AUGUST 15, 1925
Following I have transcribed the instructions he left for me. I don’t have his book, the one he found and brought here, the one he took his terrible instructions from. His brother took it and I was too shell-shocked to stop him. I am only sorry I don’t have it so I cannot burn it. I am only sorry I did not take my knife and gut Tommy as he tried to walk into the trees. I am only sorry I ever met him, ever knew him, ever loved him. He gets to be dead and I have to live with what he did, what he made.
The burden is mine now. Tommy saw to that. He must have hated me, I think. Or he did not know, he did not suspect, he did not realize. But I cannot be generous to him or his memory. Not after what he has done.
I will watch at the gate. I will stand sentinel to the horror they left behind. And every moment for the rest of my life I will be haunted by the sound of that breathing, wet and slow and waiting, and breathe out my own hatred for my friend and his thirteen fools.
* * *
—
No, I will not bear this alone. Their children will know, and carry this burden, and remember what their parents did for them. To them.
To us all.
JULY 21, 1925
Instructions left by Tommy Callas on behalf of the Callas, Pulsipher, Nicely, Stratton, Young, Harrell, and Frye families, to be followed exactly:
We have paid the price and secured our prize. It is not what we expected, but we have faith god we must have faith we have to have faith faith is all that is left to us we have faith that the transaction will be honored. Prosperity and protection on all our blood from this moment onward through all generations of time.
We have paid this first price and when the last of us has been consumed, it will be me, I have witnessed them all except my beloved Mary and myself we are all that are left and Mary sits as though already consumed, here but gone from me all the same, I have loved her and it led us here so I must have faith I will have faith.
When I am consumed it will sleep and it will protect us and we will have given you what our parents could not give us what our country could not, we will have secured your fates and prosperity.
Prosper.
Prosper.
It is your right. It is paid for.
Set a watch. When it wakes if it wakes it will need to be fed. This deal has been sealed with our blood and will continue with our blood. Feed it and prosper and feel our love. My Mary was a woman built from love burning with it fueled by it and now she has burned out.
Set the watch.
Do not leave the gate open.
Do not let it go hungry.
Do not forget that we love you and you deserve this gift.
It awakens. Our time is over. We will be consumed for our children and our children’s children and our children’s children’s children.
The price is paid willingly and with faith for the future that the future will hold the faith with us and we will endure through you I have faith I have faith I have faith I have faith but oh god there are stars beyond its maw and they are stars I do not know and my Mary has gone to them and now I will too.
Farewell.
JULY 15, 1926
They did not believe me, did not want to believe me, these brothers and sisters and children, until we entered the temple and the screaming started. It is not a monster for me, and yet it is my monster. I am not covered by Tommy’s blessings, but I still suffer the cost.
We have set a guard. May the monster sleep forever in its sepulchral temple, and may the fourteen fools who brought it here never find peace.
JULY 15, 1930
It sleeps, I drink, the nation starves but we do not.
JULY 15, 1932
It is awake. We did nothing, nothing changed, there was no new ceremony, and yet it is awake. And Tommy said it must eat.
JULY 22, 1932
I had thought the worst moment of my life was behind me, but there were so many more moments to come. In the end, I stood at the temple, weeping, begging for release, and still I saw nothing, and it did not take me.
We were not prepared. We offered a cow and it ate the two men, Frye’s brothers, who brought it in. After that we drew straws. We marched the unlucky ones to their death, two by two. Two a day for seven days and in the end we could not march them we had to drag them. I had to drag them, because I am not damned as they are, I am damned all on my own.
Seven years. They bought us only seven years. Six months for each life given. Is it worth it, Tommy? What has your faith inflicted on us all?
I am executioner now.
Seven years to prepare. We will do better next time. We must.
JULY 22, 1939
The doctor says if I do not stop drinking, I will kill myself. There are faster ways to be consumed by oblivion, I said, but not for me. Not for me. Oblivion does not want me.
Our gamble did not work.
We tried the first day with Rose Harrell’s sister’s maid Doreen, but it left her untouched and prowled to the gate.
In a panic, we threw in Rose’s own sister and Orville’s brother. We could not let it get out. Doreen saw them devoured into nothingness, but it does not matter. Who would believe her? Invisible monsters devouring people whole in the woods. Imagine.
Imagine.
Fourteen years after the original fourteen sacrifices. Their families are the police now, and the senators, and the judges. There will be no consequences. We let Doreen flee, because she does not matter, which is why it is so maddening that she could not be the sacrifice.
It answers the question, though. Only the blood that brought it into being can sustain it.
We had bought a day with our hasty sacrifices, and sent out word. Every family submitted two names, sealed in envelopes—except Rose’s and Orville’s families, which only had to give one now. They did not submit their own names, of course. Their parents and siblings had sacrificed for them—not so they could be sacrifices, but so they could flourish. But the monster had to be fed.
Twelve distant relations, bastard offspring, feeble cousins, shameful secrets hidden no longer. Two by two they were invited into the homes they had never been welcomed into, and two by two they were escorted to the temple. By me, since I cannot be consumed.
It is too much. Surely there is a death faster than the bottle and more willing than the monster. I go to find it. Let Asterion keep its own cursed vigil. I seek the peace of hell, content that even hell is too good for Tommy Callas and we will never be reunited.
God damn Asterion and everything it touches forever. Amen.
Ian turns off his flashlight app and carefully places the loose papers back into the book, as though they’ll know if he doesn’t treat them well. As though he’s being watched.