Journals of Horror: Found Fiction Read online

  Reply from Jason Bowman, dated November 6th:

  Dear Tony,

  I am so sorry to hear about your home situation. I had no idea. Lydia sends her love and is insistent that you have Thanksgiving dinner with us.

  It is reassuring to see you taking things so well. But you have always been a rock.

  And yes, I am a Stout man. As soon as time permits, I would love to sample that brewery of yours.

  Thanks and we will speak soon. Again, I am a phone call away for any work or personal concerns.

  Take care

  Jason Bowman

  Federal Bureau of Investigation

  Cold Case Initiative

  Washington, DC

  From Jason Bowman, dated December 4th:

  Hey Tony,

  Sorry I haven't been in touch sooner and I was disappointed that you weren't able to make Thanksgiving. Lydia missed you and I was hoping you'd bring a six pack of that home brew of yours. Anyway, I know things are probably crazy on your end.

  I am having a mandatory status meeting with the director soon (hooray) and I need a full report on the transition of the black files. They might try to push the deadline up, and we will also take a look at all five of your staff and decide to either reassign them or lay them off. You will have this information soon, and it will be up to you to prepare your people.

  I have to tell you that deciding their fate this close to Christmas makes me physically ill. It's a nasty business. A personal note from you on their behalf might help. Please get back to me with a status report and ETA on a complete switchover ASAP.

  Let me know if I need to assist you with any of this. I am here for you, Tony.

  Sincerely

  Jason Bowman

  Federal Bureau of Investigation

  Cold Case Initiative

  Washington, DC

  From Jason Bowman, dated December 11th, via an e-mail cc'ed to Tony McCasland's personal e-mail, and a bcc'ed to the director:

  Dear Tony,

  I have to say, I am concerned. You haven't answered any of my numerous phone calls or responded to the reminders I had set in your e-calendar. Your department is a ghost town. I sent a staff member over and the only person currently in your office is Alex Nash, who is diligently working on the black file conversions. We have questioned him, and he has no idea where you or your staff might be.

  He said that there has been no talk of the imminent shutdown of SIDEBOARD or the future of your people. Now, maybe you are keeping Alex out of the loop, which is understandable. He mentioned that you held a get-together at your place on Friday night (which he wasn't able to make). It seems rather suspicious that you and your staff would all miss a Monday.

  I still have not received a progress report and I have to say that I am extremely upset, Tony. Alex assured us that he is on target, but I should have heard that from you. We have been friends a very long time and I have tried to soften this blow for you in every way possible. I feel betrayed, sir.

  My only conclusion is that you have talked your people into taking some kind of stand with you, and that you have all summarily walked away from the bureau. Despite any derision that you may have felt over the years, most had a very high level of respect for you. If a walkout is indeed the case, it was a foolish route to take, Tony. This sort of thing will not brighten a resume, my friend. It is very unprofessional.

  My staff are calling and sending e-mails to your people. Please get back to me, Tony.

  Bureau matters aside, I am your friend and this isn't like you. I fear for you.

  Jason Bowman

  Federal Bureau of Investigation

  Cold Case Initiative

  Washington, DC

  Reply from Tony McCasland, via a postal letter received by Bowman's office, December 15th:

  Dear Jason,

  Fuck you. You have never been my friend. I have always known that. All of these grand promises you made were just an effort to get me under your thumb and your attitude of oh, we'll get the black files into the database under my watch blah dee fucking blah...

  You have lobbied, behind my back, for years to get my department shut down. What, you didn't think I knew? The director was on the fence regarding SIDEBOARD and you were the one who pushed her over. Do you think that your personality is so commanding that people wouldn't talk? I have other friends in the organization, and the Magic 8 Ball says all signs point to Jason; he of long reach and short dick.

  When I think of those cunty remarks you made about the director...

  Did you think I would just stand idly by and let you take away everything I have built? I am the reason SIDEBOARD exists. And you want it simply absorbed into cold cases? Under your authority, but you'll let me oversee it? How generous of you.

  I hate you with everything I have inside. It took me decades to authenticate the black files and it took a great portion of my reputation in the process. It's only in the recent years that I have gotten any validation for my sacrifices and here you come, ready to tear it all down over ego. You dirty, greedy, little fucker.

  You were always jealous of me. I am a rock star, you insignificant pussy. I get fan mail, for Christ's sake. Do you know how many dark tourists seek me out? How many cash offers I have had for mementos? I could have been a wealthy man.

  As far as my staff goes, they have all been bagged, tagged and buried, Jason... per your instructions; I have been planning my own black file for some time. I had my people over last Friday, and I made them a special blend of beer.

  Now, before you make any assumptions regarding my proximity to the black files and the influence they must have had on my sanity, let me assure you: this violent desire inside of me has always been there. I killed people before my service to the FBI; I poisoned them, which was my preferred method after a few bloody missteps in my youth. I struck down enemies and random strangers alike. What I use to kill is hard to locate, unless you are searching specifically for it.

  Seeking a place in the bureau was merely an attempt at hiding in plain sight. SIDEBOARD seemed a logical area for me, though I didn't have the courage to contribute personally to the black files. Until recently, that is; thanks to you. And I am wiping the slate clean before I go.

  Yesterday, I dropped off a batch of homemade pale ale to my boys at their dorm rooms and I gave a bottle of spiked holiday wine to my ex-wife. There will be no teary testimonials from my wife and children or an Oprah book club memoir. Oh no. If I am going down in history as a monster, it will be as one of the worst kind.

  I hope I embarrass you and the bureau. I pray it is a mark that you can never remove.

  When you search my home, you will find all of my poisonous spices and the scrapbooks that detail all of my killings. I have arranged them, neatly, on the kitchen table for you to find with ease. They are organized by year. I looked them over last night and there were more victims than I had thought. I anticipate many exhumed bodies in your future, if you are still fit to run your division after all of this.

  And I say that because there is something else you should know: I sent a bottle of special holiday wine to your wife, as well. Included with it is a note of apology for missing Thanksgiving.

  If the timing is correct, she should have received it this morning. Does she still have a glass of wine before lunch, Jason? I know how that has always bothered you; her drinking before noon. And what was that excuse she always used? She's part French, oui? You should probably give her a call. This letter won't go anywhere...

  And don't worry- my hunt is now over. I am going somewhere private to drink a Stout that I don't have the taste for. I'll be dead by the time you read this, and my condolences if you aren't able to reach Lydia in time. She was a great lady whose only mistake was marrying an asshole like you.

  Oh, and since I won't have another opportunity to say this and we are so very close to the date: Merry Fucking Christmas!

  Your friend,

  Tony

  TURN ME ON, DEAD MAN

  By Robi
n Dover

  Case #BF7147741119

  Journal transcribed from printed matter on the side of the plastic wrapping around an eighteen pack of toilet tissue, text embossed on a light switch, the symbols on a dollar bill taped to a window, information about food additives on a package of food from the refrigerator, a radio announcement followed by a song, a television news commentary and the numerological significance of a 9 mm handgun.

  ‘I’m speaking to you with my mouth. Contrary to popular belief, I am not speaking out of my ass. I don’t mean to be crude, but people have had the nerve to tell me this for my entire life. I’d like to say I’m living proof, but then again, don’t listen to me. My wife, Doris, never listened. Oh, she does hear me. I make damned sure of that, especially now. Although she still doesn’t genuinely listen to me. I’m glad we didn’t have children. I doubt if I could have trained them to listen to me, especially with her influence and example. I had a girlfriend once… before Doris. She didn’t listen to me. Maybe it’s something about my voice. Read my story, instead. I know it’ll be everywhere. I wrote it down like a villain as I went. Write that down, write that down. That’s what I always tell myself. It’s become second nature. I wasn’t really thinking about appearances and it wasn’t my plan, but it must have looked like I was hired to leave a trail of poison breadcrumbs to kill Cock Robin… and it all led back to my bedroom. I was premeditation in college. I hope it makes the front page. I definitely want it on television. If I’m lucky, ha, like that’s ever going to happen, maybe they’ll turn it into a movie… at least a short film for Sundance.

  ‘It rubs off on you. I don’t like to listen, either, now. I don’t even like to listen to myself and I didn’t want to listen to this. It freaked me out. The whole gouging process annoyed me. I don’t like to be pushed. I try to ignore it. Warning! Warning! Danger! Danger! I’m offended when someone gives me a warning. Oh, wow… they’re warning me. First of all, it’s pretentious and I don’t believe them. It always comes across as a threat. Don’t ever threaten me. Are you threatening me? That’s the question in my mind. Get away from me. I can take care of myself. I don’t want it.

  ‘But, then things started to change. And so it goes…

  ‘It began earlier today. I was in the bathroom. I was sitting on the toilet in deep meditation, spinning inside myself and reached out for the paper. It was still wrapped inside of the damned plastic. I picked up the entire unopened package. It was a huge thing with eighteen brand new rolls of paper. I started to think: that’s eighteen rolls of toilet paper. That reduces to a nine. That’s the number of death. That scares me. My ass is in jeopardy. My bowels broke open again and I had to wait. I took a deep breath. In confined quarters, without an extractor fan, that was not a pleasant experience.

  ‘I finally tore open the package. When I did, a flash caught my eye. I had to blink. It actually blinded me for a moment. I rubbed my eye and looked around thinking it might have been a fleck of glitter that caught a bit of sun but, no, it had to be something else. The curtains were pulled closed. It wasn’t exactly dark in the bathroom but it was not a flash of sunlight. I was wearing my strong reading glasses, picked up the package and started to read, ‘Warning… to avoid danger of injury or suffocation…’ and in my periphery it flashed again. I was immediately pulled away from this pseudo-warning into the real warning. It was the numbers… the numbers of the barcode.

  ‘It wasn’t a normal barcode: 0 2 9183 9 2799 8 1. These thirteen numbers are symbolic of my death. Two times nine is eighteen… eight plus one is nine. Three times nine is twenty-seven… two plus seven is nine. Nine times nine is eighty-one… eight plus one is nine. The number nine is positioned exactly in the center of the demonic secret code that is a total of thirteen unlucky numbers. Six numbers on one side and six numbers on the opposite side of that upside down number six: Six – Six – Six. A damned beast is coming to get me. I know it. Or just turn all of those sixes upside down and there’re three nines, three times death, after me. This central nine is the terrible monarch of the ominous code. It controls everything. It’s a curse. Take any one of these numbers, multiply it by nine and add them together. Reduce it to its simplest form. You come right back to number nine. I’m going to die. You get nine. The number nine has taken over. I’m going to bloody die. It’s black magick.

  ‘Positioned right beside those numbers was the undisputed symbol of my looming reincarnation – the recycle symbol – the dreaded evil Möbius strip that was created by the devil himself and the World Monarch of the Illuminati – and right in the middle of that symbol was the resin identification code. It was a number nine. It confirmed everything. This doesn’t even exist! When I saw that, I just shit.

  ‘I was immobilized on the toilet for almost another ten minutes before I could get cleaned up. No. Thinking back, it was another nine minutes. It sat on that toilet for another damned nine minutes. My life was getting ready to spin away down the crapper: I’m going to die. Numbers never lie.

  ‘The confidence I usually have when I clean up the forest at the end of the job was absolutely gone. My life flashed before me. I did the best I could. Then it flushed before me. I jumped up and crashed into the door facing before I could even get out of the bathroom. It hit me right between the eyes. I broke my glasses in three places. I counted those cracks and multiplied them by themselves. I was right back at nine.

  ‘It was very difficult, but I could still see through the cracked lenses into that other world delivering the warning. I was afraid to just take them off. I was afraid I’d miss something… and there it was.

  ‘I froze in my tracks. Staring me dead in the eye was the word, OFF. I hadn’t thought about it, but it was true. The light was not switched on. The light switch was off. I immediately knew what that had to mean. I felt the menace of those numbers. The true meaning was held within that barcode. The number nine in the center of the Möbius strip sealed the meaning upon my head.

  ‘Blood oozed from my third eye down my forehead. Anxiety had built up so high inside of me that I was just about ready to explode.

  ‘I ran into the kitchen, pulled up the blinds and stared at the front of the dollar bill I had taped to the window for good luck. My heart fell. For some reason, that dollar bill was turned the wrong way. It should have been turned with the front of the dollar facing out. I should have been staring at the back of that dollar, but I wasn’t. This was not good. And to add insult to serious injury, the moon was in its waning phase. It was bad luck to leave a dollar in the window unless the moon was waxing. But I could not remove it. Instead, I was forced to step in closer and stare at the symbols covering the front of the dollar bill.

  ‘I saw that damned owl staring at me, quietly but with ill intent. It was perched on the inner sweep on the left side of the outline which framed the number one on the top right hand corner of the dollar.

  ‘The owl is a bird of death. I felt the bad blood. I knew the owl represented dark and forbidden knowledge but the Egyptian pyramid on that dollar always confused and worried me. It had to be satanic. The eye of Lucifer was staring at me from the capstone of that pyramid. There’s something very Egyptian going on here. Hell, I lived in Memphis named after the place in Egypt. Why did I move to Memphis? I wouldn’t have moved to Egypt. Everyone knows the Egyptians wrote the book on death. An Egyptian pyramid with the eye of Lucifer in the capstone staring at me on an American dollar made this a deadly message. Maybe the Egyptians were in charge of death in America. I was the central target on an ancient Egyptian conspiracy. Today, the Egyptians were in charge of my death. The owl had a message for me. It kept pulling me back in. It was forcing me to listen or to see something important. I leaned in and stared closer. I couldn’t help it. It was so tiny but so powerful. It was actually staring at me… and then I saw more of them. There was one perched at the bottom of the center of the dollar. I had never seen that one before. There was another I had never seen before, too. It was near the left hand side at the bottom of the dollar. Th
ere was another, hidden and turned sideways… just above the one on the lower right hand side. The whole thing was very sneaky. They were flying all over that dollar. They were gathering. They were watching me. I felt like an endangered Bohemian. Owls are predators… night predators. They’re monsters… screeching dirty mouthpieces for Lilith.

  ‘Lilith is an evil, adulterous shit who screwed the demon of death, Samael. She was all over that damned dollar bill. She had possessed the owls. I started to count them and then I shit again. There were nine owls on that damned dollar bill all screeching her name. Then they started to screech my name. I heard them speak to me in unison… ‘I’m here to protect you. But you must follow me to the bitter end if you truly want me to be your guardian.’ I jumped back away from that dollar. You’re a damned liar! There was no way I was going to follow a flock of owls possessed by a demonic bitch. I wasn’t looking for protection. My glasses fell off, hit the floor and the frame snapped in half. I closed my eyes, took in a deep breath and put my hands out in front of me. I had done this before to calm myself. Breathe out – breathe in – breathe out. I’ll do it nine times. What will it be like to breathe out for the last time?