There will be no more updates.
I have posted the journal in it’s entirety (yes, I know there are numbers missing, it’s supposed to be like that) and well, as they say, that’s all folks!
But don’t worry, if you’re a fan of horror fiction, I’ll be putting some links at the right of some paranormal sites that I think you’ll thoroughly enjoy!
Thank you very much for reading!
Sincerely,
Armaneaux
Some of the stores in Northland Mall are open at two ends, letting customers pass through them while cutting from one side of the mall to the other. Recently, one of the clothing stores that’s like this closed up the path by installing a set of changing booths and mirrored cheap plywood wall covered in mirrors so that the other half of the store could be lent to another tenant. However, there’s something wrong with one of the booths. Enter the third booth from the left and be sure to bring a sack lunch. Turn around thrice anti-clockwise, and leave the booth. You’ll find yourself in the Other mall.
The Other Mall looks just the same as a regular mall, except the stores are all wrong. Woolworth’s, A&A Records, Eaton’s, every defunct company from the last twenty years. The products are even weirder. Instead of stocking normal goods, or even normal goods that have gone out of style, the stores stock things that never made it. Product ideas that died on the table.
Amidst piles of anatomically correct dolls and surprisingly sharp-edged jewelery, amidst sweaters with three sleeves and all the other defective garbage, you can sometimes find a product that should have made it but didn’t. Home Cold Fusion. The cure for Cancer. Appliances that never break down. Anything that THEY’RE using the other mall to hide.
The only problem is getting anything back with you. You don’t want to know what they do to shoplifters on the other side.
There is an apartment tower near the C-train line that is always dark at night. The lights never seem to go on, or if they do, they never do on the north face. The building never advertises any vacancies, and in fact almost never gives any outward signs of being inhabited at all. The building’s front door is always locked, but the side door that opens onto a nearby alley opens with ease. Unfortunately, the room on the other side is shin-deep in blood. Close the door behind you and begin to ascend the stairs.
Never Ever leave the staircase until you reach the top floor, no matter what you hear or see. The staircase itself is tall and long and steep,, and a steady stream of blood flows down it from the top. Once you reach the top of the stairs, you will see its source: A pulsating, bleeding tumour five feet across that has been nailed to the wall. Don’t touch it, or it will release its spores. Instead, go through the door into the main hallway of the top floor. Do not let it close behind you.
The walls of the top floor have been broken out and have been replaced with screens made of dried skin. If you touch it, it feels warm and moist, as though it were still alive. Some of the sheets have faces. At the center of this hall, you will find a man on a throne made of men holding awkward poses and contortions. He will smile at you, showing three rows of teeth, and offer you his hospitality. Do not accept. You do not want to stay in the tower like the rest of these poor souls. Instead, tell him you want to borrow a book.
Carelessly, he’ll throw whatever he’s currently reading at you. It’s entirely possible you’ll be left with nothing but a wrinkled John Grisham, but for the most part, his reading material is far more interesting and esoteric. Bring whatever book he gives you to Eddie Decae, who will offer you something that isn’t printed on human skin.
There is an Autobody shop in Montgomery that specialises in outdated and obsolete models. They rarely do any business, but the owner comes in frequently to fool around with the engine on her car, although mostly she sits in the front seat and reads. If you can sneak past her into the ratty lot where she keeps a handful of mouldering cars for parts, you will be rewarded for your efforts. This is harder than it sounds. Like most acolytes, her sense of smell is highly honed. Disguise yourself in the scents of the autobody shop: motor oil, sweat and metal.
When you make your way into the lot, look for a tireless convertible. Break into the trunk and grab the first thing you can lay your hands on. Then run. Don’t bother with sneaking. She will hear you, find you, and then it will all be over. When you get home, take a look at whatever you’ve managed to pilfer. It will be mechanical, of course, as that is the owner’s specialty. Probably a car part of some kind. But it will feel warm and supple to the touch. With enough effort, it will fit into any machine, and confer upon it a blessing potent enough to explain why she hordes them so jealously
[Another email cut out and pasted in the book]
The new Children’s Hospital, the one that looks like it’s all made of lego blocks and shit? Have you ever gone in there at night, Sand-Man? I’ll take you next time I go. It has to be seen to be believed.
I was going there the other day to try and break into the pharmacy (save the lecture, Sand-Man) but the halls were all foggy. The ring I keep in the pocket, the one Eddie gave me when he was hitting on me in that cute turn of the century way? It started burning, but I couldn’t get the damn thing off. So I started to try to walk through the fog because, fuck, I’m not going to stick around in a place like that when everything starts getting creepy. At least, not without a shitload of backup.
Anyways, so I was trying to get out, but the place was a goddamn maze. All those big plate glass windows were opaque, more like glass slides with blood caught between them than windows. And I swear to god (Well, maybe not to GOD) that I was being followed. By what? I dunno. But by something.
Look, let’s go this Friday. We’ll break in the same way I got in. I’ll meet you at Sunnyside Station and we’ll catch the train up there together.
Peace and Chicken Grease
Nick Maharis
The video store is old and dingy, and some years back it transitioned from legitimate rentals to bootlegs and porn in the face of competition with the blockbuster down the street. Finally, it gave up the ghost last August. The owner retains his lease, but the store is never open. Instead, he uses it to store his incredible collection of snuff, rarities and bootlegs, many of which are of more than slight interest. The owner never enters except late at night, so a daylight or evening break-in is your best chance.
The store’s latter days have left their mark on it, complete with discarded merchandise and sordid video booths at the back. The break-in will have triggered the owner’s alarms, no matter how careful you’ve been, so you only have time to grab a video at random and run. Or else, should you be courageous, you can lock yourself overnight in one of the booths as he’s long since lost his keys. He’ll leave at dawn, allowing you to escape. However, he’ll turn the booth /on/.
If your stomach is strong enough to endure whatever sadistic footage he’s playing, you can escape unharmed in the morning, armed with the video you grabbed. None of them are in the correct case, and whatever system he uses to decide which cassette goes in which case is incomprehensible. It could be lost footage of the kennedy assassination, it could be Margaret Trudeau’s Rolling Stones sex tape, it could be any number of different trip recordings from acolyte excursions.
Or it could be a home-made snuff tape of the last acolyte to be caught.
Some years ago, one of the city’s historic churches burned down and left only a vacant lot behind. In the years since, the lot has healed, leaving no evidence of the fire behind, and the contents of the Church’s basement utterly entombed. The one exception to this is midnight on Saints’ Days that coincide with the full moon. On these nights, in the vicinity of the lot, time slows down and the night grows darker than dark. Moonlight refracts through naked air and the ghostly image of the church can be seen.
Unlike other ghosts, this is utterly tangible. Climb the stairs and enter the church. It will take a few minutes for your eyes to fully register the interior as you will only be able to perceive the vaguest outline of the room and its furnishings. The Church will be as it was on the night of the fire, with ghostly flames burning the northwest corner. Once your eyes have fully adapted, approach the altar and cut your hand with a black handled knife. Bleed atop the altar, which will slowly recess into the floor.
The altar will descend two full storeys. The hole into which it sinks has rough walls and should prove easy to climb. Descend slowly and carefully. As you descend, you will find yourself sinking through the earth. Seeing will become impossible for a time, until you reach the basement. The basement contains the bones and ashes of a handful of practitioners and priests who have come seeking what you are about to find.
Located in this basement room is The Christ, still on his Cross, still bleeding. One drop of his blood is enough to grant the strength to work miracles, but two will burn you to a cinder.
Enter any of Canada’s railway hotels and check in. Bring no luggage and ask specifically for The Purple Room. After a few moments of insistence, the porter will acquiesce and lead you into the elevator. Using a special key, the porter will open the elevator panel and press a concealed, unmarked button. The elevator will open directly onto a parlour furnished in Edwardian finery. Everything in the room: the marble, the chairs, the doors, even the maid who greets you will be some different shade of purple. Ask to see the master of the House.
The Master of the House will be indisposed, as will his elder son, but his youngest son will come out to meet you. After excusing his relatives, he will answer any three questions you ask. Unfortunately his answers will only make sense in retrospect. The young man will leave after extending an invitation to spend the night. Accept and turn in early. Around midnight, the Master’s daughter will come into your bed and try to seduce you. Refuse. Her father’s slightest gesture could seal your fate.
Instead, ask her to tell you about herself. What she wil tell you is the story of Earth but not of man. The story of creation and destruction. The story of the world itself from the beginning to the end. The telling will take all night, after which she will leave you. Leave the room and check out of the hotel without speaking to anyone else.
The Viscount Bennett Center on Richmond Road is home to Chinook Learning and Westmount Charter School. The two schools share a library, which has a single row of aging computers. One of these computers has a large, rugged headset with a microphone connected to it at all times. The headset is never disconnected from the computer, but no student ever seems to use it. In fact, no one will notice the headset unless it is pointed out, and even then the most it will evoke is a shrug and “One of the morning students must have left it”.
However, if you put on the headset you will be immediately seized by a sense of nausea and foreboding. The headset plays no sound other than a vague static hiss until you try to type a document on the computer it’s attached to. The headset will begin to scream. However, if you start to type the right word it will pause until you’re done typing the word. Though no one has ever tried, it’s assumed that with enough patience one could reconstruct the finished document.
The only problem is that the words are in an extinct dialect of French
There is a morgue hidden beneath the coroner’s office by the Colonel Belcher, right across from the Point MacKay complex. To get inside, you need some means of picking the building’s locks. The Key will not do, as while the morgue survives amongst the ashes. However you enter the building, entering the morgue itself is far harder. If you break into the corner’s office, look for a small red button built into his desk. You have only a short time before you are noticed. If you find it, press it and dart through the panel that opens.
Descend the stairs and try not to be bothered by the growing cold. Eventually you will find yourself in a morgue furnished and fashioned in a turn of the century style. White tile that is yellowed with age covers the walls and floor and the drawers are fused shut. All except three. Drawer six should never be opened. It contains the body of whoever opens it, and the autopsy wounds the body bears will soon spread, killing you instantly. Drawer twelve should also never be opened. It contains nothing but burning blood that will fill the room with unquenchable fire.
Drawer thirteen contains the body of an illegitimate saint who was martyred when the RCMP raided his home. Break from his dried body a small piece of flesh or bone or tooth, or else a patch of his clothing. Carry it with you always, and nothing dark can touch you.
The Calganon Journal 