The letter read:
A cryptozoologist, A.L.B, had thrown a large magnet in the lake, lowered to a depth of 90 feet. A human femur made of metal was pulled from the bottom.
I found this letter stashed in a book on local monsters, legends, and myths. It was written on an old yellow stained piece of paper.
Not long after, A.L.B. disappeared.
I folded the note a couple times more and put it in my coat pocket.
I was curious. I went to the library computer to search for the initials A.L.B. knowing without a doubt that I would have no luck. Yet, a hit.
Aleister L. Beverly, self-proclaimed expert of all things X-cionian, missing, presumed dead.
The article was dated, September 14, 1935.
The article claimed that Aleister had invented a race of people, made of materials not wholly organic, that had evolved and split from an earlier race of hominids, and lived on the bottom of Lake Chatterly. They were often inclined to emerge from the lake to feed on whatever got in their path. They weren’t voracious carnivores, only needing to feed every fifty or so years. For some unfortunate late-night anglers, they were captured and dragged alive to the bottom of the lake. Proteins of said victims could only be consumed and digested after a lengthy process of suffocation and revival. The X-cionian people would latch their hooked silver claws into their victims, hold them until they stopped breathing, then resuscitate victim by means of an oxygen retaining bubble on the sides of their necks. Aleister believed that there was also an adrenaline chemical concoction to jump start the heart. This was repeated until a certain physiological state was exhibited by the victim that indicated that the all parts of the deceased were not digestible. On the morning of the date of disappearance he was claiming to friends and family that he had discovered a burial plot containing the remains of this farcical species.
There was nothing in the article about him retrieving a metal human femur. I wondered if the note was written by someone researching Aleister or if it was written by someone that knew him personally, someone who was trying to let someone know that he had indeed found something of importance.
I searched further. I scoured the online catalog, looking for anything about Aleister or the X-cionian people. Nothing. And then I thought about the note. Maybe I had missed something. I pulled it out of my pocket, unfolded it, and looked intently on both sides. I hadn’t missed anything, but it was odd. The first two sentences were written at the top of the page; The last at the bottom of the page, leaving a large blank space in the middle. Could there be a hidden message in the middle? My mind raced with ideas of how to reveal the contents of that mysterious void in the middle of the page. Fire, air, water, or maybe blood would work.
The answer came in a dream.
I laid down in bed that night reading each sentence over and over, repeating the words to myself, rearranging the letters, anything and everything to figure out what else the letter was trying to tell me. I fell asleep chanting to myself A L B.
I found myself lakeside, next to a large boulder, under a full moon. The ground was wet from a quick rain shower, and there was a smell of dead fish permeating the humid air. I stared out across the lake. There was a twinkling of blue light in its murky depths. It ascended above surface of the water and hovered in midair. Below the blue orb of light, beneath the surface of the lake, looked like the night sky, a sky illuminated with a million stars, attached to the swinging elliptical outer spiral of the Milky Way Galaxy. The blue orb exploded and standing in its place, on top of the surface of the water, were two tall slender beings, silver in complexion, with elongated heads, and deflated pouches on each side of their necks. Their eyes were sunken deep within their skulls, four in total, with pinpoint golden pupils. They had a large mouth, with thin pursed lips. Above their lips were a row of holes, much like a pit viper.
A green vile vapor exuded from those holes as they walked towards me, dragging a man between them, each holding one of his arms. When they got to the shore, they slung him up on the boulder. One ripped off his shirt, the other extended his webbed hand, took the claw of his forefinger and cut a square shape into the man’s abdomen. The man shrieked in pain. The being tore away the flesh like ripping out a piece of paper out of a spiral notebook. The other bent down over the top of the fleshy parchment and blew more of the green vapor over the top of it. Then the silver monstrosity motioned me to come over. There laying on the rock was the note I had found in the library, except in the once blank space were the words written in large bold letters:
You are chosen for
Sacrifice.
One of them opened their mouth wider than I thought possible. I heard the hinges in the jaw click, the chin extended down to its bare chest. There was a myriad of tiny sharp teeth, which curved inward. The being bent down over the man and began to swallow him whole, head first. As the first being consumed, the other being’s belly grew larger.
This dream became lucid, and I fought to wake up, to get away from this sickening feast.
I backed away and towards the woods next to the lake. I felt the dark lonely woods to be safer than the brightly illuminated shore. After consuming the man, the two came together and embraced on another in an affectionate hug. Chest to chest and mouth to mouth. They began to meld into one being, a larger organism with four legs, four arms, and two heads. The head of the one that hadn’t eaten began devouring the other head. It had less teeth, that looked more like a lion or a tiger, meat to rip and tear, no swallow whole. After the whole head was eaten, the neck cauterized itself. The being growled and waded back into the water. As he dived, the water faded to darkness.
I saw the morning light through my closed eye lids, feeling warmth emanating from the uncovered windowpanes. These were comforting signs that it was morning, and I was in my bed. I opened my eyes and immediately felt cold and wet. There was darkness; I could not see anything, but I could hear the water splashing up against the shore. I closed my eyes and felt warm again. I saw the bright orange glow of blocked sunlight again.
“Darren, wake up,” I heard my wife yell.
I opened my eyes again, and yet I was still in darkness. This time I smelled the water and I felt it splashing up against my bare feet. I couldn’t move, felt paralyzed, unable to escape wherever I was being held.
I felt at once two different sensations: one like I was being dragged across water and the other as if someone was trying to yank something out of my head.
“Darren, what in the hell is this? Let go. Give it to me.”
I felt a piercing, like hooks, all around my head and my body being dragged inward into something. The hooks released, my body lunged back or forward, I couldn’t tell, but I was moved, but not of my own effort. I felt the piercings again, deeper down into my throat and the back of my neck. At that point a thought raced through my head, I’m being swallowed. I felt like I was suffocating. My head was scorching hot, but the rest of my body was frigid.
All the sudden, I felt something ripped from my hand.
The darkness disappeared and I found myself looking upward at my wife, gasping for air. On the floor was a square fleshy mat bleeding out. It was the note, no longer written on paper, but on the discarded belly of whoever that was in my dream. Probably poor old Aleister, but how could I know for sure. The writing was still legible, and the additional message had yet to disappear, but it was fading.
The flesh was becoming paper.
“What is that?”
“Don’t touch it.” I commanded. I went and grabbed some tongs out of the kitchen. By this time, it was all paper, no trace of what it once had been. The blood itself had vanished. I took it out to the backyard and burned it in the firepit.
Two weeks later I went back to the public library. Maybe I had missed something. I re-read the article recounting the poor life of Aleister L. Beverly. I could feel the author’s disdain more than ever. There was a sentence I hadn’t noticed before:
Aleister had claimed a way to contact the beings, or to bring them to him, a portkey of some sort.
I went back to the shelf to find that book, the book where I had first found the note. No one had checked it out. I took it off the shelf and flung it open. There, tucked neatly in the crease of the pages was a yellow note. I took it out and unfolded the bottom portion. It read:
Not long after, A.L.B. disappeared.