Monthly archives: October 2021

APT (Advanced Persistent Threat) BotNet

Nyarlathotep… the crawling chaos… I am the last… I will tell the audient void….

— screamed by a Security researcher as he plummeted off the roof of the datacenter cackling

“It’s the tree, moving along in a glow of phosphorous light.”
“It looks like a human giant!”
“Do you two see what it is carrying?”
“It’s carrying Crane! Tucked up under that huge branch that looks like a human arm!”
“Now do you believe? Now do you admit that the tree is alive?”

– Scott Bishop, “The Demon Tree”, Dark Fantasy, 12-5-1941

“Desperation led us to take on a cheap job dealing with the monastery’s irregular bookkeeping. Late that night, Plamena was squinting at a column of numbers. The candle guttered and died, and she cast light upon the sconce. Then they were all around us, consuming the library in flame.”

“He was collecting rushes when something exploded at his feet. He reeled – and it pulled him under the water. There was nothing I could do. And every night, I hear him calling again…”

We went to the farm in the morning after all the screams. What we found looked like a swamp. Bubbling pits of sulfurous liquid covered the area. Trees were splitting and breaking apart in the wind like sandcastles struck by the tide. If it weren’t for the disintegrating farm, no one would have believed anyone could live here. I painted that barn last summer. Uncle Alexander had given me twenty bucks. Now the paint was bubbling and peeling like sunburnt skin. All around, there were holes as though massive maggots had burrowed up out of the ground. My dad took one look in those holes and ordered me back to the car. We never even checked if Uncle Alexander was still there.

—Journal of Scott Mercer.