I intercepted the following self-addressed email at 11.24.2015@23:13:35:02 PST. It appears the writer was making a memoir of some kind. I have included a section of interest for your review and consideration:
“My father met my mother Contessa Ganes and had their only child, me. My paternal grandmother was a chill hippie lady who lived in a yurt. My material grandmother, Viatrix Ganes, lived with her animals in small town called Hostler, Tennessee in a petstore she called Precious Treasures. It's gone now. I'm ready to tell you why.
Since I was 11, I would help Viatrix (not Grandmother Ganes and never grandma) with the animals she kept every Summer. Viatrix made it clear from day one that I was chosen to operate the shop after Viatrix was gone, and that I would be trusted with dangerous creatures. She reminded me with every hit from the riding whip.
My grandmother was a cruel woman who hated humanity and distrusted all animals but birds and wouldn't hesitate to strike me for the smallest misstep, so she had absolutely no qualms with calling the creatures what they were: “cursed animals”, animals that seemed possessed by madness or something greater. They were also called cursed animals because of some like Baldy.
The overweight 7 year old Calico cat had been with three families, all three brutally slain while it slept through every attack where the murders would take place. Police found the cat still asleep, leaving an outline of blood on the carpet when they moved Baldy. Fed tuna once a day. Kept in an elevated cell with a moving floor, which activates and wakes Baldy at least four times a day. Viatrix was sure that keeping the cat out of sleep is what keeps us safe- she theorizes that the cat can control other's minds, only after so many hours of sleep. The cat CANNOT sleep for more than eight hours. Cage lock 43.
Buco, a Rottweiler mutt with patchy fur and continual incurable mange. A woman claimed that Buco told her to drown her children after adopting it. Viatrix received it after the court found the mother guilty. Buco's fed twice a day, but I never seen him eat. Very regal animal for a stray mutt. Will not break eye contact with you. Does not pant, doesn't make a sound. Sits facing the door with perfect posture. He will not tolerate a blind, so I try to avoid his too human eyes. If I glance at them, a voice echoes somewhere in the back of my mind and whispers: “Let me out”. Otherwise harmless. Cage lock 8.
Buzzard, a Great Dane. Sweet girl. Viatrix knows that Buzz constantly walks towards the closest corpse or towards the nearest place where one will be. She will pace her cell and face the direction of the next death. We keep her here in the horse cell for protection, as she frequently outruns her owners in the outside world. She is too valuable to let free. Cell lock H2.
Mat'n'Pat was a juvenile parrot that would sometimes shout out a year, a month, a day, and hour. Viatrix personally confirmed that Mat'n'Patty accurately calls the hour of your death. But if Mat'n'Pat doesn't like you, it will sometimes say another time, this new one only minutes away. Too many freak accidents happening at the moments of those times of deaths to discount the possibility that the parrot could bend reality to it's will to some degree. The parrot had to be kept locked in a soundproof cage with some female friends and lots of toys; cage and mag lock 3.
The parrot was the first of the creatures in the downstairs level of the pet shop. The ones down there were all inside sleek stainless steel halls with latching refrigerator handle gates and a video feed on what was inside, like Lorrane.
Loranne was a raven that spoke with a complex set of dull croaks to imitate human speech eerily well- she asked “hello? Is someone new there?” before Viatrix snapped off the monitor. Viatrix warned what was really in there: Tanakteuk, the trickster raven spirit, captured once again by a human, a clever spirit waiting to spread chaos. Is fed through reserve system and changed by underpan. Do not allow it to speak to you, Viatrix warned. Kept dark 15 hours a day. Cage lock 1.
Cage lock 2 had to be kept in total blackness, so I only saw heat signatures, but that was enough to see a blobby web of egg-strewn silk against one corner, where something that looked like a king crab and a tick waved cockroach antennas nervously in the air. Viatrix claimed it came from a cave in Chile opened during oil exploration, part of a line of insects sealed away millions of years ago. I had to learn the right pressures and gas mixes...not to keep them alive, but to keep them dormant, as they were before. Exposure to our air makes them quicker, smarter and able to breed explosively through shared webs, Viatrix read. I never found the book she read that from.
Sluggo, the unkillable bear. Black bear, one of the largest I have ever seen. It killed over 20 hikers and campers over the course of five years and grew to the size of a grizzly. He constantly drools and needs to be be hosed down daily because he smells like death. His eyes are glazed and foggy and we believe he is blind; there are several dozen marks in his fur from firearms as well as burn patches. He groans like an injured human and it freaks me out to hear it, because I know he's faking it. He licks his lips when I am near. He has a complex locking system when we enter his cell to feed him rotten -it won't eat fresh- meat. Cell DEX4.
Jitterbug, a lizard with red and yellow scales that resembles a slender iguana, discovered in Arizona. It's able to generate a very large charge by shuffling its legs. Viatrix told me of a trip she took to Mexico years ago, when a Vaquero Mexico showed her the bolts that was spark from the ground, from where sleeping lifestock would sleep. These lizards sought hairy, soft furry surfaces that took a lot of static charge. This one terrorized a desert camp by darting into sleeping bags and cooking people alive before swallowing them whole. It was captured when it was bagged for roadkill and escaped into a sanitation facility.
It was a lot to learn, especially without Viatrix's help. When I was 18, she died in her sleep without warning or cause just as was beginning to know the shop. What was clear were the terms of her estate: I was the unalienable rightful owner of Precious Treasures. I was hounded night and day by Ganes family members who made claims to it. It's all about the cash to these people. I thought I was different. What's important to me is the truth, and the truth could only be ascertained by studying these animals.
How naive we are at 21.
That also meant that I had to tend to everything, a solo full time job where I felt like I was working in a giant ticking bomb. The security system was antiquated and fused with modern monitors running operating systems I had never seen before. It took 3 days before I actually gave some thought to how much destruction is worth to me... few hundred thousand at least. Maybe I could at least sell Buzzard. I just wanted to be free of these things, especially Sluggo and Buco, who both made this place so unnerving.
There were 98 total specimens, each with the own special care procedures and lockdown procedure. But I explicitly remember these. They were the culprits in the final chain of events.
On march 30th, the circuit breaker kept tripping every fifteen minutes. I wasted half the day battling to keep the cages to the doors locked; some would unlock with every cut in the power. It wasn't until I heard Jitterbug's scraping claws inside his cage that I found the first culprit. The little bastard had peeled away the plastic lining of his cage to lick a bolt that was continuous all the way to one of the circuits. It have me a shock as I was moving it big enough to send bolts of pain up and down my arm, even through the rubber gloves. I put Jit next to the bug cell, which was thudding too much for my comfort.
The UV image showed HUNDREDS of writhing pale pincered cave bugs packing the cell almost to the camera; the gaps in power must have allowed just enough air in for them to grow to this number in a few hours. I cannot imagine what releasing them to the atmosphere would do.
After upping the vacuum pressure and nitrogen gas and wishing for an automated system's like Baldy's, my mind jumped back to the cat- he must have been sleeping for HOURS now. I ran back up the stairs to hear Buzzard whining in her cage, something she never does. She was spinning in circles. We were about to be surrounded by death.
When I came back to the ground floor, I saw a man hunched by a two empty cages that were forced open. Baldy and the parrot were gone. The man was now trying to pry open Buco's cage. I didn't have a weapon, and by the time police would arrive, half these cages would have been pried open by that long, sharp piece of iron in his hand.
I had one shot to take him by surprise by throwing him into the open cell to his right.
Desperate fear helped me grip and throw him with one toss. There was a mad scramble when his dropped weapon, a piece of rebar sharpened to a point, but after kicking it back towards me, I slammed the door shut and used the rebar to wedge between two loops made for an additional lock. The man was out of his mind, ranting and spitting half-words and curses at me. I realized he always would be this way as long as Baldy sleeps somewhere.
I had no time to find the cat, the man was pulling the rebar free. The door needed to be magnetically locked, but Viatrix never showed me that. Through my weakest moment of confusion and panic I heard an intelligent tapping on the inside of Cage lock. Lorrane. I turned on the monitor's audio. It spoke calmly and clearly.
“Do you wish to lock that man into one of our cages?” I nodded. “LEG Control Menu. Search Registry. Window 3. New Entry. Command 2. Enter code. Confirm.” the bird croaked. I asked it if it was telling the truth. It nodded. Another screech of steel. The rebar was almost off the door. There was only one choice- I went to the console and did as bird said. I was awarded with the sound of 60 cage doors and 37 high security gates sliding open, all but one- the one with the rebar jamming the door, permanently trapping the man inside.
I was a coward. I bolted first for the door, especially when I thought the I heard the rumbling gallop of Sluggo coming up the stairs from behind. Before I got out the door, Lorrane flew overhead. I accused the raven of deceiving me; she looked down to say “you were told I was a trickster, and you still listened to me without thinking twice. You wanted to lock the man in. It is granted” before shitting on me and flying free.
I took the last bus ever out of town. I could already hear sirens and distant screams from inside the town at the station. Four police Expeditions blared past us as my bus lurched away from the entire mess I caused.
I truly am sorry to all the people in Hostler who have to face what I have uncaged. I could have done nothing. I wish I knew what I was doing better, but wishes won't bring you back to life. You paid a debt I needed to learn.”
The email continues. He never mentions the petshop again.
I found Hostler on a few old maps of Tennessee. The road there is watched by inuman eyes. The town now consists of a few buildings that haven't fallen, some piles of long burned rubbish and sidewalks and streets with young trees growing in them. I was returning to my car when I saw a dog sitting in the center of the road, looking proud, regal almost, despite having mange scars all over it's bald face. When I looked into it's human eyes, a voice clearer than any other I had heard in my life called from the back of my mind. It said “adopt me.”
Submitted July 25, 2016 at 07:03PM by IamHowardMoxley http://ift.tt/2arDgYj nosleep
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