Jake Sanders’ home is one of a hundred cookie-cutter suburban homes built over the past fifteen years in and around Wilmington. This one is a three bedroom with a high vaulted ceiling in the middle for the living/dining room and a one car garage. Edward hasn’t even begun to consider the horrors that await him in the garage, for now he is entirely focused on his father’s study.
Jake’s study, a converted bedroom, looks like a hurricane had gathered centrally in the middle of the room and sent papers in every direction. Thinking back on his conversation with Mr. Whateley, Edward did suddenly wonder if someone else might have been here, but there was no evidence of forced entry. He has been working on sorting through his father’s professional life for a week now, ever since the official death certificate came through and plans were made to sell the house to help cover the cost of the headstone while the insurance company drags their feet.
Edward grabs the box he has finished putting together and walks out to the living/dining area heading for the dining table. As he passes the bathroom, the sound of running water comes through the closed door. He makes his way to the table, which is covered with various stacks of paper, an attempt to organize a life. He speaks loudly to be heard over the running water to whoever is in the bathroom. “I can’t believe Dad was so disorganized. He always used to fuss at me when my room was a mess.” He begins to pull out papers, reads each, then sorts it into its proper place at the table.
The water in the bathroom turns off and the door opens with a squeak of the hinge. “Do as I say, not as I do.”
Edward turns back towards the bathroom with a confused look. “What is that supposed to mean?”
Andrea Carter, a beautiful, pleasantly plump blonde with shoulder length hair, walks from the bathroom while drying her hands on a hand towel. The pale skin of her hands looks a little pinkish where she has been washing them. “It means that a parent can tell their child to do something even if the parent doesn’t do it themselves.”
“In other words, hypocrisy.”
“Yeah, it’s like when my dad used to scare me with the many dangers of smoking before turning around and lighting up another Camel.”
“Ah,” Edward exhales in response as he stretches out his back.
“Or,” Andrea continues as she joins Edward at the table and puts her hand on his shoulder, “your mom was the clean one in the family.”
Edward nods. “That makes more sense. You can eat off her kitchen floors, and I have. Anything important in that box you were sorting?”
“Gross. And nope, just tax stuff from the 70s and 80s. Oh, and some unidentified insect droppings.” She wipes her hands on the hand towel one more time to rid her hands of any phantom leavings.
“Also gross. Y’know, I swear that man never threw anything away. Do you think he was trying to create one last archaeological expedition for me? Try one last time to show me what he did with his life by making me dig through it piece by piece?” He shakes his head to clear this deep thought. “Anyway, thanks so much for helping me with all this. Sure you don’t mind?”
Andrea grins at him. If he’d looked closely in her green eyes he would see the conflicting emotions. She’d had feelings of more than friendship for him for a while now, but every time she considered telling him something major happened, like the death of a father, for instance. Instead of telling him any of this now, she simply shrugs and says, “Not at all. This is kind of fun. It’s a little like a treasure hunt!”
“Yeah! And instead of falling into any deadly booby traps, you just have to worry about a few paper cuts.”
“And bug poop.”
Edward nods sympathetically. “And bug poop.”
They both pause, look at each other, and simultaneously say, “Gross,” then start laughing.
He continues to sort through the box he has just brought from the study when there is a sudden, sharp knocking at the front door. They both jump at the unexpected sound. Andrea looks up at him confused, but he just shrugs and walks to the door.
On the other side stands a middle-aged white woman with long brown hair done up in a braid casually draped over one shoulder. She holds a box of mail in her arms. “Excuse me, but are you Edward?”
“I am.”
“I’m Miriam Thompson. I am... I was your father’s neighbor.”
He thinks for a moment then motions his head to the right. “The house with the gnomes?”
She smiles at him. “Yes. That’s the one. I, um... I used to look after this place and collect your dad’s mail for him when he went on long trips.” She slightly shifts the box in her arms.
“Oh! That’s right. I vaguely remember him telling me that a while back when I asked if I could do anything while he was away. I’m so sorry nobody’s been in touch with you.”
“Right,” She is clearly uncomfortable, not quite able to look Edward in the eye for some reason, instead focusing on his chin, his hair, the floor behind him. “So... I was saving his mail for him this time as well, but then... of course...”
“Of course.”
“And I’ve been gathering and holding it all this time because I just assumed it was a really long trip and I hadn’t heard anything from him telling me differently.”
The lightbulb suddenly goes on in Edward’s mind. “Right! Right.”
“But then...”
He nods. “The obituary came out. The notice of the memorial.”
"Exactly. I’m so sorry for your loss.”
“Thank you. Were you there? I’m sorry. I don’t remember...”
“Oh. No. I was, um... I...” she clears her throat. “Anyway, I noticed the lights on and the car in the drive and I thought...” She shuffles the box in her arms again awkwardly, then begins passing it to Edward.
He takes it thankfully, noticing a large package right on top with a return address featuring the letters APO AP, American Post Office - American Pacific, along with zip code 96601-63010. Distractedly, he thanks her again and says goodbye. If she says anything in response, he doesn’t hear it as he shuts the door and turns around.
“Jake’s mail?” Andrea looks at the large box in Edward’s arms.
After a long, silent pause he finally looks up and says, “Huh? Oh. Yeah.” He puts the box on the table, knocking over a high pile of old tax papers to the floor. He doesn’t seem to notice, as his eyes never leave the large package that looks like it has come a very long way.
“So,” she broaches carefully as she glances at the large amount of papers now on the floor, “that was awkward, huh?”
He still doesn’t look away. “What was?”
Andrea points to the door behind her. “Meeting your dad’s girlfriend.”
This breaks the spell he appears to be under. He looks up at her wide-eyed. “What!? She was his neighbor.”
“Who collected his mail and looked after his house when he was gone with no kind of payment?” She considers the next part before adding, “And I’m pretty sure the extra toothbrush in the guest bathroom is hers.”
This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it
“The what!?”
“It is sitting in a little cup with gnomes on it.”
He looks both shocked and confused, trying to stutter out a response.
“Ed,” Andrea says softly, placing a hand on his arm as she walks up to him. “That lady was in love with your dad. It was written all over her face.”
“I didn’t notice,” he says distractedly as his attention begins to turn back to the package in the cardboard box on the table.
“I’m not surprised,” she sighs.
“What?”
“Hmm?” she deflects, suddenly brightening. “Oh, nothing.” She points to the box, seeing where his eyes are drawn. “Anything interesting?”
Edward has the package in one hand, his phone in the other. He checks something online. “This is from McMurdo.”
Seeing Andrea’s confusion, Edward continues. “It’s a research station... in Antarctica...” He puts his phone away and tears open the package, pulling out a large leather bound journal overflowing with extra pages. It looks fit to explode. Something shifts inside and Edward has to drop the empty mailer in order to catch the pages threatening to fall out.
Andrea’s eyes go wild. “Is that?”
“I do believe,” he says turning the hefty volume carefully in his hands, “we have found my father’s wayward journal.”
“Okay, that’s great! So, now what? Hand it over to this Whateley guy?”
He thinks about this for a moment. “Here’s the thing; when I met with him earlier, he called my dad ‘Jacob.’”
She is confused. “Well, that was his name, wasn’t it?”
“Yeah, legally, but he hated it. He was Jake to anyone he ever met. Do you remember anyone calling him ‘Jacob?’ Only my grandfather called him that, and he left that man as soon as he was old enough to walk under his own power.”
“So... what? Whateley lied about knowing your dad?”
“I don’t know... but I intend to find out, and this just might have the answers.” He pulls the journal to his chest and holds it there in an almost reverent fashion. An odd thrum rolls through him, starting in his chest and ending in his brain. He fights every impulse not to turn his eyes away from Andrea and back down to the book he holds as a distinct buzzing begins in his head.
Andrea notices this, the way his eyes attempt to dart to the journal in his hands, but writes off her growing concern and instead looks down at the fallen paper and asks, “Want me to help you clean up?” She turns her face back to Edward, who has lost the fight and has his eyes locked on the book.
After a moment he shakes his head and finally says, “Nah... we’ll pick this up tomorrow night. Still a lot of paper to sort through.” At this he finally notices the pile of paper he knocked over earlier.
Andrea now lets the concern show through as her brows knit together. “You bet.” She plasters her best fake smile on and grabs her jacket from a nearby recliner. She begins making her way to the door, but stops when she notices he isn’t following. “Are we going?”
Another long pause, then, “Uh... no. No. I think I’m going to hang around a little more, sort through some more of this.”
“We drove together,” she says.
Distractedly, he replies, “Yeah. That’s fine. I’ll sleep here tonight. The guest room is always made up for me. I’ll call a cab or order a rideshare in the morning.”
Now she is truly worried. “Are you sure?” If he hear’s her he doesn’t acknowledge that he does. “Okay, then.” She slowly makes her way through the front door. “See you tomorrow?”
He is silent for a very long time, then finally, “Yeah. Tomorrow.”
She exits Jake Sanders’ house and lets the door close behind her. She stands there for a long while, looking down at Jake’s door mat, a fading image of the secret door to the Mines of Moria with the words “Speak Friend and Enter” in Elvish. She thinks back to when she helped Edward pick it out as a gift. A myriad of expressions begin to cross her face; from concern, to disappointment, to sadness, to loss, to fear, to anger, then finally to acceptance as she puts her jacket on and begins walking to her car with slumped shoulders.
Events have been set in motion, and whatever happens next was likely always going to happen, and it feels vey much like she is suddenly swimming against a horrible riptide that might pull Edward under and possibly drown them both.
Back inside Jake’s house, Edward continues to stare at the journal. After a long, still moment with the incessant buzzing growing ever louder in his head, he finally notices that Andrea is gone and he has moved to his father’s sofa. He isn’t sure how long he’s been sitting here as he doesn’t remember moving. He considers going after her to say something before she drives away, but again he has no idea how long it has been since she left. He’ll say something to her tomorrow he thinks as he begins to lay down on the couch in a comfortable reading position. He opens the overflowing book to the front and begins reading the journal of his father, Jacob “Jake” Sanders.
----------------------------------------
The journal is written in a dead language, but one that Edward recognizes. It is one his father always used when he suspected someone he didn’t trust was reading what he wrote. The entries begin by explaining how he was suddenly approached by the American Environmental Society to join an expedition to Antarctica. He writes that he politely refused, only to be suddenly and violently shanghaied and thrown into a car. A man enters his home and hastily packs for him. He is introduced to the head of this organization, Jacob Whateley, and is taken immediately to the airport where a private plane awaits to cart them all away.
From there the journey begins. Whateley shares some details with Mr. Sanders, explaining that they are in pursuit of a lost mountain range in the frozen South that was first discovered by a group of scientists from Miskatonic University. He is told how that expedition ended and how many other similar treks were mounted with similar disastrous results. Due to the harsh environment and the dangers that abound, many had died or disappeared looking for this range, and many who did somehow survive came back stark raving mad.
Once arriving in Antarctica, Jake explains how he is assigned to a team of AES scientists and sent out to find this seemingly impossible range of mountains. During their search, they stumble upon the remains of US Outpost 31, a long abandoned research station that appears to have suffered from some sort of explosion. The team seems less surprised by this find and they immediately begin to look for something. The only thing they find are the ashen remains of several bodies long ago burned. After days in the frozen depths, the team finds the oddest mountains that any of them have ever seen. Higher than the Himalayas according to the group’s surveyor, it seems to reach towards the heavens with some form of inky black rock. Exploring ever closer, the team finds a series of corridors and structures, alien in design but clearly crafted by some ancient, intelligent hand. Here also Jake writes of strange sounds from within and the sudden disappearance of some members of his team. Here a collection of pages go missing. Edward sees the ragged edges where the pages were removed and wonders what this could have said.
Picking up from these missing pages, the journal begins to explain how Jake has found markings of some alien origin deep within the tunnels. Excited, he begins to copy them down. From here the tone of Jake’s writing takes a dramatic turn. The next pages are filled from top to bottom with pure nonsense. It’s not a language, even if there is a hint of some kind of text. There are deep scratches of ink, a repetition of shapes and symbols that Edward cannot make sense of. Pages full of hashmarks, scratches that nearly rip through the page, designs that overlap and twist upon themselves. These symbols seem to have no purpose and Edward wonders why his father would copy them down, especially so haphazardly. Edward begins to lose focus the longer he tries to make sense of what he is seeing. He examines the nightmarish design finding at last incredibly detailed patterns that catch his eye on an ever smaller scale. There appear to be fractals that begin to draw him in and burn themselves into his brain.
Edward realizes he has been bringing the book closer and closer, almost like he is trying to pull himself into the pages before catching himself and backing away, blinking. Those patterns seem to etch themselves onto the back of his eyelids, flashing into brilliance every time he blinks his eyes. It’s like when headlights unexpectedly shine in your face from around a dark corner of road. He sets the journal down and glances at his phone, suddenly realizing he has no idea how long he has been laying here reading. The clock reads 3 a.m.
He exhales as he returns the phone to the coffee table, then picks the journal back up and flips to the end looking for the most recent entry. As he does, a slip of paper tumbles out of the journal and drifts to the floor. He reaches a hand down and picks it up. On the slip is a single word: Kadath. He examines it for a moment, trying to place the word, then puts it onto the coffee table next to his phone. Returning to the journal he finds a hastily scrawled letter addressed to him from his father.
> Dear Edward,
>
> My son, if this journal has found its way into your hands and you are reading this letter, I am sorry to sorry to say that I am probably dead. I am sending this to the house in hopes Miriam intercepts it before they can. If that’s the case, then I’[m sorry but they’ll likely be after you now too after you now too. I know whaaaat theyr’re after now and they cna’t succeed. They kidnapped me and told me the craziest stories on our way here to this frozen wasteland, some of them I already had hhheaarrrrd beef bef before. And unfortunately, now I know they are true, horribly horribly horribly horribly horrrrefefef horribly true.
>
> Talk to Professor Kent. She can tell you more about these strange taless. Please don’t delve too deep into my writings, but if you do, be careful with the patterns. They have ssssome ssssorrrrrtt of power. I’ve done my best to destroy the originals donw in those caverns, but I know now these coppies are just as dangerous. They do things to your mind. I find myself losing tie, rep--- there, I just had a moment. It started affecting my writing first. It’s too late for me, but hopefully brief exposure won’t infect you as it has me.
>
> I’m sorry me have to droop this burden in your lap, son, but I don’t know who to trust. I think Toma is safe, but approach her cautiously.
>
> Please know that I will always love you and your mother. Tell her [scratched out line] Tell her I did the best I could and I wish I could have been there for her more. I’m dropping this with a friend working out of McMurdo before I try to escape my capppptttorrs, but I don’t like my chances.
>
> I love you. Be safe.
>
> Your father,
> Jake
Once he finishes reading the letter, Edward places the journal on the coffee table, wipes the beginning of tears starting to gather, sniffles, and closes his eyes.