The next week passed in a strange kind of frenzy of activity.
The next day, a storm that they all felt had been coming for weeks, perhaps building on the horizons, surrounding them, finally hit.
It immobilized the city.
This was fine for Trent, as it hit that night, and the day following their stargazing, they'd managed to do several things. Mostly they sorted through Mae's whole room. She packed up a lot of stuff and they moved it over to what was now their house, then went grocery shopping at the Ham Panther with Mae's mom, and then had dinner with Mae's parents that night.
After the storm hit, Trent decided that since they were stuck in here, he was going to pull apart the entire house. All of it, top to bottom, and sort every last thing. Mae and Ann were happy to help, and so that turned into a week-long project as they started in the basement.
It was a long project, but one he found very satisfying. They all seemed to. He split his time between searching, organizing, and cleaning the house, and preparing for his writing career. He felt better now, more content to let a bit more time pass, to focus instead on this project of cleaning the house, making it theirs, and the majority of his actual writing was Mae's fan fiction. All of it, somehow, felt just…
Right. Correct.
As if it was the thing he should be doing, and Mae seemed to agree.
He hadn't forgotten her mind-reading moment, and neither had she, but they'd put it aside for now. They did, however, take the opportunity to fill Ann in on the situation with the cult and everything that had gone down. It only seemed fair. Trent was very curious to see how she'd take it, and she had basically just taken it not just in stride, but at face value.
"That's really fucked up," was most of what she had to say about it.
That was really the only blemish on their week of being snowed in.
Except for what happened at the very end.
They worked their way slowly upwards, shifting every piece of furniture, cleaning everything. They swept every bit of floor that wasn't carpeted, and vacuumed what was. They cleaned any stains they found. They washed all the windows. They cleaned out the fridge, the cabinets, of anything too old to use. They hunted fervently for any hidden compartments or secret places, but found nothing. They produced a few big bags of trash, and also two boxes and a large garbage bag of stuff that they planned to donate to a salvation army type place Ann told him about. They finally got a finalized list of all the shit that they wanted to sell off, and got it partitioned off in the basement. They organized all of Mae's things, and also got Ann set up in one corner of the living room with another desk that they decided to keep for her, since she would be doing freelance editing now.
Finally, on the seventh day, when the blizzard that had hit them off and on all week had finally died off, covering Possum Springs in an eerie silence, they tackled the last part of the house: the attic. Trent had been worrying over it all week, but finally, when he climbed up there, he was very grateful to discover that not only was it a mostly finished attic and it wasn't that big, but there hardly seemed to be anything in it.
Just a handful of boxes and an old lamp.
As they all climbed up into the attic and lit the place up, Mae hovered reluctantly by the ladder.
"Something wrong?" Trent asked.
"I don't like it up here," she murmured, looking around anxiously.
"What's wrong with it?" Ann asked.
"I don't know...I just-I don't like it."
"You don't have to stay up here with us," Trent said, "we can finish it."
She sighed softly, still looking around. "No...I need to help you finish it. I don't know why but I do. I'll be okay."
"If you're sure," he said, nervous now himself. Mae seemed to have a sixth sense about stuff like this.
"I'm sure," she said firmly, and they set to work.
They moved the lamp down to the basement, to be sold off with what other furniture remained, and sorted through the boxes. Mostly they were full of old clothes and old books, with a few other random trinkets thrown inside.
They brought them down to be sorted between keep and donated, (though Trent imagined they'd donate almost all of it), and then cleaned up. There was just a single window in there and not much beyond some dust to sweep up.
It was when they had just finished up that Mae found it.
She was by herself, over by the sole window, crouched down on the floor. Trent finished sweeping, collected up the pile, and dumped it into the garbage bag they'd brought. Ann tied it off and Trent prepared to get out of there, because that awkward, nervous feeling hadn't abated. If anything, it had only grown worse. He couldn't tell if it was nerves or something else. But he heard a small but distinct clicking sound, like something being opened, and glanced over at Mae. She was crouched down, seemingly very interested in something.
He started walking over, wondering if she'd finally found something.
Suddenly, she shrieked, loudly, in pure terror and threw something away from herself and then began backing away.
"No! No! No! NO!" she screamed in blind terror, backing up on her hands and feet until she bumped into Trent, knocking him over, and shrieked again.
"Mae, what is it?!" he cried, trying to see what had her so panicked.
"It's the Goat!" she yelled, and began crying. "Oh God, it was right above us the whole time! OH GOD IT'S THE GOAT!" she screamed.
Trent felt cold black terror clutch his heart as he stood up and tried to see what it was she was talking about.
And then he saw it: something small and dark on the attic floor not far from a little hole in the wall beneath the window. A perfectly square hole that was now exposed, a small door opened.
"Mae, it's okay," Ann said.
"No it isn't!" she sobbed. "It's the Black Goat!"
Trent slowly walked over and looked down, terror making him cautious, prepared to run out of there at the drop of a hat.
He saw it, what had Mae so terrified: a small wooden figurine painted a deep hateful black. He had no idea how a coat of paint could be described as hateful but damned if he didn't feel it: hatred. He shivered violently and began to reach down.
"Don't touch it!" Mae screamed.
He stopped. "W-What do we do?" he asked.
"Destroy it," Mae replied, getting some control over herself. "You have to destroy it."
"How?" Ann asked.
"Burn it," Trent said suddenly. "We can burn it."
"Yes! Burn it! Now!"
"How do we transport it?" Trent asked.
"I don't know...get a cloth or something," Mae replied. "You can't touch it, not with your bare hand."
"Why?"
"I don't know! You just can't!" she wailed.
"Okay, hold on, I'll be right back," Ann said. He glanced at her. She sounded shaken. She disappeared down the ladder in a hustle.
Trent looked back into the hole in the wall, the little hidden compartment they'd been looking for this whole time.
There was something else in there.
"Trent," Mae moaned as he crouched.
"It's okay, Mae," he replied, extracting the only other thing in there. It was a very small niche. The object was a key, an old-looking key, with a strip of paper tied to its end. There was faded writing on it that was still visible.
66 Old Way Drive
Trent swallowed. Why did that sound so ominous?
"What is it?" Mae asked, her voice shaky.
"A key, with an address on it," Trent replied, pocketing it for now.
Ann returned a moment later with an old sock they were planning on throwing out. Trent thanked her, accepting it, and put it on like a glove. He gingerly picked up the figurine, his heart hammering in his chest. He kept expecting it to start squirming around, to somehow come to life and stab him, but it didn't, remaining inert as he cupped it in his sock-protected hand, then turned the sock inside out so that it held the figurine.
"Come on," he said, hurrying downstairs after nudging the niche shut with his foot.
A few minutes later they were all downstairs in a very well-lit living room, the fire roaring, with the sock and the figurine burning in it.
"Jesus, that thing was creepy," Ann whispered.
"It was in here the whole time, I knew it wasn't over…" Mae moaned. She was on the couch, wringing her hands, which she had washed profusely while he'd gotten the fire going, with Ann hugging her tightly.
"Well, I think we can lay to rest the question of: was my great-uncle a member of the fucking murder cult," Trent muttered unhappily as he watched the figure burn. She was right: the black goat was fucking terrifying.
"I'm sorry," Mae whispered. "I was hoping it was just a coincidence, somehow...but it isn't. Ugh, it's not over…"
"Why?" Ann asked. "I don't understand, why isn't it over?"
"For one, we can't be sure if we got the whole cult," Mae replied. She sounded less terrified now. Her voice had grown more weary, more bitter. "I doubt they were all there. But even if we did...it's still alive. The...the monster is still alive, down in that hole. Now I know why I haven't been able to do anything…"
"What does that mean?" Trent asked, turning away as the last of the object burned up. She looked haggard and haunted. He walked over to her. "Do anything?"
"Ever since the showdown in the mine, I've been trying to do stuff...move on, make plans. But it's like...my brain keeps saying no. I don't know why, I just feel like I've been...waiting. I thought maybe it would be over when we started dating, but somehow...I just can't push on. I can't really make plans, like bigger plans. I don't really know how to describe it. Just that I was waiting. Now I know what I'm waiting for. It's not done, my battle with that thing, it isn't over. It won't leave me alone until…" she hesitated.
"Until what?" Trent asked.
"I don't know. I just don't know. Somehow...I have to stop it. Or put it to sleep maybe? It can't be killed, I know that. It's too powerful. But obviously it lost some measure of power...I could feel it before, and it kept getting worse and worse, the effect it was having on me. But after that confrontation, and after the dynamite, it was almost like it was gone. Was it just hiding? Done with me? Or was it actually weakened somehow?"
"So what do you want to do?" Trent asked.
She looked at him suddenly. "Do you think I'm crazy?"
"No, Mae. I don't think you're crazy. We all agree that the murder cult was a thing, and I feel like that thing was the last piece of the puzzle in proving my great-uncle was involved. But if you truly believe that this is still a threat, and that we can somehow stop it, or slow it...I'm in. Because I kind of know what you mean...about the waiting feeling. Like enacting my plans, my bigger plans...something was telling me it wasn't the right time, over the past week…"
"We need to tell people. We need Bea, Angus, and Gregg here. Will you get them here, as soon as you can? I want them here before we make any serious plans-"
They all looked over at the front door as they heard a car door shut, very nearby. Someone was in their driveway.
"Oh God," Mae whispered, "someone knows."
"Just stay here," Trent said. He slipped over to the door and peered carefully out the window. A figure was coming up the walkway. With the snow, it was much brighter than normal out there, and he relaxed slightly as he recognized the figure. "It's your aunt," he whispered.
"Aunt Mall Cop?! What the hell!? God, is she in the cult…?"
"I don't think so," Trent murmured. "I'm letting her in."
Mae sighed heavily. "Okay."
Molly knocked on the door and Trent opened it. She was out of uniform, wearing a parka and a skullcap with earmuffs. She looked troubled.
"Trent...is Mae here?" she asked uncertainly.
"Yes. She lives here now...what can I do for you?" he asked.
"It's about your great-uncle...the investigation is over...can I come in?"
"Yeah."
"Thank you."
She kicked snow off her boots and came inside. She seemed pensive, but also...guilty, somehow. She took off her parka and hat and earmuffs and boots, and then joined them, sitting down in one of the large chairs.
For a long moment, no one spoke.
"Well?" Mae asked. "Come on, out with it Aunt Mal-" she sighed, "Aunt Molly."
That earned her a curious look from Molly, who then looked uncertainly at Ann. "This is, uh, private information…"
"Whatever you have to tell me, Mae and Ann can hear it," Trent replied.
"All right," Molly said. She seemed to steel herself. "I...don't have anything for you."
"Well that's a huge anticlimax," Mae grumbled.
"Seriously?" Trent asked. "Nothing? How can you have nothing?"
She sighed heavily. "This whole thing is so insane that I guess it doesn't matter what I tell you. I'm being blocked by the Chief of Police for Possum Springs...my boss. I barely even got a chance to visit the site. Most of us didn't. Just a few of the most senior officers. I was there once. All I know is that it was a very difficult excavation, and fourteen men were found dead, crushed, in the innermost cavern. One of them was your great-uncle."
"Was there a hole?" Mae asked. "In the middle of the cavern, a big giant hole in the ground?"
Molly stared at her for a long moment. "...yes," she admitted, "there was. We couldn't get a depth reading on it, from what I heard. It went down over a kilometer." Mae shuddered visibly when she said that. Molly looked at Mae slowly. "Mae...do you know something about what happened down in that mine?" she asked, her voice carefully neutral.
Mae stared at her, then looked around at Ann, then at Trent. Her eyes said 'let me handle this', and Trent was happy to, because he had no idea how to handle this situation.
"I want to tell you a story, Aunt Molly," Mae said slowly, carefully. Molly sat up in her seat a bit, focusing more intently on Mae.
"Okay…"
"Once upon a time, there was a small town in the Rust Belt. The town was once successful, and many people had jobs and money. But as time wore on, the success faded away, and the town began to die. The people were sad and angry. One day, some men exploring an old mine made a terrible discovery: a bottomless hole. In this hole, lay an old god. An ancient and terrible being, capable of great power. One of the men fell into the hole and died...and the town began to prosper again. The surviving man told other men, and they began to learn that if they threw people down the hole to the old god, the town would prosper."
Molly was staring harder than ever at Mae now, visibly uncomfortable. But she didn't say anything, she just listened.
"So they formed a secret society, these men. These old men who remembered the old days, when the town was prosperous. And they decided to themselves, if they could feed this strange old god people, useless people, bums and jobless and homeless, 'non-productive members of society', then they could keep the town going, make it prosperous again. One of these men had a special ability. The old god could not communicate directly with most people, because they could not hear it. But some could, some were...special.
"One of these men was special, and he did as the old god said. The god gave him abilities. For years this went on. People went missing, missing posters went up, and unanswered. Mostly, no one cared. The town prospered here and there. Every year or so, it was time to throw another body down the hole. To feed the god. And then, one day, a girl came back to her old town, that old town with the old god, and tried to make sense of her world, which had shattered into pieces. At first, it was like how it used to be for her, and her friends, but then she began seeing things, hearing things, being hunted by...something.
"Finally, she and her friends went down into the old mine and found the cult and they made their pitch: they were getting old. They couldn't keep doing it forever. They needed someone to take over for them. The young woman had the ability, the special hearing, to hear the old god. That was why her world had shattered, years ago, and shattered again, and again. The cult let the girl and her friends go, but on the way out, one of them attacked, and in doing so, caused a cave-in that killed the cult...most of them, anyway. And the girl and her friends went home, to try and live normal lives."
Mae stopped speaking abruptly.
For a long, long time, the only sound was the howling of the wind outside, and the crackling of the fire inside.
"Are you saying you went down there?" Molly asked finally.
"I'm not saying that at all. I'm just telling you a story, Aunt Molly. An important, deniable story."
Molly continued staring at her, then slowly adjusted her gaze to Trent, then to Ann, then back to Mae. Finally, she heaved out a long, weary, miserable sigh. "Fuck," she whispered, sitting back in the chair and putting a hand over her eyes, "fuck."
Another long silence.
Finally, she took her hand away and sat up. "I have no idea what the hell to make of your story, Mae. I don't...want to think about this, just for awhile. I've been trying to pry details out of the others, but my boss very clearly and very definitely told me that this was no longer my concern. I pushed. He suspended me, leave without pay. Unprofessional conduct. So I'm willing to bet that he's a member of this cult of yours."
Mae said nothing, her face betrayed nothing.
Finally, Molly got to her feet. "I don't know what I'm going to do, but obviously something big and bad is happening. There's some measure of corruption at work, I know that much. But look...Mae, Trent, Selma, if you do come across anything that might help me out in this, or if you're in real danger, please come to me. I don't know what in the hell is going on, but I do know that I love this town, and its people, and I swore to protect them. Even if that means protecting them from the Chief of Police, and whoever else he might have on his side...then so be it. Just know...that you can trust me. I know you don't, Mae, but you can. You're family, and I would take a bullet for you if it really came down to it. So...please? Tell me? If anything comes up."
"We will," Mae said finally, but it sounded more like she wanted to end the conversation than anything else.
Molly stared at her for a long moment, then sighed heavily. She reached into her pocket and set a card down on the coffee table. "My personal number. Any time, night or day. I'm serious, whatever's happening, it's dangerous, and if any of you need help, I will help you."
"We appreciate it," Trent said, getting back to his feet.
She pursed her lips, then nodded and walked back over to the front door. She pulled her things on and left without saying another word.
"Well...fuck," Trent muttered, staring out the window.