Nathaniel was not a man long for this world. At least, not in the traditional sense. The murky, rather ethereal water pulsed and frothed around him like the thrash of white water rapids, the dishevelled figure flailing wildly to try and stay afloat. He bobbed and bucked repeatedly against the swirling currents, accidentally gulping large mouthfuls of what - only a day or two earlier - had been responsible for bringing him back to Earth in the first place.
The chemical composition of a corpse reanimated was as ethereal as the god he had worshipped for so much of his life - and things like quail eggs, blood and ketchup did little to combat the effects of the water upon Nathaniel's rotting, sunken, wrinkled body.
At one moment, his arm twisted backwards with a painful crack. At the next, his spine bubbled out backwards and bent him into a horrendous, creaking spiral of reanimated human detritus. He howled and roared in a combination of anger and agony, while the overflow from his personal primordial ooze burnt and blistered his skin - twisted and pinched his body into grotesque contortions and perturbing pretzels of yellowed, rotting flesh.
A thick streak of black, oil-like liquid flowed from his nose. His eyes glowed in a thick tone of turquoise. His nails seemed to crack and split as his wild, greasy hair flowed behind him in thick tentacle-like tendrils that threatened to grasp and writhe at any poor creature caught in their wake.
Pacifica stepped forward to the Dan-produced hole in the roof and watched the frothing scene as best as she could, though the reality of Nathaniel's situation was obscured by the bubbling, writhing mass of unnatural sputum that surrounded him.
She twisted her lip and looked to the rest of the town's lack of attention for the struggling old crook, and - before she even recognised what was coming out of her mouth, spoke up. "Let's get him out of there."
"Huh?" Stan raised an eyebrow.
Preston looked up from his crestfallen dying-ancestor-crisis and raised one of his thick eyebrows at his daughter's sudden outburst. Perhaps she was more of a Northwest than he believed. Was this it? Her deep-set respect for the family name making a return? Was this the glimmer of hope? The belief that she really was born to rule supreme over the hicks and nobodies of-
"This guy is a killer!" Tyler said, though not with some consternation that Quentin might have uncovered that he'd once hit a Vagrant on the Portland Ring Road and had kept driving back in '06.
"He got what he deserved!" Gus protested.
"I mean it." Pacifica continued, trying to settle the crowd. "We leave him down there and we're no better than he was. Do you guys really wanna sink to his levels just because he's like, the worst?"
-Damn. Damn and blast. No, it was one of her weird…morality tirades.
Stan raised an eyebrow. "Blondie, I get the whole wanting to be a good person-"
"This isn't about being a good person, it's about doing the right thing. He might let any of us drown the moment he gets the opportunity, but-"
"You don't want us to stoop to his level." Ford interrupted with a surprising level of understanding. You know, for a man who had spent much of his life being arrogantly stubborn and stubbornly arrogant. "Fine."
She nodded, hands on her hips. "Like, sure, he's a gross lumpy old man who's done nothing good in his life, but he's still a human!"
"Your compassion for immoral, gross lumpy old men is touching, Paz." Mabel nodded, patting Grunkle Stan's back with a cheeky grin. "And you know what? You're totally right."
"He's still your accusing lawyer," Blubs said, holding his belt. "Could end up putting ya both back in the slammer."
"So be it, if that's how it goes," Ford replied, valiantly - and absolutely certain that they had this in the bag. "Now, we couldn't get Manly Dan out of there with any of our equipment. Mabel's grappling hook has a weight limit, but-"
"But it should lift a skinny little lump of human garbage!" Mabel gasped, clapping her hands on her face. "You're a genius, Grunkle Ford!"
"That's correct. Certified." Ford beamed, adjusting his glasses - and being greeted by an unimpressed glare from the rest of his family. He cleared his throat and stepped back so Mabel could do the honours.
The chipper little teenager licked her finger and stuck it into the air, as if wind flow could in any way have consequences on the trajectory of a grappling hook being shot downloads into a building. Dipper rolled her eyes as Mabel, ever-the-ham, attempted to look like the biggest grappling hook expert this side of the Minnesota Grapple-Hut.
"Mabel."
"I'm working on it! You can't rush art!"
"Mabel, you just gotta shoot at the guy."
"You want me to hit him in the eye? Don't be a psycho, Dipper."
Dipper rolled his eyes again as she fiddled with the control on the gun's bodywork and span it in her hands. The townspeople all eagerly watched her, with the admiration of an artist at work. When it was really just Mabel being Mabel.
"Grappling hook!" She shouted triumphantly, as the cable fired into the rumbling mass of water. "If I catch a lake shark, I'm totally keeping it."
Kevin walked up behind her, throwing arms around her waist and erupting her into a giggling fit. "What if he's like, a dead body again and has gone all gross and bloaty?"
"Oh Kevin, you're so exciting!" She beamed.
"Just hold on, I've got you in case he tries to pull back-" a dull thunk tugged on the cable, as if by cue, and the cable began its work retracting. As expected, the gristly frame of Nathaniel Northwest was of no great consequence to the hook - though Kevin had to dig his steel-toe-cap boots into the wet roof tiles as the big catch worked against them.
First came an arm - though it was most certainly in the wrong place. Then another arm. And another…
The returning visage of Nathaniel Northwest was not expected to be a pleasant one - that much was certain. The man was plainly hideous. But what arose from the water, bound in coils of grade-two grappling cable, was no mere man.
The townspeople backed away in horror. Preston's face fell. Mabel was almost sick into her turtleneck. The sagging, contorted frame twirled in the cable lamely, its eyes glowing and a sickening, panting, gurgling sound erupting from its throat.
Nathaniel Northwest was not a man long of this world. At least, not in the traditional sense.