The Mummies of Blogspace9 (8 page)
Read The Mummies of Blogspace9 Online
Authors: William Doonan
age: | 50 |
occupation: | senior enforcer to Melchor Negromonte |
education: | unknown, possibly none |
personal: | married, details unknown |
hometown: | Granada, Spain |
hobbies: | video games |
food/bev: | mutton/ strong beer |
life goal: | serve clan with honor |
fav movie: | The Godfather I and II (not III) |
obscurity: | expertise with firearms and edged weapons, once took a bullet intended for Negromonte |
June 18, 2011
Seville, Spain
Bruce Wheeler
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indiv 1:
…when we have satisfied ourselves that you are telling the truth. Now answer my questions.
indiv 2:
I’ve already told you everything I know. Why am I tied up?
indiv 1:
How did you come to learn of this book?
indiv 2:
What is this book you keep asking about?
indiv 1:
The book – Sebastiano Gota’s delusional account of his time in Peru. It is not in the public domain. It is not what you are looking for. It is not in your best interests to find it. You were not tasked with finding a book. You were not tasked with following leads to Sebastiano Gota. You were tasked with finding the hoard.
indiv 2:
I...I don’t know what you’re talking about. We’re researching the history of a colonial church. What is the hoard?
indiv 1:
What is your interest in Sebastiano Gota’s writings? His writings are forbidden. You were not tasked with finding the Malleus.
indiv 2:
What the hell are you talking about?
indiv 1:
You are perhaps moments from your death. You can’t even begin to understand the peril you are in. You found a book that does not exist, do you understand that? A book that was never meant to exist. A book that must be destroyed.
indiv 2:
I don’t know what you’re talking about. I haven’t found any book. Look, I don’t know who you are, but I am an American citizen. People are looking for me.
indiv 1:
They won’t find you. Where have you hidden the Malleus? Did you give it to Negromonte?
indiv 2:
I told you, I haven’t found any book. Can you at least tell me where I am? The man who came in earlier is a policeman. I recognize him from when I was at the police station. Am I under arrest?
indiv 1:
I don’t think you fully understand the severity of your situation. You will be detained here until you have answered my questions or until you die. You are researching a very sensitive subject that interests my employer.
indiv 2:
Then let me get back to the Archive so I can do more research.
indiv 1:
Those days are over for you, my friend. You should know that the police are looking for you. There’s the matter of the murdered guard at the Archive of the Indies. The gun was found in your backpack. Apparently you were trying to steal a valuable document. This is becoming quite a pattern of yours.
indiv 2:
What are you talking about?
indiv 1:
Your picture is all over the city. Even if you were to escape from here, you wouldn’t get far. No airports, no train station, no bus station. No, Dr. Wheeler, you’ll be staying with us here in Spain for some time.
indiv 2:
I don’t believe you.
indiv 1:
We’ll have a TV brought in later; you can watch the news. You killed a family man. You’ll go to prison for a long time.
indiv 2:
You know I didn’t kill anyone. This is a set-up.You have no evidence.
indiv 1:
You mentioned you had already been to the police station, do you recall?
indiv 2:
Yes, I went there because I had a run in with a gypsy.
indiv 1:
I have your statement right here. You were detained by the police after concerns were raised by Archive personnel. You were suspected of stealing a document.
indiv 2:
That’s a lie.
indiv 1:
We believe you contracted to sell it to a known criminal, Mr. Melchor Negromonte.
indiv 2:
No. That’s the gypsy guy I was complaining about.
indiv 1:
We have a copy of the police report. It was signed by the officers who detained you.
indiv 2:
I was not detained. I went on my own. I filed a complaint.
indiv 1:
Is this your signature?
indiv 2:
Yes…but that’s not what I signed. No, I signed a complaint about…
indiv 1:
You signed a confession. You were advised to leave Spain, but instead you returned to the Archive of the Indies. You killed the guard, and tried to leave with the document.
indiv 2:
None of that happened.
indiv 1:
Perhaps you’re right. It will be up to a jury to decide.
indiv 2:
I...
indiv 1:
Now, right now, I want the exact coordinates of the hoard, and I want the Malleus Momias book.
indiv 2:
The hoard? What hoard? And what the hell is Malleus Momias?
indiv 1:
…if you insist on pretending you don’t understand, I will cut your fingers off. We’ll begin immediately. Please excuse me while I retrieve my clippers.
indiv 2:
Wait…
indiv 2:
Oh, God.
indiv 3:
You know who I am?
indiv 2:
You’re one of those gypsies who pushed me into the room with the dead man.
indiv 3:
Am pleased you remember. You are man with few friends. I am friend. I am Radu.
indiv 2:
Did you just kill the guard outside the door?
indiv 3:
It is likely. You must come now.
indiv 2:
How do I know I can trust you?
indiv 3:
I am cutting restraints from your wrists. Look at card I have for you to look at.
indiv 2:
There’s nothing written on that card. It’s just a green wagon wheel.
indiv 3:
He is the only person who can keep you safe.
indiv 2:
Wait, you mean Negromonte?
indiv 3:
Negromonte, yes. Will you come now?
indiv 2:
Yes. Let me grab my laptop.
June 18, 2011
Segovia, Peru
Cyrus Sanderson
Bruce, I want you to go to the Consulate. Don’t talk to anyone, don’t meet with anyone. I’m on my way. There’s more to this than meets the eye, so please be careful. I will explain when I see you.
June 18, 2011
Segovia, Peru
Michelle Cavalcante
Bruce, what the hell? How did this all spin out of control so fast? Please call me, please contact me any way you can. I’m terrified for you. Who are these people who kidnapped you? I can only hope you made it to safety, but I need to hear your voice.
I don’t know if that was the police or not in your last post, but they were right about one thing – you are a wanted man. Cyrus checked with the State Department and with the consulate in Seville, and guess what? The police are looking for you in connection with the murder of an Archive security guard.
I know you didn’t do it, Bruce. God, of course you didn’t do it, but you need to go to the consulate as soon as possible. They’ll turn you over to the Spanish police. There’s nothing we can do about that, but at least you’ll be safe. Cyrus left for Lima about an hour ago. He’s going to fly to Seville. Leon wants to go too, but we need him here for now.
And things aren’t going so well here either. The police came this morning - that guy from Chocope who sits outside the bank. Remember, with the mirrored sunglasses and the Game Boy? He came speeding up the driveway on his moped to investigate. He wanted to see the body, but guess what? The body is gone. Cyrus claims he left it behind the shed, but it’s not there anymore.
I don’t know what got into Kim either. I read the nonsense she wrote to you, but that wasn’t what happened. There’s a reason we lock the gate at night. This is Peru, where the average annual income is about $3, 000. We’re sitting on close to a hundred grand worth of equipment, and that attracts burglars. We’re going to have to be more careful.
And Bruce, what the hell is
Mallus Momias
? Hammer of the Mummies -- is that what we’re dealing with here - a book about how to respond to mummy uprisings? Father Sebastiano’s journal is the definitive primer on how to protect yourself from the undead? Are you laughing, Bruce? Because I am.
There are no walking mummies. Period. I’m a scientist. I believe the science is our most reliable source of information about the world we live in. And science has no room for walking mummies.
We die one day, each one of us, and what transpires after that is not something that can be investigated via the scientific method. But it surely doesn’t involve yet more movement, yet more cognition, yet more conscious thought. That being said, the world is full of superstition, so if an old book of mummy superstition exists, we might want to steer clear of it because apparently other folks are looking for it too.
Cyrus has us on lockdown again. We’re not even going out to the site today unless we can make some sense of our senseless world. And we’re not getting too far along on that front. Bolivar is down with some kind of fever; that scratch on his face doesn’t look good. Kim is tending to him. And Leon has his face in that jug of mescaline.
I thought about leaving today. I thought about running for the nearest airplane, going to Spain to find you. But Cyrus went instead, and he left me in charge. And like I said, baby, I’m a scientist. I’ve got to see this through. Call me, text me, something me.
June 18, 2011 Segovia, Peru
Kim Castillo
Kim here - I’m a scientist too, boys and girls, or at least a scientist in training. But my mother died when I was four years old, and for the next ten years she sat by my bedside every night until I fell asleep. And yes, I know what you’re going to say. Well guess what, I don’t believe in ghosts either. So how do I explain it? I don’t bother trying to.
I was going to make this brief, but Bolivar is finally asleep. He’s not doing so well but at least the fever broke. I’ll check on him in a bit, but we have work to do. And until we decide to bug out, we might as well make some progress on that work in the hopes that it will illuminate our present condition.
Malleus Momias
– let’s talk about that. Michelle, you’re not willing to believe in the existence of walking mummies because you’re a scientist? Get over yourself. Science is a comprehensive yet limited system for investigating natural phenomena. If there are mummies walking around our world, and apparently there are, then let’s understand that they are a natural phenomenon. They’re like a species of butterfly that flits at the edge of the village at dusk, but is never seen in daylight.
So let’s see if we can expose a little of this to daylight. I’ve spent much of the day working with this gigantic ultraviolet scanner that was delivered a couple of days ago. I Googled the model. It’s not even commercially available. It’s South Korean military hardware still under development, and it’s worth about two hundred thousand dollars. Who sent it to us? We don’t know. But that’s OK, because it works like a son of a bitch.
So here it is, ladies and gentlemen, for the first time in four hundred and thirty-one years, I give you the first entry of Father Sebastiano Gota’s journal, translated into English by yours truly:
Anno Domini Nostri Iesu Christi 1580, 18 Junio
// year of our lord 1580, 18 June
“Padre, padre, me perseguian.”
Father, father, they are following me. This is the message I sent to my superior, Father Vasco Cuellar, whose own church in Chocope (a ride of one hour perhaps) is considerably grander than my own. It is Father Vasco who delivered me here to Segovia some months ago. And it is he who I have come to consider my closest confidant during these harrowing times.
I pen these words in secret because my task is an unholy one, written in an unholy place. I daresay that if I do not recount this tale, the time of human men will soon come to an end. May we be called to the side of Jesus when the time comes, but this, this is something altogether different. I speak of nothing other than the gates of hell opening onto our world.
My name is Sebastiano Alfonso Gota. My father, may the Lord in his heavenly wisdom bless his eternal soul, was Don Efrain Gota of Caceres, Extremadura. I am a priest in the service of Our Lord, and his servant Our King Phillip III. I am twenty-five years old, and I am damned.
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