The Secret History of Twin Peaks

by Mark Frost

  Until one morning I awoke to the realization that this compensation had distanced and alienated me from my now teenage son; during the crucial years when he most needed my support and guidance, I was hiding myself away up the mountain, working late into the night. My wife tried her best to alert me that trouble was brewing for Robert, but still I made excuses--he was a good student, quarterback of the football team--and refused to see what was right in front of my eyes. It took an unspeakable tragedy to return me to my senses.

  The murder of Laura Palmer, my son’s girlfriend at the time, changed everything. At first, when suspicions swirled around Robert, the guilt and responsibility I felt for the years I’d neglected him brought me to the edge of an abyss. Although he was cleared, our relief was short-lived as we came to realize Robert had drifted into recreational drug use and interactions with the local criminal element. Our son had become a stranger to us, and his future, his very life was imperiled. My wife and I felt more powerless and afraid than at any time in our life together.

  1 There it is. We’ve found our Archivist—TP

  2 MUFON—the Mutual Unidentified Flying Object Network—is the world’s largest group of amateur civilian UFO enthusiasts, who maintain, and investigate, a massive international data bank of sightings and information—TP

  3 I believe we are to conclude from this that, while still a young man, Milford experienced his own abduction in the Ghostwood Forest—perhaps with the “walking owl”—similar to those of the other victims—TP

  *2* SPECIAL AGENT DALE COOPER

  The appearance of an unexpected ally provided help unlooked for: FBI Special Agent Dale Cooper arrived to investigate Laura’s death; a stalwart, trustworthy man, stout of character, foursquare in thought and nature. Although he remained focused on solving that horrific crime, I soon realized that the scope of Cooper’s interest in what had happened to our community encompassed a much broader field.

  Colonel Milford confided in me that Cooper’s presence here--and his association with secret allies of the colonel’s--signaled a raising of the ante of our stated mission. Our zone had suddenly gone hot; the data I was monitoring went from zero to sixty. Strange phenomena--of the sort frequently encountered by the colonel throughout his life--cropped up with regularity, registering seismically on my instrumentation. From the start, Cooper himself experienced turbulent phenomena: sightings in the woods, mysterious encounters, troubling dreams. A wave of darkness that threatened to engulf us had awoken. My labors became animated with newfound purpose; perhaps, at last, the answers we’d come looking for were within reach.

  Suffice it to say that, in the conventional sense, Cooper “solved” the crime; Laura had been killed by her own father, Leland Palmer. Unspeakable violations preceded this despicable act and it ended with the desperate man’s suicide. A web of evil, like a viral contagion, had spread from this vile act throughout our community, a dark eldritch leviathan rearing its head. But with Leland’s tragic resolution, it seemed, the fever gripping our town had broken. The leviathan slowly submerged.

  Throughout this ordeal, and its aftermath, I befriended Cooper. We shared many enjoyable discussions--without either of us revealing the covert connections we shared--and found solace in each other’s company.

  Then, one night soon afterward, most unexpectedly, came a breakthrough at the LPA. A message received loud and clear through the chatter and chuff droning through my instruments. Three words, plain English, in a sea of random signals:

  Cooper … Cooper … Cooper

  I traced it to its source, stunned to realize it did not issue from the vastness of space, but from somewhere in the surrounding woods of Ghostwood Forest. I wanted to tell Cooper about this message--a clear violation of my charter, but when I raised the idea with Colonel Milford he wholeheartedly agreed.

  He also told me the LPA would be my responsibility now, alone, until my new control arrived. He’d found one last chance for happiness in this new marriage and he was taking it. He held no illusions this young woman was the great love of his life but knew she was assuredly the last.

  I sought out Cooper and shared the message with him--dispassionately, curiously, as a man of science--and in that spirit he considered it. As a bond of friendship, I invited him to join me on a camping and fishing trip into the Ghostwood and he accepted. We left that very afternoon. Late that night, during a delightful conversation before the fire, he went to answer a call of nature. Before he returned, the leviathan came for me.

  My memories of the event, to this day, remain a hazy jumble: blinding white light issuing from a suggestion of some mass or object above me, a silent dark-robed figure beckoning. Paralyzed with terror, I seemed to move without volition to some other space. Alone but in the presence of some immense, overwhelming force, as if gravity had increased a thousandfold. A flood of words sluiced through my mind, words not my own, nor in any language known to me, a voice metallic, ringing and bitter. This was knowledge, I sensed through my terror, from some unknown order, of a higher vibrational quality beyond my ability to process, uncanny, perhaps electromagnetic in nature and not in the remotest way human.

  But what was it? What was it trying to show me? Whatever I’d been sent into these woods to find had after all this time found me first, roughing me up like a midnight dockside beatdown. Whatever this presence might be, it possessed nothing benign or benevolent in form or content, only a cold, crushing, calculating pressure. Time itself stood still, as if whatever place they’d brought me stood outside it. Throughout the ordeal I clung to one vague hope: If I survived, did this test hold some promise of revelation? I not only feared for my life; I feared the annihilation of my soul.

  I saw many things I don’t remember. I heard other voices I can’t recall. All around me colors constantly phased through the spectrum, blue to green, red to violet, black to white. I felt alternately like a ragged empty doll, then nothing but searing pain that rent my flesh with sadistic ease. I saw eyes, watching, felt pressure in my mind, as if thoughts were being forcibly inserted. I’m fairly certain I journeyed back and forth through time, watching it unspool like some immense, omniscient recording.

  Then I was back in the woods alone. Not far from our campsite, fire cold, deserted. Pale daylight, which my mind, coming back to itself, recognized: morning. That small shard of human experience became my lifeline, and I followed it back to what I used to think of as reality. I rested awhile, listless and spent. Found a stream and drank from it, splashed water on my face, breathed good air again, felt the sun on my face and realized: I’m alive.

  Somehow I made it down the mountain, which took all day. As night fell I staggered into my home, to my wife and son. So grateful to see their faces, determined to never take them for granted ever again. My wife told me I’d been missing for three days. Cooper had returned to town and initiated a search. They’d begun to fear they’d never find me. I ate, sparingly, then almost at once fell into a deep, dreamless sleep.1

  I slept 16 hours, awoke and found myself back in time again, feeling it infuse its familiar rhythms back into my skin and bones. Ate ravenously, like a starving animal. I felt a dull, throbbing pain on the back of my neck. Betty noticed there were marks, symbols really, carved, burned or branded there. Interlocking triangles.

  I’d seen these marks before. On the bodies of other “abductees”--the three children who’d been lost in these woods: Margaret Lanterman, Carl Rodd and another boy who’d moved away and since passed on. And Doug Milford. Now whatever force or thing this was had placed its mark on me. Yes, I thought, as resolve flooded back to me, I’d discovered what the colonel had brought me here to find. The source itself had “chosen” me as well. I needed to tell him.

  Then I learned that Colonel Milford had died at the Great Northern Hotel three nights earlier. When I returned to the LPA later that day, I found an encrypted message waiting on my computer, written and sent on the night I went missing:

  If I hadn’t so recently experienced my own priv
ate nightmare in the woods the colonel’s last words would have made little sense to me. Now they seared my soul.

  Doug left no instructions in his will about how to dispose of his remains--I think some part of him believed he would live forever. His brother Dwayne suggested cremation and scattering his ashes near the Pearl Lakes, where not so long before we’d put Robert Jacoby to rest. So that’s what we did, a small group of us, “grieving” widow not included.

  Afterward I repaired to the LPA and set about securing the dossier Doug and I had created. I crafted a custom protective case and prepared a hiding place. I scrutinized Doug’s final words to me; he had been my “control,” and now that he was gone, a new control would appear. An ally who knew the score, but I had no idea who this might be, or from where they might come.

  I awoke before dawn the next morning with a stark and startling revelation. During the night, my subconscious mind had made a breakthrough, sifting through the jumbled wreckage of numbers and strange language and my lost time in the woods until all the pieces fell together and I felt with swift and utter certainty that I knew how to proceed toward the answers that Doug had been so certain we could never find. The answer, in other words--as best I can describe--had been “downloaded” into my mind during my “abduction,” and left there for me to sort it out. Which against all odds I had done.

  So I awoke knowing that the identity of my “control,” the person I needed to complete our mission, was right in front of me, in the mysterious message I’d already received:

  Cooper.

  Of course. Perfect sense. It must be Cooper. All the stars aligned. Why else would Gordon Cole have sent him here? Maybe Cooper wasn’t yet fully aware of the whys or wherefores himself, but I’d learned by now that “chance” events often prove providential, convincing myself that Special Agent Dale Cooper would be the one with whom I’d carry on this work.

  I reached out to him that morning. Called his room at the Great Northern. No answer. I tried the sheriff’s station. Lucy informed me that Cooper had gone off with the sheriff the night before on some mission into the woods. Alarmed, I asked her to connect me by radio to them. She did so. Truman wouldn’t reveal the purpose of their trip over the air, but told me that, once they’d arrived, Cooper had disappeared during the night. They had no idea where he’d gone and were still waiting for him. They were at a place not far from where Cooper and I had gone camping called Glastonbury Grove. That news, and a slight tremor in his tone, alarmed me beyond reason.

  I feverishly set to work at the LPA, preparing our elaborate “mayday” protocols. During my work that day I received a call from Truman telling me Cooper had finally returned to the same spot where he’d left them. He didn’t say what happened to him in the interim--I don’t think he knew--but they were taking him back to the Great Northern. Cooper said he needed rest.

  Greatly relieved, I asked Sheriff Truman to have Agent Cooper contact me at my home. As soon as I could manage, I wanted to share this dossier with him and present a full picture of what I’ve discovered. If he responded as I hoped he would, I’d take him to the LPA and share with him what I’d discovered.

  Only moments ago, while writing the previous passage, Cooper called, as I had requested. He’s on his way to the house right now--the bell just rang, he’s here. Betty is letting him in…

  12:05 PM MARCH 28, 1989

  He just left. Something’s wrong. The message holds the answer, just as I thought, but I’ve misinterpreted it. Protocols are in place. I must act quickly.

  I’m heading to the LPA alone.

  * M * A * Y * D * A * Y *

  1 Verified by Cooper’s notes that this camping trip and Briggs’s subsequent disappearance occurred—TP

  THE DOSSIER ENDS

  HERE

  FEDERAL BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION

  Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

  I don’t know what happened to either Major Briggs or Agent Cooper at this point. There are files on Briggs, at both the FBI and Air Force, and on Cooper, at the FBI, that are designated many levels above top secret. Out of my reach. I’ve taken my analysis as far as I can. My instructions are clear: I’m to turn over the dossier with my findings to the Director’s office and wait for their response. Deadlines are pressing.

  I’m guessing that if, and only if, they find my work to date acceptable they will have me begin breaking down the other data, which I have not yet seen.

  The rest is out of my hands. I’m still listed on the duty roster as “on assignment” but, as far as I can determine, have been removed from active service until that decision is reached. As Director Cole once told me, that time he took me out for coffee, a big part of this job—and, for that matter, life itself—is waiting for the right moment.

  —SPECIAL AGENT TAMARA PRESTON

  “THE OWLS MAY INDEED NOT BE WHAT THEY SEEM BUT STILL SERVE AN IMPERATIVE FUNCTION: they remind us to look into the darkness.”

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  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  The Secret History of Twin Peaks

  Copyright

  GRATEFUL ACKNOWLEDGMENT TO

  Bob Miller, Colin Dickerman, Ed Victor, Paul Kepple, Max Vandenberg, Bart’s Books of Ojai, John Broesamle, Bob Getman, Anthony Glassman, Stephen Kulczycki, Gary Levine, Marlena Bittner, James Melia, Elizabeth Catalano, David Lott, Vincent Stanley, Caleb Braate, David Correll, Dean Hurley, David Nevins, Rick Rosen, Ken Ross, Sabrina Sutherland … and David Lynch.

  This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

  THE SECRET HISTORY OF TWIN PEAKS.

  Copyright © 2016 by Mark Frost. All rights reserved.

  For information, address

  Flatiron Books, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.

  www.flatironbooks.com

  Front and back jacket images and title page image by Clifford B. Ellis, courtesy of Susan Yake • Case cover image of Great Horned Owl © Jean Murray • Inside jacket image “A Clearing Winter Storm” © William Toti • Calligraphy courtesy of Beth Lee • All images from Twin Peaks courtesy of Lynch/Frost Productions • Here: Masonic Master Mason Apron, 1855-1865, Reason Bell Crafft, Kentucky, Collection of the Scottish Rite Masonic Museum & Library, Gift of the Valley of Lowell in honor of Brother Starr H. Fiske, 32°, 85.6.2. Photograph by David Bohl. • Here: Image of the Meriwether Lewis monument courtesy NPS Photos • Here: Image of Shahaka (Sheheke or Big White, c. 1766-1812), Chief of the Mandans, by Saint-Memin courtesy of the New York Historical Society • Here: Edward Curtis’s photograph of Chief Joseph courtesy of the National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution/ Art Resource, NY • Here: Bronze statue of John “Liver-eating” Johnson courtesy of the Buffalo Bill Center of the West, Cody, Wyoming • Here: Image courtesy of the Grampound with Creed Heritage Project • Here : Use of Kenneth Arnold article and cover of FATE Magazine, Issue 1, courtesy of FATE Magazine • Here: Photograph of “three tramps,” Allen, William. [The “three tramps” being escorted to the Sheriff’s office], Photograph, November 22, 1963; (http://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth184799/ : accessed April 27, 2016), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, http://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting The Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza, Dallas, Texas • Here: Photograph of the smoke plume from the Tillamook Burn as seen from an aircraft, in August 1933. (Image: Library of Congress) • Here: Photograph of 1930s Man Standing in Field Holding Shotgun and Leash of Gordon Setter Dog by H. Armstrong Roberts/ClassicStock/Getty Images • Here: Photograph of L. Ron Hubbard seated at hi
s desk, courtesy Los Angeles Daily News Negatives, UCLA Library. Copyright Regents of the University of California, UCLA Library • Here: “Rocket Scientist Killed in Pasadena Explosion,” June 18, 1952, reproduced with the permission of the Los Angeles Times

  The Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available upon request.

  eISBN: 978-1-250-07559-8

  Our eBooks may be purchased in bulk for promotional, educational, or business use. Please contact the Macmillan Corporate and Premium Sales Department at 1-800-221-7945, extension. 5442, or by e-mail at MacmillanSpecialMarkets@macmillan.com.

  First Edition: October 2016