As promised, here’s the next section of the journal. It took me a couple of hours to transcribe it. I’m not current on 1850s lingo, so I didn’t want to change too much.
The first few pages were easier to copy. The events described were pretty awful, but overall weren’t anything like what would follow. I hope for the sake of the men he writes about that they concocted the whole thing, but as I said, it’s a slow process deciphering his handwriting.
I know the area around Ft. Collins pretty well. I think the area they’re describing is up the Poudre River, then down to Stormy Peak in the Rocky Mountain National Park, but I could be way off.
I’ve started to get super creeped out whenever I go into the room in the basement. It’s just...off-putting. Like how has it not been found in all this time? Why was it bricked shut and then covered in dirt? And why can’t I find any information about Captain Grady White that isn’t related to boating?
Anyway, here’s the next section. Sorry about the length, but I didn’t want to skip anything.
From the journal of Captain Grady White
May 26, 1856
I didn’t sleep well. I doubt it has any direct correlation to the story the three men told me yesterday, though I would be remiss if I said it didn’t linger in the back of my mind.
I came across WS Foster this morning as I was en route to breakfast. He was clearly suffering the side effects of whatever malaise had taken hold.
He informed me that he would like a chance to speak with me before I disembarked. I’ve set aside some time tomorrow. He also pointed me to the enlisted men’s area to speak with two men who were eager to share a tale with me.
I thanked him and went about my day, securing last-minute supplies and planning the route of travel for the coming days. In the early evening, I made my way to meet the men and hear their accounts. They had been tasked with scouting out a route into the Rockies.
The men, Privates Jakob Crossly and Peter Bronson were not entirely encouraging. They told me a tale over drinks. I’ve attempted to transcribe it here as I fear I may forget the details later. I’ve conveyed it as they told it.
J: Well, we were tasked with scouting the canyon up to a few peaks. We’ve been calling ‘em Stormy Peaks due to they always have those stormy-looking clouds around them. Plus, the snow still covered them. We were eager to go since this camp is nothing but bending and elbow with the boys every night and feeding the horses. Haven’t been on patrol in over a fortnight.
P: So we were eager. Jake and I were ready in no time and had our orders. We was to get to the top of the pass and head north, then come back around the foothills.
J: It was a long journey, but we wanted out of here. Between you and me, this place has had the hairs on my neck standing at attention for months, and I was looking forward to putting it behind us. Packed and left, then were up the mountaintops in no time. After four days, we made the destination. Petey here fell off a slide along one of the benches and had me roaring, so that was a start. This was up to the western side of the peaks. Well, he slides down a piece.
P: A fair piece, I recon 150 yards. Maybe 200. Hurt something terrible. I got up and started my way back up, with Jake coming down to me. Halfway is when we found it. Deep, too. Must’ve unburied it from my slide down.
J: Sure was. I didn’t have eyes on it, so when I got to spitting distance, I heard Petey hollering to all hell about something but couldn’t yet make it out. Next step, and I’m falling through the air. Landed five feet down at the entrance to the damned thing. Sat there like a damn child waiting to find out if I was broke or not, then Petey was there, outta breath and squawking to me about falling. Course I fell. I was sitting in a god-forsaken cave, weren’t I?
P: He sure was. Anyway, we sat for a while, then I lit a lantern. We walked into the cave about, what, Jake, 500 feet?
J: Sounds right.
P: 500 feet. Then there’s this...movement. The air starts moving around. A breeze, then it keeps growing. And it starts to make a sound, and I hear a whole group of people whispering. They weren’t making any sense. I couldn’t make out anything from it.
J: Then I hear it. It’s my name. Swear to Christ himself. My name is being whispered to me by these whispers in the damned wind. I hear it plain as day. Nothing to be seen around us, but we keep hearing this constant whispering. Then a gust of wind comes through, and I feel this, don’t know what to call it. It was as if I were suddenly standing in a field full of bison running for the hills, but they were just out of my reach. Some of them brushed by me, but only at my knees. Nothin higher.
P: Same here. I heard my name, though. Still gives me the willies. My hairs stand on end right now, remembering that damned cave. I felt those things flashing by us in that wind, and I started praying. I ain’t prayed since I was young and would catch a cuff if I didn’t pray with the other kids at supper. Then, just like that, it stopped. No more whispering, no more wind, nothing.
J: Nothing at all. The cave was still empty. I looked over at Petey and tried to keep my wits about me. Told him it was nothing but the wind. He agreed. We took a few more steps, and that’s when it happened.
You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.
They both fell silent for a moment. I spoke up, thinking the drink had taken them.
Me: When what happened, soldier?
J: When we saw it.
P: It was right there. Wasn’t there before we exchanged those words, then looked ahead again, stepped a good five feet, and there it was. White as bleached bones in the desert.
J: It was staring at us like we was something to eat. It was eight feet tall if it were a foot. Its head looked like a wolf skull after it’d been skinned, only you know, giant. And the rest of its body was part flesh and part bone. Ribs stuck out of its skin, its long, spit-slick tongue hung out one side of its jaw, and I could make out part of its spine through what should have been its guts.
P: Don’t forget the clothing. That...thing wore a pair of trousers. I say wore, but really, the slacks were mostly rotted off it and were held on by suspenders. There was no belt nor any boots, and the lower legs were naught but bone.
J: It had a bone in its hand, sharpened on one end to a fine point, with some sorta Native decorating done on the other. Its hands were nothing but sinews stretched across bones and god-awful claws. It didn’t need that bone to kill us. It coulda done us in with its claws, no problem.
P: I just stood there. It was staring at me, and I felt its eyes boring holes into me, into my very...what’s the word?
J: Soul,
P: Yeah, as if into what makes me who I am. At first, I thought the eyes were empty, just empty sockets in that giant skull. But then I see them. These little glowing orbs. They started out like little sparks. Like coals smoldering, waiting to take flame. Glowing this dull red and growing brighter as it stares at me like it’s feeding on me. I started to feel cold, and everything around me got real quiet.
J: I was hollering at Petey to run, but he just stood there staring at it. I ended up having to yank him by his pack and drag him out of the damn cave. He never said anything, just slid along the floor, staring up at the ceiling. When the sun hit him, he started screaming. Went on like that for a good few minutes. I looked back at the cave, and that thing was right there, staring out at us.
P: I have no memory of any of that. Nothing until he threw cold water on me at the campfire half an hour later. I was still staring that thing in the eyes as far as I knew. It was talking to me, telling me things that I never want to think of again. Things that ain’t no man meant to hear, no man meant to know.
Me: Do you remember what it said to you?
P: ‘Course I do. How could I ever forget that? I remember every detail. I remember the words, the pictures it put in my head, all of it. Hell, I even remember the smells. That creature fed me a full course of evil so dark that I thought for certain if I were to ever get away, I would be cracked.
J: You were already cracked so that ain’t no different.
P: Yeah, probably true. Anyway, it showed me things that I wish I didn’t see. Bloody things. I saw the worst of man and the worst of myself. I remember, as a boy in the orphanage, I took a toy from another boy. It was a little soldier. He treated it like it was his only possession that mattered. I snuck it one night, and he searched and cried for days looking for it. Well, his ruckus made it so that we couldn’t sleep, so one night, me and the other boys we beat him in his bed. Real bad. The nuns came and took him out. They kept him in the sick room for a few days, and I took the little book he wrote in. Turned out his solder toy was from his papa and was all he had left from his family. That thing made me see that boy die in that room all alone. That wasn’t the last thing I saw before I was brought back with the water.
I saw a woman attacked by six men. They all had their way with her, then tied her up. They were all laughing and carrying on like it was sport. She was crying and begging them to let her go, but they didn’t. They took her outside and stuck her on the weather vane on the roof of her house. Took her hours to die. The worst part was her kids. They were tied up to a tree, watching the whole thing. Momma up there with the weathervane stuck in her lady parts and these men laughing about it. Their papa came home, and they did the same to the little girl while they made him watch. Didn’t kill him nor the boy. The papa did himself in a time after that, leaving a little toy soldier for the boy. No family. Same goddamned boy we...
Me: Petey choked on his words before continuing.
P: It got worse from there. Things far more evil. Demons taking people, little creatures eating people from the insides...these little creatures, not but two feet tall, running through the tunnels and dark places in these mountains where no man should go. The beast seemed to control them or at least guide them. I saw them set upon an entire native village and leave nothing but bones in their wake. They moved silently until enough of ‘em started creating a sort of breeze. Then the names of those to die would lift up outta that god-forsaken air. I saw them pulling children apart, pulling little babies apart by their arms. It was awful.
He fell silent for a moment, clearly reflecting on the horrors the beast had shown him.
P: Then it went into my own head again. It showed me the last days of my momma. I didn’t get to know her too well since she died when I was young. She kept me in a room above the saloon she worked at. She brought men into the room, but I was so little that I didn’t know nothing.
A man took her hard one night while I was asleep in the chest of drawers. I remember it. I heard her crying out like she wanted him to stop. I couldn’t remember what he said until the thing showed me.
It showed me that he had been cutting on her, telling her that he was going to keep going hard until she was dead. The poor woman fought hard but was no match for a bastard that size. I heard the sickening crunch as he bit into her flesh. He bit again and again, over and over, until she stopped struggling. I stood up outta the chest of drawers and watched the blood drain out of her into a silver decanter he held underneath her throat. He looked at me with a smile and told me to sleep well. Left money on the bureau and walked out. I tried to get her to talk to me until one of the other ladies came in some time later.
Then he showed me more...
My own momma burning in hell...
At this point, Petey broke down and couldn’t continue. He was sobbing as Jake patted his shoulder and took over.:
J: As we said, that land is bad. There’s some true evil up there. Stay away if you know what’s good for you. Petey ain’t been right since. He’s volunteered for every mission that has a chance of dying. He wants to die, and I don’t blame him. I don’t want him to have this hanging on him no more. I want him to be okay. Ain’t no priest here in camp to help, neither.
Me: I’ll get you both leave. See a priest. Maybe they can do something to ease his suffering. And yours.
We ended the conversation, and I retired for the evening. I plan on getting the two a pass. I have no reason to doubt the story, though I have no reason to put any stock in it either. It seems they went through some sort of trauma and need to take time away. I believe they are suffering from some type of joint hysteria if such a thing is true.
Until tomorrow,
Cpt Grady White