The Pseudo-Chronicles of Mark Huntley

Anticipating - 10/8/04

Friday, October 8, 2004

Rence is coming down tonight. In his rattly old Sentra. 

He didn’t even balk at the thought of an eight-hour drive (well, seven in my friend's hands). Turns out Rence would rather brave highway after highway after… highway than face up to his fear of flying. Sure, Rence has been on a plane before— that's how he knows that he hates it.

One thing's for sure... I'm glad this week is over. A three day weekend is a welcome reward. It was hell just to get through the monotony of work. As I was reading through articles and making calls, I found myself devoting the majority of my mental real estate to thoughts about knives and auras. That’s been happening a lot lately. I can see why it’s difficult for insane people to hold down jobs.

I haven’t mentioned a piece of news from a few days ago yet—in part because I’m not sure what to do with it. And in another part, because I’ve started to have my doubts about the wisdom of keeping this journal. 

I don’t know who might actually be reading it. I don’t know who you are, Reader.

Yesterday’s entry, sure, that’s probably all stuff that—if the aura people are reading this—they already know. The purple caterer would have reported my knife threatening back to monster cult headquarters, wherever it may be. 

But this other thing? I didn’t want to advertise my intentions beforehand…

I got an e-mail on Monday from someone with a hotmail account calling themselves “Robert McCammon”—obviously a pseudonym. Robert R. McCammon is the name of a famous novelist. I doubt the real McCammon would be sending me a message like this:

Mark,

We know you’re going through a lot of confusion right now. There is a part of you that you don’t understand. We would like to help you understand that part. But we must be discreet. There are others working against us—many others.

Please meet our contact tomorrow at 1 p.m. at the fountain in Dupont Circle. And please come alone. The contact will be alone as well. You will know him/her when you see him/her.

Do NOT mention this online.

Yeah… right! Less than forty-eight hours after I had the run-in with the purple caterer, I get this message, and Bob the Anonymous expects me to trust him? No way was I going to show up at that appointment.

It was a trap, a trap set by the aura people.

Yet on Tuesday, I couldn’t help but approach the Circle on my lunch break. I wasn’t going to go to the fountain, but I could keep a safe distance from it and not stand out. It wasn’t a super-warm day, but there were still plenty of people walking around in the afternoon.

I crept as close as I dared to get—I had to assume that they knew me by sight. I hid behind one of the trees in the park still a good distance away from the inner, open circle, and peered at the area around the fountain.

Oh, there was somebody who stood out, all right. A black woman with dreds in a colorful pink and blue dress—the pinks and blues amplified by the silver aura that surrounded her.

I backed away from the tree and walked off quickly in case she had non-aura accomplices (human accomplices?) who were watching her, and watching to see who watched her. I came back to work having forgotten to pick up lunch for myself, my hands shaking. I couldn’t get them to stop shaking for a long time. Nobody noticed except for Deb, who diagnosed me with a case of skipping-lunch-itis.

I haven’t received any more e-mails from Bob. But now I know they’ve moved beyond mere surveillance—they’re trying to get me. And it seems like the purples and silvers are working together, if this is a consequence of what I did at the wedding.

Maybe it would be better if I just stopped posting here. Maybe I’m putting myself in danger.

Then again, if they do kidnap and/or dismember and/or murder me, I want there to be as complete a record as possible left behind, in public. I want everyone to know what happened.

And if they’re something other than human—which, ever since I saw those things swimming in that purple’s aura, I fear is true—then I have a duty to let the world know that we’ve been, uh, infiltrated.

This is your Official Notice, then. I have the strong impression that there are nonhuman things walking around us wearing human faces.

Well, just saying that doesn’t accomplish much, I guess… any ideas about what to do about it now? I’m fresh out of them, myself. I’m hoping that Rence may have one, if I can convince him that I’m not out of my gourd first.

I’m also hoping that I’ve made the right call, and that I’m not putting an additional person in danger just by proximity to me. I almost called Rence yesterday and told him not to come.

But… I don’t want to face this alone.

It’s too late now to consider otherwise. Rence is on his way. I’ll take what precautions I can, but the aura people know where I live and haven’t attacked me yet—the likelihood that they will this weekend must be small.

I know that keeping Rence both safe and entertained will take up a lot of my time, so I might not get the chance to write for a little while. I'll report as soon as I can on the hopefully benign adventures of Huntley and Robichaux.

posted by Mark Huntley @ 5:48 PM

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