Clampdown

The second night of the lockdown is when things went to hell in a handbasket.

We could watch through the cameras the owner of the hostel had set up - we could see all of the Grayskins outside. And, stranger, most of them were bleeding from the nose as well. I learned from some of the other guests that this was a sign of being "scarlet marked" and that a Fear called the Red Cap was probably controlling them. It didn't matter - the Choir was still there, we were still trapped.

And then we learned that one of the guests was still outside. Kenny told me her name was Sandy. I hadn't seen her before we got there, but I could see her now on the monitor. She was a sitting duck. She had the smarts enough to figure out something was wrong, but now she was trapped between the Grayskins. Hiding could only help somewhat.

And then Kenny did something stupid. He went outside. He was trying to save her. Someone he didn't even know and he was trying to save her.

So I said fuck it and went out after him. And behind me were some other people who had also apparently decided to it was better to go out swinging than slowly suffocate inside.

The first thing I noticed went I ran outside was the horse. I don't know how I missed it when I first arrived, but now I could see it. It was huge and black and very good at stomping Grayskins, I'm happy to say.

I couldn't find Kenny anywhere, but I did see a few Grayskins and that's when I brought out the molotov cocktails. I know I shouldn't have taken any pleasure in their deaths, but I did. I watched those fuckers burn and I enjoyed it.

And then I saw her. A young woman, twentyish, coy smile on her face, with a red scarf around her neck. She walked beside the flaming Grayskins without a care in the world and I knew. This was the Red Cap the others had talked about.

She approached me and I wanted to throw another molotov cocktail at her, but my arms were suddenly heavy and I dropped them. I could feel my heart beating even as the white noise became silent in my ears. Even as I heard her voice. "You can become one of mine," she whispered from so far away. "You can become scarlet."

And then someone tackled her. It was a fucking beautiful tackle, too. Another woman, older, graying brown hair, had jumped the Red Cap woman and they were fighting. I could see scratches cutting deep into her flesh and then blood seeping out...and then the blood didn't seep, it jumped and I could see it being drained from the Red Cap woman and pouring itself into the other one.

I think it was then that I passed out. I don't exactly know why, I just did. I woke up a few hours later back in the hostel with this lady hovering over me. "Good," she said, "you're okay." Then she left.

And that brings us to now. I've been resting - I don't know what that Red Cap woman did to me, but it seemed like all the energy just went out of me. Kenny is gone though and Lyron left after she made sure I was alive. So I'm back to being alone.

I should probably get going soon. I don't want to stay here long enough for the Choir to come back.

But someday, I think I will have to face the music.

Life During Wartime

We were here at the hostel less than a week before Lyron told us we had to leave. "It's too dangerous," she said.

"I thought we were safe here?" I asked.

"Not anymore," she said. "I've been reading the blog they maintain and the protection I thought they had is no longer in place. So any runners here still have whatever Fears are after them -- including us. So we need to go."

We got our bags and went to leave. We were at the front door when we heard it. It was a very low-pitched noise, right on the edge of hearing, and then I stepped outside and starting vomiting my guts up.

Kenny pulled me back inside. Lyron, apparently, had stepped outside too and suffered the same effects, so he went to pull her back.

The man behind the front desk saw what had happened to us and came over to help. He passed me a towel and as I wiped down my face, asked me what had happened. My throat was sore and I could barely speak, but I was able to utter one word: "Choir."

The man's eyes went wide, then he walked back to his desk and called someone. I heard him say the word "lockdown" and then he hung up and got out a ring of keys. He went around the room, shutting the windows and lowered steel shutters down to cover them, and then locking the front doors.

And I knew why he was doing it. They didn't have the protection they used to have, so they had to make due. They had to protect themselves. The Choir was outside and it wanted to get in, so the hostel was now in lockdown.

And we were stuck within.

We're here.

The Wake-Up Bomb

Well, I finally have a fucking chance to write something. And that something will be:

I told you so. I fucking told you so.

Okay. We're staying at a motel right now, but we have to move on pretty quickly. I can feel it when they get near -- the air thrums. It feels like I'm in an airplane and we're going up up up and my ears are popping like crazy.

I think perhaps Proxiehunter was right. I think they just started pumping out infrasound, making us feel as bad as we possibly could. Because it started on Monday. I was feeling well, just on that verge of puking, when I saw that Kenny was rubbing his stomach, too. We were both nauseous, so either we had both eaten something that was disagreeing with us, or something was affecting both of us.

I went to find Lyron, to see if she had any nausea as well, when we heard it. The shrieking.

Have you ever heard a feedback loop? Here, take a listen to this. That's what it sounded like...only amplified by a hundred.

The windows cracked. I saw a hand covered in gray fungus push against them and they just shattered. Kenny had jumped up when the noise started and was covering his ears. I had put on my noise-cancelling headphones, but I still had one hell of a headache and it was getting worse.

Someone was coming in through the windows. Well, something. I guess when you are covered in living fungus, you may not count as human anymore. They didn't exactly look completely human either. When I took a look at their face, I saw that their jaw was hanging open at an unnatural angle, longer than I had seen a jaw hang before, like it had broken away from their face and was just hanging by their flesh and fungi. The entire inside of their mouth was lined with the fungus and that's where the noise was coming from.

I grabbed Kenny -- who was still holding his ears to keep the sound out -- and lead him to the back door. Our stuff was already packed and waiting for us there. We were paranoid enough -- and savvy enough -- to realize we would need to get our stuff quickly, so we prepacked everything and made sure we were ready to go before the attack.

I scrounged in my pack for my extra pair of headphones, then passed it to Kenny. He gave me a thumbs up. Together, we opened the back door.

There were four more of those Grayskins out there. They stood like statues, then open their mouths wide and let out their screams. Even with the headphones on, the noise echoed in my skull.

We were stuck. We couldn't go forward or backward. One touch and the Grayskins could infect us or melt our brains or whatever the hell the Choir wanted with us. My vision got blurry and when I wiped away at my eyes, I realized that they were bleeding. I looked at Kenny and saw that his were bleeding, too.

We were crying bloody tears and going to die.

And then Lyron -- sweet Lyron, whom I couldn't believe actually worked for monsters before -- then Lyron appeared at the edge of the yard and opened fire. She held a big fucking handgun and managed to clip two of the Grayskins, one in the shoulder and one in the chest. The others turned to her and let loose their scream, but she was wearing those ear muffs they have at the shooting range (which is where she probably was at before the attack, now that I think about it), so she staggered but didn't go down.

She yelled something at us, but we couldn't hear it. She was waving at us to move. I couldn't hear the thing behind us still screaming, but it was nothing compared to the onslaught happening to Lyron now.

So we grabbed out packs and ran. We ran past Lyron as she picked straight into the mouth of one the Grayskins to shut it up. Its gray matter splattered onto the grass. After that, she lowered her gun and tossed us her keys. Kenny caught them.

It took a few seconds for me to start up the car -- it's been a while since I've driven, my license is probably crazy expired -- and when I did, I reversed out of the driveway as fast as I could. The backdoor opened and I saw Lyron get in behind us. She said something and I didn't have to hear to know what it was: "Drive."

So I did. I drove until the sun rose and then I drove more.

Their still following us. I don't know why. Perhaps their after me. Perhaps if I go off alone, they'll follow me and leave Kenny and Lyron alone.

Lyron says she knows a safe place where we can stay, though. She says that she's heard rumors of a place, a hostel, that apparently caters to runners. So after tonight, that's where we'll be heading.

Let's hope it helps.

In the Air Tonight

I'm sorry I haven't posted in a while. I wish I could say there was some sort of reason, but really, it was just lethargy. I went over and over the research Lyron had given me, looking for those tidbits of information, and the rest of the time, I just enjoyed having a roof over my head.

Thanksgiving dinner was...awkward. Both Kenny and I were still engrossed with the research, but we still paused to eat the turkey that Lyron had generously bought. It was pretty good, even though I am not sure when she had time to cook it.

There is a diary in with the research. It had one of those old stamps in the front where you fill in your name; in the space was the name "Alicia Cook." It looked like the diary came from the early 20th century, probably during the First World War (Alicia makes reference to the fact that her father has gone off to fight in the "war against the Hun.")

She also makes references to something she calls "the Music of the Spheres." It's music only she can hear, music that influences her thoughts and what she says and does. She believes that it is the singing of angels and "their invisible influence helps me survive in this world."

Halfway through the diary, Alicia notices a gray patch of mold growing on her leg. Removing even part of it hurts, so she leaves it alone and it grows and grows.

This is the last entry:

i was wrong about the music. it was not my invisible angels singing to me. i think, instead, it was the devil himself and i gave into his temptations. his voice bombards me now. the grayness has spread across my chest and neck. it hurts to even touch it. 

the music sings to me now. it wants me to spread this infection. it wants me to walk from city to city and spread its influence, like typhoid mary. i have barely any resistance left. it can make me do whatever it wishes. 

tomorrow is guy fawkes night. our remaining family shall build a bonfire. and when it is as hot as the fires of hell itself, i shall perform my last rebellion against the devil and throw myself into the fire. i shall burn this infection and myself along with it. 

god forgive me, 

alicia cook

This corresponds to other instances of the Choir turning their victims into Carriers or "Grayskins."

I still wish I knew more, though. There is just this...foreboding in the air. Like we've rested for so long, something must happen. Something is bound to happen, no matter what.

Girl Anachronism

Part of me wants to leave this house. Part of me wants to get on the next bus or just take off running. Part of me wants to burn it to the ground.

Why, you ask? Because we've been here a few weeks. A few weeks with a roof over my head and a soft bed at night. A few weeks of hot showers. A few weeks of no worries. Hakuna matata motherfuckers.

And I know it's going to end. Because it has to. Nothing lasts that long, especially if you are a runner. Something will happen - Lyron will get tired of us and try to kill us (probably not likely, but possible), one of the Fears she doesn't work for will attack (most probable), a comet will crash into the earth creating a thousand years of darkness (very unlikely, but still), maybe none of those things, but something will happen.

And we will have to run. And we will miss the roof over our heads and the soft beds and the hot showers. It's like Lyron is saying, "Here. Here are all the things you are going to miss. Go on, enjoy them, that just means you'll miss them more."

In other news, I have been reading about the Choir. Lyron gave us packets of information and mine was filled with reports and articles and studies all about our good old grey fungi friends. Needless to say, most of it is contradictory, most of the witness statements are less than useless, but there are nuggets of gold. I just need to find them.

Speaking of Lyron, she and Kenny were put off (well, that's putting it mildly) to something I said during the interview. I think she's avoiding me, which is fine by me. Kenny, however, seems so inquisitive that I think he's going to ask me a million questions whenever we're in the same room.

Well, back to research. And I thought I wouldn't have any more homework when I started running.

Know Your Enemy

So here's what we've been doing for the past week.

Needless to say, it is not what I expected.

Lyron is nice. It's kind of disconcerting, knowing that this person who serves multiple eldritch abominations is  nice. And she's not like, nice-to-meet-you-now-leave-nice. She has a genuine niceness. A sister-niceness.

Which doesn't mean I won't burn her house down if I have to. As soon as she set us up in her spare rooms, I set up several contingencies in case we needed to leave in a hurry.

I also don't have any qualms about spending her money. Money is money, doesn't matter where it came from. Hell, a majority of the money in the US has cocaine on it. True story.

I just wish Kenny would ask her for information already. I don't think the Choir will mess up his information - but it may mess up any questions I ask, so I've been trying to avoid talking. Believe me, I've had to hold in a million questions and if Kenny doesn't start asking soon, I may toss my apprehensions about the Choir aside and ask myself.

Bridge Over Troubled Water

It's not easy, trying to communicate without talking. Kenny and I have exchanged perhaps a dozen words today. I ended up writing most of the messages to him in a notebook. And then I asked him where exactly we were going - and he told me it was to the temporary abode of Lyron.

I then asked him to write it out again, since I was sure the Choir was messing up his note. Because the only Lyron I knew about was a servant to the Fears. Wait, hold on, she's only a "scribe" for the Fears. But let me just quote something from her introduction:

Hello commenters [sic] and let us pray that I never have to meet anyone of you else I might be made to kill you or something... And we all know we don't want that.

Yes, that's right, we're going to the home of a person who might kill us. Frankly, I called Kenny crazy and nearly asked the bus driver to stop so I could get off.

Kenny managed to stop me from doing that. He didn't say anything (because, frankly, I wouldn't and couldn't listen), all he did was look down in subtle resignation. And I knew: he didn't think this was a good idea either. Then why?

He wrote one word in my notebook and made it all clear: information.

He's going there because he wants information on the other Fears. Because once you're in this world, the best chance to survive is to know as much as you can in order to avoid what you can.

So I'm staying. Because I'd like some information, too. And if Lyron does try to kill us, well, I still have a few tricks I haven't revealed on this blog.

So let's do this thing.

See My Friends

Good news: I can sleep in a real bed tonight, care of my traveling companion for the moment.

I had stepped off a bus and was wondering if I should take my chance here at finding a place to sleep or take another bus to another bus stop, when I saw that someone was trying to talk to me. I told him to piss off.

Instead of doing that (as a sensible person would), he instead said something else. And it looked as if he has said the word 'running,' so I finally pulled down my headphones and said, "What?"

"I said, 'Are you running from something?'"

I looked at him. He looked young, maybe nineteen or twenty perhaps. His face was thin, with a faded x-shaped cut on it, and he had brown shaggy hair. The one thing that struck me, however, was that he was holding a wooden staff. And there was only one person I knew who owned a staff, let alone walked around with one: the Wanderer (or Kenny, I guess I should call him).

After our awkward introductions (my fault, I guess, for picking a masculine sounding name), he said that he knew a place where I could stay.

I weighed my options - stay here and possibly sleep in another parking garage or trust another runner and sleep in a real bed? Well, since I'm currently on a bus on the way to the Wanderer's friend's house, you can guess which option I chose.

I'm a little nervous, I'll admit. It's been a while since I've really been around people - stayed around people, that is. I tend to keep in my own little world. I'm not really at being social.

But I can try, if it means sleeping inside, where it's warm.

I Don't Like Mondays

Tried to sleep in a parking garage again. Was chased away by security (why was security working this late? fuck if I know). Need to find a place with a real bed where I can get some real sleep.

I miss listening to songs. Mouthing along to the words. "The silicon chip inside her head was switched to overload. And nobody's going to go to school today, she's going to make them stay at home..."

Can't listen to them anymore. Tried before. Every song becomes different, twisted. No matter how far away I go, it's all the same. All the words become poison, dripping into my ear. So I stopped listening.

No more music. No more songs.

Just noise.

Tomorrow Never Dies

Ended up sleeping in a parking garage. Not the most dignified place to go to sleep, but it'll do for now. I might be able to line up some other places to go, places that have actual beds.

Since I couldn't find an outlet for my iPod, I've switched to the Walkman. It's strange, listening to something that's now an antique. I don't actually remember when Walkmen were popular, but they must have been sometime. The idea of people being amazed about carrying a few songs in the palm of their hand is strange, considering we can now hold thousands of songs in something smaller.

Is that what we'll become? Does time just leave us behind, like relics, bits of old technology? Do we become runners of monsters who no longer seek us? So entrenched in our ways, only running due to momentum and the fear of what will happen (or not happen) if we stop?

Fuck it, I haven't been a runner long enough to philosophize about it.

When the World Is Running Down, You Make the Best of What's Still Around

One of the dangers of running: sometimes you just can't find a place to sleep on the money you have (I'm pretty sure all my credit cards would be declined right about now). If I wanted to, I bet I could have found a homeless shelter, but I was so tired and cold and the bench was comfortable, so I closed my heavy eyelids and let the world fall away.

I woke up when someone tapped me in the shoulder. I looked up at the face of a policeman, his uniform a crisp blue, with brass buttons. He motioned for me to take off the headphones and I did.

"Hello, officer," I said. "Is there a problem?" It pays to be nice to the police, especially if they could run you through their database and find you are a known arsonist.

"You're going to die here," he said.

I stopped. I had heard him correctly, I knew. He hadn't said that, but I had heard it. His lips hadn't even been out of sync.

"Sorry?" I said.

"I said you can't sleep here," he said.

"Ah," I said. "Okay, sorry. I didn't mean to. I just am waiting for a bus."

"Buses don't run this late," he said. He looked at me, my backpack, my laptop. I didn't look like a homeless person - what homeless person has a laptop? - but I didn't look like someone just nonchalantly waiting for the bus. I looked like what I was: a runner.

The policeman took out his notepad, wrote something on it, and then ripped it off and handed it to me. "Here," he said, "there's a place where you can sleep. It's not far."

"Thanks," I said taking the slip of paper. Could I trust him? His words had been twisted in the beginning - were they being twisted still? Was I being led into a trap?

The policeman tapped on the top of his notepad with his pen thoughtfully and then said, "I can give you a ride if you want."

I took a look at the paper. "No," I said, "I can walk. Thanks anyway."

I got up and slipped the paper into my pocket. I would go in the direction of the shelter - if that was what the address was - but I wouldn't go in. I'd find somewhere else. 

"I don't want to find you sleeping here again," the policeman said as I walked away. "Loitering is still illegal here."

"I understand," I said.

I slipped my headphones back up over my ears and didn't look back.

Louder Than a Bomb

can't sleep. still have that ringing in my ear. it's concentrated in the left ear only. choir trying to make me an insomniac? i'm trying to concentrate on the soft hum of the white noise, but the ringing ringing ringing is still going on.

do they want me to cut off my ear like van gogh? perhaps, realizing that they couldn't force me to down a bottle of pills, they are taking the slow approach. one ear and then another. suicide in slow motion.

no. No. I lived through their taunts and hallucinations, I fucking burned my own house to the ground. I will not cut off my ear even if it stops the ringing. I will not give them what they want.

Come on then.

Bring the noise.

The Note You Never Wrote

Another day, another bus ride, another trip to another city.

Here's something you may not know about the Choir: they can cause hallucinations. I know what you're thinking: "Surely you mean auditory hallucinations, since they only manipulate sound?" No and don't call be Shirley.

Have you ever heard of infrasound? It's sound on frequencies lower than 20 Hz. Normally, it doesn't have any affect on humans, but increase the sound pressure and you get something that causes uneasy feelings in people. And when I say "uneasy feelings," let me just quote that Wikipedia article: "anxiety, uneasiness, extreme sorrow, nervous feelings of revulsion or fear, chills down the spine and feelings of pressure on the chest." So yeah, there's that.

So this stuff supposedly is what causes "hauntings" (so you can blame the Choir for all those stupid Ghost Hunters type shows). But guess what happens when the infrasound is on the same resonant wavelength as the human eye? Well, it creates optical illusions, that's what.

I've experienced these hallucinations. You think it's bad hearing people insult you? Just imagine seeing a crowd of people surround you and berate you, all your friends and family, everyone you love telling you just how worthless you are. Just how they wouldn't care if you died, if you killed yourself right then and there.

I honestly don't know how I survived. It was afterward that I realized the white noise trick: don't hear anything, don't listen to anyone. Block out the world and they can't hurt you. Well, mentally, that is. They can still hurt you physically. Hence the running.

So next time you're all alone and break out into a cold sweat, just think about this.

Things to Do in Denver When You're Dead

What to do when it's 3 am and you can't fall asleep because it's freezing and there is a loud ringing in your ears: use the local Starbucks wi-fi to troll the internet.

...I'm slightly worried about the ringing in the ears thing. It's probably just tinnitus, but just in case, I'm loading up another track of white noise. Can't be too careful.

It's not easy trying to block out the world.

Fire of Unknown Origin

Okay, it wasn't really "unknown" origin. In fact, it was a pretty, um, known origin. (Is there a better way to say that?) The simple fact of the matter was this: I set fire to my home and watched it burn.

Now, some of you are thinking: "Holy shit, what a firebug!" But others are thinking: "Good job!" Because they've been paying attention. They get gold stars.

If you noticed closely from the last post, you may have inferred that I am in fact running from something called 'the Choir.' It's part of a larger group of things called 'Fears.' They are, basically, monsters.

The Choir, as I learned, can manifest as a blur in the corner of your eyes or something in your shadow...or a gray fungus or mold that grows on walls and floors and ceilings and people. You can't do anything about blurs or shadows. You can do something about fungus. You can fucking burn it.

Which is what I did. It caused a lot of trouble, but I'm glad I did it. There's more to the story - quite a bit more - but this is only what I'm willing to share right now. I'll leave the rest for another day.

But I just want to say that, of all the bands I miss hearing, Blue Oyster Cult is up there, near the top of the list.

Left for Dead on the Road of Love

Maxed out my credit cards on my last day. Bought supplies.

Supplies include:

• one pair of noise-cancelling headphones
• one iPod Touch with extended battery and a playlist of white noise
• one old-style cassette walkman, in case iPod fails
• one rugged laptop (Panasonic ToughBook 52) with wifi capabilities
• twenty road flares
• several bottles of liquor and rags, easily converted to molotov cocktails
• one propane torch (I made sure to keep this hidden away)
• several plastic lighters and boxes of matches
• food, water, et cetera

Was I ready? Hell no. Not even close. But I had to go, I couldn't stay any longer.

Bus is here. Time to move on.