A/N: Ahoy, Ahoy my precious readers. I have bestowed upon you another pulse pounding, and slightly insane, chapter of James's quest. Just in time for Halloween! Enjoy the hole jumping fun!
Here is another long chapter for you, in celebration of All Hallows Eve.
James Scanderlund scratched furiously at the bare earth beneath the statue of an angel in Poppywater Park.
"Where is it?" he muttered, referring to the key for the historical society. His fingers finally scratched against metal. James flinched back, appalled by the feel of the rusted old metal. Gathering his nerves, he reached into the dirt and pulled out a padlocked rusty tin box.
Of course, the feel of the disgusting metal made him squeal like a prepubescent boy. He glanced around quickly to make sure that nothing was there to hear his screech before he turned his attention back to the box.
"Eureka!" He exclaimed. He reached into his bottomless pocket and pulled out the wrench that he had ferreted away earlier. Now, James looked from the wrench to the locked, nasty feeling box for a good five minutes before deciding what he must do. Why, he must do the obvious of course!
Gathering his nerves once more, he lifted the box into the air and pitched it with all of his strength at the cement walkway. The box hit with such force that the rusted tin broke away, spilling on to the ground an old bronze key.
James glanced at the unused wrench and then tossed it casually into the bushes.
James thought about what a genius he was as he scooped up the key and pocketed it. He turned to leave the park, but stopped as he noticed the hole that he dug. Well, he wasn't about to let a perfectly good hole go to waste!
He reached slowly into his pocket and drew out the remains of his plank. Holding back the sobs that threatened to escape, he placed the dead plank neatly into the hole.
"Oh plank," James choked out, "You such a good weapon; always faithful, never failing to bring down those strippers. You never even gave me so much as a splinter." He paused to sniffle, then carried on, "Even though you are gone, the memories of you will always be with me. You will be my flashlight in times of darkness, my static blaring radio in times of disaster, my company in times of solitude, and my ray of hope in times of despair…"
A muffled sniffle sounded from nearby, causing James to nearly have a stroke in panic. He looked up to see Harry standing nearby, tears sliding down his cheeks.
"That was so beautiful, Larry." He choked out, wiping his eyes on his coat sleeve.
"Err, it's James, Harry." said James as he eyed Harry suspiciously.
"Oh, right... James." He said lowly, still sniffling.
James raised an eyebrow at Harry before crouching next to the plank's gravesite and burying its remains. When he stood back up, he was greeted with a horrible sight.
Betty the nurse demon had tracked him down, and stood across the cement pathway.
"Aha!" she groaned incoherently in monster language, "I found you! Now, I will do what Traffic Cone ordered and assault you!"
Of course, what James heard was: Gryraaaa! Grrr grargle gurgle! SCREE! Blarg gruuuug GLAH!
Betty lunged at the terrified James with a copper pipe in hand. James squealed and nearly dodged her swinging pipe. He grabbed the first weapon he felt in his pocket, which turned out to be the handgun, and aimed at her. He pulled the trigger.
A spray of blood erupted from Betty as she staggered backward, screeching in anger. She clutched at her wounded shoulder, then shuffled towards James, her revolting featureless head bobbling about, as nurse demons do.
James gasped, and shot her again. This time, blood and gunk sprayed from her torso. Even so, she continued scuffling towards him as if unaffected. One more shot, this one to her disgusting bobble head, caused her to keel over, gurgling and growling.
James ran over to the downed nurse and gave her a hearty stomp with the heel of his boot. She writhed about on the pavement, spreading her blood about as if making a demonic snow angel. James stomped her once more, causing her to lie still.
James backed away from her corpse, terrified and disgusted. Harry still sniffled in the background, completely oblivious as he stared at the plank's grave. James glanced at Harry, and decided to sneak off before Harry noticed him and started to ask his famous questions.
James crept out of Poppywater Park, safely away from Harry and the nasty dead nurse. Reassured that Harry was far enough away, he pulled out his map and studied it, searching for the Historical Society Museum.
He located it on the map, alongside Nathan Avenue. He looked down the long, foggy stretch of road before him. Why, he was already on Nathan Avenue! A feeling of accomplishment spread within him. James folded up the map and crammed it into his pocket before jogging down the misty street.
James had been jogging for about fifteen minutes, avoiding straight jacketed strippers and dodging random, nameless nurse demons, when he finally came to a stop in order to catch his breath. The road was ungodly long, and was starting to get very annoying. James panted for a while before walking down the road, no longer having the strength to jog any longer.
The town of Quiet Hill was far behind him, only the bill boards that dotted the avenue stood as traces of civilization. Walking completely alone, with only sounds of his echoing, empty footsteps, James began to feel quite unnerved. He hadn't even heard a gurgling demon for the past five minutes. The situation struck James as abnormal, and felt as though he should stop following the avenue and run back to town. He was about to do just that when he saw the looming figure of the museum through the mist. He ran happily towards it, completely disregarding the nurse demon shuffling about on patrol in front of the building. He ran past the nurse and jammed the bronze key into the lock. The door unlocked and James scampered quickly inside. Success!
He closed the door behind him and locked it for good measure, the nurse demon wandered aimlessly about outside. He turned to get a good look at his surroundings.
Traffic Cone Head shuffled through the town, dragging his big ass butter knife of doom behind him. The sound of the knife dragging on the pavement made an unholy screech, but T-Head rather enjoyed the sound. He loved the horror that the sound of his dragging weapon instilled in James. Oh how fun James was to mess with, T-head mentally thanked Samael for ordering him to stalk James.
He was on his way to the Historical Society, on a mission to freak James out some more. He planned to meet up with his identical twin, Stewart, there. After all, two creepy ass T-heads are better then one.
On his way, T-Head detoured into Poppywater Park. Just because he is a horrible, revolting demon with a metal traffic cone lodged over his head doesn't that he can't enjoy gazing out over the misty lake and appreciate its beauty.
T-Head shuffled his way over to the railing overlooking the lake and leaned his butter knife against a bench. As gazed over the gray waters, the coppery smell of blood reached him. He turned around to find Betty, crumpled and defeated on the walkway. Sighing, he made his way over to her and crouched down beside her. As he suspected, she was dead. Standing back up, he reached his hand into his pocket. After rustling about through candy wrappers and loose change, his hand closed on a dollar bill. He pulled out the dollar, and then dropped it on Betty's bloodied corpse. His conscious cleared, he retrieved his butter knife and sauntered away. Maybe he'd rape a mannequin demon along the way, just for kicks.
Long after T-Head abandoned the park, a pair of burned stripper demons happened across Betty's corpse. They were not attracted to the dead nurse, but rather to the dollar lying on her corpse. Naturally attracted to money, the stripper demons jostled their way over to her body. Since they lacked the use of arms, they flailed about madly on her body, attempting in vain to pick up the dollar.
James took a long glance about the Historical Society Museum. The room was filled with paintings, none of them having any real importance. He wandered to the back of the room were he found a vivid painting of Traffic Cone Head. In the painting, T-head stood with a spear in hand. In the background were strange caged corpses hanging from the sky. Unnerved by the painting, James glanced at its title.
"'Misty day, remains of the judgment' It's him." James read aloud. "Whoever painted this must have been on acid."
James then traveled through the double doors behind the creepy painting and found himself in a room with more paintings. Intrigued, James examined them. One was a painting of that horrible hospital he journeyed through earlier, another was of the director of said hospital, and James's favorite picture was one of a hole in the floor of a dark room. The hole seemed to be calling James, just begging him to leap into it.
A strange moaning noise aroused James from his hole-induced trance. He moved about the room and found a hole in the wall, where the noise seemed to be coming from. Opposite of what most sane people would do in such a situation, James wandered into the hole. Just inside was dark, descending passageway. James flipped on the handy flashlight pinned to his jacket and traveled through the passage.
And what a long passage it was! James began to run, becoming bored of the scenery, drawing ever nearer to the strange moaning noise. He suddenly began to panic; what if the passage never ended? What if he was doomed to run into oblivion? What if something was chasing him? Suddenly very paranoid, James found himself sprinting down the passage, the maddening moaning seeming to come from nowhere yet everywhere. Running faster than ever before, James eventually did find the end of the descending passage. However, he did not stop running. So terrified was he of the something that could be chasing him that he slammed directly into the door.
"Damn!" he exclaimed, while he placed his hand to his face. As he pulled it away, he discovered that it was colored with blood from his bleeding nose. He let out a stream of colorful words as he viciously threw open the door and traveled inside, only to find himself face to face with a grotesque stripper demon.
He quickly pulled out the handgun, since it was previously equipped, and shot the monstrosity. He didn't bother to finish it off and instead bolted past its quivering form. He threw open the door at the other end of the decaying room and set foot into a narrow hallway. The ground was slightly moist, and made a nauseating sound when he walked on it.
James made little disgusted noises as he walked on the squishy floor. He rounded a corner, than took a right. In the middle of his path was another stripper demon. James decided not to deal with it, and ran towards the door on his left. He grabbed the handle and yanked madly on it. Unfortunately, the lock was broken and he couldn't open the door.
"Damn doors!" James yelled as he kicked the door hard enough to make it splinter. Satisfied, James turned to meet the stripper now a mere yard away from him. He screamed not unlike a frightened child and gunned it down. Before he could snuff the life out of it with his boot of liberation, it scuttled grossly across the floor and around the corner, screeching as it went. Completely disgusted, James ran down the passageway and threw open the door that the stripper was previously guarding.
Inside the room was the hole from the painting that James investigated earlier.
"Joy!" he squealed excitedly. He dropped to his knees beside the hole and peered into its black abyss. Just like the painting, the hole seemed to be just begging him to leap into its unknown depths. James could hardly restrain himself. Impulsively, he vaulted himself into the hole.
The fall through the blackness didn't last too long. James landed sprawled on the cold ground. He pulled himself up and brushed the dirt off his precious coat, somehow perfectly fine after the fall even though he was damaged by the fall off of the hospital. It's pointless to count all of the inconsistencies that game designers make.
James studied the stone wall before him via the light of his pocket flashlight. He rotated around only to find that he was trapped in a stone circle. Well…shit. James suddenly realized the stupidity of leaping into a dark hole in the ground in the first place.
Looking at the stone walls and the distant circle of light above him, James realized that it looked as though he were in a well. This reminded him of a certain movie.
"AHHH! The Ring! Samara!" James shouted as he looked desperately around. He clawed at the walls, attempting in vain to climb out. At one point, a piece of rock crumpled from the wall into his hand. He studied the rock, and then tossed it. Hoping that it was a way out, he continued to claw at that section of wall, each time more debris falling away. Realizing that he wasn't getting anywhere, James reached into his pocket that somehow managed to conceal a three foot pipe without even bulging. He pulled out said pipe and hacked away at the weak section of wall. It eventually crumbled and gave way, revealing a door.
James hastily opened the door and stepped down into a hallway filled to his knees with water. James half expected to see Samara floating around. Pushing the thought from his mind, he traveled into the unbearably smelly, sewer-like place.
James followed the path to its end and found a room with, wait for it, another hole! This hole, however, was blocked with a locked gate. Yes, a locked gate on the ground. James glared at the obstacle that kept him from leaping into the attractive hole. Angered, James left the room and entered the room immediately to the left.
"Yay!" James exclaimed upon seeing the key in the center of the room. Even though it seemed a little too easy, James reached down and plucked the key from the floor. As if on cue, his flashlight went out. James almost freaked out in the horrifying darkness, but then he remembered the battery he picked up back in the hospital. Grinning, James located the battery in his pocket and replaced the dead one in his flashlight.
When the light came back on, James found the room to be filled with abnormally large cockroaches. They scurried about James's feet and covered the walls and ceiling. The rusty color of the walls was almost completely eclipsed by the roaches. Suddenly remembering his phobia of roaches, James screamed rather girlishly and dashed for the door. He swiped the roach off of the handle then tugged on it, only to discover to his absolute horror that the door is locked. Whining pathetically, he located a number panel beside the door.
A big fat roach was sitting on the panel, staring at him.
"Ew! Ew! Gross! Ew!" James squealed, still whining like a wounded dog as he hopped up and down in revolution. He was about to wipe the roach off of the panel when one crawled up his pant leg. James screamed in disgust as he violently thwacked the offending insect off of his leg. He then backhanded the roach off the number panel and began to desperately press buttons until he heard the door unlock. Throwing open the door, James slammed it shut behind him. He leaned against the wall opposite the door and panted heavily.
He was sure that he could hear God laughing at him.
Gaining control over his terrified mind once more, James went into the room with the hole on the floor. He forgot about the infested room as he stared longingly at the barred off hole. Using the key from the cockroach room, he unlocked the gate.
Success!
James wasted no time leaping into the second hole of the day.
This time, James found himself in what appeared to be a decaying cafeteria. Picking himself off of the grimy floor, he noticed a teddy bear that appeared to have been shot several times lying on a table. Its white stuffing poured from its wounds like blood. It was enough to horrify any small child. A grunt from the front of the room alerted James to someone's presence.
Looking up, James met Neddy the revolting tub of lard once more.
"Hello Neddy," started James.
"I did it!" Neddy interrupted.
James furrowed his brow. "Did what?"
"Killin' a plushie ain't no big deal," Neddy said creepily while waving a handgun about, "Just put the gun to their head…pow!"
James stared at him quizzically. "You…killed that bear?"
"You should have seen the way it was lookin' at me! With those empty, beady eyes! I could tell what he was thinkin', oh I knew!" Neddy called out with a pinch of insanity in his voice.
James was about to say something, then Neddy cut him off. "Aw, I didn't kill that bear," he said, chuckling, "I wouldn't nobody or nothin'." He turned and left the room, leaving James alone.
He stared at the defeated stuffed animal for a few moments before following after Neddy. "Psychopath…" he muttered under his breath.
Looking about, Neddy was nowhere, and James seemed to be in some sort of prison. In fact, a tablet on the wall confirmed his suspicions. It read: 'Tuluki Prison'.
Great, a prison; James could hardly wait.
James spent the majority of the time aimlessly wandering about the prison, taking down random strippers and listening to ghosts in the long forgotten jail cells muttering completely random things. Basically, it was uneventful. During his adventures, he managed to find a wax doll, a horseshoe, and a shiny brass Zippo lighter. The reason why he picked up those random items was revealed when he entered the next room.
A white escape hatch was on the floor, with its handle broken off. James took out the three aforementioned random objects and laid them out before him, like a child in kindergarten attempting to solve a puzzle. After much thought, James discovered how to make a handle. First, he melted the wax doll into the empty handle slot, and then inserted the horseshoe into the wax. He stared at the hardening wax, extremely proud of his success. As soon as the wax seemed sturdy, he grasped the horseshoe and pried open the escape hatch.
Oh wonderful day! Another hole! Practically bursting with excitement, James leaped into the seemingly endless hole.
James stood up from the floor and glanced about. Now, he appeared to be in the basement of the prison. Since he only had one option, he pried open the ancient double doors and walked into a foul room.
The stench almost knocked him off of his feet. His vision blurred slightly as he held his jacket sleeve to his nose in an attempt to drown out the smell. Unfortunately, his jacket wasn't anymore pleasant to smell after being exposed to Quiet Hill for quite a while.
Gagging, James glanced about the room. In the middle of the room was stretcher with a dead, decaying body sprawled out on it and covered with a stained white sheet. The walls of the room consisted of large grouped holes with random body parts hanging out them. James took a gander into one of the holes and was so repulsed by what he saw that he dared not speak of it.
In a hurry to leave the room, James plowed his way through another set of rusted double doors. And in this room, was another hole that James had not yet jumped through!
"Oh, bliss!" James said aloud in pure ecstasy as bounded into the hole.
He landed rather gracelessly on his backside in a dark room. He stood up and recovered from the hole-induced thrill before he ventured through the door behind him.
In the center of the room was a deep, dark hole.
Hardly able to contain himself, James plunged into the hole. He hit the bottom hardly feeling the pain.
"All of these holes… it's nearly orgasmic!" He exclaimed as he picked himself off of the filthy ground. To his dismay, he did not find another hole in this new location. Instead, he found an elevator. As he neared the elevator, the doors opened automatically, calling him inside. So of course, James obeyed, having nothing better to do.
Inside the large elevator, James realized that it had no buttons. The door closed suddenly, trapping him inside. He was alarmed by this, but not enough to cause him to breakdown. He had been in many situations in Quiet Hill far more disturbing than this. The elevator ride was ridiculously long, so he took the time to wonder about how far under the earth he was now. First, he traveled down an ungodly long descending passageway, then jumped down a total of five holes, and now he rode an elevator that seemed to descend for ten minutes at fast pace. It seemed to James as if he were on a trip to Hell.
Finally, the elevator doors opened. James left the elevator, grateful to be someplace new. He examined an out-of-place, red post-it before continuing through a light brown door.
James examined his surroundings. He seemed to be in a labyrinth. The passage before him was blocked off by wires, so James did the obvious thing and assumed that he needed to go through there. His attempts to rip the wire with his bare hands failed, so he instead decided to explore the rest of the labyrinth.
Wandering aimlessly through stripper infested passageways, a song popped into James's mind, most likely induced by the labyrinth.
"In all your fantasies, you always knew," James sang rather poorly, "that man and mystery, were both in you. And in this labyrinth! Where night is blind! THE PHAAAAAAANTOM of the opera is there, inside your…" He suddenly droned off in mid song as he discovered a ladder to go down. He smiled that the prospect of going even deeper into the earth. He gasped the metal of the ladder and climbed down quickly.
He found himself in a hallway, and heard a strange shuffling noise that was unlike the shuffle of the strippers, nurses, or mannequins. Curious, he advanced into the hall and rounded a corner only to meet up with old reliable Traffic Cone Head again. T-Head had ditched the unreasonably large butter knife in favor a light spear, the very one he used to impale that whore Maria.
James squealed in horror at the sight of his monster stalker, and ran the opposite direction. He threw open a door and secured himself safely inside a room.
T-Head watched James do this, and was amused by the terrified reaction. He did not follow James, however. He was preoccupied with finding his twin, Stewart. He thought that maybe Stewart was in the base of operations, but he was nowhere to be found in there. In fact, that base was the very room that James ran into. T-Head suddenly remembered that he stored his knife in there.
"He better not touch my knife." T-Head grumbled aloud before continuing his search.
James leaned against the door and panted, expecting T-Head to attack the door in an angry rage. When this did not happen, James was relieved yet at the same time, worried. The room was rather empty, with only a bloody table and some red fluorescent lighting. The words 'Secret Base' were scribbled on the far wall. James stared at this for a moment, contemplating all of the possible meanings when he saw the big ass butter knife of doom setting on the bloodied table, causing him to completely forget about the message.
James stepped foreword and gasped the knife, yanking it off of the table with all of his might. Oh, how heavy it was. Too heavy to carry like a sword, he instead dragged it about the room, pretending for a moment that he was the creepy monster.
His child-like urge satisfied, he came to the conclusion that such a weapon would be impractical to carry around. He still wanted to keep it, so he defied all logic by simply stuffing it into his bottomless pocket. It didn't even weigh him down or cause one unsightly bulge in his jacket. James thought about stuffing a person in his pocket someday just to see what would happen.
Having nowhere else to go in this secret base, James went back out the door he came from. T-Head was nowhere to be seen, so he quickly scuttled back up the ladder before something else could attack him.
Back to where he came from, James located a different ladder. He went down this one and was confronted by two stripper demons. He made short work of them with his shotgun, and left their broken, bleeding corpses behind as he traveled up yet another ladder.
He found himself in a room with a weird box of stone faces. James discovered that he could rotate the box around into different positions. He entertained himself with the box for a while before becoming bored with it and wandering into the adjacent room. By chance, James solved the box of faces puzzle without even trying. He jogged down the staircase and appeared in front of a jail cell.
And who was sin the jail cell but Maria in all of her slutty glory.
James stared in confusion, hadn't Maria died in the hospital? What was she doing here?
"Maria?" he asked cautiously.
"Right-o James," she said as she wandered over to the vertical bars that separated them, "It's me, in the flesh."
"But you died! Back in the hospital, I saw you die in the corridor!"
"James," she said dreamily, "do you remember that one time in the hotel? We had a beautiful view of Tuluki Lake. You made that video there, I wonder if it's still there…"
James appeared shocked. "Mary?"
Maria simply smiled.
"How do you know that? Aren't you Maria?" James said, confused beyond all belief.
"I am… if you want me to be." She whispered suggestively. "What matters is, I'm here for you James." She reached out and touched his face. "See? I'm real."
James quickly slapped her offensive hand away. "What the hell are you talking about! You're just a random slut that started to follow me; you don't mean anything to me at all! I was happy when you died, now you have to come back to life and ruin my fun!"
Maria seemed not to hear a word that James said as she sat down suggestively in a chair.
"Don't you want to come and save me James? We can't do much through these bars…"
"Ugh!" James shrieked in disgust, her attempts to seduce him having failed, "Your promises of sex do not tempt me! You disgusting burden of a useless whore!"
Maria just stared, brainlessly smiling.
"Well, now what do I do?" James asked nothing/nobody in particular.
"You have to come and rescue me." Maria said, her voice slightly sing-song.
James sighed in annoyance. "Do I have a choice?"
"Nope."
"Fine, but you're not following me when I let you out!" He turned and stormed from the room and back up the staircase. In the room with the box puzzle, James saw a wire cutter lodged into an open breaker box beside the ladder.
"How convenient." He mused, remembering the wire blocking his path. He pulled the wire cutter from the box and headed back up the ladder. He managed to navigate back to the blocked path without any trouble.
Straining to use the wire cutter, an alien tool to James, he eventually managed to cut away all of the wire in his path. In the room he found another ladder (Joy!). He climbed down said ladder and into the second part of the labyrinth.
A/N: Happy Halloween to all.