Now this is interesting
Now this is interesting
#RIPHankJohnson
Originally shared by Thomas Greanias
More pages from Hank Johnson's untold story....
#ingress #alignment
Hank set the pages down on a table next to the fireplace and picked up his bottle of Russian River Pliny the Elder and took a swig. Lost languages. Symbols. Howard had to be talking about glyphs. Glyphs that went back ages. Glyphs perhaps of Shaper origins. Glyphs like the ones he saw beneath the Luizi Crater.
He picked up the Lovecraft letter, which Lovecraft wrote in reply to Robert E. Howard’s letter. This one was also typewritten, on a single sheet of paper, with symbols Lovecraft had drawn at the bottom.
----------------
Dear R:
I look forward with great interest to hearing of your upcoming exploits. There is a pronounced shortage of Comanches in my area, most likely because they have been run off by the particularly murderous breed of debt collector who has recently descended upon [BLOTTED OUT] and me. Damn my father for squandering the family fortune on drink and dice.
I will sketch some sample glyphs from the Miskatonic documents so that you might compare them to whatever you find. Please keep them secret, not only because of the occult nature of our work, but also because they seem to draw unwanted attention.
I hesitate to write this because I do not want to unnecessarily worry you, but shortly after my visit to the special collections area of the University library, I was visited by some men who were curious about my interest in such things. They claimed to be researchers, but they did not seem academic, at least not in the normal sense. These were hard men who appeared to be weighed down by an unseen burden. They had the sallow, haunted look (which I fear I have been developing as well) of men who have gazed too hard at things that should not be gazed at. They seemed to be well-versed in my work, yet they were definitely not typical WEIRD readers.
For your own safety, I would not recommend staring too long at these symbols. Also, if you choose to write about these matters in your fiction, be sure to disguise them. You don’t want to draw the wrong kind of attention.
In less apocalyptic matters, have you any recommendations for new publishers now that WEIRD is dead? I am having little luck with New York literary houses who, despite the fact that they understand the popular appeal of our fantastical literature, seem embarrassed to publish it.
All good wishes.
H.
----------------
Hank stared at the glyphs. He had seen them before. He had actually written them down for Carrie Campbell and given them to Misty Hannah, who in turn had handed them off to Klue.
Hank took another swig of his brew and picked up the final letter, which was Howard’s reply to H.P.
----------------
Dear H.
I went up to Caddo Peak and saw a green flash at sunset. That’s when it snapped. I made the journey. It is better that I not write of it. This letter could fall into the wrong hands. We must meet in person. I have been visited. Nightmares. Waking nightmares. Glyphs match across space and time. I don’t know whether to leave them on the pyre or hide them. I have noticed new abilities. I have had strange ideas, even for me. Have you been experiencing this?
If they catch up to me, and if you are able, find out about the Bowie place I mentioned in my last missive. And hide that missive. Just in case.
Yours sincerely,
R
--------------
Hank put the final letter down with the other two. There could be no doubt that Howard was enlisted in his Shaper Glyph quest by Lovecraft, in the same way he himself had been by Carrie Campbell. And that shortly before his death by suicide, Robert Howard went in search of the fabled San Saba mine.
“And now so must I,” Hank thought to himself, before he did a faceplant on the table and passed out for the night.
It was the shouts that woke him up the next morning, the final day of “Robert E. Howard Days,” and he blinked his eyes open as shafts of sunlight illuminated the letters on the table.
He slowly got up and walked over to his window. He looked out across the main road and saw the crowds at the Howard house. Dozens of Ingress players and other festival attendees stood with their cameras. Even a couple of hobby drones hovered overhead.
A minute later Hank ran over and saw for himself what all the commotion was about: A gigantic glyph had magically appeared on the back yard grounds of the Howard house.
And it wasn’t just any glyph. It was the Shaper symbol from his nightmare. The one that had also seared itself on Carrie Campbell.
“Has to be a prank,” somebody said. “Maybe one of the Shaper cultists.”
That’s what Hank thought, except that until that moment it was known to nobody but him and Carrie Campbell.
Hank looked up at the skies. Storm clouds were moving in, which meant it was time for him to move out and find the lost San Saba mine like Robert E. Howard before him. There, Howard saw glyphs of Shaper origin and went insane. But Hank too had seen these kinds of ancient “black” glyphs associated with Dark XM beneath the Luizi Crater, and he had not gone insane.
Or had he?
The next step on his quest would prove it one way or another.
A light drizzle began to fall on Cross Plains as the “Robert E. Howard Days” came to an end and the weekend tourists dispersed.
As Hank Johnson’s car left Main Street headed south, the hunchback from the graveyard, carrying his shovel on his shoulder, walked up to a shiny Dodge pickup, tossed his shovel into the flatbed, and climbed into the forward cab next to the tall and once again dark-skinned driver.
“He’s going to lead us to San Saba,” he said as he worked his deformed lips.
The tall man looked down at him and frowned. “Stop talking Chinese. I can’t understand a word you’re saying.” Then he turned the ignition, shifted gears, and followed Hank Johnson out of town into the desert.
June 8
Texas (USA)
The effects of the glyphs on his own person were evident to Hank immediately upon leaving Cross Plains, because somehow, and he didn’t know how exactly, he had a clear idea of where the lost San Saba mine was located, even though he couldn’t find it on any map. It was like his rental car was steering itself, even though his hands were on the wheel. Or like Howard was sitting in the seat next to him.
That feeling soon took shape in his rearview mirror, where he picked up a follower not far out of Cross Plains. It’s hard to know when you’re being tailed on a long Texas highway, but Hank had that feeling. It came from years of working with the Special Forces and was probably heightened with some doses of XM. He tested his theory, doing the things one would do if he were checking for a tail. The responses were textbook professional. He was being followed. Funny thing is that it would have been harder to detect an amateur.
His spider sense started tingling as he began winding into a hilly area west of Abilene. A cloud front rolled in, obscuring the sun, and he was seeing unfamiliar birds circling in the sky. They weren’t the scavengers of the American Southwest, but their distant cousins, African Hooded Vultures. To the south, he spotted a verdant canyon in the distance. It looked almost tropical. He knew that extreme microclimates existed, but he’d never heard of this one. It was almost like a man-made jungle had been planted in Texas. He figured it was his imagination.
Hank was snapped back to reality when his engine suddenly cracked. His hood flew up like an enormous sail and caused him to careen around the road until it blew off. His engine smoked, oil and coolant erupted and he steered his car off the road into a thicket of scrub trees.
Only one thing could have caused this—a 50-calibre bullet into the engine block. Hank knew that because more than once he’d been on the other side of a Barret .50, firing into a vehicle. It was designed to punch armor and damage vehicles with precision, at range. And it did its job.
He tried to make the scene look worse than it was. He jammed in the cigarette lighter, which incredibly still worked, and set fire to the car, hoping to cause an engine explosion and some distracting smoke and flame for his pursuers.
He looked for an escape route and found what appeared to a dried stream. He jumped into it, hoping it would give him cover as he fled. In the distance he heard gunshots, but his heightened senses told him that the bullets were not aimed at him or at the wreck. They told him there was a third armed presence on the field.
As Hank stumbled down the dry creek bed, he had an eerie flashback of the cracked ground in the Congo. Only there was something wrong with this creek bed, and he realized what it was. The base of it was not rock but paving stones. Ancient paving stones. It was subtle, and an untrained eye would have missed it. But Hank was not at the bottom of a creek bed, he was walking on an ancient road five feet below ground level.
After a quarter of a mile of running in a crouched position along cracked, broken pavers, he hit a bend and stopped, caught his breath, and attempted to gain his bearings. Behind him, a tall column of smoke rose from his car. Good. Looking for his body would eat up valuable time.
He heard more shots and got moving again.
Some distance ahead was that strange green foliage he had seen on the way in, maybe a mile away. But the landscape he was standing in was not indigenous to Texas either. It was like some veld in Southern Africa, a space so wild and open. The difference was subtle, but it was there.
And now he knew he was being watched.
#RIPHankJohnson
Originally shared by Thomas Greanias
More pages from Hank Johnson's untold story....
#ingress #alignment
Hank set the pages down on a table next to the fireplace and picked up his bottle of Russian River Pliny the Elder and took a swig. Lost languages. Symbols. Howard had to be talking about glyphs. Glyphs that went back ages. Glyphs perhaps of Shaper origins. Glyphs like the ones he saw beneath the Luizi Crater.
He picked up the Lovecraft letter, which Lovecraft wrote in reply to Robert E. Howard’s letter. This one was also typewritten, on a single sheet of paper, with symbols Lovecraft had drawn at the bottom.
----------------
Dear R:
I look forward with great interest to hearing of your upcoming exploits. There is a pronounced shortage of Comanches in my area, most likely because they have been run off by the particularly murderous breed of debt collector who has recently descended upon [BLOTTED OUT] and me. Damn my father for squandering the family fortune on drink and dice.
I will sketch some sample glyphs from the Miskatonic documents so that you might compare them to whatever you find. Please keep them secret, not only because of the occult nature of our work, but also because they seem to draw unwanted attention.
I hesitate to write this because I do not want to unnecessarily worry you, but shortly after my visit to the special collections area of the University library, I was visited by some men who were curious about my interest in such things. They claimed to be researchers, but they did not seem academic, at least not in the normal sense. These were hard men who appeared to be weighed down by an unseen burden. They had the sallow, haunted look (which I fear I have been developing as well) of men who have gazed too hard at things that should not be gazed at. They seemed to be well-versed in my work, yet they were definitely not typical WEIRD readers.
For your own safety, I would not recommend staring too long at these symbols. Also, if you choose to write about these matters in your fiction, be sure to disguise them. You don’t want to draw the wrong kind of attention.
In less apocalyptic matters, have you any recommendations for new publishers now that WEIRD is dead? I am having little luck with New York literary houses who, despite the fact that they understand the popular appeal of our fantastical literature, seem embarrassed to publish it.
All good wishes.
H.
----------------
Hank stared at the glyphs. He had seen them before. He had actually written them down for Carrie Campbell and given them to Misty Hannah, who in turn had handed them off to Klue.
Hank took another swig of his brew and picked up the final letter, which was Howard’s reply to H.P.
----------------
Dear H.
I went up to Caddo Peak and saw a green flash at sunset. That’s when it snapped. I made the journey. It is better that I not write of it. This letter could fall into the wrong hands. We must meet in person. I have been visited. Nightmares. Waking nightmares. Glyphs match across space and time. I don’t know whether to leave them on the pyre or hide them. I have noticed new abilities. I have had strange ideas, even for me. Have you been experiencing this?
If they catch up to me, and if you are able, find out about the Bowie place I mentioned in my last missive. And hide that missive. Just in case.
Yours sincerely,
R
-
Hank put the final letter down with the other two. There could be no doubt that Howard was enlisted in his Shaper Glyph quest by Lovecraft, in the same way he himself had been by Carrie Campbell. And that shortly before his death by suicide, Robert Howard went in search of the fabled San Saba mine.
“And now so must I,” Hank thought to himself, before he did a faceplant on the table and passed out for the night.
It was the shouts that woke him up the next morning, the final day of “Robert E. Howard Days,” and he blinked his eyes open as shafts of sunlight illuminated the letters on the table.
He slowly got up and walked over to his window. He looked out across the main road and saw the crowds at the Howard house. Dozens of Ingress players and other festival attendees stood with their cameras. Even a couple of hobby drones hovered overhead.
A minute later Hank ran over and saw for himself what all the commotion was about: A gigantic glyph had magically appeared on the back yard grounds of the Howard house.
And it wasn’t just any glyph. It was the Shaper symbol from his nightmare. The one that had also seared itself on Carrie Campbell.
“Has to be a prank,” somebody said. “Maybe one of the Shaper cultists.”
That’s what Hank thought, except that until that moment it was known to nobody but him and Carrie Campbell.
Hank looked up at the skies. Storm clouds were moving in, which meant it was time for him to move out and find the lost San Saba mine like Robert E. Howard before him. There, Howard saw glyphs of Shaper origin and went insane. But Hank too had seen these kinds of ancient “black” glyphs associated with Dark XM beneath the Luizi Crater, and he had not gone insane.
Or had he?
The next step on his quest would prove it one way or another.
A light drizzle began to fall on Cross Plains as the “Robert E. Howard Days” came to an end and the weekend tourists dispersed.
As Hank Johnson’s car left Main Street headed south, the hunchback from the graveyard, carrying his shovel on his shoulder, walked up to a shiny Dodge pickup, tossed his shovel into the flatbed, and climbed into the forward cab next to the tall and once again dark-skinned driver.
“He’s going to lead us to San Saba,” he said as he worked his deformed lips.
The tall man looked down at him and frowned. “Stop talking Chinese. I can’t understand a word you’re saying.” Then he turned the ignition, shifted gears, and followed Hank Johnson out of town into the desert.
June 8
Texas (USA)
The effects of the glyphs on his own person were evident to Hank immediately upon leaving Cross Plains, because somehow, and he didn’t know how exactly, he had a clear idea of where the lost San Saba mine was located, even though he couldn’t find it on any map. It was like his rental car was steering itself, even though his hands were on the wheel. Or like Howard was sitting in the seat next to him.
That feeling soon took shape in his rearview mirror, where he picked up a follower not far out of Cross Plains. It’s hard to know when you’re being tailed on a long Texas highway, but Hank had that feeling. It came from years of working with the Special Forces and was probably heightened with some doses of XM. He tested his theory, doing the things one would do if he were checking for a tail. The responses were textbook professional. He was being followed. Funny thing is that it would have been harder to detect an amateur.
His spider sense started tingling as he began winding into a hilly area west of Abilene. A cloud front rolled in, obscuring the sun, and he was seeing unfamiliar birds circling in the sky. They weren’t the scavengers of the American Southwest, but their distant cousins, African Hooded Vultures. To the south, he spotted a verdant canyon in the distance. It looked almost tropical. He knew that extreme microclimates existed, but he’d never heard of this one. It was almost like a man-made jungle had been planted in Texas. He figured it was his imagination.
Hank was snapped back to reality when his engine suddenly cracked. His hood flew up like an enormous sail and caused him to careen around the road until it blew off. His engine smoked, oil and coolant erupted and he steered his car off the road into a thicket of scrub trees.
Only one thing could have caused this—a 50-calibre bullet into the engine block. Hank knew that because more than once he’d been on the other side of a Barret .50, firing into a vehicle. It was designed to punch armor and damage vehicles with precision, at range. And it did its job.
He tried to make the scene look worse than it was. He jammed in the cigarette lighter, which incredibly still worked, and set fire to the car, hoping to cause an engine explosion and some distracting smoke and flame for his pursuers.
He looked for an escape route and found what appeared to a dried stream. He jumped into it, hoping it would give him cover as he fled. In the distance he heard gunshots, but his heightened senses told him that the bullets were not aimed at him or at the wreck. They told him there was a third armed presence on the field.
As Hank stumbled down the dry creek bed, he had an eerie flashback of the cracked ground in the Congo. Only there was something wrong with this creek bed, and he realized what it was. The base of it was not rock but paving stones. Ancient paving stones. It was subtle, and an untrained eye would have missed it. But Hank was not at the bottom of a creek bed, he was walking on an ancient road five feet below ground level.
After a quarter of a mile of running in a crouched position along cracked, broken pavers, he hit a bend and stopped, caught his breath, and attempted to gain his bearings. Behind him, a tall column of smoke rose from his car. Good. Looking for his body would eat up valuable time.
He heard more shots and got moving again.
Some distance ahead was that strange green foliage he had seen on the way in, maybe a mile away. But the landscape he was standing in was not indigenous to Texas either. It was like some veld in Southern Africa, a space so wild and open. The difference was subtle, but it was there.
And now he knew he was being watched.
Comments
Post a Comment