I am writing this diary in case someone, after me, is still alive and finds it.
2
It all started on a hot summer morning. About two weeks ago. The date no longer matters. If you are alive, you will be one of the few who have survived these two weeks and, therefore, you will know the date. The thick, dense, sticky mist was approaching the sea toward our menacing-looking homes. The people went out into the street to see such a "wonder" of nature. It was a spectacle, I admit. But I did not like that dense fog in the summer. It was coming towards us as if it were a giant wave, but of smoke. I was so frightened that I caught Alice and hid in the basement for several hours. When we left, everything had already passed.
Outside, in the street, there were people who had hanged themselves in the trees and others had shot themselves in the mouth. There were birds, hundreds of them crushed against the asphalt. There were still people who wandered insecure through the streets of the city. The animals did not have the habitual look, they had remained as absorbed in something that I could not see. Morrison's car crushed a dog as it drove down the street until it crashed into a tree. But the animal could have been saved and it continued in the middle of the road, that stifling summer afternoon.
3
It's been two days and I'm still driving. What we see is frightening: death everywhere, people lying on gutters, as well as animals. The Great Depression is everywhere. They do not feel like living. At this rate, in a few weeks, the earth will be free of all human beings and animals, at least in the northern United States of America, which is where I am now. I have to reach my brother Bob's house to use the long-range radio to ask for help, since the police do not answer, nor the emergency services.
4
At last we have reached the right place, my brother's house. It is empty, there is no trace of it, but I have found the radio. I still have hopes that my brother is still alive. I knew some of the Spanish, so if someone was on the other side, in the south, I might know.
I tuned in to the radio and heard a Latin voice, which more or less explained what I'm seeing. I wanted to talk to him, but I did not really know how the radio worked. In the end I could not with the damn thing, but one thing was clear, the fog had also reached South America.
5
I kept fighting with the radio and listened to several guys with a school Englishman explaining that there were dead everywhere and talking about the fog. For their accents, they were from Russia, Europe and the Middle East. Now he was sure that the catastrophe had reached the world level. I was terrified.
6
The days passed and the same picture continued. Now the voices spoke of a second pass, this time of mist, which had the same effect on humans and animals. Alice, oblivious to everything, did household chores, for life continued somehow. We were in a safe house at the top of the mountain, refugees. But the batteries were already low. And the radio was chattering more than anything else. And then it was when I saw the mist approaching towards us. My brother's house had no subterranean shelter so I could explain the situation to Alice, so she could help me close doors and windows with frieze from the hardware store. We would hide under blankets, under the bed, and we would pray, if there is anything in this life.
7
Finally, the mist passed by, well, actually, passed by, but it's gone. When you left the hiding place, you had the feeling that it was over. You did not feel like living. You were in a great depression. I still have the strength to write this piece, before Alice and I make the terrible decision.
If you find this diary, look a little lower, towards the cliff, and you will find us... Oh, my God, where is my brother Bob.
The Photocopier
"How bad is nature sometimes, eh?"
There was a sudden murmur and suddenly they seemed more active than they had almost all night. Although there were less than three hours left for dawn, the guard still had time to tell a few more stories. Just a few. It had been a long night, and the weariness was noticeable on her face, but not on the face of the guests, who were still as strong from the beginning.
"Now I'll tell you what happened with a rather odd copier." So strange that it worked without electricity. The watchman glanced sideways at Shelley, knowing she had caught the hint. At first as a breakdown soon the photocopies were full of mystery and terror and of course, death. This is a very macabre and strange story. The strangest of all but it happened in a certain university that I know...
He lowered his feet to the table and slid his ass into the soft armchair and his voice began to reverberate in the living room...
1
Portland is the second largest city in the state of Maine. And, since 1990, the Maine Institute of Art had become the point of attraction for students in the rest of the country. Victorian style. Some computer equipment was often purchased second-hand for budget reasons. And one of the things that had been achieved in that way was a large photocopier for the second floor. An HP Lajerjet C6030, with side trays and four paper cassettes, as well as automatic paper feeder, among other things. A photocopy machine, which worked well until, one day, the concierge of the institute took a photocopy some strange. He had a face drawn on one end of the paper, covering the text somewhat, since the image was very diffuse and difficult to distinguish, like a simple stain.
But that happened only once, in one of the copies, because he had no opportunity to make more photocopies. It was a Wednesday afternoon and Saturday they found him dead at home, jammed with a can of beer in a hand that held it so tightly that it doubled. To the side of the sofa, was the photocopy along with other more that had come out well. It was one of the latest Stephen King novels that had been illegally downloaded from the internet. The inspector ruled that it had been natural death, even though his eyes marked a thread of terror in its purest form.
And that's how it all started.
2
They supplanted the janitor and the photocopier remained in the same place, in a corner between two corridors, receiving in most cases the rays of sunlight that were sneaking through the window in front, so that the cleaners had to be made in depth his work by the dust that caught. But before the new concierge arrived on Monday, all the students lamented the loss of the same and how it had been so tragic, suddenly, a heart attack said some, other suffocation, and even drowned in their own vomit After a spectacular drunkenness they came to say the bad language. He who was a drunken drunk gave free rein to all possible imagination. But the days and weeks passed and everything was forgotten and more when the new concierge arrived. One of his tasks was to make photocopies to the teachers and to avoid, as far as possible, the abuse of the students when making photocopies.
"I'm the new concierge and my name is Ayrton," she told one of the students.
“Already! I need two copies, please.”
“It's okay. Two copies, on both sides?" The student was engaged in a conversation with one of her friends and the concierge had to whistle a little to get attention.
"Ah! Yes, on both sides.
"Okay, that's the way I like it, hahaha.
And that is how Ayrton spent most of the time, making photocopies, yes, controlled, there was a daily cap. The days went by normally and I already knew a good part of the students there. Until something new happened in him.
3
One of the copies came out with a blurred blur, blurring a face to one side of the page.
“And that? What is Mr. Ayrton?” Asked the pupil. His name was Jefferson, and we could say that he was one of them all. It did not stand out at all.
"I do not know, it's an inkblot. I'll make you a second copy," he said.
“Okay.”
But the second copy continued to show the stain on one side of the sheet. Maybe the photocopier had broken down.
"Wait, give me another folio, something else to photocopy," the concierge said, reaching out to pick it up. This time it has gone well, "he rejoiced," the photocopier is not broken then. Give me the old folio again.
"Have Mr. Ayrton."
And again came out with the same stain. The boy did not insist and took the defective copy. And on the third day something happened.
4
They found him dead in his bed, his eyes wide open, a sign that he had died in terror. The jaw tightened, biting his tongue, rigid all the features now white. Beside the nightstand the folio with the stain lay gently beside the lamp. The chief inspector ruled, once again, natural death, and that is what the autopsies revealed. A heart attack. It had no connection with the concierge's death a few weeks ago.
5
The fact was repeated about two more times and always when that stain appeared on the page. If you noticed, it was a disfigured face. This time it was Hielen and Ruth's turn. Two class friends. Both appeared in their houses, their eyes almost bloody open, panic-stricken. Natural death. But four cases in a row were no longer so normal. And in all of them the folio with the stain on one side. But neither the inspector nor the local police had listened to a role in the area of the facts. Until the review of events revealed that there was always a folio with such a stain. Could it be the mark left by the killer and everything would take an unexpected turn? The data did not match, there was nothing to suggest that there was a murderer. But he looked at those pages, they were all the same. A blurred, distorted and degenerate face on the side of the paper. It seemed very strange to him.
6
Alan was giving a review of the notes, when it came to the sheet of the stain. He stopped to look at her and, indeed, saw a face. He was half-lying on the bed and glanced at the spot-face. Suddenly, this started to move on paper and Alan was scared. Letting her fall into his lap. The stain widened and the paper became rigid as if it were a cardboard. The stain, as if in a boiling state, showed a part of what was a head coming out of the paper already in three dimensions, as if this were a hole. Alan screamed, but he was alone, so no one heard him. A head came out with white eyes, the complexion very pale and decomposed. Alan's heart was going to come out of his chest until his jaw was out of panic and terror. And then it was when he died of a sudden heart attack. Suddenly, the folio returned to being as it was before and fell to the ground, on the carpet.
7
The inspector took the photocopy of the carpet and neatly put it in a plastic bag.
"I want you to analyze this sheet," he said reluctantly.
"Yes, sir," someone answered in the crowd.
"I want data like fingerprints, DNA, everything."
The result of the forensic test soon became unveiled. He had Alan's footprints, the concierge's footprints, other footprints all of them classified without a history, that is, nothing that contrasted with a serial killer. The inspector had nothing. His hunch told him that this was a mark of a psychokiller, but he did not find anything about it, nor were the deaths due to asphyxiation, poisoning or any other reason, rather than a heart attack caused by autopsies from very brutal stress, panic. A cardiac arrest originated by an exceptional fear.
And yet he dismissed the idea of photocopied folios as scientific evidence. And he chose the interviews. The first one had to be with the concierge. Pale and almost trembling, he received it.
"What can I do for you, Mr. Inspector?" Her voice trembled.
"First of all, I want you to be honest with me. There have been several unexplained deaths, all of them closely related or of the same nature. But we do not seem to follow a serial killer. For a moment, I thought about the photocopies. He paused to think and added. But that's stupid. I'm not superstitious, I do not believe in weird things. But this is choking me.
“What can I do? Inquired the janitor.”
"Do you know how many times the photocopier has failed?"
"Yes, four or five times." That is little.
"But it coincides with the deaths."
“I know...”
"Can you get me a photocopy?" Asked the inspector, pointing to the photocopier that sat in a halo of sunlight.
“Yeah right. What do you want me to copy?”
“Whatever.”
The photocopy went well. Without stains.
"I said it was stupid!" The inspector boasted.”
“I do not understand you.”
"Well, I do not understand anything either. Thank you for your cooperation.
8
That night the concierge needed to make a few photocopies, so he would do them when the institute was empty. Nonsense, he came to think, because he was not stealing anything, just going to get some damn photocopies. Nothing else. But even so, he waited for them all to leave and to leave the quieter corridors than the monks' convent. He folded the side magazine and prepared to make a dozen photocopies, only twelve, the same ones that were made in a zip, but suddenly something caught his attention while he was collecting the copies in one of the side folders.
The photocopier was not plugged in. It will have batteries, he thought without the slightest knowledge of them. I DO NOT HAVE THE FUCKING BATTERIES. So the photocopies and the previous ones would have been made without electricity, something that frightened him suddenly, his cold skin and cold sweat ran through part of the body. And at that moment it was when he saw that one of the pages had a stain on the side. He took it and looked at it carefully, then let go of it and let it fall to the floor. It was a face she had seen there, a disfigured face. As soon as the folio touched the ground, it creased slightly and from the stain began to rise a head. Finally, it came out and they already appeared what they were shoulders. "HOLY GOD!" He thought, and he wanted to run, but a throbbing pain filled him from the center of his chest to his neck on the left. That was a heart attack. And he fell to the ground, the inert body slammed into a clunky, clumsy clap.
9
The next day, the cleaner gave the alarm and within half an hour the inspector was there. The local police took prints all over the place and analyzed the area of the incident. Interrogatories aside. Suddenly, and paying heed to the pagan conjectures, "in what he did not want to believe," he made a photocopy of one of the leaves he had taken from there to compare it, in case the famous stain came out. And yes, it came out identical to the one he found on the floor and then he noticed something. There was an unplugged plug in the base.
"This plug is from the photocopier?" He asked a local policeman. He looked closely at the cable and nodded.
"Yes sir, it's the photocopier." Why sir?
“You are welcome!” Interrupted the inspector, pale as a freshly painted wall. It was turning gray at first to turn white.
OH MY GOD, I’M GONNA BE THE NEXT ONE!
The Shortcut On the Goat’s Slope
"Some way of finding death, eh?"
Those present murmured something. The guard at the castle was bloodless, but it seemed as if he had drawn something of interest from those strange guests, but known to all lovers of terror and fear.
“I am happy. Looks like this is working. Nothing is going to dawn and the storm will subside and all of you will return to your place. And meanwhile, I have a penultimate story to tell before I get mad.” The watchman's finger circled his temple. “The story that follows is somewhat mysterious with a final surprise. Who was going to tell those boys what was going to happen to them on that road, on the slope of the goat as it is known in the village. There are times that you have to pass quickly or slowly if you do not want to be involved in a crazy story. What happened to those happy young people can happen at any time, anywhere.
Outside the cry of the low wind but still remained in the corners and the snow accumulated copiously adding a greater weight on the eaves that threatened to collapse. Especially the west wing, where the wind was blowing more intensely. In the crystals, the snow stopped crashing so wildly and now it was in poor spells. There was little time left. I would tell this story and a story before dawn and perhaps, just maybe I would hear the howl of the lost wolf again.
"It was during a night when young people entered an unknown dimension..." And his voice filled the
empty room.
1
The highway ended in the village, after that there was only the sea. Through the mountain you could round the place and go out in any direction without touching the sea, in other directions, and one of them was the goat's slope. The road was stony and partly paved as well, but the works were not yet finished. So you had to be very careful with speed. Although this last one could be due to the great amount of curves that existed since everything was a mountain to surround in height and later to lower it almost in chopped up to appear in another town without having to go through the controls of the local police in The main avenue of the village.
Gale, the girl, Jim and Mack were in the car completely drunk driving the latter. The chanting of nonsensical songs followed one another in the back of the car, and Mack tattooed without order on the steering wheel as the wheels of the car skimmed the roadway rather than rolled. Under the control of alcohol everything seems safer, when, in fact, it is not. You are occupying two lanes and you think you are going through a slope like a daredevil doing a feat.
Later, on the freeway, at one end of the right, duly marked, there was a broken vehicle. The driver was waiting for the crane to take it away and was well away from the car, smoking a cigar in the middle of the night, fresh and clear. You could see the full moon clearly.
Mack barely glimpsed what those lights were, if he saw them clearly in the distance, but as he approached them. His busy mind now by the hallucinations of alcohol did not allow him to think clearly, so he did not lower his foot off the accelerator. In any case, it would not stop and pass through the left side of the lights. But here is what happened that must never happen and what happens.
The Warden of the Castle Page 12