They found the stone rolled away from the tomb. Then they went in and did not find the body…as they were afraid and bowed their faces to the earth, they said to them, “Why do you seek the living among the dead?”
—Luke 24:2–5
From the diary entry of Mr. Frederick Thomas (undated):
I am lost.
This thing that has hold of me will never rest. I understand that all too well now. It is after something I cannot hope to know, but I must try to hold it at bay, if for no other reason than to spare others’ suffering. For I have no doubt that suffering will come, more than I might imagine now. And yet the sound of its voice is like honey, its seduction all-powerful. Promises too dark and wonderful to speak aloud are but an arm’s length away.
There is something I must mention. Just two nights past, I discovered a most disturbing and yet fascinating passage in a rare dark book called Necronomicon, and another in a book with the title which, translated from the Latin, means Book of the Worm. According to these two volumes, there exists the possibility of certain black miracles that must remain unnamed, even here. These passages are written in the old tongue, and are cryptic and quite puzzling, but they raise the strangest thrill in me, which I am unable to explain. The rituals described may only be performed on the first of May, when according to the books the spirits will be restless, and moving about when things are set in motion.
I am horrified by what these rituals suggest, and yet the ideas will not leave my conscious thoughts. For who, faced with the possibility, would not want to live forever?
And yet my head is filled with the most confusing din. So I remain, unable to act, unable even to move from my place at my desk. There are terrible noises in the walls and below the floor, scratchings and ominous thuds, that no rat or even squirrel would make; sounds that send a chill down my spine, and bring to mind horrible thoughts. I wonder what sorts of things I have been doing all those hours when I had thought I was tucked safely in my bed.
That is all. Now I must rest, while the daylight, such as it is, still graces the window of my study, and the dark man is at bay. I write all this not to prove my own sanity, but to provide a record in case it is needed. Also, perhaps, to cleanse my own mind of the burdens it has found too heavy to carry in silence.
If someday you read this, Hennie, I can only hope it is not too late for you to run from me, for I have had premonitions of a terrible sort. And yet still I cannot bring myself to warn you, for as I have said I am weak, and no match for the powers of darkness.
The devil has found me. I pray only for an end to this sudden and horrible madness. May God save my soul.