The Grimoire Of Golb

I was on the bus when I found it. It was the catalyst that changed everything. A year ago I was on the last bus from Renton to Downtown Seattle on the 101, I’d sit in the back of the bus so no one could sit behind me because it's a city, it was dangerous. I didn’t even notice it at first, not until I sat on it, there it was shoved between the seats, a little black moleskin journal. I removed it from between the cushions and ran my fingers over the face of the book and down the spine, appreciating the weight of it in my hands. I had always wanted one of these to write in, envious of all of the famous writers who owned one, jotting down inspirations for their next great novel in such an elegant yet simple book. I never afforded myself such a luxury item, only in my dreams. I took off my headphones allowing them to rest on my shoulders, then I removed the elastic band and opened it to the title page. It read “if found please call 206-555-5555, Reward of $20,000.”

My mouth fell open, this must be some kind of weird thirst trap or something, a typo maybe? Perhaps I’m being recorded right now and this is one of those shitty reality tv shows and Ashton Kutcher is gonna jump out and tell me I’ve been “Punked” or something, but why me? I’m not famous, I was no one special. I thumbed through the first few pages as the smell of the paper caressed my olfactory senses and the cursive continued throughout, accompanied by a great many symbols I didn’t recognize, one I did, a pentagram was drawn in brownish-red ink... or was it blood? I snapped the book shut and replaced the elastic band, shoving it deep into my backpack. There was a time and a place for everything and as for examination of the contents of this book, the 101 to downtown Seattle was not the time nor the place. I took the rest of the ride home in silence, choosing to be on high alert in regards to my surroundings. Someone should be looking for this book if it was worth as much as it claimed but on the off chance it was planted here, I wouldn’t be made to look a fool at my own expense.

The only other person on the bus was an old homeless woman sitting three rows ahead, facing away from me, she wreaked of cat piss and alcohol. She was wearing an extra-large purple sweater that hung off of her small, boney frame that said “PORTLAND SUCKS” in large yellowing letters, her grey and white hair sticking out in every direction giving the impression that she’d recently been electrocuted. She was quietly mumbling to herself, her voice soft yet also gravelly, you could hear the scarring on her larynx affected by years of smoking. There was nothing suspicious at all, it was a typical Wednesday night in Seattle in the middle of January, when the nights are seemingly endless, cold, and lonely.

I pulled the cable on the bus to stop and I stood up and swung my backpack over my back and laced my arm through the strap and began to move to the back door when out of nowhere the crazy old lady grabbed my arm firmly, she looked up at me her wild eyes rolling in her head, she was blind and her eyes were completely whited out with cataracts and she whispered to me “Be careful what you wish for dear, for the Gods of Chaos are always watching, laying in wait, setting traps everywhere for us to fall into.” I reached out grabbing the hand grasped tightly on my arm and said “Okay, thank you, I think...” I peeled her thin fingers gently off my arm, notably spooked. She went back to mumbling to herself, much like the interaction had never happened in the first place. I made my egress off the 101 and began the walk uphill to my apartment.

The inside of the apartment was modest, with no furniture, just a mattress, a computer, and a scanner on the floor. Upon seeing the scanner an idea crept into my head like a whisper, a little devil sitting on my shoulder. “It would be rude to read the book and try to collect the money but what if we copy it, return it then read it later?” I smiled, yes, in case they tried to cheat me out of the reward or something strange happened to cover my bases, yes, I could have the money and the knowledge. Retrieving the book from my bag I open it to the first page and start scanning, each page was written on front and back, it was going to take a few hours to scan all one hundred and ninety-six pages. In the morning I dialed the number on my phone and listened.

“Hello?” A soft yet gravelly voice answered, somehow familiar.

“I’ve found your book...” I replied

“Well aren’t you Lucky, if you want the reward, meet me in front of the museum at Volunteer Park at 2 pm, don’t read the book, come alone.” the line went dead.

A few hours later I sat on a bench in front of a museum, freezing my ass off not entirely sure what I was waiting for, but I had this unsettling, creepy feeling that I was being watched. My phone rang and I pinched the receiver on my headphones to answer. The same voice from a few hours earlier began to speak without me saying hello.

“ If you look on the ground to your left of the bench that you are sitting on, you will find a camouflage bag, inside is the money as promised as well as a small black bag that I would like you to deposit the book into and leave in the same place that you found the money, do you have any questions?”

“No.”

The line disconnected as I reached down to my left and there, as promised was a camouflage bank bag with two crisp stacks of hundred dollar bills and a black bag stuffed inside. Fear reached down my throat and gave my heart a squeeze. I quickly removed the black bag and I placed the book safely inside and zipped it closed and dropped it to the floor where I found the money. Not a moment later I had shoved the money into my backpack and nearly ran all the way home, all the while looking over my shoulder and going in circles to make sure I wasn’t being followed.

I spent the next year deciphering the text that I found, it started as a curiosity which then grew a little stronger each day eventually becoming a fascination until some say I became obsessed, addicted even unhinged. The first thing I did was buy two moleskin books and began copying every bit of text word for word back into it and as I went through it I did my best to research and translate each symbol, one at a time into the second book using the Seattle public library.

The book was called the Grimoire of Golb, it was a spellbook that bound an ancient chaos entity, a creature so dark and mysterious that lived hidden and in all the darkest corners of the universe and it drew its power from what I can only describe as the Monkey’s Paw dynamic. The story begins with someone finding a monkey’s paw that grants wishes but there's always an ironic twist because the individual who is making the wish isn’t using the proper words or intention. Golb’s power comes from self-doubt, error, and discord. Upon completing the translation of the book I realized that Golb was trapped within the symbols themselves, these were instructions on how to release it. As soon as I finished translating I felt a terrifying appetency to release Golb, I could hear something whispering to me in an ancient tongue, the base language of the universe occupied my mind and it felt as though my mind was no longer my own. I had become infected with mania and could no longer help myself, I began to follow the instructions, gathering supplies, just in time for the full moon, when the intense insanity of the world is at its most tangible.

I blacked out the windows of my apartment and drew the symbols in white chalk on the floor and lit the black candles, sitting in the center of it all, chanting the words from the text letting the incense invade my senses filling my lungs. The air in the room became electric and even though I was indoors the air swirled around becoming wind, the symbols on the pages of the book began to spark along the black edges of the ink and glow red until they began to burn the pages around them and float up into the air with the ashes. A loud crack echoed and deafened my ears, causing me to open my eyes and see the symbols burning in mid-air, followed by a strange itch on my wrists and ankles, an itch that turned into a scratch, when I peered down I watched as I was being carved open by an invisible knife, my flesh being flayed down to the bone. Reverence gripped my throat, the wind whipping around the room so strong and fast that my body began to levitate up into the center of the room. My internal organs and muscles exposed, making a wet ripping sound as they pulled away from my skeletal system, the fiery regalia danced around the room to the beat of my heart. I screamed until all I could feel was the roaring of wind mixed in with pure white-hot agony. Completely dissected in the center of the room the letters descended upon me like a swarm of starving fire ants and laid flat, then burnt into my bones. I became us. Every image from the pages perfectly engraving themselves into my foundation, across my face, over my skull, down my arms, under my ribs giving my bones the appearance of being engraved with symbols of old from head to toe. My flesh, blood, and organs looked puréed on the floor below in a pool of red gore, began to pour upwards and over my bones as if the world suddenly flipped upside down. The flesh was different now, it was no longer soft pulpy skin. Now its liquid red and black iron scales, the same consistency all the way through. My skull began to twist, warping shape, both faces filled with a mouth full of broad fangs, no lips and a thick, forked, purple tongue rolled out of both sides of my faces. Extra eye sockets, six on each face, which were filled with round yellow cat eyes on the front and the back of my head. My huge scaled hands' red gradation to my fingers tipped in sharp onyx daggers. This body no longer my own, we felt no more pain, we no longer recognized ourselves, the iron flesh had enveloped our bones like lovers. The transmogrify complete, all at once the room grew silent, black and still as we fell to our knees on the floor. In my mind's eye, we embraced, it whispered all the secrets of infinite wisdom and unadulterated power into my soul. The grateful creature told me that the secret to wielding the power it gave me is the accurate calculation and projection of outcomes amid the truest tumult that supersedes fear or worry. We don’t roll the dice, we let them fall while we manipulate the world below. Once upon a time, this city was dangerous, now we are the entropic nightmare lurking within every opportunity of the fatal error.