The Unblessed Ch. 3 and 4, Prologue

 So Collin (Why is he always referred to by his last name?) enters the cave which is notable for a few features. One: It's huge and man-made. Two: Phosphorescent crawly things. Three: Piles of dead people. Four: A demon.

The demon is described as "a mass of glowing bioluminescence so blindingly brilliant that he could not make out the true form of its body. The rays of multicolored light played on the walls of the cavern... towering at least fifteen feet..." So it's giant, amorphous, colorful and glowing. It sounds like something you'd see advertised for three installments of 9.99 on late night tv. Does late night tv still exist? If it does they're definitely selling this to somebody as a guaranteed way to help your children not be afraid of the dark or as a ward against home invasion or maybe as a holiday decoration. I don't know what holiday would require a dazzling rainbow demon on your front lawn but if someone could find a way to sell kitsch they'd create one.

There are also brain-washed "Devil's men" lined up. In the cave, not on late night tv. Also on late night tv. But these ones are all wearing "jungle clothing" rather than "European clothing" so none of them belong to his group or the hunting party they were looking for. Oh, wait - there they are! The hunting party is all dead except for the tracker, Chaka, who is soon brought in for the demon to feast on. As Collin watches from the shadows Chaka is submitted to terrifying, hallucinatory images that float in front of him like a macabre light show. All the horrors of "Gargoyles, unicorns, and sea serpents." Eventually the demon gets tired of entertaining horrifying his victim and starts the drawn out process of feeding on him with tendrils that burn his head and eyes, leaving him dead.

Collin finds his friends, still caught in the grip of the demon's control, forced to watch the death of Chaka. When the "Devil's men" go for McPhearson he decides it's time to act and explodes their heads with his gun. Of course he's overpowered almost immediately and McPhearson is taken away but he manages to shove the medallion down Smith's shirt which helps Smith fight off the demon's influence. The two of them start walloping and shooting their way free. In the meantime, McPhearson succumbs to his horrible fate and Collin shoots him to put him out of his misery. (What did I say about McPhearson? He was a happy family man; do I know my clichés or what?)

Once outside the cavern, Collin and Smith make for a distant ranger station where they get to collapse in safety. Five days later they head back with a camera and explosives intending to document I'm not entirely certain what. The cave entrance? The people who from a distance just look like people? Were they actually going to sneak in and take pictures of the devil? After their well-thought out plan, I'm sure, they were going to blow everything up. Before they can, everything collapses by itself and they see "a brightly, glowing object, a large C-47 cargo plane... Clearly it had taken off from a hidden airstrip in the valley beyond the next hill." I didn't know there was a valley, I thought we were in "deep jungle" or "rain forest" but apparently the demon owns enough land to build an airfield.

"It's gotten away from us," Collin murmured in disbelief. "God in heaven. Now it could be anywhere. Anywhere on this earth. How are we ever going to find it?" p.110

I'm not sure why he came to the conclusion that the demon made it's escape on a C-47 instead of say, someone else getting wind of this apparently open secret of where this thing lived and coming to destroy it as well but nevermind. The demon absconded in a C-47. Aren't those kind of big? It's meant to cart troops around. Maybe he took all the brain-washed men Collin and Smith didn't kill with him.

Anyway, they resolve to go talk to Hasha about where it might be because that poor, sad bastard still has a minor mental connection to it.

The prologue to the next chapter opens like this: "A feeling of brooding menace pervaded the basement room that was roughly square, and perhaps thirty feet on a side." p.112

The set-up within that room has your typical satanic accoutrements: pentagram, candles (blood red), altar, chalice (gold), book (gilt-bound, though he probably meant -edged), mirror, dagger (silver) and a dead animal (small, species unknown). There's also Maximillian Grey (dark, latin good looks) performing a ritual. He chants words, tosses powder around and drinks blood, the usual, and soon a figure appears in the mirror whereupon Grey offers the "Master of the Outer Darkness" his body. To wear. "After an absence of ages, the Guardian had returned to Earth." p.115

I'm digging this book. It's so action-packed and quite frankly, ridiculous. I love it.

The Unblessed by Paul Richards Ch. 1-2

 I've been on an old horror books kick recently, started by reading Henderson's Paperbacks from Hell.

There's something nice reading fiction totally removed from the current world. No internet, cell phones, hacking, pandemic, nationalist movements, etc. Diseases tend to be very non-specific, technology is often either benign or a force for good. People still have to go to stores to buy things and go to the library to research matters. It feels so foreign. You also get more unconscious misogyny and racism but you can pretend that belongs in the past.

Currently I'm reading "The Unblessed" by Paul Richards published by Zebra Books in 1982.

The author's foreword assures us that he researched a lot for this book, even the "various psychic phenomena".

The prologue takes us to Sudan in January, 1970 where Dan Hunt arrives at an archeological dig to meet Dr. Mason Raymond and John Garfield who have discovered something amazing, a sacrificial altar from 3500 years ago and an inscription corresponding to legends about a demon named Anthrada, a priest named Cymonatha and the hero who took him down, Niyikang. (According to the foreword this guy is "an actual person whose exploits have been handed down from generation to generation through the oral tradition".)

The trio makes their way into this recently uncovered site while info-dumping about the legend until they get to a giant cavern whereupon they view "the hideous contents of the deep, hollow depression" "aghast". At this point Garfield is apparently possessed and makes at the other two, presumably with murder in mind, but unfortunately mister clumsy trips on a rock and goes whoopsie down into the pit. Where, I guess, he dies. The other two resolve to seal off the site. "What if there were more such creatures?" What creatures, you might ask? I don't know. Whatever possessed Garfield. What did they see in the pit? Beats me. Bodies?

We forward 11 days to Zaire and a small village containing one Christopher Arthur Collin, a journalist researching the illegal ivory trade, there with his partner Terry McPhearson. Collin has "fiery, animated eyes" and "lean weathered features". "The Levi's-clad American" is worried because the "Sedgewick hunting party" is overdue back and he worries for his fellow countrymen. Lord Sedgewick though so I don't know if an Englishman is employing Americans or Richards just wanted to sound fancy or what.

Collin decides to take it upon himself to find them and approaches a "native ranger" he knows "whose tribal name was Lianga" but calls himself Smith. He finds Smith in his small quarters reading "Plutarch's Lives" of course and Smith resolves to take Collin and McPhearson into what is alternately called the deep jungle and the rain forest but only if they stop at a village along the way to find out why going into Anansi, the Spider God's land is verboten.

They reach a village where the chief, Luba, takes them to an old man named Hasha whose "eyes themselves had somehow been burnt out completely, as though red-hot pokers had been thrust ruthlessly into his sockets and held there." Through Smith, Hasha tells a (long, rambling, ungrammatical) story of wandering into the wrong land while hunting and being taken captive by mind-controlled men. He was brought to a cave where the demon spoke into his mind to feed off his brain and had his eyes burned out. Unfortunately for the demon, Hasha has a benign brain tumor and his thoughts are poisoned? Or something? So he was let go and found by another group later on. He's kept by the village as a warning.

Smith is given a medallion to keep him safe and they go on their way. We learn McPhearson has a wife and sons so I'm calling his future death. While on watch McPhearson is invaded by the demon, cuts the medallion off Smith and wanders with Smith off into the trees leaving Collin to wake up alone and confused. Yolana the Priestess said she believed that her entire purpose in life was to be there to give her Great-great grandma's protective amulet to Smith but boy did it seem easily bypassed.

Collin goes looking for them but when he finds them of course they're evil or whatever. They try to bring him into the fold but something about him wards off possession. They try to shoot him and he gets away. He can't stand the thought of leaving them behind so he follows their tracks and comes across a cave entrance being guarded by two men. He uses the Hitman approach to lure them away - throwing things far from where you don't want them so the NPCs will alert and investigate the very obvious distraction. As he slips inside he hopes he can save his friends.

It is a wordy book; not only in length of description but it's the sort where "cogitate" is used when "thought" would do. Also, we keep getting reminded that Collin is "white" and Smith is "black" which is awkward and weird. But despite that it's an entertaining read and I'm curious as to where we're going to end up.