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[the following are excerpts from the journal of Aaron Williams]
January 20th, 2012
Last night I had the most vivid nightmare. I was on a train as it derailed. All around me, corpses were piled about, blood was everywhere. I felt alright. I looked around and saw my reflection, except that it wasn't me. Well, it was, but it was me when I was a kid. I heard a screech and woke up with a start. 12:23am. Little did I know that that nightmare would kick off the worst day of my life.
So I woke up with a start as my cellphone was ringing. It was my agent. I picked up, and he answered with that cloying voice of his. He said he had a job for me, and that we should meet for breakfast. He was already on his way from LA, so we could meet in a couple of hours. I agreed. Two hours later, we're sitting at a small cafe just down the street from my place.
"Look, Aaron, I've got the job of a lifetime for ya," my agent tells me between mouthfuls.
"Ricky, I told you, if this is another guest spot on How I Met Your Mother, I'm not interested. I need something real."
"Aaron, buddy, you know it ain't nothing like that. You heard of Obama's little speech today, commemorating his three years in office? I got you to make a little appearance at the gala beforehand. It'll be great, get your visibility up, maybe you'll get another good role after this."
"Right. Well if you think it's best..."
"Of course, I wouldn't do anything to harm your career Aaron," as he smiles that smile. The same smile he gave me when he told me I should take the offer to be on Celebrity Big Brother.
"All right, I'll do it this time."
"Excellent! You got the bill?"
I sighed.
"It's a joke, buddy, I'll take care of ya, I always do!"
I went home, worked on some of my own things, the script that I've been writing, some songs I've been working on. I wanted to get relaxed before the "big appearance." Eventually, Ricky and I met up to head to the arena where the event was being held. He told me to wait around until he could get everything set up. Some short reporter showed up and wanted to interview me. I declined. We heard a gunshot come from the room just over, the room that Ricky had entered.
That's when I made probably the worst decision of my life. I opened the door, cellphone in hand ready to dial 911 if necessary. You know those moments they talk about that completely set the path for your future? I think this was my "moment."
In the room, was Ricky and a huge Jamaican guy pointing guns at each other, the barrel of Ricky's gun smoking. I yell out, and the next thing I know, I hear another shot coming from a closet, missing the big guy by inches. Ricky's yelling at me to get out of here, and a Middle Eastern guy is jumping out of the closet, gun drawn. I kind of lost it here, I remember a lot of yelling and shouting about a package, and somehow Ricky ended up unconscious.
Turns out the Jamaican guy is called Smoke and he was supposed to be delivering something to Ricky, and the Arab dude is named Ahmed and he's here to stop it or something. I'm still not too clear on what's going on. Next thing we know, though, there's some security busting in and locking us into the room until the ceremony is over for the president's protection.
I'm surprised no-one got shot with a bunch of crazy people stuck in a room together. One thing got us all on the same page, though: a huge explosion rocked the place. I assumed it was what everyone was expecting: an assassination attempt. I'm not so sure anymore. But I'm skipping ahead now. Right afterwards, this green gas started to fill our room. We had no clue what it was, so that huge Smoke guy charged forward and busted through the door.
Outside, the two men left to guard our room are lying dead, and one side of the hallway was collapsed. Some cops come down the hallway towards us, and I throw up my hands and yell out a greeting. They responded by shooting at me. Those two guys start shooting back, and, I don't remember why, but I do to, using my own handgun. I admit now, that I wasn't thinking properly, but I don't think I shot anyone. Thank God.
Next thing I know, the cops are all down on the ground, some of them probably dead. So at this point, I'm thinking that the whole world has gone to shit, and nothing is making any sense. Nothing that I'd seen that night could prepare me for what came next. A crowd starts coming down the hall, but there's something strange about them. They seemed to be in pretty bad shape, covered in blood and moving towards us. But now, something I wouldn't believe if anyone told me (and, whoever's reading this, I'll understand if you don't believe me) happened. Those cops that had been killed? They were getting up. And moving towards us.
I turned around, and saw Ricky, with a clear gunshot wound from the firefight before coming towards me, arms outstretched and teeth bared. I know this sounds crazy, but goddammit, they were zombies. Like in those movies. The shooting started again, and I don't remember clearly what happened except that Ricky charged me and bit a huge chunk of my forearm off. It hurt like hell, but I barely noticed.
Next thing I know, I hear a huge explosion and a flash of light, and some army guys burst in shooting all over the place. They yell at us to get down, and we do. They grab us up and bring us to an APC, taking us into custody. Thankfully, as we were passing by, we say President Obama safe and sound. I don't know what was going on, but at least he'd made it.
I wind up in a jail with those two other guys and that reporter from earlier, trying to figure out what the hell had just happened. Those army dudes start questioning us and a Senator shows up, asking his own questions. I still had no idea what was going on, it seems like everyone knows more than I do.
A grenade rolls into the room, filling it with knockout gas. It doesn't reach us, and all those guards protecting us pass out. In walks a Chinese man along with his bodyguards, and he says something about "a new dawn" approaching. He's here to free us he says.
Holy hell. Look at what I've written. If you're still reading this, know that I'm not crazy. And know as well that this day wasn't even close to being over.
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[entry continued]
So now we're getting ushered out of our cell by Mr. Xi (the aforementioined Chinese Man) and his personal guard named Viper. He looks like I dude no-one would ever want to mess with. We make a break for the parking lot and run into some resistance, turns out escaping from a police station when you're a wanted criminal isn't easy. Who'd have thought?
So there's shooting, and I kinda lost myself. I shot this one cop, and I kind of froze in my head, thinking about his family and friends. I don't think he was dead, but still... What am I doing? There wasn't much time for thinking, it looked like Smoke got shot up pretty bad and more cops were coming. A van drove up and Viper ushered us in and we drove out of there before we ran into more trouble.
Without much time to think about what was going on, we arrived at Mr. Xi's nightclub and were brought to his meeting room where he formally introduced himself and told us he had work for us. This part is a little hazy, as I got a little tipsy soon after, and I'm drawing a bit of a blank. So sue me, I needed a drink.
Anyway, he talked to us about this new drug that's been passing around called Candy, it's the big thing nowadays, apparently. But then he told us the real shocker: that the mist that was being poured into the stadium was a kind of gas form of Candy, and might be a psychotic agent.
The he showed a video of us that he procured during the "incident" at the arena, just like we remembered it except for one main difference: the people we were shooting at weren't zombies, but just random innocent people. Shocked by this, we weren't sure what was real anymore... Had we been influenced by the Candy mist? I'm not sure.
Anyway, he told us that we had better find the Candy lab. When we asked why we wouldn't just run to Brazil or something at this point, he told us that if we don't follow his instructions, then the video would be sent to every news agency in the world; a video of us three shooting down innocent civilians (real or not) was going to be aired around the world. Soon after, we agreed to do his dirty work. He told us to head to a club called Diabolique, and find out what we can there.
So now is when I got that aforementioned drink, and it gets hazier and hazier. Something happened to Ahmed, as the next time I saw him he had some huge cuts across his face, and Smoke was on a hospital bed, I think? That journalist guy was there too, holding a syringe. People were arguing non-stop. Then Mr. Xi showed up, and asked us what we were doing in this part of the club. For just a second, I saw his teeth when he smiled. Except they weren't teeth, they were fangs.
I passed out.
So yeah, craziest day of my life. I think I might still be on Candy or something, reading over it now, none of it makes sense.
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January 21st, 2012
I had the weirdest dream. I was in a desert watching a convoy drive down some desert highway, when there was a sudden appearance of a bright light in the sky followed from an explosion emanating from the convoy. A man with no face walks off into the sunset. A Jeep shows up, and some military men jump out, getting shot at from all around, but the bullets don't seem to hurt them. They shoot back. A fifth being is talking on some sort of old-time radio, but his head becomes a burst of red as a bullet pierces his skull.
I wake up. 12:23. It seems like I keep waking up at that time, lately. I've got a splitting headache.
Smoke and Ahmed are here, as well as an envelope reiterating our instructions from Mr. Xi. The door is locked and we can't get out. Smoke and Ahmed move to the air vent, trying to get it open. They do so without making too much noise and we crawl out. Looking through a grate, we figure out that we were being held in a hospital, and notice that a couple of armed guards are patrolling around. Crawling a bit further, we exit the vent and find ourselves in the morgue.
We sneak out of the hospital, as quietly as we can. I hail a cab and head back to my place with Ahmed and Smoke. When I get there, I find a message Janene, Ricky's secretary, asking me where Ricky's at. I didn't have the heart to call her back. I go for a shower and relax as much as possible before moving on. After we're all ready to go, we head off to Diabolique to try to find out where this Candy lab might be.
I think a car is following us as we go, but when we get to Diabolique, it just keeps on driving. We enter the club in the mid-afternoon, so there's no one there yet. We meet a Mr. Stone and a Mr. Carver, and, remembering that Ricky said he had some business here, I lie and say that I'll be representing his interests. They seem to believe me, but I can see some suspicion in their eyes. I ask to meet the club owner, but he's out of town, so I meet with the person left in charge, a beautiful woman whose name is currently escaping me.
We talked for a while, but she didn't seem to be directly involved in Ricky's business. She told me a bit about the club owner, and showed me a photo of him. Something weird happened here; when I looked at the photo of the club's employees, for just a second, I saw a huge red demonic figure with wings spread wide, I couldn't help but think of Satan himself. I blinked, but then it was gone, replaced with the picture of the club owner. It was strange. I tried to hide my surprise, but I think she might have noticed. I left right away.
I went downstairs and had the meeting that Ricky was supposed to attend. It turns out he was buying a huge amount of Candy from these people. Seeing as I didn't have nearly enough money with me to pay for the Candy, they started getting angry. Ahmed and Smoke later told me that they had snipers aiming at my head. I'm glad I didn't know about that during the negotiation; it could have been stressful.
I told them that I was looking to invest in their Candy operation, explaining that I was soon going to fall into a large amount of money, and I wanted to take a look at the lab where they produce their Candy. They told me that the address was written on a note in the briefcase that they had brought. Now things were getting serious, and they were getting impatient. I told them that Ricky was dead, and that seemed to disturb them enough for them to back off for a while.
Miraculously, the deal was called off, and no-one was shot. Not only that, they left the briefcase unattended for a short while so we were able to sneak out the address from the case and get away. I'm worried about it though; these guys seemed like professionals, and leaving stuff behind doesn't seem like their style. I'm feeling like this might be a trap, but at this point, I just want to go check out the Candy operation and report back to Mr. Xi and be done with everything.
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[entry continued]
After the deal went down, we were hearing cries for help. Ahmed said he wanted to go check it out, I kept telling him it was none of our business, but he ran to check it out. Smoke and I reluctantly followed.
The scene was strange, to say the least; a priest, in full garb was in an alley being beaten by guys who looked like biker stereotypes. He cried for help, and Ahmed drew his pistol and started shooting. These guys were tough, and feeling the stress from the past couple of days, we couldn't aim at all. I got shot, and I've never felt pain like that before.
But it was nothing compared to the beating Ahmed got, getting a chain wrapped around his neck, and hit by a big club with a nail sticking out of it. He fell to the ground, unconscious. A white car drove up and someone inside wearing a mask started shooting at the bikers too. It was too little, too late, though. The biker next to Ahmed took a huge swing, the nail piercing Ahmed's skull. He was gone.
Smoke never stopped shooting, and I took one last shot and fainted from the overwhelming pain. I came to a moment later and saw Smoke's face, asking me if I was alright in his Jamaican accent. The priest introduced himself to us as Peter Rabinovich and thanked us for saving his life. He spoke with a heavy Eastern European accent. I went to Ahmed, but it was obviously too late for him. Peter asked us to bring Ahmed to his church, and I resisted at first, saying that with his Islamic beliefs, it wouldn't be appropriate. Peter eventually convinced us, however, and we went.
On the way, he told us about how "Evil is rising in this city, and darkness is growing in the hearts of men." I don't know if the crime rate was going up or whatever, but it seemed like an odd thing to say at the time.
We got to the church and Peter laid Ahmed upon the altar, and told us that if we wanted to, we could pray. I'm not much of a praying man, but even though I didn't know him very well, Ahmed saved my life several times in the day that we've known each other, so I figured the least I could do was pray for him. Peter gestured to the seminary and told us we could rest there if we liked. Tired, beaten, and with a bullet wound that was still burning to all hell, I took him up on his offer. So did Smoke.
I had the nightmare again. The same one, with the train crash, and everyone being dead but me. But then it switched into a view of a desert, with a huge cross looming above me, and hanging from it was a Jesus-like figure, but with one detail that's stuck in my mind: he was wearing army boots. Behind him was a red-skinned demon, with death and destruction following in his wake. It reminded me of what I saw of the club owner earlier that day.
I woke up with a start, and so did Smoke. We emerged into the main church area to see a miracle in action. With prayers in a language I couldn't recognize, Peter raised his hands, and broke an egg-like object in two. Out poured this liquid that covered Ahmed's chest and seemed to absorb into him. Next thing I knew, the wounds on his face disappeared like magic. His eyes opened.
What's going on? Am I still dreaming? These things can't happen. Ahmed must have just been severely hurt, not dead. Right?
Right?!
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[from Aaron Williams' personal blog]
Sorry for the lack of updates, folks! I know you're all itching for news, but, with the trouble involved with my agent (along with a whole bunch of stuff I can't really talk about), I've been intensely busy! That's why it's nice to make this announcement...
FEAR NO EVIL 2: EVIL HAS A FACE is in production!
I'll be starting up on it next week, and I gotta say, I'm pretty excited! Working on the first film was a pleasure and I can't wait to get started on this new one. We've got a great cast (I'm not supposed to be talking about it yet), and fans of the original are going to be pleased, from what I've seen of the script.
Anyway, weekend's coming up, I'm probably just going to take it easy. Maybe catch a flick or two. I need to recover after all the crazy stuff that's been going on in my life lately.
Peace,
Aaron Williams
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[latest entry from Aaron Williams' blog]
I want to express my condolences for the family of the deceased. In case you haven't heard, another death has occurred on the set of Fear No Evil 2. My thoughts go with the victim's family.
The police are suspecting foul play, so the production for the film has stopped.
Again, this is an incredibly sad day.
Aaron Williams
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[entry from Aaron Williams' personal journal]
You know, after Ahmed came back to life and that monster came after us and that drug lab exploded, I thought the strangeness in my life might come to a close. Sure, this weird para-military organization called the Hoffman Institute hired me for some reason, but then I didn't hear from them for months, so I assumed they forgot about me or didn't actually want me or something.
Anyway, I got a call from the HI telling me that I was being tasked with the investigation of the decapitation on the set of my movie, which I suppose was convenient, with Smoke and Ahmed/Brian helping out (yeah, he has a split-personality thing ever since he came back to life, weird, but I suppose I never died, so who am I to judge?).
So we get to the crime scene and find the body, along with the letter 'I' painted on the ground in green paint. Of course, we should have expected this whole thing to be an ambush. What we thought were local authorities turned out to be Al-Jabimy terrorists, and they jumped us while we were looking at the scene. It was touch and go for a while, but then that weird masked guy who helped us when Ahmed died was there to help us again. We ended up fighting them off, and the masked man got away as well.
So we get back to taking a look at the body, and notice some salt filling a cavity in the person's neck. After doing a bit of research, we found a link between this ritual and an ancient Navaho ritual of resurrection. I thought I remembered something about a Navaho museum exhibit going on back in Cape Town... Coincidence?
Anyway, just as we were about to leave the scene, a familiar drumming sound started again, the same sound we heard when the corpses came to life way back in Januaray. And, unfortunately, it happened again. We were in no condition to deal with these things, but thankfully Smoke and Ahmed/Brian figured out that by stopping the drumming, we stop the animation of the corpses. So by shooting out the speakers, we managed to stop the danger altogether.
We then managed to pick up the signal on a transceiver we found at the crime scene and figured out where it was coming from. We headed there immediately. We got to the basement of the building where the signal was coming from, and found a laptop producing the signal. We quickly downloaded everything we could, but of real interest were files on Brian Foster; Ahmed's split personality.
One of those Al-Jabimy terrorists snuck up on us while we were working the computer, though, and attacked us. He clearly had us outclassed and outmatched, but at some point, there was a burst of electromagnetic energy and he was gone (even though all electronics were taken out for a while).
With this new information, we headed back to the Hoffman Institute back in Cape Town, and before meeting with the director, I stopped in to see my agent, Ricky, who was recovering. He talked about all sorts of visions he had in his dreaming. Meeting an old asian man, terrorists shooting, an arabian named Ibrahim, a vision of a man named Ivan telling Brian Foster to be careful. Most importantly, he mentioned the Dark Tide, and said that it was coming.
Oh, right. I haven't talked about the Dark Tide yet. Well then, let's get on that, shall we?