Disclaimer: I...don't...own...anything...
A/N: Hello everyone! Part 3 to Just Over the Hill is up! Enjoy...
Just Over the HillPart Three
Flashback
"Kenny, you look AWFUL! Come over here so I can give you some Pepto!" demanded Kenny's mom. Kenny growled inwardly and looked at his mom out of the corner of his eyes.
"I don't want any Pepto-Bismal." He muttered, turning to look out the kitchen window with solemn eyes. He felt...strange. He couldn't eat anymore; it tasted like dirt in his mouth. He couldn't sleep, no matter how many sleeping pills he took. Going about his life every day seemed to take more and more effort.
Kenny sighed and pushed the uneaten bowl of half-rotted cornflakes away from him. Rain beat down on the roof of the house as he quickly walked to his room. He had never seen weather like this before; it was raining constantly. Everything was frozen solid; ice cold. Kenny was glad that today was Saturday; he couldn't bear to go to school to face Stan, Kyle, and Cartman.
Kenny looked at his textbooks sitting in the corner. He remembered the day that he had gotten his acceptance letter to SP collage; his parents were so proud. For a few hours, anyway, before he alcohol kicked in and made them forget that they ever even had a son.
Without realizing what he was doing, Kenny walked up to his bedroom mirror. He saw a fairly pale boy with blonde hair and light blue eyes. He ran a finger down where he could see the bone in his cheek. He shivered a bit when his fingers came in contact with his skin; his face was ice cold. He pinched himself, trying to see if any color would come to his face at all. Nothing happened. He pinched his face, slapped his face, and scratched his face, but still it remained the same ghostly color as it had before.
"Freaky." He muttered, running his hands over his face again. He felt a blast of cool air behind him. He turned quickly, eyes wide. Nobody was there; just the same old bed and wooden desk as there had always been.
"Kenny...""Who's there?" he demanded, turning angrily around his room. He could hear nothing except for the rain on his window. He turned slowly back to his mirror, and gasped in fear. A cold sweat began to form on his brow. He couldn't see it, but he could feel something in his room. He scrambled toward his door, but before he could reach it, it slammed shut.
"What do you want?" He whispered, slinking into the corner of his room, his eyes trying to focus on the thing that was causing his misery.
"Not...now...not...today...soon."
The sound seemed to be coming all around him. Kenny called it a sound because it wasn't a voice; it didn't sound like a voice. It was...a sound.
"W-what...what's soon? What are you going to do to me?"
"Soon...sleep..."Kenny felt his eyelids droop and he dropped to the ground where he had been standing, already fighting to stay alive for just one night.
End of Flashback
Stan woke up to find that his arm had fallen asleep, as well as his left leg. He winced as he tried to stand up, but ended up falling on the floor because of his leg.
Someone knocked on his door.
"Coming...hold on..." Stan said, literally dragging himself to the door. He grabbed the door handle and twisted it.
"Seriously, Stan, you should lay off the coleslaw. I'm starting to worry about you man." Cartman laughed as he walked through the door.
"You should lay off of –"Stan was about to make a remark when he saw a small brown box in Cartman's hands.
"What...what the hell is it? What is that GODAWFUL SMELL?" Stan demanded, gagging.
"You'll find out in a second. But, first, I have a question to ask you."
"Well...shoot."
Cartman looked nervously down at the box in his hands.
"Well...when I was plumbing one of the toilets at the Cheesy Poof-"
Stan snickered.
"GOD DAMNIT SHUT THE HELL UP STAN! Anyway, I was plumbing one of the toilets in the Cheesy Poof restrooms when the water stopped running. I thought that there was something in the bottom of the toilet, so I took out my plunger, and, well, I found...this."
Cartman, at this point, began to open the box he had brought with him. The smell got worse the minute the box was open all the way.
"Jesus tap dancing Christ." Stan muttered, trying not to puke. He was going to make a snide remark comparing the smell of the box to the smell of Cartman's ass when Cartman picked up what was in the box.
"Oh...dear god...I can't believe...what kind of sick joke are you trying to pull, fatass?" Stan whispered, backing away from what Cartman was holding.
It was Kenny's old red parka, ripped to shreds, stained and dripping with sewer water. A piece of something fell from the bottom of the coat onto the Carpet.
"It's no joke, Stan. I found this. Even I wouldn't be that sick to do something like this." Cartman was serious, it seemed, for once.
A thought flew through Stan's brain. The picture of Kenny, which Shelly claimed to not have left here, the red parka, which Cartman pulled from the sewer...the babies...what was it all pointing to?
"Kenny's house."
"What?" Cartman said, staring at Stan.
"We have to go to Kenny's house...I'll explain everything in the car."
Stan ran to the hallway table to get his keys.
"That's all right with me, just as long as we can pick up some KFC along the way."
Kenny's Home
Stan had just finished explaining to Cartman about the Shelly incident when the reached Kenny's house.
"You know Stan...I hate it when you try to go on one of these 'big adventures' of yours...it seriously pisses me off..."
"Shhh!" Stan said, knocking on the McCormick's front door.
"We don't want any!" A voice inside called.
Stan knocked again, harder this time.
"Who is it?" Kenny's dad opened the door. He looked at them in surprise. "Oh, it's you. What are you here for?"
"We want to look around Kenny's room." Stan said simply.
Kenny's dad sighed. Stan saw that he was worse than the last time he saw him...at Kenny's funeral. He had deep circles under his eyes, and he reeked of smoke and alcohol. His eyes were red, as if he had been on in. You want some waffles? We were just about to eat lunch."
"Sure-"Cartman was about the say before Stan kicked him.
"No thanks, Mr. McCormick. We just came to look at the room."
"Well...you know where it is, don't you? Hey, if you don't mind me asking...why do you want to look in Kenny's-"His voice cracked when he said his son's name. "...his room for?"
"We're just looking around...for something." Stan said vaguely. Kenny's dad shrugged and walked off into the kitchen.
Stan and Cartman walked down the hall and turned left. There was his door, unopened since the paramedics had hauled Kenny out of there. He had a poster on the front of his door saying 'Onion Rings...They Is Good' and another poster to the right of that of a swimsuit model.
"God, it smells like a poor persons room in here." Cartman snickered at his own cruel joke. Stan looked all around the room. Nothing was too unusual; there was a normal mattress near the window Stan figured this was because Kenny was too poor to own a bedpost, a couple of posters on the walls mostly of swimsuit models, a dark wooden chest in the far right corner of the room but what important things could be in a chest?, and, finally, a mirror on the right wall of the room. It was one of those long oval shaped mirrors that could flip over.
"Well, nothings here, let's go." Cartman said, starting towards the door.
"Wait! Let's look around for awhile." Stan said, making his way toward the mirror. At the top of the mirror was a small crack, leading way down to the middle of the mirror, where it stopped suddenly. Stan traced the line with his finger. What had caused it?
"Sick!" Stan muttered. He had made his way toward the base of the crack, and was startled to see a faint red smudge of something leading all the way down to the bottom of the mirror. Was it blood? It could have faded from the time of Kenny's death to now.
"Well, I'll just look over here." Cartman said, starting toward the chest in the corner of the room. Stan backed away from the mirror and sat down on Kenny's old mattress. He laid back and stared up at the ceiling. Little flowers covered the wallpaper on Kenny's ceiling, giving the room a baby-ish feeling. A yellow stain traced its way along the corner of the ceiling; Stan remembered Kenny saying that the constant thunderstorms that swept the town had left a stain on his ceiling.
"Hello boys."
Stan started and sat up quickly. Kenny's mom was at the door, looking sadly in on them. She was holding a newspaper in one hand and a pencil in the other. Stan could see that there was several ads circled on the JOBS section.
"Hello Mrs. McCormick." Cartman and Stan said at the same time. Stan had to stop himself from saying 'Kenny's mom', since that was once they used to call her.
"What are you boys doing?" She inquired, staring at them strangely. Cartman shot an angry look at Stan, as if to say "Well, it was your idea, explain!"
"Well...we're just...to tell you the truth, Mrs. McCormick, a lot of freaky shit has been happening around here, and it all started...the day that Kenny died. We're trying to find anything that might explain what's going on...that's why we're looking through his things."
Kenny's mom was silent. Her eyes kept darting back between Stan's shoes and Kenny's wall. She sighed, then sat down.
"Boys...I have to tell you something. I don't know if Kenny told you this already, but...Kenny was adopted. We didn't find him at a real adoption center or anything; I was just walking outside one day, and there was little Kenny, about eleven months old, wrapped in a little brown blanket and shivering. We never found out who left him there, so, we took him home." Her eyes began to glisten.
"...Kenny never told us he was adopted." Stan said slowly.
"I didn't think he would. He's just not like that; open to people, I mean. He was always such a quiet boy; my little Kenny." She paused and sniffled. "There's something else...I haven't told anybody this. Just kept quiet about it...but I guess..." She paused again and looked out the window.
"It happened about a week before Kenny died...it was a Saturday morning, I think; I don't really remember, I had some Jack Daniel's that morning...anyway, it was a Saturday, and Kenny was in his room, as usual...I was on the couch, watching the news, when I heard this loud banging coming from inside Kenny's'room. I had a real big headache, and I really didn't want to get up from the couch, so I ignored it the first time...then I heard it again. It sounded like something was being pulled across the floor or something. So I kindda fell off of the couch; landed behind it, anyways. I was about to yell at Kenny to keep I down...then I saw something..." at this point Kenny's mom stopped and closed her eyes. Stan could see goosebumps on her arms, even though the house was relatively warm.
"I saw...it wasn't really a shadow...more like smoke...crawling on the wall. It was crawling, not floating like normal smoke. I was about to get up and see if there was a fire or something, but I didn't smell smoke...so I just stayed where I was, behind the couch. Now, this part is strange...don't laugh...it talked...I couldn't really understand what it was saying...it was whispering, I guess. I could see it moving around the ceiling, as if it were looking for something...then...then, it shot up into the air, like it was being sucked or something...kindda hard to explain, you'd have to see it for yourself if you know what I mean. Anyway, after that, it was gone."
"...And what does this have to do with Kenny missing?" Cartman said.
Stan was about to kick him when Mrs. McCormick spoke.
"Because I saw it come out of Kenny's room."
"Did you check to see if Kenny was alright?" Stan asked.
"Yeah; after that...thing...was gone, I went straight to Kenny's room...but he was fine; sleeping, in fact. It was as if nothing had even happened; that's why I didn't tell anybody...I'm not even sure it happened myself...but, I saw what I saw."
"Wow...thanks for telling us, Mrs. McCormick." A thought came to Stan's mind. "How many times was Kenny sick, before his death?"
"Well...I don't know, it couldn't have been that many though. Kenny wasn't sick often." Mrs. McCormick looked at Stan. "Why do you ask?"
"Just a thought...can I borrow your phone?"
"...Sure, go ahead." Mrs. McCormick said hesitantly.
Stan raced to the living room to find the phone. He had been in Kenny's house so many times he practically knew it like his own home.
"C'mon...pick up..." Stan muttered after he had found the phone and dilled the number of Hell's Pass Hospital. The phone rang three times before a nurse picked up the phone.
"Hello, this is Hell's Pass Hospital, how can I help you?"
"Yeah, I was wondering, are visiting hours still open?"
"Yes sir."
"Thanks, that's all I wanted to know."
"Thank-"Stan quickly put the phone down before the nurse could finish. Cartman had came out of Kenny's room and was now sitting on the couch.
"Aww, don't tell me I have to get up again, I just sat down." Cartman complained.
"Shut up and C'mon. We're going to the hospital."
End of Part Three