DEPARTMENT OF STATE
INFO SSO 00NSCE00025R
` DRAFTED BY DOD/ISA-R+STEADMAN `
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N.U.S. VIRAL DEFENSE COMMISSION
THIS DOCUMENT IS CLASSIFIED TOP SECRET
THE CIRCULATION OF THIS DOCUMENT SHALL BE LIMITED TO THOSE PERSONS WHO ARE AUTHORIZED TO HAVE THE INFORMATION IN PERFORMANCE OF THEIR DUTIES.
This document may not be reproduced without the consent of the official whose authenticating symbol appears thereon or higher authority authority in the N. U. S. Viral Defense Commission.
` N.U.S. Viral Defense Commission Document Recovery Summary `
The objective of this action is immediately to stop a further buildup of offensive capability in the rising independent reporting capabilities of recovering guerrilla news outlets around the N. U. S. and to ultimately eliminate them. This initially involved a quarantine against pirate radio and television signals broadcast within the framework of the F. U. S. media system. Such a quarantine has expanded to a collection of all documentation relating to the ongoing viral incident dubbed Lyssavirus Variant Erysichtho 2, or LVE-2.
The following was recovered and compiled from physical documents found in and around the township of Vandalia, Illinois. They are presented in rough chronological order and archived herein to aid and assist the NUSVDC in the fight against LVE-2 or subsequent variants thereof.
REPRODUCTION OF THESE DOCUMENTS WITHOUT AUTHORIZATION IS FORBIDDEN
` DOC NO. 45-2687 `
JOURNAL WRITTEN BY LUKE CHAPMAN
[The following was recovered from the room rented by Luke Chapman (IDN 45-0064) in the boarding house owned and operated by Barbara Welch (IDN 45-1703). The information forthcoming was transcribed from 50 typewritten pages collected from a desk drawer and one incomplete page from the typewriter itself. They are reproduced here as faithfully as possible. Originals were destroyed after transcription, as per protocol NVD-025Q.]
MAY 13TH, XXXX
By the time I had passed St. Louis going east on I-70 towards Indianapolis I began to get a not unpleasant tingle in my belly. It was May and the fields that stretched endlessly along the side of the road were bursting into vibrant green. Illinois is soybean land, and on a clear day you can see for miles and miles. The sight is boring to some, God knows it used to bore the hell out of me, but now on entering my thirty-fifth year I find it invigorating. Freeing. Perhaps it’s the result of seventeen years of claustrophobic city-living, five in Chicago and the rest in New York.
I had almost forgotten what the horizon looked like, and now I could see nothing else. It assaulted me. The horizon was all that there was, now that the farmers had finally cleared away the last of those pesky trees. They had to make room for more farmland. But what about the deer? They were swarming the roads. I had already passed one exploded buck since I’d crossed the Mississippi. It had no antlers. Sawn off by some redneck for trophy, probably. Unsportsmanlike if you ask me.
But that sky. You couldn’t deny that sky. It was high blue and just everywhere. It took up four-fifths of the world out here and stood totally blank, except for the softest of white brushstrokes, and those could only be seen if you stopped the car and looked straight up.
I switched to the right lane and slowed down to forty-five. I was looking for the billboard I knew must be coming up soon. It was also blue, but a fading royal blue, with a picture of a ridiculously tall meringue pie hand-painted across the surface. On top of the billboard, I remembered, was a plywood extension built just for the ruby red cherry on top. Across the bottom was written: THELMA’S FAMOUS MILE-HIGH PIES, EXIT 52, 1 MILE.
Once, and only once, my father had taken me to there to try Thelma’s famous Mile-High after many years of begging. I had the idea I might stop at the old sprawling restaurant, a relic even in ‘XX. It might still be there. Hell, I might even see Thelma herself. She wasn’t that old back then, forties maybe. She might still be alive. She might still be able to pull a pie out of the oven and toast the meringue. Hell, my great-grandmother baked into her nineties. She even put her pies on the windowsill to cool, even though we all told her it was ridiculous.
You were twelve the last time you were here. Don’t be disappointed if it’s gone. Things change. People die.
But here it was, the big blue billboard was just starting to surface over the curve of the horizon. It was there, faded sure, more than faded, it was—
“Motherfucker!” I cried.
The billboard wasn’t faded. It was gone. All that was left of Thelma’s Mile High Pies was a square skeleton of pipe and framing. The blue I had seen was the just sky peeking out between the board’s rusted steel ribcage.
No, that wasn’t all. In the middle of the frame, ridiculously small, hung a plain white banner. Slapped across it in red was a single word:
##REPENT!
I shot past the sign shaking my head. My good spirits had been crushed like a boot stomping out the glowing embers of a fire. What was I doing, coming back to the town where I had lived as a boy, trying to catch something that was irrevocably lost? What could I possibly gain by walking the bricked (probably asphalted now) downtown streets, or going to the (probably long-closed) soda fountain, which seemed impossibly kitsch even then. What could be waiting for me at the end of this road besides a hundred different kinds of humdrum disappointment?
A flash of yellow caught my eye off to the left, and when I looked that way I felt a blast of pleasure and recognition. A large hill towered far across a plowed-flat field— the prehistoric consequence of a passing glacier, or maybe a yet-undiscovered Indian burial mound (there were lots in the area)— and right at its peak stood a familiar sunflower yellow barn. It was there then and it was here now, just as bright, probably re-painted by its owner every year. It looked exactly the same.
“Shitcan eyesore!” I exclaimed with a grin, repeating my father’s long-ago slogan.
Then an overpass blotted it out. I looked for it in the rear view, knowing it wouldn’t reappear. Maybe it was going to be all right after all.
I dropped my eyes to the road, pushing the accelerator as I did. I watched for the sign. Presently it came up and out of the distance, shimmering in metallic green.
VANDALIA
5 MILES
The exit came up on the right, and for a moment I considered blowing right past it. I could stay on I-70 all the way to Effingham. A quick left would put me on 57. In two hours I would be hungry and I could stop for lunch in Champaign. I could drink in the college life, possibly flirt with a bored sorority girl or two. It wasn’t impossible. I’m still relatively trim and hell, dad bods are considered sexy now, right? After that I could head on to Chicago, with their overcrowded bars and irritatingly affordable apartments. It would be warm there. I could sunbathe at Montrose Beach, talk to some curiously friendly city folks, get invited to a house party, maybe hear about a place, a cute little one-bedroom in Lakeview, I could rent it, find a job that sends me a paycheck just before the money runs out…
I signaled, slowed the Enterprise rental, and went up the ramp. Toward the top, where a stoplight paused the traffic trying to enter US-51, I glanced down at my watch.
It had stopped.
I skirted town, taking Amblin Way to Rural Route 3, heading to the site of the old Wal-Mart. It had stood next to the interstate for two decades, alone except for a dirty Burger King a half-mile away. It was finally torn down a few years ago. Damaged in a tornado, they say.
My mind wanted to speak up, but I would not let it. Not yet. Please, not yet.
I was amazed by just how little things had changed out here. The road still curved down and around a hill and deposited my car on an insanely flat and straight road that, like an idiot child’s drawing, seemed to stretch on to infinity. On the right was still a vista of empty countryside. Its only feature besides brown dirt was a sign placed every mile or so that proclaimed, desperately, LAND FOR SALE.
I turned left at Jefferson Street and after a short drive I saw it. I pulled over and got out of the car.
The grass grew wild and tall around the lot, obscuring the concrete parking stops that lined its perimeter. Buzzing cicadas droned in it, and I could see little green grasshoppers jumping back and forth in great confused arcs.
The lot itself was tar-black. Faded parking lines wobbled crazily from the hot air rising off the asphalt. In the middle of the lot, about the size and shape of a New York City block, stood the empty grey foundation of what had once been the Vandalia Wal-Mart. Any sense of identity had been stripped away from it. The demolition team had taken the building, and years of rainstorms and heavy snow had washed off any marker that might have been left.
I felt a strong urge to walk over that hot blacktop, climb up the haphazard, cracking foundation, and retrace my old shopping route through the store. Here to the right were the rows and rows of empty shopping carts, and on past them was the grocery section. Then there was Seasonal Candy, and to the right of that were the clothes (no need to go that way) and ahead stood Homewares. If you hurried through there, then took a left at Greeting Cards, you would find yourself in Toys. That was the place to be. That was where you had sheltered during the tornado of ‘XX.
I swallowed and stared at the lot, almost hypnotized. It stared back indifferently.
Damaged by a tornado. Isn’t that funny. I had sheltered here once from a tornado. It was probably just dumb luck that the whole building hadn’t caved right in on my head. I had only been in one other tornado in my life, and that time I certainly wasn’t in a Wal-Mart. Like any respectable person, I had been at home.
We spent all night huddled in the bathroom. Mom and I were in the tub, her with one ear glued to the wind-up radio she bought from the Rural King that morning. Minnie, our elderly dachshund, had thrown her shiny black body over both of us. She shivered and moaned uncontrollably. Sometimes she would roll her eyes up at us and sigh.
I only left the bathroom once that night, to get more batteries for my Game Boy. Looking back, I realize the worst of the storm must have been over. Why else would my parent let me walk through the house alone? But at the time I genuinely felt like I was taking my life in my hands. I remember closing the door to the bathroom behind me. It was like letting the door of a shallow crypt swing shut. I tip-toed through the house. Glass was rattling in every window. The storm howled outside. It wasn’t a movie sound either, it sounded like a voice, and sometimes it was many voices, and they were moaning right on the other side of the walls. It sounded like something
(or somethings)
was trying to speak, pretending to be human.
The batteries were in the dry pantry next to the refrigerator. I had made the trip a million times before, sometimes two or three times a day. But the sounds, rain and howling, were foreign to my young ears. Strange too was the alien light spilling through the kitchen window. It was almost green, pulsing in an irregular tattoo, and its rays were cut into swirling ribbons by the great black storm clouds that were racing by overhead.
I stood rigid on the kitchen threshold, one hand wrapped around the thin door casing in a death grip. I groped for the light switch. I hated feeling for a light switch in a dark room. I had the idea - a stupid idea, even for a kid - that while my fingers were running along the waxy wallpaper some horrible, clammy hand would settle lightly over mine…
Don’t be an idiot. Nothing could live in the dark. Not in the dark my child mind imagined. To me the darkness somehow contained a whole different world, like an alternate dimension. It was a shadow world that lived just a breath away from our own, and if could reach it you would see terrible wonders. You could reach it if you sidestepped just a certain way. Or you could there by climbing into the right tree hole. You could accidentally fall into it, maybe, and then you would cross over and come face-to-face with all manner of crouched and lurking monsters; things that were all hairy and had rows and rows of overlapping razor teeth, and eyes that glowed with yellow bloodlust.
And these things that lived in the dark were hungriest for boymeat. Just the sight of my smooth and unbroken skin would drive them into a frenzy, and they would take me apart with their mouths and their hooked fingers and their teeth, slick and foamy, stringy with ravenous drool.
Dumbass! What would my mom say, if she caught me like this? Here he is, your only son, straddling the doorway like a lover, his eyes squeezed shut, his teeth gritted, mouth stretched out so wide you can see that ragged hole left by the molar that fell out last week! Funny? Oh you better believe it! Grab the Polaroid and snap a picture, Ma! Make sure to save that one for his wedding!
The wind was chucking hail against the house. It sounded like fingers tapping inside the walls. The moan came again and this time it sounded like a thick, otherworldly chuckle. The window above the sink was suddenly lit up with roiling green-yellow light. Lightning. Shadows sprang up across the wall and they did a spooky danse macabre before laying down again behind the furniture.
My fingers found the switch. Thank God!
They snapped it-
-and nothing. No light!
Shit! The power!
Lightning again. The kitchen was lit in a flashbulb burst. It left a bleary snapshot on my retinas, not really sight but an afterimage that my mind held for several seconds after the light died away.
Somebody was standing in the corner.
My mental switchboard fizzled out, too overloaded to handle what I had seen. I just stood in the doorway, feeling my hand go slack and fall away from the switch, completely unable to stop it. My chest hitched up. The screams were too big to come out.
He was dressed in black. He wore a ski mask. It the kind you wore in winter, pulled over the head. His eye glowed through the oval holes. They were huge and glassy. Red embers flickered in the center of the pupils, which were huge and dilated in a way that later in life I would associate with a really good LSD trip.
There’s a man here, my mind whispered. There’s a man standing in your kitchen. But that’s impossible, isn’t it? He wasn’t there a minute ago. And besides, the monsters can only live in the shadows, not the light. They die in the light. They have to stay in the dark. Right?
I realized with sickening horror that I could still see the man’s eyes floating in the dark. They were twin pinpricks of glowing crimson punched into the shadows over the table. Those eyes dimmed, then brightened, like a embers smoldering in a breeze.
A hallucination. It had to be. A mirage caused by the lightning. Like those black spots, the ones that float around after you get your school picture taken.
But the eyes were there. They were fixed on me, curiously, like a tiger who’s suddenly noticed you at the zoo. And those eyes, so evil and so awful, were those eyes now floating towards me? No. Not possible. Sure, there could be a man standing in my house. It was very possible that his eyes were there, staring at me in the dark
But those eyes couldn’t be floating towards me, not over the kitchen table that stood between us. Over it? Without moving it? Without his body touching the table in any way? Yet that’s just what they appeared to be doing.
My paralysis broke and I did the only thing I could think of: I flicked the light switch again. It was an automatic motion, a reflex, I might have even hit it accidentally. I really can’t remember.
What I do remember is the overhead light ignited. A blast of tungsten hit my eyes. Tears sprang and I had to shut them. My irises screamed. Then the fear hit me again and I wrenched my eyelids open.
But when I looked into the corner, through eyes burning and streaming tears, heart pumping crazy, leaping beats into my ears, when I looked, the corner was empty. There was no shadowy figure there, no man in black. There was just a patch of flowery, powder blue wallpaper, and a round-framed black-and-white photo of my grandmother.
Under. Hiding under the table.
I bent over so fast that both knees popped like twin shotgun blasts.
Nothing. There was no figure hiding between the forest of table-and-chair legs. There were no black, dilated eyes staring at me.
I hurried back to the bathroom without turning off the lights. I explained to my mother that actually, I was tired of my game and I didn’t like it anymore. Then I sat down in the tub and let her stroke my hair until she fell asleep.
I turned away from the parking lot, shivering despite the heat. I put my hand on the warm hood of the rental car and listened to the tick-tick-tick of the engine. My eyes drifted back to Jefferson Street. It led, I knew, straight downtown. To Vandalia. The town was still here after all these years. Changed, yes, but here. It had waited for me.
I got in the car, started it, and drove back up the hill.
No, the man was not real. Monsters were not real. Things with glowing, hateful red eyes that grabbed you and pulled you into their world of fists and teeth and agony could not be real, not there, not in the same house where your mother stroked your hair and told you that she loved you. Those monsters only existed in the movies, and in books, and even then they were just flat men, two-dimensional, and if they did attack, you could just fold them into origami and rip them apart like paper.
I believed that back then. I believed that with all my heart.
But even though I believed, I still woke up the morning after the storm and slipped into the kitchen. I wanted to turn off the lights before my mother woke up. But when I walked in I saw something that turned my stomach into a weeping, bloody wound above my groin.
There was a black pile of dirt on the floor, right behind the kitchen table. Right where my man had been standing.
And to this day I don’t know why I did it, but before I turned off the lights I took out a broom, swept up the dirt, and tossed it into the wastebasket.
I never mentioned it to anybody.
[FILE CONTINUES IN DOC NO. 45-0897] (TBD)