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05/06/09
06:20:00
I woke from a restless sleep. No dreams or nightmares but just a sheer horror at a universe that was not what I’d imagined. Captain said he figured I was sick since I couldn’t be roused and just shook and sweat. I asked where we were and cap said we were racing back towards the coast of Somalia. The destination shook me out of some of my stupor – “are you mad.” “Monkey wants to go to the coast of Somalia and he’s paying the bills. Besides, sooner we get him and his stinking thing off the ship the better we’ll all sleep.” The mention brought my terror back and I asked the captain about the tarp – trying to maintain the illusion that I had not really seen what I thought I had seen. “No idea what it is – its hot, really hot and giving off a high peak of radiation but the tarps he has it under are lead lined so we won’t be too bad off. No one has seen it but everyone just wants it as far away as possible.” I knew what he meant.
“But Somalia? What about pirates?” the last thing I figured we’d need now was a hijacking
24:00:00
Midnight and I couldn’t sleep. The thing under the tarp just kept pulling at my brain. What the hell was it? I feared it more than I’ve feared anything – and I’ve seen many a fearsome thing at sea and on land – but I had to see it just once more.
I slipped out of my cabin and down the ladders towards the hold. The only guard was Johannsen and he was standing with his head stuck out the porthole – probably trying to get fresh air away from the stench of the thing under the tarp. Engines on full and a rough sea so no one could hear me slip past and quietly into the storage area.
There it was. Heat was real – even in the cool night the thing gave off a physical heat that made me remember the radiation warning. Still, I had to see. I slipped forward and grasped the edge of the tarp and pulled hard – knowing that if I tried to reveal it slowly I might be overwhelmed again and my nerves fail.
Again the puking and again the dizziness but this time they passed more quickly . The thing was large – probably 10 or 11 feet and roughly humanoid. Muscles beyond compare and in places that didn’t make sense – arms seemed to be double jointed and it had long claws at the ends of its enormous fingers. Its face was more skull than face and teeth were sharp and savage. Its eyes were closed but sunken in and I could tell it wasn’t moving. On its enormous chest were two wounds. One on the right side seemed to have healed fairly well though is still looked horrific but the one on the left was still open. There was no blood but I could see that the flesh under the unworldly grey skin was an unnatural black with just a hint of wretched green. I began to lose myself into the wrongness of it – the feeling that this thing did not belong in a universe like ours when I smelled the sharp scent of sulphur and heard the sharp crack of a match being struck.
I whirled to see the monkey – red glowing eyes above the glowing red of his cigarette. He stared at me blankly but once again I felt the awful realization that he was going to kill me. He sat and took a long drag on his cigarette but said nothing. My eyes returned to the thing half revealed and so wrong.
“What is it?” I blurted out though I hadn’t really planned to speak. The monkey laughed a low guttural laugh and took another long drag. “IT,” he paused and snorted out a long stream of smoke “is the bringer of pain and misery and destruction and humiliation.” He sat for awhile as if satisfied and then after another long drag on his cigarette, “but to the chosen few, it is the bringer of glory. . . and IT is not finished.”
We stayed silent for what seemed a very long time and I felt my guts churning up another pint of bile and I swear to god somewhere in the distance over the engines and the sea I heard something like a wolf howl. The monkey turned and looked at me – cold and hardness retuning to those angry red eyes. “I will tell you this only one more time – go.” I left.
06/06/09
0:2:14:00
Alarms sounded. Quick note before getting to my sidearm. Pirate ships pulled up along both port and starboard. Men returned fire but rocket-propelled grenades have blasted most of them off the deck. Monkey nowhere to be seen but I know in my heart he is responsible.
[This was the last entry. The diary itself is in storage on the USS Eisenhower but it is badly burned and waterlogged by now. We await further instructions.]
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