The Ultimate Vampire Resource and Directory

Jasper’s appearance was best described as a usual cretin of the Wild Wolf Mountain region; one of those odd, wildly repellant descendants of a peasant-oriented stock whose extreme isolation for nearly four centuries in the hills caused them to succumb to a depth of barbarism typically assigned to cave dwellers. Among them, especially those described best as “ animal excrement” in the Southwest, laws and morals dared not make a whisper of their presence among them, and the general mental status stacked lower than the veritable dirt you and I walk upon today.

Jasper, who arrived under the auspices of five policeman, was described as a volatile beast, and certainly gave no satisfaction of the description which preceded him. The very mention of his dangerous character crunched underneath the weight of one hundred or so pounds of him as he tread through, bound in heavy chains. His absurdly harmless appearance proved itself with the protrusion of his abnormally pale blue eyes, a dark ugly yellowed beard, and an unusually thin lower lip. His age could only be guessed due to the lack of family records and hence the Head Doctor penned a convenient age of about forty-five.

From the medial and court documents, I learned all that could be collected and netted in this wondrous case. This man had always been an avid hunter, trapper, fisherman and was notably characterized as other worldy in his speech and painstakingly odd, as if on purpose. to avoid human interaction. He kept a sleeping pattern fit for the hibernation patterns of local bears, but upon waking would often talk of wild things beyond anyone’s knowledge base and went so far as to inspire fear in others with the depth of the detail he imparted. His form of communication was not unusual, for he never spoke a negative attack on anyone or anything. But the tone of his ramblings were of a fantastic timbre and baffled his listeners. And within an hour of his rants, he would forget all that he said and would promptly relapse into the docile, half-amiable normality of a hill dweller.

As Jasper grew older, his matutinal aberrations grew into frenzied chaos and violence, yet no one around him would bear the slightest injury, till about a month before his arrival occurred a shocking tragedy, leading to his arrest and subsequent arrival. One day after his long introduction into this institution, and after a profoundly long sleep, Jasper roused himself suddenly and into such undulations that several neighbours bothered to become his audience. The encounter for them was so fantastic of a sight, they exclaimed they bore his expulsions of odd rapture descriptions, including a number of leaps directly into the air, with arms flapping, while shouting about a ‘big, big dwelling with an exceedingly bright roof, floorspace and walls.’ Two huge guards sought to restrain him, to which he struggled with maniacal force, screaming of his desire to find and kill a certain thing that demanded his own death.’ After his soft lock up in his room, he was found three days later, unconscious in the hollow of a tree and several hundred yards away from the main building…

I dare wonder if a large swath of mankind would ever pause and reflect upon the monstrous meaning within dreams, and of the ambiguous world in which they live. While an enormous number of visions visited in the night are perhaps a little more than faint or feigning interpretations of our lives when conscious, there are a slight remainder of brain scraps whose disquieting effect affects our mental balance — and no more intensely than our waking life.

However, arguments galore may decorate communication everywhere by that immeasurable, unfounded mystery of a barrier between the two worlds. From my experience I cannot dispute that we, as mortals, are abandoned and entrenched in terrestrial life —albeit alarming if one dares think deeply — and are left repeatedly dangling with the remnants of blurry fragmentations of what our primitive brains can only hold for moments.

Might one go as far as to document these dreams to the extent that the lines of reality are devoured and what remains is the capability to live inside mental obscurity or exclusively in the tactile environment we call reality? Individuals may comment or swear by incredible testimony.

Or we may guess that in dreams, life, matter, and three dimensional living are not constant and that time and space do not exist as our waking selves comprehend. It is possible that this less material life in our dual hemispheres — and of delta wave origination —-are nothing but secondary or a pithy virtual phenomenon.

All of this perturbed my mental space during a youthful reverie on a cold afternoon in the winter of 1904, when to the state psychiatric institution in which I served as an intern introduced a man whose case has ever haunted me with unbearable weight.

His name — was Jasper Wright.

...

"Wallace," he formally addressed me, for the first time since my visit. "Pay
attention to what I am saying about the Gem. It's more or less of a lens. Like
what's in front of your camera, for instance. Add a prism feature. You cannot
take photographs with it. Someone of strange expectation might look and
sketch what he has seen."

A sketch he said; my thoughts were piqued.

"There's a bit of danger though, and the one daring to observe may be, well,
disturbed, for the real shape of a formidable shadow will be found to be
unpleasant -- otherworldly -- and completely unnatural. Yet, not doing anything
about this atrocity would be a sin against yourself. But, and I mean this as
your friend, keep away from that hill and most definitely away from the thing
you think is a tree on it!"

My soul vibrated a certain truth. I was not to be hero of sorts.

But as I stood there, still reverberating from his use of my first name and his
mention of that frightening tree, my bewilderment grew to unbearable levels,
paralyzing my response.

Only a moment passed when I erupted, "How can there be organized beings
from ... and how do we know they exist?"

"You reason in terms of this tiny earth, " Theodore calmly expressed. "Surely
you do not think for a second that this little earth is a rule for measuring
anything in this universe. There are beings we would never conceive that float
under the breath of our limited expressions. Modern science is beginning to
prove the mystics were not far off with their perverse postulations."

Suddenly, I wanted destruction to the images I took absolute oblivion for my
experience included. Theodore was offering something beyond anything I
dared think. A chill gripped me and thrust me away from my photos, as if
they'd latch onto me with razor sharp teeth. I became deathly afraid of the
possibility that I might re-examine the photos and recognize an image or
object within it!

Theodore, however, poured over his book, ignorant to my inner plight.

"As you say," I replied, wary of his resolve.

He looked up for a brief minute. "Let's pause our discussion for today. All of
this theorizing is tiresome. I must gain the privilege of obtaining that gem from
the local museum and figure out what is to be done."

The following should reflect an adventure worthy of intriguing disclosure,
however I can hardly bring myself to speak of it with any measure of
intellectual value. The constant wavering within me to return to the Tree
versus the deep sense of doom connected to it has prevented any personal
resolve in either direction. I did not return ultimately, which remains a matter of
my own.

I knew that Theodore was invested in my plight and actively pursued a
questionable trip and a return, which held mysterious circumstances
and remained a secret. When I spoke with him, he managed to borrow the
museum's Gem and had devised a means to apply it to the images I left with
him. He wildly described elements of 'refraction' and 'polarity' and estranged
angles within space and time. He therefore built a box, or as he maintained, a
camera obscura for the study of the snapshots we had both examined.
It was fourteen days later that I received an upsetting alert from the local
hospital. Theodore was there, and demanded that I see him at once.

Theodore had suffered some form of a seizure, was found by friends laying
prone and shivering wildly, who had to gain entrance to his home by clever
means. They knew to rush to his aid by way of his mortal cries and yelps of
abject fear. Though weakened and helpless, he regained his faculties enough
to tell me some things and directed me to preform a few tasks.

This much from the hospital was shared with me over the phone and within an
hour, I was at his bedside. Upon arriving, I marvelled at his features, which
revealed the measure of his recent tension, concern and anxiety in a very
brief period of time. The poor man looked five to ten years older than I
remembered. His first words ushered the nurses out of his room.

"Wallace -- I saw it!" His voice emerged sounded cracked and abrasive. "You
must shred those pictures. The ones I drew. The ones you took. Make the
pictures go away! That tree will never be seen on the hill again. I truly pray till
many periods of eons pass and bring bask the Year of the Black Fox. You are
safe. Mankind is preserved." He paused for a minute, breathing heavily and
continued his report.

"Take the Gem and put it in the safe, you remember the combination?" I nodded.
When he used my name again, I felt the grave sincerity in his request.

"The Gem must go back to where it came from, Wallace, for there may be
another time when it will be needed to save the world as we know it."

"They won't leave me here - as I recover, I shall resume my time in my home.
Between now and my anticipated return, you must burn, bury, tear those
damned photos and destroy my box camera!"

And with his command, he rolled over, exhaled forcibly and fell into a deep
slumber.

After a half hour walk back to his place, I made my way inside and found his
box camera on the library table, which was outlined by the fallen chair.
Scattered documents decorated the room in random patterns from the open
window and breeze. Close to the camera box, I recognized with an eerie
sensation the envelope of pictures I took.

It took me only a minute to examine the camera and find underneath its belly,
my earliest picture of the Oak. And at the end of the camera edge appeared a
strange amber-hued crystal, cut in crude angles impossible to geometrically
categorize. The touch of the glass fragment seemed quite warm and
unusually electric. I found it difficult to place it inside Theodore's wall safe as
instructed.

After nearly fumbling the trapping of the Gem, I handled the snapshot with
tremendously confused emotions. Even after inserting it into the envelope with the others,
I experienced a pathological longing to save it -- savour it and rush to the place
where I first observed its mysterious presence on the hill.

Peculiar details sprang out among varying linear patterns and assaulted my memory
- images behind images -- oracles lurking in questionable shapes.
But my sane mind, arguing with this tendency, gave me the fortitude to handle this
temptation in the same manner in which one pulls a finger away from a burning flame.

In the heat of a small fire inside an aluminum can, the crackling death of my
photographic history at the Oak filled my senses. I knew that mother earth
thanked me for saving it from certain destruction - even though I knew not of
the threat outright, its measure nor origin.

Of course, the source of Theodore's medical incident was of the kind I failed to
discover. It is remarkable that I did not have a minimal impulse to examine
the Gem nor peer into its peculiar angles. I do know that the allurement to
pursue this choice had escaped me and provided an avoidance of the threat
of an Oak tree on a hill.

I was spared!

But would my chosen ignorance offer the completion of absolute safety?

Realizing that sleeping better this evening was to be expected, my eye was
arrested before leaving by the pile of scattered papers rustling on the table. All
but one was blank, but that one revealed a crude drawing in pencil. Suddenly
recalling Theodore's words about him sketching the image exposed by one
angle of the gem, I strove to turn away. But pure curiosity defeated my sanity.
Looking again, I took notice of the haste in the pencil strokes, and the
unfinished edge left remaining by a seizure. In a perverted manner, I suddenly
squared up my vision of the design and nearly fell faint!

I don't know that I can fully describe what lay before me on fragile paper. But
this page found its way into the fire which I had created as the den of death for
all of my photographs.

Following the final puff of smoke and end of the dancing flames, I staggered
through the streets toward my home. I thanked the heavens
that I had not looked into the Gem and onto the photograph, and I prayed
more that I might forget the terrible hint of what Theodore had beheld.

Since, I have not been the same.

The purported hauntings of Hoverton remain a permanent mystery and
therefore lost on the shores of a journey I'd rather forget. But the creeping
nature of Theodore's sketch had not fully vacated my consciousness.
Only a few basic elements of the landscape assembled in my mind.

For the most part, a cloudy, exotic looking vapour dominated my memory. Every
object which might have been familiar was seen to be part of something
ambiguous, unknown, and altogether extra-terrestrial -- something
immeasurably boundless than the human eye could grasp, and as monstrous
and hideous from a fragment of a horrified imagination.

I had, in the landscape itself, observed the buckled, half-cognizant tree; there
was visible only a gnarled, grotesque hand or claw with human fingers
distended and obviously groping toward something on the lush ground.

And directly below the terrifying digits I thought I saw the outline in the grass,
where a man had lain.

But, my entire being thundered in protest, and of this description I could not be
certain.



END

Theodore muttered under his own complaint and drew in viciously on his pipe. “A nearly perfect photo of a spot dropped from - where? Seeing mountains off this cliff at a reportedly low altitude is wildly inaccurate…but wait!”

He sprang from the chair as rabbit might with a fox behind it. He escaped into his library, cursing forcibly. Following a few questionable moments he emerged with an old, leather-covered book. He opened it carefully and scoured it, I imagined, for an undisclosed treasure of knowledge.

“What volume is that?” I inquired.

“This is a very early English translation of the Chronicle of Mirthen, written by Arnoff Gergier, a Russian mystic and alchemist who derived some lore from Mervin Hargumas, an ancient sorcerer. There is a paragraph that might interest your eyes — might make you comprehend why this image conundrum is even further from natural than you believe. Listen carefully.”



— The Tale —

“In the year of the Black Fox, there came unto Mirthen a shadow that should not be on earth, and it had no form known to the eyes of the Earth. And it fed on the soul of all men. It gnawed at them about being lured, blinded and captured with dreams till the horror and endless night covered them. The shadow took false shapes and freedom shone brightly in the form of — Three Suns.”

Theodore’s eyes met might mine for the briefest second as chills spun around my spine.

He continued, “ But it was told by priests of the Old Book that such a rare man could see the shadow’s truest shape, and survive it, might shun its inevitable doom and send it back to the yawning of the starry night. However, this could be achieved without the Gem — the great Na-Kefer, the great high priest, held the Gem in his temple. And when the Gem was lost with the Battle of the Frenes, there was over-reaching weeping. Depite the loss, the shadow departed, appearing satiated, and would not hunger for its soulful claim until the year of the Snake.”

Theodore paused while I stared bewildered. Finally he exclaimed, “Now. I suppose you can guess how this all links up. There is no need of going any deeper into my library or this edition which I hold. But I will say that the purported Year of the Snake would unleash horror and do infinite harm to earth and everyone upon it. We don’t know how this catastrophe will unfold. But there is reason to associate your images and strange mirages might be mixed up in the matter. Fortunately, the Gem has been re-discovered — and I know where it is. We must use it on the images you have assembled and see what effect we can see.”

I sighed wildly at his vehement appraisal. What have I discovered? And why am I the chosen one? That is Theodore’s assertion, right?

...

Theodore insisted that I sit quietly and listen to him.

“Can you see in these photos the very nuances of trouble? The flowers point at every angle, even the grass blades, stiff and tall, seem magnetized in every direction except vertical! The Oak is very shrouded and veiled in a thin black fog of sorts, but — you can see everything in detail! Its own thick skin is twisted and knotted like a drunken sailor’s playfulness with excess rope.”

He went on, firmly stating, “And the overlapping shadows underneath the Oak are grotesquely abnormal for their design— nature did NOT do this. And the landscape in these photos seems like it fell from another dimension — and has deposited itself there, sitting intentionally out of crude sentiment. Does this earthly pocket of scenery take its form from the stars— or do you think the galaxy is missing this dirty, abhorrent land from a distant galactic puzzle? And dare I ask, did you say you witnessed several suns in your dreaming orgy?”

I nodded, exorbitantly flabbergasted at his account. Then it dawned on me. My fingers registered the depth of my mental clarity, shaking and trembling. My dream! Of course…

“The others,” he said, shuffling the pictures, "The same uncertainty, the suggestion of structured mayhem is profound. Maybe I can catch this mood on this piece of land, shall I see as it is, like you did?”

We sat in silence, assembling one another’s words and thoughts, waiting for the answers to our confusion to pour out as one intelligible report. But nothing resulted in the temporary calm air between us.

“We must make a journey as a duo, “ I exclaimed with unusual excitement despite my mental state remaining terrified at the idea. “We can arrive in under a half day’s time by foot.”

“Just stay away! There’s no need to revisit,” Theodore spat back. “I doubt you will find the exact area if you wanted to.”

“Nonsense, “ I said. “The photos, dear sir. They’re a guide!”

“Landmarks. See any?”

Theodore’s powers of observation were uncannily sharp. And after I reviewed the images, he was correct.


...

IN A DINER, FOUR DAYS LATER

“The snapshots? You’ve collected them all?” Theodore uttered. I met his dull green eyes from across the lunch table. Four days had escaped my mind since my return from Hell’s Ravine. I expressed my harrowing time with the Oak, and he simply laughed it off.

“Yes, The finished images came into my possession last evening. My eyes have not laid upon them. Do review them a bit. Perhaps, your understanding of the matter may change.”

Theodore smirked and then cringed with a sip of his over heated coffee.

I offered him the unopened package of photos, to which he hastily tore open and assembled them in his large calloused hands. He took one, squinted and then, in wide-eyed astonishment, erased his smile from his olive shaded face. His cigarette suffered an early departure into the ceramic holder inches away from his coffee cup.

“Holy mother of… Would you believe this?”

I grabbed the matted photo. It was the first image of the Oak, taken at a distance of about thirty feet, more or less. The case of Theodore’s sudden response escaped me. There the Oak stood, in all of its strange glory., and below it, the spot of grass where I had lain. In the distance was the edge of the land with a clear fall off and the winner in a contest versus gravity, if had anyone dared jump from its rocky path.

“And there it is,” I gleefully yelped. “The evidence of my claim —-“

“Look at it!” Theodore snapped. “The shadows— there are five for every rock and nearby brush!”

He was correct! All shadows below lay in fanlike arrangement and offered their hand as if dealt upon a casino poker table.

And there was another element too obtrusive to ignore. The flesh of the earth casting these creepy shadows boasted obnoxiously rich color, and the tree bark knotted in odd, abhorrent patterns — as there was nothing of the kind to my eyes when I was present.

Theodore dropped the picture on the table.

“There is something wrong here, “ I exclaimed, twisting my chin between two fingers. "The tree never looked like that.”

“Are you sure?” Theodore grunted. “The fact is, many things may not have shown up when you were laying there in your collection of images.”

“Theo, this photo shows more than what I saw!”

“That’s the point. There is something damnably misplaced in this landscape. Or your film double or triple exposed during your shots. Or there is an unreal force behind this photo taken when your posture was steadfast. Is there something you are forgetting to include in your experience?”

Before I could muster an answer, Theodore shuffled the remaining pictures and took his time scouring the results of my photo journaled experience. Halfway through, he quietly placed them down on the table again. His face turned very pale and a significant shudder crossed his body.

...

My eyes collapsed under their own weight, succumbing to a lull fed from a barely audible earthly lullaby. A breeze, much like a mother’s breath, whispered a secret into my ears — a secret so careful and delicate that I dare not allow my lips to articulate its message.

Oblivion soon kissed my lips and my attention faded into my mental grey and black spaces. Inside this cerebral mess, a vision took hold of me. I saw a pale yellow-orange sky with four suns, or was it three? Again the great pyramid came into view. Was it hovering among the clouds or a series of odd reflections from spacial light? The pyramid, I decided, remained steadfast, holding its peculiar angle, which frightened me to my core - causing a shiver throughout my body.

Why would the same doorway yawn open as if begging to be fed? The space gave its honour to that of a blackened void, quiet as the open sky but as formidable as a gigantic storm cloud. Somewhere inside, a swirling of shapeless entities swam everywhere —from which echoes whirled and subsided from a hidden mouth of madness!

My soul, which hid itself below my sternum, begged for an open release. I screamed over and over and over again. In this same dream, I ran but my feet never touched ground and slowed as if I was in a sea of gel.

At long last my eyes flew open.

However, it’s where I found myself that disturbed me more than the dream.

I was not beneath the tree. I was sprawled on a rocky slope.

My clothing was ripped and my pants were shredded with the contents of my pockets scattered. My hands were bleeding. Pain ripped through my arms.

The stony ridges greeted my sense of shock and offered no consolation.This pathway looked familiar — it was the very path I traversed to get to the spot underneath the Oak! I had walked back where I began - unconsciously!

In spite of my shock I attempted to gain knowledge of the time of day.

My watch had been ripped from my person and lay splayed open across three small rocks. Upon its recovery, the time froze on the face.

It read 9:12pm!

I collected any of my possessions within my reach and I ran, and ran, and ran.

...

After this astounding assault on my mental senses, my legs attempted to create enough resistance against gravity and ascend my attention to the heavens. My arms shook and perspiration trailed down my brow. The impulse to sprint away filled my instincts. But taking stock of the consideration - especially against a stationary creation - I sat down again, collecting myself and thus imposed relaxing breaths upon my lungs. Dreaming of such horrors was not a predisposition I ever owned. I recalled reading about tombs in ancient Egypt, but how had such an innocent read make the scope of daydreams so violent — and so suddenly? The time of day suggested I should consume food, but I did not feel hunger.

When angling my head up to peer at this Oak, my mind feared a nod or slight movement from the tree to acknowledge that I took its presence to be comforting — such an inclination was entirely false. Upon reflection, I smiled against the thought and realigned my perspective to that of reason.

Moreover, I felt another inspiration. Why not take snapshots of this Oak? Might the practice ease down my terror laden narrative? My friend in town might be interested in my snapshots. It had been a while since our last meet. These images would be a perfect way to revive our distanced friendship.

Opening the camera, I took images numbering a bakers dozen. The images captured dreariness against a late afternoon cloudy sky. I thought about telling my friend of the dream. Would this prevent his incentive to feed our brotherhood? Time would tell.

After packing up my camera, the spot which instigated my horrific dream beckoned me back into its lushness. My effort of self massage flooded my legs with blood to encourage their endurance for the walk back.

However, my acute need to further recover found me sinking into the grass and freshly fallen leaves, gazing into a single shade of grey high in the afternoon sky.

My trek back would have to wait patiently.


...

Aside from the Oak’s grand solitary appearance, it had a large overly twisted truck which offered no indication of a knot interrupting its grooves. The diameter of this wooden miracle exceeded at least ten men of my stature standing in a tight circle. The leaves it bore were thrice the size of my open hand. I swear to you it was real! As I approached its massive frame, my eyes were met with an open ridge to the tree’s immediate north side. The fall off would kill anything that might choose to jump.

Suddenly my sense of time became acute and my feet paused their journey. The sun’s radiant position indicated a time of around four o’clock pm, to which my eyes accepted as truth as I neglected to confirm the time on my wrist watch. The day’s warmth overtook me and my legs begged to be relieved from supporting me and I took rest underneath the awning of this mighty tree. My secondary objective poked into my ribs and I decided to unleash it from its confines. The camera into which I heavily invested time and money silently convinced me to behold the magnificent surroundings around and below this cliff.

Then a curious phenomenon attacked my otherwise well kept mind—a vague, ambiguous appearance — and began to take shape. I saw a great pyramid-like structure where around its apex, large winged beasts took fight. The flying monstrosities pounded the open air and I felt the beating of the flapping with each air pocket destroyed around me. While slightly crouched to dodge the flight of these monsters, I went toward a large stone door, which stood many meters taller than I. The shadows of the beasts swirled around me, casting evil shadows bent on devouring my own shadow, or more. The door opened and revealed a dark interior, inside which three flaming eyes shifted and aimed directly at me. I screamed as another vision rushed at me. The sheer terror of flames devouring faceless people seared my contorted expression…and then the vision faded.

The rippling and convulsing of my emotions took turns affecting my arms, legs, torso and mind. I gazed at my watch to find that it was exactly 4:05pm.

What more was there to bear inside this strange day?

...

I found nearby, and much closer to my feet than expected, a dark, fertile soil, which strangely gave zero purchase to new growth. As I traversed toward the centre of this desperately lonely area, I realized a peculiar silence.

A deep unsettling sensation of the lack of life around me sunk into my bones.

Birds either avoided the area or never desired to invade the airspace. The most typical of animals — squirrels and possibly raccoons - seemed to have scheduled a permanent vacation away from this site.

My expectation of insects met with sharp disappointment. Somehow I wished for at least a mosquito bite on my exposed forearm.

Then I saw the singular Oak.

It stood on a hill a bit higher than any other measure of vertical growth. This Oak, seemed to not have aged and appeared to be oddly robbed of its full height, as if a large hammer from heaven slammed open denial on its reach toward glory.

Plus, the vision of one Oak not surrounded by any other trees or forest was so utterly unexpected.

Had there been a fight for this turf by another line of roots, or was an unwritten declaration from Mother Nature vibrating everywhere that this tree should be left to its own devices for all of its days?


...