Chapter 1
Chapter 1
You never know what is out there in the world. We like to think we do, we like to think we know it all, that the material world is all that there is. That science can explain everything. Even the religious tend to think in this manner, at most they see God and the supernatural as a far-off thing, a distant thing that isn't active in the day to day, even as they pray for miraculous healing. "God helps those who help themselves" is a longstanding saying, and sure, there is some truth to that. If you believe you believe that God gave man intelligence and mastery over the world and thus science and technology are the methods that man uses to explore and master the world around him.
But just because there's truth to materialism, that much of the world is made up of matter and follows the laws of physics, doesn't mean that there's all there is to it. Sometimes things beyond material understanding appear in the world. These often become myths, legends, folktales, and cryptids. Haunted places, ghosts on the battlefield, apparitions… many people report seeing them, and it makes our materialist world uncomfortable, squirming in our chairs because so many sightings of anything else would be taken as evidence… but not for the supernatural.
Fortunately, the vast majority of these things are harmless. Echos of human emotions and souls from long past. Sometimes scary, often sad, but not really able to interact with the world. There's no such things as true ghosts, only these impressions left behind. But other times there's something malevolent involved. Sometimes it's not just the ætheric echo of the tragic passing of a human soul, sometimes it's something else. Sometimes it's a "visitor", some being from dimensions beyond our own that is slumming it in our world, usually those are harmless too, the interdimensional equivalent of sightseers, but then there's the times it's worse… far far worse.
Sadly, this was one of those times. I'd received the call from the State police informing me that one of these visitors had decided to crash a college party near George Mason University. That was a bit of an unusual place for this kind of thing, Mason wasn't exactly known for being a party school. The area, right next to the city of Fairfax in the suburbs of Washington DC, tended towards more attempts at "travelers" trying to possess important politicians and ambassadors who lived in the area. Yeah, yeah, I know, protecting those assholes and the powerful, but it pays the bills and even the worst of the lot don't really deserve those kinda things happening to them… well at least I keep telling myself that.
Further, Mason didn't usually have crazy parties, wasn't known for its frats or sororities as such groups tend to draw these kinds of things due to their antics and shenanigans, and the usual hotbeds of crossovers where you have ripples in the æther tended to be out towards Manassas and the historic battlefield there. Ghosts might only be echoes, but places of mass death like battlefields always have a weaker veil between the material and spiritual. I'd hate to work in Europe in eastern France or western Russia, I hear they have nearly daily incursions there.
Anyway, this was originally sold to me as a class 4 hostile incursion. A weak bogeyman creature had entered our world and decided to cause some havoc. It might be a weaker demon or one of those travelers who happened to be an asshole, but regardless mundane weapons that function based on silly physical laws like F=MA tend to not do much more than slow them down, no matter how big that M or A were. Which is where I, and people like me, come in.
I walked up to the converted single-family home in the dead of a warm Virginia summer night. The crickets and cicada singing their various songs and the occasional yellow flash from the fireflies lit about the poorly lit neighborhood. The full moon provided the bulk of the light along the unmarked suburb neighborhood, the streetlights few and far between mostly at intersections, which this house, at the end of a cul-de-sac, was quite distant from. Said cul-de-sac was full of cars, mostly focused around the house I was approaching, a two story place with a postage stamp plot of land, subdivided and sublet for college students who wanted more privacy to rent while going to the nearby college. In addition to the private cars a small collection of police and ambulance were sitting out front of the house, surrounded by a milling crowd of college students, state and county police, and medical personnel checking over said college students. Next to one of the ambulances lay three gurneys with blankets over everything on them, so death was already here. The college students tended to have distant looks in their eyes, drunk, stoned, or simply in shock, didn't matter to me. I approached one of the state officers who wasn't at the moment and cleared my throat.
"Excuse me officer," I began, getting the attention of the lanky and dark-skinned man, "I'm the specialist the governor called for, Stefan Almaran."
The officer looked me up and down, clearly skeptical. I can't entirely say I blame him, I'm of average height, my dark brown hair cut short but not well combed or styled with a similarly brown goatee, and while I tried to keep in shape, I wasn't built or anything… ok, maybe I did have a bit of a pudge. These things happen as you get older and your metabolism slows down. Perhaps the only thing I really have going for me is my eyes. Stormcloud gray eyes ain't exactly common and they do tend to leave an impression on folks.
"You have any ID?" the officer inquired, and I replied with a nod, fishing my cell phone and wallet combo out of my pants pocket and flipping it open to show the officer my ID. He studied it and gave me another look, taking in my casual cargo pants and t-shirt combo and leather sandals. Not exactly proper East Coast Professional attire, but comfortable in the humid heat of the region.
"Well Mr. Almaran," the officer began, walking towards the front door of the house with a wave of his hand indicating I should follow, "we got a call of a disturbance about an hour ago and when we arrived we had all kinds of chaos."
We slipped between a group of college students, a mixed group huddled near one each other all looking shocked and scared. "We got everyone out, but they all kept muttering about the 'thing in the basement'. We sent one officer down to investigate and… well, the last report on the radio was 'that ain't right, that ain't…' and he got cut off. One of the older officers made a call…"
"And now I'm here," I finished for him, pulling out an aged, long stemmed, meerschaum pipe from one of my cargo pants pockets and a tobacco pouch. The officer crinkled his nose disapprovingly as I packed the pipe with a dark black tobacco while studying the house.
"This is the first time you've seen like this," I stated to the officer, who nodded, "and you just think you guys should go down there guns blazing."
"Well, maybe not guns blazing," the officer demurred, "but really, none of those kids had anything more than a scratch on them."
"And the corpses."
"Ain't killed by bullets of physical trauma, likely just Oded. This looks more like someone had a bad trip, found someone ODed and panicked."
"And your officer?" I finished packing the pipe and put my tobacco pouch away.
"Likely just trippin' balls too, who knows what they were smoking in there."
"What indeed," I said, raising the pipe to my lips and and holding up an empty hand to the officer so he could see I had nothing in it, "but you know, there's more to this world than is imagined in your or I's philosophy." As I finished quoting the Bard I cupped my empty hand over the pipe and took a few long draws on the long stem. Quickly puffs of sweet smoke filled my mouth, the warm tingle of nicotine helping calm my nerves and focus my mind. The Office paused, surprise on his face.
"How did you…"
"More to this world…" I merely repeated, leaving him behind as I walked up to the front door and entered the house.