Thursday, May 30, 2013

The Town's Gone To Hell

I can't take her to the doctor. They can't explain the black blood that's escaping her. I've tried bandaging them all up myself, but they've started leaking through, and they've been staining my walls. And the stains spread. And where the stains spread... what seems like small black-leaved saplings grow out. In any case, I bandaged them up, gave her a glass of water, and tucked her into the couch. I'm going to try to find out who she is.

Dammit. I thought these... fucked up things- first the Willow and now... and now there's this white porcelain thing that I can't even wrap my mind around... they've gone too close to our children.

Hell, even the Sweat and Tears plant-people were only 16 or 17 at oldest, and they looked... it's like if you knew they were still 16 or 17 but they seemed to age with stress and enhanced feelings of resentment and pain to the point where they seemed ancient in their youth. Sorry if I'm getting a little- poetic, here... but still I saw the strain that those things had on them and it's not healthy. This girl's suffered enough. There are two different kinds of cuts- the foremost ones are hundreds of little jagged wounds like she's been stabbed with broken glass; some are still open and seeping, some almost scarred completely. The other ones seem to be burn marks. I don't know what could have made those and I don't want to think about it.

I'll ask her questions later.

And I don't know what's been going on in the town. The curtains have been drawn and I stayed to myself today but the things I- heard- outside.

I heard the weeping. The weeping came in from one side, sounded like it waited at the front door, and then there were three knocks. Then after another minute or two, the sound faded away again. I also heard screams. Anguished, human screams. Fires. Police sirens and radio squawks. Ambulances. And things less than human.

I'm not taking a look outside until it's absolutely necessary. I think whatever's outside will take away all the sanity I have left, and I'm only clinging to a small thread of it as it is.

Just... Jesus Christ I know this isn't a nightmare. I wish I could wake up and these creatures would be gone, this girl would be completely fine, the screams and the chaos outside would silence and the world would be all good again.

Feh. That would be like asking for my children back. Impossible.

...she's waking up. I'll be back and when I speak again I'll hopefully have some answers. Just some peace of mind- I'll never be sane again but I'll at least know some of it. And... and I'd like to know.

Jacob Mills, signing off.

Saturday, May 4, 2013

Blood, Sweat, and Tears

They cornered me on my way back to the school before the weekend clean-up. There were three of them. I noticed a thick trio of oak trees in front of someone's house. I realised as I was passing by that I pass that house every day and just yesterday there were no trees there.

Then they retracted their branches and showed their faces. It was hideous, warped, like nightmarish pieces of modern art. The black stuff

(VITAE)

was pouring out their eyes and nostrils as they shambled at my car and fixed their roots to the back wheel. Then one reached out with branches and grabbed me out of my car and lifted me in the air. I knew, somehow, that they were the ones who ripped apart Lorri's mind.

I noticed, later, that they were each leaking the black fluid out of different areas. One was bleeding profusely out the eyes, bulging out the sockets. I called this one Tears. One was leaking small rivulets down the pores, and I called him Sweat. One, just a young twelve year old girl, had a profusion of gashes. Her name is Blood.

Blood, Sweat, and Tears.

They lifted me in their branches and I was struggling to break away. They were chanting something about the Crier in Black and I overheard snippets such as "give him vitae and let her comfort" and "her branches will soothe" and other sorts of unnerving, cult-y things. However, they didn't get a hundred feet from my car when I heard the tinkling. It was like glass, and it made them retract their branches and dropped me. The one girl, Blood, was shaking terribly, and was glancing from side to side. Then that thing came.

It wasn't the crying woman in the school. It wasn't the tree. The clouds darkened and everything grew surreal. Everything seemed so fake. So shiny, so endearing, but it was cut through with the horrible idea that the world around us grew inorganic. Indifferent. Cold and glassy. When the world seemed like a sculpture made of fine china, it came from down the street. It was flexible, and it moved by arcing over itself and bending over. Moving in dreamlike strides and arcing its spine like it had none, it moved its head towards us. It was the half-shattered face of a porcelain doll.

It moved on Sweat like a cheeta. It began sprouting sharp porcelain daggers from its hands and began cutting and cutting and cutting. It stood over and tore all the protective bark off and then it went at the face. The screams went on and then it pounced on Tears. It went for the eyes first and they burst in black vitae. Then it began cutting that creature as well. It cut everywhere, drawing deep gouges. Then, after it finished its fun with both of them, it took their hair in its hands and dragged them off, still lithe as a tiger as it faded away and the world resumed its normalcy.

The remaining tree-thing, the little 12-year old girl, Blood, collapsed.

She's here now, at the house. She seems to be suffering from some kind of concussion but how, I don't know. It would be best to ask questions when she wakes up, get her something to eat then get her out of the house. But the thing is. I've seen the cuts on her body. They looked about as sharp and crooked as the porcelain glass jutting out of that doll-like thing's hands. Some were old, seemingly over a year old, and others were fresh, and barely closing at all, still bleeding the black substance.

Well, I have to get off now.

Thursday, May 2, 2013

Investigations

I decided to take a chance and visit someone today. Peter Lorri was the previous caretaker and he went mad. And there was no tree when he was hired only about four years ago. I took all freeways and direct routes over on to the hospital. I don't want to stick near the forests. I don't trust the trees. When I walk by them, some of them rustle at me. Some of them fall over in the path in front of me. I don't trust the trees anymore.

Anyways, I went to the Greyson Mental Institute looking for some answers. The outside was grey. Painfully grey. Bleak and without thought or emotion. I guess it makes sense, considering some of the patients. They probably don't want them over-emotional.

In any case, I was met with Dr. Masque. I basically told him what I was here for.

"So, Mr. Mills, you say that you're here to question a poor, defenseless delusional man?"

I asked him what Mr. Lorri's mental illness was.

'A few things. Schizophrenia, auditory hallucinations, disassociative identity disorder... may I ask why you wanted to see him?'

I told him part of my situation. I couldn't tell him the whole thing. He'd have me committed here as soon as possible, or pester me into admitting myself. Whichever came first. I also told- a small stretcher. I told him it was for a chance to get into the journalism field instead of the janitorial business. He decided to allow it after about thirty minutes of conversation.

We walked along the empty, completely square, completely clean hallways. Some orderlies were passing by, gave me a quick glance then went on doing their work. The same work I do- except with some security-type activities, should the need arise.

When we entered Peter Lorri's room, the doctor originally didn't notice anything wrong. He shined a light into Lorri's eyes, and checked his pulse when he realised that Lorri was awake, but not conscious. Then he checked the back of Lorri's head. "...he's been lobotomized."

I asked him when did he get scheduled for lobotomy. He replied that it wasn't their handiwork. He then invited me to see the stitches. The stitches of web and bark. I could see the marks where branched, bony fingers tore open the flesh and skull. There was still a sharp, pointed small thorn lodged in the back of his head.

Dr. Masque ushered me out of the room. I heard the police sirens coming from far off as soon as I was about a block or two away. I don't know what happened to Lorri. The local news is still investigating the incident, trying to figure out who, how, or why. What is known is that the victim recieved a full frontal lobotomy, making him into a blind deaf-mute. ...it's terrifying to think about it. I'm going up against some psycho creature I can't explain that can have me rendered a vegetable with just a word.

But maybe this thing doesn't exist.
This thing can't exist.
The tree was uprooted from somewhere and placed somewhere else.
The lobotomy was caused by some environmentalist nutjob.
The three children's disappearances were probably some kidnapper or pedophile.
But a living creature with black, bleeding eyes?
Impossible.