The Lost

First of all, I think I may have found Mad Ricky's old blog. Given his current state, I don't think I'm spoiling anything when I say that it doesn't have a happy ending. Basically, a bunch of terrible things happened, and at the peak of all these horrible things his roommate Jess got devoured by the Intrusion, and now he's crazy and thinks that she lives on through the bugs. Poor kid.

Secondly... I hate seeing homeless people.

The looks on their faces... they just... ugh. What's worse are the couples. The families. When you see a husband and wife, faces dirty, clothes ragged, just standing on the edge of the street, holding each other. That defeated look in their eyes. I can't stand it.

But worst of all is the knowledge that I can't help them. I'm currently funding my trip with my life savings. I can't spare a single cent. And even if I could... how much of a difference would it make? At least, that's the question I ask myself every time I refuse to give them a small donation. That's the justification I use to ease the guilt.

Look at me. I'm trying desperately to save lives. To stop madmen who worship monsters. And yet, I can't do something so simple as make a single person's life better. That's the grand irony of the universe, isn't it? The cruel joke God played when he imparted us with morality.

And yet I still keep going.

What else can I do?

How I Got Here

Now, clearly I haven't covered everything that's happened in the last month, but there's really only one more important event to explain.

You see, at the moment, I'm traveling. I have a very clear end goal in mind. Well, to be honest, it's more that Judas has a clear end goal and I have a kind of foggy one. Basically, we're going to see a guy named Jack.

Remember what I said about two posts ago? That I was fired due to pressure from someone influential? And do remember what I said even further back than that? That this town is basically controlled by RossCorp?

Alexander Reed, RossCorp's founder and CEO. That's the name that came up during my investigations. And by "investigations", I mean tailing Ophilim. I knew that he had to have had something to do with my being fired, so I hunted him down and kept watch. He's a hard man to keep track of. I lost him a few times. But I always found him again.

One night, about five days after I'd started stalking him, I got brave. I followed him into a warehouse. It was one of RossCorp's. And old, big warehouse. It was filled to the brim with those metal boxes, you know? The big metal boxes, like you see on freight trains? Connex or something? It was like a damn maze in there, though luckily that made it easier for me to stay out of sight.

I followed Ophilim through the warehouse. He was alone. No Timberwolf guards for once. He was dressed in the same outfit he was always dressed in-- gas mask and long black hooded coat.

In the center of the warehouse, Ophilim stopped walking. I hid behind one of the crates and listened. Footsteps. Someone walking closer.

"She's impatient," I heard a voice say. "My sweet Jess is hungry!"

"Reed won't be finished for another three months," a deeper voice replied. Ophilim, I believe. "And even then, there may still be delays."

"You promised her a feast!"

"And your... patron... will get a feast. But it must wait just a little while longer."

The guy Ophilim was speaking to giggled. I think it was around that time I concluded it was Mad Ricky.

Gee, what tipped you off?

I felt something tickling my arm, and absentmindedly brushed at it. Another tickled. I looked down. In the dim light, I made out a centipede crawling up my arm. I took my other hand and flicked it off of me. Can't stand those things.

The weird thing was, as soon as I threw it off, I felt something shift inside me. Like Judas was holding his breath.

"Will there be more fun things?" Mad Ricky was asking. "I liked the hospital. It was fun. And that nurse? Oh, she loved the nurse. Filled her right up!" I barely stopped myself from gasping. So Mad Ricky was the one at the hospital. But who was this "her" he kept mentioning?

"If Mr. Stanford, or anyone else, for that matter, continues to pester us, then you may indeed get to indulge yourself again."

"Oh? Can I? Please, please, please?"

"Yes, I just said--"

"Not you! Jess! She saw him. She felt him. He hurt her!" And then I heard him running. Toward me.

Oh.

Shit.

I scrambled to my feet and tried to run, but I was only able to take a few steps before I felt something heavy slam into my head. I fell face down on the concrete floor. The impact sent a wave of pain rippling through my body-- particularly my nose.

"You hurt her! You hurt my Jess!"

I rolled over just in time to avoid Mad Ricky stomping on me. His cast was out of his sling, and I guess that's what he used to hit me with. I jumped to my feet, moving backwards away from the maniac as I did.

It wasn't until I was standing that I saw his eyes.

They were so... wrong. Pupils. So many pupils. At least six in each eye. And each one was focused on me. How was that possible? How could he see?

He's a drone, Judas said in my head. He belongs to those fucking bugs. And you just had to go and hurt one.

Bugs? I dodged Ricky's cast as he swung at me again, and then comprehension dawned. It was one of them. Another like the Archangel or the Slender Man or the Dying Man-- The Intrusion.

"You are too persistent," Ophilim said. I hadn't even seen him follow Ricky. "Alexander had insisted that the matter could be closed without bloodshed. Against my better judgment, I allowed him to try his way. I won't make that mistake again. He answers to our gods. We don't answer to his. That was the deal."

And then Ophilim shot me.

Well, he only grazed my arm. I managed to dodge the shot and break into a run out of the warehouse. Mad Ricky followed me.

My turn! Judas suddenly said.

I felt myself spin around and hold my palm out to Ricky, still running backward even as I did. "Let me in," I said in a voice that wasn't mine.

Mad Ricky stopped dead in his tracks. Whatever his insanity, he clearly wasn't crazy enough to risk a Dying Man infestation.

I ran. I'd had the foresight to leave my car unlocked, so getting in it wasn't problem. As I drove away, I breathed out a sigh of relief.

"Fuck!" I said. Mostly to help relieve the tension. "Were they talking about... Alexander Reed? RossCorp?"

Likely, Judas said. And he serves their gods, due to a deal that was made. Interesting...

"So, what, he became a successful business man because he made a deal with the Archangel."

No. His contract seems to be with both the Angel and the Bugs. And besides, neither of them are in the business of cutting deals with people not their followers. Especially the Bugs. Someone else made the deal. And I think I know who. Tell me, Matthias, in all your research, you ever hear of a man called Jack?

"Um. No?"

Jack of the Lantern. Jack the Red Handed. Spring Heeled Jack. Jack in Irons. Jack of All.

"OK. Some of those names are familiar."

Well they're all the same person. And I think we should pay him a visit.

And that was that. I left town just a few hours later, to search for this Jack guy. Hopefully he'll be able to provide me with answers, since I'm not suicidal enough to risk RossCorp's security.

And Judas says we're closing in on him. I need to hurry. Whatever it was that Ophilim, Mad Ricky, and Reed are planning, there's only two months left.

Hopefully, that's enough time to stop it.

Growth

Today I met a man whose skin was covered in blisters and warts. His eyes were crusted over and useless. His entire body shook. His clothes were stained with his own blood and pus.

My footsteps brought me to him of their own volition. He was sitting in an alley, resting against the wall, his life nearly gone. I saw my hand reach out and clasp his, and then the man died.

I felt someone else then. Somebody aside from myself and Judas, laying within my body. I felt chaotic and sick, and I realized that Judas was struggling with this new being. And then the chaos subsided, and the third was gone. Judas and I were all that were left, and Judas had grown stronger.

Long ago, the Dying Man was one.

Soon, I think, Judas wishes to be one again.

Faith

Caught in an explosion with a child dead. Nobody envied us. We were questioned. We were ordered to see the department shrink.

The first day when I was scheduled for an appointment, I called in sick. I just... I couldn't do it. What could I have told him? That I was possessed an ancient spirit? That the local gang worshipped the afterlife? That they did this because they knew about me?

I became a police officer because I wanted to protect people, and now, simply because I was near him, a kid was killed. It was sickening. It was a betrayal of everything I had silently believed about the world. You want to believe in justice. You want to believe in fairness.

You want to believe in good.

Growing up, I heard stories about crises of faith. Priests liked to tell those stories to me, as if it was something special and world-shattering that even men of God sometimes have doubts. I'd never actually had such a crisis before, but that changed after the bombing.

I wanted to know how such a thing could be allowed to happen. How such cruelty could exist in the world. And what of God? Could a caring and just God exist in the same universe where such wretched things existed? Where gangers worship a being who possesses the bodies of the dead. Where a man can walk the streets with an ancient monster lurking inside him, slowly pushing his body into decay. If a loving and all-powerful God truly existed, how then, could He allow these beings to exist and spread such misery?

I wrestled with these questions. And when I was laid off a few days later, apparently under pressure from someone very influential, my world came crashing down. There is no reward, it seemed, or trying to do good. There only existed profit in evil.

I drank that night. It was the first time I'd even touched a bottle since college. Since that accident...

Can't remember much else. It was all a drunken haze. It's my mind recalls me picking up the first bottle, and then...

And then I'm walking down the sidewalk. It's night, and there people walking past me, going on with their lives, cheerfully oblivious to the evils lurking just around the corner, in every shadow, in every heart. I reach out to touch one of them, and I stop myself.

My side itched. I ran home, and checked my rash. It had grown. In the center of it a blister had formed. I cursed my weakness then. I had fallen to despair, and Judas had taken over.

I became a police officer because I wanted to protect people. Even without my badge, there was so much I could do. Whatever it was that Ophilim and the Timberwolves were planning, I resolved to stop it.

If there is no good in the world, then we must make that good. Even in the face of overwhelming evil, we must not succumb.

I don't believe in good, I don't believe in God, because I want to. I don't believe in such things because I am weak, or because it is simply how I was raised. No.

I believe in such things because I have to. Because without them there is only darkness, and there must be light.

Welcome Back

I know. It's been over a month since I last checked in with you guys.

There's just... there's so much to tell. The things that have happened. The things I've seen... but I'll do my best.

After the events of my last post, when I saw Ophilim and Mad Ricky for the first time... ugh. Those two. I've never truly believed that such a thing as Evil actually existed. I thought I did. I thought that Evil was negligence, that it was mistakes that caused pain. No. I was wrong. I didn't truly believe, until I met them for the first time. Ophilim's complete lack of any empathy, any sympathy... any truly human emotion. And Mad Ricky just... how can such a creature possibly exist? How can it be called human?

But... I'm getting ahead of myself. For the next week after that post, things continued as normal. I went to work, I did I needed to do. Judas was quiet. The rash hasn't gotten any worse. Well, unless you count the itching. Still, it hasn't spread at all. I tried to keep track of the Timberwolves and this Mad Ricky character but they seemed to go into hiding.

And then, one night, I had guard duty at the hospital again.

The kid was almost healed up until he tried to bash his own head in. For all his apparent hatred of hospitals and distrust of doctors, he apparently was doing his best to keep himself inside.

Anyway, while I was on guard duty, his room exploded.

Me and the other guard were knocked forward, the blast sending us away from the room. It gets fuzzy then. I remember my face slamming against the opposite wall. I remember the dizzying pain... There was a blurred figure who danced across my vision. He said something about how "she" doesn't like barbecue, so it was a good thing I wasn't burnt. Then he skipped away, singing something about blogs.

That kid... he was scared. He didn't understand what he was facing. He was backed into a corner and driven over the edge, lashed out at anyone who might've helped him. He didn't need punishment, he needed help. He was an innocent, corrupted through no fault of his own.

And they killed him. They killed him just so they could scare me away.

I'd known, intellectually, that the Timberwolves needed to be stopped. I'd known that they were ruthless, that they were killers.

But this was the first time they'd ever made me angry.

I can still recall the sensation of Judas' laughter.

The Worst Morning Ever

Yeah, I haven't been making very many updates. Nothing much has been happening. Even Judas has been quiet... well, until last night apparently.

You see, this morning, I woke up sitting in an alley, my back against the wall, my head positioned so that I was looking out the mouth of the alley and at an expensive black sports car.

Since I'd fallen asleep in my bed, I was obviously pretty alarmed.

Stay

I heard it like a voice in the back of my head. "Judas?" I whispered.

Be quiet and watch

The door to the car opened, and a man in a long black hooded coat stepped out. I couldn't see his face-- he was wearing a gas mask.

I nearly jumped in terror. I remembered everything I'd read about the Archangel.

That's not the Archangel, Judas said. That's just the alpha for this wolf pack. Calls himself Ophilim. He's an Apostle.

"He's a what?"

An Apostle. Chosen specifically by his master to be a servant. Stronger and better than your average wolf.

"Ophilim" stood by his car for a moment, apparently waiting, and then I saw a man approach him. He looked to be somewhere in his mid-twenties to mid-thirties. Caucasian. Brown hair. Couldn't see his eyes. He wore a brown duster, and his left arm was in a cast and a sling. He said something to Ophilim, and the Timberwolf nodded. The two of them walked into a nearby building.

"And who was that?"

Not a clue. If I had to guess, I'd say that's probably Mad Ricky.

"Who?"

Some guy I overheard the Timberwolves talking about. They knew I was tagging along in that guy's body, and kept me out of the loop as much as they could, but I picked up on a few things. Apparently Ophilim's been negotiating with a guy named Mad Ricky. And apparently the Timberwolves are afraid of Mad Ricky.

Now that was bad news. You have any idea what it might take to scare members of a death cult?

I couldn't see any sense in following them without backup or a weapon, so I went home. Judas has given me a pretty good lead. The only question, of course, is why?

Guard Duty

The kid ended up having to be transferred to a different hospital. He attacked a nurse, and then someone broke in and tried to kill him. He's now in restraints with cops watching his room.

I had a shift last night.

I tell ya, hospitals give me the creeps. They're so sterile. It unnerves me. This one was no different. Especially with the kind of patients in the nearby rooms.

Yeah, it gets boring standing watch all night. I talked with a couple of the staff. There are so many people in this town who we've just completely failed to protect.

Across the hall: a woman who was nearly beaten to death by her own husband. There had been reports of abuse, but they were never seriously investigated. Not until he threw her out a fucking window anyway.

Two doors to the left: a guy who had his foot cut off by some Timberwolves. Apparently, he owed them drug money.

Down the hall: That poor college girl from that case a while back. You see, a couple months ago, there was a string of murders at a local college. This girl was the last victim. Shot in the stomach. She's in a coma, still hasn't woken up. Her boyfriend skipped town shortly afterward and dropped off the grid. Guess who's the prime suspect?

I swear, this town just gets crazier and crazier.