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Culture Documents
particularly thick. During these months, when the weather is thirty below or colder,
walk to the very end of The Street, to the cul-de-sac. Between a large, ill kept lot
and a house from the early eighties you will find an ill-kept bike path. Though it was
once paved, the roots of the trees that line it have rendered the pavement bumpy
and impassable for cyclists.
Walk to the end of the path and climb down the rain-water outflow at the bottom,
then cross the ice to one of the island-like patches of scrub and small rock. Look for
a damaged, dingy little shack made from water damaged wood and corrugated tin.
If you fail to find it , move on to the next pile of rocks, and then the next, until
eventually you find the small structure. When you do, hold your hand up to th door.
It will either be very cold or very hot to the touch. Neither is truly fortuitious, but
youll be dressed for the cold and so it will be easier to weather.
When you step inside the shack, you will find that it is empty other than a small boy
who hanged from the roof by a hastily tied noose. His clothing will not be
contemporary, rather it will be aged and ragged to the point of anonymity, unlike
the boys perfectly preserved body. After a time, his eyes will open, and the rotted
out sockets will stare into your eyes. Do not blink, do not look away, do not even
move. The rooms temperature will grow more extreme during the hours-long
moment you spend looking into those holes. And then they will close.
From that moment on, you will not feel the temperature anymore. Any temperature
at all. Nor will you get burns, frostbite, heat stroke or hypothermia.
a valued component of the secret history. Leave before the funeral is done, and just
like in those old Greek stories: never eat anything anyone offers you.
wall by putting a mirror and a couch up against it. However, if you remove both the
couch and the mirror, you'll discover the wall's pale yellow tone. This is of no
consequence, however, if you have come unequipped. In order to make use of
phenomena #9, you will need a small jar of hazelnut oil.
Paint the outline of a door on the wall using the oil, and then push. The door you've
drawn will open inward into a room with walls made from stucco that's been painted
the same sickly yellow as the wall you passed through. The room appears to be a
spartanly furnished study with furniture that puts you in mind of the South Sea
Islands. On the desk you will find numerous papers written on the letterhead of the
Dominion Bank, dated 1912. The papers predict every financial crash worldwide
from 1912 until twenty years from now, when the predictions abruptly stop mid
sentence.
redoing the interior to remove any signs of its previous usage. During this process
the owner discovered that the house has a set of sixteen plaques depicting the
stations of the cross hidden behind the wall paper. This is a problem, as there are
only fourteen stations.
The owner removed them and placed them in the then-unfinished homes
basement. They remain there to this day, although the owner passed away earlier
this year. If you wish to find them, arrange a viewing of the house with the real
estate agent who the family of the previous owner has tasked with selling it. He will
lie extensively about the house and its pedigree, and he will deny the existence of
the stations in the basement.
Wait until he has left you alone in the houses main room and sneak into the
basement. When you find the fourteen wooden plaques, you have until he comes
down and finds you to place them in the correct order, substituting the two
additional plaques into the story of the crucifixion. If you arrange them correctly,
you will feel a wave of warmth cross over you and your death will be followed by an
earthly resurrection as reward for your pilgrimage.
Four of these buildings are part of the city's actual water treatment system. They
contain pumps that push the city's water through thin grilles made from human
bone. The calcium from these bone filters is why Calgary's water is so often hard.
The filters clean the water not only of contaminants, but of the city's collective sin
for its involvement in the oil industry. The other two are shacks that contain taps.
One of these buildings is where the filters are installed when they're full. The water
from the tap passes through all of the filters and emerges brackish and foul.
Drinking it, however, is the only way to permanently purify the city's soul. The other
building contains a tap that dispenses water so pure that any scars, mutations,
cancers or birth defects will vanish.
Unlike other numbers stations, this one can only be picked up by the hi-fi, and it is
the only station the hi-fi can pick up. It comes in crystal clear no matter what is
going on, although there is rarely anything to hear. If you are ever tapped to take
over the onerous duty of listening, you will have to know what to listen for. The
station consists of a single voice repeating the following phrase: nine nine nine
(beat) nine nine nine nine over and over again. The voice, which has been
variously described as a small boys, an old womans, a baritone opera singers and
a gravelly rasp, reads the phrase ceaselessly without stopping for breath.
Sometimes though, a single number in a single repetition of the phrase is different.
When this happens, walk, dont run, walk into the hall closet. You will find a rotary
telephone with the receiver off the hook. Lift it and repeat the phrase. Then wake
your partner and begin to pray.
Ebola, Rubella, SARS, hell pick something nasty for wasting his time. You wont die
of whatever he gives you. Instead, youll be damned to wander the earth spreading
it.
If youre ill, however, hell tell you it will clear up on its own by the end of the week.
It will, as will any chronic pain or other long-term conditions. From that day on, no
other doctor in the city will be willing to see you or even make eye contact.
inch, old, and the buttons are made of metal. They are also unmarked. The remote
works on any television set regardless of age or brand, but all the television shows
are strange and dated. If they had television in 1901, this is what the programs it
played would look like. Like old films, theyre interspersed with cards transcribing
dialogue and providing context.
Despite this, the footage appears documentary in nature, focusing on major events.
As you continue watching, the shows will gradually move forward in years, depicting
more events. Around 1920, these will start to become unfamiliar, occasionally the
names or places will be wrong. By 1935, with a few exceptions, they will be utterly
unrecognizable. The footage ends in 1948, with a strange variation of the Nazi
German flag blowing in the wind atop a pile of rubble in a desolate wasteland.
store every day for a week and ask for an array out outlandish products. Vinyl
nighties, cardboard stocking and high heeled shoes full of salt have all been
amongst the list of code words. Eventually youll hit upon the correct code word and
the clerk will admit you to the red room.
There is no space in the building for the red room. The place where it is should be
taken up by the kitchen of the Italian restaurant next door. The red room is a small
strip club, with only a half dozen seats inside and the brightest, shiniest red paint.
For the most part, the shows are very said and conventional, but be sure not to
attend on any night which belongs to a martyred saint. If you do, youll find out the
red room: The walls arent red. Its what theyre covered in.
atop the record. Read from the inside out. Each column of words names a location
and date.
Each date is the day after a rainfall in the year to come. At each of these locations
and times, you will find an envelope with a sentence of your obituary in it.
A hope chest is a small box or trunk given to young girls. The idea is that over the
course of their lives, they collect linens, baby things, crockery and pieces of
household decor to take with them when they get married. Its sort of a poor mans
dowry. I remember when my sister got hers... but Im wandering. You want to know
about the Hope Chest in the old house on the hill, up by the river, but youre too shy
to ask me. Dont want to be on the hook for another favour? Thats okay, boy, I like
you.
The hope chest measures about sixteen inches by twenty four inches by twelve
inches and is made from cedar, as was the custom at the time. The order was for an
art deco chest, this was the twenties you understand, before the house was even
built. The order was furnished promptly, and I added to the chest all the objects that
the customer ordered. Bottles of unguents, potent herbs and... allspice. He
requested that it be sewn into the cloth lining, which I of course indulged. I had no
idea of knowing who They were at the time. We thought they were just postwar
immigrants.
Insofar as I know he never opened the hope chest. Its a sort of a safety, you see.
The second it opens, everything inside is let out and, well, after this many decades
of fermentation... well, you know what they say about mutually assured
destruction? Im pretty sure that They could show them a thing or two about
assured destruction.
[Its signed Edward Ramsay De Cae With a bold, antiquated flourish]
Kitsch (#49)
On Edmonton Trail there is a diner of the type that was trendy about ten years ago.
You know, the kind that puts muesli in everything and has a DVD of old cartoons
running on a wood paneled television. The walls, like all diners of this type, are
practically dripping with kitsch. Mostly fifties and sixties stuff, although there are
some old Lohengrin post cards and the like. What makes this diner unique is that
every single piece of kitsch inside was used, in some way, to kill someone. There is
not a single object in that room which has not been, in some way, used for an act of
violence.
The post cards were love letters left out to inflame the rage of a jealous spouse. The
broken clock above the counter was used to brain a sewage worker in the late
seventies. Even the decorative infomercial knife set was once used in the torture,
murder and mutilation of a local gang member. What's more, if these objects are
placed atop the DVD player hooked up to the TV near the entrance, the picture on
the changes to the murder through the eyes of the victim.
This has made the diner popular amongst local Satanists and snuff fetishists who
view the murders after hours. However, the diner ran through its stock of deadly
kitsch last summer, and has since taken to commissioning new killings to decorate
the walls.
that its force of habit and refuse to talk about it any further. If you ask him why
they let him sleep inside, hell claim that he works there in some function and likely
tell you to mind your own business. If you want a straight answer, youll have to ask
him:
Why does the drive in run through so many staff?
But be careful. Its never wise for the fly to harass the spider.
certain death. On these days when it is safe, book a seat on a domestic flight and
travel to the dingy section of the airport terminals food court. Look for a small, dirty
counter where Italian food and pizza is sold. Tell the clerk that you left your bag in
the kitchen when you worked your last shift.
The clerk will accept this pretext and let you into the kitchen, as though you were in
fact a recently laid off employee. The kitchen, which is shared by all the franchises
in this corner of the terminal, is dominated by a staircase that leads up into the
blank roof. Climb it, and keep climbing when you reach the ceiling. You will emerge
in a vast and empty copy of the baggage claims downstairs, inhabited only by still
figures made of plaster.
Pilfer what you find valuable or notable from the baggage that is kept here, but only
take with you what fits in your carry-on bag and what will pass safely through
airport security. Larger or more conspicuous objects, such as the still-whispering
heads of saints or the monitors that show the state of your soul will have to be left
behind. Then leave, get on your flight and lay low for a time in another city. They
will soon find out what youve done, and theyll want their stolen property back.
If not removed promptly, the vase will make more water burn. Ice will melt, sweat
on the skin will begin to heat, and other more discrete forms of water will become
agitated. After around thirteen hours, water in the human body will begin to boil too,
killing whoever is in the home in short order as the water in their bodies boils off
and their skin is seared. After the vase has claimed a life, al the water immediately
condenses as if it had never evaporated.
To date, the vase has been used to assassinate sixteen prominent individuals,
including three members of parliament and five practitioners.
leave you unconscious, and your dreams will be of a pivotal event in the secret
history.
Never return to the shop. The tobacconist will make enquiries and discover that you
are not, in fact, entitled to his smoke.
Upon awakening, you will feel tired as if you havent slept. Any actions you took in
your dream will play themselves out in whatever locale you dreamed of over the
next twenty-four hours, but there will be no way to trace you to them.
If any of the students are asked about the game, they will appear confused and not
know what you are talking about.
Dream Calgary is where the citys denizens go when they sleep. Anything is possible
here, but nothing is true or persistent. Those that dwell here forever are a sorry lot.
This is the safest reflection, but it still isnt safe.
Mirror Calgary is where your reflection lives. If you find yourself here, run as hard
and fast as you can back to the proper city.
Step into the room and turn the water on in the tub. The water will be scented: Mint,
Allspice or Vanilla. The mint will totally refresh you, leaving you perfectly relaxed.
Vanilla with imbue your skin with a youthful glow for a week, after which your body
will begin to deform with the weight of your sins, as though they were a great
burden hooked into your skin. The Allspice will grind away all of your sins and
cruelties, leaving you utterly and totally forgiven.
rents the right side of the mezzanine, and they access it with the code 9620. Dont
enter this code into the metal lock.
Instead, punch in 4511. Instead of opening onto a washroom, the door will open
onto a small closet with no furnishings other than a cheap office chair, a folding card
table, and a terminal from the late seventies. The terminals screen will be blank
other than the phrase What is your name? Type your real name or, if youre
feeling adventurous, your online nickname. There will be a lot of lag between the
terminal and wherever its connected to, but soon more words will appear, all of
them questions. Answer them.
When the terminals owner is satisfied, it will turn itself off. For the rest of your life,
every piece of electronic equipment you try to use will just work out o the box with
no difficulty, but youll feel nauseous if you get too far from a wireless signal.
You neednt worry about where it takes you. The route is chosen carefully for both
existential and physical safety.
When you finally find the source of the song, it will be a small group of glowing
musicians, each about six inches above the ground, suspended by nothing in
particular. They will be in a large, decaying room on the second floor of a building
that normally seems to be in better repair. Their clothing is always reported as being
inoffensive earth tones and about ten years out of style. The music they play is
haunting and lilting and rarely corresponds to their instruments. It will be sweet and
quiet once you actually find it, despite the great volume it must have had to be
heard blocks away.
The musicians are fellow travellers who passed away in the last year or two and
their song is meant for the ones they left behind. It is the most profoundly sad song
you will ever have heard. If you dont recognize any of the faces, you will be left
with a profound sense of melancholy that will never leave you until after you die.
But if you do, you will be granted catharsis, and all your sorrows and rage will be
burned away.
minds simply smooth over. If you should find it despite the blind spot we all seem to
have for it, do not enter without a lemon and an egg.
The market is still and silent as a tomb. Proceed immediately to the back of the
store and enter the employee break room. Put the egg and lemon in the refrigerator
and close it. Say An egg for protein and a lemon for zest aloud, then leave the
room. When you return to the store proper, the second layer of illusion will be lifted
and you will see it as it truly is: empty and desolate. The carcass, half-gnawed, of a
failed seeker will be laying behind the meat counter. He forgot to bring an offering.
The blind spot is a defense mechanism, this place is like a venus flytrap.
The shelves will be empty, save for empty boxes and bones, except for one. The
herb rack is the best stocked in the city. Exotics and inedible herbs and spices of all
kinds, all of them useful in the craft and many of them extinct, are all sitting in the
rack in clearly labelled flasks. Take one and leave. Do not look back and do not take
more than one. There is plenty of room in the freezer aisle.
Enter the elevator that leads into the Max Bell Theatre and insert your key into the
elevators maintenance key-hole. Turn your key and punch all of the buttons in
descending order. The doors will open on every floor, but the rooms beyond will be
subtly wrong, and all inhabited by figures in strange papier mache masks that do
nothing but render their features blank. Finally, instead of reaching the parkade, the
elevator will drop you off in the lobby of the theatre.
The performance is ongoing, and is made up of two masked performers, both of
whom face the audience. In clear, rhetorical English, they recite their lines twenty
four hours a day, seven days a week, with no breaks or rest. The language of the
play is convoluted and wrong, as through translated from Russian by someone with
a loose grip on English. The words are almost meaningless, but they open a door in
your mind. What they let in depends on whether theyre performing a comedy or a
tragedy, but from that day on youll see the masks in crowds and never quite
belong in this world.
blood and feathers to the point where you cannot see through it. Wait until the box
is silent and there is no longer any sound. Open the box.
Inside instead of the bird you will find a copy of the latest issue. The only differences
will be that the black ink has been replaced with red and the words with rambling,
nonsensical stream of consciousness writings. They will be vulgar, violent and often
disjointed. However, they will also provide you with insight into the mind of the man
who is now destined to kill you.
Should you defeat him when he comes using this insight, having cheated destiny,
you will be forever ignored unless you set out to deliberately draw attention to
yourself. No one will notice you unless you talk to or touch them directly, for good or
for bad.
Anyways, a couple weeks ago he smiles at me when I come in and tells me hes got
something special and he wants to share it with me. He says hes got a couple
ortolan smuggled in from a farm up north that raises the damn things in secret. An
ortolan is like a finch or a bunting. But what the French do to them is just sick.
They keep them in the dark and force feed them oats and millet. Once theyre
fucking huge, they drown them in column-still brandy and leave them there until
they cook them whole. You put it in your mouth until only the beak is out and then
you bite down and eat it whole. Eyes, organs, all of it. The bones splinter and slash
your gums and tongue, but thats part of it. It adds this salty, coppery taste.
Monsieur Boyer put my head under the tablecloth before he served me. He says its
how you do it, so you can hide from god. I couldnt see anything, all I could do what
feel him push it into my mouth, taste it, and chew.
The next morning, I coughed up what looks like a human eye. Monsieur Boyer was
gone and nobody has seen him since.
Jesus Sandy, What the fuck did I eat?
The camera remains focused n Maharis as he bleeds out, watching the slow
progress of his abdomen emptying onto the ground. Strangely, the pattern
formed by his entrails differs every time you watch. He will make eye contact
with you at the moment he expires. The disc is of no use to you unless you are
skilled in haruspicy. If you are, you can see reflected in his innards the current
future of the war.
standing on the lawn, mid-stride, approaching the window with a white picket fence
behind him that is stained with gore. Do not gaze at the painting too long, allowing
yourself to get caught in its brush strokes is a death sentence.
Instead, enter the gallerys back room. There, you will discover the body of the
owner, decomposed and dead from a self-inflicted gunshot wound. On the wall
behind him, beneath the bloodstain, you will see photographs pinned to it of the
window. In the first, the painting depicts an empty lawn. Its dated 10/5/01. Within a
year, the children have appeared. Within six months of that, so has the man. The
last photo, dated the first of this year, depicts the man approaching the window,
although hes still further away than he is now.
Never open the window, and never ever break it.
Burry the frame deep, someplace far away from the city. Ignore the screaming.
Return home and make yourself a cup of tea to steady your nerves. For the
remainder of the week, until the darkness makes its way back, none of the corners
in the city will be quite as dark or foreboding.
With his last breath, he will bless you and yours. For the remainder of your life, good
fortune will follow you so long as you keep to a strict vegetarian diet.
Instead make for the shamans mound. Within, you will find a rich history of
pictograms carved in the earth and coloured with chalk. The colours are remarkably
well preserved, no doubt due to the mounds seclusion. Read the pictograms at your
pleasure and leave. There are no horrible secrets here, and no great burden for your
soul.
ED: Close your eyes and let your mind wander. Let your body wander too. Slowly
relax to the sound of my voice and follow my words through the city. You are
standing in the +15s, and you are walking slowly, slowly, nowhere in particular.
Your eyes feel heavy, and the more you close them, the more certain you are that
youre walking through the walkways. Turn left, then right, then left again. The more
you walk, the heavier your body feels. The further and further away the place you
want to go becomes and the more aimless you feel. Its so warm here, and theres
nothing but the walkway in front of you and the sound of my voice. Now, Im going
to count backwards from ten, and when I get to zero, youll see a door in front of
you. Do you understand?
NM: I understand...
ED: Ten. Nine. Eight. Seven. Six. Five. Four. Three. Two. One. Zero.
SA: The Fuck? Where the fuck did he go?
ED: Hes in the white room, Sandy. Would you like to go there too?
hospitals across the province and laying off doctors and nurses who are now in short
supply. However, these hospitals arent truly gone. Like people, places can
sometimes leave an impression behind. More of one if its etched in blood. If youre
ever downtown and you find yourself in need of medical attention, try this:
The old hospital site was in Bridgeland, although its impossible to get to the
hospital from there now. Instead, you must wait until the lock up. Around that time,
antiquated looking ambulances will start circulating in the city. Flag one down and
board it, and tell them you need to get to the hospital. The driver wont be able to
care for your injuries. Hes a driver, not a paramedic. However, hell drop you off at
Calgary General. Unlike the Ambulance, Calgary General will be as it was in its
height: one of the leading medical centres in the country. Of course, everything will
be about fifteen years out of date.
Leaving is, unfortunately, more difficult. They get so few patients. They need the
practice.
By now, the rocks have piled high enough that you will have to enter the shaft
midway up, probably at around the fourth floor or higher. The stones are easy to
avoid, as they always fall in the shafts northwest corner, or the far left corner when
looking into the shaft. Ascend the walls, avoiding the rocks in the process, using
whatever climbing equipment you deem necessary. When you reach the top of the
shaft, you will see the apparent source of the rocks: A mirror attached to the ceiling
with thick roofing nails.
Close the mirror (Although it will be awkward granted its position). The rocks will
cease for a time, and until they resume the buildings residents will reward you for
ending the noise with a safe haven from any storm, including the one that They will
unleash upon you for stalling the stones.
Move out to the stairway and look at the piece of tacky installation art in the center.
Smear the blood of your kill on your eyes and look again. The work will blur and
become iridescent and beautiful. Then it will begin to rotate. With each full rotation,
the stairway will expand upwards a floor, revealing strange, hidden exhibits. The
decor is markedly less modern, and the exhibits depict unfamiliar events and
places. Although the plaques have long since become illegible, each diorama
depicts a different event in the secret history.
The clear chalk leaves invisible markings, youll be able to see anything youve
drawn with it by memory, but things other people have drawn will be much better
hidden. To see them, break one of the other pieces of chalk. It will crumble to dust
in your grip and the wind will cast it around you. It will stick to the invisible chalk.
Never do this in public, as the density of mystic patterns and glyphs in most of
Calgary is prone to causing migraines.
these nights, in the vicinity of the lot, time slows down and the night grows darker
than dark. Moonlight refracts through naked air and the ghostly image of the church
can be seen.
Unlike other ghosts, this is utterly tangible. Climb the stairs and enter the church. It
will take a few minutes for your eyes to fully register the interior as you will only be
able to perceive the vaguest outline of the room and its furnishings. The Church will
be as it was on the night of the fire, with ghostly flames burning the northwest
corner. Once your eyes have fully adapted, approach the altar and cut your hand
with a black handled knife. Bleed atop the altar, which will slowly recess into the
floor.
The altar will descend two full storeys. The hole into which it sinks has rough walls
and should prove easy to climb. Descend slowly and carefully. As you descend, you
will find yourself sinking through the earth. Seeing will become impossible for a
time, until you reach the basement. The basement contains the bones and ashes of
a handful of practitioners and priests who have come seeking what you are about to
find.
Located in this basement room is The Christ, still on his Cross, still bleeding. One
drop of his blood is enough to grant the strength to work miracles, but two will burn
you to a cinder.