Henry looked around at the cemetery, which really appeared to have been vandalized. "Probably by that kid," he muttered. "He's gonna catch Holy Hell." He just shrugged and started meandering around. As he went along, he found an exhumed wooden coffin lying in an open grave in the center of the cemetery, its lid missing along with its contents. Scrawled on the bottom of the coffin in strawberry jam were the numbers 11121. "What is that, a ZIP code?" Henry said, befuddled by the strange numbers. They seemed strangely similar to those that he had found on Samantha just before she died. "You know," he added, "I'll bet the two numbers are related…" Of course, Henry's detective skills didn't go much further than stating the blatantly obvious, so he couldn't deduce anything of any real use.

He looked around some more and noted some rather interesting stuff engraved on the headstones. One was engraved with the words, "I told you I was sick!" Another was engraved with the word "Stupid," while the one beside it was engraved with the words, "I'm with Stupid" and an arrow pointing to the former. There were also some stranger messages engraved onto two of the gravestones.

Go over thataway and you'll start freakin' out over the Descent of the Holy Mother.

And the one on the opposite side of the graveyard…

Go over thataway and your bachelor pad will go to Hell in a hand basket by the authority of the Lord.

The only other things worth noting were a couple of monuments with more of the Japanese writing in red and a door with a strange series circles on it. Henry regarded the strange symbol on the door. "Looks like what dorks with too much spare time on their hands do to grain fields in the middle of the night," he said. Having seen everything worth investigating there, Henry started back to Dope House.

When he made it back, he saw Casper hanging around the entrance next to a "No Loitering" sign. He decided to go up and join him, but got tired after a few seconds of standing around doing nothing and decided to see what was inside. It turned out the door was locked.

"Th-Th-The d-d-door won't open…" Casper said. "Th-That p-p-pesky guy g-g-gave me something really good… I…I…I…I c-could l-l-let you have it…bu-bu-but not for free."

"Oh, I get it," Henry said. "You want a bribe? How much?" he asked as he began rummaging through his pocket.

"I'm really th-thirsty…" Casper stated, prolonging the pronunciation to offer a blatant hint. Henry brought his hand out of his pocket.

"How 'bout a dime?" he said, offering said coin. Casper briefly shot him an annoyed look, then went back to dropping hints.

"I'm so, so th-thirsty…" he said, making synchronized chopping motions with his hands in a gesture of placement to emphasize each word.

"All right," Henry said, pulling another coin out of his pocket, "how 'bout a quarter?" Casper made as if to grab Henry by the throat and throttle him, but caught himself at the last moment and made one final attempt.

"Oh, chocolate… Oh, chocolate…" he said in a more forceful tone through clenched teeth, swaying from side to side as though dying of thirst as he watched Henry out of the corner of his eye. Henry just stared.

"Then, I don't suppose we could settle this by some form of monetary persuasion…?" he said. Casper draped his arm around Henry's shoulder and hauled him over to speak to him man to man.

"P-pay attention, now," he said, "I'm g-gonna say this really s-s-slow s-so you c-c-can understand. I w-want some chocolate."

"But…I thought you said you were thirsty," Henry said. Casper, having had enough, grabbed him by the seat of his pants with one hand and his shirt collar with the other, lifted him off his feet, and carried him over to the edge of the porch.

"I-I j-just gotta have some chocolate milk!" he said, heaving Henry back and tossing him all the way to the Hole in the wall surrounding Dope House.

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

Henry woke up in his room, as he always did when he left the other world. He remembered something about chocolate milk, and by coincidence (see also Deus Ex Machina), he just so happened to have some. Not wasting any more time, he leapt out of bed and exited the bedroom.

When he entered the living room, he was surprised to hear someone ringing the doorbell. He immediately ran over to the door and smashed his face against it to peer through the peephole. He almost laughed when he saw how distended Irene's face looked when she got up really close to the peephole.

"There's something going on in this room…" she said as she stepped aside.

"What! What is it!" a second voice barked impatiently as another person stepped into the peephole's view radius. It was a middle-aged man with combed back gray hair and a five o'clock shadow, and he didn't need to get up close to the peephole to look funny. He wore a pink, short-sleeved, button-up shirt with palm trees on the breast pocket, and a necktie with duckies and horsies on it. Yup, it's none other than the resident crankcase, Dick Crabtree.

"I heard some weird noises coming from inside there…" Irene explained.

"Yeah," Henry confirmed. "Noises like, 'Help me! Help! Let me out!'" He began banging on the door in addition to his cries for assistance. "Get me the hell outta here, dammit!"

"Hey, Dick," Irene said. "Can you see anything from your window?"

"Yeah," Dick answered. "I can see lots of stuff from my window." Irene gave him a look.

"I mean, can you see anything in this room from your window?"

"Oh," Dick replied sheepishly. "No…everything looks just peachy to me." He peered into the peephole suspiciously. "The guy who lives here… What's he like, anyway?"

"I know his name and face," Irene answered, "and that his vocabulary seems limited primarily to the expression, 'what the hell?'" Dick stepped back.

"Well," he said, "in strange situations such as this, one merely goes and tells the super." Irene gave a start.

"Yeah…" she said, obviously feeling stupid for not having thought up such a simple solution herself. "Good idea."

"You'd bet that's a good idea," Henry spat. "Get Scanderlund up here! These big, heavy chains on my door are a clear violation of my lease agreement!" He then suddenly remembered. "Oh, that's right. They can't hear me. Damn it…" Henry just gave a shrug and, after fishing the chocolate milk out of his storage chest, made his way back through the Hole to the other world.

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"Here's your freakin' chocolactose, ya mercenary!" Henry muttered as he forked over the chocolate milk, which Casper swiped and immediately began chugging.

"Hey…!" he spluttered after the first gulp. "This stuff's lukewarm!"

"You never specified that you wanted it chilled," Henry shrugged. "I made good on my end of the deal, now it's your turn!" Casper just rolled his eyes as he reached into his pocket and pulled out a little shovel.

"Here ya go!" he said, carelessly tossing it in Henry's general direction. After it hit him in the face and fell to the floorboards of the porch, Henry knelt down to pick it up and examined it.

"What the hell is this!" he demanded. Casper just rolled his eyes and heaved an exasperated sighed.

"It's a shovel! Geez, y-y-you're p-pretty d-dense, aren't you?" he said and went back to chugging the lukewarm chocolate milk. Henry examined the shovel closer and noticed there was a thin film of strawberry jam on it.

"Why is there strawberry jam on this?" he asked.

"Th-Th-There was something wr-written on it," Casper said. "M-Must've r-r-rubbed off in m-my p-pocket…" he added with a shrug. Henry was quick to respond as he stood back up. "HEY!" Casper protested as Henry thrust his hand into his pocket and yanked it inside out. Sure enough, the writing was there on the inside of the pocket, though it was now written backwards. Fortunately, Henry was a linguist fluent in Dyslexic and Pig Latin, and was thus able to read the message just fine.

You'll know where this thing will come in "handy" when you see it. It ain't by the lake!

"Hey!" Casper said, slapping Henry's hand away. "You m-made me s-sp-spill some!"

"Now you know how I feel," Henry replied. "Lost more than half a bottle of perfectly good white wine."

"Ooh…!" Casper cringed. "That's g-gotta suck…"

"Eh, it's not so bad," Henry shrugged. "It wasn't Corbel, anyway." With that, he went on his way. He headed out on the southwest trail this time, not because he'd figured out the hint in Casper's pocket, but because he'd already been on all the other trails and hadn't seen anything particularly interesting.

He entered an area that was crawling with a bunch of Whiffies that were really stinking up the place with their putrescent presence. He immediately sought to remedy the air pollution problem by implementing the pipe. "Snuff this, ya dog-rotting Whiffies!" he yelled as he beat them savagely. The last Whiffy he took on was different from the others. It appeared to be pinkish, and far fiercer in appearance. It snarled at him viciously and bared its teeth, a message that Henry interpreted to mean "beat the crap outta me," or something along those lines. Of course, he happily obliged and went about the business of beating the disgusting dog to a bloody pulp. "All this beating up Whiffies makes me wish I had a newspaper to roll around this thing," he said in reference to the pipe as he passed into the next area.

He ignored what sounded like an angry gorilla trying to imitate a chainsaw in the distance and made his way around a tree with red graffiti on it. It was there that he found a tree with exposed roots that looked like hands, one pointing to a spot the ground and the other giving the thumbs-up. "It's as though they're trying to tell me something…" Henry thought aloud as he tried to do the math. It took him a while, but he finally got the message that he was supposed to dig there. A few shovelfuls of dirt later and Henry unearthed what looked like an old key smeared with strawberry jam and caked with dirt.

He picked it up, but no sooner had he done so than the roots reached out and grabbed it in an attempt to steal it from him. "Hey!" he grunted as he pulled back on it. "I found it first! It's mine!" Fortunately for Henry, he had the looped end, and all he had to do was keep a finger wrapped around it to prevent the thieving roots from taking his prize. It wasn't long before he wrested the key from the grip of the roots and, having won what was, in his mind, a great victory, he immediately took advantage of his bragging rights and stood gloating over the roots. "Catch the birdy…!" he taunted, dangling the key just within reach only to pull it away when they grabbed for it, which he thought was hilarious. The roots responded by giving a rude gesture to the best of their ability, one curled into an upturned fist while the other grasped its partner's wrist in the absence of a suitable elbow. "Hey!" Henry protested. Indignant at the impudence of the roots, he took his pipe and smacked the fist on the knuckles, to which the offended root unclenched the fist and shook itself back and forth in an attempt to ease the pain. "That's what you get…" Henry sneered as he started back towards Dope House.

However, when he tried to leave the area, the mist thickened and shrouded everything. He merely dismissed it as someone fogging for mosquitoes as he started through the area. When he passed through the fence at the other end, he noticed something strange about the area beyond. "Hey," he said. "This place looks familiar…" He just shrugged it off and went on his way. However, upon passing through the next gate, he found himself in yet another familiar-looking place. "What the hell is going on here!" he demanded. "I just left this place back…" he trailed off when, turning around, he saw the tree with the red graffiti on it. Just to make sure, he made his way around to its other side where, sure enough, he found the funky-looking roots. One of the roots waved to him in a mock-genial manner as the other one pointed to something. Henry followed the pointing one's gesture to the key in his hand. "What the hell…?" he said as he saw some writing on the key.

Déjà vu – the sensation you are doing something you have done before.

"Dammit!" Henry cursed. Hemade sure to give the roots a vindictive kick before proceeding along the path as it led away from Dope House.

Henry entered the next area, ignoring the rocks with the illegible red writing as he made his way over to some steps leading up to an elevated level, in the wall at the back of which was a Hole. He climbed the stairs and was thrilled to find a golf club lying on the ground up there. "Hell yeah! A 6-iron!" he said as he took it up and examined it. "I'll bet landing the ball out here carries a really big stroke penalty…"

No sooner had he placed the club in his pocket than he was immediately struck with a headache. "I gotta see if I can't find some Tylenol when I get back…" he said. Then, something tapped him on the shoulder, and he turned to see another ghost, this one a man with a receding hairline. He wore overalls with one strap done up, the other being left undone so as to leave the space on his skin with the numbers 04121 printed on it in plain view.

"I don't suppose you've seen my shovel anywhere?" the ghost gruffly said as it loomed over him. Henry held the shovel he'd used to dig up the key out to him.

"Just take this one," he said.

"Thanks," was the ghost's terse reply as he accepted the tool.

"Yeah, now go away," Henry said, making a shooing gesture. "You're giving me a headache."

"Hah! You've got a headache!" the ghost roared. "How do you think I felt after getting shot in the head! With a freakin' submachine gun!"

"I'm getting a pretty good idea right now," Henry answered, clutching his head as he tried to distance himself from the ghost.

"But if being killed wasn't bad enough, the bastard went and killed all my animals as well!" The ghost continued, his voice growing harsher as he said this. "That really pissed me off! In fact, I'm still pissed off! And I think I'll take it out on you…!" The ghost was surprised to see Henry had moved while he'd been ranting and was now standing with one foot already in the Hole, waving bye-bye to him before ducking into it.

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Henry got out of bed and, after depositing the key and golf club in his storage chest, decided to stalk the neighbors. When he looked through his door's peephole, he could see Dick Crabtree trying to stalk him back, though he doubted the guy could see him. He eventually got tired and wandered off, after which Henry declared himself the victor for having outstalked the other would-be stalker. After congratulating himself, he decided to peep on his lovely next door neighbor.

Irene was sitting on her bed, and judging by her reactions, she was either watching the funniest show in the history of television, or her "party" had gotten started a little early. While it was entertaining to watch her behave like an amused chimp between intervals of silence, Henry had other business to attend to, and decided it was high time he headed back to the Hole…

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When Henry woke up in the place with the well, he found that, thankfully, the irritable ghost was off in the far corner of the area, apparently unaware of his presence as of yet. Deciding not to hang around, he immediately returned to Dope House, where he once again used the Hole to return to his room.

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

Henry bolted out of bed and dashed to his storage chest, where he dug out the jellied, dirt-caked key. He noted that the writing on it had changed.

You suck!

He just smirked to himself as he placed the key in his pocket, pleased with his own cleverness in outwitting an inanimate object. He then immediately returned to the Hole in the bathroom.

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Henry ran up to Dope House and used the jellied, dirt-caked key to unlock the front door. Then, thinking he was all badass, he kicked the door open and stepped forward…only to have the door bounce back off the wall and smack him in the face as it slammed back shut on him. Once he was done cursing and clutching his nose, he slowly opened the door and stepped inside with Casper following close behind.

The place was a real disappointment, but not in the sense that he had expected as much. It was just a somewhat large room with nothing but a heap of old, broken furniture and trash scattered all over. "Jeez, w-w-what w-w-were they doing here…?" Casper wondered aloud as he surveyed the room, and indeed, one had to wonder given the state the place was in. But Henry had to admit that as far as cult-operated orphanages went, the place could have been a lot worse.

After a bit of aimless wandering, he noticed there was a memo lying by an old cabinet.

Have you seen a little girl? Short, black hair, just turned seven last month? Responds to the name Alessa?

Is Walter literate yet?

Tell me something, already!

After reading the memo, he wandered around some more until he found an overturned table with a pair of candelabrums and some old books scattered on the floor nearby. He picked one of the books up and read what was still legible.

The Second Sign
And God (or the Devil, whichever you like) said, Offer the Blood of the Ten Losers and the White Grease. Be then released from the bonds of the flesh, and gain the Power of Heaven. From Obscurity and Vacuum, bring forth Malaise, and gird thyself with Depression for the Receiver of Knowledge.

The Third Sign
And God (read: the Devil) said, Return to the Origin through sin's Enticement. Under the Vigilant eye of the demon, wander alone in the formless Disorder. Only then will the Four Repentances be in alignment. Then, shoot to kill!

Henry assumed it was some form of Do-It-Yourself manual and decided to hang onto it for further reference. He then turned to leave, but suddenly noticed smoke coming out from behind a door, where he heard Casper was trying to sing. There was a placard with what looked like a baby and the word "Origin" carved on it. Henry took the placard and passed through the door to join Casper in the smoking room.

When he entered the room, he found Casper flailing around, completely engulfed in flames. He had a chalice in one hand and the number 17121 printed across the front of his shirt.

"Sweet!" he shouted enthusiastically. "HEY! Everybody! I'm on f-fire! I am on fire! And n-n-not in the r-rock w-way! In the way like…f-f-flames c-coming off of my skin…way!" That was all he managed to say before dropping dead on the floor.

Hell Count: 6
Total Hell Count: 31

A/N: The rude gesture offered by the roots is equivalent to giving someone the finger, and entails putting one's hand in the crook of his/her arm (which the roots didn't have, hence the wrist-grab as a substitute).