Copyright
2005
CLARK COUNTY HORROR III
THE SIGIL
The second floor renovation had never been started. The staircase was an open lift to the upper floor. The banister was barely connected to the steps and wobbled treacherously at the slightest touch. Luckily, the steps were safe to tread but they squeaked at every point. The thunder rumbled again and the house gave something of a sigh.
A long hallway stretched out from the top of the staircase with closed doors on both sides. We tried them but they were locked. A suffocating gloom enveloped the musty hallway. A final door ended the hallway and I heard that sigh close to my ear again. The hair rose on my neck. I think even Rick began to lose his nerve.
“Did you hear that?” I whispered.
Rick steadied himself and gathered every ounce of courage that remained and reached for the final door handle, “Almost done.” He didn’t deny hearing what I heard.
The door handle turned and the latch released easily. The door swung open on rusty hinges as if a force from behind pushed it. Cool air came out of the opening and we were confronted with another set of steps. A scent of burnt wood and spice came on the air blowing down from the attic.
“That’s it, Rick, I’m done. There is no way we should be here! Let’s get the fuck out of here now!”
Too late. Rick was already bounding up the steps. It was if he was in some sort of trance to see this through to the end, to expose the magician as an illusionist and not a wizard, to show how the trick is done. I had to follow him. I still had to tell him about the hungry floor in the cellar and how the house was going to get us. I raced up the stairs.
Then we entered the den of the Wizard. Magic was in the attic. Real magic. Ancient magic....
The whole room was charred dark black. A round wooden table with guttered candles at the points of a carved compass on the surface stood in the center of the attic. On a stand at the center of the table rested a smooth stone, obsidian, with a cryptic symbol embedded under the surface The stone seemed to have an eerie internal glow. A rusted strongbox, unlocked, sat on the floor under the table.
Charts on the walls contained crude symbols and sigils. Ancient words were carved on the beams supporting the peaked roof. A pedestal stood against one of the walls and a dusty scrapbook lay on top, while a curious pile of charred bones was collected in a rope net beneath it.
I went to the scrapbook. A kerosene lamp was near. I shook it and heard that it still had fuel. I fumbled for the lighter in my pocket lit the wick and the room was bathed in a soft yellow light. The thunder rumbled outside and I could still hear the rain pattering against the roof. Things felt better with the light on. Rick found an old stool and sat, transfixed by the stone on the table. I read:
THE STATEMENT OF GARRETT HEWSON-DEE
December 21, 1923
I have chosen to present this statement in a scrapbook format because only then can I illustrate the revelations I have discovered along with the proper supporting evidence and documentation.
My name is Garrett Hewson-Dee and I am the Chief Site Manager for the McGill Copper Consortium Smelter Works #1. I transferred to Nevada in 1919 after serving on the Board of Directors for the Belsen Copper Works in Providence, Rhode Island. I was sent here to oversee the operations of the Ruth copper pit excavations and ultimately the processing and refining of the ores. These facts are rather insignificant to my statement and I direct you to the current edition of Who’s Who in Mining and Archaeology if you would like a further biography.
In contrast to my duties as Site Manager, I lead an alternate life away from the drudgery of the copper business. I am a Magician. I am a Twelfth Degree Acolyte of The Order of the Morning Star and I can trace my magical lineage back to the Great Wizard Jonathan Dee. I am well practiced in the arts of Ritual Magic and in the Ordination of Heaven Banishment. I have attended at spiritual medium presentations and have even managed to reanimate a dead cat in a Resurrection Binding.
I believe I have been prepared for the Opening of the Way for the Great Ones and the presentation in my hands of certain items was not mere coincidence but Astral Intervention. Through my experience in the Resurrection Binding I hope to see the fulfillment of a great prophecy and usher in a new era for humanity.
On March 20, 1923 a discovery was made at the Ruth pit following a blasting procedure. The crew was clearing the blast debris when a cavern in the side of the hill was discovered. The workers scrambled into the breach and discovered two items – a chained and locked military strongbox and the skeletal remains of a human male. These items were collected and brought to me to determine what to do with them.
A peculiar sensation came over me when I came near these items - almost a feeling of mild electrical shock. Certain energies, undetectable to others, called to me from these relics.
I had the items brought to my home where I keep a private room. The bones were placed in a hemp rope net. The strongbox was opened with the help of bolt cutters. Inside the box was a stack of papers neatly bound with a cord. Wrapped in rough Indian blankets, was an obsidian stone, roughly the size of an eggplant with a curious esoteric symbol engraved beneath the outer surface. I will try to recreate the symbol here for you :
The papers were handwritten in a rather crude, childish style and the grammar was atrocious but they were the work of what appears to be an old prospector by the name of Obed Issom. I am adding his papers to this scrapbook so you can read his exact words:
Obed Issom Octobar 1905
I done got in a mity fix diggin fer silver where I shoodn’t. PieUte Rattler sez stay outter Fire Valley. Sez ShadoWalk’r lives outter that valler. I sez I’m a goin outer were ‘ol Mouse hid from them deputees, think he waz hidin’ more then his red ass out there in the tanks. That ol Injun had a bagger silver on his belt when they finely popped a bullit in his drunk noggin’.
So I go down inner that Fire Valley down below Mouse’s Tank. Back inner red canyons. Ain’t seen shit but rattlesnakes fer three days but I heers a lot. And the Rye ain’t keepin’ the sounds away neither.
Think I must be gettn’ nuts cuz I lost my canteen the third nite, lost my lanturn forth nite and the last nite I was down in th’ canyon my damn mule up an died on me. Found em with his guts all ripped out and a hole in his head with the brains suck’d out and trailin’ on the sand up into th’ rocks. Ain’t never seen a coyote do that a’fore so its time for me to light outter there.
Keep seein’ stuff otter corner my eye that ain’t there. Heerin’ stuff too. Nuthin’ good neether. Think I done catched a ShadoWalk’r to me soes I’m to see ‘ol PieUte Rattler to get me a fixer up on it.
PieUte Rattler took me in the Sweat Lodge and sez I got one bad on me. He gave me smoke and oils and some fethers and sez he gonna work the big medicine on me. I sez I cain’t pay ‘em cuz the sonabitch Mouse done hid that silver good in them canyuns. He sez no charge but I gotter go far away from here when he done. I sez Ok cause ain’t much down south in Nevader ‘cept for that new jack mormon town over the mountin at Las Vegas. Can’t evin get a good Rye or a whore over there no more.
Oils ain’t workin’. Feathers ain’t workin’. Smoke works a little. Sure culd use some Rye but PieUte Rattler sez no fire water for seven days. Holy Shit.
I’m in the Sweat with PieUte Rattler evry night. I think I done lost half my size.
Last night I was sleepin’ but the terrers was too much. Heered ShadoWalk’r prowlin’ the camp callen my name an laffin like a split hoof sonabitch. Winds blwin’ the fire flat and I seen him an I screemed and Shado disapeerd and saw PieUte Rattler chasin after into the dark with a big ‘ol stick. God Bless that redskin.
Weer in the Sweat an my time is come sez PieUte Rattler. The big medicine is ready ‘cept he needs some a my blood so I gives him an arm and he cuts me deep. Blood drips inter a coyote skull hollered out. He adds some water and twigs and berrees and dry bat shit. Then he starts mumblen his Injun stuff.
After a time he takes a fing’r an dips it to the goo. He grabs a shiny rock that’s sittin on the floor an draws somthin on it. Then the rock starts a glowin like a cole and I’m a sceered piss. Winds start a howlerin an a dust devil comes inter the Sweat. A black devil a spinnin’ and a bitchin’ an cursin my name and cursin PieUte Rattler. And the rock sorta splits and the devil gets sucked in still a bitchin’ and cursin’. Then all the lite goes outer the Sweat and now I’m shitless. A big ‘ol clap a thinder shakes the Sweat and then the lite coms back.
Sez PieUte Rattler - It’s done.
Now I gotter go and keep my end o’ the deel. He wraps the rock in a blanket and sez the devil is stuck in the rock for a hundrud yeers but I am cursed by the bind and my burdin is this here rock. He givs me silver and food and water and Rye and smoke and sez don’t com back nomore.
So I lite out to the North on the train to Ely. I’m a gunner get shut a this here rock. I picks out a hefty strongbox with chains and locks. I’m a gonna rite this stuff out on sum paper put the rock in the strongbox with my papers. Lock it up and pitch the key. Then I’m gonna stow it where ain’t no one gonna find er. Then I’m a gonna get the bests botle of Rye, sits down next to my strongbox, drink up th Rye and blow my brains out cause that devil mite be in that there rock and I ain’t seen him around in the daylite but he’s there in my dreems and that just ain’t gonna do.
~~~~I think now you might begin to see the significance of this find. This stone is the key to the gateway to the Great Ones. The crude prospector and his Indian Shaman had no idea of the powerful entity they encountered. This entity is a precursor to the great Becoming. The Transformation from our nattering, war ape existence to a Higher Intelligence where the Great Ones will come down out of the sky and shower the worthy with the Ultimate Knowledge.
Even now, the culling has begun! The ugly immigrant, the diseased prostitutes, the weak children, the useless infirm, the addicts. Since I have pried open, ever so slightly, the Gates of Enlightenment with the help of this fantastic stone, certain events have occurred which have begun a wholesale cleansing of the McGill community! Read the headlines from the McGill Prospector!
TRAGIC BROTHEL FIRE BURNS TEN WOMEN ALIVE
FREAK MINING ACCIDENT CRUSHES TWENTY IMMIGRANT WORKERS
DRUNK MAN STRUCK, KILLED BY TRAIN
MAN HANGS SELF AT FONG OPIUM HOUSE
SIX ELDERLY SUCCUMB TO NEW WINTER VIRUS
CHILD WANDERS AND DIES IN NIGHT SNOW. MOTHER FREEZES TO DEATH IN SEARCH
The Path of the Great Ones is being cleared.
The entity was to be encapsulated for one hundred years. The entity was interred on October 29, 1905. It is December 1923 as I write this. The odds of me surviving until October 29, 2005 are low. I will perfect the Resurrection Binding and I will witness the release of the entity. This I vow with my blood.
GARRET HEWSON-DEE
(continued)
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