She cast her eyes down like a schoolgirl caught cheating. “I did. Or the first part, which is all I had, of course. Though I may have fibbed a bit on that part. According to Elliot's notes, the Ugtatu called it ‘Khazit chureharu me’. I think it means ‘The Purity of Joining’. That may be off though.” She shrugged. “Who knows? Bunch of superstitious nonsense, regardless of how effective the technique may be at…”

She stopped as her face lit up with a brilliant smile. I turned to see Elliott Stoffel reaching for me, his hands like iron as they closed around my neck. I tried to struggle, but everything was swimming. I felt like I was moving through the darkening waters of some deep, midnight sea, and as his grip tightened, I watched the world fall away.

****

When I awoke, I was at a bus stop ten miles away. I could see and move better, but I knew something was still wrong. I wasn’t sure what until I was a few minutes down the road on the northside bus.

Two of the people on the bus were monsters. I first noticed it when I glanced back and saw one bending down to get candy out of her purse. The second, who looked even more hideous, was a man sitting in the back with worms crawling in and out of his face.

It took all I had not to scream, and after getting off at the next stop, I walked the rest of the way home. Not that it was any better. I saw terrible shapes in the shadows of houses as I passed, and more than once I thought I saw glowing eyes from a nearby ditch or storm drain. That was two weeks ago, and I've barely left my apartment since. The last time was last Thursday, and it ended with me running from the grocery store after seeing red crystalline eggs hatching from a young woman's chest.

Not that my apartment is much better. As I write this, I can see the giant spider looking at me from the corner of the room. You would think I could control myself better, convince myself that none of it is real, but I can’t. It all seems realer than real, and certainly realer than reason or memory.

I try not to look directly at the spider. It's been around for the last couple of days, and I work to ignore it, but it likes to get places where I have to look. Where it can startle me with its presence.