Date: Fri, Feb 24, 2023 at 5.30pm
Subject: Saturday night?
To: Lady Eleanor Hollodown / Moon Flower <
[email protected]>
Murdoc,
Thank you for your email. And calls. And SMS message(s). I must confess I am surprised at your persistence, yet it gives me some small comfort to know that there is one who still sees something in me, despite... everything. Perhaps that is our connection: rotten souls, yet not quite to the core. Who knows? But since you are surely the only one who will care to hear it, I should like to unburden myself of my story while there is still time.
Time, that is the word. The oldest enemy of all. The wheel that cannot be stopped. Or could it? Long ago, this new thing called Hollywood seemed to offer a miraculous solution, the chance of life eternal in celluloid. Possessing all the money in the world but lacking the one thing it could not buy – talent – I set up my own motion picture company and made myself the star. We were on location shooting our first picture when we discovered it. The... well, you saw. He who dwells beneath. The hungry one.
It was an accident, the first time. A young crew member, a darling boy, fell into the pit. He was devoured like a chicken wing. We covered the tragedy up of course – I would allow nothing to disrupt the release of our movie. Which flopped, anyway. The critics mocked us and the studio folded. And yet, something else had happened. As the years passed, none of us were getting older. We stayed young. It was a miracle. Eternity was ours, after all.
But the miracle wore off, and we knew we must find a second... contribution. That was the turning point. We had made a pact and begun a terrible cycle. To remain forever free of tomorrow, we must feed dear uncle every 25 years, and so we did. The Forever Cult was our way of formalising the horror, I suppose, of shrouding in ritual the terrible guilt. Your dear Stuart was next, of course. His aura was the purest we had ever found.
But... deep down I longed for the cycle to be broken. I began to seed clues to you and your friends, hoping you might intervene and end the nightmare. Perhaps that one act of contrition is the reason I was given a few more days of mortal existence, I don't know.
Anyway, in conclusion, yes I think I will still just about be alive on Saturday, so would very much like to go to the movies with you. I even have an idea what we could watch...
Forever yours,
Lady Eleanor Hollodown / Moon Flower
G-U!
1
1
1
2
2
2
9
7
3