The Coon, deleted ending: watch?v=Lr2eyK-jZ2Q

Little cyclones of leaves settled onto the ground. The water in Stark's Pond lay flat. Birds broke from branches and spilled into the sky.

Kyle touched Stan's face. His cheeks were sunken, body shrunken, with a frame so tiny and scarily breakable. Running a finger over his lips was like caressing a marble statue, chipped away and dirtied by the hands of careless tourists.

"I'm gross, I know," said Stan.

"You're not gross. I just can't believe you're real."

"I could say the same about you," he buried his face in Kyle's chest, smelling sweat and evergreen. "I had so many dreams where you would come down and find me. But every time I woke up, you weren't there."

Kyle pulled him tighter, wincing at his own throbbing stomach, glad it was dark so Stan couldn't see that he was in pain.

"I want to see your face," Stan said, coughing, his voice lacerated from dehydration. "I have one candle left. I was saving it for an emergency but I have to know… It could be one of the voices or I'm hallucinating again."

"Voices?"

Stan pulled away. Kyle held his breath. He should have figured this would happen. Stan had gone stir-crazy or had cabin fever, whatever it was called. A temporary touch of insanity. He chose his next words carefully:

"Stan, has someone else been talking to you down here?"

A fraught pause. "I have conversations."

"With who?"

No answer. Instead, he came face-to-face with a freshly lit candle and Stan's large, navy eyes staring at him. He looked ill, hair hanging in stringy clumps around his face and crooked mouth, which rested slightly agape. But he was still Stan. Complete and real, in the flesh. Not wax.

"Kyle," he reached for his scalp, "You cut off all your hair. And you pierced your nose?"

"I went a little crazy after you-" he stopped himself. He almost said died. There was no way he could fit in that tale just yet. It was too soon. "-after you went missing. I thought you were never coming back."

"It looks good on you."

Kyle smiled a small half-smile - happy to see Stan, terrified of what may come next.

He pried again: "Stan, were there people talking to you down here?"

"Not anymore." Stan's eyes went from joyous to instant solemn reflection. He looked behind, and beyond Kyle. "I have to show you something."

…

He showed him the shrine, leveling the candle to different parts like a seek-and-find game. Skulls were turned over and the broken glass littered over the purple tablecloth. Kyle stood, trying not to make it obvious that he was holding his side, but the pain was growing. He gagged. A familiar sweet, hot scent was wavering.

In the center, he revealed the decaying photo of a skinny man with insulting eyes and the beard of a goat (which made Kyle jump back). In front of Goat Man was the husk of a rabbit, positioned in a leap as if it might still sprint away.

"I talk to Ori sometimes," Stan said.

"Who?" Kyle drew his elbow over his nose, "The guy in the picture?"

"No." He pointed to Ori's exposed ribs.

"Stan, that rabbit is dead. Very, very dead."

"Doesn't mean I can't talk to them."

Thinking back to the times he sat in front of Stan's grave marker, heels digging into the mud, Kyle nodded slightly. Now me might start talking to his mother. He closed his eyes tight

(dont think about it dont think dont think about it)

"So what happened?" Kyle asked. The image of the blood-soaked hallway of his house flashed in and out of his mind.

"I don't know. They just stopped breathing one day."

"Oh."

"But that's not what I really wanted to show you. Here."

He handed Kyle one of the leather-bound journals, then spoke while Kyle thumbed through the pages.

"I think this was written either by the dude in the picture or by someone who loved him. Most of it looks like it's in Latin, but there are weird sketches. I mean, I've seen pentagrams before but it all looks ritualistic. And then the other ones… I'll never get those out of my head."

Kyle flipped to a drawing of two people hanging by ropes off a tree branch. "Oh."

"Read the last page."

On the last, crumpled paper, reading April 2009 on the top, Kyle read aloud: "Behold. The mighty voices of my vengeance smash the stillness of the air and stand as monoliths of wrath upon a plain of writhing serpents. I am become as a monstrous machine of annihilation to the festering fragments of the body of he who would detain me…"

Kyle read the rest silently. Doom, agony, brain-pulp, and impaled were words that stuck out to him.

"Kyle, there are bones all over this fucking place. I think there was some sort of group or cult that died down here."

"It wouldn't be the first time we've had something like that happen here."

"Do you think they sacrificed themselves? Like a suicide pact or something?"

"It wouldn't surprise me," Kyle tilted the book up for a moment, squinting. He tried to sound calm, logical, but his heart was racing. The air around them was shifting as if reacting to their conversation, turning sour. "This town is so fucked up. I'm 1000% sure that it's cursed."

"What is this?" Stan asked, reaching for Kyle's hand.

"What?"

"Is this my ring?" The engagement band glowed in the candlelight.

Kyle lowered the book, staring back into Stan's eyes. "I kept it after the night you proposed. I haven't taken it off since."

Stan stayed still, listening to Kyle's soft breathing. "I was scared that you'd forgotten about me."

"Stan, there wasn't a single second that went by where I didn't think about you."

A quiet minute passed between them.

"I missed you," Stan said, wrapping his arm around Kyle's torso. Kyle flinched, unable to stop a seething pain blowing in hot puffs of air between his teeth. "What, what's wrong?"

"Nothing. I'm fine."

"No, you're not."

"There's just so much that happened, and I don't know how to tell you everything."

"Spit it out, Broflovski."

Kyle doubled over, giggling. He couldn't tell whether he was about to vomit or cry or both.

"It's Marsh now."

"What are you talking about?"

Kyle sunk to his knees. Stan went with him, gripping his shoulder. "What happened to you?"

"You want the whole, actual truth?"

"I do. And nothing less."

"Fine." Kyle untied Kenny's jacket, then put it back on normally. He did this as slow as he could, afraid that the sudden movements would make him pass out. He lifted his shirt. Dried blood was stuck to it. He wiped flakes of it away.

Stan held the candle to it, looking over the red gashes. He sucked in his breath.

"Who the hell did this to you?"

"Cartman."

"Cartman! How?"

"He got out. I don't know how, but he fucking got out and he was probably terrorizing the town before he got to me and he killed my parents-"

"-whoa, whoa, wait-"

"-and now he's knocked out on my living room floor with Kenny."

"Hold on, your parents are dead?"

"Maybe," his breath was turning shallow and forced. "No. Yes. Yes, they're gone."

"Kyle…"

"We need to get out of here, Stan. I don't know how long Kenny can hold him off."

"Hold on a sec, Ky," his hand hovered over the wounds. "This looks awful."

"It fucking hurts." Kyle lied down, staring up into darkness. Stan set the candle onto the table and shuffled up next to him.

"Do you think it could get infected?"

"It probably already is."

Stan reached into his pocket. Most of the whiskey he had found was gone from nights (or days, there was no way for him to know) where he couldn't get to sleep. But there was a sliver, just enough to clean the cuts until they could get proper help.

"Stay still for a sec, Kyle," Stan said, giving the bottle a tiny shake.

"What the fuck is that?"

"Alcohol."

"I don't think it's a good idea to get crunk right now, dude," Kyle said, then rolled over, coughing violently. He tasted blood.

"Holy shit, you okay?"

"Yeah," Kyle lied.

"I know you're trying to joke, but we have to do this before it gets worse."

"Fuck." Kyle rolled back.

Stan peeled back Kyle's shirt, fingers grazing over the soft skin of his stomach. "Do you remember the morning of your Bar Mitzvah?"

"The day you reeled me in? Hell yeah."

"Stop, I still feel bad about that. I mean afterward. Do you remember what you said to my uncle?"

"Vaguely. That whiskey went right through me."

"You told my uncle Jimbo that you love me. You said you hated being at home, hated the way your dad was, but it was okay because I make things better and you love me. You said I'm your best friend and you'd die for me."

Kyle listened, continuing to stare upward, the small flame flickering and the smell of decay and wetness ebbing. "It's still true."

"You also told Ned that my nose is cute."

Kyle reached out and pinched Stan's nose. "Still also true."

Crystalized silence formed between them. Then Stan spoke again: "I don't want you to die for me, Kyle. Not now. Not ever. And I don't want to hurt you, but-"

"-fuckin' do it."

So many school nights were spent sitting in Kyle's room, doing nothing, and Stan tried to imagine they were there now. Stan would climb through the window, sink into the bed and wrap his legs in blankets. Kyle would throw himself across his lap. Music played on their laptop while he walked his fingers up Kyle's spine and count the bumps of his spine, making up different numbers each time.

"Okay," he uncorked the bottle, "On the count of three."

"One."

"Two."

"Three."

…

June 16, 2007

He watched his own feet dangling from the bed as the officer closed the gate shut.

"That's it, lights out. Good night, Mysterion."

Kyle Broflovski, just recently 10 years old, had briefly taken the alternate identity for someone he thought he didn't know, sighed. "Goodnight."

Suddenly, the hooded boy who everyone was talking about appeared, kneeling in front of the cell, jolting Kyle out of his trance.

"Why did you do that, Kyle?"

Kyle stared at the side of the boy's face for a moment before speaking. He swore he recognized the profile, but…

"Well, you had asked for help."

"I didn't mean you should dress up and pretend to be me to take the fall."

Kyle slipped off the tiny bed and approached the bars to get a closer look at him. "Ah, it's alright. I'll be out of here in a few days."

Mysterion finally turned to look at Kyle, frowning. "Goodbye, then." He turned to leave.

"Wait, wait…"

He stopped.

Kyle gripped the cold bars. "I'm sorry, but I can't take it anymore. I really want to know who you are."

"... I guess I owe you that much."

The boy pulled up his mask.

Kyle stared. "I don't believe it."

…

(i dont believe it)

Kenny had Cartman pinned down to the carpet, sitting on his back, arms clamped into a bow and his a Chef's knife fixed over Cartman's face.

He awoke, groaning, chin on the carpet. Kenny held him down.

"Don't move or I'll cut out a chunk of your fivehead," Kenny warned.

"Fuck you, Kenny."

"You can say your fantasies all you want. I'm not letting go."

Cartman wriggled weakly. It was like they were kids again, roughhousing in the backyard, forcing each other's faces into mud and snow, their palms colored orange from the rust on swing set chains.

The open front door was only a few feet away.

"Are you going to kill me, Kenny?"

"Thinking about it."

"Waste of your time. I never think about it. When I killed Craig, I-"

Kenny tipped the sharp point into his cheek, ripping and bringing blood down his face.

"Fuuuck," Cartman grunted, then "I forgot Craig was your friend."

"All of them were my friends. You're a fucking monster."

"I'm human. With extra benefits."

Kenny shook his head. "You could've gotten better. You just couldn't let anyone help you. And now you've gone too far. You think you control these powers, but you don't. They control you."

"Oh, fuck you. all of you abandoned me! You were my friends for years and then you just stopped talking to me like I had the plague or some shit."

"I get it."

"No, you don't."

"I do." Kenny could feel Cartman become tense underneath him. "I know how it feels to be an outsider. Fuck, you were a part of that yourself. You always tried to ostracize me."

"It's different. You still had people. You have a sister."

"You had your mom."

"My mother hates me."

Kenny stared into the back of Cartman's head, then looked over at Gerald's corpse. He thought back to the night where he had threatened to kill Gerald himself. But Sheila…

He thought of his sister - sick, growing weaker every second. Sympathy for the Devil was a fundamental trait for Kenny, Cartman had been right about that, but not this kind of devil.

"Well, I'm sure you'll make friends in Hell," Kenny pressed the knife to Cartman's throat.

"Kenny?"

Karen and Ike appeared in the doorway, watching.

Cartman twisted over. Every house light, streetlight, television, appliance, and computer switched off, leaving South Park in complete blackness. Kenny felt himself being thrown off the bull and onto the floor. He frantically searched for the knife, digging his hands into the carpet.

The porch light flickered on and Cartman stood, arm across Karen's chest, the knife to her throat. All he could see of Ike was his feet on the front lawn.

"Tell me where Kyle went or this little bitch dies."

Kenny's veins became strings, pulling his organs south. "Let her go. Now."

"Tell me where Kyle went," he repeated slowly, "And I will."

"No! Don't tell him!" Karen whimpered.

Cartman jerked her back. "Shut up."

"Kyle wasn't supposed to leave. I don't know where he is!"

"You're lying!"

A crack of power whipped through the Broflovski house, flashing every light until the bulbs burst and sparks emanated from the T.V.

(fuck hes getting worse)

"Cartman, if you don't control yourself, you're going to give yourself a brain hemorrhage," he took a step toward them, extending a hand, "Come on, she's never done anything to you. Give her to me."

"Why should I?" he pressed the backside of the blade under her jaw. "Why should I give her back when I could just kill her right in front of you?"

"Kenny!" Karen cried.

Kenny shuddered.

(forgive me)

"Don't waste your energy on her."

Karen's eyes went wide. "What are you doing?" she mouthed.

"What do you mean?"

"You were just telling me how you don't waste time. And look at you now, Cartman. You're wasting time. There's a mortally wounded Kyle limping around out there, and you're here holding Karen hostage. Not worth it."

Cartman loosened his grip. He laughed. "I can't believe you're shelling out your boyfriend."

"And I can't believe you're still fucking standing here. He's probably somewhere around Stark's Pond. That's where he always goes."

Suddenly, Karen was thrust into his arms. Cartman backed away, pointing to them with the knife.

"Don't come after me," he said, then disappeared.

Karen quivered, wiping blood from her nose with a drooping sleeve. "I'm sorry, Kenny. We just wanted to make sure you guys were okay. We got really fucking scared."

Kenny sighed. A few neighbors stood in their doorways, their silhouettes watching with crossed arms, whispering to one another.

"Hey, hey, buddy," Randy Marsh was crooning over Ike, lightly tapping his cheeks until he stirred.

Ike's first words: "What the fuck?"

They dashed out to the front yard as Ike was getting up.

"Hey, did you see what the hell happened?" Randy asked them. Sparky was outside too, growling and snarling into the air, focused on the direction Cartman left in.

"He killed them," Ike snapped. "He fucking killed them."

Ike wavered, then fell into Randy.

"What is he talking about?" Randy held Ike up with one arm.

Sirens wailed down the street, and lights flashed over the people walking aimlessly in their yards. Kenny looked over his shoulder at the house, to Kyle's bedroom window.

"Gerald and Sheila are dead. And Kyle is going to be too if I don't go now."

"You're the one who fucking told him where he is!" Karen shoved her brother, "How could you?"

Kenny grabbed her arms. "I had to. He was going to kill you." In the whites of her eyes, he saw the red and blue flashing lights. "Fuck, I can't stay here. I've got DNA all over me."

He turned to Randy. "When the police talk to you, you tell them it was Eric Cartman. You tell them it was that fucking asshole Eric Cartman is why they're dead."

"I don't…" Randy trailed off, enveloped in confusion about the barking dog, the teenager he held, who was mumbling curses under his breath like a deranged lunatic.

"Listen," Kenny looked back to Karen. "If anything happens to me-"

"-nothing is going to happen to you!"

"Please, just listen. If something happens to me, I need you to know that I love you so, so much. You're going to do amazing things. Everything you will ever need," he laid a hand over his own heart, "is right here. Always take care of it first."

Karen pulled him into a hug. "I love you too."

Police car doors slammed shut behind them.

They parted. Kenny slowly began walking backward.

"It's going to be alright. I promise," he said to all of them.

"Sir!" one of the officers shouted to Kenny. "Sir, we need you to stay where you are!"

Kenny broke into a sprint. A few officers ran after him, but Kenny was faster. He dodged their bullets as he ran into open darkness and into the whispering woods.

15