The Last Words of Alexander Renfield

This disturbing document chronicles the last few days of Alexander Renfield shortly before his disappearance after the Charlotte's Lake incident. It is being published at the request of his family members through an agreement with the FBI and Interpol (although Interpol's interest in a domestic missing person's case is still undergoing some scrutiny in conspiracy theorist circles). The language is understandably that of either a melodramatic hoaxer or possibly a raving lunatic. The names of individuals have been altered by (agency name blacked out) to ensure the safety of those involved.

Even as I write this I can hear them banging their fists against the door. They intend to splinter the worm eaten wood and gain entry to my sanctuary. Should they succeed, this will be the only record of my visit to this town. It is with grim conviction that I remain in the assertion that they will rip me to shreds, but leave my papers untouched.

First I beg the reader forgive my personal message to my loved ones. Had I known the evil that I had been told of was not only real, but worse than any of us had ever imagined, I would have heeded the first breath of warning. It is because I am foolish enough to come here that I am deserving of the fate that awaits me in the teeth of those creatures on the other side of the door. I can only hope those reading this aren't currently suffering a similar fate at the hands of the monstrous beings that haunt these streets. Friends and loved ones, I can only offer you my apologies boldly and ignorantly expecting it to be of some level of comfort.

To strangers allow me to introduce myself. The commotion beyond the doors has temporarily stopped. They have left for now, but will return in greater numbers. Soon even this sanctuary will be full of them. Soon I will be taken.

My name is Alexander Renfield. No, I am of no relation to the fictional character of the same last name, but I used to get asked that at the bookstore I worked at. I'm a writer by trade, but I've been going through a long writer's block and have been lately unable to establish more than a tentative grasp on my own inspiration until now. I supplement my income by stocking shelves and giving book related advice. You may (or may not) ask what sort of advice could be given in a bookstore. You may wish for me to stop telling you about myself and explain more about my present predicament. But don't worry, reader. There will be plenty of time for that soon enough. My tormentors will return, but I suspect not before I get a chance to tell you the story from beginning to end.

Where was I? The advice I used to give back in the happy mundane days of the bookstore generally had to do with uplifting literature. Superman has his super strength, Spiderman can shoot webs, and Alexander Renfield can look at a person, any person, and tell exactly what story they would most enjoy. Of course it isn't a very good special power, but I took great pride in my ability to please my customers. It was one of the few things I got to take pride of in this life. Of course I can make no claim on how this affected my style of writing. But enough about my happy mundane life. I must explain more about my current predicament. It appears that the only luxury I have besides this leather cushioned chair and this typewriter is time.

It all started so simply. In retrospect I think longingly of that day. If only the past were permeable, that I may sculpt it like clay. I'd make it now so that I would have never stopped for gas at that dusty gas station on Route 14. It was a bright summer day, and the dust was rising up off the road behind me like a ghost roused by the rumble of my $400 Beretta, unashamedly running without a muffler. Normally dust doesn't collect anywhere near Washington, but leave it to the state to officially declare mud illegal in response to the drought that was still ravaging the countryside.

The gas station had one of those old fashioned pumps with a morbidly obese grease monkey wiping black oil from his forever-stained hands. He gave me a friendly country nod, the kind people recoil from in horror back in Seattle. But I had left Seattle behind with the wife, the job, and the only mortgaged loft I'd ever heard of. I returned the nod, doing my best genuine impression of a local. It was the sort of thing I did on these long expeditions into the country. The man had me pinned for a city slicker from the start. He waddled forward and stuck out his friendly greased hand.

I took it, wondering how often the dilapidated gas station got visitors, if the sole proprietor found it necessary to greet each customer so personally. The grease was baked into the creases of his hand, so it felt as though I would be stuck to him until the sun swallowed the earth. Pleasantly surprised doesn't begin to describe how I felt when I pulled it back unstained.

"Fill 'er up?" he asked.

"Thank you," I said, quietly basking in the experience of not pumping my own gas. I wondered if I would have to tip him. On top of the abysmal gas prices that had already lured a moth into my wallet, I hoped not. Still, I mentally added a dollar to the bill as I walked back to the driver's side door and sat back down.

"Where ya' headed?" The inevitable small talk began.

"Dunno. I'm just wandering aimlessly in the country. I took a drive to cool my head, and I've got a day or so to kill before the wife calls the police or the insurance company."

The man chortled as he slipped the gas nozzle into the tank. I absolutely hate small talk. I hate even more how quickly I get sucked into it. The man gave me a knowing nod, saying with perfect clarity,

"Women."

"She's a good one, but she worries."

I took the moment to relax in the car seat. With the air conditioner off, I could enjoy the dry heat of the greater Washington area without the smell of baking open sewage. I didn't know exactly where I was on the map, but this was in keeping with the spirit of my expedition. I pulled the wallet from my back pocket and pulled a twenty and a five from it, watching the gas price scroll up and wanting nothing more than to say, 'Uncle.'

Mercifully the scrolling stopped, and the tank was full. The man holstered the pump and waddled over to my window,

"That'll be twenty three dollars."

"Keep the change," I said, "Any place worth checking out around here?"

"Pardon?" he asked. It was, after all, an unusual question.

"I'm looking for inspiration. I'm hoping to gain some for the next great American novel. I figured a two day expedition out of Seattle would be a good start. Now I just need to find a small town with some character in it. Something book worthy."

The man shook his head with an instant poker face stretched across his tanned complexion. Something inside me must have sensed he was lying. From somewhere in my primordial subconscious came the careful words,

"I saw a sign a few miles back. Said something about a town up ahead named Charlotte's Lake. I don't know why, but it sounded like a great place to start."

I can't explain yet, but this was a complete lie. The man must have known this. I still have my doubts about where this information even came from. Where had I heard of Charlotte's Lake? Had it been a dream? Had it been whispered in some dark alleyway as I passed on my way from the subway station? It seemed then like the type of information a fortune teller would have divined for me. The man's poker face faded, melting like pastel into a frightened stern complexion. He shook his head, rejecting the idea and said,

"Listen, son. You better take your money and keep drivin' down that road. If you have any soul in ya, you'll just turn left at that crossroads, away from Charlotte's Lake. Ain't nothin' in that town for you. Ain't nothin' in that town for any decent folk," the next thing he said was a mumble. Possibly a protestant cantrip or prayer, ending with the words 'decent folk' and 'soul.'

If there were more words in him at that point, he kept them to himself. The world was not a place for the curious. If only I had known this then. I wasn't about to force him to take my money, so I lit the engine up and spun back to the interstate. It was at the next intersection that I first spied the word in writing,

"Charlotte's Lake, five miles," I said aloud as the sign whistled past me. The road split vertically down the center, and I hadn't seen another car for miles, so I allowed myself to ride the line on the center of the road. I knew that the two lanes would eventually lead in two different directions. The one to the right where the sign was would inevitably lead to Charlotte's Lake while the road my tires coasted halfway in would lead eventually back to Seattle. I let these thoughts do skips and jumps in my mind as I considered the two choices. Go back to Seattle or explore Charlotte's Lake. It was hardly a decision. I had set out to find inspiration, and I was going to find it at any cost. Any town that would change such a kind man's demeanor was prime material for inspiration. I coasted gently back into the right lane and didn't even notice the intersection as I branched off toward Charlotte's Lake.

I had been driving for a number of hours after that, and I remember how I didn't see a single car on the road. If traffic had been sparse back on route 14, it was completely extinct on this nameless road I was now traveling. Up ahead I saw a collection of buildings standing defiantly silhouetted by the sunset. The road curved around so I was no longer staring the sun in its big red eye while I drove. I hadn't noticed how late it was. If I caught a hotel room I could explore the town tomorrow.

On these back-roads, I often wondered what sort of stories remained untold just because no storytellers happened to pass through them. What untapped wealth of inspiration was just bubbling over, begging for a literary interpretation? It was with these thoughts that I let the Beretta coast into the parking lot of a small motel. The sign was off, but I didn't pay it any mind. As long as they had vacancies I would be happy. Judging from the two dusty cars in the whole parking lot, I wouldn't be disappointed.

The first person I met in the town should have tipped me off as to the error in my decision to come to this place, but it didn't deter me. Mrs. Takeda, as her nametag introduced her, was busy doing a crossword puzzle behind the pristinely neat desk. Every pencil and piece of paper was arranged in complete uniformed cohesion to every other object on the table. The beaded string leading from the corners of her glasses, and around her neck clacked together as she looked up. Aside from this sound and the persistent plucking of the grandfather clock against the wall to my right, the only audible sound was that of my own shoes shuffling across the orange Berber carpeting and the glass sliding door closing behind me. Mrs. Takeda inhaled sharply as she saw me, and placed the crossword puzzle she had been working on, on the table with the same uniformity as everything else in the room. Everything else except me.

"What are you doing here?" she asked sharply, taking me by surprise.

"I beg your pardon?" I replied, "I'm here to rent a room."

"What's your business in this town?" she asked with the same fierce clipped voice she had asked the first question, "We don't get many outsiders here."

"Then business must not be very good," I said, trying to smile my way into friendlier waters. She didn't budge.

"Business is just how I like it. Don't need the money," she said looking at me with her owlish eyes magnified at least five times by her ridiculous glasses. She stared at me a few seconds longer, then said, "I suppose you'll be wanting a room, then."

"If it's not any trouble," I found myself saying. I felt an urge to apologize for the inconvenience, but stopped myself realizing the absurdity I had already witnessed.

She spun in her swivel chair and produced an orange key ring with the number eight on it, "You'll be in room number eight."

She set the key on the table with the same uniformed precision with her right hand and touched it twenty times with her left. When this ritual task was completed, she methodically touched it with her right hand nineteen times. After this she looked up at me and raised an eyebrow when I paused.

"Something wrong?" she asked, then inhaling the words she said the phrase backwards. I had heard of obsessive compulsives in my psych classes at Seattle Central Community College, but the majority of information I had about them came from a friend I had had that once claimed to be obsessive compulsive. He had absolutely nothing on Mrs. Takeda.

I took the key without answering her question and walked out to my room. As soon as I left, I saw Mrs. Takeda rise and start scuffing the carpet where I had walked, no doubt smoothing it back the way it had been before I walked in. The key jangled in the door and it opened. As I had expected, everything in the room was immaculately clean. I took pleasure in pulling back the comforter on the bed and laying back. As I did so, I suddenly had a thought. Mrs. Takeda hadn't made me sign in. Didn't motels and hotels usually make you sign a book before adjourning to your room? I didn't think much of it, picking up a remote from the bed-stand exactly one inch from the wall and at a ninety-degree angle with the edge of an ashtray two inches to the right of it. I flipped on the set, hoping to listen to the news before I drifted into a deep sleep.

When I awoke, it was to the sound of gently beading rain trickling down the window pane outside. I rose up from the bed, wondering what could interrupt my troubled dreams so early, and wiping sleep from my eyes. The television news reporter I had left in favor of sleep was now missing from the television screen, perhaps behind the veil of static snow that now danced across the screen, choreographed by chaos. It was at this point that I became aware of a very heavy breathing in the room and rose immediately to my feet.

Though no readily visible intruder made his presence known by any other means, the breathing felt hot like it was on my skin perpetually. I imagined the bloodshot eyes such a man would have as he stared out at me from the gloom created by the solitary light in the room, that television set. I slowly inched my way out from the bed and around the circumference of the room until I reached the light switch. I was convinced that when I flicked the light on, I would be met with a horrifying visage the likes of which would haunt my dreams for eternity. In nightmares it was always immediately after seeing the horror that I would reel and scream and slowly all would fade in favor of sweat drenched sheets and the eerily silent bedroom echoing my waking gasp. I felt the plastic of the light switch on my fingertip as I pressed up and expected this.

Nothing. No other bodies were in the room, warm or cold. I was alone.

But the heavy breathing continued. The sound was so tactile that I wondered if it was a sound at all. Would it not be impossible for me to be imagining this in the hours just before waking? I had heard of a sort of post-sleep hallucination that had allowed this sort of thing to happen. Perhaps the rasping breath was the result of a miscommunication between the inferior colliculus and the frontal lobe. Maybe this was nothing more than that. Maybe I was still laying with my head steeped deeply on the bed in sleep and the breath I was hearing was my own, labored out of dream.

This didn't do much to comfort me. If this was a dream, I wouldn't have spent this time pondering the possibilities of it. I rarely gave much thought to dream while in the wrapping arms of sleep. I stepped forward to the door, and realized that a great deal of heat was radiating from it. Another step, and the tip of my shoe became noticeably hot. I hadn't realized that I had slept in my shoes, but I was glad for it now. If I needed to leave in a hurry I would be thankful for this oversight. If I got the chance.

The door was cool to the touch. My lungs skipped a breath as the tiny light in the peephole's eye went black, and a slit of shadow appeared from under the door where two feet must have stood. I felt as though I was gulping my last breath of air as I slowly neared my face toward the peephole, so that the face of this interloper might be discovered. With painstaking silence I took care to ensure that not a single sound be made by my moving. Should a single creak in the floor or the walls adjacent to the door have sounded, I would have been surprised if it were loud enough for a mouse to hear. My eyelashes tickled the rim of the peephole and I looked out.

Nothing.

Light streamed freely in from the hallway unobstructed by the head of any intruder. I sighed, relieved by my own stupidity. What sort of man would stand in front of my door in the middle of the night expecting me to look out? What purpose would it serve? I realized that when I thought of the motivations of such an individual the whole thing did end up looking fruitless.

I turned and looked a tall old man in eyes filled with hate. Those eyes were filled with a fire unlike any flame that ever graced this mortal world. The fire in his eyes alone made my blood freeze and boil, bending to his will like clay bends to the will of the master craftsman. My mouth opened, but no sound came out. I was too terrified to remember what screaming was. The man only moved his mouth once to say,

"Ta-Betha Arak-Nee"

He said these words in a deep phlegmatic voice that didn't speak to my ears as much as they did to primordial nether-regions of my animal brain. My brain reminded me where my legs were, but only half reminded me how to use them. My hand instinctively caught the door handle and it pushed in toward me to open. I spilled out into the rainy parking lot seconds later. Out of a terror unknown to those who have lived in the mortal world and have not had an experience such as this that completely removes oneself from all logical and reasonable, I didn't scream until I had reached Seattle city limits.

The next morning I walked through the glass door of Books Away with the words and face of the old man still burned into my brain. I wasn't scheduled to work today, but I had come anyway. There was someone I needed to talk to. Gregory Taft, the shift manager at the bookstore had always had a penchant for the weird and the unexplained. He reveled in ghost stories and loved horror films. But it was the 'real' supernatural that interested him the most. He was loading boxes in the back room when I walked in.

"You're not scheduled to work today," he said with that off-white smile that came so easily to him. He patted his corpulent stomach, wiping box dust off on his library-green sweater vest, "I thought you were on vacation. Forget something?"

"Mr. Taft, I have an odd question, but you may be the only person I know with an answer. Do you know the words Ta-Betha Arak-Nea?"

Greg's smile widened. The trend continued into his forehead where thick wrinkles formed squeezed between his raising eyebrows and the thinning layer of brown hair that was left on his head,

"That has got to be the second weirdest question I've been asked today. No. What does it mean? And this better not be about extended lunch periods. That's out of my hands."

"I went to Charlotte's Lake last night. I got in early this morning. In the short time I spent there, I saw something."

I looked up at Gregory. Had he been anyone else I wouldn't have confided the rest. I knew he would believe me. Not because he was gullible or stupid, but because he held onto that last shred of mystery mankind had with all the force of a child hugging to his mother's leg on the first day of school. He would believe me, or at the very least not ridicule me,

"I need to find out what these words mean. He got into my hotel room somehow and that's all he said before I bolted all the way back to Seattle."

Gregory looked at me with his brow furrowed. For a moment I couldn't tell if it was in intrigue or of offense and sat at his desk slowly. For a moment I was sure he would think I was crazy. Then, sighing, he rolled to the computer and said,

"Do you know how to spell it?"

Smiling and relieved I shook my head,

"No. I only heard it the one time."

Gregory typed on the keyboard, trying different combinations of the word. Eventually he looked up and said,

"Did you mean Tabitha Arachne?"

Dumbfounded, I nodded wide eyed. Could it have been a name? What could this Tabitha have to do with that horrible man? A relative? I leaned down on the desk and tried to look around Greg's computer screen,

"Who is she?"

Gregory looked up at me, clearly annoyed at me poking my nose around his computer screen and getting in his way. Greg always walked the tightrope line between personal friend and employer with the skill of Harry Houdini,

"I'll print it out for you," he said and turned his attention back to the computer screen. Behind me in the corner next to a pile of boxes the printer hummed gently as it pressed out a couple of fresh pages, "It says she's a geologist. She teaches at Washington State University, and is currently doing a study on ash distribution from the Mt. Saint Helens eruption in 1980. And she's a fox."

I walked over to the printer where three papers were stacked up detailing contact information, a list of previous studies and articles, and a black and white photo of Dr. Arachne. I didn't share Gregory's enthusiasm about her looks. If I was going to have to ask her a number of bizarre questions, I didn't particularly look forward to a pretty face scowling at me. And of course I wasn't interested in any extramarital relationships.

With a name in hand I no longer needed to taint my reputation as a sane employee and left, thanking Greg. I was able to get my way to the payphone outside and dialed the number on the sheet. I had to think of a good lie, but I was never good at lying. I needed a shred of truth to build it on.

"Hello?" the young woman's voice crackled over the cell phone line.

"Yes, this is Alex Renfield. Is this Tabitha Arachne?"

"Tabitha is in class right now, what can I do for you? My name is Abigail, I'm her secretary."

"Well, Abigail," I began. I tread the words much like a fisherman treads water after his boat has capsized, "Tabitha's name came up in casual conversation, and I have since been informed that there is much for us to talk about. Is there any way I could meet with her tomorrow? I'd like to buy her lunch."

The sound of the young lady's lips peeling back from her teeth was audible even through the phone. She was attempting to stifle an inordinately large grin, "Dr. Arachne is always interested in talking- sorry- speaking of her work."

It was very clear that she was having trouble stifling the smile. I thought I even heard blushing coming in through the phone. After a short chuckle she continued,

"This is Tabitha. I'm supposed to be teaching right now, but I couldn't bear it on such a nice day. Abigail answers the phone when I'm supposed to be somewhere and certain Deans call my office. Since your number didn't show up on caller ID I guess this doesn't sound very professional."

"Dr. Arachne, I need to speak with you. Before you hang up I must warn you that this story is going to sound extremely strange. Do you know anything about the town named Charlotte's Lake, in Southern Washington?"

"No, But I travel all the time. I may have been down there and then forgotten," her answer wasn't surprising, but it disappointed me nonetheless. I had been hoping she would say something along the lines of, 'Yeah. Had a grandfather there a few years back. Passed away. Nice guy!'

When I said goodbye, I admit I left her with more questions than I intended to answer. With the help of her curiosity she arranged a meeting the next day at lunch in the Cougar Cafe on the edge of Yale Lake. I drove to the nearest airport at her request and phoned my wife explaining that my vacation was being extended a couple of days. She wasn't surprised, but had a few questions. When I promised to explain in a day or so she acquiesced. If there's one virtue I can attribute to Share that is almost unheard of these days in wives, it is her tolerance and her ability to trust me. In retrospect I wish she had lacked this virtue, but doubt it would have had any impact on this result. When I arrived at the airport, I was surprised at how well things went. I was accustomed to waiting for hours in line. Apparently the research department had its own express lane, and a number of friends at this particular airport. I hardly had a chance to prepare for the coming flight. I've never liked flying, but the fear induced catatonia that sets in whenever I am forced off the ground removes any chance of me 'making a scene.' And with the Seattle weekend traffic, this was far more effective of a way to get to Mount St. Helens.

When I arrived at the 'R. Covet Flat' platform, it was much to my surprise to see a young man bearing a sign with my name on it. He was approximately six and a half feet tall with the long pink hair gelled into haphazard spikes all over his head. His jeans were torn to ribbons with long silver chains hanging from each hip, but whether it was from disrepair or a fashion statement I wasn't sure. In this relatively conservative environment of neat suits and black sweaters, he looked like a coyote in the henhouse. I approached him, slinging my only small travel pack on one shoulder,

"Hello," I said to him extending a hand in friendly shake.

"Hi, my name's Jimmy. I'm supposed to escort you to Dr. Arachne" he returned the shake with surprising cognizance. Perhaps I was expecting less enthusiasm from someone with such pink hair. His brown coyote eyes glanced down at my shoulder pack, and he broke the ice with his sharp grin, "Need help with that bag?"

I chuckled, thankful that he wasn't as rude as he looked, but shook my head. He escorted me to a large black SUV behind the building and soon we were on the highway listening to music I hadn't heard since the mid-eighties. When I asked about the unusual accommodations, he explained that the department's budget for amenities was unfortunately grotesquely over-budgeted while the research budget was (as always) scathingly less than adequate.

It was the conversation that took place on this ride that will explain why I wasn't completely honest with Dr. Arachne on the reason for my expedition. I deftly edged the conversation toward paranormal phenomena so I could gauge how she would receive then news of when I first heard her name. In retrospect, there may have been a more clever way to introduce the topic than,

"What does Dr. Arachne think of the paranormal?"

Had his quizzical expression been controlled by a dial, someone would have had to turn it from the maximum of ten to eleven to manipulate his features and make this new face of contorted eyebrows and grimacing smirks that met my question suspiciously,

"Dr. Arachne never talked about that to me. She's a scientist. A reputable one. Back in '99, when the Queensland team discovered the 'nanobes' in that asteroid that supposedly crashed into the arctic, they called on the help of only a handful of very respected biologists, geologists, and astrophysicists. Dr. Arachne was the only one that was all three. She would have been drafted for long term research, but she was busy at the time studying seismic activity and predicting old St. Helen's next eruption. She did postulate some theories on extremophiles, and she studied a few samples of the 'bugs' as we call them. Many world governments have offered to give her millions to do the research. There's no doubt in anyone's mind that she is capable of figuring out where it all came from. That's just one such offer she's gotten. That should give you an idea."

"So she never did any paranormal research?" I asked, feeling that I was in way over my head. He responded with a look and,

"Not to my knowledge. Why? Are you telling me I had to drive down here because you thought she was a ghost buster?"

"No," I said rehearsing the lie in my head one more time, "Her name came up when I was talking to a respected man in the Charlotte's Lake area. He said if she'd come down he had some information she would be very interested in."

Jimmy and I didn't talk much the rest of the ride. I wondered if he believed me. Not being in on the scientific field, I wasn't sure if I had just contradicted something to make my story completely unbelievable. This Jimmy kid didn't look as sharp as a tack, but beneath it all I was sure he was smarter than most people.

The Cougar Cafe was so named because it was the beginning of the Cougar mountain trail that stretched up around the southeastern face of Mount St. Helens, or "Helen" as the locals called it. It was nowhere near the degree of cafe that I had come to expect in Seattle. A simple fastidiously patterned carpet led up to a thick oak counter and a number of hard wood booths drawn up close to the tables.

Jimmy leaned his head close to me and pointed out the familiar woman from the black and white photograph enjoying a milkshake and the warmth of sunlight spilling in through the window.

"Thank you," I said shaking his hand one last time and moving to the booth across from her. She looked at me with that speculative analytical gaze so common to people in her profession. She extended a slim hand across the table to me,

"Professor Tabitha Arachne. Are you Dr. Renfield?"

"Mister Renfield. I'm working on it," I smiled hoping to break the ice early. She received the joke with a friendly chuckle, "I know this is a little unorthodox. I need to convince you somehow to come with me to a town named Charlotte's Lake."

"Down to business!" she said, apparently surprised. I wasn't used to dealing with many strangers outside of the bookstore. I generally stuck to dealing with a close knit group of correspondents. She continued with a pretty smile dancing on her lips, "How about that lunch you promised me?"

I flagged down a waitress and she ordered an ambitious quarter pound burger with salad instead of fries, a baked potato, and another milkshake. I wondered how, with an appetite like this, she kept her slim waist. My eyes snapped back to the waitress,

"And I'll have a coke."

"Hungry, aren't we?" she grinned, "Renfield... Where have I heard that name before?"

"I get that a lot. It's just one of those names. I was doing an interview for The Scientific Layman with a highly respected doctor I met in Charlotte's Lake, and through the course of the conversation he mentioned a vibrant young scientist that he had some specific information he could only give to you in-person."

"Why did he send you instead of calling?"

I was prepared for this, "He said you were never in the office. That he kept getting your secretary. Abigail was her name."

The laughter absolved any lack of logic that may have arisen, and put her questions at ease. She leaned forward and said,

"I have so many correspondents it's really hard to keep track of them all. I used to have a rolodex, but I recently gave it to Jimmy so he could transcribe it into my laptop. I've filled up three of them in the past three years."

I smiled leaning back, both from the idea and the fact that I would be in the clear. She wouldn't be able to look up any names just yet. I wondered quietly to myself what I was doing. I didn't have a reputation as a liar, and rarely took up the practice. I never did anything as spontaneous as this. Perhaps I was just trying to find out what would happen if this woman went to Charlotte's Lake. I thought I was doing her a favor. Or maybe I just convinced myself that I was. And then there's the thought that keeps bobbing up to the surface of my mind like a corpse from stagnant water. Perhaps my will has been influenced all along by something else.

"I think his name was Dr. Rosenberg, but I can't be sure. My notes are back in Seattle. I figured I'd just run here, steal you away, and everyone would be happy."

"I don't usually leave my research behind to go with strangers to far away places, but Dr. Rosenberg does sound like a familiar name. Our research team has been equipped with a small airfield so we can travel easily throughout the world. It's just a matter of seeing if anyone else is using the Cessna. If not, we should be able to get there earlier today."

The airfield turned out to be right next to the airport that I had arrived at. She took the wheel of her old beat up pickup truck, talking on the phone at different intervals to make arrangements for her things to be at the airport when she arrived. We were there in less than an hour. When we pulled into the small private parking lot, it was much to my surprise that Jimmy was there sitting on a large black trunk, apparently with her things inside.

I helped Tabitha load the trunk into the small cargo compartment of the Cessna while she went through the pre-flight checkup. If I had ever felt nervous about flying on a commercial airliner, I was absolutely mortified at the thought of flying in a private plane with only one engine. Needless to say, the flight went with very little conversation as I spent most of it digging my fingernails into the armrests of my seat.

When we arrived at Tacoma International Airport, I escorted her and her trunk to my beat up Beretta sitting loyally in the parking lot. We got to Charlotte's Lake that day around four in the afternoon.

The first time I had come into Charlotte's Lake, it had been after the warning words of the corpulent grease monkey, and at night. When I arrived in town now it was just on the edge of sunset and I had a companion with me whom I had to somehow convince of the supernatural nature of the place. For the thousandth time the question ran through my mind, 'What the hell am I doing?'

I pulled the car into the parking lot of the old motel I had stayed at on my previous visit. The cicadas in the shadows chimed patiently and watched us cross the parking lot to the glass front door.

"Staying here?" Ms. Takeda said, then inhaling the words said backwards, "Reeh Ng'yats?"

"Two rooms, please. I'll be paying with credit card."

"Cash only," she said sternly, pointing to a sign bearing the same words exactly two inches to the right of a small evergreen plant.

"I'll get it," Tabitha said producing her wallet and setting four twenties on the table, "It's not my money, it belongs to the department."

"Rooms seven and eight," Ms. Takeda said pushing the two keys forward at exactly the same time, pulling them back, and pushing them forward again. Outside I took key seven and gave Tabitha key eight, hoping the old man would make an appearance tonight.

I heard a knock on my door. It was Tabitha,

"Should we go get something to eat? Did you want to contact Dr. Rosenberg?" I froze for a split second. She had taken the opportunity to change from her jeans and shirt into a ravishing black dress. She was stunning. She continued, "On formal occasions I sometimes shed the hiking boots. I don't want the good doctor to be terrified if he can meet us tonight."

"Yes," I said, "Let's go someplace and I'll call him when we get there."

The restaurant we decided on was a small dusty coffee shop with a glass window-front across from the entrance of the Charlotte Lake's proudest building, a stone church in the middle of the town square. The owner of the coffee shop, a man who introduced himself via nametag as Ted, smiled and bade us have a seat, explaining that a waitress would be out shortly. Tabitha encouraged me to call Dr. Rosenberg, sliding the phone across the table,

"Call him tonight so he can expect us tomorrow."

"Sure thing!" I chirped and took the phone outside. There I stood out of sight and held the phone in my hand wondering what to do. The entire street from corner to corner was barren as the sun dipped slowly to the horizon. With only half the sun cresting the treetops far off, shadows became long and the normally black stone church was bathed in a kind of red light.

Had it been a few shades darker it would have looked as though the church were painted in blood. I looked on at the strange sight with the cicadas in my ears and a cool breeze on the back of my neck. I could tell I had nothing to worry about when it came to proving that there was something wrong with this town. The question was when, and would it be before Tabitha stormed away.

I walked back to the entrance of the cafe and caught a glance at Ted looking Tabitha over from behind the safety of the retro counter. He would have probably been even more impressed if he had known that her IQ was more than double his.

I set the phone on the table and was glad that our food had arrived. I was famished. I didn't notice Tabitha glancing down at the phone and picking it up,

"So what did he say?" she asked, her eyebrow to the side like a cat's ear listening for a mouse.

"He said," I replied gulping down a draft of soda, "That he would be able to see us tomorrow. He sends his regards."

"My battery's dead, did you get cut off?" she said twisting her wrist to reveal the LCD screen of her phone, now a blank slate of tombstone. My heart winced as I both took this in and swallowed a larger bite than I should have.

"Yes," I finally choked, "I'll call him back when we get to the motel, but everything's arranged. Thanks for letting me use your phone. Did you catch that view outside? Photographer's heaven."

She smiled looking back down at the LCD screen and nodded, suddenly taking a sober tone as she looked deep within the ivory of the table as though it were a painting of far off vistas,

"Yes. Usually in order to see the beauty of the volcano, things have to be just right. No clouds. Sun in the west if you're on the east side, sun in the east if you're on the west side. Stunning."

"Jimmy told me you worked on the Queensland Project. I keep getting mixed reports from the newspapers. Did that rock really have extraterrestrial life in it?"

"Depends on who you're talking to," she said slowly rousing herself out of the trance and looking back at me, "I think it's very likely, but that study's on hold until I finish my volcano work. They offered me plenty millions if I can prove life exists on other planets."

"What if there isn't any life in it? Do you get any money then?"

"Nah. The millions aren't for scientific proof, they're for the news stories that would follow. It's worth a million dollars at least for a scientist as reputable as me to say conclusively, 'Yes. It has been scientifically proven."

"Sounds kind of like they don't have the best interests of the scientific community in mind."

"Shop talk," she sighed and looked into my eyes, regarding me curiously. Or maybe it was suspiciously, "So what kind of books do you write?"

"Bad ones, mostly," I chuckled, "Paperback Romance."

She made a face, but I raised my hands in defense,

"I write them, but I'd never read them."

Her suspicion seemed to give way for charmed humor after this. After all, who could suspect a romance writer of anything dishonest? We paid our tab and just as the final slivers of sunlight were seeping over the edge of the earth, she walked to the church in the center of the square. It was a beautiful building, albeit in a sinister way. I was sure it was the type of architecture someone like Jimmy or Gregory would find most appealing. Gregory because it looked haunted, and Jimmy because it was unique and unusual. Perhaps it was the latter fact that piqued Tabitha's curiosity as she slowly walked across the gently hissing grass and placed a hand on the wall. Tabitha hadn't struck me as the religious type, and I followed her curiously.

"What the hell?" she finally let out. Then she repeated it, "What the hell?"

"What?" I asked, "What is it?"

"What's wrong with this picture!?" she exclaimed pointing an accusing hand at the church. It looked normal to me. The stained glass windows held the visages of saints that stared out silently at me, their eyes through illusion following my every move. She ran her hand over the rock again and I feared she would start jumping up and down from excitement. In high heels this could prove disastrous,

"The rock! The rock!"

I looked at the stones all nestled together to make up the wall, but found nothing wrong with it. The walls had been built out of porous black stone, mortared together by what looked like typical mortaring paste. I didn't know much about architecture or geology, so I asked,

"What is it?"

"This rock is very clearly igneous!"

"And?"

"What do you mean 'and!?' Igneous rock can only be formed when magma cools and makes crystallized stone!"

She was now very clearly getting excited by some obscure fact of which I was ignorant. I ran my hand over the rock again thinking in my head and repeating the words under my breath,

"Igneous rock can only be formed when magma cools..."

"You're almost there" Tabitha said condescendingly.

"Magma comes out of volcanoes," I said, "But we left Mount St. Helens a while back. No igneous rock would have come out all this way through natural means. It would have eroded into sediment long before it got this far."

"This could have been what Dr. Rosenberg wanted to speak with me about."

"I'll bet it is!" I said uneasily. I could tell it was over before she even had a chance to formulate the next words out of her mouth.

"Is there anything you want to tell me?"

"No, why?" I asked. The sunset air was unusually chilly for summer. I looked back up at her and she looked at me. Though I'm not sure how or if telepathy works, somehow we had an understanding between us at that moment.

"The phone was dead when I handed it to you in the coffee shop. You never called Dr. Rosenberg. I doubt there even is a Dr. Rosenberg."

"Now hold on a second!"

"Why did you lie to me to drag me all the way down to this small town, Alex? Why tear me away from a stack of papers a mile high!? Do you know how busy I am?"

With my heart thumping under her heated stare, I tried to tell the entire story to her. I omitted nothing. Had I been in a relaxed state of mind, and able to dictate coherent sentences, it would have sounded like a tall tale. With my nervous quick speaking, stumbling over events and re-stumbling, I sounded like a lunatic. She crossed her arms in front of her and leaned against the wall, unconvinced. In the end the only shred of decent logic I could come up with was,

"Since you're here anyway, why not just take a glance around?"

"Fine," she said simply, like a mother agreeing to look under a child's bed, "Let's see what's going on then."

She turned away from me and ran her hand along the wall next to her again,

"I thought this rock looked familiar. I must have seen something like it when I was studying at Helen. Strange, though. It doesn't look like normal lava rock..." she paused to look closer at the church wall, "But I've seen this someplace..."

It was at this point that I noticed a line of people like a funeral procession silently approaching the church. Had it not been for a seemingly random glance, I wouldn't have seen them until they were upon us. I tapped Tabitha on the shoulder and said,

"There's a line of people coming toward us."

She looked up. Though we were unable to see their faces well, I was able to distinguish pairs of sunken eyes riding on white clay faces as they sauntered down the invisible promenade that their collective unconscious had painted for them. The destination was clear. Us.

Tabitha's mouth moved in obscenity, but no sound emanated from her suddenly quivering throat. I could tell that I wasn't the only one that thought this was incredibly unusual. Perhaps it wasn't the sight itself that spurred our hearts to sprint like rabbits, but rather a premonition of things to come. She grabbed my wrist and took her high heels off, tugging at my arm away from them. But the townspeople had rooted my feet with their vacant stares. I slowly turned my head and looked back at Tabitha,

"Move it!" she yelled sternly at me. I felt my feet start running. They pumped quickly across the grass and even faster when I looked behind me and realized that the chain of black clad people had now changed trajectory and were now following us right to the Beretta and our motel. Tabitha must have stepped on something. I expected her to fall, but she grabbed my shoulder and pulled herself up letting her keep pace with me. The mystery of what they were going to do to us was only outweighed by a desire not to find out. We finally made it to the motel. Mrs. Takeda wasn't at her desk. No doubt she was with the procession behind us.

Leaving our luggage behind, I swung the Beretta door open and got in. The car shot out of Charlotte's Lake like a cannon. We didn't say anything, but I looked over at this woman of science next to me. Probably the most intelligent person I would ever meet, yet she had run as quickly as I had when the animal-mind had warned her of the danger of the situation. Perhaps it had been a premonition. It would have explained the dread that followed us even as we pulled into the gas station seeking the help of the corpulent mechanic. I hoped he would still be there. The car coasted into the parking lot, and with the engine still running I sprinted inside the shop.

"I told you not to go there," I heard from the familiar gas station attendant's lips. I spun to look over at him, "But you didn't listen."

"Fill 'er up! I need to use your phone. I don't know if they're coming after us or not!"

"They will be. No phone here. Have your lady pump the gas. There's a free pump in the garage. Use that one. I'll get my gun and see if I can hold them off until you can get back onto the road."

"Thank you!" I said, grateful beyond further words. I ran out to the car and informed Tabitha of what to do. When I ran back in, the grease monkey already had a double barrel shotgun in his hands, and was looking out the window, "I've been waiting for this."

I smiled at the brave man and looked at him leaning against the window frame with the moonlight spilling in and over a red and white name patch on his arm. Hank. Hank? I remembered the conversation where he had first introduced himself. Women. Can't live without 'em. My name's Buddy.¦

The grease monkey glanced over at me as though reading my sudden stress. He looked down at the patch on his shoulder, and stood up straight, walking forward out of the moonlight and into the darkened shadows of the car-port. As though about to undertake a great burden, he sighed,

"Hank is the guy who used to own this gas station. He had a really strong mind. Even pain wouldn't change him. So they sent good Ol' Buddy to fix him."

Suddenly every last shred of hope left my body and my face paled. I felt like everything was suddenly caught in slow motion. He lowered the shotgun level with my chest just as Tabitha came running in,

"I filled up the tank!" she said opening the door, and stopped, seeing both barrels of the shotgun turn towards her. A shell for each of us.

"Thank you kindly, miss. The sugar water you just pumped into that monstrosity will make this a whole lot easier. Now let's all sit down and wait for the rest of the town to show up."

When Buddy's accent disappeared, Tabitha froze in her tracks. Understanding was finally dawning over her,

"I remember now. I remember where I saw that kind of rock. When I was taken up to the Queensland project, they showed me the asteroid. It was porous... like lava rock. It was in here that evidence of life was able to remain when it traveled through the vacuum of space."

"Not evidence of life... dormant life," Hank said, a smile creasing his cheeks.

I was trying to stutter out an explanation as to why he shouldn't be trying to kill us,

"But you told me not to go to Charlotte's Lake! You said..."

"Exactly what I needed to say to get you there. Not that many people come by these parts. Most pass through without problem. But when Igthota picks someone, he lets us all know."

"Igthota?" we both asked in semi-unison.

"At first he was nothing more than a whispered word in our dreams. Every night we would wake up with the word ringing in our minds. Then he became an idea. He contacted the youngest of the town first. He started pushing stones out of the lake to them. Told them to build something out of them. Pretty soon we had a pretty nice church made. Igthota told us he was happy. Over the course of a hundred or so years, the town has made progress toward isolating itself and leaving the rest of the world on the outside. Pretty soon Igthota started talking directly to our minds. He told us to do things. He told me exactly what to say to get you to come to him."

"To get me!?" Tabitha looked as though she were having trouble bringing the words up. Her throat quivered like she was about to cry. I sincerely hoped she wouldn't.

"Igthota rode in here on an asteroid. Billions of microbial cells divided safely in the rock until he reached his destination and could safely reform again. But then something happened. Igthota doesn't tell us why the final asteroid veered off course at the last moment. Instead of landing in the crater that would become Charlotte's Lake, it landed in the arctic. For many years Igthota was incomplete. Malformed. Even today he has only shown his face to two people. Both went mad and have since died. He needs the final fragment of his being to become whole."

"You're doing a masterful job of manipulating me, aren't you? You've opened my eyes! I finally understand why I should help you. I'll see you in hell first,"

I admired Tabitha's resolve, but our captor continued,

"Believe it or not," the grease monkey's voice fell a few notches in pitch and rose in volume, "Mankind isn't the only race of intelligent beings in the unfathomable vistas between the stars. There are more things in heaven and on earth than you could chronicle in one day short of eternity. Answers to questions that haunt your minds with fevered malignancy are just in front of your noses, but you are too frightened to reach out and pluck the proverbial apple. You think you've left Eden, but you're still living in the bliss of ignorance. Still sitting in seclusion on your hermetic island, too frightened to admit that it is slowly sinking into the sea. The meteor uncovered in 1999 belongs to Igthota. He wants it back."

In retrospect, I entertain the idea that a man with such a simple vocabulary would not have been able to formulate such an utterance. I realize in horror that the truth of the words came not from Hank, but from Igthota himself. At the time I was too caught up in the moment to realize this. I instead began to formulate a plan. I looked over at Tabitha, guilt beading on my forehead and making salty rivers down the sides of my face. Driven by impulse, I launched myself forward and onto the gunman, knocking him to the ground. Both shells from the shotgun went off, piercing the roof and sending two steady streams of moonlight down onto us.

"Run!" I screamed to Tabitha. She didn't require further encouragement. Within seconds she had disappeared down the road on foot. I was certain that she had made it. No one would be able to find a seasoned mountaineering veteran in dense forests such as these. She would close the distance between herself and the next town over before tomorrow night, and would send help to me. Of course by then it would be too late. She would do so only as a formality, and to investigate my death. Of this I had no doubt.

The man whom I had wrestled to the ground slowly stood up, shoving me off of him.

"Are you just stupid?" he asked slowly.

"She doesn't deserve this. I'll go quietly, but you'll never catch her as long as I live," I would have gone on to explain about Tabitha going to find the rock and telling the scientific community that it had to be quarantined. She was smart, I'm sure she would have fabricated a convincing story. I would have gone on, but the commotion outside indicated that the rest of the townspeople had arrived.

"They're mad-angry now," Hank said, the moonlight glinting off his eyes as he watched the procession of shadows approaching the building, "When Igthota tells people to kill, they turn... bad. Animals... They'll eat you alive when they find you."

Feeling the panic that I had become so comfortable with, I backed away from the window and ran for a screen back door that I saw shackled to the wall, and billowing slowly in the afternoon breeze. Outside I could hear them all screaming and calling for me and Tabitha.

"She'll survive," I whispered.

These words gave me strength as I plowed through the woods with the snarling teeth of the townspeople sprinting behind me. It was only the sanctuary of a white house that finally gave me a shred of hope. I bolted through the door of the root cellar and slammed it shut behind me. With no connection to the house, the door had only one entrance to secure. I did so in a matter of seconds.

The only things I found were a clawed and battered leather chair, a thin wood table, and an old typewriter with which I have typed the preceding. Though I have caused a great deal of trouble, now everything will return to normal minus one romance novelist. Tabitha will return to her research on Helen, and disclose to inquiring minds the next volcanic eruption. I don't want to think about how my presence will affect my wife, but that too in time will heal.

A few thoughts run through my mind as I write this. I wonder if Tabitha ever got to a town and called for help. I wonder if the police are ever going to find me. I doubt the old man I saw in my hotel room was Igthota, but rather a by-product of his ability to manipulate minds. I wonder what Igthota, a creature no doubt thousands if not millions of years old looks like. I wonder why the mechanic found it necessary to confide to us 'There are more things in heaven and on earth than you could chronicle in one day short of eternity. Answers to questions that haunt your minds with fevered malignancy are just in front of your noses, but you are too frightened to reach out and pluck the proverbial apple.' And finally, I wonder why the curious look in Tabitha's eyes bothered me so much when he said it.

The preceding was found in the air-duct of Mr. Hank Williams' root cellar during an investigation of the mechanic's murder. When asked for comment, investigators found it impossible to contact Ms. Tabitha Arachne on her relationship with Mr. Renfield and his possible whereabouts as she had abandoned all work tying her to Mount St. Helens in favor of the Queensland project.