200 Phenomena in the City of Calgary

The Cyber Cafe (#1)

In China Town there’s this cybercafe in the same building as The Kingfisher. It’s
small and cheap and old. The walls are still decorated with Diablo 2 and Quake
boxes. The computers are a bit behind too, but that’s not really what the patrons go
there for. Go in, buy some time, and load up Heart of Wit. It’s an Asian MMO, the
kind with graphics that look like Gaia online. Make a free account and wander into
the City of Wit.

The City of Wit will be inhabited by a half dozen players. All of whom will be talking
in what looks like Asian script of some kind but is actually hyper stylized English.
After your eyes adjust, you’ll realize that the player character names are the names
of people you know in your everyday life. Most will ignore you, but occasionally
they’ll give you quests or challenge you to a duel. The quests are simple. Kill five
dragon hatchlings and we’ll give you a gold ingot. That kind of thing.

Whatever you do, never accept a challenge to duel and always do the quests.
Names aren’t the only thing that crosses over between the game and reality.

Closing Mirrors (#2)

Hey Sandy. We miss you down at the coven. Matt said you wanted me to write up
the mirror thing.

Ingredients:

1/2 Cup Flour

About an ounce of milkweed

The wings of a monarch butterfly

Grind the ingredients together in a stone bowl until they form a fine powder. pour
the powder on the mirror you want to close and light it with a wooden match. The
mixture closes about half a square foot of mirror. You'll have to use more for larger
surfaces.

Matt said you wanted to know if it only works in Calgary. I don't know if it's the city
itself, or just the elevation. Sorry.

- Jess P.

The Funeral Parlour (#4)

Most of the city’s funeral parlours belong to one company, but a handful of allegedly
independent firms survive. In reality, all of the city’s funeral parlours are owned by
big business in some way or other, including a small, somber brick building in the
deep southeast. This particular funeral parlour has allegedly been closed for years,
but lights can be seen in the windows at night, giving credence to the story that it’s
haunted. It isn’t. What’s going on inside is far stranger.

In order to gain admittance, you will have to wear traditional funeral attire: black
and subdued rather than anything flashy or informal. Bringing flowers is said to
help. When you’re admitted, whatever you do, do not sign the book or you will find
that the exit is barred for you. Instead, offer your condolences to the mourners, who
seem to be a collection of people of all ages and races, most of whom are wearing
old, worn suits or patched dresses.

The funeral repeats itself every night at eight. If you come at any other time, you
will be required to wait in the main hall while the staff prepare. During the ceremony
itself, never volunteer to speak and never view the body. Both would draw too much
of the deceased’s attention. Instead listen with rapt attention to the eulogy, as it is
a valued component of the secret history. Leave before the funeral is done, and just
like in those old Greek stories: never eat anything anyone offers you.

The Beach (#7)

There is a beach within the city. To find it, step into any elevator and go to the top
floor. Press every button in ascending order, including the close and open door
buttons. Instead of opening onto the next highest floor, the elevator will open into a
small cottage. The door of the vacant cottage will open onto the beach. The beach
is warm and apparently temperate, shockingly beautiful at every hour, but blood
and some sticky black substance will colour the white sand in long streaks.

The beach is bordered on one side by an impossibly thick forest. Entering this will
make your life forfeit. At sunset and sunrise, a group of men dressed in the
traditional clothing of different religions (most prominently Ashkenazi Rabbis and
Protestant Ministers) will emerge from this forest and search the beach in silence,
sifting through the sand as penance for their lives of deception. These figures will be
so taken with their work that they will refuse to talk to you, only muttering
“searching... searching... must keep searching...” in their native tongue. Total
darkness and proper sunlight burn these poor souls, so they must return to the
forest.

Otherwise, you will be alone on the beach. The water stretches impossibly far, as far
as the eye can see and further still. Wider and higher than the ocean, and far stiller,
this water will soothe you as you gaze upon it. But never let it lull you to sleep
outside of the cottage. The men in the forest may find what they're searching for
within you.

The Antique Shop (#8)

Somewhere in the Northeast, although there are conflicting reports of its location,
there is a small antique shop called Edson’s Antiques and Importing. By the look of
it, the store’s been closed for decades, and for good reasons. Not the least of which
is that it opens onto an alley instead of onto the street. The merchandise inside
can’t be seen through the murky glass, but you can usually make out the window
display.

The display, despite the fact that no one really knows how to get into the building
since the door’s apparently rusted shut, changes from day to day. A stuffed bear’s
head might show up on Monday and be gone on Friday, replaced with a large
antique samovar. The floor beneath this merchandise is covered with newspapers
written in a language that no human being has ever spoken or read, and the
pictures... well, let’s just say you’d be amazed what you can fit in a samovar.

The Yellow Room (#9)

There is a wall in the basement of the restaurant called Teatro that is, despite all
attempts to paint it another shade, a sickly shade of yellow. The owner conceals the
wall by putting a mirror and a couch up against it. However, if you remove both the
couch and the mirror, you'll discover the wall's pale yellow tone. This is of no
consequence, however, if you have come unequipped. In order to make use of
phenomena #9, you will need a small jar of hazelnut oil.

Paint the outline of a door on the wall using the oil, and then push. The door you've
drawn will open inward into a room with walls made from stucco that's been painted
the same sickly yellow as the wall you passed through. The room appears to be a
spartanly furnished study with furniture that puts you in mind of the South Sea
Islands. On the desk you will find numerous papers written on the letterhead of the
Dominion Bank, dated 1912. The papers predict every financial crash worldwide
from 1912 until twenty years from now, when the predictions abruptly stop mid
sentence.

The Salon (#10)

There is a salon in Inglewood that seems perpetually frozen in the late seventies.
The decor, the clothing of the hairdressers, even the equipment and magazines
seem to come to a stop around 1978. If you go there during the day, the able
stylists will be able to provide you with a deftly executed (if extremely dated)
haircut for a price that is equally as deflated and out of place. However, if you
return during the night, the salon’s true area of expertise will become apparent.
Entering the shop after sunset, even if you just exited it, will reveal a shocking
transformation.

As before, the store will be furnished and appointed as though it were the late
seventies, but the decades between then and now will now be visible. Everything is
aged and cracked, as if it had been left to the elements. Most shocking of all, the
bottles of hair product and comb sanitizer have been replaced with row on row of
murky jars containing vague, fleshy shapes. One of the stylists will remain, and she
will offer you a shave and a haircut. Refuse the shave, lest you be left faceless.
Instead, ask the stylist to pick something that suits you and sit in one of the chairs.
She will cut off your face with a straight razor, but the process will be strangely
bloodless and you will feel nothing. Your vision will fade to black for a time, and
when it returns one of the faces from the jars will have been seamlessly
transplanted. Your features will, in every respect, be identical to whoever the face
belonged to before the stylist stole it, and over time your body will change to
resemble theirs as well. If you must vanish, this is how you do it. But be warned that
you can never get your face back, and the friends and enemies of the face’s owner
will mistake you for them forever.

The Green Room (#12)

There is an apartment building on sixteenth street that is slightly wider on the
outside than it is within. Go to this building in fall and ascend the staircase. You
should find the door to the roof totally unlocked. If it is locked, leave at once.
Someone is using the Green Room, and they likely don’t want company. If the door
opens, however, walk along the roof and count skylights. Eventually you should find
one that doesn’t look into an apartment or hallway. Instead it looks down into a
dingy room with green metal walls.

Break the skylight with a piece of debris and jump down. The room should be small
and empty other than a metal desk and chair that have a distinctly institutional
flavour. On the desk, you will find a folder full of papers. Take the folder rather than
reading the papers on the spot. Breaking the skylight will have set off the alarm.
Open the room’s only door and step out. You will find yourself in your old
highschool, having just stepped out of the locker room. Leave.

The folder contains documents and photos that describe, in great detail, your
physical and mental health. They depict you as a patient in an institution, and they
aren’t far off.

The Water of Life (#13)

Throughout the city there are little fenced off buildings with the logo of the city's
Wastewater department on metal signs in front of them or on the door. The
buildings are identified by the signs as being anything from water testing buildings
to pumping substations, and by and large, this is what they are. However, about
half a dozen of these buildings actually contain something else.

Four of these buildings are part of the city's actual water treatment system. They
contain pumps that push the city's water through thin grilles made from human
bone. The calcium from these bone filters is why Calgary's water is so often hard.
The filters clean the water not only of contaminants, but of the city's collective sin
for its involvement in the oil industry. The other two are shacks that contain taps.
One of these buildings is where the filters are installed when they're full. The water
from the tap passes through all of the filters and emerges brackish and foul.
Drinking it, however, is the only way to permanently purify the city's soul. The other
building contains a tap that dispenses water so pure that any scars, mutations,
cancers or birth defects will vanish.

The Vacant Apartment (#19)

Downtown, in the mess of construction and demolition, rooms are sometimes left
behind or else formed piecemeal out of extra walls or ignorantly enclosed spaces.
It’s said that a great many of them are connected, forming a secret in-between city,
but the largest group that verifiably exists is a cluster of six rooms. Unfortunately,
the location of these rooms appears to be transitory, with the same six chambers
stumbled across by urbex enthusiasts and acolytes throughout the city.

Entering this vacant apartment proves difficult because of its movement, but it can
easily be spotted with patience. A bleached wooden door with a broken lock will
appear in appear from time to time in almost any basement or closet in any
downtown building. When you pass through the door you will find yourself in a
Spartan, unfurnished space. Every room, in fact, every wall seems to come from a
different building or decade.

The room is safe and warm, a haven that appears when you need it most. The walls,
floor and ceiling are splattered with perpetually warm, wet blood, and occasionally
other signs of violence can be found. Never try to break into the unfurnished
apartment, never try to move in permanently and never ever fall asleep.

The Clinic (#20)

Ride the 305 for exactly six stops. Where you get off doesn’t matter. Then walk to
the nearest medical clinic and ask the receptionist if you can see the on-call doctor.
You’ll be told that you can’t. Ask for the other on call doctor. Her face will go white
as a sheet and she’ll tell you to go to exam room three. Wait there until the
physician shows up, which could be anywhere from less than a minute to six hours.

When he does show up, he’ll be old: Leathery skin, coal-black eyes, and the medical
paraphernalia of a bygone day. He’ll begin the examination without exchanging
pleasantries or asking you what’s wrong. After the exam, he’ll consult your file and
tell you his prognosis. If you’re healthy, you won’t be when you leave the clinic.
Ebola, Rubella, SARS, he’ll pick something nasty for wasting his time. You won’t die
of whatever he gives you. Instead, you’ll be damned to wander the earth spreading
it.

If you’re ill, however, he’ll tell you it will clear up on its own by the end of the week.
It will, as will any chronic pain or other long-term conditions. From that day on, no
other doctor in the city will be willing to see you or even make eye contact.

The Thrift Store (#21)

There is a thrift store in the northwest with a shuttered door. The exterior walls are
covered in mouldy wooden shingles and the window display is aged to the point of
decomposition. It is not, despite all appearances, closed. Patrons occasionally enter
through the side door and leave, although they rarely find anything of interest.
They also rarely find the proprietor, who never responds to the bell located on the
counter. The bell does arouse his attention, however, so it would be in your best
interest NOT to ring it.

Instead, simply browse for a time. If you are as well versed in the secret history as
you should be by now, objects of interest and historical significance (although no
real power) will catch your eye. Many of them are belongings of other phenomena,
including empty jars that used to house the tobacconist’s preparations and a
headset identical to the one in Viscount Bennett. Do not take any of these, or their
original owners will return to collect them.

The Thrift Store is a safe location to dispose of any refuse you collect over the
course of your journey, but be warned that you can only dispose of small objects,
and never anything truly dangerous to anything other than kayfabe.

The Photographs (#22)

It is possible, although only by sheer luck, to come into possession of a set of
photographs that depict your future. Travel to any one hour photo developer in the
city and give the clerk a blank roll of Kodak film to develop. In the next hour, use an
empty camera to take as many photographs of yourself or your home as possible.
When you return to the store, the clerk will either chastise you for handing over the
empty film and wasting his time or, ashen-faced, hand you a set of photographs.

The cause of the clerk’s discomfort will soon become clear: At least half of the
photographs will depict you as you will look after your death, decomposing in
whatever pose you were in when you snapped the corresponding shot. The others
will show how you age, including clothing, scars, piercing and other artificial
markings. The background will be wherever you shot the pictures with your empty
camera, but in each shot the background will appear to be rendered with a slightly
more antiquated photo process, working back from crystal clarity to sepia.

The Television Channel (#23)

If you steal cable in Cranston, a planned community in the southeast, you will find
that rather than being blank and vacant, channel one is given over to a foreign and
unfamiliar test card and mumbled voices in a language that sounds Slavic but is
utterly unrecognizable. In order to discover more, you must posses an old PAL
television. Adjust the balances of colour and contrast on your set, both at the same
time, and wait for the test card to fade. Once you strike the right balance, the test
card will be replaced by the image of a man sitting behind a desk. Though he and
his companion will seem to be aware that you are watching them, They will never
address you directly.

Never watch this channel anywhere secure or safe, as it offers another avenue of
entry. Watch the channel until the scene cuts away from the two men and into a
series of grotesque clips no longer than three seconds in length. These are not all
original. Records kept by Eddie Decae indicate that at least sixty of the hundred and
forty three clips are sampled from various films and snuff tapes. The surreal and
visceral imagery will burn itself into your brain indelibly, but you will find in the
morning that with it has come a master’s knowledge of the fine art of mutilation and
torture.

This must be used sparingly, for the knowledge has brought with it a great pleasure
at its exercise. You will, however, always be able to recognize Their handiwork, even
if you will find yourself admiring it.

The Street (#25)

There's a street in the increasingly gentrified community Bowness that is completely
unlike the rest of the district. A stone's throw from postwar subsidized housing you
find a street from which little to none of the rest of the city is visible. The street is
much rougher and bumpier than any other road in the city. While the city
acknowledges the road exists, they classify it as a country lane despite the fact that
the rest of the district is zoned as inner city. The street's potholes make driving
treacherous, so park your car at the mouth of the street and walk.

While the rest of Bowness is mostly made of old working class homes, this street is
home to some of the largest, nicest houses in the city. All of them are at least thirty
years old, and none of them are cookie-cutter McMansions. The street itself is rural,
with old fashioned wooden power lines and lots of trees. It's like something Norman
Rockwell would have painted. But don't let your guard down for a second.

At the end of the street you'll discover a cul de sac made up of slightly newer,
cheaper houses. Until early last year, at any one time one of the houses would be
uninhabited other than the dead body of a student from nearby Bowness High in the
garage and a trio of silent, shell-shocked looking men. The bodies were sacrifices to
the men, who are the ghosts of the soldiers who were given lots on the street by the
government after the First World War. Until the sacrifices were disrupted by the CVS
they ensured the city's prosperity and the street's seclusion.

The Red Room (#34)

There’s a lingerie store in Kensington. You know the type: overpriced and under-
stocked. The staff is no help at all, almost like they don’t want any customers at all.
They don’t. At least, not in the front of the store. If you can convince them you’re a
discerning patron though, they might let you into the red room.

Getting into the red room is easy. At least it seems so on the surface. There’s a door
at the back of the shop with a bead curtain in front of it. The door is always locked
though and the red room won’t be there if you break in. The key is to walk into the
store every day for a week and ask for an array out outlandish products. Vinyl
nighties, cardboard stocking and high heeled shoes full of salt have all been
amongst the list of code words. Eventually you’ll hit upon the correct code word and
the clerk will admit you to the red room.

There is no space in the building for the red room. The place where it is should be
taken up by the kitchen of the Italian restaurant next door. The red room is a small
strip club, with only a half dozen seats inside and the brightest, shiniest red paint.
For the most part, the shows are very said and conventional, but be sure not to
attend on any night which belongs to a martyred saint. If you do, you’ll find out the
red room: The walls aren’t red. It’s what they’re covered in.

The Breadbox (#36)

Down around fourteenth and ninth, there's an alley between a parkade and a small
office building. Unlike many downtown alleys, this one is clear of parking and
transients. In fact, there never seems to be anyone in it at all. There's never a car
cutting through to avoid traffic, never any teenagers looking for somewhere quiet.
Despite the presence of loading docks and parking spaces, it's as desolate as
downtown can be.

If you walk down this alley in the winter, you'll smell rotting meat coming from a
dumpster and hear sounds emanating from it that sound like rats. But if you look
inside the dumpster, you'll find that it's empty other than a plain tin bread box. The
bread box will, despite being of a kind not manufactured for decades, be in mint
condition.

If you open the box, which you should never do under any circumstances, you will
discover that it contains your own severed head. Your head will tell you two secrets
and a lie, and then expire.

The Record (#38)

In any secondhand record store in the city, the morning after it rains, a small
yellowed envelope containing an aged record single can be found amongst other
vintage materials. The owner will never have seen it before and will allow you to
walk off with it for a pittance. The record’s title will be faded with age. Nothing but
the vaguest suggestion of letters and the tattered scraps of album art will remain.
Take the album home and place it on a turntable. The normal speed will be too fast,
so instead turn it slowly by hand.

The first two rotations will yield nothing other than a cacophony of screams.
However, subsequent rotations will reveal nonsensical sentence fragments
comprised of disconnected words. To decipher the statements, cut out a circle of
paper the same size as the record and cut it into a spiral. Write the words you heard
down on the circle, moving inward from the outermost edge. Then place the spiral
atop the record. Read from the inside out. Each column of words names a location
and date.
Each date is the day after a rainfall in the year to come. At each of these locations
and times, you will find an envelope with a sentence of your obituary in it.

The Diskette (#39)

There’s a computer in a downtown resume center that is well over a decade old.
Hooked into a geriatric printer, it suffices for the purposes of the center: word
processing and printing. The machine is infamously faulty amongst the staff, and
with good reason: The floppy disk drive is jammed and has been for years. Enter the
resume center and pretend to be a client. Bring with you a paper clip. After you’re
seated at the computer, pretend to type up a resume. When no one is looking, slide
the paper clip into the small round hole beneath the drive and press. It will eject a
diskette.

Take the diskette and leave. Take it home, and on the way make eye contact with no
one. When you arrive home, put the diskette into your computer. The disk contains
an impossible number of jpeg files. All the famous socks and screams, memetic
traps like the parrot or smile.jpg, and all in a vast and perfect resolution. The images
can kill or impart madness with a look alone, so never open them on your own.
Instead, use them as tools. Weapons. Traps. With practice, they will form the
greatest part of your arsenal.

The Library (#40)

The Bowness Public Library is smaller than the Mac’s that’s at the end of the same
strip mall, and is one of the least utilized in the city. Regardless, the Public Library
remains open and is used, unofficially, as a dumping ground for “problematic
books”. For the most part, these are books with complaints against them for explicit
content or politically incorrect material. However, if you ask the librarian to see the
basement and she complies, you’ll discover books that are problematic for different
reasons.

To get into the basement, you need a Public Library Card, no overdue notices
against you, and to come on Saturday evening when the librarian in charge of the
basement is on duty. If you meet all these conditions, you’ll be led through a
trapdoor hidden beneath a small rug and down a staircase. At the bottom, you will
realize that the entire room is packed so full of books that there is little room to
stand. There are bookshelves on every wall, built into the staircase, and even into
the floor. The librarian will not let you take any of the books in the floor out.
However, the walls are fair game.

The eastern wall is the most important, as it contains the history, travel and
biography sections. Everything you learned in school is a lie, and the basement is
where they keep the truth.
The Record Store (#45)
At 16th and 14th, there’s a record store specializing in old vinyl. Upstairs, the store
has a variety of vintage HIFI equipment on display and a handful of more popular
records. Walk around the upper area of the store until five minutes before closing,
and then descend the rickety steps at the back. The stairs lead into the basement,
where the owner keeps the more valuable albums and paraphernalia under lock and
key. Across the hallway from this room is another, with a selection of... lesser works.
Failed novelty albums, family bands that never caught on. And in the corner of this
room, on the floor, is the box.

The box is full to the brim with old LPs. The album art for all of the albums is
minimalist: just a human face on a black background. After leafing through this box
for a time, it’s likely you’ll find a few faces you recognize. You might even find your
own. The owner won’t allow you to purchase any of these records, claiming that
he’s merely holding onto them for a friend. But if you remain in the store after
hours, he’ll allow you to put one of the records on one of his players and listen with
a headset.

You will hear, with crystal clarity, the thoughts of whoever’s face is on the record at
the moment while you’re listening.

The Soup Kitchen (#46)

The Soup Kitchen downtown has been open for years, although it’s received support
from different charities and agencies (most recently it’s been attached to CUPS and
The Mustard Seed). But it’s always invariably dropped within six months. Despite
this, the door never closes and it never has any trouble holding onto volunteers or
its location. Go to the soup kitchen on a Tuesday afternoon and get a cup of soup.
The broth will be cheap with hard water and lumps of powdered stock, but drink it
anyways. You’ll need the protein.

After drinking the broth, leave the soup kitchen and walk down the alley next to it.
After a moment’s searching, you should locate a milk crate that should give you
enough of a boost to reach the fire escape on the building that houses the soup
kitchen. Climb the ladder and then walk to the top of the fire escape. Regardless of
the weather, the top floor window will be open. Climb inside, but leave behind
anything that might be construed as a weapon. The volunteers are jumpy.

The top floor will be a recreation, almost down to the last detail, of the soup kitchen
itself. The most important differences will be that the volunteers behind the counter
have their mouths stitched shut and that the patrons are noticeably better dressed
than the homeless and impoverished on the ground floor. The soup they ladle out
here is a broth made from the tears of a captive angel lashed to the wall in the
building’s basement seventy years ago over the protestations of William Aberhart.
Drinking it will grant you youth until the end of your days, but the gates of heaven
will forever be closed to you.
MacKimmie Library (#47)
MacKimmie Library at the University of Calgary is supposedly obsolete, and
definitely of little interest to the scholar of the obscure. Nevertheless, as a building
on the borderline, near its replacement, it teeters on the precipice between our
Calgary and its shadows. As the Library prepares to give way to the new Taylor
Family Library, its last sighs echo throughout the structure. Reality is soft here, soft
and pliable and easy to push through. Like other borderlands, it is dangerous for
precisely this reason. Dangerous, but useful.

Walk up and down the building’s staircases until the lights begin to dim and colour
begins to drain from your field of view. After the colour has completely drained, exit
the staircase. You’ll find yourself in one of the other libraries, in one of the other
cities. The books will be altered, some subtly and others more overtly, and all will
contain secrets that have slipped in around the edges.

Beware the librarians, however. They prize silence, and they punish overdue books
with a staggering ferocity.

The Hope Chest (#48)

[This one is written in a different hand than most of the rest]
A hope chest is a small box or trunk given to young girls. The idea is that over the
course of their lives, they collect linens, baby things, crockery and pieces of
household decor to take with them when they get married. It’s sort of a poor man’s
dowry. I remember when my sister got hers... but I’m wandering. You want to know
about the Hope Chest in the old house on the hill, up by the river, but you’re too shy
to ask me. Don’t want to be on the hook for another favour? That’s okay, boy, I like
you.

The hope chest measures about sixteen inches by twenty four inches by twelve
inches and is made from cedar, as was the custom at the time. The order was for an
art deco chest, this was the twenties you understand, before the house was even
built. The order was furnished promptly, and I added to the chest all the objects that
the customer ordered. Bottles of unguents, potent herbs and... allspice. He
requested that it be sewn into the cloth lining, which I of course indulged. I had no
idea of knowing who They were at the time. We thought they were just postwar
immigrants.

Insofar as I know he never opened the hope chest. It’s a sort of a safety, you see.
The second it opens, everything inside is let out and, well, after this many decades
of fermentation... well, you know what they say about mutually assured
destruction? I’m pretty sure that They could show them a thing or two about
assured destruction.
[It’s signed “Edward Ramsay De Cae” With a bold, antiquated flourish]
Kitsch (#49)
On Edmonton Trail there is a diner of the type that was trendy about ten years ago.
You know, the kind that puts muesli in everything and has a DVD of old cartoons
running on a wood paneled television. The walls, like all diners of this type, are
practically dripping with kitsch. Mostly fifties and sixties stuff, although there are
some old Lohengrin post cards and the like. What makes this diner unique is that
every single piece of kitsch inside was used, in some way, to kill someone. There is
not a single object in that room which has not been, in some way, used for an act of
violence.

The post cards were love letters left out to inflame the rage of a jealous spouse. The
broken clock above the counter was used to brain a sewage worker in the late
seventies. Even the decorative infomercial knife set was once used in the torture,
murder and mutilation of a local gang member. What's more, if these objects are
placed atop the DVD player hooked up to the TV near the entrance, the picture on
the television changes to the murder through the eyes of the victim.

This has made the diner popular amongst local Satanists and snuff fetishists who
view the murders after hours. However, the diner ran through its stock of deadly
kitsch last summer, and has since taken to commissioning new killings to decorate
the walls.

The Drive-In (#56)

The drive in hasn’t had many customers in years, if it ever did. It doesn’t have the
iconic appeal of Peter’s, it doesn’t have the cult appeal of that red bus, and it
definitely doesn’t have good food. It’s never even managed to cash in on any retro
appeal since it was built ten years too late. What it does have is a large denim-clad
regular who always seems to be seated, regardless of the weather, at one of the
concrete tables out front. If you look past the person who takes your order, into the
kitchen, you can see photos tacked up on a bulletin board that go back to when the
drive-in was founded in the late seventies. The man, utterly unchanged by time, is
in them.

At night, he actually goes inside the drive-in to sleep, although he’s definitely not
the owner and if asked the staff claim not to notice him in the photographs or
outside the building. If you ask him how he’s stayed the same so long he’ll tell you
that it’s force of habit and refuse to talk about it any further. If you ask him why
they let him sleep inside, he’ll claim that he works there in some function and likely
tell you to mind your own business. If you want a straight answer, you’ll have to ask
him:

“Why does the drive in run through so many staff?”

But be careful. It’s never wise for the fly to harass the spider.
The Locked Ward (#62)
Most elder-care facilities have some kind of locked ward if they deal with dementia
cases. The Colonel Belcher doesn’t deal with hoarders or undressers or any of the
other worst-off cases, but about a quarter of the top floor has been locked ever
since it moved to its new location a handful of blocks away from the coroner’s
office. Residents claim that nobody ever goes in and nobody ever goes out. They
complain about the smell. They complain about the sounds. But few people tend to
care about the elderly and their complaints.

While the main door into the locked ward is secure and hasn’t opened since the
facility did, it is possible to get in through a janitorial closet nearby. A set of
coveralls hangs on the wall opposite the door. If you unzip the coveralls, you will
discover a hole behind them that leads into the locked ward. Be warned though: the
coveralls cannot be unzipped from the other side. To this day, no one has returned
with a satisfactory answer. In fact, all anyone ever agrees about is that the locked
ward is very dark, and very hot.

The Pen (#63)

There is a pen in circulation in the city. No one seems to be able to hold onto it for
long. It’s always left on a desk at school or loaned and not returned. The pen itself is
nondescript: a plain white bic that writes in either black or blue ink depending on
whose account of its history you believe. The pen is remarkable in that it is only
capable of writing the truth. If something untrue is written with it, the pen will
appear to be out of ink.

Locating the pen is difficult, as it moves almost of its own accord, but you can easily
locate it by sympathy. Break open a pen of the same colour and rub the ink on your
palms. When the pen draws near, you’ll feel your skin begin to tingle, and whoever
owns the pen at the moment will leave it in your hand at the slightest pretext. The
unfortunate side effect of this sympathy is that the pen’s honesty rubs off on you.

The only rule to observe when using the pen is to never engage in automatic
writing, sketching, or any other idle activity. Your hand will be compelled to reveal
things your mind ought to hide.

The Flowers (#64)

There is a species of flower that only grows on public land in Calgary. Any flowers
transplanted anywhere else will die in seconds. The plants are plain, white flowers
streaked with blue. They have short, thin stems and no fragrance. The flowers are
always warm to the touch and can only be found in late spring. If you find a patch of
them growing beneath a tree or in the shadow of a municipal building, pick them
immediately. Never carry them next to your skin. Instead, wrap them in paper towel
or cloth and carry them home.

Reduce the flowers to a fine powder by first drying them and then grinding them
down to nothing with a mortar and pestle or blender. Store the resulting violet
coloured powder in a small leather bag (no other material is safe) and carry it on
you. The wheels of bureaucracy will turn smoothly for you. Forms will never be lost,
more ID will never be required, and nothing will have to be filled out in triplicate.
However, the powder’s odorlessness will eventually permeate your body, robbing
you of your own scent and your sense of smell.

The Public Washroom (#68)

[The following three entries were cut out and pasted on the page, two from plain
white printer paper and one from a newspaper:]

Sanford: I went to use that new washroom downtown. The one that they did a story
about on the CBC. If this washroom is good enough to be on the news and they are
spending my tax dollars on it, I want to at least get some use out of it. Besides, I
thought it would make a good entry for my blog. I sat down on the shitter and
started to get light headed. When I woke up, it was six hours later and I was in a
Public Restroom in Riley Park. There was a new scar on my stomach that I do not
recognize.
----------
You owe me for this, SJ. I went to the Washroom like you said and I definitely saw
signs that They were involved. Illusory concealment of blood, the smell of allspice,
the signs are unmistakable. I know you said you thought we should let it be, But I’m
going to go back tonight and try to burn it down. – Jess P.
----------
Relatives of Jessica Pearson are reeling today after the nineteen year old art student
vanished. Although police are making inquiries, they hold little hope that she’ll be
found alive.

[The word OGDEN is scrawled beneath the last entry in red sharpie]

The Baggage Claim (#70)

There is a secret baggage claim beneath YYC where They keep objects of interest
that passengers leave in their checked baggage. Entering the claim is problematic.
It is only accessible on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, as these are the days
that They are absent, and entering on a day when they are present would mean
certain death. On these days when it is safe, book a seat on a domestic flight and
travel to the dingy section of the airport terminal’s food court. Look for a small, dirty
counter where Italian food and pizza is sold. Tell the clerk that you left your bag in
the kitchen when you worked your last shift.

The clerk will accept this pretext and let you into the kitchen, as though you were in
fact a recently laid off employee. The kitchen, which is shared by all the franchises
in this corner of the terminal, is dominated by a staircase that leads up into the
blank roof. Climb it, and keep climbing when you reach the ceiling. You will emerge
in a vast and empty copy of the baggage claims downstairs, inhabited only by still
figures made of plaster.

Pilfer what you find valuable or notable from the baggage that is kept here, but only
take with you what fits in your carry-on bag and what will pass safely through
airport security. Larger or more conspicuous objects, such as the still-whispering
heads of saints or the monitors that show the state of your soul will have to be left
behind. Then leave, get on your flight and lay low for a time in another city. They
will soon find out what you’ve done, and they’ll want their stolen property back.

The Pub (#72)

There is a faux-English “pub” that has operated for decades under various names
and ownerships, although it never remains profitable for long. Something about the
place fills normal people with unease. The echoes are of no concern to those that
know they exist and are prepared. To ensure your safety in the pub, bring with you a
solution of dandelion and lemon grass, about a half-litre’s worth (Thanks Jess!) the
solution will repel any existential or psychic hazards.

The Pub remains solidly uninteresting for most of the day, but around closing
practitioners and acolytes begin to filter in. The owner remains in the back room,
unwilling or unable to mingle amongst his unusual patrons. In a show of deference,
the most recent owner replaced all of the steak-knives with black-handled
alternatives. The Pub is a meeting place and focal point of the local Community.

The Pub’s echoes remain a mystery despite its closeness to The Community. Despite
decades of patronage, no one is able to determine the cause of the echoes, or why
drowned bodies appear in the restrooms and kitchen after closing only to vanish in
the morning.

The Vase (#73)

There is a vase perpetually for sale in the city. It moves from Urban Barn to Thrift
Store to home decor shop to thrift store and then back again. The vase itself is tall
and thin, fluted in shape and often empty. Water doesn’t seem to stay within the
cool confines of the vase, boiling off of it if it is ever added. No one seems to hold
onto the vase for long, always returning it with fraudulent receipts or hocking it.
This is because if the vase is placed in a home, all the water within will begin to boil.

If not removed promptly, the vase will make more water burn. Ice will melt, sweat
on the skin will begin to heat, and other more discrete forms of water will become
agitated. After around thirteen hours, water in the human body will begin to boil too,
killing whoever is in the home in short order as the water in their bodies boils off
and their skin is seared. After the vase has claimed a life, al the water immediately
condenses as if it had never evaporated.
To date, the vase has been used to assassinate sixteen prominent individuals,
including three members of parliament and five practitioners.

The Cupboard (#75)

On the north end of the city, there are innumerable identical houses arranged into
vast, homogenous neighbourhoods. These suburban homes are mostly home to
commuters, but one of them is home to something vastly different. Unlike all the
other homes around it, this one is unfinished. Although the outside is complete, the
inside is totally empty other than an IKEA cupboard in what would presumably be
the kitchen.

The cupboard is as old as the subdivision and was placed there by the developers.
Inside, you will find literally dozens of pieces of Depression glass. The glass, which
mostly takes the form of small decorative balls, should not be removed from the
cupboard. Each ball contains a small, fortune-cookie type strip of paper with the
address of one of the houses in the subdivision written on it in green ink.

Whenever a ball has been removed from the cupboard, the corresponding
household has suffered a death or some other tragedy within a year.

The Tobacconist (#76)

Despite campaigns against it and a law against displaying tobacco products, the
tobacconist’s on Centre Street has remained open and apparently prosperous.
Although they do good business with their usual stock, what makes the shop
notable is the contents of three numbered jars located at the back of the building, in
the back room. In order to sample this unusual product, you must come equipped
with a mixture of the following: many-flowered yarrow, prairie smoke, tall larkspur
and purple-stemmed aster, ground in equal proportions into a thin powder. The
owner of the shop will accept this gift as a sign of good faith, and proof that you are
a fellow traveler.

Ask the store owner for a sample of his private reserve and tell him which of the
three jars interests you. Jar One contains a potent hallucinogen that will
permanently transport you to the dream city below. All the usual routes will be
closed to you, and your body will remain catatonic in the back of the shop. Jar Two
contains a thick, smooth cherry tobacco that will burn out your lungs, your heart
and leave you totally hollow. Jar three contains a light, sweet substance that will
leave you unconscious, and your dreams will be of a pivotal event in the secret
history.

Never return to the shop. The tobacconist will make enquiries and discover that you
are not, in fact, entitled to his smoke.

The School ID (#88)

Periodically, at bus stops throughout the city, a small brown wallet turns up. The
wallet is empty other than a school ID card dated for the 2003-2004 school year at
Queen Elizabeth Jr./Sr. High School. The Card is yellow, and a magnetic strip has
been crudely pasted overtop of a barcode on the bottom of the card. Identical
copies of the card and wallet are known to exist. The photograph and name have all
been scratched out. Only the school logo and the words “Grade 08” are visible.

When carried in your pocket, the school ID card makes you appear to others as you
did when you were thirteen. Your clothing will resemble whatever you typically wore
at the time without being too specific to any year. Despite this, the card will be
accepted as acceptable proof of age as though it were a driver’s license with a date
of birth eighteen years to the day before the current date. Unfortunately, prolonged
exposure to the card makes its effects permanent.

The Other Calgarys (#89)

There are seven Calgarys, including the one that you know. The ways between them
are many. The ambulances and cabs of yesterday, the secret roads, a wrong turn in
the +15 walkways... there are innumerable ways for a poorly educated and sloppy
acolyte to find themselves lost in the alleys of one of the other cities. Our own is
hazardous enough to those awakened and aware enough to walk in dark places, but
not enough to see the hazards.

The six other Calgarys, the shadows and reflections of our city, are as follows:

Old Calgary is the city of the past and is made of the buildings that have been
demolished and is navigated by all the roads that have been closed. The dead live
here, and they’re hungry for your warmth.

New Calgary is the city of the future, all the buildings we have yet to build and all
the people who have yet to be born in the city dwell here. The sky is dark, full of
ominous clouds. Treat it as a canary for predicting our own end.

Right Calgary is our city as it would be if it were perfect. The buses run on time, it’s
always sunny, and everyone smiles. Some say that our Calgary is just a shadow it
casts, but they’re wrong. The people there have too many teeth.

Left Calgary is our city as it would be if everything were wrong. The sprawl, the
traffic the crime and the violence are as they would be in our nightmares. It’s my
theory that the poor souls trapped here are doing penance for us.

Dream Calgary is where the city’s denizens go when they sleep. Anything is possible
here, but nothing is true or persistent. Those that dwell here forever are a sorry lot.
This is the safest reflection, but it still isn’t safe.

Mirror Calgary is where your reflection lives. If you find yourself here, run as hard
and fast as you can back to the proper city.

The Bus (#90)

Although they’re being phased out, the city still has a number of the old GMC
busses, the kind that you step up into. No matter how fully the city replaces them
with the newer shuttle-busses, at least one of the thirty year old busses will remain
in service. It comes intermittently and at odd hours, but it is possible to bring it to
yourself using a simple albeit highly modern rite.

Go to a bus stop and dial the Calgary transit automated number. Hit one and then
punch in the number of the stop you’re waiting at. Then punch the number seven
repeatedly. The system’s pre-recorded voice will grow more degraded and heavy
with static with each keystroke, eventually going silent entirely. The voice will
eventually croak “Next Bus in three minutes” and disconnect you. Within that
window of time, no matter where you are, the bus will arrive. The driver never asks
for fare, although it is wise to pay regardless.

The Bus will be empty other than a dozen or so plaster statues posed on the seats,
unless They are using it. If They are, disembark immediately. If not, sit near the front
and watch as the landscape outside grows blurry and abstract. Before long, you will
feel tired. Allow yourself to fall asleep. When you awaken, you will be sitting on a
bench at Brentwood Station. From now on, you will always have perfect luck when it
comes to catching a bus and no driver will expect you to pay your fare.

The Orange Room (#93)

[This one is probably an email, cut out and pasted in the book]
Hey Sand-Man, I bring greetz from the spheres.

Eddie and Matt said you were working on a little guidebook. Smart move. They’ve
been catching a lot of kiddies in their webs lately, and we need all the help we’ve
got. I’d like, if I could, to contribute. You ever hear of the orange room? Me neither.
At least not until last weekend. I met a guy at Back Lot. Kinda chubby, geeky
technogoth. Y’know my type, I like to fuck practitioners. Anyways, HE says we
should go back to his place. So I say “Ok”, playing it like I’m some rube, nevermind
that I’ve practically moved into Dream and that anyone who knows anything knows
it.

So we drive to Dalhousie station and get onboard. When we hit the free fare zone,
he begins to count to a hundred, and when he gets to a hundred, he presses the
help button and holds it until we leave the free fare zone. The train keeps going,
and it keeps going after it reaches the last station, and it stops in this underground
station that’s all orange and British. He leads me upstairs, all giddy like he’s
showing me the kind of thing I’ve never seen before. Which isn’t true. But I pretend
for his sake.

Anyways, The Orange Room is like this old place, Victorian I think. Everyone has an
accent and talks about how “The War” is going, which I THINK is world war one.
Anyways, the only guy in the room who knows what year it is is this little old man
who recognizes me and runs my ass out.
Dunno how useful it is, but I wouldn’t recommend going back. Place STUNK of
allspice. I bet that little faggot was a trap...

Keep safe, Sand-Man,

Nick Maharis.

The Terminal (#94)

Take the C-train to the furthest north station in the free fare zone. Across the street
from the station, you’ll see an office building. Walk in and head up the stairs on the
right to the mezzanine. There’s a door on the balcony that goes to a women’s
washroom, but it’s locked. The washroom is part of the lease of the business which
rents the right side of the mezzanine, and they access it with the code 9620. Don’t
enter this code into the metal lock.

Instead, punch in 4511. Instead of opening onto a washroom, the door will open
onto a small closet with no furnishings other than a cheap office chair, a folding
card table, and a terminal from the late seventies. The terminal’s screen will be
blank other than the phrase “What is your name?” Type your real name or, if you’re
feeling adventurous, your online nickname. There will be a lot of lag between the
terminal and wherever it’s connected to, but soon more words will appear, all of
them questions. Answer them.

When the terminal’s owner is satisfied, it will turn itself off. For the rest of your life,
every piece of electronic equipment you try to use will just work out of the box with
no difficulty, but you’ll feel nauseous if you get too far from a wireless signal.

The Pit (#95)

Downtown they’re working on some serious construction and probably will be as
long as the boom goes on. Construction means building up, usually, but it also
means digging down. If you wander the area down around The Palliser you’ll
eventually find the pit. Deeper than deep, it’s supposed to house basements and
sub-basements and a huge parkade for the building that is being built on top.
Sometime after midnight on any given day, climb over the metal rented fencing and
climb down into the pit, careful to avoid notice by anyone or anything that might be
there after hours.

In the center of the pit, you will find a blue tent. If the lights within the tent are
white or yellow, leave as it is most likely occupied. If the light, however, is a dull red
glow, then it’s safe. Enter the tent. Inside, you will discover the real reason for the
pit: A pillar suspended in the mud, seven feet of it jutting upwards, with glowing red
veins. Unless you have come prepared, all you can do is gaze at the strange stone
and then leave.

But if you have brought with you human blood that is not your own, which can be
acquired through a number of means, you may smear it on your eyelids and close
your eyes. The glow of the pillar will penetrate your eyelids and you will see the tent
through them, etched on your retina in red. The veins will resolve themselves into
words which will describe in great detail the history of the land. Never read the full
history, as you must leave the tent before the blood on your eyelids dries.

The Payphone Trick (#98)

In Ogden, between the hours of ten o’clock PM and two o’clock AM, a locked door in
the back of a 24/7 convenience store will be opened. During these four hours, the
third shift clerk will remain behind his counter if he can, leaving spills and other
problems to sort themselves out until the door closes of its own accord. If you arrive
during this hour, walk through the door and close it behind you.

The door leads into a small room made of bare concrete. To your immediate left is a
disused washroom. Don’t open it under any circumstances, as they haven’t cut the
bodies down since 1995. Instead, turn right and look at the payphone. It’s old
enough that it still has metal keys and an AGT sticker. The handset has been
separated from the phone itself, but if you lift it to your ear, you’ll hear a dial tone.
Put a quarter into the phone, then dial. Never, under any circumstances, call a cell
phone.

The phone will ring twice, and then you’ll hear whatever occurred in the room the
phone is currently in on the day and at the time you’re using the phone in the year
the quarter was minted. The only exception to this is if the quarter was minted in
the year you were born, in which case you hear whatever happens in that room
during the moment of your death.

The Supermarket (#99)

There’s an independent supermarket in the far northwest. Although it’s just as big
and well-stocked as any of the city’s chains, it remains completely and totally
devoid of life. There are no workers, no customers, no one. No one seems to
question this, as though the store itself is a part of the city’s geography that their
minds simply smooth over. If you should find it despite the blind spot we all seem to
have for it, do not enter without a lemon and an egg.

The market is still and silent as a tomb. Proceed immediately to the back of the
store and enter the employee break room. Put the egg and lemon in the refrigerator
and close it. Say “An egg for protein and a lemon for zest” aloud, then leave the
room. When you return to the store proper, the second layer of illusion will be lifted
and you will see it as it truly is: empty and desolate. The carcass, half-gnawed, of a
failed seeker will be lying behind the meat counter. He forgot to bring an offering.
The blind spot is a defense mechanism, this place is like a venus flytrap.

The shelves will be empty, save for empty boxes and bones, except for one. The
herb rack is the best stocked in the city. Exotics and inedible herbs and spices of all
kinds, all of them useful in the craft and many of them extinct, are all sitting in the
rack in clearly labelled flasks. Take one and leave. Do not look back and do not take
more than one. There is plenty of room in the freezer aisle.

The Aim Bot (#100)

There is an AIM bot that only exists within the city of Calgary. To access it, search for
a wireless signal anywhere in the city and connect to an un-secured network. Once
you’re online, start a new AIM account with no contacts. The account’s name MUST
be a western first name like “John” or “Sarah”. This is currently almost impossible
since most common names have been taken. However, some more esoteric or
foreign names have been found to work, as have names from antiquity. For
uncommon names, the names of saints seem to have the most success.

When your account is made, log in and add “Peigan” as a friend. Peigan will claim to
be a bot maintained by the city to help tourists, and will answer any questions
about traffic, weather, restaurants, theatre or any of the city’s attractions in with
cheery, friendly text. However, the more you talk with Peigan, the less cheery and
friendly it will become. After about two hours of conversation, Peigan will angry and
will rudely insult whatever you ask it about. After three hours, Peigan will begin to
threaten whatever location, person, institution or object you ask it about.

After about five hours, Peigan will sign off. The last thing you asked Peigan about will
be in some way destroyed within a month. It’s vitally important not to use your real
name for the AIM account, or Peigan will know who you are.

The Theatre (#101)

Theatre Calgary, ATP and One Yellow Rabbit are all housed in the Epcor Centre for
the Performing Arts. The building is home to a fourth theatre, whose troupe and
location remain a mystery to most. To find the theatre, which mounts performances
twenty-four hours a day and seven days a week, you must first acquire a key. The
Key works, even though the lock you’ll need to use it on is the wrong shape.

Enter the elevator that leads into the Max Bell Theatre and insert your key into the
elevator’s maintenance key-hole. Turn your key and punch all of the buttons in
descending order. The doors will open on every floor, but the rooms beyond will be
subtly wrong, and all inhabited by figures in strange papier mache masks that do
nothing but render their features blank. Finally, instead of reaching the parkade, the
elevator will drop you off in the lobby of the theatre.

The performance is ongoing, and is made up of two masked performers, both of

whom face the audience. In clear, rhetorical English, they recite their lines twenty
four hours a day, seven days a week, with no breaks or rest. The language of the
play is convoluted and wrong, as through translated from Russian by someone with
a loose grip on English. The words are almost meaningless, but they open a door in
your mind. What they let in depends on whether they’re performing a comedy or a
tragedy, but from that day on you’ll see the masks in crowds and never quite
belong in this world.

The Surgery (#102)

There is a procedure they do, to awaken the part of your brain that knows how to
listen. Elements of this surgery have been practiced throughout history. This
surgery, akin to trepanation and lobotomy, was often misunderstood by hippies who
accidentally killed themselves looking for a permanent high. The surgery’s results
are nothing like a high. In fact, the elevation of consciousness that results makes
narcotic satisfaction... problematic. Especially for those who become proper
acolytes.

There is one surgery that does this kind of work in Calgary. It is located in the
furnace room at Dalhousie Elementary and can only be found during the half moon
as it relies on shaky borderlines. Enter through the gym, and you will find an
improvised waiting room in the hallway. From the moment you sign your name to
the walk in sheet, there is no turning back. Your feet and hands will move of their
own accord. You will walk into the surgery, lock the door behind you, and go to
work.

It’s likely that you will black out during the procedure. This is a mercy. Try not to
mind the gaps in your memory or the disappearance of one of the local children that
will occur the same night as your operation. There is such a thing as a necessary
evil, and until stem-cell research is opened to more fringe physicians, third eyes
won’t grow themselves.

The Bakery (#105)

There is a Belgian baker in Calgary who is renowned for his great skill and his even
greater bitterness. No one knows why the baker is filled with such disdain for the
world despite his great talents and the success that they have wrought. Perhaps it is
because of what you will discover if you go to his shop after hours.

The baker’s shop does most of its business in the morning, selling lattes and
pastries to commuters driving into downtown from the south. By night, it is usually
closed. But if you look in through the window, you will see the baker sitting alone in
a corner, drinking coffee and eating something small and sweet and drizzled with
red coulis. If he notices you, he will get up and open the door and invite you in. This
is your last chance to avoid the trial ahead.

The baker will ask if you have eaten and snort derisively before asking if you know
the Epicerie next door. Say you don’t, and that you prefer something sweet. He’ll
call you a man after his own heart and over to share something special with you.
You have no choice but to accept, lest you wind up in the red coulis.
The baker will bring out a human heart, glazed with maple sugar, choked with
cherry juice and custard and surrounded in a flakey crust. Eat this grisly treat,
choking down the still warm, still half-alive organ, and you will be rewarded with an
unearthly, haunting beauty, but your damnation will be complete and thorough.

The Epicure (#106)

There’s an epicerie downtown I frequent. Well, frequented. I don’t think I’ll be back
there again. Ever since I moved here, I’ve gone there for lunch, picked up an
orangina and a croque monsieur, and ate it at the counter. The owner’s a real
epicure, one of those hardcore French gourmet. Listen, Sandy, I know you wouldn’t
have asked unless you were interested, but this isn’t really in your usual line, and
Monsieur Boyer is a friend of mine. Don’t go telling anyone this shit.

Anyways, a couple weeks ago he smiles at me when I come in and tells me he’s got
something special and he wants to share it with me. He says he’s got a couple
ortolan smuggled in from a farm up north that raises the damn things in secret. An
ortolan is like a finch or a bunting. But what the French do to them is just sick.

They keep them in the dark and force feed them oats and millet. Once they’re
fucking huge, they drown them in column-still brandy and leave them there until
they cook them whole. You put it in your mouth until only the beak is out and then
you bite down and eat it whole. Eyes, organs, all of it. The bones splinter and slash
your gums and tongue, but that’s part of it. It adds this salty, coppery taste.

Monsieur Boyer put my head under the tablecloth before he served me. He says it’s
how you do it, so you can hide from god. I couldn’t see anything, all I could do what
feel him push it into my mouth, taste it, and chew.

The next morning, I coughed up what looks like a human eye. Monsieur Boyer was
gone and nobody has seen him since.

Jesus Sandy, What the fuck did I eat?

The Soup (#107)

There is a trio of homeless men in downtown Calgary who have been tending the
same pot of soup for the last fifty years. Impossibly weathered, the trio have added
more water, more bones, more half-rotten vegetables and more scraps to the pot for
decades. Over the years, the soup has become thick and brown and heavy, rich with
the flavours of time. The three guard their broth jealously and refuse to allow any
others to eat it unless they bring something of power and value to trade.

The three are almost impossible to find by choice. They reside in a splinter. To find
the three, stand at tenth and fifth and slowly begin to walk south. As you move, the
city will seem to grow denser and tighter, the buildings higher and the people dirtier
and older. Eventually, the cars on the roads will give way to foot traffic and shanty-
towns, and the buildings will go dark and empty. Do not enter any of them, as the
office workers inside have been replaced by toothful predators.

Eventually you will find the three at the center of an intersection. Tell them you
have brought the ingredient to complete their labour and offer them either a jar of
allspice or a jar of air. If you offer the jar of allspice, they will give you a cup of soup
spiced with it. You will gain all the boons that They can give, but the three old men
will turn on you once they recognize the scent as They are no friends of the
downtrodden. If you offer them the empty jar, the blind old men will attempt to poor
it into the soup and, in the process, fill it at least a quarter full. The broth will cure
all injuries but leave your skin tough and leathery.

Leave the splinter and never return.

The Book Shop (#110)

There is a hidden book store that can be found in every city on the continent. In
Calgary, it can be found in the basement of a pizza shop in Brentwood. Tell the
owner that you’re from the health department. When he asks what department, say
mental health. He’ll laugh, but he’ll also unlock a door at the back of the kitchen
which leads to a long, steep, rickety staircase that descends deeper into the ground
than should be possible. At the bottom you’ll find a small, strange shop and a man
named Eddie Decae.

The shop specializes in the works of the homeless insane, with sheaves of scrawled
mythologies from across North America: The blue lady of Florida, Chicago’s
gangster computer gods, and Calgary’s They are described in intimate detail in the
unreadable ramblings. Decae sells these sheaves for a dollar a page, and it’s worth
it if you have the time to eke what meaning can be distilled from them. However,
there is a shortcut to knowledge.

Behind the counter, Decae keeps a bookshelf with over a hundred notebooks,
diaries, clipboards, little boxes of index cards and the like. All have been prepared
by acolytes and seekers and all describe the roadside horrors and urban attractions
that we who favour the night enjoy. Decae will let you have one of these, but for a
price: You must prepare one of your own. If you don’t, you will find yourself unable
to read anything. The words will swim before your eyes and sort themselves into
paragraphs of the filthiest invective.

The Laptop (#111)

Beneath a nameless overpass is a dry concrete hole that descends into the city’s
foundations. Although the hole is open and unmarked, no one seems to fall into it or
even come close. In fact, when you find it you will have to strain your eyes to see it.
When you do, you will notice that the perfectly circular hole has no means of
descent. The walls are too smooth to brace yourself against. The only way down is
to jump. So jump, holding on all the while to perfect confidence that you will land
unharmed. If your confidence vanishes so will the mattress beneath you to break
your fall.

Once you land, get up and walk straight ahead through the dusty gloom. Eventually
you will find a laptop computer sitting on top of a milk crate. The computer is on
and its battery is perpetually at full, although it isn’t plugged into anything. The
screen doesn’t display an operating system, instead showing a list of names that
updates with a new name about once every eight seconds. The foolish think that
this is a list of who is dying, with each name representing another death.

If you try to remove the computer, your name will appear and you will realize that
they’re wrong. The list is indeed of deaths, but it’s about five minutes behind.

The Ice Cream Truck (#112)

Edgemont is haunted every summer by an Ice Cream truck that only comes out
after dark. Large and long and old fashioned unlike the small one-person trucks that
drive the route by day, this truck and its sonorous, distorted bell fill everyone who
hears it with a sense of unshakeable anxiety. The locals are so shaken by it that
they refuse to talk about it or deny its existence outright. Its comings seem to
coincide with the New Moon.

If you steel yourself and manage to overcome the anxiety you will feel about
sighting it, wave the truck down. The man who drives it has dead eyes and will only
accept money minted before 1980. The truck’s menu will be illegible with age, but
ask for a sour cherry. The popsicle the man gives you will taste coppery and salty,
but swallow every last mouthful without complaining about the taste. The man will
smile and ask you if you want to ride along. Never accept his offer, no matter how
tempted you feel.

From that day forward, to your eyes the night will seem as bright as the day, and
people will glow with the warmth of however many days of life remain for them. No
one knows what happens if you flag the man down again or accept his offer.

The Cellular Phone (#113)

Enter Hillhurst Elementary after hours through the Girls’ Door. Do not use The Key to
get in, as the school no longer stands in the desiccated world it opens onto. Instead
pick the lock through a more conventional means or secure the key through some
legitimate method. Then climb the stairs. The school has collected a handful of
ghosts like all buildings; echoes of sound and heartbeat reverberate through the air.
But the dead here are slow and calm.

Climb to the top of the building and enter the cloakroom at the top of the staircase.
It will be empty at this hour other than a leather jacket too large to belong to the
children. You will hear the sound of a cellular phone’s ring from the moment you
walk in the room, and after a moment’s effort you will find it in the jacket’s pocket.
The phone is an old nokia. Open it and hold it to your ear, but say nothing. Do not
even breathe.

For as long as you can remain silent, the person on the other end of the line will tell
you everything you need to know to solve whatever problem you’re currently faced
with. But once you breathe or speak, she will stop mid-sentence and scream. The
scream will be deafening, and you will pass out quickly. Explaining your presence in
the school at night, in the cloakroom, will prove surprisingly easy. Claim you came
back to reminisce. The principal will ask if you were a student there once. Tell him
you like to think you are always a student. He’ll recognize you as an acolyte and
allow you to leave, but from then on you will owe him a great and grievous favour.

The DVD (#114)

In the new Crowfoot Public Library, there is an extensive collection of DVDs that can
be borrowed provided you have a card. One of these, which nobody seems to
borrow, is inside a blank case that inevitably seems to get lost between shelves or
reshelved in the wrong section. The disk inside the case is unmarked as well,
although it isn’t a DVD-R. Attempting to borrow the disc will earn you a strange look,
but no strong protestations.

Take the disc home and do not watch it until after dark. Put the disc into your player
at one in the morning and press play exactly ten second later. The screen will
crackle to life in media res, the action already unfolding by the time the camera
comes on. The scene depicts the murder of a man named Nick Maharis, gutted like
a fish on the platform at Sunnyside Station, his intestines spilling out onto the
concrete. The camera is dropped after he hits the ground, and the killers leave.

The camera remains focused n Maharis as he bleeds out, watching the slow
progress of his abdomen emptying onto the ground. Strangely, the pattern formed
by his entrails differs every time you watch. He will make eye contact with you at
the moment he expires. The disc is of no use to you unless you are skilled in
haruspicy. If you are, you can see reflected in his innards the current future of the
war.

The Paper Warehouse (#119)

There’s a vacant lot in the Southwest that’s literally covered in paper: Old
newspapers, old photographs, decaying books, fast food wrappers. Anything paper
and mass produced. On Labour Day, the lot vanishes and is replaced by a small
warehouse. Nobody notices because there’s no way that a warehouse could go up
that fast, is there? If you walk inside of the building, you will discover that it is in
fact made of all the paper that was on the lot, which has been folded elegantly to
resemble brick and sheet metal and concrete.

The building will be furnished like an old importer’s. Don’t put your weight on
anything, however, as every last object in the building is made from paper. There
will be a display case against one of the warehouse’s walls containing the only
wares it has ever housed: a dozen rings. One of them is real, the rest are made of
paper. If you pick up the real one on your first try, you’ll be permitted by the aged
Japanese man who seems to own the warehouse to take it with you. Never wear the
ring, but instead give it to someone you love. For the rest of their life, they’ll never
fall ill.

If you get one of the paper rings, wear it. It will bring you good luck and success at
the office.

The Key (#121)

There’s a coffee shop in Bowness called “Cadence”. Go in and order a large black
eye and specify that it needs to be made with the Prince of Darkness Roast. Your
coffee will be served in short order, and will consist of four shots of espresso poured
into a cup of the house’s darkest roast. The espresso will be oxidized, so the coffee
will be the most bitter thing you’ve ever drank. If you fail to drink the whole cup,
you will never be able to get the key.

If you do down the entire drink, you’ll find a small key blank at the bottom of the
mug. Take it and leave. The blank will fit any lock in the city as if it were the
appropriate key. However, the door will not open into the room it normally does.
Instead, the room will be bloodstained and decayed, and a look out the window
reveals a desolate apocalyptic landscape.

However, some of these desolate rooms contain secrets and artefacts of the years
to come. Be warned though: if the door closes behind you, the key will turn to dust
in your hands.

The Encasement (#122)

In the basement of New City Hall, in an unlocked room, there is a cube of concrete
measuring about six square feet. The cube is the only object in the room, which
even lacks a lightbulb in the ceiling’s sole socket. Despite this, the room is lit at all
hours as if a sickly fluorescent bulb were installed in the ceiling. If you enter the
room by day, other than the cube there is nothing of any note and no apparent
reason to remain. However, if you do remain, you will find it highly educational.

After City Hall closes, the cube begins to warm up. Heat spreads across its surface,
as if something burning hot were within. When the cube is too hot to touch, it will
begin to whisper to you. Everything it whispers is a lie, but the whispers are so
dense and so thick that with enough patience you can begin to piece together the
truth. However, should you let yourself get lost in the lies, the whispering will never
go away and it will slowly drive you mad.
The Window (#125)
There is a small downtown gallery housed in an aging sandstone building, its details
weathered to nothing with age, that is almost entirely empty save for a handful of
pop art prints, a lost de Chirico, and The Window. The first is of no interest, the
second is part of a triptych which must never be completed, and the third is a
simple window hung like a painting on the back wall. The window always seems to
have its share of admirers, typically young students or other idiots.

The window appears to be painted on the other side, depicting a scene of suburban
carnage. Executed in perfect photorealism: A man with an axe standing on a
bloodied lawn, the neighbourhood children behind him, chopped to bits. The man is
standing on the lawn, mid-stride, approaching the window with a white picket fence
behind him that is stained with gore. Do not gaze at the painting too long, allowing
yourself to get caught in its brush strokes is a death sentence.

Instead, enter the gallery’s back room. There, you will discover the body of the
owner, decomposed and dead from a self-inflicted gunshot wound. On the wall
behind him, beneath the bloodstain, you will see photographs pinned to it of the
window. In the first, the painting depicts an empty lawn. It’s dated 10/5/01. Within a
year, the children have appeared. Within six months of that, so has the man. The
last photo, dated the first of this year, depicts the man approaching the window,
although he’s still further away than he is now.

Never open the window, and never ever break it.

The +15 Walkways (#131)

Downtown Calgary is home to a small network of enclosed walkways (a "skywalk")
called the +15 System. The +15's are designed to encourage pedestrian traffic
during the day, but are closed at night. The city claims that this is for the sake of
the security of the buildings connected by the walkways and to prevent transients
from living in them. However, the actual reason is much more interesting.

While the core of the system is open from 7 AM until Midnight, The western and
eastern edges of the system are locked at 9 PM. If you are able to sneak into the
closed systems at midnight, you'll discover new walkways that don't exist during
the daylight hours. If you walk down these pathways, you'll eventually emerge in
the Minneapolis Skyway.

The Minneapolis Skyway connects every skywalk system in the world. Be warned,
however, that if the skywalk you enter from it isn't in a city where the time is
between midnight and six AM, you may find that walkways you rely upon no longer
exist.
The Dry-Cleaners (#139)
There’s a one-hour dry-cleaners on 14th, next to a 24 hour film developer, that
appears closed at all hours. The open sign is dimmed, the lights are out, there’s
nobody inside and a sign that reads “ON VACATION” is posted on the door. However,
during the daytime it is possible to gain entrance to the drycleaners in three ways:
First, entering through the front door is possible unless the current day is a weekend
or holiday. Second, on weekends and holidays the rear door is unlocked. Third, the
building has a small skylight which has been broken since 2002. No rain, wind or
snow seems to enter through the broken skylight, but you can.

Upon entering, ring the bell on the counter. An aged Asian woman and her mute
husband will emerge from the back of the building, even if you passed through the
back of the building while entering through the rear door and found no signs of life.
The woman and her husband will stare at you in silence. If you leave, you will be
dead within an hour. However, if you complain to the couple about the loss of an
article of clothing, you will be spared. Your complaint must he highly specific, such
as “A pair of black jeans from nom de guerre’s winter collection, size eight”

The couple will leave. Remain in the building for an hour, and they will return with
whatever clothing you complained about. It will be bloodstained, and they will
helpfully direct you to another cleaner who can remove any stain.

The Abattoir (#140)

There is an abattoir in the city that is disguised as something else. From the outside,
it looks like a print shop about a block from a mountain equipment co-op. But inside,
when the stars are lined up correctly, the store gives way to a cement killing floor
that is stained rust-red with blood. The interior of the building will be larger than is
possible, rooms stretching on into eternity. Much larger than the city. A few rooms
from the entrance, you will find a room full of meat hooks and full of... meat.

Never enter this room shortly after a friend or relative dies, or you may see their
face on one of the sliced-open bodies that the room’s small, Slavic inhabitants busy
themselves with slicing. This is where the city’s dead truly go. The familiar bodies in
coffins are made of wax in another room still deeper in the abattoir. You should not
venture further than this, however, or you will be mistaken for meat. Instead, try to
find the once face in the room whose lips are still moving.

The man, and it is always a man, will ask you for news from the front. Tell him that
the good guys lost. His face will break into a smile and he will allow himself to die.
With his last breath, he will bless you and yours. For the remainder of your life, good
fortune will follow you so long as you keep to a strict vegetarian diet.

The Typewriter (#142)

There is a disused office in the basement of the Administration building at the
University of Calgary. The door to the office is painted shut and covered over with a
broken bookcase that has been placed there for “storage”. However, if you move
the bookcase and open the door, you’ll find that the office is actually surprisingly
well preserved considering how long it has remained shut.

The inside of the office is like a time capsule, furnished with thirty year old chairs
and bookcases in the style of the time. The walls have a vaguely yellow patina to
them, but this is of no significance. If you look at the degrees hanging on the walls
or the books on the shelves, you will discover that the office belonged to Earl Wiser,
PhD in history. No sign of Doctor Wiser remains, nor is he mentioned in any records
kept by the university. Judging by the books on his shelves, Doctor Wiser was an
expert on the Second World War.

The only thing in the room that will appear to be touched by time is the 1930’s
typewriter on the desk. You will notice that this typewriter is unique for two reasons:
it has German character keys, and it is typing the same narrative over and over
again without any human interference. The narrative tells the story of a German
victory in the Second World War and what happened after. If you take a closer look
at the books on the shelves, you’ll notice that the axis won in them too.

The Postcards (#145)

[This one’s an email, folded up and glued to the page. The header’s cut off]
Hey Sandy,

I’m gonna head over to your place after class, but in case you’re not there, I need
your help with something: post cards. Ever since the equinox I’ve been getting
these picture postcards from another place. You know where.

I tried to send some scans but it all comes out garbled. The cards are a lot of old
junk, kitschy pictures of German villages or Hugo Boss army men. The back’s
written in English though. It’s this guy, a soldier I think, named Gregg. He’s writing
home to this girl.

Pretty usual stuff, and only about forty years off, except everything’s a little bit
wrong. All the brands are stuff I’ve never heard of, and you know all that racist
bullshit that disappeared because the companies changed their names? He
mentions gassing American partisans in a “coon chicken”, only the postcards are
dated in the seventies after all that shit disappeared.

Matt thinks someone’s “trying to send a message” about something. I dunno what
though. When he’s not talking about killing, Gregg gets pretty spicy. Sex and
Death... that’s basically what They’re all about, isn’t it?

Maybe I’ll read some of them to you later. If we can’t figure out what’s up, we can at
least have a good time...
- Jess P.
The Gas Station Maps (#150)
There’s a chain of gas stations in Calgary, mostly dingy little places, called Fast Gas.
For the most part there’ s nothing exceptional about them beyond that the decor
hasn’t been upgraded since the early eighties. But one station right on the highway
that is a little different. There’s a pile of yellow roadmaps next to the cash register. If
you try to purchase one, the clerk will say “Oh, you don’t want those. They don’t
have the new construction.” Verbatim, to the word.

If you want to own one of the maps, you must reply “I’m lost, I’ll take anything right
now.” He’ll nod and ring one of them up. The roadmaps depict Calgary as it was in
1978, with one major exception: it shows about a half dozen roads that you’ll never
have heard of. If you track one of these side-streets down and drive down it, you’ll
find yourself in one of the other Calgarys. The streets don’t seem bound to any one
of our city’s reflections in particular, although most often they lead to the city made
from all the buildings we’ve demolished.

Heritage Park (#151)

Heritage Park screams wrong to the psyche. It is a town that is not a town, built
from the remains of others. Buildings that should have passed into the city’s
reflections remain here, stuffed, their innards taxidermied and displayed. Perhaps
this is why people report ghosts and odd feelings. The place cries out to the mind.
However, if you know the secret of the place, you can turn this wrong to your
advantage. Like an open sore, the world’s immune system floods it. Steal something
from the park, something that’s actually as old as the place. A bit of brick from the
wall of the Wainwright, a piece of antique crockery from one of the houses, anything
of sufficient age will do.

Never touch this with your bare hands. Instead, whatever it is, grind it down until it
becomes a fine powder or dust. Store this powder someplace warm and dry, and
wait until the day you need it. When you have the need to kill someone quietly and
subtly, dissolve the powder into water and ensure that they drink or bathe in the
resulting gritty mixture. Within a week, they will be dead of old age and be drawn
into a reflection, forever.

And you will have to kill subtly and quietly. If you cannot smile and murder while you
smile, your days are numbered.

The India Ink (#152)

There are three bottles of unmarked India ink amongst the other art supplies at Sir
John A. Macdonald High School. Students occasionally use this ink for projects, but
for the most part these three bottles have remained untouched since the late
seventies. The ink is thicker and darker than normal ink and has a special quality:
Whatever is drawn in it will prove prophetic. A line drawing of a person will always
depict their current location and situation, even after death.
Acquiring a bottle of the ink is difficult, and only once has it ever been
accomplished. Should the ink feel threatened, the art projects displayed in the room
will come to life and pull you back into them, trapping you for eternity within canvas
or clay. To retrieve the ink, come by night and come alone. Instead of breaking into
the school, hide in a closet or classroom until everyone has left. Then enter the art
room. Approach the cabinet where the supplies are kept slowly, and if you start to
see any stirring or movement in the dark, leave.

Open the cabinet slowly using either The Key or more conventional means of lock-
picking, and search for the ink. It sits near the back, and in the dark you can tell the
jars apart from the others because they will feel very, very cold to the touch. Only
take one jar, leave the other two for other seekers. Under no circumstances should
you ever use the ink to draw an image that includes yourself. Doing so will create
your nemesis, and the picture will show you his journey to reach you which will end
in your death.

The Radio Station (#153)

Phenomena #153 requires a digital car radio. Satellite radio will not work, even if it
gets local stations.

When driving along the river at night, a normally unused FM radio frequency will
crackle to life. The frequency is 104.6. The DJ’s name is never mentioned, and the
voice sounds different to whoever listens. The station plays swing music and, ten
minutes after every hour, dedicates five minutes to news. If you listen on your
birthday, the news will change. Instead of being the past day’s headlines, the news
segment will be made up of events that have happened or will happen to you.
Before midnight, the events will be those of the past year. After midnight, the
events will be from the year to come.

The station identification message mentions the station’s address, but the address
belongs to a defunct arcade whose only remaining machine is a fortune telling
scale.

The White Room (#160)

[The note at the top of the page describes this as a transcript of a botched induction
tape]

ED: Close your eyes and let your mind wander. Let your body wander too. Slowly
relax to the sound of my voice and follow my words through the city. You are
standing in the +15’s, and you are walking slowly, slowly, nowhere in particular.
Your eyes feel heavy, and the more you close them, the more certain you are that
you’re walking through the walkways. Turn left, then right, then left again. The more
you walk, the heavier your body feels. The further and further away the place you
want to go becomes and the more aimless you feel. It’s so warm here, and there’s
nothing but the walkway in front of you and the sound of my voice. Now, I’m going
to count backwards from ten, and when I get to zero, you’ll see a door in front of
you. Do you understand?

NM: I understand...

ED: Ten. Nine. Eight. Seven. Six. Five. Four. Three. Two. One. Zero.

SA: The Fuck? Where the fuck did he go?

ED: He’s in the white room, Sandy. Would you like to go there too?

The Dentist’s (#161)

There is a defunct dental practice on the top floor of the Northland Professional
Building near Northland Mall. Although the door is supposed to be locked, it’s
opened between the hours of 10 PM and 3 AM Tuesdays through Fridays. The
building is locked before this, so in order to get into the office, you’ll have to hide at
the bottom of the basement stairwell until the coast is clear and then sneak up to
the top floor. Use the stairs; the door never opens to anyone who took the elevator.

The office looks like any other dental practice, although noticeably more upscale
and dated. The chairs are real leather, the walls are paneled with mahogany outside
of the patient rooms. All the fixtures are ornate and beautifully decorated. The
receptionist is quiet to the point where you may first mistake her for a corpse. When
she calls your name, proceed to exam room one and lock the door behind you.
There you’ll meet the Night Dentist.

The Dentist will ask what you’re in for. If you tell him you need a cleaning, he’ll
investigate your teeth, frown, and tell you to leave. Your teeth will crumble to dust
within a week. If you tell him you need a tooth pulled, he’ll smile and start pulling.
For every tooth you let him pull from your mouth, you get a wish. Lastly, you can
tell him you need a root canal. A long, slow root canal.You’ll be subjected to the
most torturous pain imaginable, but if you endure it you’ll never die.

The Ghost Hospital (#162)

In 1994, the province ordered the closure of Calgary General amidst recession and
the fear of an unbalanced budget. Calgary General’s closure was fought tooth and
nail as it was the city’s only hospital equipped with an emergency room. The
province continued to undermine public healthcare for over a decade, shuttering
hospitals across the province and laying off doctors and nurses who are now in short
supply. However, these hospitals aren’t truly gone. Like people, places can
sometimes leave an impression behind. More of one if it’s etched in blood. If you’re
ever downtown and you find yourself in need of medical attention, try this:

The old hospital site was in Bridgeland, although it’s impossible to get to the
hospital from there now. Instead, you must wait until the lock up. Around that time,
antiquated looking ambulances will start circulating in the city. Flag one down and
board it, and tell them you need to get to the hospital. The driver won’t be able to
care for your injuries. He’s a driver, not a paramedic. However, he’ll drop you off at
Calgary General. Unlike the Ambulance, Calgary General will be as it was in its
height: one of the leading medical centres in the country. Of course, everything will
be about fifteen years out of date.

Leaving is, unfortunately, more difficult. They get so few patients. They need the
practice.

The Meat (#163)

Every year, The Stampede sets up. The rides are shit, Matt Good was the last good
act to hit the Coke Stage and the rest of it is just dull. The one stand out is the food.
Fried bread, mini doughnuts, the kind of county-fair fare that everyone remembers
eating at the Stampede when they were kids. Phenomena 163 is not so much a
ritual or a landmark, but a warning. Certain rituals and preparations outlined
elsewhere in my notes can offer preternatural senses and awareness; The ability to
read objects and understand. Should you have taken advantage of these, never eat
anything you are offered at the Stampede.

The Stampede traces its roots to the pagan rites that farmers new to this country
brought with them from their homelands. The magic is old enough it’s no longer
religion, just mechanical. The rituals performed after hours sustain the city, as the
rituals that find their homes in other cities sustain them. But eating the meat makes
you complicit, and the taste that what they do to it leaves behind carries with it all
the cruelty of fresh blood on the snow.

Some acolytes more talented than I have reported being able to see what the men
saw before the axe came down, and at least one claims that when the meat touches
his tongue, he can see what the men saw after.

The Blue Room (#169)

There is a room in Hillhurst that only appears during the rain. The room replaces a
studio apartment above a local grocery store that boasts “The best Sharma (sic) in
town” and shares the apartment’s dimensions. Unlike all the other locked rooms,
entering the blue room is easy: You simply knock.

The Room is home to three people whose appearances are totally impossible to
recall. They tend to the room, cleaning its furniture and playing host for any new
arrivals. The room itself is similarly nondescript: cracking blue paint and furniture
that looks like it was purchased a year or two at ikea. The exception is an antique
table in the center of the room which appears to date back to the early Victorian
era. If you ask politely, one of the room’s inhabitants will give you a tarot card
reading.

The reading uses only the major arcana, and acolytes have reported that their
readings have often involved cards which they don’t recognize from any modern
tarot. The figurative meanings of the cards are totally unimportant. Instead, focus
on the images. These depict a trial you will face over the course of your journey. For
example, a seeker whose reading contained the tower unfortunately met the end of
his journey while consulting with the Hassidic Wizards of New York a week after his
September Fourth reading yielded only one card: The Tower.

The Museum (#170)

The Glenbow Museum’s permanent exhibits include a small hall that details in very
rough terms the history and evolution of warfare, particularly that of Western
European and North American warfare. At night, enter the building that houses the
museum and break into the museum itself. Bring with you a small animal, no larger
than a chicken or a small dog. Take the animal to the portion of the warfare exhibit
that depicts a knight in a chapel and kill it with a black-handled knife. Leave the
corpse on the ground in the exhibit.

Move out to the stairway and look at the piece of tacky installation art in the center.
Smear the blood of your kill on your eyes and look again. The work will blur and
become iridescent and beautiful. Then it will begin to rotate. With each full rotation,
the stairway will expand upwards a floor, revealing strange, hidden exhibits. The
decor is markedly less modern, and the exhibits depict unfamiliar events and
places. Although the plaques have long since become illegible, each diorama
depicts a different event in the secret history.

The Sidewalk Chalk (#177)

Every summer, Canadian Tire rolls out these big black buckets of sidewalk chalk
with transparent lids. Inside there’s an assortment of all the usual colours, extra
thick. But once in a while one of the buckets will be white with a black lid. If you see
such a bucket, purchase it immediately and bring it home. Inside you’ll find the
usual assortment and six clear pieces. Use the clear chalk for hobo signs, magic
circles, or anything else like that.

The clear chalk leaves invisible markings, you’ll be able to see anything you’ve
drawn with it by memory, but things other people have drawn will be much better
hidden. To see them, break one of the other pieces of chalk. It will crumble to dust
in your grip and the wind will cast it around you. It will stick to the invisible chalk.
Never do this in public, as the density of mystic patterns and glyphs in most of
Calgary is prone to causing migraines.

The Liquor Store (#178)

The Liquor Store is nothing special, beyond that the owner is one of us. His stock,
consequently, tends towards the sort of drink the awakened favour: strong and
cheap. If you wish to learn more of the secret history, buy a bottle of Wiser’s Very
Old and ask the owner to share it after the store closes. Though he was initiated in
the days before days and knows more secrets than God, he’ll tell you nothing you
couldn’t figure out on your own. What he will do is nudge. Imply. Insinuate. Help you
think aloud.

The old man who owns the liquor store is fond of cleverness, and if you surprise him
with your acumen, he may smooth the city’s rough edges for you. If you, like most,
aren’t clever then you will have to ply him with his passion: liquor. Like most of the
dead, he’s constrained by rules and by customs. He cannot drink unless it is
purchased for him, and he cannot forget unless he drinks. If you help him, he will
owe you a favour. Forgiveness of a trespass against another practitioner such as
those described elsewhere in my notes, or perhaps something more mundane.

However, if he realises what you are trying to do, you won’t make it out the door.
Cleverness and whisky are no match for a Smith & Wesson with more than a century
of practice behind it.

The Mustang (#180)

Marda Loop is haunted by night by a Shelby Mustang without a driver. Every night,
at two o’clock, it emerges from the parking lot outside Basil’s Pub and begins to
drive in a slow circuit around the district. The car moves slowly like a prowling
predator until it draws near potential victims, whereupon it suddenly accelerates
and attempts to strike them. The car is responsible for a string of hit-and-run
incidents over the past year and a half, before which it was utterly unheard of.
However, if one can enter the car and take the wheel, the car will be pacified and its
unique properties at the driver’s disposal.

There is no agreed-upon method for taking control of the car, and most who have
tried have perished. However, if you find yourself in the driver’s seat turn the car to
face any of the principal compass directions and hit the gas. The car will accelerate
and seemingly pass through any obstacle unharmed. Depending on which direction
you turned it, the car will arrive in a different land of the dead and remain, waiting
to ferry you back to the city after you’ve finished your business.

The Headset (#187)

The Viscount Bennett Center on Richmond Road is home to Chinook Learning and
Westmount Charter School. The two schools share a library, which has a single row
of aging computers. One of these computers has a large, rugged headset with a
microphone connected to it at all times. The headset is never disconnected from the
computer, but no student ever seems to use it. In fact, no one will notice the
headset unless it is pointed out, and even then the most it will evoke is a shrug and
“One of the morning students must have left it”.

However, if you put on the headset you will be immediately seized by a sense of
nausea and foreboding. The headset plays no sound other than a vague static hiss
until you try to type a document on the computer it’s attached to. The headset will
begin to scream. However, if you start to type the right word it will pause until
you’re done typing the word. Though no one has ever tried, it’s assumed that with
enough patience one could reconstruct the finished document.

The only problem is that the words are in an extinct dialect of French.

The Purple Room (#188)

Enter any of Canada’s railway hotels and check in. Bring no luggage and ask
specifically for The Purple Room. After a few moments of insistence, the porter will
acquiesce and lead you into the elevator. Using a special key, the porter will open
the elevator panel and press a concealed, unmarked button. The elevator will open
directly onto a parlour furnished in Edwardian finery. Everything in the room: the
marble, the chairs, the doors, even the maid who greets you will be some different
shade of purple. Ask to see the master of the House.

The Master of the House will be indisposed, as will his elder son, but his youngest
son will come out to meet you. After excusing his relatives, he will answer any three
questions you ask. Unfortunately his answers will only make sense in retrospect.
The young man will leave after extending an invitation to spend the night. Accept
and turn in early. Around midnight, the Master’s daughter will come into your bed
and try to seduce you. Refuse. Her father’s slightest gesture could seal your fate.

Instead, ask her to tell you about herself. What she will tell you is the story of Earth
but not of man. The story of creation and destruction. The story of the world itself
from the beginning to the end. The telling will take all night, after which she will
leave you. Leave the room and check out of the hotel without speaking to anyone
else.

The Vacant Lot (#190)

Some years ago, one of the city’s historic churches burned down and left only a
vacant lot behind. In the years since, the lot has healed, leaving no evidence of the
fire behind, and the contents of the Church’s basement utterly entombed. The one
exception to this is midnight on Saints’ Days that coincide with the full moon. On
these nights, in the vicinity of the lot, time slows down and the night grows darker
than dark. Moonlight refracts through naked air and the ghostly image of the church
can be seen.

Unlike other ghosts, this is utterly tangible. Climb the stairs and enter the church. It
will take a few minutes for your eyes to fully register the interior as you will only be
able to perceive the vaguest outline of the room and its furnishings. The Church will
be as it was on the night of the fire, with ghostly flames burning the northwest
corner. Once your eyes have fully adapted, approach the altar and cut your hand
with a black handled knife. Bleed atop the altar, which will slowly recess into the
floor.

The altar will descend two full storeys. The hole into which it sinks has rough walls
and should prove easy to climb. Descend slowly and carefully. As you descend, you
will find yourself sinking through the earth. Seeing will become impossible for a
time, until you reach the basement. The basement contains the bones and ashes of
a handful of practitioners and priests who have come seeking what you are about to
find.

Located in this basement room is The Christ, still on his Cross, still bleeding. One
drop of his blood is enough to grant the strength to work miracles, but two will burn
you to a cinder.

The Video Store (#192)

The video store is old and dingy, and some years back it transitioned from
legitimate rentals to bootlegs and porn in the face of competition with the
blockbuster down the street. Finally, it gave up the ghost last August. The owner
retains his lease, but the store is never open. Instead, he uses it to store his
incredible collection of snuff, rarities and bootlegs, many of which are of more than
slight interest. The owner never enters except late at night, so a daylight or evening
break-in is your best chance.

The store’s latter days have left their mark on it, complete with discarded
merchandise and sordid video booths at the back. The break-in will have triggered
the owner’s alarms, no matter how careful you’ve been, so you only have time to
grab a video at random and run. Or else, should you be courageous, you can lock
yourself overnight in one of the booths as he’s long since lost his keys. He’ll leave at
dawn, allowing you to escape. However, he’ll turn the booth /on/.

If your stomach is strong enough to endure whatever sadistic footage he’s playing,
you can escape unharmed in the morning, armed with the video you grabbed. None
of them are in the correct case, and whatever system he uses to decide which
cassette goes in which case is incomprehensible. It could be lost footage of the
kennedy assassination, it could be Margaret Trudeau’s Rolling Stones sex tape, it
could be any number of different trip recordings from acolyte excursions.

Or it could be a home-made snuff tape of the last acolyte to be caught.

The Other Mall (#199)

Some of the stores in Northland Mall are open at two ends, letting customers pass
through them while cutting from one side of the mall to the other. Recently, one of
the clothing stores that’s like this closed up the path by installing a set of changing
booths and mirrored cheap plywood wall covered in mirrors so that the other half of
the store could be lent to another tenant. However, there’s something wrong with
one of the booths. Enter the third booth from the left and be sure to bring a sack
lunch. Turn around thrice anti-clockwise, and leave the booth. You’ll find yourself in
the Othermall.
The Other Mall looks just the same as a regular mall, except the stores are all
wrong. Woolworth’s, A&A Records, Eaton’s, every defunct company from the last
twenty years. The products are even weirder. Instead of stocking normal goods, or
even normal goods that have gone out of style, the stores stock things that never
made it. Product ideas that died on the table.

Amidst piles of anatomically correct dolls and surprisingly sharp-edged jewellery,

amidst sweaters with three sleeves and all the other defective garbage, you can
sometimes find a product that should have made it but didn’t. Home Cold Fusion.
The cure for Cancer. Appliances that never break down. Anything that THEY’RE
using the other mall to hide.

The only problem is getting anything back with you. You don’t want to know what
they do to shoplifters on the other side.