The Journeyman. A diary of an occult resolution assistant ......Saturday
FRIDAY....................
As soon as he entered the room the music hit. It washed over and around me as if I were a pebble on the beach to eternity and the waves caressed me in their motion. A symphony of universal proportions temporary overwhelmed all of my senses but as the trumpets reached a crescendo I was pulled back into the room by the bloodied knife that was starting to produce a puddle of colour equal to or greater and all other colour in the room (that's the NHS decorating style for you).
I shot straight up in bed, colour draining from my skin and a cold sweat began to form across my shoulders and back. I remembered to breathe and hastily glanced around to see what reaction the other inmates to the ward had; but they all seemed to be carrying on with what they were doing but slightly slower and slightly quieter. I call this The Grey, a background that shrinks away when Xanthic doesn't want to be noticed or when people just don't want to believe their eyes; they just carry on regardless and lose all colour compared to the spectacle of my employer, the Journeyman.
I pulled back my cover and threw out my legs, not flinching at the pain or the cold as my bare feet touched the tiled floor but stopped as Xanthic lurched forward with the help of two extra arms wrapped around his waist. He pulled one of his tricks and casually stepped out of the arms and behind him was a skinny security guard looking confused.
"Sir......" He said, looking for all the world like he had forgotten why he was there and embarrassed as to why he had put his arms around a stranger. Xanthic turned to face the poor guard with a smile on his face a tiger would have been proud of when looking down on a freshly caught small furry meal.
"Ah, young man." Oiled Xanthic. "I believe you are here to show me the way out of this wonderful establishment. Lead the way." He waved his arm to show the security guard the way. He turned, looked straight at me, threw the knife lazily so it landed softly side on on my bed and said in a stage whisper. "Keep you phone close." Before allowing himself to be led away from the ward, building and hospital.
As The Grey began to lift and the background speed returned to normal I hastily covered the blade with my sheets and drew it back under my pillow, curling up into a ball I lay down my head and closed my eyes. I don't think my act of sleep fooled my room mates, especially as I clutched my phone to my chest and (due to the no ringtone policy of the hospital) kept checking the notification panel. I stayed like that until the light began to fade from the sky and harsh electric light replaced the glorious Spring sunlight. Then, as I was beginning to drift off into the oblivion of sleep my phone erupted into life and a picture message appeared on the screen. I rubbed my finger in the unlock swirl and to my horror an image of a dead body appeared. As I looked closer I could see it wasn't what I thought, not a middle age man with a hole in his chest and half his blood missing. But a body, yes with most the vital fluid spread around in places not conducive to a long and happy existence, but the ears were too long, as were the teeth and eyes shaped of almonds and as black as pitch. I pulled the phone closer to my eyes so I could see more clearly in the bright gloom of the room. Then the body in the photo shot towards me with inhuman speed, mouth wide, teeth sharp and dripping with saliva and as I convulsed in fear and my phone dropped away from me towards the floor, I saw that mouth bite where my hands had just been and then the image was gone.
SATURDAY...........................
The clock on the wall, a four digit 24hour plastic brick that was illegible during daylight hours but bright enough to flood green light through the whole room after dark, clicked onto 00:00. My phone lit up as a call came in. I swiped the screen to pick up recognising my employers credentials on the screen. It came up Private Number, much the same as when cold callers or PPI sales robots call, but I always know when Xanthic calls, its like its a different and very Private Number.
"Shhhhh," Was the first thing I heard coming from the tiny speaker. "I haven't got long and neither have you. I'm looking into a series of occurrences that are happening in that place and you have to do a little digging for me."
A flood of instructions followed as to what I was required to do, but with all instances of my talking to, listening to or being in the same room as Xanthic the music poured into my soul. Note to self, practice concentration techniques as I have just missed most of what I should and shouldn't do. The beat was more fantastic than any song, it was life, all life, creation and destruction in a toe tapping rhythm. I wondered if Xanthic knew he leaked this beat everywhere he went and if everyone could hear it, or if it was just me and some ability I had over the general populace; I doubted the latter, although I do believe my mind is more open to most, or all that prancing around a field at midnight collecting herbs was a waste of time.
"......just don't do that!"
The last of the instructions dragged my wandering mind and brought my attention straight back to the call and what I technically get paid for. "But for now just look into suspects and let me know if anything turns up. I'll be around, but as I have already upset the local security drones with that little mishap earlier I can't come in plain sight. Oh and keep that dagger safe, its the only thing that will work. I mean it, the ONLY thing." Then he was gone and my phone went black once more.
I had a vague sense of the need to spring into action; but it was too close to midnight for my liking, especially as I've seen more 00:00's on the clock since meeting Xanthic than I ever have in the previous 22 years; so with all dedication to my job, I curled up and drifted off into a very fretful sleep.
10:22am
I woke, that in itself was worth noting in this diary. the night before led to images of blood, death and fear. I could see inside my mind the suffering and coldness felt by many people, never seeing their faces, but instead seeing through them at the horror that stalked them in their final moments. Alas I did not see that which terrified them either. I felt confined, not by any earthly chain or lock but from a force to pushing them down and holding them there while the worst happened.
There is one thing I have learned in my employment, that is people may hide their true intentions from the world; but others (Oh how the Others) cannot, even if they try with all their strength. But then again, I have been proven wrong in the past. For all this I work as a front person to Xanthic's activities and try, very successfully to learn the truth of an individuals nature and hopefully right a few wrongs along the way (trust me its not as glamorous as it sounds, and involves a lot of walking around, oft in the cold and rain). So to work I thought. I had missed breakfast, so with the notion of finding food in the shopping area of the entrance I made my excuses from the endless fussing of nurses and the mindless jabbering of the ward flies and walked off with the intention of miss finding my way (although in a modern hospital it is almost impossible to walk and reach any intended location).
There was a constant flow of the ill, infirm and the (virtually) undead staggering in one direction; from the way they clutched their little packets of death (or cigarette boxes) I guessed they were heading for the entrance and the only smoking point in the building and the worst welcoming sight for ill people ever. I headed the other way and after a misadventure in maternity I ended up with the wall colours changing from sterile white to bright yellow and cartoon characters scattered about randomly like chicken pox marks over a toddler - talking of which, this was the Children's Ward.
I remember being here with a broken arm, and leg, and another arm (well same one a year later) and having the time of my life with all the other children staying up all night and keeping the nurses on their toes.
This time I saw the place through the eyes of an adult and it was a different sight entirely; the bright walls, cartoonish graphics and colourful nurses uniforms failed to hide the aura of the patients who smiled, cried, hugged or slept close to their loved ones. My first instinct was to leave, get as far away from here as quickly as possible a wave of fear had come over me and the compulsion to leave was immense. It was this that froze my feet to the hard tiled floor and in a second of complete panic I saw a crying lady; hands over her face, hunched over and sobbing so hard her body convulsed with every cry. I thought about approaching and offering support or to call someone for her, but I did not, could not.
A nurse walked by and saw me staring and started talking to me, that broke whatever spell I had over me and my legs moved once more; she spoke and although I could not hear her words through my staring at the crying lady I thought she said they had lost two more children over night and (as I was obviously a patient on the hospital) offered to get me back to my ward.
She called over an orderly who was wheeling a sleeping child in his bed back into position in the ward following some kind of operation, he was large, broad shouldered and dressed in a large thin coat that I have only seen on school science teachers or weird hardware store assistants. He docked the bed into place and turned to walk towards us as the nurse had called him over by name.
Ludo Opem, the name she called caused him to smile at us and when I saw his face he was more hairy than anything I have seen outside of a bear enclose in a zoo; a beard as long as his arm and dense as a rain forest. My sense of panic rose again; not because of some weird beard phobia (beardaphobia? fizzogaphoic??) but every time the direct sunlight from the windows shone on him as he approached his skin turned from red flushed pink and black gloss hair to grey and pealing rotting flesh and ragged greasy hair. From a beautifully calming smile to teeth chipped and yellow, hands of strong muscle and healthy tone to skeletal and clawed. I knew a demon walking among us when I saw it, and here one was, firmly entrenched in a ward full of sick children, and from the aura, feeding from them.
11:15
I would like to say I stood my ground and raised Hell against the thing in front of me, but I cannot. To my shame I turned and ran back to the safety of the corridor. I did look over my shoulder, the thing known as Ludo simply shrugged its shoulders and went back to work on the children's ward.
Ok, I knew I had to get help, and fast. So my phone was in my hand before I knew it and I had already unlocked the screen with a swipe of my thumb. It looks to the observer as a touch screen pattern lock; but as I use this thing as a diary, PA, phone, data safe and more importantly......music, I put a spell on it to only unlock the secured areas of the memory to my touch.
The phone was answered almost immediately.
"Not a good time" came a very reedy voice, clearly out of breath like when my mum calls when I'm on the treadmill.
"Not good for me either." I said. "Small case of demon feeding in a children's ward here." I stated this very mater of factly as Xanthic has a habit of one-up-,manship.
"Big case of zombie infestation here." Came the snappy reply.
"Are they eating kids?"
"No, locked in a basement of an abandoned factory."
"Well I think I win this time. Stop playing with your friends and get here quick, we need to stop him." I was trying to stay calm, but the fate of the children had to be more important and I was also scared, angry and more importantly hungry. I was trembling with it all.
"Are you in personal danger right now?" Xanthic asked me.
"No, I ran......but we need to stop that thing."
"Can you explain what you saw and why you demon and not something else. I could have swan we I was on the trail of a Vor or some kind."
"No, its a demon, like the ones you showed me in your book. ( I referred to a leather bound reference book, written in the romantic script of a medieval monk who, according to Xanthic was aid to his own demon Master. I should also point out demon is not the same as Demon, for which I am sure you will begin to understand as I have at some point.)
"Hold your position and I'll be there as quickly as possible. Don't do anything silly, and don't try and talk to it. If it speaks to you, keep your mouth shut! That's a direct order." The phone rang off, and it was at this point I noticed how quiet it was as all though the phone conversation I could hear string music - the aura of Xanthic, strong even through mobile signal waves.
I found myself back at my hospital bed; a note saying I had missed rounds and the change of my bandages and to seek a nurse to do it once back. I placed this note back where I found it in the hope I could get what I needed from my stuff in the bedside table and be out of here before I was noticed ( I had a small vial of holy water and an ancient page copied out of an original scroll or text from before any holy-book had been compiled -it wasn't an all powerful anti evil text, but as good as, even if it was scribbled out in green biro on the ripped out back pages of a library Latin to English dictionary; which I wanted to use to stand guard in the children's ward; but the Gent started talking to me about how important it was to be here for Rounds and that alerted a nurse to my presence.
With a roughness I had only previously felt at the hands of the school bullies, I was ushered to bed, a curtain drawn around, then stripped, bandages removed, wounds and bruises inspected and fresh dressings applied. I was then ordered to bed and instructed that a very close eye would be kept on me and not to wander off.
With a resolution to get back on the hunt as soon as my guards in scrubs were distracted (this is the modern NHS, they must have hundreds of needy people more important (or making more fuss) than I. I found an online text book on an open source ePub site, flicked through a few images of demons from old woodcuts to find something I could use or anything that may educate me on what I faced.
But my eyelids grew heavy and my phone I was reading fell against my chest and (as the Gent and BQ testified later) I began to snore. It was for this reason I did not hear the squeaky wheel and heavy footsteps of an orderly pushing a bed along the corridor and into my ward. I also didn't see Ludo move back the curtain around my bed and enter.
As soon as he entered the room the music hit. It washed over and around me as if I were a pebble on the beach to eternity and the waves caressed me in their motion. A symphony of universal proportions temporary overwhelmed all of my senses but as the trumpets reached a crescendo I was pulled back into the room by the bloodied knife that was starting to produce a puddle of colour equal to or greater and all other colour in the room (that's the NHS decorating style for you).
I shot straight up in bed, colour draining from my skin and a cold sweat began to form across my shoulders and back. I remembered to breathe and hastily glanced around to see what reaction the other inmates to the ward had; but they all seemed to be carrying on with what they were doing but slightly slower and slightly quieter. I call this The Grey, a background that shrinks away when Xanthic doesn't want to be noticed or when people just don't want to believe their eyes; they just carry on regardless and lose all colour compared to the spectacle of my employer, the Journeyman.
I pulled back my cover and threw out my legs, not flinching at the pain or the cold as my bare feet touched the tiled floor but stopped as Xanthic lurched forward with the help of two extra arms wrapped around his waist. He pulled one of his tricks and casually stepped out of the arms and behind him was a skinny security guard looking confused.
"Sir......" He said, looking for all the world like he had forgotten why he was there and embarrassed as to why he had put his arms around a stranger. Xanthic turned to face the poor guard with a smile on his face a tiger would have been proud of when looking down on a freshly caught small furry meal.
"Ah, young man." Oiled Xanthic. "I believe you are here to show me the way out of this wonderful establishment. Lead the way." He waved his arm to show the security guard the way. He turned, looked straight at me, threw the knife lazily so it landed softly side on on my bed and said in a stage whisper. "Keep you phone close." Before allowing himself to be led away from the ward, building and hospital.
As The Grey began to lift and the background speed returned to normal I hastily covered the blade with my sheets and drew it back under my pillow, curling up into a ball I lay down my head and closed my eyes. I don't think my act of sleep fooled my room mates, especially as I clutched my phone to my chest and (due to the no ringtone policy of the hospital) kept checking the notification panel. I stayed like that until the light began to fade from the sky and harsh electric light replaced the glorious Spring sunlight. Then, as I was beginning to drift off into the oblivion of sleep my phone erupted into life and a picture message appeared on the screen. I rubbed my finger in the unlock swirl and to my horror an image of a dead body appeared. As I looked closer I could see it wasn't what I thought, not a middle age man with a hole in his chest and half his blood missing. But a body, yes with most the vital fluid spread around in places not conducive to a long and happy existence, but the ears were too long, as were the teeth and eyes shaped of almonds and as black as pitch. I pulled the phone closer to my eyes so I could see more clearly in the bright gloom of the room. Then the body in the photo shot towards me with inhuman speed, mouth wide, teeth sharp and dripping with saliva and as I convulsed in fear and my phone dropped away from me towards the floor, I saw that mouth bite where my hands had just been and then the image was gone.
SATURDAY...........................
The clock on the wall, a four digit 24hour plastic brick that was illegible during daylight hours but bright enough to flood green light through the whole room after dark, clicked onto 00:00. My phone lit up as a call came in. I swiped the screen to pick up recognising my employers credentials on the screen. It came up Private Number, much the same as when cold callers or PPI sales robots call, but I always know when Xanthic calls, its like its a different and very Private Number.
"Shhhhh," Was the first thing I heard coming from the tiny speaker. "I haven't got long and neither have you. I'm looking into a series of occurrences that are happening in that place and you have to do a little digging for me."
A flood of instructions followed as to what I was required to do, but with all instances of my talking to, listening to or being in the same room as Xanthic the music poured into my soul. Note to self, practice concentration techniques as I have just missed most of what I should and shouldn't do. The beat was more fantastic than any song, it was life, all life, creation and destruction in a toe tapping rhythm. I wondered if Xanthic knew he leaked this beat everywhere he went and if everyone could hear it, or if it was just me and some ability I had over the general populace; I doubted the latter, although I do believe my mind is more open to most, or all that prancing around a field at midnight collecting herbs was a waste of time.
"......just don't do that!"
The last of the instructions dragged my wandering mind and brought my attention straight back to the call and what I technically get paid for. "But for now just look into suspects and let me know if anything turns up. I'll be around, but as I have already upset the local security drones with that little mishap earlier I can't come in plain sight. Oh and keep that dagger safe, its the only thing that will work. I mean it, the ONLY thing." Then he was gone and my phone went black once more.
I had a vague sense of the need to spring into action; but it was too close to midnight for my liking, especially as I've seen more 00:00's on the clock since meeting Xanthic than I ever have in the previous 22 years; so with all dedication to my job, I curled up and drifted off into a very fretful sleep.
10:22am
I woke, that in itself was worth noting in this diary. the night before led to images of blood, death and fear. I could see inside my mind the suffering and coldness felt by many people, never seeing their faces, but instead seeing through them at the horror that stalked them in their final moments. Alas I did not see that which terrified them either. I felt confined, not by any earthly chain or lock but from a force to pushing them down and holding them there while the worst happened.
There is one thing I have learned in my employment, that is people may hide their true intentions from the world; but others (Oh how the Others) cannot, even if they try with all their strength. But then again, I have been proven wrong in the past. For all this I work as a front person to Xanthic's activities and try, very successfully to learn the truth of an individuals nature and hopefully right a few wrongs along the way (trust me its not as glamorous as it sounds, and involves a lot of walking around, oft in the cold and rain). So to work I thought. I had missed breakfast, so with the notion of finding food in the shopping area of the entrance I made my excuses from the endless fussing of nurses and the mindless jabbering of the ward flies and walked off with the intention of miss finding my way (although in a modern hospital it is almost impossible to walk and reach any intended location).
There was a constant flow of the ill, infirm and the (virtually) undead staggering in one direction; from the way they clutched their little packets of death (or cigarette boxes) I guessed they were heading for the entrance and the only smoking point in the building and the worst welcoming sight for ill people ever. I headed the other way and after a misadventure in maternity I ended up with the wall colours changing from sterile white to bright yellow and cartoon characters scattered about randomly like chicken pox marks over a toddler - talking of which, this was the Children's Ward.
I remember being here with a broken arm, and leg, and another arm (well same one a year later) and having the time of my life with all the other children staying up all night and keeping the nurses on their toes.
This time I saw the place through the eyes of an adult and it was a different sight entirely; the bright walls, cartoonish graphics and colourful nurses uniforms failed to hide the aura of the patients who smiled, cried, hugged or slept close to their loved ones. My first instinct was to leave, get as far away from here as quickly as possible a wave of fear had come over me and the compulsion to leave was immense. It was this that froze my feet to the hard tiled floor and in a second of complete panic I saw a crying lady; hands over her face, hunched over and sobbing so hard her body convulsed with every cry. I thought about approaching and offering support or to call someone for her, but I did not, could not.
A nurse walked by and saw me staring and started talking to me, that broke whatever spell I had over me and my legs moved once more; she spoke and although I could not hear her words through my staring at the crying lady I thought she said they had lost two more children over night and (as I was obviously a patient on the hospital) offered to get me back to my ward.
She called over an orderly who was wheeling a sleeping child in his bed back into position in the ward following some kind of operation, he was large, broad shouldered and dressed in a large thin coat that I have only seen on school science teachers or weird hardware store assistants. He docked the bed into place and turned to walk towards us as the nurse had called him over by name.
Ludo Opem, the name she called caused him to smile at us and when I saw his face he was more hairy than anything I have seen outside of a bear enclose in a zoo; a beard as long as his arm and dense as a rain forest. My sense of panic rose again; not because of some weird beard phobia (beardaphobia? fizzogaphoic??) but every time the direct sunlight from the windows shone on him as he approached his skin turned from red flushed pink and black gloss hair to grey and pealing rotting flesh and ragged greasy hair. From a beautifully calming smile to teeth chipped and yellow, hands of strong muscle and healthy tone to skeletal and clawed. I knew a demon walking among us when I saw it, and here one was, firmly entrenched in a ward full of sick children, and from the aura, feeding from them.
11:15
I would like to say I stood my ground and raised Hell against the thing in front of me, but I cannot. To my shame I turned and ran back to the safety of the corridor. I did look over my shoulder, the thing known as Ludo simply shrugged its shoulders and went back to work on the children's ward.
Ok, I knew I had to get help, and fast. So my phone was in my hand before I knew it and I had already unlocked the screen with a swipe of my thumb. It looks to the observer as a touch screen pattern lock; but as I use this thing as a diary, PA, phone, data safe and more importantly......music, I put a spell on it to only unlock the secured areas of the memory to my touch.
The phone was answered almost immediately.
"Not a good time" came a very reedy voice, clearly out of breath like when my mum calls when I'm on the treadmill.
"Not good for me either." I said. "Small case of demon feeding in a children's ward here." I stated this very mater of factly as Xanthic has a habit of one-up-,manship.
"Big case of zombie infestation here." Came the snappy reply.
"Are they eating kids?"
"No, locked in a basement of an abandoned factory."
"Well I think I win this time. Stop playing with your friends and get here quick, we need to stop him." I was trying to stay calm, but the fate of the children had to be more important and I was also scared, angry and more importantly hungry. I was trembling with it all.
"Are you in personal danger right now?" Xanthic asked me.
"No, I ran......but we need to stop that thing."
"Can you explain what you saw and why you demon and not something else. I could have swan we I was on the trail of a Vor or some kind."
"No, its a demon, like the ones you showed me in your book. ( I referred to a leather bound reference book, written in the romantic script of a medieval monk who, according to Xanthic was aid to his own demon Master. I should also point out demon is not the same as Demon, for which I am sure you will begin to understand as I have at some point.)
"Hold your position and I'll be there as quickly as possible. Don't do anything silly, and don't try and talk to it. If it speaks to you, keep your mouth shut! That's a direct order." The phone rang off, and it was at this point I noticed how quiet it was as all though the phone conversation I could hear string music - the aura of Xanthic, strong even through mobile signal waves.
I found myself back at my hospital bed; a note saying I had missed rounds and the change of my bandages and to seek a nurse to do it once back. I placed this note back where I found it in the hope I could get what I needed from my stuff in the bedside table and be out of here before I was noticed ( I had a small vial of holy water and an ancient page copied out of an original scroll or text from before any holy-book had been compiled -it wasn't an all powerful anti evil text, but as good as, even if it was scribbled out in green biro on the ripped out back pages of a library Latin to English dictionary; which I wanted to use to stand guard in the children's ward; but the Gent started talking to me about how important it was to be here for Rounds and that alerted a nurse to my presence.
With a roughness I had only previously felt at the hands of the school bullies, I was ushered to bed, a curtain drawn around, then stripped, bandages removed, wounds and bruises inspected and fresh dressings applied. I was then ordered to bed and instructed that a very close eye would be kept on me and not to wander off.
With a resolution to get back on the hunt as soon as my guards in scrubs were distracted (this is the modern NHS, they must have hundreds of needy people more important (or making more fuss) than I. I found an online text book on an open source ePub site, flicked through a few images of demons from old woodcuts to find something I could use or anything that may educate me on what I faced.
But my eyelids grew heavy and my phone I was reading fell against my chest and (as the Gent and BQ testified later) I began to snore. It was for this reason I did not hear the squeaky wheel and heavy footsteps of an orderly pushing a bed along the corridor and into my ward. I also didn't see Ludo move back the curtain around my bed and enter.
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