The Rolling Stone Gathers No Moss

For these past few months, I've been trying to get my life back together.

I found my parents again. I had a really tough time trying to tell them what had happened to me for a year. I told them that I had been kidnapped, escaped, and ran away to another city, and that my kidnapper had committed suicide. And they believed me. Telling them the truth would just get me locked away in an asylum.

My old school let me back in, but I have to repeat my junior year. I used the same story with my guidance counselor as I did with my parents. Still worked. I have all of my old classes: Analysis of Functions, Chemistry, Programming, English III, Spanish III, Outdoor Ed, and I've been forced into an Intensive Reading class because of my "absence".

All of my old friends still remember me. Reuniting with my old friends Mike, Kyle, and Dana was wonderful, using the same story on them. I felt bad about lying to them, but I don't want them getting sucked into my screwy ordeal. We hung out at lunch, caught up on each others' lives, and we all went in Mike's car down to this shopping center called the Pavilion after school. We messed around in various stores, got kicked out of one of them by a cop, and bought a rug for no reason whatsoever. It actually fits quite nicely in my room. It has two dragons of different colors on it shooting fire at each other: one was red and the other was blue.

But the entire time we were at the Pavilion, I felt this... very uneasy presence. At a lot of moments.

But all in all, I'm loving this new start to my life.

Oh yeah, and this was waiting for me on my desk when I got home. I'm guessing this isn't quite over yet.

You'd think that after a year

They would have solved John's murder by now.

But no.

It remains unsolved.

Jesus H. Christo.

What Has Happened

Hello everyone. Garrett here. It has been nearly a year since the death of my close friend John Smith. I know I promised to post again when I returned, and I'm sorry for not keeping that promise. Now I'm going to explain why this happened.

On November 22nd, 2011, I went on my walk to clear my head, like I said. I spent some time exploring parts of John's neighborhood that night, parts that I had never seen before. There's actually a lot of his neighborhood that I really love, like the cul-de-sac a street away, the man-made lake around the corner from his house, and especially the wide open field down the long road that leads to the entrance to his neighborhood.

After spending around an hour or two doing that, it began to rain. I had a long way back home because I didn't realize how far off I had walked. As I started to walk back home, the rain got heavier. This really frustrated me due to the fact that I was soaking wet and it was harder to walk with my clothes sagging. I decided to take a detour through the forest because it was a quicker route.

This was a mistake.

After around 5 minutes of walking through the bushes and trees, I come across a symbol drawn in the dirt. It was the (X) symbol that John rambled about on his blog. Then I realized something: this was the exact spot where John was found. I stared at it. As I did, memories of John and I raced through my head. Memories of recess at school, playing video games at his house, birthday parties, holidays, all of it. And at that moment, I realized that I never thought about how much I really miss John. Tears started to well up in my eyes. I tried to fight them back, but I couldn't.

I crumbled down to my knees and tears streamed from my eyes.

As I continued to cry, I lifted my head to look in front of me. An abnormally tall, skinny, faceless man was standing in the distance between two trees. I wanted to look away, but I couldn't. I was trapped in its gaze.

As I continued to stare, the man released four long, black tentacle-like appendages from its back. He tilted his head, and a sharp ringing filled my eardrums. It sounded like hell, it was so sharp and so loud.

And then I fainted.

Last night, I woke up in a sewer. My shirt was torn to shreds and tainted with blood, as well as my jeans. I had multiple cut wounds on my chest, faces, arms, and legs. And my back was killing me. I put my hand over my cheek and felt an oddly shaped scar, which I later saw was the (X) symbol. It was literally branded onto my cheek. Branded as in BURNED.

About a foot away from me, a bloodied butterfly knife was lying on the ground. It was in perfect condition, too. It didn't belong to me, but there was someones initials scratched onto it.

"Q.Z." I don't know anyone that goes by the initials of Q.Z.

Once I got to the surface, I noticed I was in a town not too far away from my town. I immediately searched for a hospital to patch up my wounds, even though it was extremely hard to walk with my injured back. Not too far away from the manhole I climbed out of, I found a hospital that went by the name of Mercy Hospital. They took me in, patched me up, called in a chiropractor to fix my back, and I was on my way. I didn't go to the police afterwards because my story would be so unbelievable that they would call in the nice men with a new white straight jacket for me.

From now on, I'll be using this blog to keep records of what is happening to me. I'm attempting to get my life back on track and to find out what happened to me. I'll start by asking some of my friends and family back in my home town; surely they'll know something.

I'll post again on November 20th, the one-year anniversary of John's death. For now, I bid you all adieu and hope you wish me luck.

John's "box"

Hey guys, it's Garrett. I received news about what happened to John. A few days ago, he snuck out of his house in the middle of the night and went to the woods behind his house. He brought along his pistol and two large kitchen knives. Apparently, some kids found him lying in the woods the next morning. He was lying on top of a dirt drawing of the (X) symbol he mentioned in a few of the previous entries on this blog. The paramedics told me that when they found him after a 911 call, his body was mangled. He had multiple, deep gashes all over his body. He was also missing both of his hands and his right ear, and his right foot was dangling from a single patch of flesh. He was also bleeding from his ears, mouth, and nose profusely. Both of the kitchen knives were bent and the pistol's barrel was bent at a very acute angle.

The paramedics told me that John wanted to give me a message. John told him to tell me, "I almost had him."
Seconds after he told him that, he passed away from extreme blood loss.

After that, I checked his blog to see if he left it anything that might explain what happened to John and I came across his last entry first. I did what he said and I looked through his room and I found a small, brown, wooden box. I opened it up and inside was the username and password to John's blog. And, as you might imagine, that's how I got onto his blog to write this. When I saw John's parents again they asked me so many questions that I had no answers to.

I'm going to miss you, John. You were probably my best friend. I'm just thinking back to when we were younger, when we used to hang out with Zach, when we played paintball in the woods, our birthday parties, all of that. Those were the best times of my life, and it crushes me that we can't make more memories. This has to be the worst part of my life right now. I hope to see you, Zach, and Jared soon. Hopefully we'll be together again in Heaven someday.

Whoever did this to John is going to pay a large price for what they have done.

I think I'm just gonna go take a walk. Walking this off might make me feel better. I'll post again when I come back.

R.I.P John Smith, Zach Timbs, and Jared Nathan
God bless you, your friends, and your families.

Garrett

I don't know what's going to happen to me from here on out. I've been planning to solve everything, but what I plan on doing might not pull through. I'm not going to say what it is because I know someone that will read this will try to stop me.

That thing hasn't left my life for a moment since this started. I think about it every day, all day. I can't go a single day without thinking it will be my last. I've watched people around me die because of this thing, and I know I've been the primary target.

I feel like bringing up this topic since I haven't mentioned it in a while: That guy that walked up and down my street was arrested yesterday for the murder of Jared and around ten other innocent people, whose organs, I suspect, were hung inside the garbage bags in the trees that Jared and I saw in the woods. When the man was interrogated, he didn't give his real name, but referred to himself as the Collector of Organs. He confessed to his crimes and also mentioned that he took Jared's organs, too. They also searched his house and found a room that had that (X) symbol and random writing written all over the walls, the floor, and the ceiling, as well as a painting of the thing with tentacles that wrapped all of the walls. Nothing else, not even furniture, was in the room. One room, which they suspected, was his Weapons Room. He had five kinds of knives, a chainsaw, three pistols, and a shotgun. During the end of the interrogation, the reporter said the Collector of Organs said the strangest thing, which was: "The tall man never fails. He always finds victory in his mission, in his victims. His mission, unknown. The purpose of his existence, unknown. It's time for us to put the pieces of the puzzle together. The never-ending puzzle." He was sentenced to death today. His last words were "Zachary, the Collector of People, should be me now. He was defiant, so he is no longer with us".

Back on topic: I'm leaving tonight. I'm not telling where I'm going, but I'm going alone. I'm not telling what I'm doing, either. I don't know if I'll be returning home afterwards, but I'm going to try to fix everything, for everyone.

Garrett Silvano, one of my best friends, I am writing this to you. I know you'll be the first to investigate if you found out anything happened to me, so if something does happen to me, and you're reading this post, ask my parents to let you rummage through my room because I let you. I'm leaving you something before I go.

One warning: Never, ever, ever go into the woods behind my house.

I AM SICK OF THIS

I AM SICK SICK SICK SICK SICK OF THIS.

I HAVEN'T SLEPT SINCE I WENT DOWN IN THAT ROOM.

I'M NEVER THE LEAST BIT HAPPY. I'M ALWAYS ANGRY, ALWAYS DEPRESSED, AND NOW I'M ALWAYS SICK. I SCREAMED AT MY GIRLFRIEND WHO I JUST STARTED DATING OVER THE WEEKEND.

I JUST WANT THIS TO END. ONE WAY OR ANOTHER.

I'M NOT GOING TO KILL MYSELF, THOUGH. I NEED TO CHANGE THINGS. NOW.

Still Waiting

I think I know what I'm waiting for.

Him.

Waiting for him to come.

I think I know what I need to use the gun for, too.