Journal of Henry Jones

Greenland Entries: 10/22/1922 - 10/28/1922

10/29/1922 - Sunday: Frederick appears to have recovered completely today. He is feeling fine now, and his reaction to our test cut was totally normal. Poor Laticia is getting very sick today, whereas D'Arnot never did. It must be a matter of each individuals constitution, or possibly some sort of immunity. We are going to continue heading north along the Karnes trail again.
…-This morning, while on the trail, we began to approach a rise, or more precisely a ridge of snow and ice. From a distance, we could see twelve figures, apparently human, standing in a line along the top of it. From where we were, we could see the sun gleaming off of them as thought they were statues of metal, or perhaps wearing some archaic armour. McDougal, being the sneaky bastard of an Irishman that he is, put his skills to use to sneak up upon the figures while we waited at a safe distance. As he approached, we could hear the figures bellowing in a language that Laticia recognized as Old Norse, with the meaning of 'Go back'. McDougal is on his way back to us right now, but I think that once he gets here, we will continue on. I must admit that I'm a bit curious about these figures.
…-Continue on we did, once McDougal had returned. He told us that the figures, six of which were men and the other six being women, were dressed in garb consistent with the Norse myths of Valkyries and of an extremely large stature. When we were about 100 yards from the ridge, the 'Valkyrie' figures began to hurl their spears at us. To our surprise, they reached us as though we were only 10 yards away! One of their spears hit McDougal, seriously wounding him, but not putting him down. Frederick got a shot of at this point with his pistol. When his bullet struck one, it burst into what appeared to be read globules! The skirmish didn't last very long, they seemed to be extremely susceptible to exploding upon being struck. It was, however, not without a cost. Daniel Bernard, the Australian aeroplane pilot, was killed by one of the spears. Dr. Williams has just finished up with some simple first aid on McDougal, and we are going to get moving again. None of us want to stay here after the terrible loss of Mr. Bernard.
…- A little ways up the trail, we found some boot tracks heading off the main trail to the east. We decided to follow them to see where the lead to. A few hundred yards along, there was another path that appeared to be where someone slid into a crack in the ice. Since Mr. Shutlz was the smallest of our party, we decided to tie a rope to him and send him down the crevasse. Shortly after he went over the edge, the members holding the rope slipped. At first we feared the worst, but the rope didn't disappear over the edge, telling us that Mr. Shultz must have come to the bottom of the crack. As it turned out, after we had pulled him back up, he had only landed on a ledge that was fortunately there. He told us that the crevasse appeared to drop into oblivion. He also found the frayed piece of a rope on the ledge, apparently from whomever had went down before him. After that, he began to distance himself from the group, upset that he had been allowed to fall the way he did. We are going to continue following these easterly tracks.
…- We came to a shallow crater-like depression in the snow. In the center of the depression, there was a large rock, apparently a meteor. The odd thing was that we also found an expedition marker from the P. Smythe expedition of 1910. It read that the expedition had recovered a meteor from this spot, taking it out. This would coincide with a book that had been in the small library left behind by Karnes. It had said something about a meteor that had been taken back to New York, and paced in a museum there. The tracks lead down to the meteor, so Laticia and our strange shaman friend Puma Walks Far walked down to check it out, and to see if the tracks lead away from the site. It turned out that the tracks just circled the meteor, then headed back up to where we waited. They also noticed a strange piping humming noise coming from the rock itself. This somewhat spooked them, as they came running back up to the edge of the crater. Apparently this sparked some sort of memory with certain members of the group, and they began to shoot at the rock. The bullets of course did no real harm to the meteor, but it did break off some shards. We decided that it would be good idea to collect some of them, so we sent McDougal down to get them.
While he was down there, the noise began to get louder, enough so that we could begin to hear it up at the rim. As soon as he got close enough, he scrapped some shards into a bottle, then began a hasty retreat back out of the crater.
It was about this point that I noticed D'Arnot pulling out a short section of pipe from his pack. There was a fuse protruding from one end which he lit, then attempted to throw it at the meteor. Weather it was the cold, or just his lack of ability to throw, the pipe landed at the feet of Mr. Shutz. Now Mr. Shultz, being a professional baseball player and apparently knowing the potential of these little pipe bombs, immediately picked it off of the snow and hurled it to the rock. Everyone else suddenly dove to the snow, so I followed suit. McDougal came diving over the edge of the crater, just as an explosion the likes of which I have never heard of rocked the ground! Pieces of show, ice, and metal filled the air. After the dust settled, the Irishman, who was understandable quite irate by now, got up screaming obscenities at Mr. Shultz. He took a swing at him, knocking him unconscious, then went immediately to rummaging through his belongings. This was apparently the pipe bombs that he had accused the Inuits of stealing back on the open fields, just before the gruesome attack of the polar bear that took the life of the German, Grogmore. When he didn't find any more in Mr. Shultz's belongings, he looked to D'Arnot who was trying to put others that he apparently had been holding into the bag of Ms. Sanders. He grabbed D'Arnot by the collar, holding him up slightly off of the ground, and said,

'Come on little man!'

To which D'Arnot replied, 'Is there a problem?'

'I think you have something of mine!' Growled the Irishman.

'No, it's right here in the bag.'

This was apparently good enough for McDougal, as he tossed aside D'Arnot to retrieve his remaining bombs.
After this little show, we looked to the crater, seeing that nothing was left. Frederick and I went to the center, just to make sure, but there was nothing.
We decided to go back to the main trail. We arrived just about the time we normally make camp, so we decided rather that go on any further, we'd stop here. It's odd, but now that I've had a little time to relax, I can't help but feel that we've missed something. I'm not sure what it is, but I'll bring it up with the rest of the group tomorrow.
10/30/1922 - Monday: The eerie illness that has come upon the first of the infected group has struck McDougal, Shultz, McDugan, and Van Gilst. These were the last of the ones to become infected, but with so many, we've just decided to spend the day here to let them recover. This will give me some time to collect my thoughts.
…-I am utterly horrified. We finally came upon what was haunting me since last night. Mr. Bernard had been infected with the same substance as the other, but we left him behind, thinking him dead. With all of the events of the last two weeks, it must have escaped all of us. Had Dr. Williams been able to remember, maybe he would not have allowed it, but we all forgot about the incident when the Irishman shot hime at close range with a shotgun, and he miraculously recovered. D'Arnot and I went back with as much haste as we could to the site, but we only found the body. He had apparently come to some time after we left and attempted to drag himself along the trail, but now the substance had left his body the way it had the others, and indeed is right now as we speak leaving the four back at camp. We've just finished burying him. I can't help but feel somewhat responsible for his demise. D'Arnot is particularly glum as well, especially since he'd known him quite a bit longer that I.
…- By the end of the day, after everyone that had been infected has went through the strange fever, we decided to test everyone again. Mr. McDugan, Van Gilst, Dr. Williams, and D'Arnot still heal quickly when cut. We're not sure what the implications of this are yet, but I still don't believe that it's a good thing.
10/31/1922 - Tuesday: We've found what was left of the Karnes camp today. The first thing that we noticed as we approached were the burned tents and the disarray of all of the equipment. After examining the camp, we found Cole Brooks, the navigator that had been on our expedition, and Keith Lucas, the botanist, had been shot in the head, then burned. All of the equipment had been smashed, the rifles that were left have been plugged, and the food supplies have been ravaged by wild animals. There was some kerosene left, as well as some articles of clothing, and a functioning dog sled, minus the dogs of course.
After some more digging, Ms. Sanders came across the remains of a burned notebook. Unfortunately, we were only able to discern the first page, and a part of one of the last pages as well. The first page read…

We are dedicated to tracking Smith.
If we can't find him now, we will dig up his past

It was signed, apparently in blood, by Steve Karnes, and his assistant Sherry Marlton. The section towards the end read…

We have gazed on our ultimate doom and wonder how long? We were injected in 1917 and we still seem human. Brooks knows and looks at us like monsters. We have to stop him from…

That would, it seems, account for the bullet holes in their heads. They have apparently been going through the same ordeal that we have, only for a much longer period of time. It was at this point that D'Arnot revealed to me something that he had read in one of the books left behind at the village. Apparently the Smith expedition had found a source of this substance that has infected some of us, and took it out of Greenland. The experimented with it in the Great War, healing those who's wounds were fatal, with astounding results. Karnes and Marlton were apparently among those experimented on, and they now suspected some sort of ghastly truth to the entire thing. I have to wonder at the 'Valkyries' that we encountered earlier. I remember something now, read during the study of mythologies, about the Viking Eric the Red. He had, according to superstition, found some sort of magical pool. A fountain of vitality and life as it were. This was supposed to be the reason that he and his army were able to conquer and pillage with such ferocity, and for such a long period of time. Could it be that they had indeed found whatever source Smith had found in his expedition, and indeed now still coursed through the veins of Karnes, Marlton, and four of our group? Were those 'Valkyries' really Viking warriors left here for ages to protect the supply of Eric the Red? These are certainly disturbing thoughts, and were I to share these with others, they would think me mad, but I must admit, given the things that I've seen since trekking into this spot, it's not totally out of the realms of possibility.
…-Before we were on our way, Laticia began babbling on and on about the whiteness all around here, and the open air. The poor girl appears to have gone insane, no doubt driven there by the sights of the last few days, culminating in the discovery of the bodies of those that we originally traveled here with. Dr. Williams has calmed here down with a dose of morphine, so that now she is barely conscious, strapped to one of the sleds. We took the extra dog sled, using the strength of Shultz, Van Gilst, Dr. Williams, and the Irishman to pull it.
We had only been walking for a short distance, when we crested a small hill to find a large pool of what appears to be the same clear, undulating liquid that originally infected Frederick. Mr. Shultz began to walk towards if for a moment, before snapping out of some sort of delusion. McDougal threw an empty whiskey bottle into the pool. The substance seemed to form a face! It opened it's 'mouth', and then swallowed the bottle! It then spit it back out, to let it float on top of the pool! We've just returned to the burned camp. We left McDougal and Mr. Shultz behind. McDougal has two remaining pipe bombs left, and we've decided that the best thing to do would be to destroy the pool. There was a rock in the center of it, similar to the one that D'Arnot, or should I say Shultz, blew up two days ago. They were going to give us plenty of time to get here, but we should hear the explosion before long now.
…- After the explosion, we went to collect our companions. They had buried themselves in the snow to avoid the ash substance that was falling from the sky. They also went down to the center to see if anything was remaining. They found metallic shards similar to the ones at the other crater, as well as, oddly enough, gears. McDougal also saw what he described as a short glowing rod. He claimed that it reminds him of the boiler room of some ship that he was on in the Pacific ocean, but he won't say anything more than that it's dangerous, and not to go down there. I probably would like to see it for myself, but the look in his eyes tells me that I probably shouldn't.
…- We've decided, as a group, that our next course of action should be to, first and foremost, leave Greenland. From there, we are going to go to New York City to find the meteor that Smith took from Greenland. If it appears to be the same type, which I suspect that it is, we will have to find some way of destroying it. We can't let it continue to exist, with the possibility of infecting others.