Followers of the Stone
The man whom I consider the closest thing to a best friend that I have ever known lies lifeless before me. I witnessed the entire scene, yet have no comprehension as to what fate befell him. All that I recall that could be considered as evidence is no real clue to the sane mind. If I hadn't witnessed these things first hand, I would laugh it all of as some sort of fantastical and superstitious hallucination; and I would expect any man of sound mind to do the same.
On the night of 22nd July of '05, Thaddeus Brandt and I set out in search of some ancient and forbidden volumes thought only to exist as an imaginary medium used my popular novelists in the beginning of the 20th century. We, however, strongly believed the contrary. We had known of archaeological finds just two decades ago that proved the existence of not only the original tomes, but an entire civilization that had made practical use of their magick. They existed 6,000 years ago in the Middle East and their influence lasts even today; and we meant to find the source of their power.
Our search led us, at first, to the Claxton Institute Research Library on the east side of town. There we gathered enough information to lead us to a library in a small town in Massachusetts called Cairo. We loaded Brandt's station wagon with clothing, books, food, and whatever other items we deemed necessary for the trip.
The trek to New England was quite pleasant, for all the off-road attractions and the eerie and ancient homes on the back roads through the small towns. Brandt even, half jokingly, suggested that we stop in on some of the inhabitants and ask of legends that may circulate through the towns.
Well into Massachusetts, we started to wonder if we were lost. Brandt pulled in to a service station where I asked the cashier the way to Cairo. He just glared at me and shook his head, which was quite oversized, and then hesitantly pointed north. We got back into the car and onto that same road where Brandt pointed our vessel northward, and as the sun began to set we spotted a huge monolith illuminated monolith on the horizon. We decided to drive toward the landmark and soon noticed the locals all out and strolling about and, sweet Jesus, there were a lot of them! There seemed to be about ten people per house by my count, and they were all headed in the same direction toward our gigantic stone beacon. We knew that we had arrived in Cairo.
The locals were all of a very sickly hue and all had unmoving and quite vacant expressions about the face. The urge to turn the car came suddenly, but we foolishly ignored it. We had come too far.
Brandt pulled the car into the nearest parking spot and we decided to walk to the town center with the locals and gaze upon whatever spectacle that was about to transpire before the monolith. Closely, we followed the locals all the way to the central square and then stopped just short of the roundabout in the middle of which the icon stood. There the townspeople gathered in a great circle and sang in a foreign and ancient tongue which I had never heard. The monolith seemed to glow brighter and then one of the locals turned about, spotted us, and whispered something to his neighbor, who in turn swiveled his head to get a better view of the intruders that his companion informed him of.
That night, I was awakened by dreams of unblinking eyes and horrible automobiles from the early 1900’s. I turned to my companion on the other bed and he was wide awake, staring steadily at the ceiling.
"Tad, are you okay?" I asked of him.
"Quiet! I think it can see us," he responded. I thought it best to leave the subject alone, for I felt an odd presence myself. I entertained the thought of suggesting we leaved town, but we came for the book and, by God, we were to obtain it! Besides, things will be different in the morning. That much I knew, however I had no idea how dreadfully correct I would prove to be.
The following morning at exactly 9:45 am, the phone rang and we promptly got out of our beds and went to the car and pointed back toward town. We were driving for about seven minutes when I noticed that there was no sign of Cairo.
"Something’s wrong, Tad. We should’ve hit town by now."
"I was noticed. The monolith isn’t even in sight yet. A town couldn’t just vanish could it?" He pondered.
"Perhaps it was just easier during the night. You know how these things go."
We then went about the surrounding area, never taking more than 1 turn off of the road we needed to be on to get back to the hotel in order to restart our search. There were some cemeteries about and a few parks that seemed to predate the civil war, but there was nothing that might interest us in any of these. We continued on wandering aimlessly until about 3:30 or 4 pm, when we started getting hungry. We ducked into a diner for a bite, some coffee, and a long chat where we would look over the books and see if we could find anything about the monolith. After we had taken our seats, it wasn’t long before the waitress was there to take our drink orders.
"For you sir?" She said looking at me and smiling. A smile was quite pleasant on this day.
"Coffee and water, please," I responded. She jotted down my order and looked over at Brandt.
"And you?" He looked up at her and smiled.
"The same," he said. Quickly, her smile changed into a face of fear. Oddly, this is when I noticed how attractive she was. She then looked down at her pad, jotted down the order, and then looked at Brandt and quietly went back into the kitchen. I felt a certain horror in my gut that denoted something about Brandt had been changed.
We were sipping our coffee, which was never allowed to go empty, and discussing our notes when she came to take our food order. Again, when she spoke to me it was with a sunny disposition and a warm smile. With my companion, however, she spoke in a trembling voice and couldn’t seem to keep that much welcomed smile forced upon her face. This was quite unsettling for me, because Brandt didn’t even seem to notice.
We finished up our meals and went back to the coffee and our books and notes. Brandt had been looking very intently, and I had noticed that he was far more concentrated than normal. We found nothing of the monolith, any of the words that we had heard in that horrid song, or anything else that might let us know what was going wrong with this part of America. After about 2 hours of sitting in the diner drinking coffee and reading, the waitress came back and asked us if we were from out of town. I noticed a strange pause before she said "out of town", and I mentioned that we were from Georgia. Her face then lightened, and she welcomed us to New England. Brandt then, once again, changed her mood.
"How do we get to Cairo?" The girl then looked at him in horror and very cautiously pronounced every syllable of her response.
"Cairo will find you, for you have found it first." Not at all moved by this statement, Brandt simply thanked the girl and went outside. I left my share of the bill on top of his in the center of the table, gave the girl 4 dollars, and followed him outside.
"Don’t you think that was a rather strange statement?" I asked.
"Now that you mention it, it was a bit peculiar," he responded. He then just shrugged and got into the car. I got into the passenger side and shut the door. Promptly, we were headed down the road adjacent the diner.
"Shouldn’t we head back south?" I asked.
"Not necessary. I want to see what that girl meant about 'Cairo will find you'"
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