Wow, it's been a while since I updated this… Sorry for the long break, I was just really depressed on and off for the last month and not terribly motivated to do much of anything, except type to take my mind off what's bothering me. So far it really hasn't helped all that much. Plus I kept getting sick somehow…And I just didn't get around to working on this until now.
Anyway, I'm not sure what I'm going to write about. I haven't really put any thought into it since my mind's been tied up with other stuff, so I'm going to start writing and see where I end up – and hopefully not get sidetracked again, because I just spent a long period of time screwing around with old "Conker's Bad Fur Day" screenshots. Before that, I got sidetracked checking to see how much snow is on the deck, because it was our first snowfall of the season – it usually doesn't snow in my town until December, why I don't know. We're usually the last town in this area to get snow for some reason.
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Chapter Nine: Crows from the Twilight Zone
Our not-quite heroes followed the tunnel (after Leon got fed up with the Merchant, punched him in the face and got sat on by Mom) to a ladder where they all climbed up to the surface, including the cow. Hey, if she can climb trees, why not ladders?
"Wait, hold on," Leon said, looking around erratically. "We were only underground for two minutes, and this place isn't very far from Pueblo. Why is it so dark and cloudy here?"
"I don't know. To set the mood?" Pas suggested.
"For what?" Leon asked, giving him a sideways glance.
"Well… Maybe there's a bunch of people hanging around waiting to kill us."
"How optimistic," Dri murmured, heading up the path.
"Wait up!" the other two men called after him, running to catch up, while Mom took her time, trotting behind.
They came to the end of the path, looking up an incline covered with headstones that sat in front of a church. A few crows sat nearby, cawing to each other. Leon walked up to them and began to chat.
"Hi, Mr. Crow. You look particularly well-groomed for a lice-carrying, winged garbage disposal."
The crow eyed him, and then hopped onto his shoulder.
"Guys, check it out! I'm the Scarecrow from The Wizard of Oz!"
The two cops watched in a disturbed manner as Leon began to do the Scarecrow dance.
"If I only had a brain," he said, right before the three crows attacked him. "What are they doing?! I'm not a deer carcass!"
"Maybe not, but he's definitely road kill," Dri joked, and he and Pas began laughing hysterically, while Mom just sighed exasperatedly. What the hell was wrong with these three humans?
"Hey, are you going to see the wizard to fix that straw-filled head of yours?" Pas called, and the two cops hit the ground laughing uncontrollably.
"Die, crow, die!" Leon shouted, punching the crows out of the air.
They were all so busy that they didn't notice a small posse of villagers watching casually from the small graveyard, leaning on headstones.
"What a bunch of idiots," the woman said, picking her teeth with her chef's knife.
"No kidding. Why do we even bother with them?" one of the men asked, picking through his pockets. "I'm pretty sure they're no threat to the Lord's plans. I mean, look at them."
The government agent was now trying to strangle a crow, while the two cops were rolling around on the ground and the cow seemed frustrated.
"Weren't you one of the guys who was supposed to catch and brutally murder the cops?" another man questioned the first, idly scratching his head with a pickaxe.
"No, I was the guy who stole that Luis dude's last pack of cigarettes. I wonder if he noticed that they're missing yet," the guy answered, finally finding the cigarettes and pulling one out.
Meanwhile…
Luis was on the run from a group of villagers hell-bent on killing him, when he decided to stop for a moment and search his pockets, finding nothing. "Damn it! Where did my smokes go?"
Back at the church…
"Hey, give me a light," the guy with the cigarette said, and the man with the pitchfork pulled out a stick of dynamite and then spent ten minutes cracking two rocks together until a spark lit the fuse. He then stood up and used the fuse to light the cigarette. "Was all that necessary? I thought you had a lighter."
"Oh, yeah. I forgot about that."
"So… What do we do with the dynamite?"
"Uh…" he stared at it, watching the fuse get shorter. "Throw it?"
"Sounds logical," the woman concurred.
The guy randomly threw the dynamite, and it hit the church bell, bouncing off, hitting the ground and rolling down the hill, right to Leon who was now being pecked by crows again. He sat up and looked at it, completely ignoring the birds. "Is that some kind of a candle?"
Then it exploded, killing the three birds and covering the government agent with a mixture of residue and bird guts. "Ouch… That hurt… A lot."
"Hold on," Dri said, being the most rational of the group (in his mind, anyway), "What are the odds of dynamite not killing, or at least horribly maiming someone right next to it when it goes off?"
"You're right. That's either some seriously weak dynamite, or we're in some very messed up part of the world. Maybe there's a Twilight Zone thing going on here," Pas said, looking around like Rod Serling was about to walk up to them and do a monologue.
"Yay, money!" Leon said, finally getting up and finding money scattered around the dead crows. "And ammo!"
"Why would crows have money and boxes of ammo?"
"You're right, Pas. We ARE in the Twilight Zone."
Mom mooed in agreement, already knowing how weird this area was since she'd lived here her whole life.
"Check it out, guys. Those people are standing around staring at us," Leon said, pointing to the people in the graveyard, still leaning on headstones nonchalantly. "Maybe if we pretend they're not there, they won't attack us."
"They don't really seem to care anyway. I think they're on a smoke break…" Dri replied, observing them in a slightly disturbed manner.
Indeed, they were just standing there, watching them intently and smoking.
"A double grave? I guess twins are buried here," Leon said, studying a double headstone nearby. "What a funny symbol… You suppose all the families have their own insignia?"
"Who cares?" Pas answered.
"There are a lot of twins buried in this place. Do these people murder twins, or something?"
The two cops exchanged funny looks. "Let's get going," they said in unison.
The group headed up the inclined path beside the graveyard, the group of villagers watching them, but not making a move. They came to the church doors, and Leon attempted to open them, but they were locked. Suddenly, his annoying communicator beeped.
"Leon, where are you?" Hunnigan asked, now using Google Earth to try to find his location.
"Aren't you supposed to check in a little more often?" Leon asked, poking the door.
"I was busy," she said simply. "Now where are you, jerk-off?"
"The church. But the door's locked and I can't get in."
"Isn't that normally the case when someone doesn't have the key to a locked door? Anyway, pick the lock. You did learn how to do that, right?"
And before he could respond, she hung up.
"Who was that?" Pas asked.
"… I don't remember…" Leon trailed off, staring into oblivion as he tried to recall who she was. Then he gave up. "Let's see what other things are around here."
They wandered around back, finding a stone podium-like structure with a bunch of insignias, a dial and a metal grate covering a lovely green cat's-eye.
"Ooh, pretty," Leon said, "How do you work this thing?"
He began randomly turning the dial. "I don't get it."
"I believe you're supposed to light up the insignias of the twins buried in the graveyard," Dri murmured.
"I don't have time for that," Leon whined. "I've got it! Mom, kick this thing."
She glared at him.
"Oh, right… Please?"
She kicked the thing, knocking it over and disabling it. Leon pried the grate open and pocketed the stone. "None of their fancy-shmansy puzzles can stump me."
They all just stared at him.
"What?"
"Nothing," Pas said, trying to act innocent. "Maybe we should see what's beyond that bridge down there."
"Okay, to the bridge we go!" Leon exclaimed happily, running down to the bridge.
The trip across the bridge was rather uneventful (with the exception of all four of them nearly falling through the gaps in the planks) since all of the villagers were on break.
They eventually found themselves walking into a large corral-like structure, where a bunch of crows were hanging out, cawing.
"Cool, look at the big group of crows!"
"It's called a 'murder' of crows," Dri explained.
"Why? Because they murder people in large groups? Or because it's murder to be around that many squawking crows?"
"I don't know. It just is."
"Why?"
"Shut up."
"I'm going to kill them and see if they're carrying anything."
Leon took out his handgun and randomly began firing at the birds, missing completely and causing them to fly away.
"Can we please leave?" Pas asked, shifting uneasily at the growling sound coming from somewhere nearby.
"No. All of those crows are going down one way or another."
And so, for the next hour, Leon waited for the crows to fly over one by one and shot them down… one by one.
"Where are we?" Dri complained, watching Leon pick up money from the crows corpses and then go back to shooting.
"Spain," replied Pas.
"No, no, I mean this place is very disturbing. Those weird villagers, crows carrying cash; what the hell, man?"
"Maybe we're in Imagination Land."
Dri stared at Pas for a long time. "You're beginning to sound a lot like Dorko over there."
"Hooray!" Leon shouted, throwing dead crows in the air like confetti. "I'm on my way to becoming a billionaire! I've already got $37!"
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Well, that was fairly strange. Seriously, though, even for a game, it's a little weird when killing crows gets you money and ammo – that's like something from the "Night Gallery" there. But then, I always did wonder where the randomly placed items came from, and why documents are left in the weirdest places, and why things like headdresses are stuck in ceilings…The RE universe is a very odd one.
Okay, I've got to be off to bed now after I check the snow amount again. I've been getting less and less sleep Saturday mornings the last month or so…I need to finish typing earlier.
I should be back sometime soon – hopefully, it won't take me so long to update this again! Leave me a review and let me know what you think!
