would attempt to improvise and influence the world economically as the power behind the throne. I steadily and covertly began hiding assets and informing my most trusted clans, the Yoshidas and the Tanakas that I would soon fake my own death, which I did in the Western year eighteen sixty-seven A.D., obfuscating the details of my demise with such vigor that to this day historians still argue whether I died of smallpox or poison.

After I assumed the identity of Lord Yamamoto, I remained in hiding, created the Bengosha Company (Defender, in English) and set about preserving Nippon from the invaders at all costs. Despite my abhorrence of the outside world, I realized early on that I required more information about the West. We needed to know our enemy, but in every instance I was rebuffed.

We Japanese have always been terrified of the sea. We take to the water only as a last resort, and even then cling to shore as a child to its mother's leg. I would send out one spy ship after another to all the corners of the newly-deformed world, but always my loyal Samurai would fail to ever reach their intended destinations. It was only years later that I discovered the reason why: the kujira. The whales.

They surrounded my ships and sang their song, and my men would simply be gone. Over and over the kujira turned my spy navy into a ghost fleet. Finally I resorted to employing a gaijin spy so as to attempt to fool the kujira, but they even attacked his vessel in the Western year eighteen seventy-two A.D., banishing him forever from the Earth and leaving his ship the Mary Celeste adrift, a mystery to all in the world but myself.

Attempting to take the battle to them, I turned my resources toward their destruction, building a line of ships and encouraging whaling at every turn to attempt to at the very least thin their numbers, but again the gaijin exerted pressure, condemning us on "moral" grounds until the feeblest of us whined and begged and brought the defense of our shores to a halt.

It was then that I began to suspect that the invasion of Nippon was not some random occurrence or a mere quirk of a perverted and savage universe, but was instead being instigated by an insidious, ruthless intelligence.

Over the next half-century, I attempted to defend Nippon from the gaijin, but at every juncture I failed. Always the promise of an easier life beguiled my people and made them weak; the lure of greed and luxury overcoming the harsh realities of duty and honor. During this time I fought a war of attrition and slowly lost.

Finally I decided that the Samurai were never meant to fight a war of attrition, much less win one. The Samurai excelled in wars of blood and steel and winner-take-all, so from behind the scenes I created and nurtured an imperialist movement, a hearkening back to the days of yore where honor ruled Nippon. I guided the hand of my adopted great-grandson, Admiral Yamamoto as he planned his attack on the West and I cheered as their boats sank to the bottom of the Hawaiian reefs.

It was war, and amid the blood and the carnage and the sacrifice and the glory, my people had rediscovered who they were. While the odds were steep and victory over the gaijin was far from assured, we had reclaimed our souls.

Then came the fire.

If it had been but one of our cities, we would have surrendered- if they had given us the time- but they had constructed two bombs, so that is what they used. With one of our beloved cities murdered, we would have, to our shame, given up, but we would still have eyed our enemy with the sullen glare of one who would rise once more from the ashes. But two? Two broke us. Nagasaki did more than end the war, it ended who we were. It shattered our national soul, and from then we have been a terminal patient steadily bleeding out.

The West did what it almost always does after it destroys a people: it helped. MacArthur came and rebuilt our cities; they provided us with new facilities and new technology and new ideas and they replaced our bow with a healthy handshake. They made our lives so very much easier.

They killed us with kindness.

It was only after the war, after the lines of communication opened with the gaijin that I received enough information to put a name to my enemy, to the one who had somehow caused the invasion of my world and sought to conquer us absolutely: the Magician.

We fought our unwinnable war as best we could in the intervening years, and then in the Western year nineteen hundred and ninety A.D., my vassal Shigekazu Yoshida informed me of his new plan to create a deadly virus that would, at best, defeat our enemy, and at worst allow us to end the conquest, destroy our enemy and allow Nippon an honorable death. His plan was to work to formulate this virus and release it simultaneously on every continent, annihilating all human life outside of Japan. The island nature of our Empire would make it a simple matter to shut down our borders and forbid any travel even before we had released the virus, keeping the populace safe from harm, though should Yoshida's new "Calicivirus" somehow find its way onto our shores, at least we would die on our terms, not the Magician's.

It was then that I made a decision that haunts me to this day: I said no. Despite all that had been done to us, despite all that was at stake, I saw the human cost and deemed it too brutal and horrible a plan to carry out. Was I wrong? Should I have had the fortitude and will to annihilate all human life in the world? That is for history to decide, for whatever history is worth.

I do know that before the year of my birth, history means nothing. The Magician can shift the dates of events at will, changing important "facts" on a whim. And why? Because they never happened. For all intents and purposes, before the Western year eighteen thirty-one, there was only Nippon, the rest of what we now call "the world" simply did not exist.

Shigekazu Yoshida and his friend and assistant Tanaka disobeyed me. Yoshida, seeking first to understand the dispersal and infection pattern of the virus, turned to the Australian government to fund the Wardang Island project, a scientific endeavor they imagined would control their exploding rabbit population. Then, once he had collected his data Yoshida moved on to America, where he exploited the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta for their archives of viruses, attempting to tailor his "Human Calicivirus" until it was perfected.

It was at this point where Yoshida simply ran out of money, as I had long-since refused to aid him, and it was here were one of the Magician's own servants, King Leopold I of Belgium discovered his work and betrayed his own master to assist him. Hoping that if he were to funnel the funds to Yoshida through his own descendant his treason would remain undiscovered by his master, Leopold provided millions and the virus was completed.

Of course, at the very instant of victory, the Magician bore down on Yoshida and murdered him, the virus later destroyed by my now-fellow archivists.

Now, at last, the Magician is coming. I can feel it in my very soul. He rides the waves accompanied by his vile minions, escorted by his fleet of kujira. He is coming here: to my childhood home, to my castle where no gaijin has ever set foot, and here will take place the final battle to preserve Nippon. He will attempt to gain entry to our most sacred shrine deep in the heart of the castle and perform his magic, his trick, ending our world.

We will stop him. We will destroy him once and for all.

So swears Tenno Heika Komei, one hundred and twenty-first Emperor of Nippon.

Josh: Setting The Stakes

In addition to the cell phone issue, I want to talk to your uncles personally, Yoshida. We're going to need their help, and it's time to see what forces we can rally.

Here's our State of the Union, so to speak (painting from ralphbakshi.com):

The Magician is coming to Japan. When he gets here, he'll perform some kind of "trick" that will- as far as we can gather- end the world as we know it. With what we've seen of his power so far, it seems reasonable to assume that he can actually do it. Why it has to be in Japan, I don't know, but he will come, and I imagine he'll bring friends.

We are not without weapons. The Magician's knife can actually hurt his people as opposed to other, more conventional arms. The bingo charms have the power to kill as well, at least against the animals he controls.

We need to know where in Japan he's going. Can he perform his trick anywhere in Japan? If so, we've got a hell of a lot of ground to cover. From Leopold's post we know this:

"...he will perform a trick. He will use the charms, his knife, a rabbit and his own blood, though his body contains no blood any longer, if it ever did. It is quite probably too late to stop the charms, but the knife and his blood may yet be within your grasp. Keep them separate and failing that, use Yoshida's formula."

Well, we've already decided not to separate the knife and the charms because we don't want to let them out of our sight, and if we use the knife in combination with the charms it's a very effective weapon. And we've destroyed the Calicivirus formula already so that's not an option (killing virtually everyone in the world? Yeah, didn't seem like that great of an idea). He can get a rabbit anywhere, but the blood part is still a mystery. I suppose there's a good chance he has a vial of it saved or something, but there's not much we can do about that at this point.

So we need help. The Magician has already shown that he prefers to travel by sea (and with the whales doing his bidding I don't blame him) so we need to watch the ports. For that we need Yoshida's uncles. Beyond that, we need to somehow find out where in particular he's going in Japan, but one thing at a time.

Japan is our last stand. Everything rests on this final battle. He's coming, and I intend to be ready.

Mary: The Magician's Knife

November 24th, 2008:

After Josh and I destroyed the Rabbit/Human Calicivirus down in Texas, I had put rabbits out of my mind completely, thinking that there was nothing more of interest involving them.

However, once Yoshida brought them up again, I took another look at the Magician's knife. We'd mentioned before that it was oddly curved, and I did a quick search to see if I could find a knife that had the same shape, finding one in a matter of moments (sample photo below).

It's a rabbit-skinning knife.

Pierce: Shipment Received

I have the package. Thank you for doing the right thing. I never believed that you had any intention of actually creating the virus using the formula, but it was simply far too dangerous to go another moment with it out in the open as it could have fallen into the wrong hands.

I realize that we didn't have the most pleasant of introductions, so let's begin again. For the purposes of this archive you can call me Agent Pierce. Three years ago I became aware of Doctor Shigekazu Yoshida's "studies" in Atlanta, where he had insinuated himself into the workings of the Centers For Disease Control. I suspected that together with his assistant Mr. Tanaka, Yoshida was merely using the Centers' data for his own purposes, that of creating a new virus for use as a weapon. The information I possessed had been gained through means that were unsuitable for use in court, and my superiors were uninterested in pursuing the case as strongly as I was, mainly because they couldn't comprehend the science and because frankly if the alleged perpetrator isn't of Middle Eastern decent they tend to be indifferent these days.

Nevertheless I continued steadily attempting to build a case, and just when I thought I had him locked in he was killed in the hit and run crash. I did what I could to find whatever work he may have left behind, and after reading these archives I see that his son Kisho knew there was a hidden repository, though he obviously was in no hurry to recover them, not knowing what they were and having little interest in what he believed was his father's work. I believe it was simply Kisho's natural contrariness that led him to keep this information to himself, not a desire to do harm to others.

Since then the case remained dormant as there were no further leads. Still, I made sure that I kept my ears out should I have misjudged Kisho's involvement. Though he had only just turned eighteen, I made arrangements to be made aware should he say key words over the phone. That's when I was alerted to the call from Miss Stroud and from there your activities have been quite pronounced.

Mr. Howland, based on everything I've seen and read, I tend to believe in your innocence. That in mind, I'm not sure a judge and jury would see it the same way, especially down in Georgia. I'm officially recommending that you turn yourself in. Officially and for the record, I believe you should do that, and when I finish sending this post I will be notifying the authorities down in Texas as to your whereabouts (you did mention these time-stamps aren't working, didn't you?). With the new, falsified I.D.'s in your possession and your significant resources you might be able to escape. My only hope is that the two of you don't charter a small plane from an independent airfield and fly to another state as that would make the manhunt far more difficult. From there you could press on to one of the coasts and rent a Learjet, making your way to the Pacific where you could, with luck, locate the murder weapon. Officially, this would be tragic. Worst of luck to you.

As to all the absolute insanity that I've read in these pages, I can't imagine what's true and what isn't. It's abundantly clear that you believe it, and it ties together loosely with the facts I've gathered on my own, but I'm reserving judgment.

That being said, for the sake of finding this "Magician" and the man calling himself Hollis, I believe we should proceed as if it were true. While Josh and Mary focus on recovering the knife, I think we should be proactive. Leonard/Leopold mentioned a number of names (which I've run through databases and come up with nothing) but he also mentioned a place. He spoke of a man named "Taras" in Kiev. Kiev isn't that large a city, so I believe we should send someone in to see if we can find him. I have a man in mind, though he should only be given a code that will allow him to post, not read what has already been written here. This "Taras" was mentioned in the same breath as Hollis, so I'm going to assume that he is staggeringly dangerous. Regardless, this Magician and Hollis have always picked the time and place of our encounters, so I believe it's about time we turned the tables.

Opinions? Ideas?

Pierce: Stay put

I'll be at Cynthia's house waiting. If that package doesn't arrive by morning all Hell is going to come down on you two. Stay where you are.

Yoshida, I'm not using the same name in this, but I'm the agent you spoke to a year or so ago regarding the virus. I'm glad you seemed to have nothing to do with its creation as you said, but you are still culpable for not turning in Mr. Howland and Miss Stroud when you had the chance. You had better hope that box arrives in the morning as your government would not hesitate to extradite you.

Mary: Complying

October 31, 2008: We stopped off at an Office Depot just outside of Weatherford, Texas and bought a shredder, then checked into a Motel and spent the next hour or so destroying the Human Calicivirus formula.

We were going to do it anyway, we just hadn't had the opportunity as we were running for our freedom. Believe me, Josh and I were as anxious to destroy that formula as you were. We couldn't get it in under the wire for today's mail, so we'll send it first thing in the morning, Agent Pierce. Please don't take Mrs. Howland and Jeff into custody, we are complying fully.

Pierce: Cease And Desist

Joshua Howland and Mary Stroud, you have one chance and one chance only. Proceed immediately to an office supply store and purchase a large shredding machine. Shred every single page in Doctor Yoshida's file box and ship the destroyed remains to Cynthia's house care of Agent Pierce. There will be no negotiations or bargaining.

Cynthia may be under the impression that her life cannot get any worse, but as I think we all know, she's mistaken. Life in a mansion and life in a penitentiary serving time as an accessory could not be more different, even in her condition.

Do the right thing and do it now. You will be found and you will be caught, and in the meantime Cynthia and even Jeff will be put under arrest if I don't get those shredded files by tomorrow morning.

Cynthia: Lacesso

The agent from Homeland Security refuses to relent, rightly suspecting me of remaining in contact with Joshua. I have yet another interview with him early tomorrow morning. The questions he is asking and the direction his interrogation is probing leads me to believe that his focus is on the elder Doctor Yoshida's research on the human Calicivirus project. I am pondering allowing him access to this archive as it clearly places the blame for the creation of the virus on three dead men: Yoshida, Leonard and my husband. If the agent believes even part of this record, he might be a very valuable ally with the potential to clear our names. It would be a considerable gamble, but the upside is too significant to ignore. At worst he will simply arrest me on the spot, and this holds no great threat to me as I am already a prisoner of my own body.

Should the agent be inclined to disagree with our assertion of innocence, the two of you should do your best to remain hidden. First thing in the morning check out of the hotel and continue traveling westward. Do not post your location, merely continue your march without leaving a paper trail. Use the identification blanks to forge a new identity for Miss Stroud and purchase a new vehicle paying cash.

I do not know how much of Leonard's post was true and how much was a fabrication of his own mind, but having experienced a good deal of doubt concerning my own mental stability of late, I am of the inclination to take most of what he wrote as at least partially credible. He believed that it was important to recover the murder weapon- the Magician's knife- and it is my opinion that that should be our paramount priority. Whether he was correct or not in his assumptions, the acquisition of evidence in the murder of Mrs. Walentowicz is still a valid goal.

I find myself struggling with placing my innermost thoughts and feelings down in this journal, but as Joshua has reminded me in the past, I cannot ask you to do something I am unwilling to do myself. I shall endeavor to rise above my reticence and communicate what are, for me, subjects I would not under normal circumstances broach in any company.

To wit: if Leonard asked my husband Scott to fund Yoshida's Calicivirus project without informing him what it was he was becoming an accessory to, I will never forgive him for it. While it seems obvious that Leonard had been driven insane in the very last moments of his life, the project went on over the course of years, and he had every chance to amend his decision. He was wise to take the coward's way out, for I would have spent the rest of my own life making every effort to punish him for the loss of my husband. I truly believe that if Scott had not been enmeshed in this filthy business via Leonard/Leopold then he would still be alive today. For this, I will always despise him.

Leopold: Valediction

My thoughts grow more scattered and I do not have long. If there is such a thing as a benevolent God or Gods, my single desperate prayer is that I am allowed to stay dead. To begin:

In attempting to explain the events that led her to contact me and ask for my help, Cynthia eventually decided to allow me access to this archive, and for this I am most grateful. I write this valediction while flying on my golden, gleaming, private jet, soaring through light blue skies over dark blue, glittering seas, and while most would consider the sight beautiful or even breathtaking, I for one care not a whit for it. The world is an ancient, used-up thing, running down to its final hours and I both cannot stand to see it grow another minute older and at the same time cannot bear to watch it die. I suppose I am a coward. It is why I became who I am and why I have not the stomach to fight an unwinnable battle now.

While I can, I shall inform you of what you face, or more properly what faces you. I trust you will find my knowledge of the matter to be as pathetically limited and useless as I have, and probably even moreso as my faculties desert me.

He is old... far older than myself or Hollis or Nhlakanipho Mabuza or Taras the Mutineer or Crayton or even the Red Lady of Babil, who is so old she no longer remembers her own name. He is older than all of his creations combined, and he changes his name with every new conquest. The human soul is not meant to be trapped inside a host for longer than a few hundred years. It gets pulled taut and stretched so thin that it feels as though you can see through it, the world tinted with a filthy gray haze.

Is he even human any more? Was he ever?

My mind is going... I know that now. He is withdrawing his favour, allowing me to unravel because he knows that I have broken my oath to him. There is so much I want and need to tell you, but it is all a swirling, glittering dust in my brain.

Before I can forget or before I am forced to forget, I tell you this despite knowing that any endeavor to stop him is almost certainly doomed: he will perform a trick. He will use the charms, his knife, a rabbit and his own blood, though his body contains no blood any longer, if it ever did. It is quite probably too late to stop the charms, but the knife and his blood may yet be within your grasp. Keep them separate and failing that, use Yoshida's formula.

There are twenty-five million American dollars in a Swiss bank account under the name "Joshua Frederick". Falsified driver's licenses and passports under that name are being delivered to your hotel now.

Some barriers are beginning to erode in anticipation of what is to come. You will hear things... comments coming from the mouths of those who speak them but do not think them. Expect this phenomenon to increase in the days ahead and try to pay it little mind as most of the bleed-through thoughts will be gibberish.


I willingly ceded him my homeland and was then granted dominion over it in the next world when it was renewed; I swore my oath because someone else would have anyway and I thought I could use the power to make things better, but whenever I tried of course it always went wrong. Women and children... I wanted to pass laws protecting them but was defeated. He has a particular hatred for women, though I know not why and neither did Taras when I asked him in Kiev.

I feel it now, his gaze upon me... there can be no question that he knows, that he is doing this to my mind from afar. I had such vast power, such wealth and endless grinning slaves, but it was I who was the slave, though I wore a crown.

Oh, God, Scott I didn't know... I hoped he could not, would not find out. I thought that if I kept you totally in the dark and asked you to do me the favor on faith that you might be safe. I had to end this, had to break the cycle, cut short the loop and pray that either time would play out as normal or simply end. I had hoped so foolishly that if you had supported Yoshida's efforts at a last-ditch failsafe plan he wouldn't notice. Sorry, so sorry, nothing but sorrow for you and for us all. You would think after so many generations it would be easier to accept the death of your own blood. Scott, please forgive me and forget that favor I asked you- Doctor Yoshida will find funding on his own somehow. Forget the favor. Scott, do me a favor and send me photographs of that newborn son of yours. Please do. Please do not send the check. Nevermind, please. Void, void, void, void please write void on the check if you would, my second cousin my great, great, great grandson, my blood, your blood, your blood if you wouldn't mind, mind, mind my mind is going goddamn you to hell you beast I will fight for this for one more minute I will be myself and sign my name and write my will and use my will and please God let me stay dead this time I'm so sorry I'm I am I am I remain for this cycle and next and forward through all eternity, eternally, eternally yours,

Eternally Yours,


Leopold George Christian Frederick, Prince of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, Duke of Saxony, King of the Belgians

Josh: The Difference Between A "Hotel" And A "Motel": My Will To Live

So, so, so tired. Words can't express. Mom, we took your advice, got our stuff from the hotel (including the file box containing the Human Calicivirus-you know, the formula for a virus that could potentially wipe out all human life on Earth? Seemed kinda important) and motored out of Atlanta. Mary and I took turns driving and we just checked in to a Motel 6 in Dallas. We thought we'd downgrade to keep a low profile. The Dallas Motel 6 is exactly like the Atlanta Ritz Carlton except instead of classic, gold-inlaid Venetian wallpaper over soundproofed walls it has whitewashed cinder blocks, and instead of being greeted by a beautiful, dark-haired Spanish maid when you open your hotel room door, you're faced instead with a three-foot cockroach holding a gun. I'm thinking of inviting Hollis here just so I can give him our room and depress him to death.

The one bright spot was when we checked in I sidled up to the blond, bored desk clerk and asked, "Hey, you know the actor who played the bad guy in Die Hard? Do you know who that is? I'll take the room either way, but nail this and you win an extra ten bucks."

She stared at me blankly and intoned, "I heart Alan Rickman."

Did I do an awkward, exhausted, white-man, fist-pump-riddled victory dance right there in the lobby? I think you know me well enough by now to know the embarrassing answer to that. Mary's punch on my arm was just hard enough to not be considered "playful".

We're going to pass out for hopefully the entire day, so just leave a message regarding whatever arrangements you're going to make for us moneywise.

And Mom, obviously these dates being wrong is beyond weird, but given everything I've seen and heard over the past week I'm just going to go ahead and give you the benefit of the doubt. You've earned it, and my faith in what passes for reality has been shaken just enough to pretty much believe anything at this point. As long as you keep my birthday straight I'm on board. I'll post again when we wake up.

Josh: You Can't Tell The Players Without A Scorecard, So I'm Making A Scorecard

Okay, time out. I feel like events are absolutely spinning out of control here and I need to get a handle on them. To recap and provide a time line (and correct me if any of this is out of whack, I may not be entirely accurate as I was just blown up last night):

-Over a decade ago, Doctor Shigekazu Yoshida and his assistant Tanaka begin experimenting with the Rabbit Calicivirus on Wardang Island, Australia, secretly releasing the infected test-subjects onto the continent and wiping out ninety-five percent of the rabbit population. He does this as a dry run to see how the virus would work if adapted for humans.

-Doctor Shigekazu Yoshida moves to Atlanta, Georgia and gains access to the Centers For Disease Control, or CDC (at right. Put up a boring, official government seal, eh, Mary? Well, two can play at that game!) This allows him to work to perfect the human Calicivirus strain with financial aid from (and I still find this just about impossible to believe) my father, Scott Howland.

-As Shigekazu and Tanaka are about to fly back to Japan with the formula that will essentially kill all human life on Earth, their car is hit by a semi truck. Doctor Shigekazu Yoshida is killed instantly while Tanaka is dragged off into the backwoods of a small town called Hollis Crossroads by The Old Man (I'm just going to go ahead and capitalize it. I thought of calling him "The Southern Gentleman" or "Colonel Sanders" or something, but frankly having dealt with him first-hand I'm way too terrified of him to get cute with a nickname). The Old Man rams a chisel into Tanaka's spine to paralyze him from the neck down, then spends the next year (!) teaching him to speak English.

-Meanwhile, six months or so later in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, a semi truck broadsides my parent's car, killing my father Scott and paralyzing my mother Cynthia from the neck down. This is the one that I cannot wrap my head around. The deliberate act six months before was to paralyze Tanaka... the random act six months later paralyzes my mother in precisely the same way.

-The aftermath of the attack is witnessed by Mrs. Justina Walentowicz, who just happens to be one of, if not the luckiest Bingo player in the state (B.I.N.G.O., B.I.N.G.O., B.I.N.G.O. and B.I.N.G.O. was his name-O. Good, hopefully now it's stuck in your head, too).

-My mom and I start investigating the crash, hiring Mary Stroud, a P.I. from Madison, Wisconsin. Mrs. Walentowicz gets interviewed a couple of times, then she's horrifically murdered, her head pulled down into her abdomen and up through a hole cut in her stomach. In her smiling mouth is a photograph of the semi truck she thought she saw drive away from the crash. Pushed up and into her brain is a freshly amputated rabbit's foot infected with the Calicivirus.

-In researching the rabbit's foot and trying to narrow down where it came from, we contact Wardang island and acquire the number for Doctor Shigekazu Yoshida's son, Kisho. In addition to having a charming, bubbly personality, Kisho is set to identify the virus of that particular rabbit's foot and determine which continent it came from (and by the way, I'm ready to just call that one over and say it came from Wardang Island. Test away, but I have no doubt). In conversation with Kisho, we find out about his father and the semi truck attack.

-I fly down to Atlanta to get Shigekazu's notes on what we think are the rabbit Calicivirus and also to poke around a bit and get more information on his murder. Mary stays in Milwaukee to keep in touch with Detective Ward, the officer in charge of the Walentowicz case, and also secretly to investigate my family, her own employers (sneaky monkey).

-While recovering Shigekazu's research, a man with an Australian accent leaves me a note giving an address in a small town called Hollis Crossroads and a reference to Tanaka. Meanwhile, Mary discovers that my father wrote Shigekazu a check for three million dollars.

-Sh*t gets weird in Hollis Crossroads to say the very least. What up until this point I considered to be a murder investigation turned into an absolute horror show. So much happened out at that damn house I think I'm going to spend years unraveling it and undoubtedly trying to suppress it. The Old Man killed my bodyguard and essentially framed me for it, Tanaka was unknowingly covered with centipedes (and was there special meaning behind that? I mean, it was beyond creepy and gives me the heebie-jeebies just thinking about it, but did they have some significance beyond that?) and The Old Man's assistants killed Tanaka and themselves all while wearing the same smile Mrs. Walentowicz had (I believe I called it one part amused, one part amazed and one part batsh*t crazy. I'm standing by that description). Finally, we learned beyond a shadow of a doubt that I way-overuse parentheses (true).

-Finally, The Old Man was humming the bingo song (was his name-O) which, along with the matching smiles reminded us of poor Mrs. Walentowicz. Mary called her daughter, found out just how awesome a bingo player she really was and learned that she had been given a special offer to join a retirement community for great bingo players only: a rest home that just happened to be located in Hollis Crossroads. Mary and I are going to go and check it out tonight under the pretense of a married couple considering putting her mother in the home.


The thing I can't stop thinking about is the fact that the murderer driving the semi (Let's just call him The Driver from now on, k?) who killed both my and Kisho's father probably saved the world by doing so. Whoever he is, he and The Old Man are cold-blooded murderers and utter monsters... but are they really the good guys here? I'm going to do my best to bring them to justice, but is that even really the right thing to do?

Also, things happened at that house that I cannot begin to explain. Was most of it a trick somehow? A carefully crafted illusion? Or was it something more? If it was... if it was really what I think it was, then what chance do we have?

Okay, I feel more up to speed. Not better, particularly, but more up to speed. Time in.

Yoshida: 8

Stroud has read me the file. I only needed two lines of code to recognize that the Rabbit Calicivirus has been strengthened and adapted to infect the human race. I cannot comprehend why my father would do such a thing, but I cannot deny that he did it.

Whoever plowed that truck into my father's car may have saved our entire species.

Josh: The Old Man

This post has my name in the title, but Mary is playing secretary and taking dictation for me as my injuries tend to make typing difficult. We made it to Atlanta and have checked in to a different hotel (The Ritz-Carlton) under Mary's name, as mine might draw the wrong kind of attention. It's almost midnight and I'm beyond exhausted, but I have to get this down before the details escape me.

It's been the longest twenty-four hours of my life, so strap in, this is going to take a while to tell. If you don't believe it, I absolutely understand, because I was there, I saw it happen and even I'm skeptical.

A note on format: there's quite a bit of "dialog" in here, and both Mary and I have been struggling with how to write that out in these posts. We've sort of been putting it in "book form", where we just write down what people said as if you were reading it in a story. It's certainly weird to do when it's your own life, but I think both of us feel that it puts you (the reader) more in our position, and lets you know what events were actually like. Obviously, these are our impressions and recollections of what was said- it's not like we're remembering conversations verbatim, so don't take every word as Gospel. It's a work in progress, so if anyone has a suggestion for a better way to do it, let me know. I might mess around with a screenplay format and see if that works, I don't know-

(How long will you be stalling before you get to what happened, Josh?- Mary)

Mary wrote that. Cruel woman, taking advantage of the non-typing infirm. Fine, here we go.

Last night after I finished posting I drove my rental car over to the offices of Executive V.I.P. Security in downtown Atlanta, filled out seemingly a dozen forms and underwent a credit check. They were (rightfully) concerned about the fact that I needed a bodyguard on such short notice, and that my description of my situation was both menacing and vague. Finally, upon receiving a sizable "hazard pay" bonus but still with obvious reservations they assigned me a bodyguard and sent us on our way.

My bodyguard was black, bald, squat and without anything resembling a neck. He was only about six feet in height, but seemed equally wide, and I was thankful I'd decided to rent a luxury sedan instead of a compact. His name was Adalius, and any thoughts I had about him being all brawn and no brain were dispelled on the walk to the car.


ADALIUS: So, what... you a rich white boy like to dress down in flannel and jeans and all that sh*t so you don't look rich and seem like just another dude, huh? Probably got all that liberal white guilt about black folk, am I right? Sh*t, I know I'm right, baby.

ME: That's not bad.

ADALIUS: You need me to drive?

ME: I guess not.

ADALIUS: Fire it up, then. See, I knew if I said, "You need me to drive", you'd be all like, "Uh... I better say I don't because otherwise it'll seem like a racial thing", even though you really did want me to drive, probably 'cause I know Atlanta and you don't.

Me: Actually, why don't you drive-

ADALIUS: It's too late for that sh*t, motherf*cker, you driving. (Laughs) I'll work the radio, you don't know these stations, know what I mean? You probably want to smoke some reefer, too, all that flannel. You got any weed?

Me: (Starting the car) Uh, no... not on me-

ADALIUS: I know where we can hook you up. Drive, baby, I got your back. You with Adalius now, you ain't got sh*it to worry about.


We drove for a good hour and a half in the darkness, rolling out of Atlanta and southwest toward Alabama. The expressway gave way to a two-lane highway, which then became a simple asphalt road, the streetlights becoming more and more sparse. Adalius spent his time punching buttons on the radio, trying to find the R&B stations that had the furthest range and regaling me with stories of the time he did security for rapper Jay-Z and witnessed first hand the greatest sight he had ever been blessed to see.


ADALIUS: Beyonce's booty is more than just a physical manifestation of perfection, baby- that sh*t is supernatural! That ass got its own aura, know what I mean? Goddamn, did this road just turn into dirt? It's a good thing I'm packing, know what I mean? These rednecks ain't particularly fond of black folks, especially not one as pretty as me. Tell me again how this ain't a drug deal.

ME: This is not a drug deal.

ADALIUS: F*ck you, it ain't. If this is a drug deal, I'm joining their side, you know what I mean? Don't f*ck me on this, Josh.

ME: I swear to God this is not a drug deal. Honestly, I don't really know what it is. I'm just here to get some answers, that's all.

ADALIUS: This shit is dangerous, I can feel it.

ME: Maybe. If I didn't think it could get weird, I wouldn't have hired you, right?


He nodded uneasily, leaning forward in his seat to squint out into the darkness. One bend in the road later, we drove up to the address, a once-majestic three-story home with peeling paint and moss creeping up past the first floor windows. All the shades were drawn, though we could see faint light from inside around the edges. We got out of the car silently, keeping the headlights on and pointed toward the front door. The only sound was the muffled chittering of bugs and our own, nervous breathing. I started walking slowly toward the house, Adalius falling in behind me.

The porch was slanted and half-rotted, a rusty hatchet inexplicably stuck into the hand-rail. I put a hesitant foot down on the first step, listened as it creaked ominously and stepped back quickly. Then I cupped my hands to my mouth and shouted, "Hello? Is anyone there? Hello?"

There was a pause, then from inside the house came a frantic, terrified yell. "Help! Help me, I beg you! Help! Help!" The words came with a thick Japanese accent and just kept coming, the cries for help continuing on and becoming more frightened.

I looked back at Adalius to see him shaking his head. "F*ck that. Cop time." he said, and pulled out his cellphone. He grit his teeth, muttering, "No signal. You?" I checked the Blackberry and couldn't dredge up a hint of a connection.


ADALIUS: I ain't no S.W.A.T. team. This ain't my thing.

ME: You can hear him. That guy's not faking. Come on, we'll go in together. I don't like it either, but... (motions toward the direction of the voice)

ADALIUS: (Pauses as we listen to the cries for help) F*ck it, then. Alright. Take that hatchet.

ME: What?

ADALIUS: Take the blade. I can't watch your back and do this at the same time. Back me up or I'm sitting my ass in the car.


He pulled his gun, a small, black automatic pistol while I wrenched the hatchet out of the porch's soft wood. The hatchet may have been rusty and old, but a quick, painful run of my thumb across its edge told me it was razor sharp. Out of the corner of my eye I saw either a small rodent or a large insect scurry off the edge of the porch as Adalius gingerly walked up the steps. I yelled, "We're coming! Hold on!"

Immediately we heard, "Thank you! Thank you! I am here! Be careful, he's-" the voice stopped, muffled, and Adalius and I exchanged looks. He grit his teeth, took the safety off his pistol and warily proceeded over the threshold, pushing the front door aside with his free hand. The foyer was dark and smelled of mold, funneling down into a long, straight hallway lined with darkened doorways. The layout of the house was unusual, the three-story quasi-mansion at some point long ago seemingly having been converted into a now mostly-vacant boardinghouse. At the end of the corridor we saw light coming from under doors on the left and right. All was quiet except for the groaning of the floorboards underneath our feet. We glanced on either side of us through the open doorways into the first rooms, but both were pitch dark.

As Adalius passed the first set of darkened doors, I saw a figure dart out of the room on the right, and before I could react he grabbed me from behind, one arm crossed over my chest, the other locked down onto my right hand, clenching over my fingers and keeping my grip tight on the hatchet. I let out a stunned gasp and Adalius turned around, his look annoyed. "What-" I was tossed around like a doll-like one of those stuffed dance partners used to teach the tango. Whoever was behind me pulled back my hand and with sudden, startling ferocity swung the hatchet into Adalius' skull, the blade smashing down and burying itself up to the hilt in his brain.

He fell with heavy thud and clatter, and whoever held me released me suddenly, pushing me into the doorway on the left with surprising gentleness. I stood in the darkness, stunned, reeling and cradling my right wrist. It was either sprained or broken, but before I could determine which I saw my attacker bend down and drag Adalius' body effortlessly out of the front door and down the porch steps. Staggering back into the hallway shell shocked and petrified with fear, I felt my foot kick something heavy and small, and knew immediately what it was. I reached down with my left hand, picked up Adalius' pistol and weaved my way back outside.

Adalius' killer had pulled his body down to the ground, where it lay in an awkward heap, illuminated by the rental car's headlights. The killer stood over him, silhouetted by the beams, but even by his shadow I could tell that his hand was darting into his jacket. "Don't!" I yelled, the gun firing mostly by accident. I shot wide-right, a puff of dirt jetting up from the ground behind him. Gunsmoke hung in the air between us, and I could see him slowly pull out a cigarette and put it in his mouth. When I shot at him he hadn't flinched at all.

His voice came out in a thick Southern drawl, all deep honey and molasses. "I see you found the hatchet." He lit a match and took a long drag off the cigarette, the flame illuminating his face in the darkness. I was astonished to see that he was old, at least sixty, his face deeply lined and his hair pure white. He wore a rumpled suit and tie, the fresh blood spattering his cuff seeming to glow in the glare of the headlights. "I thought you might. I do want you to know that it was never my intention to injure your wrist. My apologies, son. We are not perfect, much as we wish we were." His smile was somehow mocking and sincere at the same time, and as I tend to relate every real-life experience back to movies and TV, it felt for all intents and purposes like I was being f*cked with by Matlock.

"Why..." I stammered, my voice thick. "Who are you, and why-"

"Mr. Tanaka is waiting for you, Mr. Howland. He has waited quite a while. Would you care to adjourn inside?" He waved toward the house with his cigarette, the gesture both languid and theatrical.

I thought a moment, then nodded, motioning for him to go first. He did, sauntering across the dirt in front of the porch and up the stairs past me. I kept the gun pointed at his back the entire time, careful to keep my finger off the trigger to avoid a repeat of my accidental firing earlier. We walked down the hallway and he turned to the last door on the left, opening it. The light from the room hit him, and I was astounded to see that he was only about five and a half feet tall with a slight build. He strode inside with me right behind him, and I openly gaped when what I saw reminded me of home.

A Japanese man I assumed was Tanaka laid in a bed covered by a brown, stained, thick, paisley-patterned comforter. The walls were covered in ancient, striped wallpaper and there was a cheap, country-craft fair-quality painting of whales spewing water through blow holes opposite the bed. Sitting next to the bed in a wooden chair was a young black woman with wild, frizzy hair wearing a worn, frayed, dark blue dress. On a chair at the foot of the bed sat a young black man wearing a dark blue shirt and jeans. Even at a glance it was obvious they were siblings. Both wore the same smile: equal parts amused, amazed and batsh*t crazy. The Japanese man was as terrified as anyone I had ever seen, the black woman's hand clamped over his mouth. As I entered the room, she removed it and he began sobbing and babbling, so terrified he forgot himself and spoke nothing but Japanese. I kept the gun on the old man who stepped next to the black woman, but my eyes were drawn to the beeping machines that surrounded the bed and were attached by various tubes and wires to Mr. Tanaka: they were the same medical equipment required to keep my mother alive.

The old man spoke, raising his voice to be heard. "English, Mr. Tanaka. Remember, sir? English, if you please. That's a good man." Tanaka's eyes locked on to the old man, his crazed yells dying in his throat. The old man motioned for the black woman to rise from her chair, which she did. "Do be a lamb and sit in the corner with your brother, away from Mr. Howland and Mr. Tanaka so they may be allowed to concentrate on their conversation, if you would." The woman and her brother both did as they were told, walking to the far, dusty corner of the bedroom and sitting patiently on the floor, their smiles never wavering. Their eyes stayed on the old man. He sat in the chair at the foot of the bed and leaned back, puffing on his cigarette and inviting me with a cheery wave to sit down next to Tanaka.

Warily, I made my way across the room and sat down at Tanaka's bedside, keeping my gun on the old man. "Make a move and I shoot. Understand?"

He nodded, grinning slyly. "Having experienced your marksmanship once tonight, I live in fear for the plaster on the wall behind me." Giving a wink, he added, "But your meaning is heard and understood. You have nothing to fear from me, I assure you. I have not spent all this time providing instruction to Mr. Tanaka in the English language merely to deny him the opportunity to speak it."

I turned to Tanaka, dumbfounded. "He taught you English? Here?" Tanaka nodded.


TANAKA: I have been held prisoner here for... I do not know how long. A year? Two? Please to keep pointing gun at him.

ME: Last I heard you quit working for Doctor Yoshida. What happened?

TANAKA: Crash. Yoshida-san and I drove, and big truck hit car. Doctor died right away, I have some cuts, blemishes?

OLD MAN: Bruises.

TANAKA: I am pulled from car by... them. They were not the truck driver, he drive away. They bring me back to this place, feed me, bandages. He says, "Need surgery". They bring me to kitchen, put me on table, face down. I tell them no, I am fine, but they take off clothes, hold me down. He... he takes knife, knife but flat on end...

OLD MAN: Chisel.

TANAKA: He puts it on my back, I feel how sharp. I beg him, whatever he is going to do, please no, please do not. Those two in corner and a third hold me down, I struggle, but cannot get loose. He does not use hammer. He pushes only with hand, I scream and scream and he pushes it into my flesh, into my back, deeper and deeper. I feel blood pouring down my sides, blood flowing over my neck and up my chin and he pushes. Then I feel nothing. Nothing ever again below neck. Oh, God, nothing, nothing.

ME: It's alright, I'm going to get you out of here. I'm going to get you to a hospital.

OLD MAN: Tell him about your work.

ME: Shut the f*ck up.

OLD MAN: Tell him, Mr. Tanaka.

TANAKA: I... I work for Doctor Yoshida, help on Wardang Island with rabbits. Infected. Doctor Yoshida knows, I only assistant.

OLD MAN: You are too modest, sir. Tell him about your work.

TANAKA: It is... is work with rabbits. With the virus.

ME: What was it? You can tell me.

TANAKA: The rabbits were... they were test, dry run. He let rabbits loose on mainland.

ME: Yoshida let the rabbits loose on purpose? He did it? Infected all of Australia with the Calicivirus?

TANAKA: Hai. Yes. He and I. Then to America, to Atlanta for further research at CDC, the headquarters. Mutation of virus, strengthening and... what is word, clothes...

OLD MAN: Tailoring. Heh, clothes, tailoring. Pray, continue.

ME: CDC, that's, what-the Center for Disease Control? That's in Atlanta?

TANAKA: Yes. We worked... we were almost finished. We were to leave back for Japan when there was the crash.

ME: Finished with what? Tailoring what?

TANAKA: You said you would take me. To hospital. To help.

ME: I will. What were you doing?

TANAKA: Adapting Calicivirus for humans. Please do not leave me here. Please, I beg of you-

ME: People? On people? Do you know what that virus does? Are you f*cking crazy? That damn thing has a ninety-five percent death rate in rabbits!

OLD MAN: Ninety-nine plus in people, with the modifications the gentlemen made. A remarkable improvement. Pardon the interruption.

ME: What the hell? What in the hell? You and Yoshida were going to kill almost everyone on the planet? Why in God's name... what were you thinking?


Just then, an absolutely enormous, glistening centipede skittered over the other side of Tanaka's pillow and right over his face. It was as long as a flashlight. He and I screamed at the same time. Before I could even react, it ran down Tanaka's neck and under the covers. Tanaka screeched for me to kill it, his head shaking and gyrating in a useless, panicked attempt to somehow move his paralysed body. Still trying to keep the gun on the old man, I reached down with my sprained right hand and slowly lifted up the blanket in the middle of the bed. He was naked, his flesh pale where he still had skin. The bed underneath the thick comforter was writhing with centipedes, at least fifty of them scuttling over each other. Seeing my face, he asked me if I saw the centipede-begged me to please find it and kill it as he couldn't bear to think of such a thing crawling over him in the night.

At this point the old man rose and moved so swiftly that he was out of the room almost before I knew he was gone. I yelled and ran after him, charging down the hallway a few footsteps behind as Tanaka's bellows echoed off the walls. In moments I was leaping off the front porch, aiming my gun at the old man and screaming for him to stop before noticing that he already had. He stood where he had before, casting his shadow over Adalius's corpse.

I was almost out of breath from sprinting from the house, but his voice was as smooth and easy as ever. "Once I had a dream. There were these old slave women down by an old, mammoth, dead tree. As I approached, one of the women held up a little baby, not more than three months old. It slept as she lifted it gently up, and I noticed that hanging down from the branch above was a noose. She placed the baby's head into the noose, tightened it and let it go. The baby's face grew red, then purple-"

"Shut up! Shut up, I am going to shoot you!"

He continued, ignoring me, "-And when I asked her what she was doing, she turned to me and said as matter-of-factly as you please, 'We're hanging the babies'. I looked around and hanging from every branch was a tiny dead body." He lit another cigarette as my pistol shook in his face. "Mr. Tanaka's kind will come around, Mr. Howland. Have no fear. Their kind will be far easier to tolerate in the next world."

I laughed. "An Evangalist and a racist. The old magical combination. Get back inside the house-I'm taking Tanaka to a hospital and I'm not letting you out of my sight, you sick bastard." The old man looked at me and shook his head slowly, smiling. He started humming a tune-some children's song-and from his right sleeve a smaller centipede about two inches in length poked its head out, waved its antennae around testing the air and darted back in. I stared for a long moment, then refocused. "I said march." Again, he shook his head. I pointed the gun at his kneecap and gave him a questioning look. He kept smiling. I fired.

Saying that I shot out his kneecap and he went down would be wrong-it was more that I shot out his kneecap and he just decided to sit down, with all due grace. I started to turn to go back inside, but stopped and asked, "Why tell me that story about the babies and the tree?"

Shrugging, he said, "Only to delay you." From inside, Tanaka's yells had turned to full-on shrieks. I cursed and sprinted up the stairs back inside, tearing down the long hallway and left into Tanaka's room. The room stunk of something, and the black woman was now laying next to a red-faced Tanaka in the bed. Her brother was gone. It took a moment to realize that Tanaka and the girl were soaking wet, and the second she struck the match I recognized the smell: gasoline.

In a split second the bed was engulfed in flames, the whoosh of the fire drowning out Tanaka's agonized wails. Driven from the room by the heat and smoke, I blundered back down the hall and fell down the front steps. Jumping up as fast as I could to keep from being overpowered by the old man in case he had crawled back toward the direction of the house, I was disappointed to find no sign of him at all.

Coughing, my wrist hurting and my mind reeling, I shuffled over to the car, sparing only a quick glance at Adelius, his eyes frozen open in the headlights. Fumbling for the car keys, I had my hand on the door handle before I realized there was someone sitting in the driver's seat with the window rolled up. It was the black girl's brother, his hands on the wheel at ten and two, staring up at me with the same smile as before; the same smile-I realize now-that was on Mrs. Walentowicz's cold, dead face when we found her. As I stared at him, dumbstruck, I jumped when the car's cigarette lighter popped from it's holder in the ashtray next to him. I remember thinking, they still make cars with those? when he pulled it out and held the glowing, red, concentric circles up to his face. "No..." I mumbled. "No, I can't take any more. Don't..." Slowly, deliberately, he pushed the car's molten-hot cigarette lighter into his open left eye, the cornea sizzling with a sound I could hear even through the glass. I felt the bile rise in my throat and began to gag when I noticed that he also was soaking wet, a large, round, red, metal can set on the passenger seat beside him.

Turning to run, my ears were deafened by a thunderous sound and I was blasted away from the car and into the woods, careening off a tree and coming to a charred, smoky rest in the brush. I crawled mindlessly, tearing my clothes and shredding my hands on the thorny undergrowth in my desperate, relentless drive to get away, anywhere, as far as possible and as fast as I could. Finally, after I don't know how long, I finally passed out, curled up into the fetal position and shivering, my teeth chattering. I was almost positive I had suffered a concussion in the explosion, and I remember reading that the one thing you couldn't do with a concussion is fall unconscious, but at that point I really could not have cared less.

I must have been out of it for almost the entire day, because when I woke up I thought it was dawn but when I checked my watch I saw it was already dusk. I scrambled through the undergrowth of the forest until I finally saw an old house with a pickup truck parked in the dirt driveway. I got in, found the keys were in the ignition and took off, heading back to Hollis Crossroads.


I can't expect any of you to believe what I've told you. Now, sitting here in this plush hotel room it all seems nightmarish, hazy and unreal, but I know what happened. I know what I saw. You might believe me, but the police never will. The security company was already suspicious of me when they assigned Adalius to the job, and my fingerprints are all over that hatchet-the old man never touched it. That's why I stole the pickup truck and ran. When they figure out that I wasn't the corpse in the rental car I'm going to be hunted down by every cop in the state.

I wish I had some conclusions or insight... some final thought to tie it all up. I don't. The only things I know is that Mary has way more of a temper and potty mouth than I thought, Yoshida won't be asked to give my eulogy when I actually do croak someday, and the second I finish this sentence I'm going to lay back on the bed, close my eyes and sleep for a month.