As the three boys stood there, frozen in fear and anticipation, there came a noise from the ground floor above.
"What was that Mrs. Forman? OK, I'm on my way," Hyde said quickly, in response to nothing, before taking-off up the basement steps. Fez and Kelso followed quickly behind.
Hyde practically slid into the kitchen before being practically tackled by the oncoming Fez and Kelso. Kitty and Eric both took in the scene wide-eyed and confused.
"Is the basement on fire?" Eric asked in his normally snarky tone.
"I thought I heard your mom call me to help carry in the groceries," Hyde said trying to play it cool. Kelso and Fez remained silent, stealing quick looks behind them at the basement door.
"Are you boys sure you're alright?" Kitty laughed in her usual concerned manner.
"Yup. -huh," Kelso answered without looking in Kitty's direction, whose manner took on even more concern than normal.
"Well alright, if you say so Michael," Kitty continued putting away the groceries. "It sounds like everything is just hunky-dory with Archie and the gang." Kitty laughed. Eric looked over his friends with a suspicious eye. And Hyde looked beyond the kitchen, through the sliding glass door, and out into the driveway.
"You cool buddy?" Eric queried.
"Yup. Like Kelso said, everything's fine."
"Huh?" Kelso was momentarily snapped back into the here-and-now.
"Using Kelso as a reference point?" Eric's eyebrow raised itself as an accusation. After a moment of quiet judgement, Eric looked back over his shoulder at his mom before gesturing for his friends to follow him up to his room. The group hustled quickly and quietly up the shag carpeted stairs and single-filed into Eric's lava lamp lit room. Kelso shut and locked the door behind him.
"Alright guys, what's the real story? Kelso, did you spill bong water on the TV again?" Eric asked with a smile.
"Don't blame this on me! I didn't piss-off a madman and then leave him a trail of breadcrumbs back to your house!" Kelso proclaimed.
"A what?! To where?!" Eric panicked.
"A psychopathic murderer — to your house. Jeez, Eric, you think you'd pay attention to news like that," Kelso said while shaking his head in disbelief.
"I heard you Kelso! I am just trying to wrap my head around the fact that I run to Piggly Wiggly with my mom and come home to the Texas Chainsaw Massacre!" With that Eric Forman walks to his gabled window and looks out into his backyard. "Who'd you say this guy looks like Kelso?" Eric asked, continuing to stare outside.
"Actually, I'm not sure…" Kelso began.
"He bolted upstairs before we could tell him," Hyde stood-up.
"Oh! That's because the killer was trying to break-in to the basement!" Kelso said defensively, if not hysterically. "And you guys ran too!"
"To break into my basement?" Eric said both rhetorically and surprisingly calmly.
"Yep," said Hyde. "We think he's that guy up in Kenosha and Milwaukee that off'd those co-ed joggers in the parks. Fez here tried to make friends with him and royally pissed him off. Hence the basement incident."
"Well, I don't think he got in," Eric continued.
"How do you know?" asked Kelso.
"Because unless I am very much mistaken, he is looking right up into this window,and into my soul, at this very moment." Eric spoke the words slowly and with an air of pre-freakout.
"Oh no! He is a killer and a soul-stealer!? This is like the time my grandfather made enemies with our villages priest-sorcerer!"
Hyde, Kelso, and Eric all turned to look at the frightened Fez.
"Where the hell are from, man?!" Hyde delivered like a slap to the momentary silence in the room.
"We can all play National Geographic with Fez later," Eric commanded. "Guys, what are we gonna do?! My mom's downstairs and this guy could…"
Eric stopped talking and his eyes practically popped out of his head. Below the window Eric could see Kitty walking close to the foundation of the house, watering can in hand. His eyes darted back to where the man had been standing — and he was gone!
"Everybody downstairs! Now!" Eric shouted. "The murderer is making a move on my mom!"
Hyde and Kelso snickered. Eric shot them a look of raging mania.
"What? That was funny," Hyde apologized.
With that, all four boys piled out of Eric's room and practically jumped down the stairs in unison. As they hot the bottom landing, a loud, stern knocking rapped on the front door.