Sixth Grade Beginnings

by SakiKitty

The transition of a preteen can be a difficult one. Things you once liked, now bore you. People you once hated, suddenly interest you. The body you were once comfortable with, now causes you to struggle with feelings you never knew existed. After their grueling adventure in the jungles of San Lorenzo, the students of P.S118 thought their biggest battle was now over... but was it?

44. Chapter 44

(A/N: Just gonna throw in a possible trigger warning, if you're not into morbid humor. Glad I finally was able to finish this chapter, though! It was really fun to write, but due to my usual circumstances, took longer than I thought it would. This concludes our Urban Tale episode, feel free to let me know your theories once you've done reading it! I left something a little... open ended. There's some educational bits sprinkled in as well, Enjoy!)

The moment the door closed behind them, the voices of their friends began to drown out in the distance, as they were gradually getting further and further away. Stinky shined his flashlight far out in the distance, illuminating a large steel stairwell that went further and further down. With a gulp, he grasped the railing next to him and began to descend slowly, and carefully. Their steps echoed loudly all around them, in almost a deafening way, making the eerie feeling of their unknown destination even stronger.

"What are you, scared?" Curly asked with a condescending sneer, as he pushed Stinky out of his way and led the charge down the stairs. "Come on, faster, faster!" He demanded, "Before everyone else gets to the goods before us!"

The implication caused Stinky to scratch his head. "But Curly, if someone else finds it before us, it'll just mean that it's not down here…"

"Yeah? So?" Curly stopped and sharply turned his head around, surprising his companion and causing him to halt. "It's not every day that we get to explore a gem like this, and if we take slow, baby steps down these stairs then that only increases the probability of them finding it and ending this adventure! I will not have it!" A howl of laughter erupted from the boy as he turned back around and galloped down the stairs. "Now mush, mush you dead legged mule! There's so little time, and so much to see!"

"Geez…" Stinky sighed, rolling his eyes but continued on steadily, shaking his head in vexation. He could understand the kid being excited, in his own way, but knew rushing head first into the basement of a decrepit building certainly wasn't smart.

A few sets of stairs later, Curly's energized gallop started to slow down, eventually to a casual walk due to a slight setback of exhaustion, and soon they were both walking at the same pace once again.

"Just how much further do you think it is till we get to the bottom? I reckon we're half way to China by now." Stinky frowned, shining his flashlight all around them and knocking a few cobwebs from out of his way.

"Don't be ridiculous, we'd reach the pits of Hell before we got there!" Curly replied coarsely, before pointing his light down to their destination. "Can't be too much further… I can at least see the floor, now."

The temperature around them seemed to change to something much colder, as their shoes finally touched the cement floor. They both shined their flashlights around them, revealing a very large room with a few cylindrical structural pillars holding up the ceiling.

"Wilikers…" Stinky gasped, feeling compelled to walk further into the room. He then remembered the walkie-talkie in his back pocket, and pulled it out. The red light on the device was solid, indicating that it was still on and working. He pressed the small button on the side of it, and brought it to his face. "Testing, testing…" He spoke into it. "We've reached the bottom. Can anyone hear me? Over."

A few seconds of silence, and eventually some crackling came from the speaker.

"Hearing you loud and clear!" Gerald's voice replied back. "You guys okay? What do you see? Over."

"Not a whole lot yet…" Stinky frowned, shining the light behind the stairwell, seeing nothing, then pointing it back in front of them into the large and empty room, revealing some piles of old and broken wood planks. "This place is a lot bigger than I expected, though. I'll let cha' know if we find anything worth mentioning. Over and out."

Curly, now full of pep once again, walked past his tall, lanky partner and continued onward. He shined his light on the wall to their left, and became intrigued as he noticed a metal door, with an old phone hung on the wall next to it. "Interesting…" He commented as he continued to walk a few more feet forward and revealed 4 more, even larger metal doors, similar to that belonging to a garage, and some sort of metal plate lining the floor just beneath them. "I think we might be in some sort of… receiving bay…" he said, before standing on top of one of the metal floor pieces, and jumped. He could feel some give beneath him, and promptly got off.

"I thought a bay was a broad inlet of the sea where the land curves inward…?" Asked Stinky, confused with the boy's term. "We're nowhere near the water."

"No, you idiot!" Curly cursed. "This is the place where they get their deliveries for supplies! You see this door here?" He knocked his knuckles against the metal garage door in front of him, and heard it sound more hollow than solid, which caused him to smile. "This is where one of those big boy delivery trucks would back their end up here, so workers could open this door and remove whatever they were delivering inside! You know, import and export? This is a factory, after all. Don't you remember anything from when we toured that candy factory in fourth grade?"

"I was expecting the basement to have, you know, old storage and pipes n' what-have-ya…." Stinky replied, now a little more curious as he observed. "But I suppose that makes sense."

"They order the goods, grind 'em up, make the pet food, then ship them out to hungry customers, get it?" Curly reaffirmed, hoping his simple friend might grasp the concept a little better. A thought did ping in his mind, that caused him to momentarily scratch his chin. "I don't know why they call it a bay- per say, but if I had to guess, I think it's because behind this door is nothing but a long drop down, you know like a cliff to the ocean? It's gotta be deep enough so the truck's door can be level with this one, for a smooth unloading process."

"I think I get it." Stinky nodded, before turning away to explore more. He noticed more and more piles of broken planks of wood. "I reckon that's why there's so many broken pieces of wood down here, now that I think of it. Big deliveries would need big pallets to hold 'em up right."

"Precisely!" Curly pointed his finger up in the air with a smirk, acting as if he was a professor teaching a class. "Very good!"

Smiling to himself, Stinky felt proud and humbled as he learned something new, even with this unusual situation laid out in front of him. Even for a creepy old building, with a harsh past, at least things down there in the basement seemed rather usual.

"Now let's keep going." Curly stated firmly as he once again began his steadfast charge into the darkness.

Maybe it was because he wasn't usually affected by horror flicks, or because his own house was rather dark and creaky, but as Stinky followed Curly around, waving his flashlight this way and that, the eeriness of it all seemed to fade away. It almost felt like if he was sent down into his own basement, not that he even had one, to find some lost trinkets for his parents. This sentiment caused the unease in his stomach to lighten up a bit, and Stinky continued to smile. He could understand why Curly found this place so cool, as who knows the last time it had been explored? Even with the place littered with filth, whether it be by the last known factory workers, or some high school teens coming to explore on their own due to the legends that surrounded the place, there could possibly be something cool lying about for them to find.

He watched as Curly eyed a beaten-up poster that still remained secure against one of the walls, grow bored with it, then continue to kick over some old pieces of cardboard that lay damp against a pile of cinderblocks. He wasn't sure how long it would take for this treasure to be found, and with his new lightened feeling, felt it might be best to make some casual banter with his fellow explorer.

"End of the month is pretty close now…" He spoke casually, walking over to another pile of trash and poking it with his foot. "I bet Ms. Rhonda has something mighty exciting planned for her party. You already have a costume picked out?"

A large plank became unwedged and created a loud and echoing ring throughout the basement, as Curly turned around suddenly and pointed his light directly in Stinky's face. "Excited? Of course, I am!" He blurted out, feeling the rush of enthusiasm build within his small frame. "This will be the party of a lifetime! The turn of the century!" Letting a bit of his energy go, Curly twirled around and pranced over gracefully to the next platform lift with ease. "The moment I knew about the party, I went on planning my outfit." A large grin formed on his face, giving Stinky back his feeling of unease as this smile just wasn't your usual, happy go-lucky smile, but something far more twisted. "At first, I had a few outfits in mind but then an idea struck me! A simple, childish costume just wouldn't do, not if I'm going to impress my Rhonda. I want to leave my image burned into her mind, so that way I might never leave it!"

"Curly…" Stinky frowned, feeling pity for his fellow man in love. "You do realize that she's never gonna like-like you back, right?" He continued to watch as Curly danced around, kicking up dust and making it harder for him to follow his silhouette. "Why do you still hold such a flame for a girl who'll never feel the same way about you? Watching you chase after her like an abandoned dog is a pretty sad sight."

The harsh comment caused Curly to halt, letting Stinky catch up to him once more.

"I ain't trying to damper on your plans, or anything but maybe it's about time you lower your standards a bit." Stinky continued, "Find a nice, quiet girl who isn't repulsed by your very existence?"

Unbeknownst to Stinky, Curly's heart began to pound vigorously, sending his blood rushing to his ears and almost deafening him, as ripples of emotions cascaded throughout his body. He took in a deep and steady breath, giving the silence between the two a few more minutes to quiet his inner feelings. "Just how exactly did you think man reached the moon?" He asked calmly, not facing his friend until he knew all was sound once more. "Do you ever think that cave men looked up at the sky, wondered what that white orb was?"

"I guess so?" Stinky shrugged, not sure of how the subject changed into something like this.

"Even with something millions and billions of miles away, man did not stop their pursuit of space travel, so why should I?" Curly finally turned around, his face blank and emotionless, as he had finally succeeded in pushing everything as far down as possible. "Sure, Rhonda is lightyears away from me. Sure, she currently sees me as just a tiny ant crawling across the sidewalk that she could easily step on and be rid of…" Slowly, his lips began to curl into an odd smile, sending shivers up his companions' sides. "Sure, it might be impossible for her to love me now but what about next year? Or the year after? Or maybe even 20 years later?!" His heated voice bounced off the cement walls, causing Stinky to shutter and take a step back. "Call me a mad man, tell me I'm wasting my time but how many scientists were told that when they theorized and formulated equations that would later be used in today's every day gadgets such as cell phones or laptops?!" Curly thrusted his finger into Stinky's face and glared at him for a moment, waiting patiently to see if he had anymore comments, before taking another deep breath and stepping back. "Nothing and no one will stand in the way of love!"

Sticking his pinky finger in one of his ears, Stinky wiggled it around to hopefully get the sound right in his head once more. "If you say so, Curly." He replied, before doing the same in the other ear. He could see that the boy in front of him was serious, and no words of truth could sway him. He understood having passion for something, but also understood that when it came to matters of the heart, even when you try your hardest, you can't always change how another person is going to feel. "You live a pretty charmed life."

Curly let out a soft giggle, before crossing his arms and shaking his head dismissively. "Dream big, and sky's the limit, they always say. Rhonda is the only star in my sky, and I'll do everything in my power to reach her, and no naysayers will stop me!"

Tension faded away between the two, as they let the topic go and continued to walk on.

"Now ya just got me wondering what sorta costume you've got cooked up." Stinky smiled, feeling he could support him this much. "It's gotta be something flashy if you're hoping to catch her eyes."

"Oh, wouldn't you like to know?" Curly let out a few more chuckles. "But I wouldn't dare entertain the thought of spilling my secret out, now. Too much work has gone into it, and the shock factor must not be reduced, even a little, or this will all be for naught."

After reaching what seemed to be the end of this room, and investigating everything that caught their attention, the two turned left and flashed their lights down to see as far as possible. Rows and rows of large steel pillars was about all they could make out, and they continued forward. The closer they got, the steel pillars turned into some sort of industrial sized shelves, that duplicated every few feet.

"This must've been the storage room…" Stinky mused to himself, as he walked over to take a better look. The metal was worn and rusted, no doubt from unchecked humidity, but still looked like it could hold plenty of weight if needed. He pointed his flashlight towards the ceiling, and could see that the shelves went all the way up until about 6 feet or so. "Wilikers…"

"One room to store goods, another room to ship it out. Makes sense." Curly nodded, wandering away from the steel shelves and to something that looked a lot more interesting. Pointing his flashlight at the floor, he could see divots from the heavy machinery that used to be there, along with sort of a track system. "The conveyer belt was probably here…" He said as he followed the track lines, until reaching a wall. Looking up, he could see more notches on the wall and then another steel door way up high. "I see…"

"Whatcha' gandering at over there?" Stinky asked from across the room, still somewhat interested in all the shelving units.

"Product comes in, gets sent upstairs to be ground and cooked, then gets sent back downstairs through this to be…" But before Curly finished his sentence, he dashed away.

"Hey!" Stinky shouted to him, before picking up his own pace and following. "What is it?"

Suddenly, Curly's sprint came to a grinding halt. He stood motionless, only pointing his flashlight in the distance until his friend could catch up. Stinky looked over at the boy with confusion, trying to catch his breath, before looking straight ahead and pointing his flashlight in the same direction to see what he was looking at. He, too, stood and remained motionless for a moment.

"Where is the best place to hide a needle?" Curly casually posed to his tall friend.

Stinky's face drooped. "You don't think…"

"A haystack." Finished the boy with the thick framed glasses.

In front of the boys, piled high to the ceiling was boxes: rows and rows of cardboard boxes.

With a sigh, Stinky reached for the walkie-talkie in his back pocket to inform everyone else of the arduous job ahead, but was stopped abruptly by Curly's hand on his arm.

"No, don't." He demanded bluntly.

"Why the heck not?" Stinky looked at his partner, baffled. "You really think we should be digging through all these boxes until the sun comes up by ourselves?!" Snatching his arm away, Stinky proceeded to bring the gadget up to his lips but was only stopped once more, by Curly grabbing his arm. "Cut it out, Curly!"

"Listen to me, you milk-faced simpleton!" He hissed angrily. "Although it's very likely that the stash is hidden somewhere within this wall of boxes, it's also possible that it isn't." He explained, locking eyes with the tall boy, and hoping he would be more reasonable. "If we let everyone else know about this, and they rush down here to help, and it's not here, that means it's going to take us even longer to find the stash and leave this place! Does that make any sense to you?!"

"But if we tell them, and it is in here, that means we get to leave even sooner!" Jerking his arm away again, Stinky scowled back. "And even if it's not, that means we can just join their groups and help them search!"

"Ugh! You're so stupid!" Curly yelled out in frustration. He began jumping up and down, trying to snatch the communication device out of Stinky's hands, but after realizing that it was too far out of reach, stopped and yelled once more. "This is OUR job! This is OUR floor! Have you no sense of responsibility?!"

"I have plenty of sense of wanting to get outta this critter infested dungeon as soon as possible, and plenty more hands will get there faster!" Stinky yelled back, now feeling twice as insulted.

"What if someone is about to find it any second now and we interrupt them in doing so!" retorted Curly earnestly, locking eyes with Stinky with a pleading expression. "Your laziness would only be impeding this investigation!"

"I ain't lazy!" Stinky flustered, "I bet the only reason you're so flipping gung-ho about this is on accounta you wanting to partake in your own private peep show!" Despite his words, he began lowering the receiver anyway. "But I guess I do see your point…"

"Finally!" Curly cried out in exhaustion, holding his hand out for the device. "After we're done opening up every one of these boxes, we'll radio the rest of them. Got it?"

Reluctantly, Stinky handed the walkie-talkie over to Curly's expectant hands. "Whatever… fighting is only gonna make this take longer anyway…"

And with that, the two began opening up the boxes one by one…

---

Harold crossed his arms and held them close to his body, doing his best to contain the involuntary tremors of fear that his body was forcing upon him. He pointed his flashlight left and right, always on guard for the possibility of something jumping out of the shadows.

"I can hear your teeth clattering from here…" Gerald sighed, pausing in his search, and waiting for his large friend to catch up. He could see how terrified Harold was, and understood completely why he would be, but couldn't help but feel annoyed about it all. "Come on, man. The slower you go, the longer this will take, you do realize this, right?"

"I'm just trying to be careful!" Harold insisted, pointing his flashlight towards the ground. "This place is super old and broken! We could… we could fall into the floor or something, and break our legs!"

Raising his eyebrows, Gerald looked down at the floor himself. "Harold, this is all concrete. That's not very likely…"

"Yeah, well, falling into a meat grinder isn't very likely either and it happened to that one guy!" The boy bellowed back, his eyes shut and lip quivering.

"Oh boy…" Gerald shook his head sympathetically, then turned back to the task. "Look, if it's easier for you, then just wait here and I'll look around by myself. This way, we can get this over with faster. Deal?"

Harold's eyes went big, and suddenly he found himself jogging up to meet Gerald. "No! You can't leave me by myself!" He replied in a panic, looking around and trying to think of a good reason not to be left alone. "What if… What if something happens to you?! Then it'll be all my fault for not protecting you!"

"I'm the one with the walkie-talkie…" Gerald reminded the boy, waving it in his face. "If something happens, all I'd need to do is push this button, and the others will come help."

"No!" Harold suddenly grabbed the handheld device out of his hand, and snuck it behind his back. "I'm the one that supposed to find the stuff! It's my job! I can't just sit and wait for you! What if you never find it, and no one does?! My mom's gonna kill me!"

Holding his hand out in front of them, towards the darkness, Gerald smirked. "Alright then, you lead the way and I'll follow you."

I gotta be brave, I gotta be brave…. Harold cried out in his mind, taking the lead, and letting Gerald follow behind. He clenched his jaw to keep his teeth quiet, and stomped on to keep his legs from feeling weak.

Meanwhile, Gerald continued to smirk as he watched this show of bravery, still feeling pity for him. Since it was apparent that Harold was only going to look forward, Gerald found it necessary to look on either of their sides for any clues.

To the left, they passed a few doors that had clear labels of it being the men's and women's bathroom. "Hold on just a sec…" Gerald announced, quickly walking over to the doors, and giving them a small push. "Locked."

"You don't think Ludwig would hide it inside a locked room, right?" Asked Harold, swallowing some of his fear.

"If he was gonna do something like that, why bother coming here and hiding the magazines at all?" Gerald let out a small laugh. "It would be less work to just say he hid them, and didn't"

"That's true…" Harold sighed, walking forward, and pointing his flashlight over to the right. "Wait, I think I see another door!"

Gerald jogged over to the next door. Next to it, four screws remained with a few bits of plastic sticking out of each one. It was clear that the sign that was originally fastened here, seemed to have fallen off with time and disappeared, so they could only really know what was inside if they checked. Giving the door a push, it gave way, causing Gerald to almost stumble in, as he had assumed it would have been locked.

"Are you okay?!" Harold yelled out in concern, but made no movement of muscle to check.

"Yeah, I'm fine." Gerald's voice replied. "Come in here and help me look."

Whimpering, Harold did as he was told, and slowly crept into the room, shining his light all around. Old wooden cabinets hung on the walls; glass shattered beneath them on top of an old counter. A few metal lockers lined the farthest walls, and in between were some old metal desks.

"W-what is this place?" Harold asked meekly, walking up to his partner and almost bumping into him.

"Dunno…" Gerald continued to walk around, looking at each cabinet, being cautious not to step on any glass, but found no clues. Under the counter had its own set of cabinet doors, so Gerald opened those up next but still found nothing. Heading over to the metal lockers, he flashed his light over to the far corner and noticed another door, but ignored it for the time being. "Sorta reminds me of a classroom but without the chairs…" He said, wiggling the handle on the locker, but it wouldn't budge, so he proceeded to the next. This one did open, but inside was only more broken glass. With a frown, Gerald bent down to examine it a little.

"Be careful!" Harold shouted, still remaining in the doors entrance; his knees shaking.

"Yeah, yeah…" Replied Gerald with a frown, now wishing he had ended up with literally anyone else besides this scaredy cat. "You could be looking around too, you know?"

Trying to swallow down the lump in his throat, Harold whined but moved further inside of the room. He pointed his flashlight over to the left, and noticed another counter but with more broken glass. "Why's there so much glass in here?!"

"Well, I think the glass under the cabinets are from the windows they once had…" Gerald explained, pointing the light over to them. "Seems pretty obvious there but…" He then focused on the lockers once more. "Not sure why there would be broken glass in here, though…"

Harold walked over to the next table, and then the last before noticing this one had some drawers attached. Gripping the lip of the top drawer tightly, he wiggled it back and forth until it finally gave way and opened up. Inside, was just an old pencil and some blank pieces of paper. Frowning, he closed it back up then reached down to the next one. He tugged on it a few times, but eventually got it loose enough to look inside. "Oh hey!"

"Did you find something?" Gerald asked with interest, now moving away from the lockers, and approaching Harold.

"Yeah, I found more glass but this time it's not broken." Harold replied, sounding more lighthearted, as exploring seemed to get his mind off of his fears for the moment. "Come look!" He said, holding out a small glass tube. "Looks like one of them tubes for mixing chemicals, like we did in science!"

Gerald examined it a bit, before looking down into the drawer and seeing more, safely secured inside of a wooden holder. "They probably did some sort of quality testing in here…"

"Like experiments?" Harold asked, looking over the tube again before his eyes going wide, and suddenly dropping it, shattering it into pieces just next to Gerald's foot.

"Hey! Watch it!" Gerald yelled, stepping away and checking his shoe. "What's the matter with you?!"

"Do you think…" Harold's voice became quiet, and his body began to shake again. "Do you think this was the room they… they tested the pet food and found… human blood?!"

"What?" Gerald squinted his eyes at the boy, confused and still a little angry at how the tube was mishandled. "No way, man. They would have tested something like that in a specialized laboratory or something. This place was probably just testing the product coming in, to make sure it was safe for animals to eat before they ground it up and made it into pellets, or whatever." He noticed his explanation seemed to soothe his trembling partner, so he did his best to put aside his frustrations, and continue on. "Get a grip, Harold." He said, placing his hand on the boy's shoulder for comfort. "Let's keep searching, okay?"

"Kay…" Harold forced out with a squeaky tone, watching as Gerald finished his investigation of the lockers.

Once he felt the room was properly vetted, Gerald headed towards the backdoor. This time, he was more prepared for it to be open, and pushed it confidently. "Come on, Harold." He said, ushering in his large companion.

They shined their flashlights to the left, then the right before realizing they were just back in the original hallway they were once in. A sense of familiar relief washed over Harold, since he at least knew where he was and that they weren't getting lost.

In front of them was a large metal door, with a thick steel handle bar that was attached to some sort of rolling system at the top. Gerald grasped the handle, and jerked it a few times to the left, hoping to dislodge the door but to no avail. "Give me a hand, would ya?" He asked, looking over his shoulder at Harold.

With a nod, Harold grasped the door handle and on the count of three, managed to thrust it backwards, nearly pulling themselves along with it, due to the force. Inside the doorway were large, thick plastic drapes swaying back and forth, with new found air and purpose. Moving one aside, Gerald flashed his light into the new room. To the left and right, were large steel shelves that lined the room all the way to the ceiling, but nothing else. He took a step inside, and the air felt oddly damp but the temperature remained the same.

"Oh! I know what this is!" Harold boasted with a smile, walking into the room with his friend. "This reminds me of Mr. Greens deep meat freezer!" He then held on to one of the plastic flaps. "These are to keep the cold air in, when the door is open."

"Huh…" Gerald took a moment to process the information given, but then smiled back, happy to know that Harold was feeling a little better. "Interesting." He looked around at the shelves, and could see tiny caged fans just above them. "They probably stored the meat in here before processing…"

"There's nothing here though, so let's keep looking." Harold announced, turning around, and exiting the old freezer, leaving Gerald a little bewildered.

To the left of the freezer, stood another room that had a very similar door. Harold gripped the handle, and after only two tries managed to open this one as well. He waited for Gerald to catch up, before entering inside. This room looked pretty much the same, except larger and with some old metal rolling trays inside.

Gerald could see a small laminated sign, still taped to the wall, and looked it over. "Keep door closed whenever working inside." He read aloud. "Proper temp must be maintained at all times, and read no more or less than 35-41 degrees, to ensure freshness."

"This must have been the refrigeration unit." Harold informed proudly, "Mr. Green has a sign just like this when you enter the backroom. Looks like things haven't changed over the years, as far as meat freshness goes."

It was truly a baffling sight, to see Harold go from being scared stiff to all of a sudden, teaching about the proper handling of meat products, but Gerald could only feel relieved that he wouldn't have to force Harold every step of the way. "Good to know."

They noticed a few delipidated boxes within the room, but found each empty, so left that room as well. Looking around, they noticed to the far right was the hallway they had come in through, so they could only walk to the left. There, they found a large red door with a sign that read "Exit" next to it.

"This must be the other way to go downstairs." Gerald observed, opening up the door and seeing a bunch of old metal stairs, heading down.

"There's still one thing that's confusing me, though…" Mentioned Harold, turning around, and leaving Gerald at the door. "Just how did they get the meat up all those flights of stairs? There has to be another room we're not seeing…"

"I love your new sense of adventurism, Harold but we've looked pretty much everywhere and found nothing." Gerald shrugged, closing the exit, and leaning up against the wall. "In fact, those are the only boxes we've found so far, so I think it's safe to say that Ludwig and Wolfgang didn't hide the goods on this part of the floor."

Harold hummed to himself, as the gears in his head began to whirl, shining his light over the walls again. "Let's just look this place over one more time." He insisted, walking off toward their entrance.

With a roll of his eyes, Gerald could do not much else but to follow and did just that. He shined his light at the floor, noticing something interesting: There were colored lines painted. Kneeling down, he touched the flaked paint, then walked over to the freezer, then quality room again. There seemed to be a pattern. "Hey Harold, come check this out!"

Wandering over to the kneeling boy, Harold gave him a funny look. "What are you doing down there?"

"Look!" He pointed to the painted line. "This line here is green, but the line over by the refrigerator is yellow, and the freezer is blue."

"Okay… so the workers liked rainbow colors, what's your point?" Asked Harold, still confused.

"My mom works at the supermarket, and once when I was really little, she took me in the back with her so she could get her paycheck and I remember lines on the floor similar to these." Gerald explained, standing back up. "You mentioned how they had to have had the meat get up here somehow, without caring heavy boxes up all those stairs, right? I think these lines are a map of the proper procedure to handling the product before it goes to the grinder." He then walked back over to the quality room, and noticed something he hadn't before: a square sized metal door, about waist high, with a latch and handle. He removed the security latch, then used his upper body strength to pull up on the handle, causing the conveyor door to open and slide through an opening at the top. "See!"

"Oh yeah! Hey!" Harold laughed happily to himself. "They must receive the cases of meat through here, then take them to quality to make sure the product is good, freeze the overstock, and refrigerate what they currently needed!"

"Exactly!" Gerald shined his line inside the newly opened hole in the wall. He could see a track that went pretty deep in, but also something inside. "What's that look like to you?"

Harold squinted his eyes, and moved closer, sticking his head inside the hole. "Oh! I see something! I see a box!"

"You mentioned the possibility of Ludwig hiding the stash behind a locked door, this door was locked…" Gerald smiled, feeling accomplished. Despite their journey together starting out pretty rough, it seemed like their combined efforts and knowledge, seemed to have paid off. "I think it's pretty safe to say that we may have just found the treasure!"

---

The moment Arnold no longer could hear Helga's and Eugene's footsteps up the stairs, he could feel Phoebe lightly tugging at his overshirt. He knew they'd be okay, but even so, just couldn't brush off the feeling that something bad could happen. He'd been in many old buildings before, such as Stoop Kids and Pigeon mans, and usually the higher up you go, the worst conditions you see.

Silently, the two walked down the hallway and into their own section of the building. There was a spacious hallway in front of them, then a shorter hallway to the left and right.

"Should we split up?" Phoebe asked politely, unsure of what to make of her partners silence.

"Huh?" Arnold blinked; his dwelling interrupted. "Yeah, sure." He looked around and pointed to the right, "I'll go this way and then we can meet back in the middle."

Phoebe agreed and headed off in her own direction, leaving the sheepish Arnold to go towards his own section of the room.

Shining his light against the far right of the wall, he noticed a few bare shelves, but nothing of any interest or signs of where the hidden box of magazines might be. Arnold could feel his mind go blank, as he mindlessly wandered forward until inevitably hitting the end of the hallway. To his left, where a few rolling carts stacked on top of each other, rusted together. To his right, he noticed a door with a sign besides it that read "Break Room." Intrigued, he entered inside. There were old signs of life from pieces of posters that once adorned the walls, as well as broken power cords that still hung from some outlets, no doubt were once attached to vending machines that had long since been carried out. He pointed his light at some of the walls, and could see outlines of what used to be some sort of kitchen set, with a faucet still jetting from the wall but nothing else remained of this breakroom's former glory. Feeling as though his time had been wasted, Arnold left the room and was met immediately by Phoebe standing in front of him.

"By your expression, I feel it's right of me to assume you found nothing of interest?" She asked, tilting her head to the side to possibly peer around him.

"Just an old break room." He replied, opening the door wider for her to take a peek herself. "Hardly anything inside, though."

"Nowhere to hide anything, either." Phoebe felt a little disappointed, even if she knew this search wasn't going to be made easy. "I found some locked restrooms at the end of my hallway, and an old desk that looked like it used to hold stationary supplies, but little else." Despite knowing that whatever they were looking for would be hidden in a box, Phoebe figured now would be a good time to make their objective a little clearer, since she was technically an outsider in this investigation. "I'm aware you're not supposed to tell me the specifics of what we're looking for, but would you be able to at least let me know the dimensions? That way, I don't accidentally over look something that might have potential."

Arnold let out a low sigh. "Truthfully, I don't know either. We figure it will be in some sort of a box, but who knows exactly what sort of container its being hidden inside?"

"This makes things a little more complicated…" She stated, looking around them while thinking quietly to herself. "Let us continue on, then. Even if we're not the ones who wind up finding this treasure, someone is bound to." This was probably the only bit of hope she could give, especially not knowing more details.

They both walked a short way, until coming to a set of white plastic double doors, that swung easily with only a little bit of pressure. Upon entering, with two flashlights illuminating the area, their surroundings were pretty clear. The floor was oddly tiled in a checkered pattern, a few rows of slick metal tables, and metal shelves on each side of the room to match. As they entered further, they noticed some discarded rolls of twine, and pet food bags underneath one of the tables, but more curiously, were the row of ovens that stood at the end of the room.

"This was probably the baking room." Phoebe pointed out, bending down to pick up one of the old bags and observing it.

Arnold continued forward until he reached the ovens. Gingerly, he tugged down on the handle and opened up the large cavity. It didn't look anything like the oven at his house, and was almost reminiscent of something he'd see at a pizza shop. "I knew dry pet food was made somehow, but baking it in ovens just wasn't what I imagined…" He commented, now feeling somewhat silly.

"Not all of it is baked." Phoebe informed, now placing down the bag, and joining him. "Some of it stays moist, and other bits are freeze dried." She then opened the next oven, and looked inside as well. "It seems that this factory in particular, prized small batches as opposed to the large corporations of today. Their ovens would have to be several times bigger, in order to produce the amount of demand for their customers."

Thinking to the usual dog food that he would mix in with the various left overs for Abner, Arnold wondered just what the difference really was. They usually bought whichever food was cheapest at the time, and the kibbles consistency was usually either something of a hard biscuit, or something similar to that of a bland cereal. Abner never seemed to care either way, so whether the brands were a small company or a large, Arnold never had to think about it. "Are small batches better?"

"I can't exactly say they're better…" Phoebe replied, closing the lid to her oven. "However quality control is usually easier when you're working with less product." She noticed Arnold's interest, and decided to continue with her explanation. "Think of it like a burger stand, verses that of a fast-food chain. Both burgers may taste good, however something small like a burger stand has better control of their meat, produce, breads and even condiments that they use. Chain restaurants are usually only allowed to use specific venders their licensed to, due to the contracts that are made, making the food cheaper to both buy and sell to their customers." She placed both her palms up at the ceiling, motioning her arms up and down, as though they were scales. "One maybe better known and therefore better trusted, while the other maybe far more obscure but may have the benefits of using things like better ingredients when they can afford it."

"Abner seems to only care if the food is edible, and even then…" His voice trailed off, and led into a laugh. "Sometimes, even that doesn't matter."

"Some animals are picky eaters, while others, like your pet pig, only care that there's food in their bowl." She smiled, enjoying their discussion. "It is a shame though, to know a company like this, cared so much for their quality but due to financial reasons, sunk lower and lower until…"

Both their expressions turned grim, and neither wanted to think about the outcome.

"Do you think… he was baked in one of these ovens?" Arnold shut his oven door quietly, and slowly backed away, eventually hitting one of the metal tables behind him.

"It's quite possible but…" Phoebe hesitated, not wanting to continue down that thought path, and instead found it much more productive to keep her eyes on the objective. "Let's keep looking." She insisted, heading on towards some of the shelves to see if maybe there was something hidden on the top.

Sadly, further investigation yielded neither of them any results, and the two were led out of the baking room through another set of double doors, and back into the hallway.

Directly in front of them, was a large red door with a sign to the right of it that read "Exit." Arnold pushed it open, and could see stairs leading down.

"We should finish looking before heading down." Phoebe stated, not following him, and instead walking in the opposite direction. "If we find nothing on this floor, we can investigate the stairwell next."

Arnold frowned, not liking the thought of immediately going back downstairs, especially when there was no word from Helga or Eugene and their search. Even if he felt like none of them were in any sort of imminent danger, there was still the possibility of someone getting hurt, and no one knowing until it was serious. Regardless, standing around worrying wasn't doing them any good, so Arnold jogged over to Phoebe who was patiently waiting for him at the end of the hallway.

"Strange…" Phoebe thought aloud, pointing her flashlight at the next rooms entrance. Stacks and stacks of carts barricaded the door, causing them each a fair bit of labor to move them aside.

Curiously, Arnold shined his light around the carts, hoping to get a glimpse of the sign that still remained fastened against the wall. "Processing" He read, then turned to Phoebe. "What do you think that means?"

Phoebe let the facts of their current situation, finally sink in and for the first time in their exploration, began to feel uneasy. Were the carts stacked in front of the door on purpose? Had they always been there, like that, from previous explorers or was this just another obstacle put in their way by the seventh graders? Either way, the probability of the prize being inside of this room was rather high.

"Phoebe?" Arnold walked over to the petite girl, and saw the confliction on her face. "What's wrong?"

"N-nothing." She replied, clearing her throat, and adjusting her glasses, wanting to avoid his original question. "We should try to find another way in, before attempting to move these carts." A nervous chuckle erupted awkwardly from within her, as she began to walk away in search. "After all, we shouldn't use our strength unless absolutely necessary."

They both continued down the hallway a few feet, before turning right and noticing that they were close to their starting point. Phoebe shined her flashlight and highlighted the locked bathrooms in the corner of the room. "Drat…" She cussed oddly.

Following the wall of the questionable room, Arnold suddenly noticed that there was a window not too high up. "You said that there was a desk nearby, right?" He asked her with a smile, hoping to solve their little problem. "If we move it underneath this window, we could probably get in through there."

"I don't think that such a good idea." Phoebe frowned, pointing her flashlight to meet his own. "Although your plan might work, it's also possible that after jumping inside the room, we'll have no way to get out unless there is something else inside that we can move, to crawl back out again."

"We won't know until we look though, right?" Arnold smiled, hoping her attitude might change.

Mulling over the possibilities, Phoebe knew she had to agree. "Alright. Help me with the desk." She replied, letting a scowl show on her face but hurrying off.

It was a strange sight for Arnold, seeing Phoebe suddenly so restless when she had been so calm and collected up until this point. He followed her to the desk, and looked it over. It seemed to be made of a cheap type of metal, which would make things a lot easier. "You grab one end, and I'll grab the other."

With some reluctance, Phoebe complied and on the count of three, they both lifted the table with little trouble, and slowly carried it over to the window. Setting it down gently, Arnold took a step back and measured the two of them with his eyes.

"I'll go and take a look; you stay right here." He insisted, allowing the girl to take a step back and maybe collect herself.

"Be careful." Phoebe demanded harshly, watching as the boy slowly climbed on top of the desk and unlocked the windows hatch. "Helga would kill me if you got hurt."

Arnold stopped and looked down at the small girl. "Is that why you're suddenly so nervous?" He asked, now pretty confused since it was her reassurance that everything would be okay, that got them moving in the first place.

"Nervous?" Her pride was bruised. "I'm not nervous. What a silly thing to say…" She replied, turning away, and pointing her flashlight down the vacant hallway.

Not buying her act, Arnold let go of the window and instead sat down on the desk. He chuckled, finding her reluctance to admit her own faults quite funny, and similar to someone else he knew. "I'm in the same position, you know…" He began, causing her to look over at him once more curiously. "Gerald is relying on me to keep you safe, as well."

Phoebe frowned, feeling childish and only shuffled her feet against the floor. "No, it's not that…" She glanced up at the oblivious blonde boy in front of her, and gave him another scowl. "I'm aware that you're physically capable of completing this task with ease, however both the rusted carts and the window are in poor shape. Tetanus can be serious if not treated immediately."

"I'm up to date with my shots, Phoebe." Arnold chuckled again. "You don't have to worry about me."

Knowing there was no way that Arnold would actually guess her current conflictions with the room, Phoebe just simply sighed and motioned for him to get up and move along. "Just hurry up and look inside the window. If there is nothing to see in there, we can simply move on."

Still surprised at her demeanor, Arnold got back to his feet and headed up an over to the window. The glass was caked with dust, and wiping it away with his sleeve seemed to do nothing to improve the visibility, only smudged it around. "It still much too hard to see…" He explained, now jiggling the window, and attempting to lift it up. "I'll have to open it…"

Phoebe held on to the desk, keeping it steady as Arnold jiggled the window more and more until finally it popped open.

They both let out a sigh of relief, and Arnold placed his flashlight through the window. Dust particles swarmed around, keeping a fair bit of the room still difficult to make out.

"Do you see anything?" Asked Phoebe, eager to hear some good news.

"Hmmm…" Arnold continued to squint his eyes, and move the flashlight around in hopes of either his eyes adjusting or for the particles to settle. "It's pretty hard to tell…" He then pointed the flashlight down at the floor, directly below him. "I think there's a sink below the window. If I jump down, it should be pretty easy to climb back up."

It was the moment of truth, and Phoebe knew that if she didn't say anything, Arnold was going to go for it without a second thought. "No, wait…" She suddenly shouted, catching his attention, and removing his head from the window. "You don't know how sturdy that sink might be, or if it will be safe to climb back up." Phoebe bit her lip and cursed their luck. "We should just move those carts…"

Arnold scratched his head, but jumped down off the desk regardless. "Okay…" He eyed her a moment, before crossing his arms. "I thought you were worried about me getting tetanus?"

A frustrated scowl appeared on Phoebes face just before she headed towards the carts. "You said you're up to date on shots for school, right?" She huffed. "We'll be fine."

Her demeaner was getting more and more baffling. Arnold scratched his head as he watched her attempt to jostle the carts into moving by herself.

"What are you waiting for?" She spat out coarsely. "Help me move these or we'll never be able to progress!"

Should I be concerned? Arnold wondered to himself before jumping down from the table, and headed in her direction. It wasn't as if he hung out with her often enough to judge her attitude in this moment, but even so, it felt strange to see her revert into something similar as being Hall Monitor once more. He watched as she maneuvered behind the tower of metal, keenly searching for something while quietly cursing under her breath, or at least that's what he assumed. "What are you looking for?"

"Regardless of how many years have passed, it would be impossible for…" She paused, crouching down and squeezing herself a bit more between her project and the wall, "this hunk of junk to be rusted to the floor." Phoebe shined her flashlight down towards the wheels. With a few taps to their surface, she gave herself a grin of accomplishment. "These wheels are made of thick plastic. Even if their attached to metal pieces, which are undoubtedly rusted at this point, it would mean that this structure should still be movable."

Arnold watched as her light bounced around, reflecting off the carts metal surface, and the concrete floor below their feet. He could hear her grunting, and could only imagine her face being contorted in annoyance. It was clear she had an idea in mind, but she wasn't giving him any instructions to assist, and he was beginning to feel useless. "Wouldn't rusted wheel bearings, and the weight of all this metal stacked on top of itself, be a good enough reason?"

"Arnold…" Phoebe replied calmly, realizing she wasn't as flexible as she had once thought. "Shine your light underneath, please…" She waited patiently until he gave her the proper lighting she needed, then continued to grope around meticulously. "I noticed after giving it a few pushes, that there was a slight give…" She felt around the carts welding's, feeling every crease and imperfection. "Not a lot, but enough that it got me thinking…" She then brushed away some dirt from beneath the base of the cart, "that there's probably a safety mechanism that's keeping these wheels locked in place."

"You mean like in wheel chairs?" The image of such suggestion lit up in Arnold's mind, causing him to smile and begin feeling around along with her.

"Precisely." Replied the hardworking girl. "It'll probably be some sort of lever… or switch…" and just as she finished her sentence, Phoebe's fingers found a small, oblong type of device. Grinning from ear to ear, she began to twist it. "Or a pull pin!" It was hard at first, but the more she kept at it, the more grime she felt fall off and the easier it became. "Arnold! Look at where my hands are!" She instructed, still twirling the pin back and forth. "There should be another one of these pull pins at the other set of wheels. They're pretty rusted in, but if you keep twisting, should free up any debris and be manageable to pull!"

"Got it!" Arnold replied, sliding himself down to the opposite end of the cart and, using her hands as a guide, found the pin in question. Moments later, his was free enough to pull. "Pull yours first, then get away from the cart. I don't want it to move unexpectedly, and end up hitting you."

With no objection, Phoebe gave her pin a quick pull, and could feel a bit of the weight shift from on top. She shimmied her back along the wall behind her, until properly back on her feet and steady once more. Heaving a sigh of relief, she unwedged her body and broke free from her confinement.

"I'm out." She announced happily. The familiar "click" of a pin being pulled reached her ears, making Phoebe notice that her feeling of unease must have disappeared while she was eager and focused, but dread was creeping its way back in, as there was no longer anything holding them back from their destination.

"We did it!" Arnold cheered, bringing himself back to his feet but his joy was quickly halted upon seeing his partners grim expression. "What is it?"

The question caused Phoebe to wake up from her daze, and shake her head. "It's… it's nothing." She replied, giving him a fake smile, and latching onto the carts handle. "Now, we just need to move this out of the way… Give me a hand."

Her words said one thing, but her demeaner said something clearly different. "Are you sure?" Arnold hesitated, reading the room.

His question caused Phoebe's expression to change from confusion, to being flustered once more. "Of course, I'm sure, Arnold. Why would you ask that?"

Arnold let out a small sigh. "I just keep getting the sense that… you don't really want to go in that room." He admitted. "Am… I wrong?"

"Whatever do you mean?" Phoebe gave him a small, but light hearted chuckle, doing her best to mask how she really felt. "Why wouldn't I want to go in there?" She then glanced over at the room once more, feeling the pit inside her stomach grow. "It's only a room."

"Right…" Arnold frowned, placing his hands on the handle; next to hers. "Let's do this then."

Both nodded in agreement, then pushed with all of their might. The stack of metal carts began to slowly move forward, creaking loudly as it did. Moments later, the doorway was finally free. The two stood in front of the double doors, a little stunned at what they just had to go through, in order to get to where they finally were.

The "Processing" sign glared ominously at Phoebe, causing her to scowl, take in a deep breath and charge forward. She had no intention of letting something as ridiculously unfounded as fear of the unknown hold her back from accomplishing her goal.

Dust was knocked into the air, enveloping the door way, causing Arnold to cough. It was so thick that he barely saw Phoebe leave, but watched as her bouncing light beaconed her location. Once he entered, the room felt stale, as if the air within it hadn't been disturbed in quite a long time. Arnold took notice of the tile flooring beneath his feet, as his footsteps echoed throughout the nearly empty room. He shined his flashlight over toward the window, and confirmed that there was indeed a small sink just under it, however upon giving it closer inspection, realized how rusted against the wall it was, and that Phoebe's worry was justified.

"I'm glad I took your advice…" He called out to his companion, "This sink probably would have bottomed out if I had jumped on it." He waited for a reply, but got none. "Phoebe?" He turned around and saw her standing motionless, back up against one of the far walls. "Did you find something?"

"N-not particularly!" Her voice chirped loudly.

Not liking her sudden enthusiasm, Arnold made his way over to where she had her flashlight pointed. A large glare shined back at him, at first, but once Arnold adjusted the angle of his flashlight, what stood before him caused him to back up a few feet: A large metal machine stood bolted to the floor. Around it, was a narrow metal staircase, leading up to a massive mouth, which sharply fell several feet below and angled into some sort of tub. It was hard to see from where he stood, but it was clear that there was more to this machine than his eyes, and the dust within the room, would allow.

"So… this is what processing meant." He spoke softly, a mix of both awe and dread filling his core.

"Uh huh." Phoebe replied, her voice sounding just as weary.

Arnold gave a hard swallow, before walking towards the monstrosity. The closer he got, the more dwarfed he felt by it. "Do you think… this is where it happened?" He asked her, half not expecting a response as it was clear to him now why she was so reluctant to move forward with their endeavors.

The metal cylinder within Phoebe's grasp slowly began to slip forward, causing her attention to sharply deviate from the large machine, and firmly tighten her grip on its handle. Her palms had gotten sweaty, and her vision turned a bit hazy. Was the legend really true? She felt her mind wander a little, envisioning a portly man being dropped into this things mouth, and spit out like last week's ground beef, before snapping back to her usual, rational way of thinking. "Possibly, but it's preposterous to truly believe that this machine could be haunted."

Despite agreeing with her statement, Arnold couldn't help but think of all the rumors of people wandering into this facility, and never being seen again. He had wandered into many creepy locations before, but none were ever verified places of a gruesome death. Making his way to the narrow stairs, Arnold looked up. "Should we… search up there?" He asked, feeling a dryness in his throat.

Managing to bring herself closer, Phoebe scanned the stairs with her flashlight, following them all the way up to the top. "That would be most unwise. They're thin and covered in rust. There is no way that Wolfgang or Ludwig made it up these stairs, without them breaking."

"Right." Arnold agreed, feeling thankful that he wound up with a level headed partner like Phoebe, instead of someone high strung like Curly, who had a tendency of mocking warning signs, or Harold who would have pushed Arnold to make sure the treasure wasn't up there. "I'll quickly search this end of the room."

Rounding a corner, Arnold was able to see that the tub fed into some sort of large pipe, that softly curved away from him but ended abruptly. Just below it, a large drain sat ominously; dark stains surrounding its opening. Logic flooded the young man's brain, rationalizing those remnants of blood were only natural to be in a place like this, as its whole purpose was to grind up meat, but even so, it made his stomach churn. "Find anything?" Arnold called out to his much too silent partner, hoping she could distract him from his own morbid thoughts.

"Nothing." Her voice echoed back, and soon he could feel her footsteps approaching. Soon, her eyes also fell to the drain that stood before them.

"You don't think they might have hidden it in this drain… do you?" Arnold asked, hoping for a swift objection, but after not getting one, he could feel bile rising up in his throat.

"Considering who we're dealing with…" Phoebes hoarse voice whispered, "I think it's highly likely…"

The two preteens slowly walked up to the large drain, and shined their lights down. Evidence of the cover being disturbed were very visible, and several feet down, the outline of a box was present. They both looked at one another, and frowned.

---

"This is pretty exciting, in a spooky sort of way!" Eugene exclaimed to his begrudged partner, as he walked up the winding stairwell. "What do you think will be at the top?"

Helga scrunched up her nose in disgust, as her face hit a spider web, then quickly swatted it away. "Probably glittery treasure, piles of cash and the deed to an old guy's mansion…" She replied sarcastically.

"Wow!" The ginger boy smiled. "I didn't expect you to be so optimistic, Helga! I'm surprised!" He turned around to face her, but as he did so, dropped his flashlight. It rolled down a couple of steps, before blinking rapidly. "Whoops…"

"Criminy, Eugene!" She whined angrily, but stopped and gave him the time to quickly grab it. "The last thing we need, is for you to break the damn flashlight! Stop fooling around and just act like a normal person, for once, will you?!"

The remark caused Eugene to tilt his head to the side, but his smile remained. "Oh, it was just an accident, Helga! Don't worry!" He then tapped his flashlights glass a few times, causing the blinking to go back to a solid state. "Besides, my flashlight has reinforced glass, so it will be okay!"

Helga continued to glare his way, but eventually gave way to a sigh of exhaustion when realizing that this wasn't what she wanted to use her energy on. "Yeah, yeah. Sure. Let's just hurry up and get moving…" She growled, walking up ahead of him.

Once they reached the top of the stairs, they stood in a small hall way, with an ornate looking door at the very end. Unlike the rest of the doors, this one had carvings around its molding, and a glass polygonal shaped door knob.

"Must be the big boss's office, from the looks of it." Said Helga, as she grasped the knob and gave it a few jiggles. "And… its locked! How fitting for us!"

"Oh no…" Eugene frowned. "How do you think we'll get in?"

Helga glanced down at Eugene's flashlight, and an idea came to mind. "You said your flashlight is reinforced, right?"

"Yes! My parents bought the strongest they could, since I broke the last one when we went on our camping trip a few years ago!" He boasted while examining it lovingly.

"Let me borrow it for a second." Helga held out her hand expectantly, with an air of impatience.

"Oh… uh…" Eugene hesitated a moment, before handing it over. "Okay, Helga. What do you need it-" but before he could finish his sentence, he watched as she used its handle to bash off the door knob, gave the door a powerful kick, and sent it flying backwards. "Oh…"

"Impressive!" She chuckled as she examined the flashlight, before tossing it back to its now frowning owner. "Money well spent, I'd say."

The flashlight gave a few more sad blinks in Eugene's hand, before turning solid again. "Glad you… like it." As he looked up, he noticed Helga had already left into the room, leaving him by himself. "W-wait up!"

The room was a lot smaller than either of them expected, and surprisingly still held most of its furnishings: A small wooden desk, old office phone, decorative shelf, and a filing cabinet. Just passed the desk stood another, much larger door.

Helga walked over to the door ahead of them and opened it easily, shining her light inside to give it a quick look over. "I stand corrected." She said, turning around and shrugging. "That's the big boss's room. This must've been his secretary's office."

Curiously, Eugene peaked his head inside the room. It too still had its furnishings, very similar to the room they were still standing in, just with an added bookshelf, extra-large filing cabinet and yet another door. "Oh, wow!"

"My thoughts exactly…" Helga replied, scratching her chin suspiciously. "I'd have expected this place to have been picked clean a long time ago but… maybe people thought they'd be cursed?"

"Perhaps they just didn't want to disrespect the man who died?" Eugene offered, walking on into the office and shining his flashlight around.

"Seriously?" Helga let out a loud snort. "Eugene, be real! They pushed the guy through a shredder! No one cared about disrespecting him!"

"You heard Gerald though, Helga." The boy stated as he examined an empty bookshelf. "No one knows how it happened. It could have been an accident."

Rolling her eyes, Helga walked out of the large office and back into the secretary's room. "No one leaves a holiday party to meander around, and spontaneously decide to do a maintenance check on their meat grinder, Eugene." She opened the desk drawers one by one, but each were empty. "The guy was cutting corners to fill his own pockets, and rob his employees. He was probably worth more dead than alive, so someone got him too sloshed to think straight then…" Helga then carelessly pushed the phone off of its receiver, causing it to bash loudly against the wooden desk, before swaying back and forth with a few taps. "Whoops! He just happens to trip."

A chill went up Eugene's spine as he imagined it. How could someone be so cold and heartless? He knew there were plenty of bad people out there, doing crimes and hurting others for their own gain but the thought of such actions being so close to home? He didn't want to believe that things like that were real. "Do you… really think that's what happened?"

"Oh, Eugene, Eugene…" Helga sighed, shaking her head. "The world is a cruel place. A dog-eat-dog world, a rat race…" She walked over to the metal filing cabinet and began to open each drawer casually, expecting to find nothing, and finding just that. "To think the world is all sunshine and rainbows is juvenile. It's time to grow up and smell the carnage!" Helga let out a callous laugh before shutting each drawer with more loud thuds. "Why do you think we have so many prisons in our country? Just who do you think they're housing in there? Small time drug dealers? Petty thieves who only stole to provide food for their families?" The thought of such an innocent point of view, truly made her pity the naive boy in the other room.

Feeling as though she had combed the small office from top to bottom, and curious as to why her partner was so unexpectedly quiet, Helga joined Eugene in the boss's room. Shining a light directly at him, she gave a small chuckle. "What? Are you shocked? Haven't you ever watched the news before? The mass shootings? The kidnappings?"

Moving out of the way of her brightly shined light, Eugene bumped into the large desk to his right. "We don't usually watch the news on TV…" He explained with a soft and somewhat melancholic voice. "My parents say that the news only ever really wants to highlight tragedies, so they only read certain newspapers to get their facts."

"Well, yeah!" Helga shrugged. "Shock value sells and the networks know it!"

Eugene shuffled in his position uncomfortably, fully aware of what she was saying was fact, but still not wanting to really focus on it. "There may be a lot of ugly in the world but… there is also a lot of beautiful things, Helga." He forced a smile before turning around and ducking under the desk to search. "People getting rescued by strangers, long lost siblings finally being reunited…" He opened the bottom drawer and felt around aimlessly. "Did you know that despite the number of deaths each year, that we have prolonged our own individual life expectancies by double?" Feeling a little hope well within his chest, Eugene let out a small giggle. "Modern medicine finding cures and making vaccines have saved so many people's lives but none of that really gets stories anymore since… you know, it's all so common now. I like to focus on those facts instead of the more… negative ones!" He opened the middle, and then top drawer, but those two were also empty. "The world will always seem bleak if you focus on only the bad and that's just not how I want to live my life. Even on the worst days, if you smile big enough, your whole body begins to feel happy and soon, this day is just as wonderful as the last!"

His enthusiasm was enough to make Helga want to gag, but even still, she knew there was no helping him. If the little sap wanted to look through rose colored lenses, who was she to stop him? Turning away from him, Helga headed on towards the small door. Opening it up, she found a closet that was bigger than usual. Shining her light around it, she could see it was lined with more filing cabinets and sighed in annoyance. "If sugarcoating your perspective is how you sleep at night then… enjoy your candy land dreams." One by one, she opened all of the bottom drawers and looked inside: Empty, just as she expected. "I guess you could say it's possible this whole legend is all made up! The stuff older kids say to younger kids, to scare the pants off of them and keep them from snooping in their cool, abandoned hide out."

The change in the girl's outlook, gave Eugene a pleasant sort of shock, enough to make him smile. "Gee, Helga. You don't have to try and make me feel better! I respect everyone's opinion, even if I don't feel the same way, myself! Everyone is so uniquely special, and it's our own individual personality that makes us that way!"

His sickly-sweet personality and way of thinking, was really starting to make Helga feel physically ill. After closing each empty drawer, Helga sat down on the cold, dirty floor. "There's nothing even in here…" She growled, placing her head in her hands. "Remind me again WHY we're doing this?"

"We're looking for something that the older kids hid in here, so Harold doesn't get in trouble." He explained, still not completely sure himself what they were looking for.

"I got that much, genius…" She replied, taking the time to breathe in the cool air deeply, before exhaling her frustrations away. "But WHAT are we looking for? Is it small? Is it big? Don't we have any sort of clues to help us find it?"

Eugene thought back to the previous night, where Gerald had outlined the story for their whole investigation. He knew, whatever it was they were looking for, was important but also too important for just everyone to know. "Honestly… I'm not too sure myself…" He admitted sheepishly, opening up the long top drawer. "I joined just to help out, sort of like you and Phoebe did!"

Just to help out… right! Sure! You dimwhit… Helga thought in response. And here I was, led to believe we were doing this to avoid someone getting actually hurt, but this is what I get for following the musings of an old woman and her cats! Criminy, I'm just as looney as she is for believing in all of this!

"With how it was explained last night, I think it might be a box of rare comic books?" Eugene continued, moving to close the door but stopping once he realized there was something in the way. He opened it back up, and began to feel around the top, along the sides, and finally in the way back but nothing was there. Confused, he attempted to close it once again but still, it refused to shut.

"Comic books? Seriously?" Helga scoffed from inside the closet. "They better be some first edition, limited copy of something rare and expective or I'll murder Harold myself…"

Beginning to feel a little frustrated at this conundrum, Eugene opened the drawer wide, before closing it as hard as he could with a loud thud.

"Criminy!" Helga shouted, "What are you doing over there?!"

"Just trying to close this drawer…" Eugene answered, still a bit confused. "Sorry if I scared you!" He then gave an innocent laugh, as he began opening up the drawers to the left, but stopped short when he noticed something queer, hanging from underneath the desk. Turning his flashlight to it, it seemed to possibly be the thing that was hampering the drawer above from shutting correctly. He reached out and grasped the odd little thing in his hand. It was a key on a string. "Huh…" He whispered to himself, as he untied the string from around its loop, in order to get a better look at it. It was just an average, small key. There was nothing remarkable about it but even so, Eugene put the key inside his pocket and continued to the drawers to the left. Each one just as empty as the others before it. With a long, tired sigh, the boy pulled himself back up to his feet, and turned towards the old bookshelf he had first examined. He shined his flashlight all around it, hoping to find something he might have missed but there was nothing. "Have you found anything, Helga?" He called out to her, hoping for some better news.

"If I had, don't you think I would have said something by now?" She answered in deep annoyance. "Do you think I like hanging out in here?"

The thought made Eugene laugh. "I don't know, Helga. I usually see you doing odd things around the city, like climbing up fire escapes, rooting through trash cans like you're on a mission or something. Maybe investigating things is a hobby of yours?"

Helga's heart fell deep into her stomach. "W-what are you talking about?" She stammered, gradually making it back to her feet. "When have you seen me do things like that? I- I don't do things like that!"

"Come to think of it…" Eugene scratched his head, then headed on towards the closet. "I don't think I've seen you do anything like that lately. Not since school started." He peeked in and saw her angry face looking back at him, teeth bore in a growl. "O-or maybe it's someone who looks like you?" He giggled nervously, before backing away and tripping over an uneven floorboard, hitting his head against the side of the desk. "I'm okay!" He yelled reflectively.

Feeling as though the universe answered her deep embarrassment, Helga breathed a sigh of relief. "I'm almost done in here. If you haven't found anything yet, then I say we vamoose after this. Got it?"

"Uh huh…" Eugene groaned, rubbing his sore head. As he crawled over to his fallen flashlight, He noticed odd scratch marks next to the large filing cabinet, right next to the closet Helga was currently occupying. Finding this particular, Eugene crawled on over to look at them more closely. He then considered moving the cabinet along the scratches but stopped once he realized he would have to close the closet door. "Is it okay if I close this door for a second, Helga?" He asked cautiously, fully expecting her to rage at him. "I think I might have found a clue."

"If it gets us out of here quicker, then be my guest, but you BETTER make it snappy! Got it?" She yelled back.

"Y-yeah! Of course!" The boy replied, nervously closing the closet door, before moving the cabinet fully. Using his hands, he felt along the wall until a small hole piqued his interest. Shining his light on it, he realized that a small key would probably fit inside, rummaged through his pocket, and pulled it out, with a few lint bunnies accompanying it.

"Are you done yet?" Helga howled from inside the closed space.

"A-almost!" Eugene said, as he easily inserted the key into the hole and twisted it. A fake wall panel popped out, revealing a hidden cubby. "It's almost like something you'd see in a spy movie…" He whispered to himself, surprised that things like this actually existed. Reaching inside, Eugene felt around until he came upon a medium sized box. "I think I found something!" He shouted happily, placing his flashlight down to give him more leverage, and using both hands, pulled out the box.

"What is it? Is it what we're looking for?" said a hopeful sounding Helga.

"I'm not sure yet! Hold on!" Eugene happily replied, as he closed the cubby and looked the box over. It was just a typical brown, cardboard box. Nothing exceptional about it, besides the fact that it looked quite worn from use. As he walked over to set the box safely down, it suddenly bottomed out, spilling its contents all over the floor. "Oh no!"

"What's oh no? What's going on?" Helga yelled, jiggling the door handle to the closet with an attempt to open it back up. "What's taking so long?!"

One by one, Eugene quickly picked up the contents, unable to avoid inevitably seeing what wasn't meant to be seen: magazines full of naked women. Cocking his eyebrow in interest, he began filing through them but each pretty much depicted the same thing: Nude women, some clad in siliceous clothing, some wearing average clothes but with wholes cut in private areas… though, more often than not, just nude. Why would this be considered… treasure? He wondered. Feeling more confused than ever, Eugene knew he couldn't ignore the bashing of Helga's fist against the door for much longer. "S-sorry!" He yelped, putting the magazines back in the box, trying to close its flimsy body, and then pulling the filing cabinet back to its original position.

No sooner did Eugene free up the closet door, did it fly open and a vengeful Helga come storming out. Fire lit within her eyes as she peered down at the shaken Eugene. "Don't you EVER leave me in a closed room like that, ever, again!" She screamed at the cowering boy, pointing her finger in his face, before nearly tripping over the box. "Is this what you found?!" She asked, picking it up and ignoring Eugene's attempt to stop her. "What's in here that's so damn important?!"

"N-no, Helga!" Eugene cried out desperately. "It's not for us to see!"

"I'll be the judge of that, jinx!" She spat, dropping the box on the old wooden desk, and opening it up.

"Th-that's Harold's private property!" Eugene tried again, but as soon as he got within arms range of Helga, she pushed him backwards, sending him tripping over the floorboard once more, and back on his butt. "He explicitly said-"

"Really?" Helga's tone flattened as she picked up a dirty magazine, and unenthusiastically turned it from one side to the other. "This is why we came all the way out here? For these?" She placed the media back in its box, closed it back up and placed it under her arm. "No wonder he didn't want anyone to look inside." She laughed, with a mixture of embarrassment for the kid and frustration for all her effort in thwarting some unknown evil. "I've seen more impressive material during late night TheaterMax! This is pathetic!"

Her response wasn't something Eugene was expecting, so all he could do was blink while she vented.

"I mean, come on! Really?!" She hollered. "Even my own DAD has a better collection, and his is dated!"

"Is owning things like this is…. Normal?" Eugene asked, stunned at how casual she was being about all this. "Why?"

Unable to contain her surprise, Helga raised her eyebrow at him. "Well… yeah. If you're into stuff like this."

Her response didn't make the boy feel any less confused. Carefully, he brought himself back to a steady position, and brushed off his pants of any and all dust. "O-oh… I see."

"Did you not look in the box?" She asked, holding it out to him. "Why don't you have a look for yourself and you can tell me what you think."

Eugene waved his hands, politely rejecting her offer. "No. It's Harold's private property." He replied, avoiding the actual question. "I think it's best that we just return it to him, and get out of here before the police find out that we've trespassed."

Still finding the whole ordeal odd, Helga looked the awkward kid up and down, before shrugging off his innocent behavior as something typical of his usual nature, and heading for the door. "Whatever floats your boat, kid." She then handed him the walkie-talkie. "You radio the rest of them to let them know our search here is over."

Picking up his familiar device, Eugene hesitated for a moment, before clicking the button and speaking into it. "H-hello? Can anyone hear me? Over."

"Reading you loud and clear. Over." Sid's voice replied back, sounding a bit muffled.

"Did you find something?!" Curly shouted excitedly, causing the device to crackle.

"Please tell me you're not reporting an accident… Over." Gerald chimed in, sounding exhausted.

"No, no. I'm okay!" Eugene laughed, his cheeks turning pink from both a mixture of excitement and embarrassment, due to having been the one to find the treasure, and from his peers assuming the communication was due to him hurting himself, like usual. "I've found a cardboard box with something inside. That's what we're looking for, right? Over."

Loud static emerged from the device, mixed with heavy breathing. "You guys didn't look inside, did you?!" Harold asked, completely out of breath.

"N-no." Eugene lied, looking nervously at Helga, who still seemed weirdly nonchalant about the whole thing. "You said not to, so we haven't. Over."

"Nice save, Eugene." Helga laughed, giving the boy a snarky grin and thumbs up. "No one will ever suspect a thing."

He knew she was being sarcastic, but even still, he took solace knowing that she wasn't going to rat him out, at the very least. It wasn't as if he meant to see the contents of the box, even if he was curious. Harold let him come along on this adventure, even if they weren't the best of friends, and the thought of him breaking that trust was just devastating.

"Let's all meet back up in the lobby." Said Gerald over the radio. "Nice work, everyone! Over."

"I'm afraid… that will be a bit hard." Phoebe replied, her voice timid and weak. "We've gotten ourselves in a bit of a sticky situation, and could use some assistance. Over."

Without hesitation, Helga snatched away the walkie-talkie, and shoved the box into Eugene's hands. "What happened?! Are you guys okay?!"

"Not to worry, Helga." Phoebe's voice rang, a bit more upbeat. "We're safe but…" She paused. "If anyone has found a rope, or perhaps a long board to help someone up out of a hole… it would be most appreciated."

"We've got some especially long pieces of wood down here in the basement." Stinky spoke up. "Not sure how sturdy they are, on accounta the elements, and I reckon they might give some gnarly splinters but they might do the trick."

"Anything you can find…" Phoebe replied, but the transmission ended with static.

Helga let out a loud groan, and kicked the side of the desk a couple of times. "Come on, clutz." She said, before pushing past him and racing down the stairs as if her hair was on fire.

Still clutching the box firmly, Eugene frowned as he gathered his thoughts. As he did his best to push down the guilt of inadvertently betraying his friends trust, a small glowing light caught the corner of his eye. He watched as it floated over the bookshelf and remained there, hovering. He looked around the room, but couldn't find a logical reason for it to be there. A curious feeling washed over him, as if this was a sign he needed to follow.

Setting the box down on the desk, Eugene brought the rolling office chair over to the bookshelf and stood on top. Finding himself still a bit too short to reach, he placed his flashlight in his mouth, held on to the side of the bookshelf and extended his arm as far as he could. His fingers found some sort of scratchy fabric! He twirled it around his fingers, before feeling as though he had a good hold on it, and bringing it down to his level. It was a rope! Eugene blinked absentmindedly, before gradually stepping off of the chair and looking back up to where the light was just a few moments before. It had vanished. Unsure of how to feel, the boy simply counted this as a blessing and hurried downstairs to where he knew the others were waiting.

Following the voices of his peers, Eugene finally managed to find everyone grouped up in the processing room. "Guys! Look what I found!" He yelled happily, holding up the rope and running to them. At first, everyone seemed happy to see him but suddenly the look on their faces changed oddly. "What is it?"

"Where'd you manage to find a lasso, Eugene?" Stinky asked, scratching his head. "This is a mighty odd place to be wrangling up some cattle…"

"Actually, morbidly speaking… this would be a rather appropriate place for that." Helga replied, crossing her arms, and looking a little amused.

Now looking down at his rope, Eugene noticed a very interesting detail that he had missed. "Oh…" He said, awkwardly handing it off to Helga, who had an out stretched arm. "H-here you go…"

She looked over the loop tied rope. "Where did you even find this?"

"It was on top of the bookshelf…" He gulped, now realizing what it could have been meant for.

"Guys…" Arnold's voice came from the hole in the floor. "I'm sure your conversation is very interesting, but I'd really like to get out of here…"

"Then maybe you shouldn't have put yourself in this drain to begin with, you dolt!" Helga replied, still quite amused. "Stinky, hand me your weathered plank." Once she received it, she broke it in half over her knee and began to tie the rope around the two pieces. "Harold, hold this. You'll be the anchor." She handed her new contraption over to the large boy. Unfurling the rope down to its noose of a handle, she shined her light down the tunnel and grinned at her stuck boy wonder. "How's it hanging, Football head?" She called out to him, before dropping the rope.

"Why's Arnold in that hole?" Eugene asked the group, recovering from a different wave of emotions he wasn't quite ready to deal with yet.

"It seems like each room had its own hidden box, a red herring, if you will and…" Phoebe looked down at the hole. "This is where ours happened to be…"

"Ours was in a conveyer shaft." Gerald frowned, feeling his hair up for more cobwebs since he ended up being of proper size to fit inside, and retrieve the box while Harold held onto legs.

"Consider yourselves lucky!" Curly scowled. "We had a wall of boxes to go through!"

"And Curly made sure we went through every single one of them…" Stinky added, before yawning loudly.

"Alright everyone." Helga announced, turning back around, and giving a push back signal. "Hold on to either Harold or the rope, so Arnoldo can pull himself out. When I give the signal, begin walking backwards."

The group of classmates each grabbed part of the rope, and the moment Helga yelled "Pull!" they began to walk backwards, effectively allowing Arnold to climb out of the hole, and grabbing Helga's hand to help hoist him out fully.

---

Clutching his new found prize, Harold breathed in the nights fresh air, and let out a joyous cry as he exited the building. "It's finally over!" He cried out. "We're all still alive!"

Each kid handed back their walkie-talkie to Eugene, who put them safely in his backpack, before turning back to the old, broken-down building. Even with Harold still shouting, and the friends talking amongst themselves, everything still felt a little quiet to him. The revelation he made, made him quite sad. I guess… maybe it really was suicide… He thought with a frown.

"Pizza!" Curly shouted suddenly, causing Eugene to turn his attention back to his friends. "How did you get pizza!"

"What?!" Sid shouted back. "You guys were taking forever and I got hungry! So, sue me!"

"You ABANDONED us, for PIZZA?!" Helga shouted, giving the short, stringy haired kid a push into the chain linked fence, before turning to the empty box. "And you didn't have even the little bit of decency, to SAVE US SOME?!"

"Yeah, Sid!" Agreed Gerald, crossing his arms and feeling disgusted. "We're the ones who did all the hard work! All you had to do, was stay in one spot!"

"You only had 1 job!" Stinky joined in, shaking his head.

Not having enough energy to fight, Arnold simply gave Phoebe an appreciative smile, before waving to the group. "I'm going home, guys." He explained, almost apologetically. "I know we all agreed to camp out at Mighty Pete but…" He then looked down at his dark stained clothing. "I'd really like a shower."

"Yeah, that's fair." Gerald replied, sticking his thumb out to give their signature shake. "I'll see you tomorrow, man. Sorry you got stuck in a bloody hole."

"Enjoy your treasure, Pink boy." Helga saluted to Harold, who was still clutching his prize safely, and looking caught off guard. "I don't know what all of this fuss was about, but Phoebe and I have our own plans for the evening. Come on, Pheebs." She then turned to leave, giving Phoebe enough time to say goodbye to everyone, and chase after her.

"What… were our plans, again?" Phoebe whispered softly, before giving everyone another polite wave.

"I told your mom that we'd be watching movies all night in my room." Shrugged Helga, only now getting the time to tell her partner in crime what her excuse was to her parents.

"Oh, good." Phoebe sighed in relief. "I'm not a fan of trying to sneak into my own house."

After walking a safe distance from all of the boys, but still trailing behind Arnold far enough to not draw suspicion, Phoebe felt it was okay to finally ask the biggest question of the night. "So, what was in the box?" She whispered.

Helga let out a bellowing laugh, causing Arnold to stop and look at them strangely. "Porn." She whispered back, giving her boyfriend a coy and innocent wave.

"Oh…" was all Phoebe had to say to that.