I'd forgotten about that.

Jen was poking around in the back of my wardrobe this morning it seems. Looks like I've lost my old hockey jersey and she gained a new night shirt. She's lucky it looks better on her than it does on me or I'd probably be a little upset :p

-J.C.

Yowzer!

Shopping is done and man was it awsome. I now have a midnight black SUV and will be driving it around for the next week or so until my other purchase (A lovely looking Mecedes-MacLaren SLR) arrives. Once all the important stuff was done, I took Jen to buy a new dress. We had already bought a stack of new clothes, but I wanted to get her something really fancy. There's a conference coming up soon in Boston that I want to go to and even though I think Jen would outshine anyone else there even if she was dressed in nothing more than an old potato sack, I figure that since we have the means to do better, it wouldn't be right not too. All I can say about the dress she picked is wow... just, wow.

-J.C.

Hell of a week.

Well, things with Sam went well. It's been a lot of hard work trying to get things organised, but we finally managed to get it all sorted out. I now have a rather nice income that I don't have to work for (as does Jen) and a slush fund that will continue to rake in interest until I decide I need it. All that is independant from the host of other investments and strategies that Sam has been putting into place. I can certainly see why my father hired him. Now I could just kick back and retire if I wanted to and I must say that with things the way they are, I'd be very tempted to. Right now, the only thing stoping me is my concience. I want to look into the things we've discovered and see what I can do. Ballance is important and I'm going to try make sure that the creatures aren't tipping the scales. I get the feeling that Jen is starting to feel the same way. We've been seeing them around for a couple of weeks now and with that first exception, we haven't done anything except aviod them.

The papers for me leaving active duty at the base should be here early next week. C.O. seemed a little upset about losing two staff members in the same week, but was pleased that I told him he could still call any time if they needed help. I'll still be required to do some work for them if I want to keep my rank and military privileges (which I do), but it works out to about 2 days a month. Pretty good deal as far as I'm concerned. Jen and I have both applied for a licence to carry a consealed fire arm and with our military background we should be cleared for them. Still not sure if guns will be of any use if we have to take down one of the others but then again, if they do work on them, all the better for us. I'm going to start collecting a few things that I'm almost certain would be able to hurt anyone, monsters and demons included. I've got a few white phosphor grenades on order and I managed to get some thermite from the transport devision on the base. I'll keep looking around for anything else that might be useful, but until I start tangling with them up close and personal it's going to be pretty hit and miss I think. Still, better that I start and it turns out to be useless than I don't and it isn't.

On a slightly less 'Hellfire and Brimstone' topic, I'm looking forward to the weekend. I'm going out shopping for a few things. Trading in my current car and getting 2 new ones, new laptops for both Jen and myself, some new clothes, all the usual. Should be fun though as I've never really gone and done anything like this before. It's a pretty odd sensation being able to go out and do that without having to worry about the expense. Once I've done all the shopping, I plan to kick back and relax with Jen for whatever's left of Saturday and Sunday. Monday is going to be my first day hunting for these things and trying to find out if I can be of some help, so I figure that the rest will do me good. Besides, there are cartoons to watch on Sunday and nothing short of death is going to stop me from watching them.

-J.C.

Didn't see it coming.

As great as last night was, I woke up feeling a little apprehensive about today. There were two reasons for this. One was quickly laid to rest when I spoke to Jen about it. I couldn't help but wonder if she only agreed to start dating me because of our unique situation. In a way it's almost like being stranded on an island and dating the person you're stranded with because what other options do you have? As I said though, Jen laid that to rest very quickly. She let me read a few entries from her diary from before things changed and it turned out that like me, she was interested but hadn't quite gotten srount to doing anything about it yet. Even more than knowing she was thinking about it herself though, that she let me read the entries in her diary showed me that she trusted me. That means a lot at this point. Anyhow, the other reason I was nervous was a little more sinster. It struck me that my accountant may be one of them. That would make the meeting uncomfortable at best. I was pleased to find that it wasn't the case though when I turned up. Sam is just a regular guy and I have to admit to being a little jellous of that. Either way, he'd prepared a full account of my assets as I'd requested.

I have to admit that I always knew that mom and dad were wealthy. I'd have to have been in a coma to not realise that. We had a big house in a wealthy neighbourhood and all that, so not realising it wasn't really an option. Still, we didn't get a new car every year (although the ones dad had were exceptional), we didn't fly round the world at the drop of a hat, in short, my parents were responsible with what they had. Now, when dad passed away back in 2000, I was more than just a little rattled. We lost mom the year before and so I still hadn't quite adjusted to that yet, let alone being prepared for dad's death. I paid virtually no attention at the reading of his will and just blindly signed the papers Sam told me to when the time came. Sam has been the family accountant since before I was born and more than just being our accountant, he was a family friend. Sam was one of the other pole-bearers at dad's funeral. I trusted him enough to look out for me then and I still do. When he started running me through the list of assets though, I was thunderstruck. Mom and dad weren't just wealthy, they were multi-millionairs. When he saw the look on my face, he explained that for the last 4 years, he has been managing my finances and related affairs full time! I nearly fell out of my chair. Jen just shook her head and said "See, I couldn't put my finger on exactly what it was about you that I liked so much, but this can fill in for it until I do!". My own laughter snapped me out of it. I figured that at best, I'd have enough to manage an income close to what I have now, but Sam assures me that now I'm ready to start working with him a little more, we can start taking a few more risks and the earnings could go through the roof. Hell, even if we leave it as it is I can pull in 10 times what I do now as a surgeon. Looks like I'm about to have a lot more freedom than I thought. I feel like I've just won the lottery!

For now, I've got Sam sorting out an account that I can access as a sort of slush fund. I've asked him to make sure that both Jen and I have access to it so that should hold us until we know what we're doing. I'll call the base and let them know this afternoon.

-J.C.

How much better can it get?

We just got back in and Jen is getting changed so I only have a few seconds, but she said yes! Could today have been any better? I seriously doubt it!

-J.C.

Dad's legacy.

My father spent a bit of time working in Asia right before I was born. He was there for about a year and a half, maybe two years with my mother, but when she fell pregnant, they decided to come back home to the U.S. to raise me here. While they were there though, my dad became good friends with one of his work collegues. He was a Taoist and by the time my parents came home, they had both absorbed quite a number of the Taoist beliefs. As such, I grew up with that influence and I still think that many of it's tennants make a lot of sense. The one that sticks out most for me is the concept of ballance. The last week and a half have really reminded me of that. On the one hand, the world has changed in a serious way for me and I now see the kinds of monsters and demons that society has denounced as mere myth and superstition. The darker element of life has been thrust right in front of me and it often feels like it could overwhelm me at any moment. On the other hand though, Jen has become so precious to me so very quickly. I know that a lot of it has to do with her being the only other person that's in this situation with me, but I can't help feel that all it has really done is speed up what may well have happened anyway. She gives me a reason to keep looking for a way to move forward rather than just stall or let things start to drag me under. Sounds mushy I know, but there's nothing more satisfying than the feeling I get when someone genuinely appreciates the help I can give and with Jen, I always know that she's grateful for my help.

It's amazing for me to think that one of the worst events in my life may also be the start of one of the best things in my life. The reason Im mentioning all this is that I'm thinking of taking Jen out for dinner tonight and seeing if she'd be interested in making our cover story into a reality. After spending the morning watching cartoons again, I realised that I'd have to be a complete fool to let a woman like that slip through my fingers. Let's hope it all works out.

-J.C.

My new plan.

Well, I spent a lot of time thinking about how to get rid of Susan at work, but I'm just not used to all this. I don't know how to elliminate someone and just get away with it, that kind of thing only happens in the movies. I spent some time in the morgue back while I was doing my residency and I'll tell you right now that getting rid of a body isn't as easy as they make it look. Point here is that it would take me months to try come up with something and we may not have that long. As I said, I'm still assuming that they can sense us like we can sense them. Even with all those problems aside, we encountered a new one today. One of the girls in admin has gone on maternity leave and her temporary replacement started today and she and Susan hit it off straight away. They're both part of the same club if you know what I mean. It made both Jenny and I realise some very basic truths about the world as we now know it. Firstly, there are a lot more of these creatures than you might realise. On any given day, you're likey to intereact with one of them. Secondly, even if we managed to get Susan and now this new one out of the medical center here on base, there's always the possibility that their replacement will be just as bad. In short, as long as we keep working, we'll have to watch our backs because they're always going to be around.

With all that in mind, Jen and I have taken next week off. Without wanting to say much about my family history, my parents were an enterprising couple while they were alive. When they passed away, they left me with a small fortune. I've never had much need to touch it (with the exception of using my college fund for it's intended purpose of course) so I'm going to go speak with my accountant. My hope is that with some decent management, I should be able to turn my inheritance into an income. If I can do that, then I'll pull myself back to a private practice like I'd originally planned to do before joining the army. My home here was built with that in mind after all so the surgery already exists. I won't abandon my work with the military all together though as I'm not willing to give up what could turn into vital access to military equipment and information, not to mention the friends that I have all over the base. If I plan on fighting these monsters, I'll need all the help I can get from the looks of things. This is just a way of minimising exposure to them. I spoke with Jen about it and she has already said that if I can pull it off financially, she'll happily take on the role of my assistant here. I know her medical knowledge is more than enough to make her invaluable in assisting me during surgery and I doubt that she'll have much trouble with the administrative work that we'll need.

I wonder if this will hurt my chances of making Major at my next review? ;)

-J.C.

How much worse can it get?

After our shopping trip last week, we decided to take Friday off as well. Most of the day was pretty quiet. Jen made a few calls to her family to let them know where to reach her now. Took her about 2 hours to get them off the phone. She tells me they asked a lot of questions about me but other than that, not much happened. The weekend was a different story. We packed up a picnic lunch and went out to the lake. The call to her parents made Jen realise that we really don't know each other all that well outside of work so we spent most of Saturday just getting to know each other properly. Two really good things came out of that. The first was that now we sound like we really have been together for a while and the other is that by the end of the day we realised we'd become quite good firends. We stayed home again on Sunday and I was kinda supprised when Jen was quite happy to spend the morning watching cartoons with me. It's one of those things I never grew out of loving to do. I was starting to worry that sooner or later I was going to wake up and find that I've been in a coma since last Wednesday, dreaming away. Monday was an interesting day. First day back since the attack. We drove in together and on the way through the doors, we caught a lot of people trying to hide smiles. Susan must have been working that rumor mill in overdrive. Still, through the day, I caught myself enjoying that cover story a little more than I would usually like to admit. The most amazing thing was walking into the break room and catching Jen in the middle of telling a slightly embelished story of our day at the lake to one of the other nurses. Turns out I'm a lot more romantic than I thought since there was something about a trail of roses leading to the tree we had lunch under. When she realised I was right behind her, Jen went about as red as a rose herself.

Tuesday wasn't as good. Susan wasn't rostered on for Monday, so we hadn't seen her yet. Kinda like the offices down town (Jen is still trying to find out who runs that by the way), it was for the best that we saw Susan when we did but at the same time, I wish we hadn't. She's one of them. Again, she's not wrong in quite the same way as the one that attacked us or the ones we saw down town, but she's still wrong. We saw her before we got to the doors and just kinda slowed from a walk to a complete stop. We stood there for a while trying to decide if we should just leave when she saw us and rather than raise any suspicion, Jen dragged me inside. The look I had on my face must have been pretty bad because the first thing out of Susan's mouth was "Trouble in paradise?". Between that monster asking me that and the condesending smile on her face, it was all I could do not to punch her through the wall. Jen was a lot calmer than me and told her I was just upset because she wouldn't let me take her out to the lake again this weekend as she wanted me to meet her sister instead. Hearing her force a giggle at the end of all that reminded me that she was probably a lot more nervous about Susan than me. I pitched in and said that her sister could come see us out there on the Saturday just as easily and we started walking off, still having our fake arguement and with Susan just shaking her head a little as we left. Since things have changed, I know that I have powers that I can use to fight these things. I don't know how I know or where they came from, but they're there and they're real. Jen on the other hand doesn't seem to have any though. She can still see them, but that's about it. I'll have to watch her closely now that we know about Susan. Until I can prove otherwise, I'm going to work on the idea that if we can sense them, they can sense us. I've already started to try figure out what to do about Susan. If only I could be sure that she'll turn to dust like the last one.

-J.C.

There are more.

While we were out shopping, we saw another one. He didn't feel wrong in the exact same way as the guy last night, but he was still wrong. We saw the guy getting into an SUV in the parking lot. We decided to follow him for a while to see what happened. In a way I'm glad we did, but at the same time, I wish like hell we hadn't. He pulled into one of those fancy office complexes down town. The poor bastard behind me nearly ended up chewing on my rear fender I hit the breaks so hard. When I saw the place they were everywhere. Jenny can sense them too and as soon as we realised what we were looking at, we got the hell out of there. Took all the fun out of grovery shopping I can tell you. Jen want's the lap-top to do some research now, so I'm off to make dinner. Right now, I'm really starting to appreciate the mundane things I never really thought about. More later.

-J.C.

It really happened.

Last night was kinda weird. After patching up the last of my injuries, Jen and I had quite a talk. She remembers more than I was expecting. Turns out that the first hit she took just sort of dazed her rather than knocking her out like I thought. I asked her about what she meant when she said 'Bare their wounds' but that raised more questions than it answered. It seems that she thought I was the one that said something. Swares she heard me say 'The night hides their deeds'. I don't know what any of it means but it has to be related to everything else that happened somehow. I also found out that Jen thought she saw it on top of the lamp. Explains why I thought it dropped out of the sky. Neither of us are sure what it was yet. Jen said she'd look into it but I don't know how that's going to work out for her. We're flying pretty blind here.

I offered to drive Jen home after we talked but as soon as I said it, she tensed up. I told her she could stay if she would feel safer and I'd sleep in the guest room. She was a lot more comfortable with that and honestly, so was I. Part of it was that I just wanted someone else around but as well as that, I just didn't like the thought of leaving her alone after all that. It looks like I can put a hole in a brick wall with my fists now (and don't even ask me how that works, I just know it does) and if another freak like that shows up, I want to make sure that Jen isn't alone. It's not that I think she's helpless, it's more that for some reason I feel that if I can hit like a mack truck, I should be using that to try help people. Yeah, yeah, too many Marvel comics when I was a kid, I know. Seriously though, that guy worries me and there's more out there like him (and I have this sick feeling in my gut that there is), then they need to be taken care of somehow.

This morning, we both called in sick for the day. Susan took our calls, so that probably set her off like a fire alarm. She saw us walk off base together last night and I'll tell you now that if the CIA ever comes up short of intel, Susan will be more than happy to fill them in. I mentioned as much to Jen and the grin she shot back, well that made me skip more than the usual few heart-beats. It let us feel normal again for a while over breakfast at least. We headed over to her place on Pickering street after that. I managed to bleed all over her shirt last night so she borrowed one of my old sweaters. Don't know what it is about a woman wearing them, but they always seem to look great in them. Sorry, getting side tracked again. Who would have thought that with all this going on I'd even be able to think like that huh? Moving along though. On the way over, we drove along Grange road and there were a bunch of cars parked right where we were attacked. MP's, regular cops, maintenence from the power company, a regular circus. We turned off and went a few blocks on Frank street to get there rather than risk them stopping us. Looked like someone had ripped up a lamp post and busted up someone's fence.

I'm still a little fuzzy on what exactly happened while we were at her place. I didn't really have much to do with it, Jen just sort of organised it and I let her. As I said, she's the new nurse up at the base, so I've really only known her for about 4 months now but we really do get on well and since we know that nobody would believe us if we told them about what happened last night, we know that we have to stick together like it or not. As such, Jen's idea was simple, we don't just let Susan tell everyone that we're an item, we support it. We quite often have meals together during our shifts so really I wouldn't be too suprised if the rumor mill was already going and this way, the people we work with won't think twice about what we were doing last night. If anyone asks them, they'll most likely be supporting our cover story. On top of that, Jen can stay here if she gets worried about being at home alone without anyone thinking it's odd. So she packed up a few thing and followed me back in her car. Took her about 20 minutes to make it look like she half moved in about a month ago. I'll have to get used to being in the guest room for a while I guess. I'll be keeping this log as up to date as I can for a while. It's a good way for me to keep my thoughts organised and may be handy if anything goes wrong. Gotta go for now though, I promised Jen that we'd go grocery shopping. Apparently pantry is "stocked pretty well for a guy, but there's not nearly enough chocolate to convince anyone that a woman comes to stay".

-J.C.

Something's not quite right.

Today has been a bad day. I killed... a man? I'm not sure what it was. I was walking the new nurse, Jenny, home from the base after our shift. I like working with her, we share the same sense of humor and truth be told, seeing her can cause me to skip a few heart-beats. Anyway she only lives a few streets over from me so it wasn't a big deal. We got about half a block from Ferguson street and one of the street lights had blown. I didn't think anything of it at the time. With an army base at our doorstep, it's not like this is a high crime area. Hell, most everyone here works on the base so there are MP's everywhere. We got right under the busted light and I just stopped. Something just felt wrong. Jenny must have felt it too because she stopped dead at the exact same time as I did.

I could have sworn I heard Jen say 'Bear thier wounds'. Confused the hell out of me. Before I could say anything about it though, someone (or something) dropped from the sky and landed on Jen. Knocked her clean out. Now as I said, I've come to like Jen and when I got a look at the guy that hit her, I kinda lost it. He was big, probably weighed close to 300lbs. All muscle. As soon as I looked him in the eye, I got these flashes of him tearing people appart. I'm a surgeon, so I'm not really all that squeemish, but these flashes (a less cynical person may say 'visions'), he was drinking the blood straight from the stumps of the appendages he tore off of those people. Felt like I'd been standing there for ages, but when it all cleared, he was still just getting back to his feet and I could just see that even though he looked human, somehow he didn't feel human. I didn't really stop to think after that. The only thing that went through my head was that if I didn't do something, Jen was going to be next on the menu and I just wasn't going to let that happen, not while I was still breathing. So I hit him. Hard. It was like something out of one of the X-men movies and if it wasn't for Jenny still laying unconsious on my couch right now, I wouldn't believe any of it. When I hit him, there was something that looked like one of those sonic ripples they use to convince you just how supernaturally powerful a hero's punch is. The guy went straight through the lamp post and I could see the place where I hit him in the chest glowing red like my fist had been made out of lava or something. I was more than a little stunned and when this thing got up again, well, I just stood there with my mouth open and stared.

In hind-sight, that was stupid of me, but tell me that you wouldn't have done the same, hell, tell me that you're not doing it now just reading all this! Either way, I paid for my lapse. He hit me with the lamp post, he actually managed to pick the damn thing up and swing it at me! If he hadn't buckled half way through the swing (I'm guessing his chest was in a bit of pain), it would have done more than just crack 3 of my ribs. It was certainly enough to throw me over the picket fence at the front of the yard there. As if being as strong as an ox wasn't enough of a worry, this thing was fast too. I hadn't even finished hitting the ground when the guy was standing right on top of me. He kicked me in the other side (2 more cracked ribs and 2 broken ones) and sent me back through the fence (I think I still have a chunk of wood in my right thigh, but I can't get to that myself) and onto Jenny. That really pissed me off. This time, he seemed happy enough to walk over to take his next shot. I was pretty beat up and it must have shown. He must have been pretty sure of himself again by now because he reached straight past me to grab Jen. She had started to wake up and I guess me landing on her had brought her most of the way around again. I could see he was going to hit her so I lurched up and hit her out of the way with my shoulder. He caught me just under my left eye and knocked me down. Turns out the thing had claws. I look like a tiger took a swipe at me.

Next thing I know, he's standing over me again with one of the fence pickets. I thought for sure that I was dead but then Jen grabbed his arm. She struggled with him for a second but then he back-handed her and knocked her cold again. She's going to have one hell of a headache when she comes around again. It gave me time to grab my own picket though and as soon as he turned back around, I rammed the thing straight through his black heart. I'd had enough of this thing slapping us around like rag-dolls. The look of fear on his face was almost worth all the splinters, gashes and broken bones. Almost. He didn't fall down though, just stood there staring at me. I backed away and waited for a few seconds, but nothing happened. After all I'd seen him do, I was only half supprised really. About a minute passed like that, felt like an hour though. I didn't quite know what to do, so I checked his pulse and couldn't find one. I thought about pulling the picket out, but then I caught sight of Jen and that was enough to snap me out of it. I saw all those images flash past me again. I thought of what might have happened if I hadn't walk home with Jen. This thing shouldn't be, plain and simple. I grabbed the picket, twisted it free and swung it at his neck like a fire axe, took his head clean off and the picket just exploded. Before the guy's head even hit the pavement, it started disintergrating. Pretty soon, he was just so much dust in the wind.

Somehow I managed to pick Jen up off the ground and carry her back here. Since my home and office are all in the one building, it made things easier. I've treated as many of my own injuries as I can, but someone else is going to have to look at the rest. I'm going to have to leave it there, I think I just heard Jen get up and I want to make sure she's ok.

-J.C.