"This is my cat. Would you like to know his name?"
- H.P. Lovecraft to a room of soon-to-be very uncomfortable house guests.

Chapter 8
In which you come to realize that playtime is officially over

"The complete works of H.P. Lovecraft, all the original versions, not an N-word out of place." Michael quoted what he was told when Kenny first gifted him the tome, he laid it down for the whole group to see, "That is not what is in this book at all."

The rest of the goth kids leaned forward to look at it, "It says Necronomicon, what else would it be?" Henrietta questioned.

"Let me guess, it's just some shitty Lovecraft fanfiction by some creatively bereft weirdo?" Firkle suggested, hitting a little too close to home for your friend and humble narrator.

Michael scoffed "Try the actual fucking Necronomicon!"

"No way." Pete said.

"Way." the taller goth countered as he opened the book, "This thing's filled with spells and ancient prophecies."

Henrietta sighed, "It's a scam Michael. People just throw together a few mad ramblings, some random letters, and a bunch of bad tentacle monster sketches so they can trick edgy teenagers out of their money." she explained, pulling a book out of her purse with a pentagram and the word Necronomicon written on it, "See? Eight bucks at Barnes & Noble. And I know for a fact that the rest of you have one at home just like it."

Michael shook his head, "I thought so too at first, but this one's different. A lot of the stuff in here sounds exactly like what they used to say at those Cthulhu worship ceremonies we used to go to."

"I mean, there's one way to find out if it's real or not." Firkle pointed out.

"Yeah, let's just try one and see what happens. Worst case scenario, nothing happens and we can just have our usual horror movie night." Pete stated.

"I'm pretty sure that's not the worst case scenario when dealing with a book that might be the actual Necronomicon." Henrietta pointed out.

"So you're admitting it could be real." Michael said with a smirk.

"I'm admitting that, as totally goth as bringing the world into an age of darkness sounds, maybe we should prepare a little before we go all in on it." the girl reasoned.

"Nobody's saying we have to destroy the world on the first try. Let's just start with something small and work our way up to the apocalypse." Michael suggested as he flipped through the pages.

As Michael perused the tome, his bedroom door opened and the group was joined by its fifth member, "Hey guys, I've got American Werewolf in London." Karen greeted, brandishing the DVD in her hand.

"Change of plans." the tallest boy said as he stopped on a particular page, "Do you know what a homunculus is?"

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Wendy stood by the door to the boys' locker room, passing the time on her phone as she waited for her boyfriend to exit what was effectively a gas chamber of body odor and cheap deodorant.

To clarify, Kenny didn't play any sports, he had one hell of an arm but preferred to use it for more constructive activities, like throwing bottles at moving trains and jacking off (the latter of which he'd been doing noticeably less since he'd popped his girlfriend's cherry). No, the reason Kenny was in the locker room was because the town had finally stopped taking his dad's IOUs as bill payment and shut off their water, so naturally, the McCormick kids came up with the idea to use the school showers for all their personal hygiene until either their father got a job or Kenny could talk his new boss into paying him at least minimum wage.

As Wendy logged some time into that one mobile game that every youtuber's been getting sponsored by lately (You know the one), her attention had been grabbed by the fact that she was no longer alone, 'Oh fuck, it's not Tuesday, is it?' she thought before looking up from her phone to discover her apprehensions were correct. It was Tuesday, which meant Kyle had basketball practice, which in turn meant that Stan would be standing outside the very same locker room that she was to wait for his best friend.

Now, I can't begin to describe the awkwardness of being a teenager forced into any situation involving your ex, especially an ex with whom you had a pretty bad break up. Now, it's quite possible that you the reader know exactly what I mean from your own personal experience but if you're spending your Saturday night reading South Park fanfiction then I acknowledge the very real alternative possibility that human companionship isn't quite your specialty (Granted, I'm not one to talk by any means); So for those who might not comprehend the awkwardness of our heroine's current situation, let's just say it's a shitty experience, 0/10 wouldn't recommend.

On the contrary, having to awkwardly stand around with your ex in silence is practically a vacation when compared to the abysmally worse scenario: Having to awkwardly stand around with your ex while they try to force awkward conversation… I'll bet you're wondering which of the two scenarios this was going to be. "They turned off Kenny's water again?" Stan questioned. If you guessed awkward conversation then congrats! You win nothing.

"Yeah." Wendy answered, mostly focusing on her phone, hoping the conversation would end with this paragraph… No such luck.

"I guess that explains why he's working at my Uncle Jimbo's gun store now." he noted.

"I guess so." Wendy sarcastically stated.

"And you're working at the diner now, what's up with that?" the boy continued.

The girl rolled her eyes but did her best to remain civil, "I needed money, I got a job. Simple as that." she explained, wondering why her boyfriend was taking so damn long to get out of the shower.

Stan was quiet for a moment, giving Wendy a fleeting moment of optimism that this conversation had ended, but you guessed it, idle chit-chat reared its ugly head once again, "So I saw the news this morning." he stated out of nowhere.

Wendy was unsure why the hell her ex-boyfriend was trying so hard to carry on a conversation in the first place, but of all the ways he could have done it, this was an odd one 'Really? That's what he's going with?! THE NEWS?! What is he, a hundred years old now?!' she wondered to herself, doubting the possibility that she was about to be roused with an intriguing debate about current events, "Really? I must have missed it."

"Yeah, apparently Mysterion and Call Girl busted this huge drug operation last night." the boy explained like she didn't already know.

'Okay, so maybe he is going somewhere with this.' the girl thought to herself, "Wow, really? That's crazy." she said, feigning ignorance of the event.

"Yeah, I thought it was pretty weird considering I once saw Mysterion drop acid and rave to the sound of a washing machine for about three hours." Stan recalled.

Let the record show that Wendy 100% believed that was something her boyfriend would totally do and she was honestly a little bummed out that she wasn't around to see it, but true or not, she did not appreciate the accusatory tone in which this hilarious bit of information was presented, "Are you trying to say something?"

Stan gave an indignant shrug, "I'm just saying it's kind of fucked up that the town hero went to jail two months ago for, what were the charges again? Vandalism, assault and battery, threatening to murder a guy?"

The girl rolled her eyes, "I guess you're just going to completely ignore the fact that the 'guy' he threatened was Eric Cartman, right?"

"Oh what, so just because he's Cartman that means he deserves to get the shit kicked out of him?"

Wendy thought about it for a moment, "Yeah! He's a fucking asshole and you know it!"

As luck would have it, the asshole in question just happened to be walking by, "Afternoon, cunt. Hope your grandmother's titty cancer was hereditary." the fat bastard casually said.

"YOU WANNA GO FOR ROUND THREE, SHIT-STAIN?!" the girl threatened, and even she had to admit that Cartman was an impressively fast runner when he was fearing for his life.

Stan watched Cartman turn the corner and escape from sight before looking back at his ex-girlfriend, "Can I just ask one thing?"

Wendy shrugged, "Something tells me you're going to, regardless of what I think."

"Why Kenny?" the boy questioned, "Why would you of all people want to go out with the school pervert?"

"Because the school pervert, sadly enough, treats me with more genuine respect and adoration than my last boyfriend ever did." she answered without skipping a beat, "Weird, it's almost like I have some kind of strange attraction to guys that actually care about me. How about that?"

Stan rolled his eyes, "God, you're so sarcastic now, it's unbelievable." he noted, "And what do you mean I don't care about you? You know that's not true!"

"Oh yeah? What's Kyle's favorite movie?" Wendy asked.

"What's that have to do with anything?"

"Just answer the question."

"Fine." He relented, "Lord of the Rings."

"Good, what's his favorite band?"

"He's been pretty into rap lately. Drake, I guess."

"Alright, and what's his birthday?"

"May 26th." Stan answered without hesitation.

Wendy nodded, "Great. Now, replace Kyle with me, how many of those questions can you still answer?"

Stan paused for a moment in thought, "I mean, we haven't really talked that much lately."

"MY FUCKING BIRTHDAY HASN'T CHANGED SINCE WE BROKE UP, ASSHOLE!" the girl exploded.

The boy scoffed, "Whatever, like Kenny remembers every little detail about you with all the pot he smokes."

"You're pretty judgmental for someone who keeps a bottle of stolen booze in his underwear drawer."

"I already told you, if I don't take a shot every morning then everything in the world turns into shit!" he explained.

"And you seriously don't see how that makes you sound like an alcoholic?!" Wendy questioned.

Stan would've defended himself further had his opportunity to do so not been dismissed by the locker room door opening between the two. Kenny emerged from the room, seemingly in the middle of an argument of his own, "My parents' taxes paid for those showers, it's my right as an American to use them as I please!" he proclaimed.

"Your parents don't even pay taxes, dumbass!" Kyle's voice irritably pointed out from behind him.

"Watch it Broflovski, if the IRS takes us down then I'm taking you with me, we'll see how they feel about your dad's 'legitimate write-offs'." the boy threatened before noticing the presence of just the girl he wanted to see, "There's my angel!" he greeted, embracing his girlfriend in a kiss, "Happy birthday Wends."

Kyle rolled his eyes at the display while Stan let out a quiet utterance of the phrase "Shit, I knew it was sometime this month." under his breath so no one could here it.

Kenny turned to face the other pair of teenagers in present company, grinning at the unenthused looks he was getting from them, "Lemme guess, still not friends?"

"Absolutely not." Kyle nonchalantly stated.

The boy nodded, "Good to hear it! I was worried we might have started acting like adults for a minute, which would've sucked since I just bought a new skateboard." he explained.

"You have a truck, why do you need a skateboard?" Stan questioned.

"To be fuckin' radical, duh. Later lame-asses!" Kenny exclaimed, walking away with Wendy by his side.

"Did you seriously buy a skateboard?" she questioned once they were out of earshot.

"Yeah."

"What the hell?! We're supposed to be saving our money!" the girl reminded.

"Relax, it's a business investment." the boy explained.

"Business? What business?"

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"Dude, are we rolling yet?" Kenny asked from the top of a huge ramp he made out of scrap wood and the roof of his own house.

"We'll be rolling when I fucking tell you we're rolling!" Craig exclaimed as he focused his camera on the other teenager.

Kenny felt the roof shake below him when his sister opened the front door, "What the hell are you doing?!" she questioned.

"Go back inside Karen, we're making an energy drink commercial." the boy explained.

"I thought you said it was gonna be a fail video." Craig reminded.

"That's plan B."

Karen's attention was drawn back to the inside of the house, "Yeah?… Alright, I'll tell him." she said before turning to address her brother again, "Mom says she's not driving you to the hospital if you break your neck."

"Alright, we're in focus." Craig alerted, "Whenever your ready."

"Alright, everybody shut the fuck up on set!" Kenny shouted before looking into the camera, "THIS IS KRAZY KENNY FOR BANG ENERGY!" he shouted before riding down the ramp and successfully jumping his truck, waiting to be tossed a can of soda that would never come, "TWEEK, WHERE'S THE FUCKING-" he began to protest before landing right in front of the curb and flying off his board, face-first into a wooden fence.

"Oh my god! PLEASE DON'T DIE YOU BASTARD!" Karen exclaimed.

"Aaand cut." Craig said before turning off his camera, "Fail video it is." he monotonously stated before investigating why his boyfriend missed his cue.

When he looked to the spot that Tweek was supposed to be standing, Craig found that the boy was not at his post, instead he saw a pile of empty cans and the hyperactive blonde teenager shaking like a vibrator and pacing the street like a crackhead, "Pres- Pressure, too much, pres- blood, pressure, blood, blood, too much, pressure, pressure, WAY TOO MUCH BLOOD PRESSURE!" he screamed at the top of his lungs before collapsing to the ground.

"Oh fuck, TWEEK!" Craig exclaimed as he rushed to the boy's side, "WHY THE HELL DID I LET YOU GIVE HIM A BOX OF ENERGY DRINKS?!"

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"Wait… Did you… Did you kill Tweek?" Wendy asked her boyfriend in horror as they walked down the hall.

"Nah, he's fine." Kenny assured, "Look, there he is right now in his crocheting group." he pointed out, gesturing into a nearby classroom, "Hey Tweek!"

The blonde teenager calmly looked up to address the couple, "Hey Kenny, hey Wendy." he greeted with a smile, "How's it going?"

"Pretty good dude. You?"

"I'm feeling fantastic." Tweek proclaimed.

"Glad to hear it. Later!"

"Later guys." the boy calmly said before returning to his crochet.

"Feel better?" Kenny asked as he and Wendy walked away.

"No, actually, now I'm completely sure you killed him and replaced him with that weird towel guy that walks around town stoned out of his mind." the girl explained, "What the hell happened to him?"

The boy shrugged, "We took him to the hospital and the doctor prescribed him some kind of extreme downer pills. He's been chill as shit ever since."

The two made their way through the halls to Karen's locker where they found the younger girl rummaging through her things in search of something unknown to the two older teens, "Come on, where are you?!" she said in a hushed but panicked tone.

"Where's who?" Kenny asked.

She quickly slammed her locker shut and faced her older brother with an 'I'm totally hiding something but I don't want you or anyone else to know about it so please don't ask.' look, "No one! Nothing! Shut up!"

The boy shrugged, "Alright, cool. You ready to go home?"

Karen rapidly nodded, "Yeah, definitely, let's go!" she answered, storming past Kenny and Wendy toward the nearest exit.

Wendy turned to her boyfriend in concern, "You're just not gonna question that?"

"She's smart. If it's an emergency, she'll take care of it on her own." he answered, "Now, once it becomes a catastrophe, that's when she'll come to me for help."

Somewhat satisfied with Kenny's explanation, the pair made their way out to the parking lot to meet Karen at the truck.

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Throughout the day at South Park High, the halls would be busy with activity, students marching from class to class like rats trapped in a maze, many locked in idle conversation, others' attention locked securely on their phones or other such idle distractions, and maybe, just maybe, a very rare and cryptid few may have had just a single moment of quiet, where all was still enough to hear the rats in the walls.

Whether this student did or did not exist is up to debate, but the day was over, the halls were clear, and the school was quiet. Finally quiet enough for any student or janitor to hear a clatter in the air vents, the sound of someone or something scurrying from this wall to that ceiling at a seemingly inhuman pace. Of course, now that one theoretically could hear it, there was no one around.

It brings to mind that old saying, if a tree falls in the woods and no one's around to hear it, does it make a sound? Now, I'm not here to answer philosophical questions such as these (Of course it does, don't be stupid.) but perhaps I can pose a new question: If a classroom full of teenagers are violently slaughtered and no one is around to hear them scream, are they any less dead?

The answer is no. No they are not.

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The night was all planned out, after factoring in expenses and Craig's cut of the profit, Kenny had more than enough cash left over from his stupid viral video stunt to not only buy Wendy a necklace she'd had her eye on for a while, but also take her to her favorite restaurant and see a new indie flick they'd both been wanting to check out.

Granted, the movie sucked donkey cock. It was one of those flicks made by some amateur director who thought he was gonna revolutionize cinema as we know it with his poorly written melodramatic screenplay. It didn't do much to ruin their evening though, funny thing about bad movies, they can be even more fun than decent films when you've got the right person to make fun of them with. The pair had gotten each other laughing so hard at one point that they were nearly kicked out of the theater. Of course, the pot brownie they split about fifteen minutes in probably helped immensely with keeping them entertained.

"You really know how to show a girl a good time." Wendy complimented as they walked out of the theater, her boyfriend's arm wrapped securely around her waist.

"Yeah, I'm pretty great, aren't I?" Kenny agreed, earning a playful shove before the two sat down on a nearby bench.

"You know you just made planning for your birthday really hard on me, right?" the girl pointed out, leaning on his shoulder, "Any suggestions?"

Kenny grinned, "Have you ever heard the term 'tantric sex' before?"

"Is that really all you ever think about?"

The boy shook his head, "No, just ten minutes ago in the theater I was thinking about how cool it would be if we got high and watched Mallrats together." he answered.

Wendy nodded, "Okay, so March 22nd is going to be dedicated to weed, movies made by people on weed, and eight straight hours of sex. Noted."

"3/22's gonna make 4/20 look like 12/23." Kenny proclaimed with a grin.

"What's 12/23?"

"Joseph Smith's birthday."

"Who the hell is Joseph Smith?"

"Aw man, do I have a Broadway musical to show you." the boy said with an even wider grin.

The pair's conversation probably would've continued for hours as had become something of a tradition between the two, but they found themselves interrupted by the sirens of about seven ambulances and three police cars speeding right past them, signifying that some shit had clearly just gone down at wherever it was they were headed, "It looks like they're going to the school." Wendy pointed out.

"Yeah, it does." Kenny agreed.

"What do you think's going on?" she questioned.

"Not sure." the boy admitted, "Wanna go check it out?"

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Officer Barbrady stood in the high school parking lot, a line of yellow tape being the only thing separating him from anyone curious enough to come check out the crime scene. Occasionally he'd be confronted with a civilian or two, a situation he'd easily defuse with his signature line "Move along, nothing to see here." which most people would accept in spite of the fact that seven ambulances being loaded up with motionless bodies would, in some sense, be quite the sight indeed.

Barbrady wasn't paying much mind to the situation at hand, his job being that of keeping an eye out for any civilians or news reporters who may be ambitious enough to investigate the crime scene themselves. The man was so invested in his assignment that he hadn't even noticed his commanding officer approach him. "Barbrady." Sergeant Yates called, gaining the officer's attention, "Any trouble so far?" he questioned.

"No sir, not yet." the cop answered, "Don't you worry sarge, if any looky-loos come around, I'll take care of 'em."

Within a moment, a woman rushed toward the two officers in a panic, "Officers, my daughter was in there tonight, is she alright, is she-" the woman was cut off mid-sentence by a blow to the back of her head from Barbrady's trusty baton.

"Like I said, taken care of." the cop reiterated.

"Good man, Barbrady." Yates complimented, "Just remember, no one needs to know what's going on here, the last thing we need is a big PR nightmare from the news and paranoid moms on Facebook."

As the two cops were talking, a trashy green pickup truck pulled up near them and two teenagers jumped out. Kenny and Wendy then rushed to approach the officers in concern, "Dude, what's going on, did someone get hurt?" Kenny asked.

"Oh yeah, seven kids from some gay-ass crochet club are dead, it was a total bloodbath." Barbrady informed.

"BARBRADY!" Yates scolded.

"What? I know these kids, we can trust 'em to keep quiet." the simpleton assured.

"HOLY FUCKING SHIT, TWEEK WAS IN THERE!" Kenny exclaimed in disbelief as he pulled out his phone, "I've gotta message his mom on Facebook!"

"I'm calling the news!" Wendy stated, doing the same.

Yates turned to his underling with a look of pure frustration, "Barbrady."

"Yeah sarge?"

"Go wait in the car."

"Aw rats." the cop said in a disappointed tone.

While this whole scene was going down, one corpse by the name of Tweek Tweak was being loaded into an ambulance as another teenager rushed down the sidewalk to find him, "TWEEK!" Craig screamed with more emotion than he'd ever uttered in his life.

Craig ran right through the police tape and past several cops to where the paramedics were loading his boyfriend into the ambulance, completely ignoring their advice and tearing the sheet off the the other teenager's body, horrified to see that his fears rang true.

The boy didn't cry as he was dragged away by the police, in fact, he showed even less emotion than he usually did, were he not blinking then one might even think he were as much of a lifeless husk as the ones being hauled off to the morgue. Craig just stood in silence as he watched the ambulances drive away. Stunned and emotionless, right up until he saw a certain shade of orange through the crowd of onlookers, and once he saw orange, he saw red.

Kenny had just finished messaging Tweek's mom when he was suddenly tackled to the ground, not even given the slightest bit of warning before his face was mercilessly pounded into the dirt, "YOU DID THIS! YOU BASTARDS KILLED HIM!" Craig shouted as he punched the ever loving shit out of the other teenager.

Once Wendy realized her boyfriend was doing his best Tina Turner impression (That's a domestic violence joke, for all you younger readers.) she quickly rushed to pull Craig off and hold him back, silently fuming over the fact that none of the many cops at the scene had bothered to do anything about it. "Craig, what the hell?!" the girl questioned.

"HE DID THIS! HIM, STAN, KYLE, AND CARTMAN!" the boy raged.

Kenny took a moment to regain his senses, nursing his newly bruised jaw and black eye, "Dude, I had nothing to do with this." he assured.

Craig wasn't having it though, "Yes you did. I know you did." he growled, "Every. Single. Time. EVERY TIME SOMETHING HAPPENS IN THIS FUCKING TOWN, IT ALWAYS HAS SOMETHING TO DO WITH YOU FOUR!" he exclaimed. "I hate you, I hate you all so fucking much!" he said as the police finally escorted him away.

Wendy rushed to her injured boyfriend's side, "Are you okay?! Tell me what hurts!" she tended.

Kenny didn't answer though, he just watched as Craig was dragged away, "I didn't do anything this time."

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Kenny found himself in a town he couldn't name, surrounded by dilapidated buildings and houses that had long since fallen into disrepair, the smell of salt and an overall sense of dread in the air, the sound of the ocean providing what may be soothing ambiance in any other context. But Kenny wasn't paying much mind to the scenery or the ambiance, he was far too preoccupied with the fact that he was being torn to pieces by what appeared to be a mob of anthropomorphic fish people.

The boy endured the pain that, while not entirely alien, was excruciating nonetheless. Through the pain he finally saw something that stuck out to him, a sign in the distance with the word Innsmouth on it. What the word meant he had no idea, nor did he have time to dwell on it as he faded from the world of the living, a dark utterance of the word "Soon." echoing out in his head.

Kenny jolted awake in bed, sweat pouring down from his face. It always took Kenny a minute or two to figure out if he had been dreaming or if he'd once again been killed in real life. Checking the time, he noted that it was 2AM, had he died in real life he wouldn't have awoken until morning. "Just a dream." he affirmed.

But what a dream it was.