Chapter 27
I was finally comfortable and warm. I was also being shaken gently.
"Wake up, Sophia." A voice called, not too softly either.
"Mm?" I softly groaned, reaching up to rub my eyes and forehead, slowly cracking one of my eyes open as I did. The car was still dark, but we weren't moving anymore. Usually, I was the type to wake up suddenly, but I must have been really tired to be this groggy.
"We're here, wake up." Oh, it was Michael.
"I didn't realize I fell asleep." I softly smiled at him, looking at him through the cracks in my bangs. His mouth pulled up a bit, his usual frown gone. Privately, I liked it when he smiled at me.
"I didn't notice you fell asleep; you were so tense." His words snapped me back to why I was so tense. I sighed and silently scooted out of my seat, turning away from him and ignoring his raised eyebrow.
"Alright, don't embarrass me." Henrietta was finishing off her cigarette, taking the time to look at each of us, a silent warning in her gaze. I wasn't exactly sure how we would embarrass her or what she would do if we did, but I took the warning seriously. We followed her as she walked up to the house, waiting on the porch as she stepped up to knock on the door. There was silence for a bit before a woman opened the door. Her head was shaved on either side, giving her a killer deathhawk, and had piercings on her eyebrows, nose, and upper lip. She looked older than a high schooler, maybe she goes to a community college or something.
"Hey, you must be Henrietta." She crossed her arms and leaned against the doorframe. From the bit I could see of the inside of her house, it was neat and looked similar to Henrietta's house.
"And you must be Genesis." They sized each other up for about half a minute before Genesis looked out at the rest of us. It almost seemed like she was counting how many of us there were.
"There's more of you than I was expecting." She finally said, gaze lingering just a second longer on Raven and me.
"I did say I'd be bringing a few friends."
"Hmm." She looked at us pensively, and for a second, I thought she wasn't going to let us in. "Alright, just try not to make too much noise." She let us in and led us through her house to a door leading to her basement. Just as I thought, there were pictures on the walls and her house was neat and tastefully decorated, from what I could see with the lights off anyway. I hesitated a bit at the door, a cold feeling crawling through my stomach. As my friends walked down the stairs, I brushed the feeling off as just naturally hating basements.
It almost looked like a bomb shelter.
There were metal shelves against the cement block wall with things like canned food, glass jars, and a few jugs of what I assumed to be water. There were no windows, the floor was concrete, and there was a wall that didn't have the same texture as the rest, probably to separate the basement into rooms. Overall, it was cold and kind of humid in here, the perfect room to get kidnapped and molested in for a few years.
"Alright, who's first?"
"I'll go first, I'm the birthday girl." Henrietta stepped up, though her face didn't show it I could tell she was excited.
"Step through here." She directed her to the door attached to the wall with the different texture.
"Wanna watch, Sophia?" Henrietta beckoned me to follow them, and just as I took a step forward-
"No, you have to go alone." Genesis spoke before I could respond. We all turned to look at her suspiciously and she looked away. "I won't focus if you're all in there. You don't want your nipples uneven, do you?" Henrietta rolled her eyes.
"Whatever." The door closed behind them and I furrowed my eyebrows.
"What a freak." Pete spoke up and we turned to look at him, but he was looking around the room in disgust. "Where did Henrietta even find her?" It was my turn to be looked at, and I shrugged.
"She found her on Tweeter."
"Alright, who's next?" We all flinched as the door suddenly opened, faster than we were expecting. I don't know how long piercings were supposed to take, but she was in there for, like, two minutes. We waited for Henrietta to come out, but this lady stayed at the door.
"Where's Henrietta?" Michael spoke up.
"She's just resting, she got a little woozy." That seemed really out of character for her. Red flags started popping up in my head.
"I thought you couldn't focus if there were more than one of us in the room with you?" She lightly glared at Pete, annoyed with his comment.
"I won't focus if there's more than one of you breathing down my neck, since Henrietta is resting it'll be fine." We all looked at each other and Pete sighed before stepping forward. When they disappeared behind the door, I turned to look at the three left in front of me.
"Something's not right."
"Yeah, something's off." Michael looked around, clenching his fist. Firkle walked around the basement curiously, occasionally moving things around. I jumped as a thump sounded from the other room.
"Oh my! You should have told me you were prone to fainting, Pete!" Her voice through the wall sounded forced and a shiver made its way down my spine. A spike of fear shot through me, and I looked around the basement again. No windows to crawl out of, and the floor was dusty and stained.
"We should leave." I whispered, shooting a look at the door. Since Genesis was the first one in, I'm pretty sure it's unlocked.
"Guys…" Firkle pointed at something behind some metal shelves, and we walked forward to look at what he found. Through the gaps in the shelf, there was a cloth pinned to the wall with dirty red paint splattered on it. "Look familiar?" He turned to look at Michael who had gone slightly pale.
"We need to leave. Now." His urgency hissed through his teeth, and I felt a ball of ice drop in my stomach.
"What are you guys-" Just as Raven spoke up the door opened again.
"Who's next? Michael maybe?" She looked a little too excited.
We hadn't introduced ourselves to her.
We all looked at each other uneasily, none of us wanting to be in a room alone with her. Or at least partially alone considering neither Pete or Henrietta have come out yet.
"Are Henrietta and Pete okay?" I asked nervously and she just smiled widely at me.
"Of course they are, do you want to go next?"
"No, I wasn't planning on getting pierced today." I quickly shook my head, and she stepped forward.
"Then how about Firkle? You look like you want one." She grabbed his arm and he glared at her. It was creepy how she knew us by name.
"I'm still thinking about it." He tried pulling his arm away, but she only tightened her hold.
"Come think about it in here, I have a poster with a bunch of different ones you could get." She began dragging him toward the open door.
"Hey-" I reached out to grab him, but Michael held me back as Firkle shot us a look over his shoulder, reaching into his pocket with his free hand.
"I'll be fine, I'll look at the diagrams." He sent a significant look at Michael and the door shut behind him.
"This bitch is with the Cult of Cthulhu." He urgently whispered, looking around the basement. "She led us here on purpose."
"Why is the cult after you?" Raven immediately whispered back. I was feeling very lost.
"I guess they're still a little mad that we ditched them."
"You were actually part of the cult?" He said at an almost normal volume, but Michael shushed him.
"The dark lord Cthulhu promised us chaos, bedlam, and madness, he was supposed to get rid of all the posers, okay? We ditched them after everything stayed the same."
"You can't just ditch the Cult of Cthulhu!" Raven hissed looking stressed out.
"Yeah, I get that now." Michael hissed back. There was some thumping coming from inside the room again.
"Ouch! Get back here you little bastard!"
"She locked the door!" Firkle pounded against it before something heavier slammed into it.
"Fuck, what do we do?" I looked between them both and they looked at each other.
"We need to get out of here and call Mysterion, he's the only one that can deal with them." Raven said confidently.
"Who the fuck is Mysterion?" Michael asked before I could.
"You know, he's a superhero that used to go around South Park, he's the one that defeated Cthulhu last time." I always assumed their stories about the Cult of Cthulhu were a bit exaggerated, but I guess they were actually holding back.
"You mean that poser that wears his underwear outside his pants?"
"Yeah him." Raven ignored the sarcastic tone. "Who knows who else is here, there might be other cult members nearby." Something big was knocked over and Genesis screamed, I'm not sure if it was in pain or frustration.
"You two get out of here and call that Mysterion guy, I'll stay and try to hold this bitch back if she tries to go after you." He turned to look at the door and I swallowed thickly.
"You can't stay here on your own." My eyes widened, my blood thrumming with energy and my body begging me to run away. "This bitch is crazy, who knows what she'll do to you, or what the fuck she's done to them."
"She's after us, neither of you were part of the cult." He crossed his arms tightly. "If anything happens, I'll text you." I was about to argue but suddenly Firkle let out a shrill squeak making me flinch. "Hurry up and go!" He pushed us toward the stairs and Raven was already running up them.
"Be careful. We'll come back for you." I whispered, biting my lip as he suddenly smirked.
"You should be more worried about that cunt." I hesitated, wanting to say or do something more, but I wasn't sure what.
"We have to go!" Raven hissed from the top of the stairs, getting the door open. I nodded one more time at Michael before running up the stairs.
Kenny McCormick lightly hummed as he walked around his kitchen, grabbing things to pour himself a bowl of cereal. Sitting down at his kitchen table, he poured himself a generous serving of off-brand froot loops and was about to pour the milk when his phone rang.
"Hey Stan, what's up dude?" His voice came out less muffled than usual since he had pulled his hood down to each the cereal.
"Ken- Mysterion! We need your help!" Kenny straightened up, not expecting the urgency in his friend's voice.
"What is it, Toolshed?" He immediately switched to his superhero persona. They'd hadn't played this game in a long time, but Mysterion still went out once in a while on his own, usually when Karen McCormick walked home alone from a friend's house.
"We came to see a woman, but it was a trap; she's with the Cult of Cthulhu. She attacked the goth kids, apparently cults don't forgive or forget when their members abandon them." His voice was slightly breathless, it sounded like he'd been running.
"You have a superhero's number in your phone?" Someone gasped for breath next to him, but he couldn't hear her as well over the speaker.
"What is your exact location?" Kenny stormed out of the kitchen, forgetting his cereal, and taking long strides into his bedroom.
"We're in Fairplay, less than an hour from South Park." He pulled one of the bikini posters off his wall and stared at a hidden map with scribbles in different colors indicating dates, times, and known cult members. Over the years the cult had gone silent, but there were still whispers in the dark, posts being made on the dark web, and people going missing. Given how intricately woven his life was with Cthulhu, he's been keeping tabs over the years in case anything big happened again. He hoped this wouldn't be the beginning of another catastrophe.
"Fairplay…" He poked one of the cities on the map. There wasn't much to make him suspicious of it, but the cities surrounding it all had major incidents like disappearances and back-alley murders. He linked those crimes to the cult because they followed a specific pattern. The colors overlapped around Fairplay but didn't go through it. Either this is a one-time incident, or these cult members are getting sloppy. "I'll be there, try to wait it out. Where are you and where are the goth kids." He shoved aside the closet door and dug through the clothes that had fallen off their hangers.
"Sophia and I were able to get out, but the rest of the goth kids are still at that lady's house. I'll send you the address."
"How did she attack you?"
"She took them into a separate room, one by one. They didn't come back out and I didn't hear them make any noise afterwards."
"It's possible she just knocked them out, if I had to guess I'd say they're not dead."
"You think so?"
"Yeah, they most likely need them for something, they wouldn't kill them right away if they were looking for revenge." He pulled on his costume and packed a bag with what he would need. Kenny had a complicated relationship with death, but he wasn't above knocking someone out for information.
"How fast can you get here?"
"Give me half an hour, send me your location."
"Gods peed, Mysterion." Kenny hung up the phone, smirking.
"Karen! I'm going out!"
"Okay Kenny!"
