We have a new destination.
For as much trouble as we had squeezing a tiny nugget of information out of Clearfield, Karhaus was an immediate treasure trove. EVERY person knew who we were asking about, familiar with at least part of the story. And what a story.
This guy, this Warlock, he DID get fired from the fair, as Samuel told us. After the firing, he moved into an old cabin outside of town. That chain of events is universally-accepted. What happened after he went out there is a lot less clear.
When reaching this section of most accounts, credulity becomes increasingly stressed, so bear with me as I knit it all together. Essentially, after being fired, the Warlock was angry and bitter. He wanted revenge against the people he claimed had wronged him, his ex-employers. So, and forgive me for insulting your intelligence for a moment, he got involved in some kind of “dark arts” or magic out in his cabin. Descriptions of these events are just as varied as evidence of them is paltry.
We pick back up a short time later. There have been disappearances of young girls in and around the forest. The last one occurred not far from the man’s cabin. So, the police went out to have a word with him. When they got to the cabin, the place was on fire, flames having already begun spreading to some of the nearest trees.
The cops called for help : park rangers, fire department, whoever was available. In addition to searching for the missing girls and locating the cabin’s primary occupant, they needed to stem off a massive fire now as well. It took an incredible group effort, but the blaze was eventually defeated before it could do too much damage to the forest.
While the officers waited for help from the other emergency services, they broke into the cabin, searching for survivors. It was dangerous, but with the prospect of children still being inside the burning building, they had no choice.
There were no children inside the cabin, though, only a single man : the Warlock. He stood in the middle of the room, completely engulfed in flame. Yet, according to legend, the fires did not burn him. They crackled and danced across his body, igniting his clothing, but the skin beneath was not effected.
The rescuing officers were stunned, of course. The Warlock’s eyes were closed and he seemed to be mumbling something as he stood within the flames. Finally, one of the cops shook loose of his daze and called out. The Warlock’s eyes snapped open and he grew silent – but only for a moment.
Immediately his skin caught fire, those docile flames no longer ignorant of the delicious tissue of his body. He began to scream, mindlessly staggering around the burning room.
One brave officer hurried toward him, battling the heat and smoke. He tried to dose the Warlock, but was rebuked. Still screaming, the Warlock pulled away, stumbling TOWARD the shuddering flames.
It took several officers to finally subdue the Warlock, which required knocking him out. He simply refused to abandon his home and the fire that overwhelmed it. Even when unconscious, though, they had trouble carrying him to safety. It was impossible to smother his burning flesh. The greedy flames refused to be extinguished. They didn’t spread beyond his body, but adamantly continued feeding on his skin, burning and singing his hair, his muscle, until the man was little more than a living skeleton floating in stinking, black plasma.
Finally, they were able to drag him out of the building, but could do little more than watch his body melt on the forest floor.
Eventually, when there was little left to consume, the fire engulfing the Warlock dissipated in a blackened puff. When the EMTs arrived, the officers stared in stunned horror as the remains were loaded onto a stretcher and rushed away.
When the fire was fully tamed, the police investigated what remained of the cabin. They found nothing. There was no sign of any of the missing girls, living or dead, just a charred and ruined cabin.
So that was it. Despite the unusual circumstances, (few initially believed the officers’ accounts – “SURE the guy wasn’t burning; have you looked at him? What, did the fire change its mind?”) the blaze was ruled accidental. Whether dark arts or child abductions, if the Warlock HAD been up to anything nefarious, the evidence had become ash.
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He was an innocent man as far as the law was concerned. Miraculously, he survived the immolation, but was in the hospital, enduring countless surgeries, for a very long time. Though there wasn’t a lot left to work with, the surgeons eventually refashioned that plate of pudding and bone into a man.
When he was finally cleared to leave the hospital, he stepped out of the building and disappeared. Just like that. Few saw him leave, and no one knows where he went. What he does now and where he lives are a mystery. Well, no one RELIABLY knows any of these things. Conjecture abounds.
This is where we enter the realm of pure speculation. The fire and its immediate aftermath are, to some degree, plausible and prominent enough in local tradition to be considered hazy facts – barring that bit about the man’s immunity to fire, of course.
Some people believe the fire was some kind of ceremony, a “binding” to create a union between the Warlock and dark forces. Apparently he’s transcended mortality and become some ethereal monstrosity. He returned to the woods near his cabin, they say, waiting for fresh young victims to trespass into his domain.
There are folks who claim to have actually seen him near the cabin recently. This lot generally don’t buy into the transcendence myth. He’s still a man, they insist, but, after his failed reconstruction, he wears the skins of his newest victims. Some even claim that he essentially BECOMES these other people after slipping into their hides and stalks the town at night in the altered guise.
Most who don’t accept the “binding ceremony” theory still believe the fire was started by the Warlock. In this scenario, someone tipped him off that the police were onto him, so he hurriedly burned all the evidence of his crimes. For some people, that refers to remnants of weird experiments he’d been performing on the missing girls’ dead bodies. To others, his interest in his young victims was more mundane, but no less disgusting.
Though there isn’t consensus on the Warlock’s predilections, everyone agrees that he is guilty of some form of unforgivable vileness.
How he ended up trapped in the fire, himself, no one knows. Also, why he was reluctant to escape from it is just as uncertain. He might have expected that even if he escaped the Law’s initial probe, the police would still eventually uncover enough evidence to prosecute him. Thus, he was choosing death over incarceration. This hypothesis is weakened, of course, by the dearth of evidence uncovered by investigators after the fire. Perhaps he was so upset that all of his hard work would be going to waste. If he couldn’t have his little girl experiments or his communion with evil, life just wasn’t worth living. I don’t know. None of this is corroborated by anything more substantial than the assurances of small town gossips and fable-benders.
So, what does this all mean for us, for our search for Brase?
Come on, you already know. We’re going to the cabin.
It’s all we have. I realize I keep saying that, but it really is. Hearing about this Warlock’s alleged origin story isn’t especially helpful on its own, particularly the conclusion. He could be a ghost haunting the woods or a skinwalker hiding in plain sight somewhere in the town. Because every ending is just as preposterous as another, likely they’re all complete forgeries.
Yet, maybe there’s an element of truth in even the most outlandish fiction.
The cabin is the only remaining artifact of this guy’s supposed existence, and people HAVE claimed to have seen him out there – spectral or otherwise. It’s not COMPLETELY unreasonable to think the guy might have found his way back there eventually. There’s not supposed to be much left of it now, but home is home, right? It’s SOMETHING.
Speaking of cops, we haven’t heard anything from them about Brase. I know it hasn’t been long, but it’s still frustrating.
Brent is here. To put it mildly, he’s eager to find his brother. We still have light left and the cabin isn’t far from town. Its location, at least, is part of public record.
Whether the place conceals a floating apparition, crazed hermit or nothing, we’ll soon discover for ourselves.
~~~
Just to be clear, I, and presumably WE, don’t believe any of the supernatural fatuity being promoted about this guy. He’s no more a warlock than I am. A serial killer, maybe (him, not me).
Some of the townsfolk’s imaginations are unreal. I mean, I’m a big fan of weird fiction; I went into detail about that in my very first entry. But even I had to balk at some of their suggestions. Sacrifices, demonic possession, fornication with evil spirits; it sounded like the checklist from a Puritan’s spooky bedtime parable. You know, hundreds of years ago. And these people are still scaring one another with the same ridiculous ghost stories. Some of them got so excited telling us every gory detail, it’s like they were secretly envious of the guy’s reputed wickedness. Crazy.
I will admit it’s difficult not to get a little… concerned, I guess, hearing their stories. Not because I believe any of this nonsense. But the idea of someone bearing even a passing resemblance to this mythological boogeyman being out there right now with Brase, that’s genuinely upsetting.
After all, there’s got to be SOME germ of truth from which all of this fantasy stems, right?
~~~
I’m on a bathroom break. Please don’t be disgusted; I’ve quarantined by “pee hand” as I speak into my phone. My bladder has been in rare form today. My dang nerves. The stories, absurd as they are, surrounding this guy, don’t need to be true to get the blood pumping a bit.
The others went ahead. We’ve got to be really close to the cabin now. Our directions weren’t exact, but we should stumble onto it any--
Oh! Hold on; I’m just finishing up here. I--
Quiet? Why do I need to be--
...
Voices? Where?