BURN

The growth in information technology has made the dissemination of information very easy. However there is a price to pay for such easy access to information.

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On the internet, there are a growing number of computer users falling prey to a new computer virus called BURN. This virus is so new that most anti-virus software companies do not yet know of it. It is also unlikely that anyone will survive to tell the story of its most unusual effects.

Astute students of Fortean lore may note an increasing unusual death rate amongst Net surfers, and there are always going to be upset parents. Media types, always hungry for a new angle on the Internet, will also make much of the rising tide of bodies, linking them to Internet pornography. 

Eventually the BURN virus can be traced (via assembly language code headers) to a compiler belonging to the Arkham Sanitarium. 

Howard Barker is a deranged hebephrenic psychology postgraduate from Miskatonic Uni who works as a ward assistant. Lately he has been spending a lot of time with the computers in the building.

Possibilities

1 The two variants of the BURN virus target Windows or Apple computers.

BURN is a Trojan virus which hides itself inside other applications then attaches itself to video card drivers. The next time the computer is booted up the virus causes the screen to pulse and strobe at a rate which hypnotises unfortunate onlookers or causes epileptic seizures.

Embedded into the strobing is the subliminal text message KILL - ENJOY. After 15 seconds the virus shuts down and is deleted the next time the computer is booted. Victims immediately become mindless killing machines and end up dead, either shot by police as they stroll through a shopping mall armed to the teeth, or take their own lives after cheerily slaughtering their family and friends.

Howard Barker is currently preparing his doctorial thesis on human psychological impulses and is testing a few of his assumptions before he submits his final paper.

2 The two BURN variants target sound card drivers, not video drivers. It causes the computer to produce an odd agglutinous chanting from the attached speakers. If the timing is correct (i.e. night and Fomalhaut is visible) the user will suddenly feel cold and tired, and a glowing ball will appear from the smoking remains of the computer.

The chant is a summoning spell for a Fire Vampire and the user has just lost the requisite magical energy to summon the beast. There are a large number of recent cases of people burnt to a cinder alongside their melted computers, causing the major PC companies to suspect hardware faults; none have been found so far.

The Fire Vampires, being balls of plasma, then run around the electrical circuits in the building causing major fires. In big computer installations the sprinklers/halon/CO2 extinguishers go off and the Fire Vampires usually get snuffed. Surviving security video footage from a nearby college campus may prove illuminating.

Howard Barker is a mad genius who got a number of such spells piecemeal from one of the inmates. Said inmate is John Doe #23 and has an unusual case history.

3 The BURN virus is slow and insidious. It subliminally flashes unpronouncable text messages on screen, essentially a Contact Nyarlathotep spell. It also adds a bookmark to web browsers. The address is that of the home page of the Starry Wisdom Brotherhood, a quasi-religious group who hold all kinds of odd beliefs. 

Nyarlathotep contacts the unfortunate victim via dreams or e-mail messages from an apparently non-existent mail address. The net result is that the victim is seduced by the Mythos and joins the Brotherhood. Eventually the sendings (dream or electronic) command the victim to prepare for a journey to the throne of the Ruler of the Universe and to prepare offerings. 

Howard Barker maintains the website and there is much circumstantial evidence pointing to him as the leader of the Brotherhood. Actually he is a front man and scapegoat for Dr. Eloise Whateley, a recent addition to the staff roster at the Sanitarium.

© Peter Devlin

Best-selling necktie

Philosophy major Andrew Cyrus Galbraith penned a runaway best-seller that made him internationally known. Too bad he’s not around to enjoy it.

An earlier collection of his essays had garnered critical acclaim for his striking new perspectives on old philosophical problems. However, Galbraith’s latest paper asked whether life had any meaning, and if not, then should you continue to live? His powerful thirty-page answer was no, life has no meaning outside of what we project on it, and no, we should not live through this absurdity. It was the most intelligent, convincing, solid argument ever written in favor of suicide. Simply titled You Should Do It, the paper also served as his own suicide note. Andrew tightened his necktie, secured the thick end of it to the cross-braces on his dorm window, and flung himself out.

His death was a minor news story the next day. It only drew world-wide attention two days later, after someone circulated the paper on the internet, and thousands of readers agreed with Galbraith’s tightly reasoned arguments, and began taking their own lives...

Possibilities

1 The paper is cursed. Galbraith undertook the Unspeakable Oath to accomplish this. Weak-willed people can be susceptible to suicide attempts if they read it. The curse can be cancelled, making all copies powerless, but only by seeking Galbraith’s ghost and allowing it to rest in peace by completing “unfinished business”. Whatever that may be.

2 The paper isn’t convincing. It’s actually a signal for members of a particular cult to sacrifice themselves en masse around the world, or killing many people in ways that look like suicide. The cult is using the sacrifices to summon something powerful - but what?

3 Galbraith’s paper really is that convincing. Shortly before the paper is published, a psychic has a vision of thousands of readers inspired to kill themselves if the paper becomes widely read. It can only be a matter of time before a priest of Nyarlathotep or other fiend publishes it on the internet.

© Rob Northrup

Power Trip

The investigators visit the house a leading member (and medium) of an organisation of psychics and mediums near Arkham. When they arrive they find that the house is surrounded by dead birds, insects and other animal corpses - in fact, every sentient creature in a radius of about one mile has died from massive internal trauma.

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The door is unlocked, and the body of the butler lies in the hall. The medium lies in their drawing room, behind a camera set up on a tripod. All the furniture in this room is smashed, as if dropped from a height. The camera film, when developed, shows a strange man apparently levitating all the furniture in the room up to the ceiling. There is no sign of the man at the scene.

Soon afterwards, the investigators hear of a train crash in Arkham. Everyone on the train has died horribly in a similar manner - except one survivor, the mystery man from the photograph.

Possibilities

1 The mystery man is human, and a powerful psychic. However, his mind is vulnerable to a mental entity that is trying to take him over. He contacted the medium in an attempt to get help, since she is an expert in psychic phenomena. While he demonstrated his powers by levitating her furniture, the creature broke through and unleashed a lethal mental attack that killed everything around the house. He believes that the entity will unleash an even more terrible attack on his death, and he is trying to reach the coast so that he can steal a boat and take it far enough from civilisation before he commits suicide. However, his powers are desired by the US government, who have sent agents to kidnap him from Arkham.

2 The man is actually an alien being who feeds on mental energy. His levitation demonstration was a side effect of the huge energy flow while he drank the souls from the surrounding life forms. He must be stopped - and others of his species are trying to do just that. He is regarded as highly dangerous on his home planet and others of his species have come to take him home. He has gone into hiding in Arkham, and must be found before he needs to feed again.

3 The man is a tulpa - a projected body, which the medium had created from mental energy. His power is enormous, but the ritual required to animate him drained life from the surroundings, pouring it into the new body. The levitation was simply a side effect of this energy flow. The tulpa is now trying to create others of his kind, using the energy of entire trainloads of humans. If he is able to do this again, it will be the end for Arkham - and now, after the train incident, there is more than one of his kind...

© James David Beard