EXAMPLE OF NOTES BY LINCOLN CHILD, TAKEN DURING RELIC'S EARLY DEVELOPMENT

Notes from conversation with D.P. - 2/3/90

 Mud in mouth--strange, evil thing that sets these murders apart, that police don't mention.

Terror is to be whether or not actually supernatural entity or just some crazed nut.

Murderer wants as close an association with He Who Walks on All Fours as possible, to inflame fear.

Police withhold one detail (mud in mouth) from all people--to winnow out false confessions. Margo needs to find out about mud in mouth, heard from office-mate who found body...not mentioned in police briefing, she wants to know why...

The police line is that it's some psycho who's setting it all up...

Reader must believe that some supernatural being is responsible for killings. Have slashes so deep that no human with normal strength could do it.

Seems like a "monster from the black lagoon," but its actually very 20th-century...a drug!

 

Notes from conversation with DP - 2/20/90

 Remember, Mbwun is actually the seed pods and what they do, not the creature. When the old woman points to the box and says, "Mbwun is in the box," she isn't referring to the icon of Mbwun--she's referring to the seed pods and what they do when ingested. When Margo finds the diary with this reference, she immediately thinks of the creature...when, actually, it's the seed pods.

The seed pods make you kill for the fun of it. The kid didn't uncover some drug factory, and was killed for that reason--he was killed essentially for the fun of it. The police are noticing an increase in the number of killings on the street, brutal killings--this is a side-effect of the drug. Other members of Project 4 may suspect this side-effect, but there isn't a huge conspiracy.

The statue of Mbwun was made by the Yom, not the Ki. The Ki could have made it--because it shows a mythical figure, an apparition that they assume resembles the creature that has been attacking their people in the night--but the Yom made it as an image of the drug, Mbwun--the god of the drug, that lives in the plant--an embodiment and mythic exaggeration of what the drug does to people.