was the moment Tim felt an inexplicable chill down his spine: the sun was blocked out and a
shadow was cast on them in a desert. In a desert. In a desert. And the words resonated and echoed
in his mind and in his left peripheral view he saw red, blood red, the color of evil and death and
scaly skin, segmented into grotesque rings round a wide body AND IT IS RISING ABOVE OF THE
SAND. ABOVE THE SAND. AN ARM’S LENGTH TO THEM. It wouldn’t matter to Tim what, why
and how, it is there, but without a second thought he pushed Charles to his left and took off to the
right, bolting off to the snowy ger in the distance.
His mouth was loose and uncontrolled, blubbering gibberish and whimpering and spitting
little froths of spit. He thought he heard a hiss, like bacon fat in a pan, followed by a shriek of
sheer terror and agony. He thinks. He thinks. This is not real this is not real it’s a dream it’s a
really bad dream really that’s it…. But what help could that do when it was Charles whom indeed
decomposed into a puddle of sickly yellow slime, disintegrated into thin air and seeped into the
particles of the sand. Gone.
“Gundsambuu! GUNDSAMBUU!!!!” screeched Tim. It didn’t matter how he could humanely
generate this animalistic scream but what did matter was how the worm was rolling around and
scuttling soundlessly in the sands behind him in search for more prey. Alas Gundsambuu was
nowhere to be found and in his mind Tim was replaying those horror movies and you must expect
to fall down at least twice during pursuit but he rambled on mindlessly anyway, and crashed
somewhere behind a jumble of rocks and for some unexplainable reason grabbed his notebook in
his trousers’ pocket and furiously scrawled on the lined paper.
From the Travel Journal of Timothy Ross, pg. 4:
to whoever it may concern and is fortunate to find this book DO NOT come to gobi desert to
find that treausure of the khan it’s A FRAUD. A FRAUD or else you’ll end up like me i
A Notification on the letter returned to Martina Horan as a failure to reach recipients:
DATE: 22/6/2013
TO: MS. MARTINA HORAN
FROM: CENTRAL POST OFFICE, ULAANBAATAR
Dear Miss,
Your request cannot be carried out. Timothy Ross cannot be reached at the moment. Please
send your letter again later on.
