Events from “Pit Stop”

Notes by Anthony

Zachary clicked on the voice recorder he’d stuffed into Ben’s backpack. A faint whirring joined the huming light fixtures and rattling pipes in the Gallaudet library study room he’d hidden himself in for a few moments before dawn. The headphones were itchy on his ears and the headband pressed almost too tightly against his skull. It reminded him of the radio station. It was perfect. Zachary took a deep breath into whatever passed for lungs in his chest.

“Dear listeners, it’s been a while, I know. Apologies for the lack of communication these past few days. Nights. I’ve learned a lot of things I can’t exactly tell you about yet. Fate of the world, and all that. But let me catch you up on the events of the past evening and refer you to some of my written work if you’re a little lost. Turns out old DJ Prophet and DJ Ben Jammin are going multimedia with this tale. Whatever works best to tell the story in its fullness of time.

“It is Sunday evening, December 4th in the spooky basement library of Gallaudet University. Turns out Cedric, a well-dressed man of indeterminate age with a pencil-thin mustache, is the grandsire of the seer who made the murals. The family tree is thusly Jinx, childe of Prentiss, childe of Cedric, childe of Joan. George asked Cedric about the murals Jinx made, as they resembled many of my visions. Cedric said that Jinx is a seer, but does not yet know her own power, and her family must stay back and let it grow naturally lest they taint her gift. That seemed well and fine for Jinx but given that the end of the world was nigh, I asked Cedric what he could tell me about my own mystic kindred powers. 

“Turns out, quite a lot! The connections to other Malkavians I had accessed by mirrors are called the ‘cobweb,’ and I joined Cedric in his spider’s den to practice my powers. It was a Turkish bath, steam rising from pools of water between broad pillars. Cedric told me that all of our powers rely on the manipulation of the mind, rather than the world around us. The power that Joan used to hide us in Old Town Alexandria is called ‘Obfuscate,’ and I can use it to become invisible by tricking all the people that would otherwise see me with their eyeballs into not seeing me by disrupting the connection between the optic nerve and the brain. Similarly, the Voice I had to calm Ben down is called ‘Dominate,’ and it can be used to rewrite a person’s own history. A whole family of four can forget that they ever knew one another. Cedric’s child, Prentiss, did that one. Let me tell you, listeners, I do not want to use my powers to do something like that. 

“Cedric had me try and change the layout of his web. I was unsuccessful, at first, until I started telling him about the radio station. You should have seen me, standing in a Turkish steam bath, and chattering on and on about the hum of the breakroom coffee machine and the acrid, comforting smell of its terrible hotel coffee, the noise-cancelling foam pads that line the walls and squish softly beneath my feat, the hard plastic of the sound board and the one button that catches after I spilled a half a bottle of coke onto it about one year into my tenure at WRXL 102.1 FM and just about had a heart attack. But low and behold, I was there. Nearly wept from nostalgia. Had I only been there four nights ago? 

“Cedric said that the cobweb is a dimension all our own, and only Malkavians can enter it without going mad. Not even Ben, as he is still human despite the influence of my blood on his dreams. We broke off the connection and returned to the library. Cedric told me of another power, then. One called “Inner Image.” To make it work, I have to convince someone that I am the person they expect to see. For example, Cedric gave me the library card of a young woman named ‘Julia Frothington,’ a student at Gallaudet. If I were to hand the card to a librarian and say: “this is my card,” I could find the image of the person they expected to see in their mind and look just like them! Not only that, but their mind would remember that I had always looked like that person. Works best on one person at a time. 

“According to Cedric, what we see is not the truth, but merely refracted light processed by our eyes and interpreted by our brains. Our powers interrupt the signal and substitute in what the brain expects to see for what it is actually receiving from the optic nerve. I asked if Cedric had been a doctor, and he said he had been, but far before our modern medicine. He seemed surprised at this observation, and I told him he made this magical stuff seem like a science. He told me that magic, for all intents and purposes, was just science that hadn’t been explained yet. 

“To practice, I told Ben that this was my library card, and to George and Ben, I looked just like a college-aged girl! In the mirror, I still looked just like my 32-year-old male self, but tried to act the part as I flounced across campus to the library. I’d had a hunch, you see, dear listeners. The Temple was, or would, be located in a green field soaked in blood. I wanted to get into the Gallaudet University library so I could look up the locations of Revolutionary War and Civil War battles near Alexandria. We got in using my Julia disguise, though I wasn’t able to use sign language with the campus security. Forgot this was a school primarily for deaf & hard of hearing students! Fortunately, my social faux pas didn’t sink our little adventuring group, and we entered without real incident. 

“Both Ben and I hit on The First and Second Battle of Bull Run, which is a river in Manassas. Can you believe, listeners, that during the First Battle people from the town had picnics close to the planned battle to watch? I guess folks would do just about anything to get new entertainment in those days. When the Union forces retreated, the roads were blocked by panicked civilians trying to flee. Almost 500 died on the Union side, and 400 on the Confederate. It was the turning point for both sides, as they realized that this war could not be won with a single, decisive battle, but would be longer and more brutal than any in known memory. In the Second Battle, it was far, far worse. Over a thousand killed on each side, and 22,000 casualties in total. 

“It was as good a lead as anything so far. I suppose the past few days I had relied on other people to tell me where to go next, when I wasn’t just fleeing for my life. First, it was telling me to share the vision of the flesh monster in New York City over the radio. Then, it was Club Euphonia and seeing Desirée and Thaïs on the second floor. Then, it was the Mekhetim Night City that led Joan to tell him to find Nikolai and Samal. Now, I’m in a university library surrounded by very competent and accommodating vampires, and I had no clear idea what to do next. If you have any insight, dear listener, please find a way to phone it into us. 

“We slept, and this time I had to wake George up from a nightmare. I tried to do what Ben does for me and use my voice to ground him in reality. He described it as a similar nightmare as the one before, with the seven-eyed and many-winged girl dragging him and others to hell. Our robes weren’t coated in blood, so we folded those up for later and dressed in our normal clothing. While we slept, Ben had called Patricia from a University payphone. Apparently, new management had taken over and cancelled our show and were playing pre-recorded content. George suspected that it might be a kindred faction in the government who had gotten wind of our prophecies and quashed the potential masquerade breach. 

“In lieu of a better prophecy or lead, we asked Cedric for a car, and he obliged us with a very nice Mustang. George drove, given that Ben and I are way more accustomed to stick-shift clunkers. Dear listeners, I must sincerely apologize for the top 100s shit WRXL FM 102.1 are playing during our usual missives to you. I could only listen to that but for a few minutes during our drive before switching to the news in disgust. Apparently, there are big IMF protests happening in DC tomorrow evening. I shouldn’t be surprised that the world keeps spinning without me. I had half expected everything to stop and hold its breath in anticipation for the end of the world. Fuck, I’m officially late on rent, aren’t I?

“We made it to Manassas, where I used Inner Image to convince the janitor locking up that I was a park ranger doing a final check-up from management. While the dioramas and informational panels were interesting, nothing triggered the entity in my head to light up a neon arrow to the next important location. Even wandered through the fields. Thought I felt eyes watching me. Wisps of something hard to see lurking in the grass. Screams echoing in my mind. But nothing concrete. Nothing that told me about the Temple or how to avert the end of the world. Frustrated and tired, we decided to drive back to DC. 

 “We stopped for gas at a Freddie’s station somewhere in Fairfax. Dear listeners, I cannot stress to you enough to make sure your car is filled up before entering Fairfax county. As I sat, a Fat Man sauntered by in a skimpy outfit, whistling to himself. Now, don’t misunderstand me here. I would not normally judge how a homeless man dresses or carries himself, let alone someone’s physical size. However, I know not to wear a small tube top and spandex in the middle of winter while pushing a grocery cart filled with barbie dolls down a highway in the middle of the night. I looked at him with my aura vision and saw two things. One: the Fat Man was not human and not vampire. Two: it was hungry. I asked for George to just drive on by, terrified that the Fat Man would notice me notice it and do something. George asked what it was whistling, and the thing just smiled and kept walking. A barbie dropped from its cart, and when it got some distance away George and I went to check. It was naked, with X’s through its eyes. I told Ben to stay in the car where it was safe, and we went to follow it. I won’t lie, dear listeners, I was mentally begging for George to turn back with every step. 

“We followed it to a row of condemned houses, and it rummaged through a thick ring of keys before entering. George and I both used our powers of Obfuscate to hide, but I quickly realized this meant we could no longer communicate with each other. I walked around the house and found the back door was unlocked, and quietly slipped through. It was the start of a horror movie, dear listeners. There were pictures on the walls of little girls. Six to ten years old, maybe? They were terrified. All were taken at night in the dark, with the same wood paneling in this house as the background. Above, a record cassette began to play circus music. I spied a locked basement door and, well, I’ve seen too many horror movies to miss that clue. I went upstairs and bumped into George at the end of the hall. Well, bumped is the wrong word. It hurt my brain to try and interact with him without breaking either of our invisibilities. The Fat Man sat naked in a swing except for a pink tutu. Fat tendrils reached from beneath the tutu and lazily slithered along the walls. There were buckets of stinking dark liquid, and in one a small human ear bubbled to the surface. I had no idea what George was doing. Hopefully pulling together enough magic powers to kill this thing. But that couldn’t be my priority. If anyone was still alive in the basement, I had to know. I had to save those kids. 

“I snuck into the room and stole the key ring from the spandex pants he’d left on the floor. I crept downstairs and unlocked the basement door. It was pitch black, and I could just see nails and sharp pieces of glass sticking out of the walls and steps. Little, bloody handprints lined the walls and staircase. I made it downstairs, and dear listeners, it was as I feared. Four girls lay trapped in tiny animal cages. Tiny bowls filled with milk lay just outside each cage. Upstairs, the CD skipped, and I heard a strange, thick swallowing sound, followed by the Fat Man making its way downstairs and singing:

“Little Bunny Foo Foo / Hopping through the forest / Scooping up the field mice / And Bopping them on the Head”