Excerpt from the diaries of Reginald Bowers III
I am plumbing the depths of depravity and finding the well bottomless. So many deaths and so many atrocities in the name of this dreadful being. It seems impossible that no one has connected these dreadful events before now but I suppose that being so widespread in their dates of occurrence they were treated individually. My forbear traced the dragon's activity as far back as World War II. Limited technology hindered his research I am sure but still I am amazed by his tenacity. The earliest event in my grandfather's journal involves a German man of the Nazi party by the name of Josef Steidtmann. Steidtmann was in charge of executions at a concentration camp in Treblinka. When his quarters were searched after the camp's liberation, the heads of 37 Jewish and gypsy women were discovered in his closet. The heads were arranged in orderly lines on Steidtmann's shelves; the bodies were never found. On the wall behind a large red curtain, which bore the image of a swastika, soldiers found a crudely painted dragon.
My own research extends much further into the past, revealing a dark and compelling pattern. Countess Elizabeth Báthory de Ecsed of Hungary murdered over 80 virgins in the 1600's and bathed in their blood. Vlad III, Prince of Wallachia son of Vlad II Dracul (a member of the Order of the Dragon) was a mass murderer in the 1400's often impaling his victims as he ate dinner. There have been over 90 severed heads discovered in North America in the past two centuries. Of those only half were ever identified. In 1975 an insurance salesman by the name of Seth Harris was arrested for the beheading of two of his female coworkers. As before, the bodies of the victims were never recovered. When questioned about the bodies, Harris simply stated that they were "in the black". Several entries in the man's journal referenced "the voice of the dragon".
Jonathan: Now
Jonathan read for hours on end, devouring the information within the box. Inside he found journals, some his father's and some written in his uncle's precise script. He also found photocopied police records and case files, crime scene photos, old documents written in Latin or Greek, and literally hundreds of clipped newspaper articles detailing missing persons. Some of the articles dated back decades. As he read through the notes of the two men, Jonathan came to understand that his father and uncle had pieced together a puzzle that even his grandfather and great grandfather before that hadn't been able to clearly see. The journals detailed a horrible possibility paralleled by cryptic Biblical passages and ancient manuscripts. Jonathan was familiar at least somewhat with the numbers 666 referenced in the scripture from the lid of the wooden box. It seemed now that the numbers held a greater significance. His father and uncle believed that there existed a literal abyss, a hellish place in some dimension parallel to our own where Lucifer himself, the Dragon was chained. They'd believed that while he was imprisoned he was still able to exert influence on dark-minded individuals in our world. Throughout history these individuals had been contacted and manipulated by the dragon to take the heads of victims. They would then draw or paint the dragon on a wall or door and by passing the body into the room it would pass between worlds. Each victim would weaken the wall separating our world from the abyss. If the number of sacrifices reached 666, the men believed that the wall between worlds would burst, and the Dragon would be loosed. The research in the box approximated the total to be around 620 victims but for obvious reasons this wasn't a solid figure; the number could be lower or far higher.
There was only one recent clipping which was dated 2 years before and described the sudden reappearance of a salesman named Clancy Matthews. Before he died, Reginald Bowers was planning to visit the man who had resided in an North Carolina mental institution since his strange incident. Jonathan's uncle had hoped to gain some insight into the horrible mystery. Now, as he closed the box and locked it again, Jonathan determined to go see the man himself. He carried the box under his arm back to his vehicle and sat behind the wheel contemplating. Police had found no trace of his uncle. After five weeks passed they had simply stopped looking. The letter had arrived soon afterward along with the man's last will and testament. Everything the man had owned in life now belonged to Jonathan. Somewhere out there he would find the answers he so desperately longed for. What had driven his father to suicide? What had happened to his uncle? As he put the rusting Chevy in gear and puled out of the driveway Jonathan was certain of only one thing. The trail would begin with Clancy Matthews.
Jonathan read for hours on end, devouring the information within the box. Inside he found journals, some his father's and some written in his uncle's precise script. He also found photocopied police records and case files, crime scene photos, old documents written in Latin or Greek, and literally hundreds of clipped newspaper articles detailing missing persons. Some of the articles dated back decades. As he read through the notes of the two men, Jonathan came to understand that his father and uncle had pieced together a puzzle that even his grandfather and great grandfather before that hadn't been able to clearly see. The journals detailed a horrible possibility paralleled by cryptic Biblical passages and ancient manuscripts. Jonathan was familiar at least somewhat with the numbers 666 referenced in the scripture from the lid of the wooden box. It seemed now that the numbers held a greater significance. His father and uncle believed that there existed a literal abyss, a hellish place in some dimension parallel to our own where Lucifer himself, the Dragon was chained. They'd believed that while he was imprisoned he was still able to exert influence on dark-minded individuals in our world. Throughout history these individuals had been contacted and manipulated by the dragon to take the heads of victims. They would then draw or paint the dragon on a wall or door and by passing the body into the room it would pass between worlds. Each victim would weaken the wall separating our world from the abyss. If the number of sacrifices reached 666, the men believed that the wall between worlds would burst, and the Dragon would be loosed. The research in the box approximated the total to be around 620 victims but for obvious reasons this wasn't a solid figure; the number could be lower or far higher.
There was only one recent clipping which was dated 2 years before and described the sudden reappearance of a salesman named Clancy Matthews. Before he died, Reginald Bowers was planning to visit the man who had resided in an North Carolina mental institution since his strange incident. Jonathan's uncle had hoped to gain some insight into the horrible mystery. Now, as he closed the box and locked it again, Jonathan determined to go see the man himself. He carried the box under his arm back to his vehicle and sat behind the wheel contemplating. Police had found no trace of his uncle. After five weeks passed they had simply stopped looking. The letter had arrived soon afterward along with the man's last will and testament. Everything the man had owned in life now belonged to Jonathan. Somewhere out there he would find the answers he so desperately longed for. What had driven his father to suicide? What had happened to his uncle? As he put the rusting Chevy in gear and puled out of the driveway Jonathan was certain of only one thing. The trail would begin with Clancy Matthews.
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