A Letter for Axel Brown

From: Charles Brown

Brave City, IL 35561

To: Axel Brown

Sleeping Town, IL 35562

Date: September 15, 1958

Brother,

I know you will not listen to me. I can already imagine what you will say about me at the pub, but I do not care. Please, if I cannot convince you, at least warn our family to leave town as soon as possible.

Tell Mother where I am staying. I will be at the Gerald Cave Hotel for one week, and then I will leave without hesitation. I know the past few months have not been easy between us, and that you consider me a stranger, but you know me better than anyone. That is why I have decided to tell you why I disappeared. I do not expect your forgiveness, only your understanding.

Do you remember Miller the Mutilated? That unnatural-looking man who seemed to bring nightmares with him, whose passing made people bolt their doors and dogs bite their own tongues to keep from barking? Well, that creature had a history, and I set out to uncover it for a journalistic assignment at Speerliens University, even though the thought of that filthy black coat and the top hat he wore always disturbed me.

The other journalists and I were studying individual and family degradation, and he seemed like the right subject. The creature's name was Josef Miller, and researching his life was not easy. He had been dead for more than ten years, though the circumstances of his death were truly strange. His body was never found in any local cemetery, and there were no witnesses to his burial in the common grave used for unidentified bodies.

I discovered his name and address thanks to one of our childhood adventures, when we dared to follow him through the dark streets that led into the narrow alleys of the poorer outskirts. That was where the figure disappeared down Fourteenth Street.

I followed the address until I found the beast's home. Only foul-smelling ruins and a heap of rats remained. I thought it had probably never been much different. There were no photographs, and I imagined the loneliness of the place. Apparently, he had no descendants; all his belongings were still there, either untouched or gnawed by rats.

Among them were numerous bottles and small vials containing colorless substances that I did not dare touch. I was right not to. The walls were covered with articles from scientific journals and papers filled with chemical formulas that had become almost illegible with age. I took the documents that were still in usable condition and put them in the pocket of my raincoat.

I walked through the narrow rooms and noticed a crack in one of the floorboards. When I stepped on it with the heel of my boot, it produced a hollow sound. It was a trapdoor leading to the basement.

I tried to pry it open with a piece of metal. A foul draft rose from below and filled the room with an unbearable stench.

Still, I did not stop. It might have been a dead rat or, at best for my investigation, Miller's body.

It was neither.

I was so focused on those possibilities that when I heard the familiar clinking of test tubes knocking against one another, followed by the deep rumble of a distant voice, I jumped in fright and backed away as far as I could.

I felt the blood drain from me. My body seemed to give out beneath me. At last, fear had overcome me.

I left as quickly as I could.

Once I was home, I could not forget what had happened, but I remained focused on my studies. I examined the formulas and papers I had taken from Miller's house. They contained chemical formulas that neither I nor any of the professors at the university could make sense of.

Among the symbols were two elements from the periodic table, K and Na. In the middle was the word “Balyodh.”

I thought it might have been connected to his physical and intellectual disabilities, and I paid it no further attention.

Not then.

I continued my investigation. I visited the old Brandley Connor School, where he had completed secondary school, and from there followed his trail to the Laker Haimern Institute of Chemistry, where he graduated with honors in Industrial Chemistry.

He later spent many years working at the Processing Plant in our county's industrial district. At the laboratory where he worked, he was accused of theft. Plant management punished Josef, and he was eventually transferred to the logistics department, where he became a transport foreman.

This brought about a considerable decline in his quality of life, but more importantly, in his mental state.

The plant remained closed for a long time after a catastrophic incident. The authorities found a complicated connection between the accident and the plant's management. In the end, through what appeared to be the work of someone determined to see justice done, the person responsible for safety was sentenced for negligence and involuntary manslaughter.

Many people died horribly, while others were transformed into grotesque forms during the explosions. One of the few survivors was living in an asylum somewhere in Indiana. His name was Héller Valger, and he had been one of the loaders working under Miller's supervision.

Héller was, as his name suggests, a rather large German immigrant. He lost both legs on the day of the disaster.

When I visited him, he told me some truly disturbing things about the plant and about Miller. Miller had been deeply unpopular. All of his subordinates agreed that he deserved to pay for the sanctions he arbitrarily reported to management.

The best way they found to deal with him was to lock him inside a chemical-waste chamber. They assumed it would kill him.

There is something I must point out. According to the other employees, Miller had become obsessed with occult practices. He performed strange rituals and wore an unusual necklace with a cabochon engraved with a flattened tetrahedron. He also constantly repeated a series of strange words, among which “Balyodh” appeared again and again.

My stomach tightened when I heard this. There were too many similarities to dismiss as coincidence.

The foreman survived that terrible act of revenge, but it left him horribly disfigured. His face was almost completely destroyed. He had lost his lips, ears, nose, and nearly all of his scalp.

He was barely recognizable as a man, yet he could still speak and move about like a shadow. People believed his survival was a miracle from God.

It was not.

The mutilated man kept a secret, something hidden in both his beliefs and his actions. A few months later, he returned to work, this time as a janitor, where he became the target of constant ridicule.

He had gone from being a respected man in a distinguished community to wasting away in the corridors of that enormous facility. From then until his death, hatred consumed his thoughts.

This was the mutilated man we knew. The one who seemed to cast a shadow over the town, carrying a deep malice wherever he went. Even the cold wind seemed to follow him.

People and animals alike avoided him. He had become a symbol of everything rotten in a man: degradation, resentment, and the consequences of allowing hatred to take hold.

At this point, I could have ended my investigation.

But I did not.

The poor loader told me something else, though I must admit it made little sense. I imagine he was delirious when he remembered those events, or perhaps it was the medication. Either way, his story drew me further into the matter, like a detective following a clue in one of those crime novels.

According to him, his former supervisor regularly entered the laboratories. He continued doing so even after becoming a janitor, supposedly to clean the rooms. In the days that followed, bottles and reagents would disappear, and eventually he was expelled from the plant.

This is crucial.

Most of the victims of the tragedy did not die from the explosion itself, but from poisoning. The authorities never discovered what had caused it or who was responsible.

By then, old Miller was already dead, so he was ruled out as a suspect.

I do not know whether I did the right thing. I became excited. I felt compelled to investigate the matter again, this time as though I were working a criminal case. What I discovered led me to conclusions I could hardly believe about the nature of the mutilated man and the fate of the entire town.

The rest is better told in person.

With affection,

Your dear brother,

Charles