18 October 2026
Sunday, or rather Monday, since the pocket watch says two minutes to midnight and has said so for weeks.
A terrible thought has woken me. What if the van is better than the coffins?
The coffins are my masterpiece. Everyone says Buried Alive is the most extreme thing I have made. But the van moves, or feels as though it does. The van has a driver. The van has an hour that is also a road, and a destination nobody wants to reach. I fear I may have outdone myself, and I am not sure I can forgive me.
Who drives it? I will not commit that to paper. Perhaps it is me in a new disguise; I do look well in overalls. Perhaps it is someone else entirely and I am merely the consultant. A good villain keeps one card face down.
It will be at Northbridge, with the coffins, the cell and the Butcher’s locker, in late 2027. Until then the van lives in my notebook, parked between a menu card and a sketch of a bow tie, with its engine running.
— U.
