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ARCHIVIST
Statement of Timothy Rand, regarding his hometown of Galloway, Louisiana. Original statement given December 31st, 1990. Audio recording by Jonathan Sims, Head Archivist of the Magnus Institute, London.
Statement begins.
ARCHIVIST (STATEMENT)
I don’t know why the fuck I’m here. Actually, that's a lie. I’m here because Kian keeps going on about how “dude, if you’re not gonna get therapy you should, like, talk to someone at least.”, like you could do shit about it. But whatever. Here I am. I just wanna say it’s not by choice.
It all started in 1984. The boys were back in town. It was me, Kian Stone, and Rolan Deep. We had met up to finish our D&D campaign we started in high school, and we were getting some grub at the local Quick-Stop. It was just us against the world, feeling the wind against our faces as we rode in Kian's Delorean, smoke billowing after us as rain pattered on the ground.
On our way to the Quick-Stop, we saw Rat, or Richie Sanders. He was a bit younger than us, and I had kinda taken him in as a mentorship type deal. We had agreed to meet behind the gas station later, for uh. Medicinal herbs. By the way, you can’t get on me for that. Rolan says the statute of limitations, whatever the hell that is, is up.
We were just getting out of the car, outside of the Quick-Stop, when the rain stopped. And I mean full stop; you blinked and there wasn’t any more rain. On top of that, the ground started fucking shaking! Kian said it was normal out in California, but I don’t know.
Anyways, we got our snacks. We kinda bought the Quick-Stop, as the guy that was working there quit on the spot after Kian gave him a shit ton of money. I think his name was Billy Mays? He’s not important, but yeah.
I figured it would be cool if Rat came into the store, since there wasn’t anyone around to give us crap, so I opened the door to the alleyway and called out for him.
But he wasn’t there.
He’s a bit of a dork, so I figured he might have gotten into trouble. Plus, there was this weird red shit at the doorway, really weird consistency. Kian thought it was ice cream, but we didn’t know. We followed a path of this stuff until we got to the end of the alleyway.
Rolan saw him first. He started backing up and took off down the way we just came screaming. I don’t think Kian saw, because he booked it after Rolan, yelling about how he was here for him.
Then I saw him. Saw Rat.
There- God, there isn’t anything I could say to describe that fuckin’ sight, even though it burned itself behind my eyes.
Rat looked like he was melting. He was stuck to the wall of the alley by his own fuckin’ flesh, with his head bowed and eyes missing. His ribs looked like someone had pushed them apart, with his chest being mostly hollow. You could see his heart beating weakly, his lungs trying to inflate despite parts being stuck to the wall and to each other. The stringy viscera shined against the light of my cigarette, as though it was wet.
We hadn’t been following ice cream, or even blood. We had been following pieces of Rat. I started gagging, which told Rat I was here since he couldn’t see me.
“Rand? Is that you?” I remember him asking me.
He said he had been stabbed by something sharp, and I didn’t know what I could do. I tried to comfort him the best I could, even gave him one of my cigs. Talked about what the afterlife might look like. There wasn’t anything I could do.
The last thing he said was that whatever came after sounded like buzzing.
…
I ran. I ran to where Rolan ran, a tree next to the bayou where he would run to whenever he felt bad. We decided that we would get out of Galloway, drive to the desert and play D&D, stay there for a while. We didn’t know who we could trust, since we didn’t know who the hell did that to Rat, though Officer Dudes was being really fuckin’ weird.
None of it made any sense. It was supposed to just be us getting back together and finishing our D&D campaign. Y’know, I never did have an ending planned. Figured I’d just make it up as we went along. The car crash kinda derailed all thoughts of that.
There was a forcefield around Galloway, although we didn’t see it until we crashed into it. It completely ruined Kian's car, and broke Rolan’s arm. We were so close, man. I could see that damned sign, saying “leaving Galloway”. We crashed trying to avoid a goddam body on the road.
That wasn’t our issue though, no that was the three people that were coming out of the swamp. We hid in the forest nearby, pretty damn well if I say so. Then we saw the people.
First, we saw Officer Dudes, which made a lot of sense considering how he was acting all weird earlier. Then we saw Becky, who used to date Kian. She was cool, played music. Finally, there was Rat which made no sense. I saw his heart melt; there was absolutely no fucking way that was Rat.
They started dragging the body back down the road, towards Galloway, when a fourth person stepped up to them.
It was my sister. Rachel.
…
There was no damn way whatever they were was the real deal. My sister is gone.
…
We made our way back up to Galloway, staying in the forest and avoiding anything walking around in the bayou. Rolan went with Kian to get a hospital for his broken arm, and I went back to my house to figure out what the fuck was going on.
ARCHIVIST
Statement ends.
According to Martin there is more to the statement, but has been filed in different places, for some unknowable reason.
Statements from both Mr. Deep and Mr. Stone regarding the events of Galloway have been noted but have not been located yet.
Regardless, Galloway did have a disaster in 1984, although it was put down as a flood. We have reached out to Mr. Rand about his statement, but he has declined to a follow up, stating that he “had already done it once, anymore and he would go even crazier”.
I do not know what to think about his claims about Galloway, as there is more to it than I have seen.
Statement ends.
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