After making several aimless rounds and seeing nobody, he caught 
a glimpse of a tall figure's coat and called out to him for directions. A 
masked head and the shoulder it belonged to slid out behind a 
doorway and nodded in the opposite direction. Feeling as though he 
should have been taken aback, but not actually having the sentiment 
by whatever magic was in the bowl upstairs, he followed the nod to 
a brightly lit dinner room, and the back of his comrade's head. 


Darke twisted around in his seat. “Percy! Join me. Eggs?” 


“Gladly, sir. Thank you.” Darke scraped a pair of the bright and 
flattened orbs onto a dish he had prepared, and began pouring 
himself a glass of rum. 


“Made, of sugar from this plantation, on this plantation, about four 
summers ago; | have since had a few other distilleries built around 
the side of the house, and am learning to create rum as a little side 
project of mine. Appreciate the taste of wine, but use rum, for the 
real drinking.” Percival noted how he would hesitate between words 
as he spoke, drawing emphasis to some of his absent-minded 
actions between clauses. 


“On my first batch, | offered the first glass to one of the niggers who 
helped me move some supplies. Didn't know what | was doing. He's 
blind now. Step out on the porch with me.” Percival began to pick up 
his plate, but a bustling house servant took it out of his hands and 
carried it to a table on the sundeck. Overlooking the orchard in front 
of them, and to his left, the noon sun shown down on the tall fields of 
sugar cane. 


“So, Percy, my new friend. How much of last night do you 
remember? Because as much as | put down, | do recall your very 
interesting story.” He pulled a pouch of tobacco out of his shirt. “And 
you,” he gestured with a pipe, also from his shirt, “have piqued my 
interest. No fear, no fear!” In response to Percival's fearfully crooked 
eyebrows. 


“You made it very clear to me, and everybody else, that your 
greatest interest is money. And that you have the utmost faith in 
your own abilities. As do I.” He lit a matched and drew. 


“Mr. Darke, | don't know what | said, but | hope you'll pardon me,” 
Darke stopped him with a thoughtful wave of his hand. 


“Darke. I've been going by that name for a long time, Percy. And | 
think I'm about done with it. So here are my thoughts. Not many 
people can leave their mark on the world. And | believe that if you 
chase after luxury by money you've only made by using others, you 
won't care to have it in the end. | can promise you that wealth has 
never been a goal to strive for. It's truly secondary, and by the time 
you've created it for yourself, it will be too late to realize that you 
really wanted everything but. 


“You have your gifts, Percy. Intellect and education, ambition. A 
hundred hells, you have youth. Real youth, not my youth. Forget | 
said that. Actually don’t, I’ll circle around. And | don’t know if you 
noticed, but before you vomited a barrel and a half, there was a 
tavern full of women looking you over. All of this, and you want 
money. | blame society.” He drew again, and took a swig of rum. 


“My point is, Percy, you have potential. There’s very little legitimate 
potential in anyone, and you have mounds of it. Having seen the 
world change a few times over — no really, I'll get to that — I’ve 
earned the right to say it’s people like you who make the difference. 
And here you are, no small thief, crooking over men who put faith in 
you to get to the mainland and make money?” He spat the word, 
and shot through Percy with a look of more paternalism than the 
young man had ever been shown. Shame was a foreign construct 
for him. It hurt. 


“So if you’d like, /’d like to see to it you don’t waste yourself. 


“There's magic in this world, son. It lives behind a veil, and it'll give 
itself up to people who go looking for it. | found it, and in my time I've 
done a great deal to make a difference by it. And then | got wealthy.” 
He gestured across the grounds. “Worst thing that could have 
happened to me.” He drew from the pipe again, and began to tell a 
story. 


It was a fascinating story. Darke had had his fingers in nearly every 
European conquest in the last millennium. He had loved, and lost, 
and fought in countless wars. He had nearly died at the hands of 


Francois Ravaillac, during his mission to kill Henry IV, King of 
France. He had advised the English crown and manipulated the 
Church of Rome, always for the greater good, a/ways by a code. He 
had lived. When he drew his story to a close, how he had come to 
own his plantation and some of his lesser misadventures with the 
island's witch doctor, he seemed to expect something from Percival. 
If not belief, then perhaps acknowledgment. He got neither. 


“Mister Darke, | must be on my way. Thank you for your hospitality,” 
“You can reject what you've heard today, Percy,” “Percival. My 
name is Percival Cretum, thank you.” Darke's sigh was not one of 
frustration, nor disappointment, but of understanding. A father 
watching his son make the mistakes that he couldn't warn him 
against. 


“I'm afraid you're Darke, now. You can go if you like. But magic is 
upon you, and | only want to see you use it the right way. Admittedly 
probably a faux pas to make you magic without telling you, but 
there’s really no standard, so there you go.” 


“What? What magic, would you say that you're magic, that-” “Not 
anymore, but | certainly was.” “that your eight hundred years old-” “l 
might be a /ittle magic, still.” “and that paste upstairs, that was 
magic?” “Coca leaves, which | can't believe there's not a market for. 
“You're insane.” “More for me, | suppose.” 


” 


“| need to leave. Thank you. Thank you very much, for everything, 
for your time, for breakfast, for the COCA LEAVES, thank you, and 
thank you again. Good bye!” 


Percival Cretum Darke strode down the path he assumed was to the 
city, came back when it wasn't, and looked around the grounds, 
trying and failing to maintain the sarcastic indifference in his step. 
The man who wasn't Darke anymore pointed to the West, and with a 
parting, “Right. Thanks!” Percival Cretum Darke walked off the No- 
Longer-Darke Plantation. 


The Tarp stood behind the man smoking a pipe. In a voice like 
velvet gravel he spoke. “Do you try again?” 


A moment passed. “I’ve been at this game a while. Nine years, six 


months, between two or four weeks, depending on that Autumn’s 
tobacco harvest. He’ll be back. See to it he gets to Boston, will you?” 
And The Tarp was gone. 


Are We Christmas Yet? 


"| still think this is a terrible idea." 
"No, it's awesome! Like, deconstructive or whatever." 


Overgang and Joey stared at the enormous red bauble that towered 
over nearby buildings, pensively sipping eggnog. It had several 
hundred minuscule trees hanging off the side of it. Overgang posed 
a question. 


"So, it's an hour and ten to midnight. What happens when it's 
Christmas?" 


"Presents happen." 

"Presents happen?" 

"Presents happen. Everywhere." 
"Elaborate." 

"It literally causes Christmas miracles." 
"Elaborate more." 


"Sick children will walk, Tiny Tim will get his presents, Scrooge will 
see the light. The town will be filled with cheer and goodwill, children 
will run downstairs only to see Santa Claus pop up the chimney. 
Rich people will let beggars into their houses, every church bell will 
ring twelve times. A cranky old man will smile for the first time in 
twenty years. Kids will ice skate while laughing happily, and be 
joined by their otherwise dismissive parents. Snow shall fall down, 
leaving beautiful white fields by morning. John McClane and Hans 
Gruber shall fight a war of wills, little Macaulay Culkin will fight off a 
pair of thieves. The Grinch's heart will grow three sizes, and Charlie 
Brown's sad little tree will get the love it deserves. Peace on earth, 
goodwill to man. The perfect Christmas." 


"Well, that sounds lovely, if a bit boring." 


"And of course, since Christmas is about the little baby Jesus and 
the mother Mary, every virginal female in the city will spontaneously 
give birth, whereupon the newborn is promptly crushed by a pile of 
gold, frankincense, and myrrh." 


"That's more like it." 


Watching Corpses 


| don't quite remember the first time, but my parents told me about it. 
| would have been about... 5? Probably 5 or 6, yeah. It was one of 
my friends' dad. | just ran away screaming to the teacher about a 
monster in the playground. Got told off for being mean to grown ups. 
The next week he drowned. Fell off his fishing boat. 


No, when | actually realised it | would have been about 11. When my 
grandmother was in the hospital. 


Nah, it wasn't her. Cancer went into remission. It was all the other 
patients. Most of them were missing eyes. That's normally the first 
thing that | notice. She ended up dying a year or so later. 


Oh man, you have no idea. Everyone just crowding over her. My 
mother kept making me go and talk to her, and hold her hand. | kept 
just seeing bits of skin falling off her. | think that's probably what 
fucked me up the most, you know. A whole week just being driven 
out to the hospital, every day, seeing more and more of her fall 
apart. And everyone just acted normal, you know? Making sure she 
was okay. Comforting a corpse. 


Oh, hell no. | was old enough to know that I'd just be thrown in the 
crazy bin. They just thought | was crying because we were in a 
hospital. 


Anyway, made my way through school somehow. Wasn't really 
great at anything in particular, so | ended up joining the army. 


Well yeah, in hindsight it wasn't the best idea. Once we got into the 
field it was just... hell, you Know. There'd just be people sitting in the 
mess hall, all dried up and shit. And they'd talk to me, and | knew 
that they were going to end up dead, and it's that... | tried to stop 
them, but it never worked. It wasn't great. 


Yeah, well, you can't really blame me. Just woke up one day and 


they were all like that. Easiest decision of my life: took the first plane 
out. The carpet bombings started a week later. That's when the 
GOC pulled me in, of course. 


Well, it looked very "telling". Not the kind of thing the army really 
cares about, but the GOC figured it out somehow. 


| can't really remember... he went by Tangerine, | think? Anyway, 
we chatted for a bit, got everything sorted out. They just stuck me in 
an office to organise teams. 


Well, it didn't guarantee that they'd be successful, but they always 
came back alive. After a while they realised that the personnel | was 
turning down still turned up dead, even if it was something like a 
heart attack, so they pulled me out of that. 


Well yeah, that's when they started thinking that it might be me 
killing them indirectly. Kept me locked up for a month, ran the 
battery of tests until they all-cleared me. After that, if | saw any dead 
personnel | was to keep it to myself. | felt pretty crappy about it, but 
like | said, | can't do much about it. They decided it might be better 
to send me out doing field work, you know? I'd been in the army, like 
| said. And let me tell you, | was the best. Worked as a spotter in 
sniper teams; of course, they'd always make their shots. | could go 
in and clear out buildings by myself, just because | knew they had to 
die. 


Oh man, the worst was probably the crowd bombing. | knew 
something was going to go down, there were dead people 
everywhere, and then they all just... aligned in a perfect circle. And it 
was like, in those fractions of seconds before they all went, | knew 
what was going to happen. They were all going to die, and the rest 
would scatter. And | looked at the centre of that circle, and | swear, 
that bastard looked straight at me. Of course, | just saw a hollow 
skull, facing right at me, and then a ball of flames and shrapnel. That 
would have been in '97, you know, might have heard about it. 


Yeah, | retired from active service, what, 6 years ago? They still pull 
me in for important stuff. Hell, they've probably noticed I'm gone 
already. 


Oh, no, I'm not worried. They'll come and get me. 


Within the week. 


reattached seamlessly, deep bruising quickly developed under the 
skin. Pain rapidly increased until the subject had to be sedated. 
Close examination of the subject's arm showed the blood vessels 
and nerve endings no longer met, and it was effectively cut off from 
the rest of the body. D-1618 terminated. 


« SCP-567 | SCP-568 | SCP-569 » 


Dark Arts and Crafts 


| used to see abstracts, nonsense, but somehow | understood. It 
was an instinct, an intuition; less like the bird knowing to build a 
nest, more like the twigs knowing how to become one. There was 
something magical to the way | interfaced with it. Each piece was a 
tiny fragment of the universe, and some of them hinted about it, or 
had a vignette from its history. A shattered mirror, twinkling in 
impossible hues. These things were intentional and accidental and 
incidental and absolute, and sometimes | found some occult wisdom 
lying around in the street. 


Have you heard of the elephant that did abstract paintings? | went to 
visit it at the zoo because | thought that was interesting. | surprised 
myself. I'm cynical and | usually pass those things off, but | went and 
watched the elephant paint. | thought it was clever. The paintings 
gave me happy feelings, so much so that | bought one. 


| hung new paintings up facing my bed. It helped me absorb them 
since they were the last and first thing | saw every day. | liked to 
think they influenced my dreams. | had a single dream during this 
painting's stint on the back wall. This dream was mostly colour. 
Colour, memory, and a strong taste of copper. There were no words, 
or sound, or touch, simply being... or, perhaps, simply not. This 
dream was different. | woke up excited. 


| experienced. Trillions of people converging, dancing across vast 
distances, finally disappearing into a vanishing point. In the end | 
opened my eyes to see the elephant’s painting past the foot of my 
bed. In that context, the painting made sense. The elephant, | 
thought, must have had the same dream. 


Other things made weird sense to me. | saw a broken mirror in a 
restroom. | felt that if | stayed long enough the person on the other 
side might start talking to me. Of course that didn’t happen, but 
when | fell asleep | could see Earth through a looking glass; 


tumbling evermore down an endless rabbit hole. 


The girl next-door. Every day she left the building with a 
mischievous smile on her face. | can’t describe what | saw that night; 
but | woke in the morning with pins and needles down my throat. | 
felt like we saw it together. 


One day | saw her leave with a man who smiled the same smile, 
and | thought | wouldn't see her for a long time after that. 


| saw holes in a tightly stretched canvas. On the pavement there 
were spots of light where moths had eaten away. In my dreams | 
heard beams of light twisting through space; | saw screaming 
echoes of glorious tulips. My eyelids parted to taste the sun. 


| wondered about the girl | saw earlier; Did the sun's gaze flow into 
her apartment, too? 


| looked for answers. 


Her room was completely furnished, knick knacks and all. Was she 
whisked away? Did she die? All that was left there were her 
memories and my approximation of them. | could see from her 
textbooks that she was studying economics, and that she went to 
the local college. A framed photo of a man who certainly wasn't the 
man | saw her with before. Who was the other man? The man in the 
photo looked like it was her boyfriend. | figured it was so.