Henry woke up and, after looking around, found himself on a downward-bound escalator. "What the hell? What happened to the pretty light?!" he demanded, sounding as though he'd been robbed. "Aah, this sucks," he said, sitting back down on one of the steps and casting his gaze down the remaining length. The escalator was unusually long. In fact, he couldn't even see the bottom. "Should reach the bottom any minute now…" he said.

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"Any minute now…" he repeated after a couple minutes.

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"At this rate, I'll never get those ten big green stars…" he muttered to himself after another couple minutes. He could've sped up the process by descending on foot, but then again, Henry wasn't the brightest bulb in the chandelier.

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"Eighty-six bottles of wine on the wall," Henry sang to himself.

"Eighty-six bottles of wine,

If one of those bottles should happen to fall…" he paused to take another swig of wine, then started doing math on his fingers.

"Eighty-five bottles of wine on the wall."

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"Oh, my ass!" Henry cried, having been abruptly awoken by the escalator as it tried to eat him by the seat of his pants. After pulling his shirt tails free of where the escalator steps vanished beneath the floor, Henry began to familiarize himself with his new surroundings. A brief look around told him he was at the South Sootfield subway station, except it was looking rather abandoned. "At least I won't have to worry about muggers," Henry thought aloud as he started down the hall.

At the end of the hall in the distance, he saw the Hispanic lady from before standing with her back toward him, and judging by her revealing attire, she was likely one of those "ladies of the night" his mother warned him about. He pulled out his pipe and slowly stalked toward her with the intent of knocking her out cold and searching her for any money he could swipe. Unfortunately, she turned around just as he was about to get within striking distance, and he quickly hid the weapon behind his back.

"Who're you?" she asked him, completely oblivious to the fact that he'd just about thwacked her over the head. "What's your name?" Henry was taken aback. Something about the way the lady regarded him seemed just way too friendly to him.

"Henry," he answered. "And you?" The woman gave an amused laugh.

"This is my dream, and you don't even know my name?" she said. Henry cocked a brow.

"What do I look like, a mind-reader?" he said. The woman considered that statement.

"Now that you mention it, you would look cute in a spangled turban!" she said. Henry glowered at her. "Anyway, my name's Samantha," the woman said.

"And you think this is a dream?" Henry followed up.

"Yeah," Samantha replied, "and it sucks ass! Someone needs to fire the cleanup crew." Henry was still having trouble absorbing her reaction.

"A dream?" he repeated dumbly. Samantha heaved a sigh.

"You're not too bright, are you?" she said. "Anyway, I really want to get out of this dump, but I can't find the exit, despite the simplicity of the station's layout." Henry turned away and shook his head in exasperation as he buried his face in his palm. He then found himself being grabbed by the shoulder, forcibly wheeled around with great strength and speed to face Samantha, who immediately proceeded to invade his personal space. "Will you help me find it?" she said with a naughty-looking smile. "I'm all scared and stuff, being all by my solitary lonesome. I'll do a 'special favor' for you if you help me out of here…" Henry regarded her suspiciously. "Wipe that stupid look off your face," she said, taking a step back. "I'm not making an indecent proposal, if that's what you're thinking! I mean, what do I look like, a whore?" Henry blinked.

"Yes," he replied blankly.

"Hah! You ought to see me when I'm in my corset with stockings and stiletto heels!" she replied smartly. She then clapped her hands over her mouth when she realized what she'd just said. "You didn't hear that," she followed up.

"No, I didn't," Henry agreed, trying to expel the disturbing imagery from his mind.

"Anyway," she said with an effeminate gesture, "I was just gonna let you see the tattoo I got on my ass." She gave a slap to her right buttock for emphasis.

"So you're an exhibitionist?" Henry said, beginning to feel vaguely uncomfortable. Samantha laughed as she took the wine bottle from him.

"It's just a dream," she said before taking a swig from the bottle like an unclassy whore. "I can do all sorts of heinously stupid things and not have to worry about repercussions!" She handed the bottle back to Henry, who wiped the bottle opening thoroughly with his shirt before taking a swig himself. When he saw Samantha had started down the hall, he just shrugged and followed after her, deciding that the quicker he got the job over with, the quicker the two of them could separate. Of course, escort duty in an abandoned subway is hardly a very exciting task, so Henry began rapping to himself as they proceeded down the hall.

"Remember way back when I was smokin' crack,

you were workin' the corner, sellin' that ass,

and I took that rusty pipe and gave your head that gash…" Henry prodded Samantha in the back of the head with the pipe for emphasis and proceeded rapping without breaking the rhythm.

"…then took all your cash

and spent it on smack?" he then made emphasis by swatting her backside with the pipe, to which she responded by reeling around and kneeing him right in the beanbag. "OH!" he cried out, his voice an octave higher than normal as he fell to his knees and did the cauliflower crouch. "Oh, right in the Mean Bean Machine!"

"From now on, you travel in front," Samantha said, hauling him forward by his shirt collar. "You're the one who's supposed to be leading me, anyway." When Henry was finally able to stand up straight again, he led the way down the hall with a strange new gait.

They hadn't gone far when Samantha stopped and doubled over as she clutched her stomach. "What's your problem?" Henry demanded.

"I don't feel so good," Samantha groaned. "Must've been that peanut butter and fish head stew with pickles and chocolate sauce I had earlier…" Henry's head recoiled in surprise.

"Uh…you actually ate that?" he said.

"Well, I was pretty tanked at the time…" she replied. She then held one hand over her mouth as she began to retch. "Hold on, will you? I'm gonna be whaling my guts out for a few minutes…"

"Thank you, drive through…" Henry said as she pushed past him and stumbled into a ladies' restroom a short distance ahead. He made his way to the wall opposite the facilities and leaned against it to wait for her. He grew impatient when she didn't return after three seconds, so he started to sing a song that suddenly popped into his head. "Fish heads, fish heads, roly-poly fish heads…" He was interrupted by a creaking sound, and he looked to see the door of the men's restroom slowly swinging open. He was curious, yet he was also apprehensive, so he took a swig of wine to pluck up the courage to go over and look.

Suddenly, a large, rotting dog carcass was launched out of the restroom, and although Henry had only taken a swig, he spewed an entire quart of wine in his spit-take because it's funnier. "OH MY GOD, DOGGIE OF DEATH!" he screamed as the carcass came to rest in the center of the hall. Then, two other dogs, each equally as mangy and rotten as the first, came out and started sniffing their fallen comrade.

After the perfunctory dog-courtesies, they opened their mouths and allowed their long, proboscis-like tongues to loll out. Or perhaps they weren't tongues so much as their esophagi yanked inside-out. Whichever they were, both were stuck into their dead companion, and bulges began traveling up their lengths as the air was filled with an obnoxious rattling noise, like someone trying to slurp the last remains of a beverage through a drinking straw. "Hey, get away!" Henry yelled, lashing out with his pipe. "I saw it first!" He proceeded to bludgeon and stomp both of the claim-jumping dog-thingies post haste and, seizing victory, examined his prize. "Ewwwww…!" he cringed upon inspecting it more closely, holding his hand over his nose to guard against the odor of decay. "Never mind, guys. You can have it," he said to the dog-thingies he'd just killed as he stepped over to the other door.

He stood before the entrance to the ladies restroom, staring at the sign on the door. "This is it," he said, steeling himself for the journey into the unknown. "No turning back now…" Then, before he could change his mind, he burst through the door and immediately shot rapid glances in all directions to take in his surroundings. Offhand, he was rather disappointed. "That's it?" he said, slumping his shoulders. But then, he brightened up and began to grin, for he was standing in forbidden territory: the ladies' bathroom. "Man, I'm gonna brag to everyone in the apartment about this!" he said. He then realized that Samantha wasn't in there. "Where the hell did she go?! I was hopin' to negotiate for cash…" The next thing he noticed was the large Hole in the wall with the runic symbols around its perimeter. "Hey! No fair!" he complained. "Why is it the ladies' bathroom gets a bigger dimensional wormhole?" After a shrug, he backed away from it and got a running start. "WHEEEE!" his voice echoed off the tunnel walls as he made a diving leap into it.

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Henry woke lying in his bed, clutching the wine bottle as though it were a teddy bear. "Must've been another dream," he said as he sat up. "Seemed pretty real to me. Or maybe I really was inside that floozy's dream…?" He considered what he'd said for a minute. "Man, that's stupid! What the hell am I thinking?!" He took a swig of wine, left the room and headed for the living room.

Upon arriving, he noticed something was amiss. "Hmm…" he said. "Something's amiss…" Told ya. He examined the living room once…twice…thrice… He couldn't find anything out of the ordinary. "Aww, hell! I'll just pick a direction!" He shut his eyes, held out his hand, and spun around in a few circles. "That way!" he said upon stopping and headed in said direction toward where the cabinet was.

Or where the cabinet should've been. It had been moved somehow, revealing several marks in the wall where someone had apparently tried to punch their way through somehow. Beside that was a message scratched into the wall, likely with the same tool used in making the dents.

I'm getting bummed. I can only tunnel this far! Damn high-grade construction materials! Damn quality artisanship! The hallway, the windows, the walls, the turlet… It's like the room's in another dimesion (hint-hint)! Irene never noticed…

"Boy, now that's just pathetic," Henry said to himself. "Trying to smash through the wall to get Irene's attention? Even I'm not thatdesperate…" Setting the wine bottle on the cabinet, he knelt down to inspect the holes in the wall, and was surprised to find that one allowed him to see right into Irene's room. It was a typical girl's room, with dresses hanging on the wall and a closet full of clothes. He could see the bed, on which was seated not only a pink Bobbie the Rabbit plushy, but Irene herself. She was currently looking around and generally looking pissed off. Henry was about to start pounding on the wall to get her attention, but then realized that would blow his cover and decided to just watch and see if anything interesting happened.

"Where's that hellin', dammin'-ass, bitchin', damn broom, dammit?!" Irene unleashed a long string of expletives in her search for the broom. "There it is!" she said, spotting it in a corner. "Right where I left it!"

"Right where she left it?" Henry snickered. "I wish I had a video camera; this is prime blackmail material…" He was interrupted as the broom handle passed through the hole and poked him in the eye. Henry unleashed his own supercombo of expletives as he held his hand over his assaulted eye, and Irene was none the wiser, for she didn't even realize there was a hole there. When Henry put his eye back to the hole, the room was empty, its only occupant the goofy-looking plushy on the bed. "Well, show's over," he said.

He put his hand on the floor to steady himself as he stood, but was surprised to feel something else there. He looked down and noticed a pistol was lying at his feet. "Freakin' awesome!" he said as he took it up. "Wait a minute," he said, noting something not quite right about it, "this thing's suspiciously light…" Upon closer examination, he found it to have a plug dangling from a hole in the back. "A water pistol?!" he shouted, outraged at having been cheated. He was about to unleash another expletive supercombo when the phone in his room started ringing. "Dammit," he muttered, absent-mindedly shoving the pistol into his pocket as he stood up, "I need to switch phone companies…" He started for the hall, but then remembered something and returned to the cabinet, retrieving his bottle of wine before heading back to his room.

Henry walked up to the nightstand and picked up the receiver. "Mmm'yes?" he answered.

"WHERE THE HELL DID YOU GO, DAMMIT?!" Samantha screamed so loud, Henry had to bring the receiver away from his ear. "Hurry! Save me! There's a token here if you need it, now hurry up! He's coming…!"

"What do you mean, he's coming?" Henry asked. "Oh, I get it. You promised someone else a 'special favor,' too?" Samantha's fist flew out of the receiver's mouthpiece and struck Henry square in the jaw.

"NOW!" she roared, and the line went dead. Henry placed the receiver back in its cradle and held up his index finger.

"This looks like a job for…!" he paused for dramatic effect. "…someone else." He took a swig of wine as he headed for the door, but he had only gotten as far as the bathroom before the ensuing guilt trip compelled him to go back for Samantha. "What can I say?" he sighed. "I just can't sit by, knowing that there's a whore out there that needs rescuing…" After taking his pipe up from the floor and putting it back in his pocket, he took one last swig of wine before crawling back into the Hole.
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Hell Count: 6
Total Hell Count: 13

A/N: I forgot to mention last time, the Hell Count is the property of E.P.O., author of the original SH4 parody and a few other high-quality SH fics. Read his works, they're good stuff.