Followers of the Stone

         It was getting dark now, and the monolith appeared just ahead. I was baffled, but Brandt said nothing about it. He just kept driving. Once we were inside the town, he parked in the first available spot, and we would seek out the library on foot. About the town, I noticed people peering through broken and crooked blinds hanging in the windows of the condemnable houses that they lived in. There was no one in the streets on this night, which I was less than delighted to notice. The air was particularly stale and the smell of sulfur was nauseating. All around us, there were strange sounds of children playing and dogs barking. I found this odd, for there were no dogs or children anywhere in sight. Did this town not exist in reality? Perhaps it is some kind of giant ghost that has a way of finding certain people. Perhaps I'm not the one who was meant to come. But if all this were true, then why was I able to reach it? Perhaps all of my doubting the stability of the mind of my friend is misguided. But if I am insane, then how come the girl felt the same way as I? Perhaps there is something more to all of this that will all come into place as soon as we find the library, or it finds us.
         Just as I was about to speak up to Brandt about the sounds of this town and my feeling that it moves and overlaps other towns, he pointed out the library. It was ancient, and built of crumbling brick and cinder block. There was a sign chiseled into the façade just above the doorway that simply read, "Library".
         Once we entered the building, I noticed the unmaintained condition of the place. All of the books were very sloppily crowded onto the shelves and seemed quite decayed. All except for one, one book that stood atop a pedestal in the center of the hall. We went over to it or more to the point, Brandt went over to it and I followed, and he took the book and thumbed through it straight to a page that depicted the monolith and people circled around it. There were strange symbols written down underneath the illustration. I did not recognize the glyphs from any book I have ever read on the occult. He then took the book and stuffed it under his jacket. I knew, even at the very moment, that this would prove to be a terrible idea.
         When we started toward the car, I noticed that the sky looked more menacing than I had ever seen. There was a red tinge to the clouds, yet the moon was still that sickly gray that I had been so accustomed to. The clouds seemed to swirl about and gather in one central point overhead, yet no star could be seen. Although the sky had all but cleared itself, the night sky was even darker than ever before. We got into the car and drove for about an hour when we came to a motel. When we approached the front door, the sign above said Cairo Hotel. In an unshakable state of horror, I headed back for the car.
         "Let's just stay at this one," said Brandt. "I don't see what difference it could possibly make. It is a hotel, after all."
         "You can stay here if you like," I responded. "I'll come back in the morning and pick you up. I have to get out of this town." That said I got into the car and back onto that main road out of town. I was driving for less than a minute when I reached a hotel just outside of Boston. I checked in for the night and immediately went up to my room. It was quite nice, I remembered, being able to sleep under artificial light that burned quite yellow, as opposed to that wretched red that seemed to loom over us for days even though I distinctly remember it being a period of about 2 hours. The need to sleep came over me in the strongest way that I had ever felt. I didn't quite understand this, as I had only been awake for a day. It was still quite early in the night, yet I was the most exhausted that I had been in quite some time. I put my head down, still fully clothed and shoed, and immediately fell asleep. I awakened at around 10 am and checked out at the desk when, as if the thought was shot through my head with some sort of gun, I had remembered leaving my colleague in Cairo. I found this particularly distressing, as I had no way to return to that town until after dark. I decided it best to go for a drive.
         I stopped into a filling station to refill the tank and get some much needed caffeine and nicotine. After I left here, I went back toward where I last remembered exiting Cairo. I crossed the theoretical border and about 5 minutes later saw Thaddeus wandering around in someone's yard. I called out to him, and to no avail, numerous times. Eventually, as he was about to cross into the range of a guard dog's tether, I rushed out of the car and into the yard to intercept my friend.
         "Why, hello, Darius. Glad you could make it! Are you aware I've been wandering around this god damned town for an hour waiting on you? And without my car, too!"
         "Don't you know where you are? I couldn't get into Cairo without the moon's aid, Tad, and you know that."
         "I'm not in Cairo? Where the hell am I?"
         " Just outside of Boston. Come on. I'll get you some food." With this, I loaded Brandt into the car and we headed back toward that old diner.
         "Can we just go back home? I'm sick of Massachusetts. I just wanna go home," he said.
         "Of course, old friend. We'll go back right now." I had never seen Brandt with a look of any kind of fear in his eye. This look terrified me to the bone. While we were driving, I would point out some old house or church and he would shudder. This was not the Thaddeus Brandt that I had begun this trip with. Where was my old friend? Was he still back there in Cairo? What had happened back there? Had he seen something? Had something happened to change him forever? I was horrified to think about it. I tried to ask him about what he may have encountered on a couple of occasions during our trip, and never turned any kind of answer. This was the most horrible of all, as Brandt had a way of wanting to document every terrible occurrence in his life that could, so that he could better learn from it. I had the ever ominous feeling that he had learned all that he needed to know in our trip and that no lesson would ever be necessary again.
         Finally, we crossed into the Georgia border, and after many hours of driving, I was more than glad to see the sign. We were almost home, and I was ready for a nice long slumber. About 5 hours later, and we were finally home. Brandt asked to stay over at my place, and I allowed. We were sitting outside on the back patio and the clouds swirled, the sky turned black, and the light shone red. My house had vanished and given way to a much more ancient and dilapidated abode. There was a wave of shadow moving across, what was just a matter of minutes ago, my lawn. Everything it touched seemed to wilt and die as it moved over, and it was heading for us. I managed to duck into the strange house, but as soon as Brandt moved his left foot, the shadow engulfed him and everything returned to normal. As I moved about my house, I noticed many things had gone back to the way they were before the trip. All of my books were back on there shelves, Brandt's car was not in my drive way, the note on my refrigerator had not been posted, and the canned goods cabinet had not been emptied. I was much relieved until I went upstairs to get some sleep. There I saw it, that accursed book lay at the foot of my bed. Quickly, I rushed back downstairs and to the patio; and there lay my friend's dead body.