Somnambulist Transmission 4: Death and Sorrow

–EMERGENCY PROTOCOLS ENACTED–

–EXTREME DANGER TO AGENT, MISSION, AND SOMNAMBULIST OPERATIVES–

I/We found dead on surveillance of Yig-Spawn Designate Alexandra Melmoth. Spinal damage. Multiple internal injuries. Death of bodymind estimated at 00:00 hours, with violation of Uni-Mind occurring approximately two minutes prior. Violator appears to have been Agent X-23, though possibly not in control of increased mental faculties. More reason for increased Somnambulist monitoring of situation.

Agent currently not available to mindscan. Much interference. Static on brainline. Sorrow at death of I/We. Performance not at maximum.

I/We seem to have been hit by automobile. Memories of event chaotic, but driver may have been Yig-Spawn Designate Alexandra Melmoth. Difficult to remember. Painful. Death. Painful. Memory.

Agent Codname: Denise available to mindscan, but unconscious. Pocket Brain issued to her indicates attack. Blunt force trauma to head. Agent Codename: Denise located somewhere on Mount Pannawau. Exact location difficult to determine. Interference.

Blue Flower.

Report 18: His Heart’s Desire

Sir,

The headache started almost immediately. A slight throbbing in my left temple that began the minute I entered the grounds of Melmoth House. It would get worse.

But first, Robinson. He met me at the gate, as arranged. “You can’t drive up to the house,” he said. “Oscar will know. He always knows.” So, the gate. I parked the car safely off the road, and we walked by flashlight. He looked ghastly in that light, older and more haggard than he’d seemed earlier in the day. If I hadn’t been distracted by the headache, I might have taken more notice of it.

As it was, though, I just wrote it off as one more horrorshow element of an evening that seemed full of them. Melmoth House is quite the imposing Gothic manor at night, looming dark and mysterious against the night sky. The place even has a hedge maze, which is where Robinson lead me first. “A shortcut,” he told me. I didn’t see how that was possible, but with the throbbing in my temple, I decided not to argue.

Report 15: Out of the Frying Pan

Sir,

I am currently sitting in the corner booth at the Fat Beaver Inn, enjoying some pre-dinner coffee served up by LuAnn, the Fat Beaver’s lead waitress. LuAnn only has one arm, which you’d think would be a detriment in her line of work. But she handles it with aplomb. She lost the arm, it seems, in a most singular manner: singing accident. LuAnn sang in the children’s choir at her parents’ church. Voice of an angel, the preacher always said. But it was a poor congregation, and the church was in a state of some disrepair. Specifically, they had termites. So one Sunday, the little stage the children sang on collapsed, sending them all tumbling.

Now, this didn’t happen simply because of the weight of the children. There was one boy in particular, a large child (portly, is the sense I get) by the name of Melvin, who stood directly in front of LuAnn in the choir. And Melvin was filled with the Spirit, as they say, always waving his arms and dancing slightly as the choir went through its repertoire. Well, this Sunday, Melvin was particularly joyful, and began bouncing up and down, absolutely hyperactive with the power of the Lord. And (at least according to LuAnn) it was Melvin’s antics which caused the stage to collapse, and Melvin himself to fall over on top of LuAnn. His weight pushed her through the wall (which was also termite-infested), and the two of them went right into works of the rickety disused pipe organ.

LuAnn put her arm out to break her fall, and it got stuck between the pipes, which then broke the arm to pieces as the whole pipe organ structure came crashing down of top of them. Luckily for LuAnn, Melvin took the brunt of the falling pipes. But then she was left trapped, under tons of metal and a bleeding overgrown choir boy, covered in termites. It took them hours to dig her out, and by the time they did, her arm was a lost cause.

LuAnn doesn’t sing anymore. Doesn’t go to church, either.

Report 13: Tell Me About the Owls

“Tell me about the owls, Alexandra.”

“I don’t– What? Listen… Do I know you?”

“I was there when you effected your escape from Jase Peterson’s house. Otherwise, no. I don’t think so. But, please. Tell me about the owls.”

“The owls? Well– They’re the ones who– …the ones who killed Chris. Those women. The lesbians.”

“Lesbians?”

“Well… That’s unfair of me. I don’t know that. They were just so… butch.”

“Butch?”

“Masculine. Broad shoulders, hard muscles… I don’t know. They could have just been athletes, I guess. Body builders. Soccer players. I don’t know.”

“But they had the heads of owls?”

“Yes. They were wearing masks, like… some kind of team mascot?”

“So, you were attacked by a group of muscular women wearing owl masks.”

“Yes. Look, I know it sounds strange–”

“It doesn’t sound strange at all, Alexandra. Now. Tell me more. Tell me about the owls.”

Report 8: The Possession of Possum Reynolds

Sir,

It is approximately thirty minutes after my last report, and I’m back in the waiting room at Melmoth Memorial, enjoying a steaming hot cup of coffee I sweet-talked off one of the nurses. I don’t know what the patients drink, but the Nurses’ Lounge is stocked with a damn fine brew. Alexandra is still not back from her examination, but I’ve just spent some time with her erstwhile kidnapper, Possum Reynolds. Or rather, with something purporting to be Possum Reynolds. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

I was informed, if you’ll recall, that Possum had awakened and was asking to speak with the Sheriff. I decided that he should perhaps speak to me instead, and had the nurse lead me to him. Rooms in the intensive care unit are usually small, and cramped with machines. Possum’s room had those features, but it was also dark, and unnaturally humid. Like someone had just taken a shower in it. But instead of the clean smell of soap, it smelled… Well, it’s difficult to describe what it did smell like. Dirt, I suppose. Dirt and blood.

Possum seemed surprised to see me. “Ii. Ast. For. The. Sheriff,” he said, and immediately I knew that whatever was wrong with the room, it emanated from him. His lips were moving in a series of jerky stop-motion twitches around a mouthful of broken teeth. Each word was a spasm. Clipped. Brittle. And not entirely in synch with his lips. It was simultaneously disorienting, abhorrent, and fascinating.

Report 5: Possum’s Last Ride

Sir,

Never underestimate local law enforcement.

That’s the first rule you drilled into me when I entered Agency service, and it’s never failed me yet. Today, Sheriff Patton and his deputies cracked the Melmoth kidnapping with nothing but knowledge of their community and good old-fashioned police work.

We owe this break to a bad carburetor. The Sheriff visited his usual garage to have them take a look at  his personal vehicle (a jeep he uses for something near and dear to your heart: hunting and fishing expeditions into the deep wilderness). But they told him it might be a while before they got to him. They were short-handed, it seemed, with two mechanics having called out sick for three days running.

The timing raised the Sheriff’s suspicions, as did the men in question: Jase Peterson and Robert “Possum” Reynolds, a couple of local ne’er-do-wells known for periodic outbursts of drunken violence at Pannawau County’s finest dives. “Mean as snakes, the both of ’em,” the Sheriff told me later. “And only about half as smart. Damn good mechanics, though.”

Report 4: Three-Biscuit Rule

Sir,

The ransom demand for Alexandra Melmoth’s safe return has thrown my view of this case into turmoil. Why the ritualistic knife wounds on the Phillips boy? Why leave his body in such a remote location? Why the finger? If it was to inspire fear in the family, surely sending them the digit directly would have been more effective. And considering their reputation, who would have attempted to scare them in the first place?

All of this was racing through my mind as I awoke from my disturbing dream to meet Sheriff Patton at Melmoth House. The formerly-tantalizing smells of the Opa Lodge’s Continental Breakfast filled me with dread this morning, and I rushed past the dining room, head down and gorge rising in my throat at the memory of the Horrible Noise. Instead, I stopped for a quick breakfast of coffee and a cheese biscuit at a convenience store called the Stop N Go.

The biscuits are apparently made fresh every morning by a little old woman named Edna, who dutifully rolls out the dough each day and wraps it around handfuls of cubed cheddar. Heart-stoppingly delicious. At least, they were for Edna’s husband Frank, who had two every morning before heading out to tend the fields. After he passed, Edna sold the farm and used the money to open the Stop N Go. Amazing the things people will tell you while you wait for fresh coffee to brew. That coffee wasn’t great, but the biscuits and the company were. I promised Edna that I’d be back for more, and she warned me that she had a strict three-biscuit rule.

“No more than three a week for anybody,” she said. “I won’t have another man’s death on my conscience.”

Upload: The Icke File

Hello, X-23.

This is Denise. Chief Roberts asked me to upload the Icke File for you, which is patently ridiculous. The Icke File fills three cabinets in the Black Library. You couldn’t possibly pick through it all in the field, even with tags and a search option the intra-blog doesn’t have. Honestly. The Chief is a credit to the Agency, but they never should have put him behind a desk. So I’m just going to boil it down for you, concentrating on elements pertinent to the Melmoths. Hope it helps.

Lizards made of sound is the key element here. Malevolent reptile gods that exist at a higher vibrational frequency. We refer to them in the plural because they’ve gone by many names in many cultures over the centuries. But truthfully we have no way of knowing if there really are multiple beings, or if we’ve just seen one great reptilian overlord from different angles at different times. But, trusting to the evidence of our limited senses, we use the plural, and the many names.

The name that should most concern you is Yig. A localized tribal entity from Northwestern Mexico, Yig was a man-eater, offered human sacrifice to prevent the other, more disturbing aspect of his godhead: when angered, he had a habit of coming down out of the mountains and violently impregnating the women of the tribe. They would give birth to horrors, X-23. Wombs splitting open to birth a multitude of snakes. Lizards with the faces of infants. Reptilian monstrosities that would rip their way out from the inside and devour their mothers whole.

Report 2: Why We Are Here

Sir,

Your suggestion that I keep a dream journal seems prudent, especially if I’ve experienced a genuine Wanageeska manifestation. I will record any significant dreams from this point forward. Fortunately, last night’s sleep was, as they say, deep and dreamless. I slept like the dead, and have awakened early, refreshed and up to the task of making my initial case notes.

I’ve been called in to Pannawau to assist local law enforcement in the investigation of the murder of one Christopher Phillips (age 21), and the disappearance of his fiance, Alexandra Melmoth (age 20). Phillips picked Melmoth up at her family’s house one week ago today, and they never returned. A search was undertaken 24 hours later, which lasted three days and turned up two things:

One, Phillips’ car, submerged in nearby Lake Mammedaty.

And two, Phillips himself, dead of multiple stab wounds and left exposed to the elements on the side of Mount Pannawau.

Of Melmoth, no trace was found. At least, not until the autopsy.