Preface
The following journals were originally hand written by a man named Jack Moore. I have no relation to the man, nor did I ever know him in life. Rather, I found these journals in a rusted metal box in the sands of the Oregon coast. The pages were damp and some of the ink had smeared, but somehow it was still for the most part legible.
I’ve taken it upon myself to transcribe Jack Moore’s journals from the hand written pages to typed pages so that others might find enough information within them to find Jack Moore’s whereabouts and how to save him and the others from their plight. I have taken the liberty of editing the journals to be more legible and more easily readable for the average reader. I do have the journals in their original form, but they are often extremely difficult to decipher, hence this being such a long and arduous project.
To this day I continue to find other metal boxes buried in the sands of the Oregon coast containing more journal entries written by Jack Moore, some strangely describing the same days in different ways. If you happen to visit the Oregon shores please do us a favor and keep your eyes on your feet, you may discover something of great importance.
If we all work together we may be able to rescue Jack Moore and the other survivors, which is why, my friend, I’m dedicating a large portion of my life to transcribing his journals. Now it’s your turn to pitch in on the effort
Jack Moore Journal Entry #1 (version 3)
My name is Jack Moore. I lived at 153 Herman Street, Dallas Texas. I’m thirty years old. I don’t know how I got to where I am and I still don’t know exactly what the hell this all is. All I know is that I need your help if you’re somehow reading these words.
I’m not sure what kind of information you’ll be able to get from this, but I figure it couldn’t hurt to tell you about the day before it all happened. Maybe you’ll find some of the things you read on these pages familiar, or maybe you’ve heard of the same things happening to someone else. I don’t know. I really don’t know if this is even worth it. But I have to try because as far as I can tell no one else is doing it and all that writing this insanity down can do is help, I think. Keep in mind I’m writing this long after the day you’re going to read about occurred, while most of the pages you’ll read in my journals (if you found the rest) I’ve written during the same day or night that whatever events described had happened. I’ll try to write as well as I can and make as much sense as I can under the circumstances. Luckily I’ve always been a little compulsive about writing down my days, so doing this comes naturally. If you somehow found these pages please share them with the world. We all need your help more than you can imagine.
And if you have truly discovered these pages, please give the following messages:
To my Mother: you were always an inspiration, always a soothing voice to keep me sane. I wish I could have had your wise words to guide me through these dark times. I love you Mother, with all my heart.
To my Father: your entrepreneurial spirit always inspired me to work hard to achieve my dreams. My motivation and self discipline I attribute to your life and lessons given. I only wish we could have spent more time together.
To my Lily: you know you can always call me Daddy, no matter what Jennifer says. I love you baby girl, thinking of you kept me going all the days I was in this place.
Day 0
I woke up around two PM, my usual routine, sadly enough. It was January 26th 2008 if I remember correctly. There was something strange about that day right off the bat. I felt like I was in sort of a dream like trance. Nothing seemed quite as real as it should have. My queen sized bed felt like a static magnet pulling all the hairs on my body towards it. The ceiling seemed a little higher than it did before. The lights were brighter. I don’t know how to explain it. Maybe I was still half asleep. Maybe it was all a God damn dream. But I did what I usually did, shrugged it off and made myself a pot of coffee.
While the coffee was brewing I stood there staring at it. I watched how there was more steam rising from the coffee maker than there should have been. I watched how the coffee itself was almost a yellowish brown. Rubbing my eyes didn’t put things back to normal, but I kept trying anyways. But my black curtains, they were as normal as ever, blocking out every electron that dared try to enter my condo. You know, I often admitted to myself that those black curtains were my first step towards true agoraphobia, and yet I kept them closed anyways. Hey, at least I wasn’t in denial right?
For some reason I drank the yellow-brown coffee, and for some reason I sat on the stool that sank two feet lower than where it was the day before. I suppose I was convinced that it was all a dream or that I was still half asleep.
I decided to check the mailbox. I threw on my gym shorts, threw on a t-shirt and made the bold move of opening the front door. I descended the stairs and had to cover my eyes at the abnormally bright sun. The air had a taste to it that I’m not sure how to describe. But the mailbox was still there, gray and rusted and waiting.
As I walked towards the mailbox a black form was caught in the corner of my eye. I turned to look down the sidewalk to see a man in a black suit, with black shoes and black hair, staring at me with arms folded and legs spread. His stance was more than serious, it felt hostile. I gave a timid wave towards him and he didn’t respond. In fact, the only movement he made was his head and eyes following me as I walked closer to the mailbox. It might have been the sun playing tricks on me, but his eyes looked to be two enlarged black pupils with a complete lack of corneas. Needless to say I turned around and sprinted up the stairs.
After securing all three locks on my front door I collapsed in front of my computer, determined to finally find and eliminate the elusive bug that had been haunting my code. I opened all of the source files and did my usual scanning over the familiar blocks of code. It must have been the thousandth time I searched for that damn bug. Being an independent software developer had its perks, but when there were bugs as serious as that one I couldn’t release my product, and when I couldn’t release my product I couldn’t make money, and there were plenty of damn bills to pay.
Despite the blackness of my curtains I could see them glowing with the white light from the sun. There was a serious need for some natural light in the room, so I decided to open the curtains. The rings clattered together as I pushed the curtain to the left side of the window and let the sunlight invade through the glass. My eyes quickly squinted in reaction.
After my eyes adjusted I saw someone in the distance, or something, a form comprised of nothing but black. It had the shape of a human, but after all I’ve been through I’m not exactly sure what I saw that day. It stood there on the sidewalk two blocks away, shadowed arms by its sides and lightless legs locked together. It stood there facing exactly towards my direction, and somehow I knew it was staring directly at me. No, I could feel it staring at me.
I had gone back to bug hunting in my code. I was convinced it was some bad memory allocation in one of my functions, but for the life of me I couldn’t find what function was causing the problem. To my left the phone cradle blinked in red with three new messages waiting. Without thinking I pressed the play button.
“Hey babe—it’s me. I really wish we could talk things over. He’s gone now, we’re done. I wish you would answer your phone. I miss you,” the female voice said through the machine. It was Jennifer; ex fiancé, ex best friend, ex love of my life. She left me for her yoga instructor. Can you believe that? Her fucking yoga instructor. For two years she assured me that I was the love of her life. Apparently that was only the truth so long as she didn’t meet some prick that could touch his heels with his nose.
But whenever I heard Jennifer’s voice, I thought of the girl I really missed: Lily. That was Jennifer’s daughter, and mine. Well, if you want to get technical, she wasn’t actually mine, but I treated her like she was nonetheless. Lily would call me Daddy, but Jennifer didn’t want her to. Jennifer never seemed to like the idea of me and Lily getting too attached. She never gave me a reason.
I deleted the message and the next one started to play.
It was white noise. It sounded like a radio between stations. In the static noise I could hear voices, severely muffled, having some kind of conversation. I squinted my eyes in confusion and tilted my head closer to the answering machine trying to discern some of the words, and just as the static background noise was becoming loudest it was suddenly replaced with complete silence. Then, a voice deep with age and rumbling with gravel in its throat said a sentence that to this day I still don’t understand:
“And for now the paradox is there.”
Then silence.
Then, all at once, the silence was replaced with a painful, high pitched sound, like a siren. I hit the stop button and sat there staring at the machine in bewilderment with fear tingling up my legs. I tried to theorize and reason, and eventually came to the conclusion that I had somehow picked up a cell phone conversation on my answering machine. But now, after all I’ve been through, I think that muffled conversation was something much more important, something that I wasn’t supposed to hear.
After I became secure in my explanation that it was just a cell phone call I hit the next button and the last message started to play.
“Hey it’s me again, I—”
I hit the delete button.
My mind was twisting with a mixture of fear, confusion and anger. I tried turning back to my monitor screen, idly and patiently displaying the code I had read a thousand times before, but I couldn’t concentrate. I stood from my chair and walked to the window ablaze with the white light beaming from the sun. Hell, at that point my body was probably desperate for the vitamin D.
In the distance, still waiting there, still staring, was the shadowed form standing straight backed on the sidewalk. It hadn’t moved an inch.
My gut churned with fear as I looked at the silhouette in the distance, and that’s when the walls started to change.
The granulated texture of my bare white walls started shifting. Bumps and shapes moved around each other, swimming in an impossible sea of white paint. They scattered and rushed around each other like a colony of insects. I took a couple steps backwards.
My heart was pounding against my chest.
Turning I saw the lingering steam from the coffee maker begin to swirl and stretch, lathering countertops and corners, reaching for me like a morphing hand. I backed into a corner, closed my eyes and began assuring myself it was all a dream. I bit my bottom lip and dug my fingernails into my palms. That usually did the trick.
I felt a searing heat against my left cheek. Reluctantly I opened my eyes.
The tips of my fingers were beginning to feel numb. I lifted up my hands in front of my face to see that they were melting. The pink, liquid skin ran down my arms like candle wax as the melting process reached my knuckles. The pressure in my chest went up to my throat and I released my scream.
But before my scream was over the world turned to black. That is where my normal life ended, and my life in this endless hell began. That is when I became trapped in this place full of rotting fucking corpses, corpses that want me dead, want me with them. This is the place called Xapador City, the place where I’m convinced I’m going to die, but maybe you can help us. Please, whoever is reading these words, read everything we write, read every direction we give. I’m getting tired of sending out letters begging for help, but sometimes it feels like it’s all we’ve got. Please, wherever you are, whoever you are, get us out of Xapador City and bring us home, bring us to the people we love before it’s too late.
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