Henry woke up in bed. "Samantha?" he ventured. All he got as a response was the sound of sirens grating in his ears. "Man, what the hell is that racket!" he said as he went over to the window and looked out. There were emergency vehicles parked near the subway entrance with lights flashing. "Probably Samantha," Henry noted to himself. "I wonder if this means I won't be able to negotiate for cash…" He left his room, somewhat disappointed that he wouldn't be fattening his wallet.

In the living room, the radio was picking up some strange signals. "Hurry up and get that ambulance!" a man's voice commanded.

"The ambulance is right there, moron!" another responded.

"Just shuddap and move her already!" the first man snapped. "Damn…she's got numbers printed on her chest. I wonder if… You know what this means?"

"No," the other man answered.

"Neither do I," the first man replied. "Just making conversation…"

"Watch out for that guy with the microphone," the second man cautioned.

"What guy with--?" There was a sound of impact, and the broadcast was abruptly replaced by static. Henry just stared.

"What the hell?" he said. After a moment, he just gave a shrug and walked over to his chest, where he dropped off his newly acquired 9-iron club, water pistol and "Enticement" Placard. After that, he went over to the fridge, which he decided was the only proper place that his dearly-departed bottle of white wine should be laid to rest, especially after meeting such a tragic end. Suffice it to say, he was quite surprised to find ten bottles of stuff called Nutra-Health Drink inside. "Probably tastes like crap," he muttered as he shoved one into his pocket and closed the fridge.

The next thing he did was take a look out his peephole, where he saw an old man aged somewhere in his sixties sweeping the floor. It was none other than the superintendent, Frank Scanderlund. He always wore that same white sweater that made him look like some stupid frat boy, an impression driven home by the varsity letters sewn onto the left breast: FU. He also noticed a sixteenth handprint had been added to the others. "Someone's still vandalizing stuff without me," he whined, hanging his head. It was then that he noticed a piece of paper on the floor at his feet. "Oh, lookie! I got mail!" he said as he bent down to pick it up and read it…

Although the cult itself is gone (fat chance!), I'm sure the spirit of it is still alive. Somewhere…

There are too many screwed up things happening in that town.

I'm investigating two people. Or maybe I should say just one. Eh, I'll say two just for the hell of it. I've just about discovered what's going on. At least, that's what I keep telling myself.

April 8

Henry just stared at the paper for a moment. "This must mean something…" he reasoned. He may have been dumb, but…all right, he was an idiot, too. He just filed it away in the scrapbook on the desk in his bedroom for posterity. After that, he made his way to the bathroom, where he noticed the Hole had gotten bigger. "Damn termites," he cursed under his breath as he took his pipe up from the floor. "I'm gonna have to talk to Scanderlund about lowering my rent…" When he looked into the Hole to see if it was still safe, he thought he could hear a lady sobbing from the other side. He crawled into the Hole in the hopes of finding whoever was crying so he could have a little fun at their expense…

--------------------

When he woke up, he was sitting in the middle of a clearing in the forest. It was all dark and misty and stuff, and there were creepy noises all around him. "Ah, the great outdoors," Henry said as he stood up and took a deep breath. He then began to cough and hack uncontrollably. "Damn fresh air!" he complained. "How the hell can people breathe this stuff? I need smog…" After looking around a bit, he found a path leading through the woods. It was dimly illuminated by what looked like a street lamp, which cast an eerie glow over the area. "I guess this must be what they call the scenic route," Henry said as he went along. As he neared a gate, he took note of some rocks marked with some strange red text he couldn't read. "It's all in Japanese!" he griped. "Why? Isn't it bad enough that I can't even read my own subtitles?" He just stalked off, muttering in resignation as he passed through a metal gate. "Can't wait for the American version…"

It wasn't long before he came upon a large metal building. "Well, if this doesn't violate a few zoning laws," he said as he approached. He noted two signs, one set on either side of the door, each stating, "Danger. Do Not Enter." Henry did the only thing any decent person would do: he entered anyway.

He found he was on an upper floor of what looked like some form of industrial complex and, seeing that the only way to go was down, made for a nearby ramp. However, Henry had a lapse of coordination and ended up tumbling end over end down the ramp and knocking over a group of old oil drums at the bottom. Once the pain subsided enough for him to stand again, he headed into the next area where, lo and behold, there was another ramp to descend. Deciding not to take any chances, he decided to pull a Harry Mason and ran off the edge of the level he was on, but unlike Harry, he had height as an excuse for not landing on his feet. Once again, he picked himself up from the ground and exited the strange building and into the outdoors once again.

The first thing he noticed was that he'd happened upon a car sitting just by the path, its engine still running. "Ahhh!" Henry sighed as he inhaled the hydrocarbons of the exhaust. "Smell those noxious fumes!" Once he was refreshed (if you can call it that), he ignored the clunker and went looking around all the trees on the opposite side of the road. After searching every square inch around the stump marked with more red writing, he suddenly got angry. "Where is it!" he shouted. "Where the hell's that chainsaw!" In frustration, he brought his foot back and kicked the trunk of the tree as hard as he could. Unfortunately, he had forgotten that tree trunks are harder than human feet, and he ended up accomplishing little more than subjecting himself to great pain and embarrassment.

Once he was able to walk on his foot again, he returned to the car to see if there was anything worth "salvaging" from it. The only thing of interest was a piece of paper with something written in it.

It's been a while since I came to Quiet Hill. Maybe I'll meet Bill Gates this time.
But whenever I come to a neato place like Quiet Hill, I always get thirsty.

Casper Hein

Henry deduced this Casper Hein character to be the owner of the old beater, and wondered if his thirst problem had anything to do with all the empty pretzel bags lying around. He also noted a memo pad lying among the bags and moved to retrieve it, but in doing so ended up generating a hideous crinkling of plastic that he feared might alert someone to his snooping. Fortunately, he got the memo pad without incident and proceeded to read it.

Idunno what that pesky guy was yakking about when he said: "His home is the orphanage in the middle. The lake is northwest. So the opposite is southeast." What a dumb-ass thing to say.

The pesky guy said one other thing I don't get: "If you bring the dug-up key, you can't go back. Ditch it somewhere before you go back." Must have been tripping on that White Claudia stuff.

Once he finished reading the memo, he stuffed it in his pocket and considered stealing the car and taking it for a joyride. He then had second thoughts, considering he wasn't familiar with the layout of the surrounding area, and he didn't want to get lost. After giving the matter some thought, he decided to go out and scout out the area. Then he'd come back and carjack the vehicle.

He passed into the next fenced-off area, where he saw some large boulders sitting in the middle of another clearing. The rocks had several scratch marks carved into them, and were divided by a wooden fence with a number of candles sitting on top. In the candlelight, Henry could make out the form of a figure sitting on a small rock at the base of one of the larger ones. 'Probably a hippie…' Henry thought as he walked up to get a better look at the guy. He was a rather lanky guy with a whacked-out Mohawk and a green T-shirt with a winged hamburger on it. 'Or not,' he thought.

"S-So y-you c-came…t-to investigate th-this stone t-too…" the man stuttered. Henry was about to tell him the real reason, but then realized that this was likely the owner of the car he planned on stealing, and decided to keep his mouth shut. "Th-There was another g-guy here before…" Casper continued. "A…a…a real pesky guy… B-B-But I was the one, one who f-found this s-stone first…" Henry wasn't particularly interested in what Casper had to say so much as the way he was saying it.

"I-I-In the o-old d-days," Casper continued, "th-the n-n-natives called it… N-No-Nocahoonies… Th-They used it in a…a ceremony…f-f-for talkin'…with their dead ancestors." He leaned forward to speak in a confidential manner. "Though with a n-name like Nocahoonies, you'd think it w-was f-f-for emasculation…" He gestured to the rocks. "I guess th-that would've m-made those the c-c-cahoonies, huh?" Henry was now sitting on the fence with one leg crossed over the other, as though trying to protect something. Unfortunately, the fence was unable to support his weight for long, and the section he sat on gave out beneath him, dumping him unceremoniously on the ground and making him look stupid again.

"A-And n-now…th-th-those guys are, are usin' it too…" Casper continued. "C-C-Call it the m-mother load stone, or mother l-lodestone, or something… Th-They're just u-up, up ahead, in that, that weird building… Op-Operatin' s-some kinda c-crazy re-religious cult… Th-They u-used to c-c-c-collect o-orphans… And, and, and…d-d-did things to 'em… K-K-Kinda g-gives you the ch-chills, huh? This stone… Y-Y-Yeah…g-g-gives me the ch-ch-chills…"

"Oh, you mean you're cold?" Henry said. "All this time, I thought you were just stuttering…"

After getting his ass kicked (and let's face it, he asked for it), Henry continued on his way with second thoughts about stealing that guy's car. He went along for a little ways until he approached a large metal frame straddling the road. When he approached, some big mass that looked like a massive bag of cement with a bunch of toothpicks sticking out of it fell from it and hit the ground with a big thud. "I didn't know cactuses grew on trees," Henry said, missing the obvious metal frame as he nudged it with his foot. "And this far north, too…" He thought for a moment and, after looking around to see if anyone was watching, picked the thing up and hefted it up onto his back.

--------------------

Henry returned after a few minutes to the place where he found the "New England Tree Cactus," snickering at the fact that he'd set it down before Casper's car and ran it over, puncturing all the tires. The thought of how Casper would react upon finding it like that was even better than having carjacked it. Yes, Henry was a sneaky bastard. He had to be to pass by Casper unnoticed with that thing, though that wasn't nearly as hard as carrying it without poking himself, or even picking up an object of that size to begin with. Don't ask how he pulled it off, because nobody knows.

Before long, he came upon a fence with a door set into it. Nailed to a tree beside the door was a sign, on which the names "Quiet Hill Smirk Support Society" and "Dope House" were written. "I wonder if that's anything like a crackhouse, or if the residents were just thickheaded," Henry said as he passed through the door. Inside was what looked like an old playground, at the center of which was a large, dilapidated building. Henry walked around the perimeter of the playground, and as he went along, he noticed several spots on the fence were decorated with ghetto art. "Five years old, and already the little hooligans are on the road to juvenile delinquency," he said. He noted one in particular. "What kinda crap is this? Did an elephant paint this?" he said. Aside from that, the only things worth noting were three more doors, a Hole, more illegible red writing on a stone and the outer walls of the building, and a sign by the door he had entered by.

DANGER

The Outside is filled with dangerous things.
If someone goes Outside without an
adult's permission, the Master is sad.
And when the Master is sad, PEOPLE DIE!

"Real subtle," Henry said as he continued on.

After a thorough exploration of the yard, Henry decided to see where the other doors led to. After a good forty-five seconds of trying to push one of them open, he noticed the graffiti on it that said "PULL" and, after implementing said method, finally accessed a path leading northwest. He ended up passing through a tunnel, which he noticed to be some kind of dig site. "Wonder who was digging here…" He thought a minute and, after some strenuous thought, put two and two together. "Don't they have child labor laws here?" He just shrugged and started examining some of the machinery lying around, evaluating whether or not he could salvage them and hawk them off for cash.

He examined one and, after failing to find the ignition mechanism, started hitting and kicking it in an attempt to get it to turn on. He was soon rewarded with a steady droning noise that grew ever louder, and he smiled at his own resourcefulness at having been able to activate what was likely little more than an inoperative and utterly worthless piece of scrap. It turned out the droning noise was not the machinery, but a clear indication that a big surprise was imminent.

Suddenly, something stabbed Henry in the ass. He jumped three feet into the air and did a massive butt-buster upon landing, and when he stood up, he found himself confronted by the true source of the droning noise: a swarm of bats with large needles for heads. After taking a few blind swings at some of them and missing every one, he took off down the tunnel, the swarm taking on a formation in the shape of an arrow as it followed behind him in close pursuit.

Unfortunately, Henry had an uncanny sense of misdirection, and soon found himself confronted with a wall, blocking any further flight. He turned back to see the swarm of Nail Bats closing in on him rapidly, and just when it seemed he would get a number of additional pores in his skin, he used his dodge technique and ducked out of the way. The Nail Bats crashed right into the wall behind him and knocked themselves senseless, rendering them helpless as Henry went about stomping their lights out after they fell to the ground. Once he was done, he rubbed his now sore rear end. "Bit through my wallet and two credit cards…" he said as he pulled the Nutra-Health Drink out of his pocket. After taking all those falls and that severe beatdown from Casper, he was looking a little worse for wear anyway.

He removed the cap and sniffed the contents. "Smells worse than month-old compost," he said, but just gave a shrug and gulped the contents. "Mmm! Not bad!" he said as he wiped his mouth and tossed the empty bottle away. Sure, he was littering, but who was around to fault him? Besides, there was already plenty of other junk lying around when he got there. So without further ado, he left the tunnel.

He came upon a small clearing that had a clear outlook over a body of water, which was identified asTuluki Lake by a sign on a fence. "A very picturesque scene," Henry said. "I should know, because I have a picture I took of it hanging on my wall." Aside from more of the illegible red writing, the only other things of any interest were a broken lawn gnome on a pedestal and another Hole in the face of the small cliff. Once he was done, he headed back towards Dope House.

The next path he took led southwest. As he went along, he vaguely wondered why the paths were fenced off into sections. "Just like driving cattle," he thought aloud as he went along. "Slave labor and livestock. There are many practices here that most human rights groups wouldn't agree with." He thought about it a moment and just shrugged. "Not my problem."

Before long, he entered an old cemetery completely enclosed within crumbling concrete walls. As he looked around, he found a little boy in a striped shirt. Henry decided that it would be fun to mess with the kid's head and approached him, unnoticed. "Hey, little boy," he said, trying not to cringe at how utterly pedophilic that sounded. At least he'd gotten the kid's attention. "Whatcha doin' here? You know you're trespassing, doncha?" The boy said nothing, just continued to stand there, looking disgustingly cute as he stared up at Henry.

Then, Casper came along and took notice of the kid. "You're…!" he trailed off. "W-W-What was I going to s-say, again…?" he wondered aloud. "Oh, yeah! You're…a kid! No, th-that's n-not right…" Casper took another moment to think. "Oh! Okay, I got it now!" He cleared his throat before continuing. "F-finally… the Th-Third Revelation… S-Something's g-gonna happen… T-That p-pesky guy that was here… H-He said it too… Something big's gonna happen…" He threw his hands up in the air and gave the V for victory a la Richard Nixon. "Finally, it's gonna happen! About damn t-time, too!" He turned away and walked off, laughing maniacally and generally making a fool of himself. Then, the kid pushed past Henry and made his exit. That left Henry standing alone in the cemetery with only one question on his mind at what had just transpired.

"What the hell…?"

Hell Count: 5
Total Hell Count: 25

A/N: The names Scanderlund and Tuluki Lake are property of Hometown.