AN:Exciting times up here on post, a murder/suicide with a gunman during lunch a mere week and a half after a suicide on the training course. That and with a complete charlie foxtrot with the holding company I'm in at the moment well lets just say that if I seem overly morbid/angry then you know why. And as a final note once again I haven't gotten the deed to any intellectual property just yet. Enjoy!

The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents. We live on a placid island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity, and it was not meant that we should voyage far. The sciences, each straining in its own direction, have hitherto harmed us little; but some day the piecing together of dissociated knowledge will open up such terrifying vistas of reality, and of our frightful position therein, that we shall either go mad from the revelation or flee from the light into the peace and safety of a new dark age.- H.P. Lovecraft

The curious thing about back country roads is that no matter how "improved" that the map says that it is they are invariably substandard pitted lanes of rocks, dirt, and broken axles. Coupled with the facts that the Government vehicle, which isn't even properly built for function let alone comfort, was stuffed to the gills with a precarious mixture of Kevlar, flesh, matte-black riot guns, and rather studly looking team of the FBI's Hostage Rescue Team, Special Agent Seeley Booth's mood can be most accurately surmised to be "disgruntled." "There are not enough swear words in the English language to accurately describe," Booth thought in a rather petulant tone "just how uncomfortable traveling in a military style vehicle is when you're loaded with battle-rattle and the passenger capacity for the vehicle is 'Always room for one more.'"

*Wham*

"Damn it that fucking hurt!"

"Son of a bitch these roads are shit!"

"And the driver is a goddamn moron!"

"Hendricks get your elbow out of my ear!"

"Well excuse me Travis but if you haven't noticed we're a little packed in tight here so why don't you quit bitching!"

Amid the squawking and curses of a dozen large men crammed into a small metal truck Booth tries to relax amid the pleasant glow of the red overhead light. The only benefit to such a merry colored illumination was the fact that it didn't impair low-light visibility like white light does; that being said the ghoulish and devilish shadows playing across his compatriots faces' were particularly disturbing; twisting and dancing across their faces and melding into black clothing in a sinuous play of a witches sabbath. The low heavy bass from the rumbling roads keeps getting louder as they continue driving down the increasingly broken road, a *tom-tom* rumble on an increasingly steady beat.

As the truck bumps along the broken road the idle chatter amongst the occupants begins to die down as they all started to realize that the thumping of the bass was not coming from the vehicle.

"What the..." awe and fear plays across a chiseled pale face, mouth slightly open with a dry tongue lightly touching a constricted throat.

A harrowing beat rumbles through the waving pines assaulting the senses of the unwelcome intruders approaching the source of such unnerving messengers. The sound and the fury of an awakening beast batters down all barriers erected in haste to prevent its coming.

The screeching of metal against metal signaled that they had reached the drop off point; close enough to the objective to move out on foot but far enough away to not give themselves away. As Booth and his men exit with gleeful haste from the crowded vehicles he can't help but notice how the branches of the pine trees seemed to twist and bend in strange macabre shapes in the surprisingly bright moonlight.

Wordlessly the phalanx of police gathers up, 25 men carried in to the woods by two trucks with a veritable convoy of support vehicles on call a mere 15 minutes away. Clad in matte-black riot gear Booth waves his hand to signal the team to start to move out towards the source of the deafening drums. His nerves betray him as he licks his tongue over dry lips.

Silent curses are muttered as the men stumble through the woods, tripping over dark ugly roots and working their way through the snares of green briar. Piles of dank stones and rotting fragments of dead trees create hidden obstacles in the wiry undergrowth and damp leaves. Any noise that the men make is swallowed up in the beating of the drums and... something else. There's something else being carried in the wind.

Fungus encrusted trees and evil looking branches beset the men on all sides as they plunge forward into the darkness; the moon's light twists and obscures everything that it touches as the shadows dance and play in mocking forms. Leafy branches form hanging nooses in the creeping darkness and baleful light.

The lack of animal life quite possibly creates the most distress in the back of Booth's mind. He's used to moving through the woods at night and there's always signs of animals: deer, opossum, squirrels, coyotes, and what have you, but in these woods there's nothing. It's as if life has fled from this place.

Only madness or poetry can give even the barest hints at the noises that Booth begins to hear. Without words he can tell that the men to his left and right are beginning to quaver in the face of this... unknown. A red glare is evident in the deepening twists and tangles of the forest and the echoes of the drums are mixed with a cacophony of noises which defy categorization. There are vocal tones unique to the tongues of men and there are guttural cries whom belong to the throats of beasts; when one gives way to the other with no rhyme or reason and with no break or shift... Booth's hackles and hair raise in the face of the unnaturalness of the situation.

Shrieks and bellows rend the air in a whirlwind of bestial fury and the stench of orgiastic license is pungent in the fetid air. Demonic howls and groans of unbearable ecstasy and torment flow forth from the glare as a tempest flowing from the mouth of Hell. And yet these noises aren't the worst of the things that assault Booth's ears. As he moves closer he can pick up the twisted lines of a barbaric chant whose ululations climb and fall in a chorus of horse voices a hideous phrase which conjures up fears within himself that he did not know or could conceive that he could ever have.

The voices keep chanting this line over and over as Booth's team starts to break through a thinner line of trees; the fires are distinct now as well as the twisting forms of a diabolical orgy.

As the team bursts upon the scene with Booth in the lead, four of his men faint at the spectacle before them and half a dozen of the others freeze in abject terror hypnotized by the mad cacophony.

In a clearing about an acre in size five fires blazed with intense heat and light and around a monstrous totem a writhing mass of what can, only in form, be called humanity brayed and bellowed to the fires and night. Naked and bestial these people prance, dance, and fornicate with abandon and yet they keep up their steady chant:

"Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn!"

The endless bacchanal roars in defiance of everything that Booth knew to be right and good. If evil could have a smell the stench of it here would be overwhelming. Overcoming the cold chill of fear deep within his belly Booth lets loose a wordless yell as he signals for his men to rush in and break up the madness. The crack of riot guns and the cold steel of batons preceded the keel of the police phalanx as it crashes through the crowd creating a wake of bruised, bloody, and subdued cultists.

The din and chaos is beyond description as unnatural screams and shrieks punch through the night as more and more cultists are beaten down to the ground; Booth notices that not a single one of them fails to have whole swatches of dried blood on their naked bodies, many had their entire mouths covered in red but only a few of them show evidence of bruises or cuts even after the police made their way through.

A shadow suddenly darts across the moonlit clearing and Booth looks up into the sky in haste swearing that he can hear the leathery beat of wings.

But all he can see is the moon, naked and leering. Ringed by a consort of stars and wreathed in endless blackness.

Muttering he signals to the support elements to rush in to process the scene and to take away the cultists.
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It takes the better part of an hour to secure the scene even with the back up that was called in. Dozens of techs run about in their blue garments taking pictures and samples of anything and everything. Wearily Booth leans against the side of an FBI van, his men captured 57 prisoners and had already begun to transport them back to FBI holding cells. All of the prisoners were strangely subdued in their imprisonment despite the initial struggle for after only a minute of resistance it turned into a rout with, Booth was certain, dozens fleeing into the woods and escaping capture.

Steam rises from his breath as he wipes his brow, his hand glistening with captured sweat and streaked with dirt and grime.

He sees with clarity the gruesome statue that caps the wooden totem at the center of the clearing. A small sculpture about eight inches in height but even in this flickering light Booth could tell that it was exquisitely made by a master artisan of exceptional skill. The subject was some sort of monster with an octopus-like head whose feelers were wrapped around a rather scaly but rubbery looking body whose wicked fore and hind feet were capped with claws. Long sinuous wings sprouted from this creatures back as it crouched on it's pedestal resplendent in a malignant evil and bloated corpulence. The wings touched the base of the sculpture and the creatures claws seemed to grip the base of the pedestal; it seemed to lean forward on its perch as if ready to leap into the air and take flight. The subtle detail of this thing made it horrifyingly life-like; the artisan had to have been maddeningly twisted to conceive of something this terrible and great Booth thought.

As Booth stood examining the statue he missed the approach of a rather agitated looking Marcus Geier.

"Hey Booth we have something here that you need to see." Startled Booth straightened up too quickly and almost stumbled off the van before he caught himself.

"Alright show me." Booth was troubled by the haunted look on the tech's face; techs were like paramedics, they were often the most jaded people ever because they saw exactly what people were capable of doing to each other in the most intimate ways. The fact that even a veteran tech like Geier was disturbed by what he'd found slightly unnerved Booth.

Tramping over through the beaten down grass Geier led Booth to a small depression that ringed the totem; upon a brief look Booth turned around and proceeded to collapse onto the ground heaving up his guts like a drunk at 4 in the morning.

Piles of bones covered in a patchwork of torn flesh and caked blood ringed the depression and even from where he was Booth could see the scrapes and marks of gnawing teeth; all the bones were small, too small for an adult and even with his amateurish knowledge he could identify a mixture of male and female skeletons. Bones would be so proud that he had paid attention to her when she was explaining to him all the bone markings and the different skeletal indicators.

The red stains on the cultists mouths have a damming significance now in this new light. Booth's jaw contorts in fury.

"We haven't even begun to count how many..." Geier chokes up as bile climbs his throat and can't even finish the sentence but the significance is blatant in its implications. Booth recovers and wipes his mouth with the back of his hand as he stands up and looks over the pit again his chocolatey brown eyes darkening into twin pools of black rage.

"Give me the evidence Geier, give me the evidence so that all of these fuckers fry." without waiting for a response Booth stumbles over to the vans his fist vainly clutching the air at his side. As he passes by the pair of drums that the cult had used he stops in his tracks and his blood drains from his face. The skeleton of the drums was an expert mix of crafted wood, expertly carved by a careful hand. The skin of the drums was... skin. Human skin. Also expertly carved by a careful hand. The moon's baleful light illuminating this horrid treasure in a demonic halo in the most horrible parody of angelic beauty.

AN: Just remember that reviews are like crack to writers. They're addictive and make us work faster.