Kult: The Atrocity Exhibition, episode 6: Closure

The tunnel was winding, with cracks in the walls, through which we could see burning ruins.  Then suddenly a group of people came through the cracks.  People who were there back in the gallery.  The crack closed up behind them, but one person didn't make it all the way and their body turned to stone right there, halfway through the wall.  One of them told us that his wife had been killed by a giant creature that was tearing people apart.  None of this was making much sense to me, but when we saw strange figures behind us and one of the gallery people tried to talk to them, Jared grabbed her arm and we all ran.  Even so, one got left behind and torn apart.

We found a window after that, that looked out on Paris from a high building.  It was the same scene we'd walked through before, but from a different angle.  I wasn't surprised when the next window showed Milan, and the one after that, Djeraba, crumbling and rebuilding itself as it led people to the mountainside.  Then the Mediterranean sea, turned red from blood, full of bodies.

Jared and me reassured each other.  Both of us clearly needed a lot of therapy, but nowhere near as much as Vaquelin did.

We saw the Mediterranean house again then, with a constant stream of people pouring into it.  An impossible number.  And Marielle was there, crying and shouting about Vaquelin leaving her.  We decided it might be best not to draw her attention at this point.

I don't know what was happening to the people from the museum, but there were only a couple of them left with us by this time.  When Jared told me to run, I did.  We came to a door that had a kind of warm glow to it, which seemed like the right way to go.  One of our remaining two companions opened the door.  Inside it had the look of an art studio, with a ring of eight easels and Vaquelin in the middle applying the final brush strokes to the triptych.  While I assured Jim that I liked his cat and possum version better, the man who opened the door went running across the room and suddenly reappeared on the opposite side to where he'd gone.

Vaquelin looked well.  There was a rattling noise coming from above, and when I looked up I saw an iron cage with a man in barrister's robes inside, screaming for help.  Vaquelin's father.  Vaquelin himself looked at us, then drove his paintbrush into his eye and collapsed to the floor.  His blood began running out towards the paintings, being drawn into them somehow, the colours becoming brighter.

We were all sure this needed to be stopped, but all we could think of to do was destroy the paintings with those black feathers we'd picked up.  I also picked up the paint brush that Vaquelin had used to kill himself.  I had a feeling it would be useful.  And suddenly the walls crumbled, and we were back in the workshop in the gallery.  It was a mess, and there was sand on the floor and the walls were still shimmering, but it felt like we were back home.

Jim asked if we were safe, but I was sure we weren't, especially with the noises from upstairs.  We had to keep going.  The thing tearing people apart had to be Vaquelin and we were going to have to stop him.  I still had Meri's door card, which got us into the security office.  Inside was a wall of CCTV showing horrors on every screen.  The creature was drawing a sumbol on the floor using blood and corpses, and the paintings were floating around it.  And there were the living dead again, maybe twenty of them dragging in fresh corpses.  A few remaining patrons were hiding in the offices.  It seemed our journey through hell had taken eighteen hours.

We pried open some locked cupboards in the office and found a couple of kevlar vests, tasers and a handgun.  As we were sharing them out I saw a shadow on one of the monitors, and then suddenly a huge weeping angel next to Vaquelin.  She looked up at the camera and it was like she was looking straight at us.  I wasn't sure if that was a good thing or not, but Jared said to assume it was good, because the alternative was unthinkable.

We needed a plan.  The workshop had cleaning supplies that we could use to damage the symbol on the floor, which might buy us some time to deal with Vaquelin.  The living dead we hoped could be dealt with by once again relying on molotov cocktails.  But our attention was drawn by something outside the door, something squelching and scratching.

I had my suspicions about what it might be, so when I opened the door I was ready for the sight of what Meri Jansen had become, and slammed the door again immediately, trapping a few of her fingers in the door.  We didn't have bullets to spare on this.  I told Jared to get behind the door so he wouldn't have to see.  Jim and me could deal with this one.  We picked up whatever blunt objects were to hand, and when Jared opened the door, we did what we had to do.

We found what we needed in the wokshop, and then Jim headed for the far stairs and Jared and me took the near ones so we could approach from opposite sides.  Vaquelin was still painting, with a black sun fading in and out overhead.  It stank of blood and entrails, and crawling corpses were everywhere, but at least all the dead bodies were keeping them busy.

Jim began throwing things at the paintings, which drew Vaquelin's attention long enough for me to throw cleaning fluids over the Tears of Djeraba.  I don't know why that painting was the one I disliked most by then, but it seemed to begin melting, and pulled Vaquelin's attention off Jim again.  Jared unloaded the gun into him, which mostly seemed to make him angry.

Jared kept on firing as Jim set fire to the turpentine that the place was now awash with.  The paintings seemed to be oozing blood.  I pulled out Vaquelin's paintbrush and tried to tell him that everything was too late because he was already dead.  He told me how he was now eternal.  Pretentious as ever, with some kind of dark robed figure hovering over him.  I ran at him to stab him with the paintbrush, but then suddenly the vast figure of Vaquelin was gone, and it was Spencer standing in front of me.

Back at the waterfront.  Someone about that last memory had been bothering me.  It felt fake, like someone was lying to me.  That was when I realised why.  It was fake.  I was the one lying.  It was my hand on the knife all along.

I loved him so much, and I thought marrying him would solve all my problems.  I'd finally have done something my parents wanted and I'd be with someone who loved me for who I was instead of criticising me for not being what they wanted.  Except that argument on the bridge made me realise none of that was true.  Spencer was just like my father.  I killed him, and hid the body, and then went home and tried to end it all with pills and liquor, but all I did was make myself forget what I'd done.

I lost track of what was going on around me.  There were noises around me, and screams, but I was crying so hard I could barely see, let alone comprehend what was happening.  But Spencer was still there in front of me.

I still had one of the black feathers in my pocket.  Poor Marielle, manipulated into killing her husband by this monster Vaquelin.  Spencer was already dead.  I asked him how many more times he was going to make me do this, and stabbed him with the feather.

Then he wasn't Spencer any more, but the Vaquelin creature, coming apart while windows shattered and glass flew.  Vaquelin asked me why I hindered him, when he would have shown me eternal life.  After seeing what happened to Marielle, I don't want it.  But the entire building seemed to be shaking, and I had one last memory of ropes dropping to the groun and men in black bursting through doorways before everything went black.

I woke up a couple of times to a beeping sound that made me think I was in a hospital and when I woke up for real I was right, and Jared and Jim were in the neighbouring beds, about as bandaged up as I was but both awake.  Jim called for a nurse, who told us it was a couple of weeks since the terrorist attacks.  That seemed as good an explanation as anything else for what had happened, along with hallucinogens in the air conditioning, like I thought before everything literally went to hell.

Some men wanted to talk to us.  I didn't say much while the others tried to explain the non-weird bits of what happened.  The men left cards for them, then asked me what I did and had I been active in attacking one of the assailants.  I told them that I'd had a horrible nightmare, and it seemed like they were going with the hallucingen theory as well.  Although that's when I realised I was handcuffed to the bed.  They said they wanted to move me to a secure facility.

As they left, something strange happened.  For a moment their black suits vanished, and strange implants appeared all over them while ancient biomechanical gears appeared behind the walls.  The TV screen showed images of a strange dark city.

But it only lasted a moment, and then the TV was back to the news.  It said it had been four weeks since the terrorist attacks but there were still no clues.  But the Atrocity Exhibition had been relocated and would shortly afterwards be opening in Berlin.

This was all supposed to be a therapy journal to help Dr Lana figure out the best way to help me with my Spencer problem.  Somehow I don't think I'm going to be seeing him any more.  Writing all this down means I'll never forget what happened again.  But I don't know what to do for the best, now I know what I did.

I've got one last promise to keep.  Give Jared the contact details for Dr Lana.  And I'm going to tell him everything.  At least there's a chance he'll understand.

Kult: The Atrocity Exhibition, episode 5: The Desert

Through the door we found ourselves in a desert, already starting to burn under the sun.  We could see a hut in the distance, which looked like our best option for some shade, but when we got there it was clearly occupied, with horses outside.  We took a look through the windows, and saw a group of people - men?  Zombies?  They were all collectively eating another person.  Vaquelin, I think, but before we could figure out what was going on, we were spotted and chased.  I was getting away, but Jared fell and I couldn't leave him behind.  I picked him up while Jim threw stones at them, but it wasn't enough.  Jim suffered a scorpion sting, and Jared got sliced by one of the men's scimitars.  Somehow he figured out that spraying his own blood on one of them would cause enough of a distraction for us to escape.

We kept running, seeing a cave up ahead.  Jim was worried about the scorpion sting, but none of us had any idea even how big a problem it was, let along how to deal with it, and getting away seemed more important right then.  Then we got to the mouth of the cave, and my head filled with voices.  Dad.  Mum.  Spencer.  All telling me the same thing.  That I'm a disappointment.

I could see from the looks on the others' faces that they were hearing something similar.  I tried to reassure them, and told them that I hear things like that all the time, but it goes away, and it was going to be OK.  That and the offered hugs seemed to help.  And at least for a moment we had some respite from our pursuers.  They looked in, sheathed their scimitars, and left.

Jim got his phone out to give us some light in the cave, and we could see that the scorpion sting was getting worse.  Black veins were appearing on his skin.  He told us he could see that robed figure again in the tunnel ahead of us, but I couldn't see it, and Jared said he couldn't either.  Jim asked if it was death, or Vaquelin, or the devil, but it seems it didn't answer.  Jared went and stood where Jim said it was standing, with no apparent effect.  There didn't seem to be anything we could do about either that or the scorpion sting though, and the cave was a dead end, so we left.

Back out in the desert there was a group of people up ahead.  A funeral procession with four pall bearers carrying a shrouded body.  As I watched them I heard Spencer's voice calling to me.  It was him in the shroud.  I ran towards them, knocking a pall bearer out of the way, but the others kept going.  I pushed a second one aside, but a new pall bearer had risen up out of the ground to take the first one's place.

I shouted to the others for help, but it was no good.  They were too strong and I couldn't stop them.  Hands were reaching out of the grave as they lowered Spencer in, grabbing him to tear him apart.  Too late.  I failed.

By the time the others caught up with me I was crying so hard I could barely speak.  I tried to explain who Spencer was while they tried to calm me down.  Not very successful on either side.  But the men, or zombies, or whatever they were had all disappeared, and ahead in the distance was a city.  Just like another of those Vaquelin paintings.  We kept walking.

The city, when we got there, seemed somehow not quite real.  It was divided up into areas that looked like they were devoted to different crafts, so Jim went looking for paintings, which he found in a wide variety of different styles.  We figured out this was another place from Vaquelin's past. Djeraba, the artists' colony in the Tunisian desert.

It looked like we were on a time limit though, with walls cracking and crumbling behind us.  By this point we knew we had to find Vaquelin.  We passed crucified figures, and heard rhythmic chanting in what sounded like Latin or French.  Jim was looking worse and worse.  We walked through caves, full of the smell of incense and rot.  My mother's death filled my mind.  It seemed like death was walking alongside us.

Then we found him.  A temple, or a cavern, with markings all over the walls, and in the centre was Vaquelin on his knees on a carpet, surrounded by twelve or so of the living dead we'd seen so many of.  In front of him were three objects.  A crown, a knife and a stick, which I later realised was a carved bone.

Somehow I was sure I had to get hold of those objects.  Jared attempted to create an opening in the ring of zombies by talking to Vaquelin, while Jim tried removing the markings from the walls.  Vaquelin didn't respond though, and the zombies started circling around Jared.

Jared must have remembered those first ones that chased him, as he re-opened his wound and smeared blood onto one of them, then punched him in the face.  I guess he must had reminded Jared of his father, as he started shouting about how of course he was a disappointment, he was his son.

There was still no opening in the ring of zombies, but at least now they were distracted.  As Jim went for Vaquelin, I pushed my way through and picked up the knife.  And then I could hear Spencer's voice in my head again, but this time he was telling me he was imprisoned inside Jim.  I could see a hand bulging out of Jim's skin where he got stung.  I didn't know what to do.

Vaquelin looked at Jim and waved that bone wand, and one of the living dead turned inside out.  He started talking to Jim, something about power and eternal life.  Jared was lecturing his father about how he'd ruined his mother's life.  But I was barely listening.  I knew in my heart that that wasn't really Spencer talking.  I told him I was sorry, but I'd already seen him die, and I reached for the crown.

Vaquelin stabbed me with his bone wand, but by that point I didn't care.  I put on the crown and stabbed him.  He grabbed my hand, and something about it felt familiar.  I felt a vibration in the crown, and suddenly I was somewhere else.  Somewhere dark and windy.

I was at the waterfront, at the Golden Gate Bridge, and I was angry.  Spencer was there, and he was angry too, shouting at me and holding a bunch of papers.  I shouted back.  And then there was a hooded figure behind him, who stabbed Spencer and demanded money.  I handed over everything he wanted, and he left, leaving me alone with Spencer.

The knife was in my hand.  I pulled it out, then pushed Spencer over the bridge and threw the knife in after him.  Then I was in my own room, waking up next to empty bottles of pills and liquor.  Wondering what had happened to Spencer.

Then I was back in hell, with Vaquelin smiling at me, enjoying my pain.  He seemed to know what I did.  I'm not sure I knew myself.  But I could see the others being attacked and I couldn't let that continue, so I stabbed him again, trying to get it right this time so I could make him stop, but his hands fastened around my throat and moments later I was blacking out from lack of air.

When I woke up I was in some kind of mediterranean villa with the smell of jasmine in the air.  I was bleeding from a wound in my chest.  A heart shaped piece of flesh seemed to be missing from over my heart, and somehow that seemed to make sense.  Jim was trying to treat the wound, and Jared came in with a first aid kit and managed to clean me up.

Compared to everywhere we'd been recently, this place was actually nice.  There were a lot of personal items around though, particularly clothes, and it didn't take long to figure out which painting this was.  The Coupling.

Jared went to the kitchen to find us some food.  I wasn't sure about eating.  My mind kept going back to that Rosetti painting of Proserpine holding the pomegranate.  But Jared suggested that I could be stuck there with him for eternity or go out and face whatever was out there in hell.  And a sandwich followed by an eternity there with Jared didn't seem too bad a prospect.

Jim still looked badly ill, but slightly better than before.  His searches had found a set of blank panels, presumably intended for the Tears of Djeraba triptych.  He decided to add his own pictures.  Something nice.  A cat and a possum.

While the place seemed comfortable enough it was hard to ignore the sounds of lovemaking coming from upstairs, and in the end the three of us went upstairs to investigate.  At this point I don't think any of us were surprised to find naked dead people having sex.  Black feathers littered the bed around them, and when Jim picked one up, we heard the sound of movement and then a huge statue of a weeping angel appeared, with talons for hands and razor sharp wings.

It spoke with the voice of Mariells Dubois.  She told us that Vaquelin has given her life eternal.  Jared didn't think it was worth it, if she had to spend it as a statue.  She told us that that was her on the bed.  We argued that that was not how it had really happened - these two dead people with their intestines spilling out.  Jared went on, suggesting that Vaquelin wasn't really into it, and that's why he'd parked her out here as a statue.  Maybe he was just using her.  She had killed her own husband for him, after all.  Sure he'd saved her from dying of pancreatic cancer, but was this existence really living?

This was a chance for me to finally find out what really happened at the exhibition.  Marielle told me that Vaquelin had needed a sacrifice to let his magic through into our world.  He'd invaded the body of the security guard, so that Marielle could be his bride.  It was to show the world the beauty of his art.

It seemed Jared's words were starting to get through to her, but she swore he was too powerful for her to stop.  We asked if she could get us home, given that none of us wanted to be here.  She couldn't, but suggested that we would find our own way, and then vanished into the bed.  The black feathers were left behind.  Each of us picked some up, very careful of their razor sharp edges.

Once again we had to get out.  It seemed too obvious, but I was sure that we could simply walk out of the front door.  So we did so, and once again found ourselves in a long corridor.

Kult: The Atrocity Exhibition, episode 4: Echoes of the Past

We ran, following the few people who seemed actually concerned about the bombers, and soon found ourselves dragged into a shelter.  We talked in pitch darkness.  We'd all reached the same conclusion.  Either we were all drugged at the exhibition and suffering the same hallucinations, or we were in hell.  And the way the others were talking, they didn't seem to find that very surprising.  Jared said he deserved to be there.  Jim talked about some kind of deal he'd made.  I couldn't think of any reason why I'd deserve to be in hell.  But then, I don't know what the rules are.

By now I'd at least got some idea of what might be happening.  Marielle Dubois was trying to raise Vaquelin from the dead by sacrificing her husband.  What all the other stuff was I don't know, but she would have to open the gates to the underworld to bring him through.  And that would explain how we ended up there.

I didn't want to stay there in the dark, contemplating what sins I might have committed.  The bombers were gone, so we went back outside.  Visiting the cathedral, or basilica, or whatever we'd seen in the distance might have answers, we figured.  There was some kind of procession outside, heading in that direction, all wearing white masks.  Jim grabbed a mask that had fallen to the ground and put it on.  Jared took my hand and we danced along behind them.

The building looked like it was made of bone.  The procession stopped outside, as if all the people had been frozen in time.  I could hear Jim screaming as he took off the mask, and Jared let go of me and started trying to dance with the frozen people.  I was left standing there alone, surrounded by these people in faceless white masks, and ended up crying on the floor until Jim helped me up again.

I was sure there had to be a way out, because that place wasn't made for us.  Jared was still sure he belonged there, but I was sure we must be in Vaquelin's own personal hell.  Ezra knew a bit about Vaquelin and I was sure he'd mentioned he'd lived in Paris at some point.  And whatever the others had done, we didn't belong in someone else's hell.

Mentioning Vaquelin got a response from the frozen people.  Jim told them to give us directions to find him, and they all turned to face the basilica.

There were figures of death on either side of the door, mounted on horses and wielding scythes.  Somehow we all had the same thought about them, and made a run for the door.  For a moment I could feel bony fingers touching my back, but then we were inside.  But we were inside a small apartment, with graffiti covered walls and rats in the kitchen.  Two doors, one with the sound of feminine moaning coming from it, and the other with the sound of rattling chains.

Jared went to investigate the moaning sound.  I followed Jim to the sound of chains.  Through the door we found a mass of crumpled sketches and torn canvases, and in the middle of it was Guy Vaquelin, naked with iron chains hooked into his flesh.  And there was a man dressed as a barrister, pulling on the chains and swearing in French, telling him that he was a miserable failure and not worthy to be his son.

I don't think I've ever empathised with someone as hard as I did with Guy Vaquelin in that moment.  There was so much I wanted to say to him.  But I didn't get the chance, as Jared suddenly appeared behind us, saying that some fathers needed killing.  And when he went for Vaquelin's father, I wanted him to do it.

I tried to pull the chains out of his hands while Jared had him distracted, but he just pulled back harder, and in a moment he had the chains wrapped around my neck, strangling me.  Even as I managed to get untangled and breathe again, Vaquelin went for me as well, trying to strangle me.  I can see I'm going to be having a very long talk with Dr Lana about all of this.

It was Jim who managed to save us really, shouting at Vaquelin that he's a great artist, so much so that Marielle wanted to bring him back from the dead.  Jared told us that he'd killed his own father, and by that point I was past finding that shocking.   I asked Vaquelin if his father hadn't wanted him to be an artist, not that I needed to hear the answer.  I already know that story far too well.

What we said worked.  Vaquelin freed himself from his chains, crushed what was left of his father, and ran off.  We chased after him, with Jim in the lead, but somehow the main room of the apartment was now a long dark corridor, and there semed to be some kind of time dilation going on as we couldn't keep up with Vaquelin.  Then there was a blinding light, the two death statues looked as us, and then a door closed.

Jared is going to take me up on my offer of a therapist referral if we ever get home.  I hope Dr Lana is ready for someone with even worse parental relationship issues than me.

We weren't in 1950s France any more.  I could hear gunfire, and shouting in what I was pretty sure was Italian.  Vaquelin moved to Milan after Paris, so we figured we must be visiting stages in his life.  We were in a large piazza, with dead bodies strewn about, and the stink of smoke in the air.  In the middle was a deep pit smelling of decay, and a fountain of blood.

A crowd of people ran past us, and a grenade rolled into their midst and exploded, but instead of body parts there was a shower of red flyers about bringing down the government.  So, the 1960s.  One thing I remember from art school, a bombing in Milan that affected artists across Europe.  Police officers were appearing, and molotov cocktails were being thrown, and I saw burning hands attempting to claw their way out of that pit.  Off to one side was a set of gallows with hanged bodies dangling from them.  As we ran past, for a moment they no longer resembled gallows, but a representation of a skull and a clock, with time moving forward as a body struggled and swung.  It all seemed like the setup for a painting.  Maybe one of the paintings from the exhibition, that I saw in the few moments before everything went to hell.

The image seemed to speak to something in Jim, who pulled out a sketchpad and started drawing.  Then something weird happened which I can't make sense of, with some kind of robed figure that erased everything it touched getting closer to us.  But he stopped before it got to us because there was a beggar at his feet who offered to take him to Vaquelin.  We followed him through a maze of side streets, with that robed figure still following.  Finally we reached a bank with a damaged facade, and he kicked open the door in a cloud of dust and smoke.  I went inside.  Jim waited a moment to pay the beggar, but then the beggar cut Jim's ear off and ran away.

I loaned him a hankerchief.  I couldn't think what else to do.

There were sketches inside the bank, that looked like practice runs for some of those paintings in the exhibition.  Fool's Wisdom and the Tears of Djeraba.  I could hear a scratching, scuttling noise, and papers were falling to the ground.  While Jim set the two pictures on fire, I followed the noise.

Upstairs in some kind of mezzanine, there was a loud commotion with things being thrown.  There seemed to be some kind of pattern to it, and it suddenly occurred to me that I really shouldn't be alone.  I ran back downstairs, to find the others with the paintings well alight, but with the flames seeming to do nothing to them.  Jim started talking to one of the paintings.  It seemed to be a conversation that we were only hearing half of.  He asked if it was blood or death it wanted.  I don't think I want to know the answer.

I told everyone we needed to stick together, and we all went upstairs, picking up some liquor bottles out of a crate on the way.  The paintings still burned, but something seemed to have changed about Fool's Wisdom.  A shadow I don't remember seeing before.

I was leaning over the ledge, trying to work out where the sounds were coming from when suddenly Jared pulled me away and a man starting screaming at Jim about putting ideas in his head.  He'd been inches away from pushing me over the edge.  I grabbed hold of him to try to restrain him from attacking Jim, but somehow he twisted in my grasp and then I was dangling over the edge.  A moment later we were falling.

Of course it was Vaquelin.  He recognised me on the way down, but by then I'd managed to twist round so he would break my fall.  When his head hit the fountain I heard a snap.  He was dead.  That could have been me.  No time to think about that though, with fire engulfing the room.  We made a run for the door, and once again that time dilation thing seemed to be happening.  And that robed figure from outside was watching us again.

Kult: The Atrocity Exhibition, episode 3: The Exhibition Opens

Meri appeared again, looking upset and asking about the argument, so I decided I needed to get over myself and talk to her.  She dragged Jim and me off to see Emmett Veirs, the director.  He was talking to one of the security guys, who left pretty much immediately, which was a good thing given I almost choked on the cloud of aftershave hanging around him.  Jim looked like he recognised him, but he ignored Jim as he passed us.

The director didn't think there was a problem with the paperwork.  I took a look at it myself, and it all looked fine.  Everything in order, and signed off by Meri herself, except she seemed to know nothing about it.  I never thought I'd be saying this, but I found myself actually sympathising with Meri once the director started accusing her of drinking and suggesting that he'd made a mistake hiring her.  I couldn't let her sit there and be berated like that, so I talked some crap about the effects of stress and guided her out of there.

I think I had some kind of hallucination on the way to Meri's office.  Bloated figures, eating something, surrounded by flames.  Another thing to check with Dr Lana.  At least it only lasted a moment.

I figured I was right about the stress when I saw Meri's office.  Clothes and a sleeping bag.  All the hallmarks of someone spending far too much time at work.  I confirmed that it was her writing on the forms I'd just been reading, but she didn't remember being involved.  She brought up the chanting in the gallery again though.  That security guy, Alano, was involved.  Turns out he's some relative of Jim.

Meri started breaking down at that point, and all I wanted to do was reassure her.  Losing a chunk of her memory isn't the same as losing Spencer but I recognised that feeling of nothing making sense.  I told her I knew a good therapist.  Dr Lana's great with this kind of thing, after all.

Meri took some valium and went to sleep.  I covered her up with the sleeping bag, and that's when her key card fell out of her pocket.  As I picked it up, there was a sound from the speakers in the room.  Static, but with an undertone of people calling out, a sudden scream, and then silence.  Jim heard it too.

I'd been starting to have suspicions about what was going on here.  Hallucinations, memory loss, Jared's episode earlier.  It all added up to something in the ventilation system.  I heard about a theatre once that tried to create ambience for a play by putting perfume in the ventilation system, and ended up putting the entire audience to sleep.  The way this whole event was being staged, the idea that someone was trying to add to the atmosphere by drugging us all seemed quite plausible.

I convinced Jim to join me in a bit of snooping.  Meri's key card got us into the loading dock, where we found a couple of massive generators running.  I managed to slip in some oil and burn myself on one of the engines, but I did spot a trail of red droplets on the floor.  Blood.  Jim followed them, and found the trail from the lift, between the engines, ending at a brick wall.  My first thought was that we'd got the trail the wrong way round and that someone had been injured by the wall and gone to the lift to get help, but the trail didn't seem to go that way.  I wondered if there was a secret door or something, but when I touched the wall to test it it seemed solid enough.  Except now I had blood on my fingers too.

I didn't know what was happening, but I didn't want to stay there either.  We ran down the corridor and back into the public area, where we found Jared.  He was looking better and said his girlfriend was on her way but he still didn't want to be alone, and I know I felt better having him around.

That's when the exhibition opening was finally announced.  We all had the skull symbol for the first group, so in we went, with Jared nodding to various movie types along the way.  Of course we had to queue first, but that was very well staged.  The tolling of a Venetian bell, good use of shadows and light, sounds of agonised wailing and crying.  I should have taken notes, but whatever the hell we'd all been drugged with was getting worse.  I felt like I was being watched by some omnipresent being, and it seemed like the statue of a decaying ballerina that I'd ended up next to had moved, and was reaching out for me and screaming.

By then I just wanted to get the whole thing over with.  We were lead through a curtain in a cloud of dry ice, into a crowded room.  The doors closed and I could just make out Marielle Dubois at the front, with a smoking cauldron on either side.  She spent some time reminiscing about the artist, in a way that would have made me pretty uncomfortable if I was her current partner, but it didn't seem to bother Anthony.

Then the curtains opened, and once again it seemed like there was some kind of trick lighting with the paintings.  I could see the appeal of this incredibly dynamic work.  There seemed to be someone singing in French, audible over the rustle of the crowd.  The paintings weren't the only thing on display.  Some kind of symbol was painting on the floor in white chalk paint, and it seemed like the colours of the paintings were running down into it.  It was hypnotic, somehow.  I felt like I shouldn't have come, but at the same time couldn't leave.  It took Jared's hand on my arm to get me to move.

There was one more artwork to display.  A triptych.  The Tears of Djeraba.  Marielle opened it up, then before I'd even had time to take that in, she'd pulled out a knife and cut Anthony's throat.  There was so much blood, and that chalk symbol seemed to be sucking it out of him somehow.  And Alano had shown up with more security guards, and suddenly he stepped up and kissed Marielle.

I had a sudden moment of clarity then.  Jim was freaking out, so Jared and me grabbed his arms and tried to run for the exit.  At first we couldn't even move him, because there were flayed rotting arms reaching out of the paintings to grab hold of him.  Alano's whole body split apart, and some huge figure emerged from it, still holding Marielle.  I could hear the cracks as she was crushed in its embrace.

We had to get out.  I didn't want to go near that thing, but I couldn't see any other way.  I lost my grip on Jim, but he was running by now.  And then we were out, and I ran into Jared a moment before Jim ran into me.  It was like the building was being pulled into some other place, full of flames and the sound of screaming.

Jim ran downstairs and I followed.  Jared remembered Meri, and by this point it didn't seem like looking for her would make things any worse.  Except when we got to her office I could hear chewing sounds from inside and there was blood running from under the door.  Jared was the only one brave enough to look, and shut the door again straight away.

I thought maybe the loading dock would give us a way out.  I lost track of the others along the way, as all the light turned yellow and something seemed to be following me, but I broke into a run and I was back with them.  Meri's key card didn't work on the loading doors.  Jim hit the fire alarm, hoping that would open things up, but it just turned on the sprinklers and after a few moments the water turned to blood.  Jared grabbed a fire axe and smashed open the chains holding the doors.  I heard the sound of springs and gears, and then blood poured in under the doors as they opened.  Outside there was nothing but a burning landscape and the sound of screaming.

That's when I knew we were going to die.  Either that, or we were already dead.

Except when I looked at Jim and Jared, I knew I couldn't give up just yet.  That blood covered wall, the supposed secret door.  I hadn't investigated it properly but maybe there was a way out.  When I looked back I saw it - holes in the wall, with some kind of darkness beyond.  I went back for Jim and Jared.  I tried to ignore those two huge engines, but I couldn't help seeing that there was some kind of grinder atop each one.  Samantha and Nasrah were being crushed in them, with their blood pouring into the engines.  But I had to keep going.

It felt better through the hold in the wall.  It was a dark and empty space but there seemed to be a light in the distance.  I wanted the three of us to hold onto each other, but Jared was already going, so I held Jim's hand and followed him.  As we got closer to the light I could hear jazz, and then suddenly we were on a street.  The sun was black and the street was flowing with blood, but other than that we appeared to be in Paris in the 1950s.

Jared sat down at a cafe, and joining him seemed like the best thing to do.  He ordered food.  I just asked for coffee.  I wasn't sure I could stomach anything else, and I was getting a very unsettling feeling.  That Rosetti painting of Proserpine holding the pomegranate sprang to mind.  I glanced at the waitress as she went back inside, and suddenly the cafe wasn't a cafe but a tomb full of rotting bodies, and the coffee cup was full of lumpy mould.  A moment later it was gone, but I put down the cup anyway.  Jim must have seen it too, as he started throwing up.  I couldn't make myself look at Jared who was still eating, with ichor dripping down his face.

Jared insisted on making conversation with the waitress.  Jim said he could see a burning building.  I couldn't, but by this point I was willing to believe him.  Somehow that was more reassuring than the waitress telling Jared we were in Montmartre, and kissing him.

That's when I heard the air raid sirens.  But the kids on the street went right on with their game of football, even as bomber planes began flying overhead.

Kult: The Atrocity Exhibition, episode 2: Going Out

Funeral's over.  Time to start getting back to normal.  Whatever that means.

It's the most I've seen of Dad in a long time.  Good thing I'm still in contact with Dr Lana, with all the guilt that stirred up.  It's complicated.  I feel bad about not seeing my parents, but spending all this time with Dad reminded why I avoided them for so long.  I hoped he'd be a bit better about the gallery now I'm doing well with it, but it's obvious he's still disappointed in me.  Then there was the usual grilling over my love life, which would be bad enough even if I could give him a reason why I've given up on dating, but I can hardly share the real reason.

I had really good intentions about keeping in touch with Ezra, but that didn't go so well.  At least I did manage to text him.  Turns out he lost his father around the same time.  Nothing related, just a horrible coincidence.

I didn't have time to open the gallery with Dad needing me on hand for funeral stuff, but it's back open now.  Another coincidence.  I was expecting Ezra to visit pretty soon, but I wasn't expecting Jared at the same time, and certainly wasn't expecting Meri Janson.  She wasn't her normal self, and Dr Lana says I have to be honest in these journals, so I have to admit to some schadenfreude after the way she was behaving last time we met.  She seemed genuinely upset though, going on about Marielle Dubois taking over her gallery and hearing strange noises in the night.  Chanting in French or Latin or something.  I suggested she look at the camera footage but apparently they've even taken over the security.  Sure, I find her annoying, but she's a professional when it comes to the actual business.  It's not right treating her that way.

She came through on the tickets for the Atrocity Exhibition, I'll give her that.  I got a taxi this time.  I'm still a bit shaky about public transport and I wanted to show up on time and relaxed.  I met Ezra and Jared there, along with Jim Bowman, an art student I've exhibited before.  The whole thing was pretty well staged, I have to give them that.  Suitably gloomy music.  Catering staff all in white suits with these weird Venetian masks.  Fancy tickets with watermarks.  And I can't fault a buffet and open bar.

We had some time before the actual opening, so we went for a look around the other galleries.  Bit of a theme going on.  We started off in the Rosenfeld.  Funerary art from the middle ages.  Pretty depressing stuff.  Just what I didn't need.  There was one painting the others seemed to kind of fix on.  Woman with lamb type of deal, obvious religious metaphor.  Being kind of sensitive on the subject of mothers right now I moved on.

The next painting along was a young man with some kind of halo and a bird on his shoulder.  Some kind of trick image, by the looks of things, as while I looked at it it somehow changed, and the man's face had partially skeletonised.  Just for a moment it put me in mind of Spencer.  The others didn't seem to notice anything odd about it though.

I clearly wasn't my normal self, which was a waste of an excellent networking opportunity, but Jared of all people gave me a pep talk.  He was quite right.  Hanging around these gloomy paintings was bad for me.  We moved on to the Hewett gallery where there was a Día de los Muertos exhibition.  Much better all round.  Just what I needed, an optimistic view of death.  I was in much better spirits when we got to the Van Assen gallery, and managed to find a kind of humour in Alfred Kubin's The Best Doctor.

I'd been having a pleasant chat with Jim and Ezra about the satirical elements of Kubin's work when Jared freaked out.  I don't know why.  Jim ran after him, and Ezra and me caught up with him outside the bathroom where Jared had locked himself in.  I'd been thinking up to then that he was the well balanced one, while me and Ezra were moping about, but I guess not.  He'd mentioned losing an uncle earlier on, but he didn't seem quite so affected by it.  Maybe I was wrong.

Anyway, he'd helped me out earlier in the evening, so it seemed only polite to make sure he got a bit of privacy.  He'd picked up a bit of a crowd, but I heard one of them say that this must all be part of the show, so I turned on the charm and ran with it.  I soon had them all convinced nothing out of the ordinary had happened and steered them away from the bathroom.

That's when I heard Spencer's voice.

Even after all this time, my heart leaps at that sound.  There's a part of me that's sure some day he's just going to walk back into my life like nothing ever happened, and that's why I went chasing through the crowd after him.  The first time I'd moved away from the others all evening and I could feel every eye on my as I passed and hear whispers about my clothes and my appearance.  I tried to ignore them, but let's add paranoia or whatever that is to the list next time I talk to Dr Lana.

I caught up with him in the basement.  I could see him with his arm around a young woman, looking just the way I remember him, talking about how he was planning on opening a new gallery and featuring up and coming young artists.  Our plan.  I called his name but he didn't hear me.  I walked up to him and tapped his shoulder, but when he turned around to look at me, it wasn't him.

Ezra caught up with me then, and I had to explain that I thought I'd recognised someone but made a mistake.  At that point one of the projectors lit up, so we sat down and watched the movie they were showing.  Some creepy stop motion animation.  It actually made me feel better though.  Ezra too.  Just something else to focus on.  I'm going to have to get some plasma screens for the gallery.  So much interesting video work is showing up, and I can't let my place get left behind.

We headed back to join the others.  Ezra wasn't sure what was up with Jared either, having assumed the same as me that it was just Jared being Jared at first.  It sounded like it was getting sorted out though, and his girlfriend was coming to join him in the morning.  Until then I figured we should probably keep an eye on him at least.

That's when things got interesting.  Brahim Nasra showed up.  Which by itself is pretty normal, given that he's a fellow art dealer, if a much bigger name than me, but he was there to stage some kind of dramatic scene where he accused Marielle Dubois of stealing art from the Tunisian government.  No idea if that's true or not.  She insisted she had all the proper paperwork, but he certainly acted like he believed it.  Security dragged him away of course, but I recorded the whole thing on my phone, and sent it to Ezra when it ended.  Well I tried.  The signal was terrible.

As was, apparently, the smell of the security guards.

Kult: The Atrocity Exhibition, episode 1: Yasmin's Busy Day

The Atrocity Exhibition is a quickplay scenario for Kult: Divinity Lost, available from the Kult Resources page. We did a narrative character creation for this game, establishing stats and traits as we went along.  You know you're playing Kult when you've only done Session 0 and you've already lost two stability...

Can't find my old journals.  Time to start a new one, I guess.

There's an exhibition at BAMPFA with some student work, reinterpretations of noir film or something, so I thought I'd check it out and make sure I'm keeping up in case this turns out to be the new big thing.  I was going to take the BART but then I got accosted by an aggressive crowd who started out just wanting a buck but then escalated to trying to get my purse and phone off me.  I tried to talk them out of it but they weren't interested until I threw a handful of bills at them.  Just enough of a distraction for me to make a run for it.

No way I could get on the BART after that.  I was standing on the sidewalk, trying to get my breath back and thinking about getting an Uber when a car pulled up next to me.  I was all ready to run again when I got a look at the driver and realised it was Ezra.  He offered me a lift, and it turned out he was going to the same place as me.  We had a nice chat about work in the car.  It's too long since we last talked.

We picked up another passenger along the way.  Jared, some old friend of Ezra's and an aspiring actor.  Easy on the eye, less so on the ears.  I was glad of an extra person in the parking garage though.  That place gave me the creeps.  He says he's done some modelling as well.  He certainly knows how to pose, and I got some good photos of the entrance until he started attracting fans.  After the earlier incident I was just glad it was him getting the attention and not someone yelling at me to go back where I came from.  I wasn't feeling up to my usual "What, England?" response.

Stepping inside is where things got weird.  I felt a fine mist blow out of the air conditioners when we went inside, and when I looked down at myself I could see blood - fake blood, it must have been - all over me.  Nobody else seemed to notice though, except maybe Ezra.  Then I looked around at the other guests.  I saw corpses.  Flayed, organs hanging out of them.  And that wasn't the worst part.  One of them had Spencer's face.

I lost the old journals, so I guess I need to write this again.  Spencer Reid was my best friend, my lover and my business partner.  We were going to run the gallery together.  Then he went away to meet with some potential investors and I never saw him again.

That's not true.  I see him a lot.  Mostly when I'm stressed, or scared.  Dates are the worst.  Were the worst.  I've given up trying.  Therapy with Doctor Lana helped me figure out the pattern, but it hasn't made it stop.  Lana can't tell me what I really want to know though.  Is he alive, and messing with me?  Am I being haunted by the ghost of my dead lover?  Or am I crazy and hallucinating this shit?

After what I saw at BAMPFA, sure sounds like the last one, doesn't it?

I must have drunk the complimentary prosecco a bit too fast.  Jared got me another drink - some kind of artisinal craft gin - and Ezra introduced us to Meri Janson, the person in charge.  I knew the name but we'd not met before.  I'd remember.  I'm used to art types being touchy-feely but she was taking it uncomfortably far.  Jared was into it though.

The exhibition was fine, I guess.  A few names worth watching, but nothing to get overly excited about.  Jared wanted to hit some bar afterwards and I thought that sounded good, so long as he was keeping Meri's hands occupied.

I forget the name of the place, but it was nice.  Vintage jazz and vintage cocktails at thoroughly modern prices.  The kind of place where you can kick back and relax, and I was having a great time catching up with Ezra and watching Jared's antics when I got a call from Dad.  Texted to ask what's up, he replied saying to call him.

No point putting it off.  Might as well get the argument over with while I was still drunk, I thought.  But for once Dad didn't give me an earful about being at a bar.  He needs me home.  Mum's dead.

I went back inside and told Ezra I'd had some bad news and had to leave.  He offered to call me a car.  That's when the tears started, and he ended up driving me home instead.  I was a mess when we got there.  I couldn't even tell him what was wrong.  But we swapped numbers so at least we might keep in touch this time.  I'm going to need a friend.