Page 40 (1/2)

Arnie walked toward the exit I followed, stopping quickly to pay the lady at the counter

"Wait," I staot, you know, all that paperwork on the Hyundai and the accident and all that The insurance company, they took pictures of the scene and, well, you can’t really see anything but they describe the scene in the report, the dead roaches and all that I went back that next s in the shape of, of the fingers I got it at ho from Arnie He didn’t even nod

"In my toolshed, in a jar I can show it to you I mean, what kind of a person would fake that, would sit at hoether? ‘Honey, what are you doing?’ ‘Oh, I’ a roach hand You know, to aid my credibility with the press’"

Arnie said, "The kid you say you killed during the Las Vegas thing? Fred Chu? Say I go looking into that, his disappearance"

I hesitated "Do it Those records are out there I’ve been honest with you, I keep saying that"

"So you ad him?"

"Off the record, yeah"

"And the other kid that died, Big Jim--"

"He’s really dead, too You can look it up"

"I already did But Big Jione to the cops about Fred, wouldn’t he? That you shot Fred? He didn’t seem too happy about it"

"I--I don’t know We’ll never know"

"Worked out pretty good for you that Big Jiot all this ridiculous shit swirling around in your story, Wong, but then you got the parts that are real, the parts that can be verified And they’re all felonies A dead kid Acop So why don’t I do both of us a favor and pretend we never talked? Because I’m not sure I wanna hear the rest of it"

He unlocked the door to a white Cavalier and ducked inside

"Wait!"

I jogged up to the car and circled around to the passenger side I gently smacked the ith my palm Arnie hesitated, then reached over and unlocked it I leaned in

"Can I sit down?"

He paused once et rid of erous, liable to fly into crazy-man violence if turned away He used both hands to scoop up a bundle of notebooks and folders froedequipment and cassettes on the floorboard

"Here," I said "Look" I pulled a single folded sheet of paper from my pocket "It’s been in my pants all day so it’s kind of wrinkled and, uh, moist, but read it I copied that from Dr Marconi’s book"

PAGE 192 SCIENCE AND THE BEYOND DR ALBERT MARCONI

leaving it looking like a jar of pickled eggs that had been eaten and then voe ritual was done in service to a deity who to uage) I was told that each od and I was allowed to witness the branding cere man was forced to lay facedown on athe writhing ots of bot flies The larvae were placed on the back of the young ots then chewed through the top layer of skin, digging holes a half-inch deep I was told the larvae would, according to ceremony, be allowed to reman succumbed to the itch and scratched the spot, he would fail the test of ain

On the seventh day the larvae are extracted by the priest and the wound treated What re the paths eaten by the worms These scars would form the "brand" of Koddock The priest showed me the finished symbol and the pipe literally fell from my mouth

Once rees to the left The same symbol I had seen a Manchester toddler draw in his trance state ot back to Li to each other over a poor connection, he described for , nearly 7,500 miles from where I stood

I was so stunned by what he toldon the floor of ht out od nadoad cosony, Kuk

PAGE 193 SCIENCE AND THE BEYOND DR ALBERT MARCONI

was a frog-like god who represented darkness and chaos) Haleine, however, believed he had stumbled upon a cult that worshipped his rash and destructive son, Kor’rok This god was represented symbolically by a roin, the twin centers of desire for y, Kor’rok was a reckless and cruel slavemaster, who used men’s bodily desires to lure them to their destruction for his own alyph and the symbol of "Koddock" I had copied in my note pad, when laid over one another, were nearly identical in shape Here we had now three peoples, living on opposite corners of the planet, separated by oceans of water and ti the sale best piece of evidence for the supernatural ever discovered by science