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.

Mary: Two Days To Kyoto

November 22nd, 2008:

Our sunshine is finally gone, covered over by a high, thin layer of gray clouds. It's growin*g colder as well, and our days of tanning on the deck appear over. Still, only two more days and we'll be arriving in Kyoto.

The whale watching has been phenomenal. Gazing at these majestic creatures as they cruise gracefully below the surface, you can't help but feel awed. And before you mention it, Yoshida, there is no harpoon on board. Bastard.

Mrs. Howland, is there any word on how Jeff is doing? Has Garrett been treating you decently? It's been a couple of days since we've heard from you and I'm becoming concer*ned.

One problem with our shipboard life has been this hum that the engine's been making. Mochizuki and Riku have been looking at it for the better part of an hour, but have yet to come up with a solution. After our encounter back on Wardang Island, I don't have to tell you how petrified I am of a breakdown and floating dead in the water.

Josh: The Liberator

When I volunteered to go down and search for the Liberator in Happy Farms Cove, Mary was dubious.


MARY: You know how to SCUBA dive? You?

ME: I'm rich, remember? I squeezed in lessons after my elephant polo matches and before my "How To Appear To Care About Minorities" classes.

MARY: You really did ride in normal polo matches.

ME: How did- oh. Detective. Right. Moving on. I know how to SCUBA, though. Not a big deal.

MARY: It is a big deal with what we're up against.

ME: Dylan and Lachlan won't know what to look for. They might see something down there that's fraught with portent and they'd swim right by it.

MARY: Fraught. You always sound like your mother when you get nervous. Fine, just be very, very careful. Come up at the first sign of trouble. (Pause) What did they teach in that minorities class anyway?

ME: Ha, sucker. Really rich people never take that class. They tell you it's the How To Appear To Care About Minorities class on the door, but inside it's really just more elephant polo. I do not sound like my mother.


After an hour of watching the clock at Keane's, Dylan finally returned just before nine with the SCUBA gear. Crayton was supposed to meet Mary at nine, which meant we were already running very short on time. Mary was anxious to get her hands on a firearm; we didn't risk trying to get her Glock through customs so she had had it shipped back to my mom's house in Milwaukee, but despite Keane's efforts all we had for protection was a speargun.

Dylan kept the mood light, cracking jokes and producing a smokable substance that I won't name because my mom is reading this (Mary did not take part-she made me write that). Dylan explained that he spent his days diving and his nights and weekends getting high, watching rugby with Lachlan and diving some more. I've never known anyone who seemed to be doing exactly what they should be doing where they should be doing it more than Dylan. He was like an Aussie version of Matthew McConaughey, but skinnier and with far fewer crappy romantic comedies on his resume.

We rode the boat to the cove in silence, the men strapping on the gear as we bounced over the waves. As we approached Happy Farms, Keane kept easing off the throttle to reduce noise until finally she cut the engine and we just drifted in, our running lights off.

As we made our final preparations to dive, Keane said in a whisper, "Remember, Dylan in front, then Lachlan, then Josh. Night diving is rough, diving into a ship is rougher and together they're-"

Dylan waved her off with a grin. "No worries. Back in time for the orgy."

"Shut it, ya dill. Any problems, come right back, got it?" Keane glowered at him, and he had the good sense to at least nod along. Without another word Dylan slipped into the water, making almost no noise at all. Then Keane went over to Lachlan to check his tank, whispering, "Come back to me, ya old goat. You still haven't fixed that damn carburetor." He gave an "aw, shucks" grin, then saluted her a bit unsteadily and basically fell into the water, making appreciably more noise than Dylan had. Keane winced at the sound of the splash, then stepped up to me and double checked my tank. As she did so she asked quietly, "Is it as bad as you say? This Crayton, he's that much of a villain?" I nodded. "If it goes wrong, go see my Aunt Grace. She's a rich one and the authorities are likely to at least listen to her, got it? Corner of Kuhn and Wilson Terrace."

Then with both hands she grabbed my cheeks and gave me a long kiss on the lips. I stood there holding the railing, with-I'm sure- my eyes the size of dinner plates. The moon was behind Mary, putting her in silhouette. After a few seconds Keane pulled back, winked and made the "shoo" gesture. I pulled on my mask and dropped into the water as quietly as I could, falling somewhere between Dylan and Lachlan on the stealth scale.

Once in the ocean, I looked around and saw the lights of the other divers, turning on my own spotlight as I swam toward them. In my wet suit the water was warm and comfortable, the buoying sensation helping to relax me as we kicked toward shore. Our lights darted through the darkness, probing for any sign of the lost boat on the bottom. I continually checked my watch, growing more alarmed as the minute hand turned around the dial as we searched. Nine thirty, nine thirty five, nine forty five... finally at ten minutes to ten Lachlan began pointing animatedly down his lamp's light beam to what looked like a curve of dark metal.

In a minute the three of us were floating over the Liberator trying to determine the best point of entry, Dylan the first to descend. As I followed Lachlan through a hatch on the side of the boat, the sound of my breathing rasping in my ears, I marveled at how just a moment ago swimming in the ocean was so calm and relaxing, but now in the confined space of the boat I felt utterly awkward and trapped. In the darkness of the wreck, every loose string became a snake, every light-colored lifesaver a shark.

Of course, what I was most terrified of finding were corpses, but there were none. Books floated in cabins, clothes remained stacked in footlockers and a frying pan even hovered over the stove in the galley. Everywhere we looked we saw a ship that- if it hadn't been underwater- was in perfect working order, with no signs that the crew had prepared her in any way to be abandoned.

After nearly jumping out of my skin again by mistaking another lifesaver for a great white, I began to think about it, nudging Dylan and pointing at it. After a long moment he shook his head and shrugged. I couldn't help but run it over it again and again in my mind: If they abandoned ship, why are there no lifesavers missing? If there was trouble, why does everything look like nothing at all was disturbed? If they were killed, where are the damn bodies?

Eventually we made our way into the section I most wanted to see: the cargo hold. Boxes and crates floated everywhere, and we had to take care not to bump into the many loose pieces of floating debris. After surveying the scene, we methodically began searching the hold for the Magician's trunk, hoping to find the knife that Leopold seemed to think was so important. It was slow, painstaking work, and once we began combing through the area it was difficult to stay focused and keep track of time.

Finally Dylan swam over to me and shook his head, ushering us out of the hold. We were way past time and I had to admit that if we were going to find it we would have by now. Besides, we still hadn't checked the engine room and helm, though calling it an "engine room" was giving it way too much credit. Overall the Liberator wasn't much bigger than the boat in The Perfect Storm, though for the sake of my claustrophobia I wished it was.

Dylan expertly guided us down the corridors and up to the helm, always checking behind him to make certain we were all accounted for. A very narrow and steep stairway led up to the helm area, and as I waited my turn at the bottom to swim up I could hear Dylan yelling something above me. I tried to peer past Lachlan, but he started pushing me back down the corridor toward the crew quarters, his eyes wide in his visor. Feeling panicked and on edge, I began kicking madly down the hallway until Dylan dropped down to the bottom of the stairs and waved us back.

Giving the universal guy gesture of "my bad", Dylan once more rose up the stairwell, followed very slowly and cautiously by Lachlan. Now alone at the bottom of the stairs, I felt more trapped than ever, my light flicking back and forth down the passageway. Something had spooked Dylan up there, and while he might think everything was all right now, the fact was that just about the only thing that had kept me from freaking out thus far was his cool and comfortable demeanor, and now that I'd seen it shaken I was on the edge of hysteria.

With my breath coming in quick gulps, I closed my eyes, summoned my courage and swam up. Once in the helm I saw the reason Dylan lost it. Floating by the ship's wheel was the body of a man dressed in what appeared to be a business suit. Dylan swam over to it and turned it around gently, and we could see it was the open-eyed corpse of an old man, the strands of his gray hair floating around his head like a halo. Then Dylan methodically began going through the man's pockets, searching them thoroughly. He did find a knife, passing it over to me, but it was just a Swiss army knife and there were no initials on it as Leopold had said there would be. I held on to it just in case.

Then he handed me the man's wallet, and I opened it in search of some I.D. Inside I found six thousand Australian dollars, which translates into about four thousand in American money. After replacing the money I pulled out the driver's license. It was issued by South Australia, and the photo was of an old, gray haired man with cold green eyes and the hint of a cruel, mocking smile. My jaw dropped and I nearly lost my respirator when I read the name on the license: Edmund C. Crayton.

I looked up then at the body and saw it's eyes move suddenly, locking on to mine. I yelled in abject terror, instinctively flailing to get away as Crayton reached out with blinding speed to grab Dylan's arm, gripping him and pulling him near. Lachlan bravely drew his knife and tried to move into a position behind Crayton, but the old man positioned Dylan between them, shielding himself. Before we could do anything else Crayton pushed Dylan's arm back behind his body so far that we heard a muffled crunching sound that was immediately drowned out by Dylan's screaming. In another moment Crayton was pushing his other arm back with a sickening crack until both his arms were crossed behind his back parallel to each other, his shoulders bulging out at impossible angles.

Fighting the urge to vomit, I confess I could think of nothing else now but escape, and I clawed my way back down the stairs, my air tank banging against the railings as I descended. Once down in the corridor, I swam as fast as I could, desperate to find a hatch that opened outward. Finally I got to the end of the hallway to a "T" intersection, and on my left just feet away was the outer hatch. Looking behind me, I saw Lachlan swimming frantically on my heels, and then behind him at the end of the corridor Crayton drifted slowly down the stairs, casually holding in one hand what was left of Dylan: both his arms and legs bent at the shoulders and hips folded all the way back behind him, the backs of his calves touching the back of his own head, his torso twitching.

I pawed at the hatch lock, pushing and pulling at the door in a desperate attempt to throw it open and flee, but my flailing had no effect. Lachlan eventually just grabbed my shoulder and pulled me back, going to work on it himself. As I looked back down the flooded corridor, I saw Crayton push Dylan to the side, then look right at me, the cruel smile he'd flashed in the photo I.D. widening in anticipation of what was to come. With the flourish and panache of a stage magician, he opened his sleeves to show me there was nothing inside of them, then a moment later he extended his arms in our direction and bubbles began to appear from his cuffs. There were only a few at first, then there were so many bubbles that it was like watching jets from a Jacuzzi. I gripped Lachlan's arm tightly and yelled at the top of my lungs for him to hurry and open the hatch, the sound filtered through the water to my own ears as a pure, primal, terrified wail.

Suddenly, from within Crayton's sleeves began to emerge enormous, wide-eyed, fanged eels, one right after another like streamers from a cannon. Dozens and dozens of them launched down the corridor at us, their teeth gnashing. Now I pounded on Lachlan's back, screaming over and over again for him to open the hatch, and as the first of the eels was almost to my face the door burst open and he pulled me out, slamming the hatch closed again behind me. From within we could hear the eels banging into the hatch, smashing into it with all their strength trying to get to us, but the door held.

Out of my mind with fear, I began swimming furiously back toward where I thought Keane's boat was, the light from my spotlight jittering in all directions. After what was probably only a few seconds of swimming and searching, I realized that the best way to find the boat was to head up to the surface, and while the thought of the eels coming up and biting me from below was a very real and horrifying one, I knew it was my best option.

The running lights were still out, but I could just discern the outline of the boat in the moonlight. Swimming with all my strength and fueled by fear, I headed toward it while keeping the spotlight shining behind and below me to keep on the lookout for the eels I knew would be in pursuit. As I swam I breathed a little sigh of relief when I saw Lachlan a little ways ahead of me on his way to the boat, but when I turned my spotlight back behind us I saw the reflections of hundreds of tiny eyes zigzagging closer and closer.

Kicking with all my might I swam toward the boat, my breath coming in ragged, frenzied gasps as I knifed through the dark water. My heart pounded in my chest and though I'm not yet thirty the wild thought occurred that there was a legitimate chance it might just explode before I could reach safety.

Suddenly I bumped into Lachlan, looked up and discovered that we had arrived at the rear of the boat right next to the ladder. Lachlan had already spit out his respirator and pushed up his goggles, and he held on to the ladder just off to the side, ushering me up first. I grabbed the first rung and began hauling myself out, but the weight of the tank and gear out of the water was significantly heavier than it was while in it, so it was maddeningly slow going. "They're coming," I wheezed as I pulled out my breathing tube, never pausing in my ascent. "You could have gone first instead of me."

Lachlan shook his head slowly, the old drunk's head held high with a vestige of pride. "Duty."

Just as I was almost entirely out of the water I felt an agonizing pain in my ankle, and as I withdrew my leg I pulled a long, flapping eel along with it, its fangs sunk deep into my flesh. I let out a quick, sharp yelp and threw myself into the boat, eel still attached. Without pulling it off, I hurlted back to the edge of the boat and put out a hand for Lachlan. "Take it! They're here! Move, move, move!" His hand reached up for mine, the other on the first rung of the ladder, when all around his still-submerged chest he was surrounded by bubbles. An instant later the water was seething with eels, and he let out an agonized scream as they bit him as one and dragged him inexorably under the waves.

It was only after a few long, stunned, horrified moments that I realized that the eel I had brought on board was still attached to my leg, its rows of fangs gnawing savagely on my tendons, blood pooling on the deck around me. The next instant Mary and Keane were both at my side, Keane pulling at the eel's tail and Mary bashing at it with a beer cooler. In a few seconds they had managed to dislodge it, Keane whipping it over the side. I grabbed at my ankle to try and stop the blood as Keane asked, "Where's Dylan? What-"

"Gone. He's gone." She began to ask another question, but I took my hand off my ankle and grabbed her shirt, pulling her close, yelling, "Start the boat! Do it! Do it now!" Keane staggered back, then ran to the wheel. Meanwhile, Mary tore off one of her shirtsleeves and tied it hastily around my ankle to stop the blood.

Looking around, Mary asked, "What's that pounding?"

I looked down, realizing it was coming from below. "The eels. They're smashing into the boat. Hundreds... maybe thousands." I stood up and steadied myself on the railing, pulling the air tank off of my back. "Could they punch through the wood? Are we-?" Just then about twenty yards away toward shore a head rose from the water, the hair on it slick and gray in the moonlight. "It's Crayton! Go, go, for God's sake, go, Keane!"

As Crayton swam slowly toward us I could feel his eyes on me, the sheer malevolence behind them making me forget the pain in my leg. Suddenly the engine whined as Keane turned the ignition, but it wouldn't start. She muttered a curse, then tried again. Still it wouldn't start. "Keane, for f*ck's sake, start the damn-"

"There's something wrapped around the propeller," she yelled back. "I can't get it to turn over!"

"Jesus. The eels." I looked over the side, the water all around the back of the boat writhing with the eels' thick tails. Raising my gaze, I could see Crayon's head had cut the distance in half, coming faster now toward the ladder. "Keep trying! Keep turning the damn key!" My eyes darted around the boat for something, anything that could be used as a weapon, eventually falling on an old, rusted crowbar. Meanwhile Keane kept trying to turn the engine over and Mary rooted around in a long footlocker by the helm.

Over and over the engine whirred and groaned, trying to power through the tangle of eels clogging it. Now Crayton was mere feet from the ladder, and I knew without a doubt that once he got his hand on it we could never get him off. All I could do was stare at him as he approached, the only thing above the water level were his eyes glaring at me balefully.

"Please. Please, please, please." Over the protestations of the engines and the thrashing of the eels I could barely hear my own whisper. "Turn over. Turn over. Don't let him get on-"

Crayton reached up his hand, poised to grab the lowest rung when Mary appeared next to me, leaned over the side and shot him right in the face with the speargun, the spear jutting through his cheek and out of the other side of his head just in front of his ear.

He grunted as it hit him, then reached up and with one quick yank pulled it out of his head, dropping it into the water next to him. Without hesitation, Mary reared back and swung the speargun down into his skull, shattering the gun to pieces. Crayton grunted again, reached up and grabbed the first rung of the ladder.

"Oh, sh*t." Mary backed away, again looking around for a weapon and finding none. Just then, the engine turned over and Keane howled in victory, gunning the motor and chopping the eels that attempted to constrict the propeller to pieces. In moments we were pulling away, but in peering over the side again I saw that Crayton was on the second rung. Two to go to reach the top.

"Hit him," Mary said, gesturing to the crowbar in my hand.

"That's not going to work. He'll never let go of the ladder. We can't get him off."

"Power of positive thinking. Hit him."

I shook my head. "There has to be something. Some way we can get him off the ladder..." A thought occurred. "No, if we can't get him off the ladder, then maybe we can get him off the boat!"

Mary was already protesting, but I stepped back up to the ladder with the crowbar and looked down at Crayton. He was one rung away. The boat was moving at a decent clip now and his feet bounced through the water, but his grip was iron. I raised the crowbar and he just smiled again, daring me to hit him, but instead I dug the tip of it under the top of the ladder and pushed, the screw popping off into the water. His eyes grew wide and this time I smiled back. One more dig with the crowbar on the other post of the ladder and the entire thing popped off the side of the boat, falling into the sea, Crayton still gripping it as it went under.

The girls let out a whoop of triumph while I sat down hard on the deck, exhausted and drained from the last of my adrenaline and the blood loss from my ankle. I closed my eyes as we skipped over the waves, wanting to slow down so I wouldn't be tossed around and jostled so much and at the same time wanting to speed up so I could set my feet on some dry land and put as much distance between us and Crayton as possible.

My voice came out in a croak. "We didn't find the knife."

Keane turned around while still holding the wheel. "Lachlan. And Dylan. Oh, God. Oh, my boys." Tears streamed down her face, but she never stopped steering.

Mary put a hand on her shoulder and gave her a quick, strong hug. "I'm sorry. I'm so very sorry, Helen." She took a deep breath and continued, "Tonight when we get to safety I'm going to give you access to our archives so you'll know everything that's gone on. At least now after what's happened there might be a chance you'll believe it. You're one of us, now."

I stood up, holding the railing for balance. "We need to somehow-"

Just then the engine made a coughing sound, sputtered and died, and a thick black smoke began pouring out from the exhaust. Keane cursed, then tried the ignition and received only a rattling, grinding sound in response. "Oh, no. Oh, you've got to be kidding me." She swore again and turned the key, getting only more grinding and thicker smoke. Again, and the grinding only got louder. "Sh*t. Thanks to those eels, my boat is cactus. That means broken, so don't ask."

Mary pulled a pair of binoculars off the cabin wall and peered back in the direction we came. "I can't see him, but you know he's still coming."

"Well, I'm prepared to hear some brilliant suggestions that don't involve peeing on myself in fear, because I think I might have already taken care of that at the other boat."

Mary pointed toward the shore of Port Victoria far off in the distance. "I doubt we can make it from here swimming. I doubt I can, anyway."

Keane nodded. "You're right, we can't. But we're far enough out to sea that we just might make it over to Wardang Island instead. I'm going to radio in an S.O.S. and ask the Coast Guard to pick us up there." She handed Mary a life jacket and took one herself, while I strapped on my oxygen tank again. "Josh, you go first. Keep your spot on so you'll be easy for us to follow. Use your compass. Don't be yabbering away now, just go."

I started to give a little salute, then thought of poor Lachlan and stopped, dropping over the side and into the water without another word. From then on it was a slow and exhausting process of checking my compass to make sure we were still heading for Wardang Island and going back to make sure the girls were still on my tail. After fifteen minutes the muscles of my legs were on fire, and it felt like someone was slowly turning a knife in my ankle where the eel had latched on. As I swam I thought back to Milwaukee and the winter they were sure to be enduring back home, wishing now that I could be back there up to my neck in snow.

"I'm getting nostalgic for Wisconsin in November," I said to Mary as I swam over to her.

She paused from her labors, the act of swimming a long distance while restrained by a life jacket an awkward and tiring one. "I'm glad it wasn't just me." She attempted a smile but could only come up with a fatigued grimace. "Anything behind us?" I dunked down below and shined the spotlight, seeing nothing. Then I turned back toward Wardang Island and my beam glinted off metal down on the ocean floor. I swam over in that direction and saw a metal plaque jutting up from the sand, an ancient shipwreck laying to the right and just beyond it.

Surfacing, I told them what I'd seen. Keane sputtered, "We're getting close. Should hit land soon."

I treaded water, kicking hard to get every inch of height I could. Far off in the distance toward what we hoped was the island, I thought I could see a flicker of yellow light. Without further delay we pressed on, with me turning my spotlight behind us to check if we were being pursued, not that it mattered much as we were basically swimming as hard as we could anyway.

In a few more minutes, Keane said, "I can see it. Land ahead, we'll make it in five."

I squinted, thinking that it was possible that there were some stars blotted out in the distance, but I couldn't tell if it was land, and certainly had no idea how far away it was. I dunked back under to sweep the area with the light again and saw another glint of light a good way off back where we'd come from. I wondered for a moment if we'd swam right past another shipwreck plaque and I'd missed it, but then I noticed that the glint was moving, zigging and zagging ever so slightly. Shining the light directly at it and taking my time to look, I saw that the glint had been joined by another and another, until it looked like that entire section of ocean had been decorated with golden sequins.

Ascending to the surface once more, I spit out my respirator and yelled, "Eels! Hundreds... thousands! Go! Swim!"

As the women swam with renewed purpose I kept ducking down and checking behind us. Every time I did the eels were far, far closer, their reflective eyes glittering and hungry. Deciding that checking how close they were wasn't helping anything, I swam on the surface next to Mary. "Take my swim fins, Mary."

Between breaths she replied, "Take too long. To get them off. Keep them. Go on ahead." I kept swimming at the same pace as her, and after a minute I thought I could actually hear the gigantic school of eels tearing through the water toward us, teeth gnashing. Mary spoke again. "Josh. I case. We don't. Make it. I just. Want you to-" She let out a groan as the wind was knocked out of her, her face driven into the sand of the shore by a wave. Coughing, sputtering and confused, she put her feet down and found herself standing on a dark beach, the three of us staring out at the shallow water in front of us churning with thrashing eels as far as we could see.

After gazing out at the surreal scene before us, Mary began pulling both Keane and I inland. "He'll be coming. Let's move." I stripped off as much of the SCUBA gear as I could as I walked, bringing up the rear behind the two ladies. Wardang Island was flatter than I had imagined, with only a few trees and a handful of roads, the entire land mass only about four miles long and two miles across. Now that we had climbed above water level, we could easily see a bonfire off in the distance.

Suddenly Mary stopped walking and I almost ran into her in the dark. "Do you hear that?"

"What?" I turned all around, listening. "I can't hear anything."

"Exactly. The eels... they've stopped thrashing." We all turned and squinted back toward the ocean, trying to make out anything in the reflections on the water in the moonlight. Eventually I could see something: the dark shape of a man slowly walking out of the sea.

Without a word the three of us took off sprinting as fast as we could, With Mary and Keane pulling away, my gait hobbled because of my injured ankle. As we went, the girls began pacing themselves despite my urgings to press on, slowing up to try and pull me along, all the while stealing glances behind us to see how much ground Crayton had covered. After running for a good minute, I estimated we were about a hundred yards from the bonfire, with Crayton about triple that distance behind us. Distantly, I could just barely hear the harsh rasp of Crayton's mocking laughter as he drove us on.

Closer now to the bonfire... seventy five yards... fifty... I could just begin to make out the outlines of people dancing around the fire. Forty yards... thirty... twenty... Keane gave out a thrilled yelp, saying without slowing down, "Aborigines! I told you this island is sacred to them!" Now I too could make out the dark skin of the continent's natives as they danced round and round the fire, cheerful in their obliviousness to the danger descending down on them. As we hit about ten yards Keane dashed ahead, telling us that she wanted hers to be the first face they saw in case they recognized her so they would be quicker to help. My skin crawled as Crayton's laughter got louder behind us.

Time seemed to move in slow motion for me now as my own words flashed back in my mind. Crayton's mocking laughter drove us on... cheerful in their obliviousness... driving us on... cheerful... driving us... cheerful... Suddenly I grabbed Mary, pulling her back and stopping us short, shouting, "Keane! Wait! Stop!" The Aborigines turned as one from their dance to look at us, every one of their faces adorned with a wide, permanent smile. Keane was all they way in amongst them as she realized what was happening, and they fell upon her almost as one, piling on top of her, grabbing her, throwing her to the dirt next to the fire as she shrieked beneath them. There were more than a dozen of them- the Smilers- and once they had Keane pinned, five of them turned their attention to Mary and I.

I gaped at them, too in shock to do anything until Mary yanked me by my wrist, dragging me away from the fire in an awkward, shambling run. I knew there was no way we could get Keane out from under the Smilers, especially with Crayton breathing down our necks, but her sudden loss right at the point where I thought we might be actually be safe was more than I could take. My mind simply shut down. I vaguely remember running alongside Mary through the darkness, tripping on loose stones, my injured ankle making me feel like I was running on carpet tacks... but I had no idea where we were going or what we would do when we got there. All I could hear- whether he was still doing it or it was only in my head- was Crayton's mocking laughter.

All of a sudden lights flashed in my face, and Mary was standing beside me and waving her arms wildly, yelling for help. Still dazed, I let her pull me on down into the water, and a minute later we were standing on the deck of a small Australian Coast Guard boat. Behind us, also splashing into the water were the Aborigine Smilers. Mary grasped one of the two crew members on board by the lapels and screamed into his face maniacally, "They killed our friend! They killed her! Go, go, go, move the damn boat, you idiot, they will not stop! They'll kill us all!" The sailor reached down for his pistol at his belt and glanced down at the Smilers now almost to the boat. Mary grabbed his face in her hands, saying, "They have Uzis! They have submachine guns! They're drug traffickers! Drive!"

This combination of words was just enough to finally trigger the flight response in the man, and as the closest Smiler reached up for the ladder the engine roared and we sped away from shore, leaving Wardang Island. On the deck in the back of the boat I gripped the railing as best I could with trembling hands, staring behind us at the bonfire dwindling down to a point in the darkness like a fallen star that plunges to Earth, sears it and refuses to die.


The next couple of hours in the tiny local police station were a blur, with Mary doing most of the talking: We had gone out night diving. We were attacked by a man identified by our guide Helen Keane as a Mister Edmund Crayton and his accomplices. No, we've never been in trouble with the law ourselves, and here are our I.D.'s, please God let them stand up to official scrutiny because if they don't we're f*cked.

It's possible Mary didn't say all of that, but I certainly was thinking it.

They kept us overnight, waiting to see what else would turn up. Over the next few hours police divers found the Liberator. They also found Keane's boat adrift in the bay. What they didn't find were Keane, Lachlan, Dylan, Crayton or much of anything else. At dawn they released us, making us promise not to leave the area for the next couple of days while they continued their investigation.

Mary and I blearily staggered out into the bright South Australia early morning sun, and I began to hobble slowly toward the Port Victoria Hotel before she caught my arm. "Not yet," she said, squinting at me with bloodshot eyes. "First we go to Keane's Aunt Grace and let her know... something of what happened." I calculated how much effort it would take to talk her into letting me go back to the Hotel and sleep versus just doing what she said, and unsurprisingly found myself shambling along behind her down the sidewalk to Grace's house.

As I walked I began thinking about last night- what we'd gone through and what we'd lost. With each footfall another face flashed into my mind. Dylan, his easy smile and charm leading us through the darkness. Lachlan, his sense of honor and duty allowing me to go first and live while he died a grisly death in my stead. Keane... her bright eyes, her impossibly curly, bouncy hair, her lust for life and adventure... her shocked wail as a dozen insanely strong hands pushed her down into the dirt...

I didn't even feel like I was crying. I didn't have the energy for it. All I knew was that as I looked around at quaint, sleepy, seaside Port Victoria, tears poured down my face and dribbled off of my chin like rain from a gutter. The next thing I felt was Mary holding me, pulling my face into her chest, the two of us standing the middle of the sidewalk.

After a while the tears stopped and she gave me a little smile. "You don't have to go. It's all right. But go back to the police station, not the Hotel. It's not safe there anymore."

Taking a deep breath and wiping away the last of the tears, I shook my head. "No. No, thank you. I'm with you." Another deep breath, then I managed to return the smile, barely. "I'm with you."

Mary: Conversation With Crayton

November 9th, 2008:


ME: Hello? May I speak with Mr. Crayton, please?

CRAYTON: What?

ME: This is Edmund Crayton?

CRAYTON: Speak.

ME: Excuse me. I'm Mary Stroud. I work for Cynthia Howland.

CRAYTON: (Pause) Well, well. Aren't we bold?

ME: No. That's why I'm calling.

CRAYTON: Hm?

ME: Mrs. Howland isn't paying me enough. I finally figured out what I'm up against, I know now that I can't win and I want to switch teams.

CRAYTON: Smart girl.

Me: I want fifteen million dollars, a new identity and a guarantee that I'll be left alone by you people. And don't act like fifteen million means anything to you. I've seen what you can do.

CRAYTON: Hm. You'll need to prove yourself.

Me: How?

CRAYTON: Young Howland. I want him.

Me: I don't know. No more over the phone, I want to meet. Archie's Diner, nine o'clock tonight.

CRAYTON: In the neighborhood, are we? Sure, why not? Nine o'clock. Don't be late.


I hung up the pay phone and looked at Josh, who had been sharing the receiver. He nodded. "It's the same voice I heard on the other side of the door back at that storage area in Atlanta. He was the one helping Hollis."

We exited the tourist kiosk by the large jetty across from the hotel and walked back to Keane's trailer. The sun had just set over Wardang Island off the coast and there was a blood-red tinge to the edge of the horizon.

By the time we made it to Keane's, she and Lachlan had been joined by a tall, fit, shirtless man in his late twenties, the three of them tipping back beers and sharing a laugh. Keane introduced the man as her semi-good-for-nothing mostly-ex-boyfriend Dylan, who spent his days as an underwater tour guide to the shipwrecks ringing Wardang Island. His muscles were cut and his skin was bronzed by the sun, Josh seeming to waver like a pale ghost next to him in the light of the bonfire.

Keane explained that Dylan was the classmate who had been beaten by Crayton's ranch hands when he was younger, and if we wanted another man to investigate the property he wouldn't mind getting a little payback, for a price. I told him in no uncertain terms that it was going to be terribly dangerous, but he shrugged off the warning and insisted on coming, if for nothing else to look out for Keane and keep her out of trouble. She responded by scowling and throwing her mostly-empty beer can at his head, the foam spattering all over his blond hair as he shrugged off the attack.

"I'm used to being wet anyway, so no worries," he said to me as he shook out his hair. "I'll just be happy to strut around on dry land for a bit, even if it is on Happy Farms."

Josh asked, "So you just swim around in scuba gear all day with tourists checking out wrecks?"

"Yep. There are underwater plaques next to them and you just swim from one to another. Pretty cool, really. At this point I could repeat them by heart if you wanted to know more about the boats, though I can't say any of 'em went down due to any great story. Mostly it was just dust from the farms blew out to sea and made it tough to make out where Wardang Island was in the old days." He chuckled, "'Course, the island is sacred to the Aborigines, so they probably had a good laugh when one of our ships busted up on their shores."

Lachlan fumbled with the beer cooler, nearly tipping it over as he went for another one, Keane scolding, "Easy, old man. We've got work tonight."

He nodded unsteadily, fishing around in the ice for one of the few remaining cans. "Aye, aye, ma'am," he said without sarcasm. He grimaced at the cold as he fumbled to get a grip. "Tough to find the damn things," he muttered.

I sat up straight, a thought popping into my head. "What if the Liberator isn't hidden on a different part of the coast? What if it isn't still on it's way, either? What if it's here now and we just can't see it?"

Josh looked puzzled. "Hurr... like, invisible? Can he do that?"

Ignoring him, I looked at Keane. "The cove by Happy Farms... how deep is it there?"

She nodded slowly, a smile spreading across her face. "I'll be damned. It's been there the whole time. He sank it. Just another underwater wreck near Wardang Island." Keane turned to Dylan, her eyes gleaming. "Get your gear. We're going diving tonight to find that blasted boat."

Mary: Port Victoria

While on the last leg of our flight, I recalled the Australian professor I'd spoken to when I was first asking around about the Rabbit Calicivirus Project and gave her a call, filling her in on some of the less insane things that had gone on. Professor Sandra Liddel was as helpful and friendly as she had been the last time I chatted with her, and she was shocked when I informed her of her old colleague Doctor Shigekazu Yoshida's demise. Professor Liddel had moved to Melbourne to retire, but when I mentioned that we were looking for a missing boat she recommended a reliable local charter fisherman named Keane in Port Victoria whom we might be able to hire.

The drive from Adelaide took an uneventful three hours, which when combined with our (admittedly quite comfortable) twenty-one hour flight drained Josh and I of what was left of our energy. Somehow, though we'd left San Diego in the morning, by the grace of jumping many, many time zones we pulled in to Port Victoria at five o'clock in the evening. The town was smaller than I had expected, with only a few streets and a paint-peeled, single story hotel by the sea as its centerpiece. As we got out of the car, we could see the infamous Wardang Island just off the coast, the ocean waves smashing into it from the far side as it protected Port Victoria's shoreline.

We went inside the hotel, checked in and ate a light dinner, and while I wanted to call and arrange an appointment with the fisherman that day, I simply ran out of steam and went to my room to pass out for the night.


The next morning Josh and I awoke refreshed and walked out into a sunny, seventy degree day. After Atlanta, San Diego and now Port Victoria's glorious weather, both he and I were openly questioning why we had ever chosen to live in Wisconsin.

After asking the hotel owner where we could find Keane, Josh and I decided to walk there, the trip taking no more than ten minutes. Keane lived in a well-maintained trailer right on the ocean, a large pup tent set up just a few feet away on the sand. After a knock the door opened and a woman in her mid-twenties appeared wearing an apron. She had very curly, medium-length light brown hair, and her arms were toned and tan. She bounced down the step on her bare feet and grinned up at us, all five foot nothing of her. "G'day!"

"Um, good... hi," Josh said, quickly abandoning his attempt to speak as a native. "We're looking for Mister Keane, we're looking to hire him?"

Just then a man in his forties staggered out of the tent and waved, saying, "G'day, mates! Everything all right then, Helen?" He scratched a five-day-old graying beard absently, clearly not too concerned.

The woman nodded to him, and Josh started making his way over to the man before I put a hand on his arm to stop him. "Wha? Don't you want to talk to Keane? I thought-"

I gestured to the woman. "This is Keane."

He looked baffled, then shrugged and said, "Right. Detective. Moving on."

Keane gave him a playful punch on the arm that actually knocked him back a step. "Ha! She got one on you, mate! No worries, happens all the time, as you'd imagine. So, down to bizzo. What do you yanks need? Fishing? Whale watching? Scuba down by the wrecks?" She gestured us inside, explaining as we went that the man in the tent's name was Lachlan, her first mate and mechanic.

As usual, we were faced with the dilemma of how much to reveal about what's really going on, and while I certainly wasn't going to tell her everything I wanted to make sure that she was aware of the severity of the danger we faced. In the end I told her that we were searching for the lost ship Liberator and that on it was crucial evidence from a murder case back in the States. I also explicitly stated that the murderer and his accomplices were seeking the ship as well, and that they would stop at nothing to keep us from reaching it first.

It took longer to impart this information than it should have because the woman simply never stopped moving. She was a bouncing ball of curly-haired energy- a compact, well-muscled, bright-eyed cocker spaniel of a woman who remembered every word I said even as I doubted if she'd heard me in the first place. When I finished my explanation she pulled out a tray of chocolate chip cookies and set them on the stove to cool, saying, "Sounds like trouble. Not used to trouble, really."

Josh said, "I'll pay double. Not a problem." He absently rubbed the spot where Keane had punched him and said to me, "Would it be un-Australian to whine about how my arm still hurts?"

Keane gave a throaty laugh and winked at him. "Pretty quick to double. Why not triple, then, eh?" She stared at him with an eyebrow cocked.

I cleared my throat. "Two and a half times your going rate and not a penny more." I crossed my arms and tried to keep my eyes from darting over to the chocolate chip cookies, their irresistible aroma filling the small area.

"Why?" Her question seemed more out of curiosity than actual bargaining. "With how quick yer fella offered double I figure money's not a problem."

I gave her a level look. "General principle. And he's not my 'fella'."

"Ah, no worries. I saw the ring, thought you were married."

I looked down, realizing that I hadn't moved my ring from my ring finger since the time we were posing as married back in Atlanta. "Oh. I- honest mistake then." I started to take it off, then feeling her and Josh's eyes on me stopped.

Keane stared at me for a while, then at Josh and back again. Finally, she smiled that toothy grin and nodded. "Done and done. Let's go hunting."

Josh put up a hand, looking grave. "Firstly and most importantly, before we conduct any other business: can I have a chocolate chip cookie? And by that I mean five."

Mary: Likely Suspects

November 7th, 2008: Glen, Josh and I walked into the Sea Breeze Yacht Club Bar overlooking the ocean, and once it had been made clear that Glen would not be running a tab and that we would pay cash up front the bartender agreed to serve us. Glen started to apologize for the inconvenience, then lost interest and downed half of his Budweiser. I had talked Josh into switching to beer so he was nursing a chestnut-colored microbrew. I sat down in the U-shaped booth next to Josh, ordered a cranberry juice on the rocks and tried to think of something else to ask Glen.

Josh eyed the pinball machine in the corner of the bar hopefully, but a quick glare from me kept him anchored at our table. Eventually he turned to Glen and asked, "So what do you think happened to your boat? Whirlpool? Pirates? Sirens? I'm a landlubber so I really don't know how often ships go lost at sea anymore."

Looking none too pleased with having to shift his focus from drinking to talking, Glen nevertheless answered. "Ships hardly ever go lost anymore, really. Not if they have GPS, anyway. Pirates can be a problem, but they don't just come out of nowhere. You usually have a pretty good idea where they are and how to avoid them. Could it have been pirates? The GPS went out on the Liberator right after she changed course southward. Maybe she got boarded then taken over, but the Captain should have been able to get at least a distress call off first." Another pull of his Bud and it was gone, Glen already signaling the waitress for another. "I've gone over it again and again, and I just don't know what the hell happened out there. If they started taking on water they would have radioed. There was no land nearby for them to wreck on anyway. They were in the middle of the damn Pacific!" He pounded his fist on the table just hard enough to draw the attention of the other patrons, and I gave a little placating smile back at them hoping not to get thrown out.

In an attempt to keep him from ranting, I asked, "Are there places known for losing ships in that part of the world? Like a Bermuda Triangle?"

"The Triangle's bullsh*t," he scoffed. "Tourist stuff. Go over the numbers, it's about what you'd normally expect."

Josh started slowly shimmying out of the booth, edging toward the pinball machine, but another quick kick under the table stopped him with a wince. Under his breath he grumbled, "Same exact spot she kicked last time. Goddamn."

Glen continued, oblivious. "There are spots known for shipwrecks, no question, but the Triangle? Nah. Problem is, all the known ship graveyards are thousands of miles away from where we lost contact with the Liberator."

I sipped my cranberry juice while Josh rubbed his knee. "Like where?"

The waitress brought another Budweiser. "I just mean in general, there are spots known for it. Greek islands have a lot of wrecks, but most of them are from World War II. Except for Euboea, that's had wrecks all throughout history. Also-"

"Euboea... is that near Evia? I read something about that island recently." Taras' post mentioned Evia and Glen's reference to Greece reminded me of it. One of the Magician's people, Theophanes was from there.

Glen snorted, covering his mouth as he laughed, the first time he'd done so. It was a braying, grating sound and I was comforted by the fact that based on his temperament and financial situation, he wouldn't be doing a lot of it in the future. "No, no."

"Oh, never mind then-"

He smirked in that way that men do when they know something and you don't. "Euboea isn't near Evia. Euboea is Evia. They have two names for it. God knows why. And who cares? There are islands the Liberator may have washed up on, but Greece would be impossible."

"Whoa, what? What was that? That island?" We finally had Josh's attention. "Wait, that was from Taras' post-"

I watched Glen's face for any recognition of the name, but there was none. Before Josh could say anything else I continued, "What about other places for a ship to wreck? Places south of the Liberator's position? You said it had headed that direction before the locator stopped functioning."

Glen was shaking his head before I'd even finished. "Too far. All way too far. Thousands of miles! What, pirates took over the ship, then traveled for days just to wreck? It makes no sense!"

"Just humor me. Please." I reached into my purse and counted out two hundred dollars in cash, sliding it over to him on the table.

He stared at it for only a moment before clutching it and shoving it in his pocket. "South of their position you've got the islands of Micronesia, and south of there is New Guinea. Farther south is Australia, but now you're going so far... the only place that's really known for shipwrecks is a little spot of nothing you've never heard of on the south side of the continent. Do you have any idea the type of distance-"

This time I was the one to pound the table. Josh's beer tipped over, foam spilling over the edge onto the carpeted floor while Glen saved his drink with a cat-like grab. I knew the answer, and as soon as I said the words I saw on Glen's stunned face that I was right. I felt the hair on the back of my neck stand on end as I said in a hushed voice, "Wardang island."



As the sun set over the water, in the car on the way back to the hotel, I made plane reservations to Adelaide, Australia, the closest major city to Wardang Island. From Adelaide we could rent a decent car and drive to Port Victoria, where the island was just offshore. We had spent the first few minutes of the drive talking about how crazy it was to just jet off to a place halfway around the world on the basis of only the thinnest, most circumstantial evidence, but neither of us really had the heart for an argument about it. Josh reminded me of my own new rule:

-We no longer look at phenomena that we don't understand and think that it is impossible. We take everything in, no matter how insane, and grant it instant credibility. There is no room anymore for cynicism. We've seen too much.

Without taking my eyes off the road, I said to Josh, "We'll have to move fast. I can make arrangements for the jet to-" I looked over at him then and saw that he was snoring lightly, his head tipped back against the passenger side window and his mouth open. I searched for some light classical music on the radio, found it and drove on, my mind churning. "Tomorrow. We'll go tomorrow."

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?

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.

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.