In the end, Angus and Ann were the ones who didn't go.
They agreed to hang back and hold down the house, as well as provide backup if it was necessary. Trent had pointed out that they really needed someone, a minimum of one person, who knew where they were and was not with them, in case shit went down.
They geared up as best they could, then set out in two cars. Trent let Gregg drive his new Jeep after both Angus and Bea reassured him that he was actually a good driver, and Mae went with him, and he went with Bea in her car.
Somehow, it felt necessary.
Mae needed Gregg's support and he needed hers, and Trent was getting the impression that Bea needed his support, and in a way he also needed hers.
They all needed each other, but sometimes it wasn't that simple.
The ride would take them a good half an hour. For the first five minutes, neither of them spoke. They simply drove through the pale sunshine. It would be dark in a few hours, and they'd debated whether or not to wait until then or just go now. Finally, they settled for doing a drive-by. If there were no cars or obvious signs of people being there, then they'd hit it and see if this was a total bust or not. Trent wasn't sure what to hope for more.
Bea finally broke the silence. "This is like the first time, but so much scarier," she murmured.
"What do you mean?" he asked.
"Mae became convinced she was being chased by a ghost. She roped us into doing some sleuthing and me and her dug up a few leads. She dragged us all over town. The graveyard, the library, the woods, the old historical society house...we were hunting for clues. This is kind of like that, only the stakes feel a lot higher now...I wonder if we could get a gun," she murmured.
"That might be a good idea, surely we can find a way to get one, even illegally," Trent muttered.
"And you're just cool with that?" Bea asked, surprised.
"You suggested it."
"Yeah, but I thought-most people wouldn't be comfortable with that, is all."
"To protect myself? To protect Mae? To protect you? Ann? Yes. I would take and use a gun."
Bea was silent for a long couple of minutes after that, gripping the steering wheel tightly, a grim, anxious look on her face. She was chewing on an unlit cigarette. He wondered if he'd said something wrong. She seemed affected by it.
"There's something I have to tell you," she said finally.
"Okay, I'm listening," he replied.
She took a shaky breath and the cigarette fell out of her mouth. She growled and began feeling around for it, then abruptly gave up. "Fuck it," she whispered. "Trent...we could die doing this. Whatever I might believe or not believe about the goat thing, it's obvious there's a murder cult at work. I mean, we now have pretty strong evidence that the goddamned Chief of Police of Possum Springs is, at the very least, involved."
"Yeah."
"So...it's just been hitting me, like really hitting me, that you or I or Mae could actually be killed doing this. And, honestly...Mae's right. This is worth fighting for. It's worth risking things for. Even if the goat stuff is bullshit, which I don't really know what to think about anymore, it's still worth it to stop these men. They're evil. Stopping evil is worth fighting and risking for. But what I want to say is…" she hesitated, gritted her teeth.
"Whatever it is, you can tell me, Bea," he said.
She sighed. "Fuck, this is a lot harder than I thought it would be...I'm scared," she whispered.
"I'll do whatever I can to protect you," he said.
"I know! That's not-I'm not scared of what's coming up ahead. I mean, I am, but that's not what I'm talking about."
"Then what are you talking about?"
"I'm scared of...telling the truth," she murmured.
"What truth?"
"The truth that I love you, Trent. That I'm in love with you, okay!?" she blurted out. She was still staring at the road but he could see tears in her eyes.
Several long, long seconds passed in the car.
"Well say something goddamnit!" Bea cried.
"I know how you feel," he said finally, "because I'm-I've-I am already in love with you, too," he mumbled.
She let out a short, sharp laugh. "You love me?" she asked.
"Yes, Bea. I love you."
"You love me like you love Mae?"
"Yes."
She swallowed, took a few deep breaths, reached up and wiped at her eyes. "Fuck," she whispered.
"Is that bad?" he asked.
"No-ye-I don't know! It scares the shit out of me, okay?! And I was holding it in, because you only just told Mae that you love her, and it still feels weird-I mean, fucking my best friend's boyfriend is one thing, dating is another, but love? Love!? That's-I've never been in love, Trent! Never! I love Mae, I love my dad, my friends and what's left of my family. But I've never been in love, not like this. I wasn't even sure if it was possible. It's intense, Trent. I just-" she stopped abruptly, took another deep, steadying breath, then pressed on.
"Listen. I've been unhappy my whole life. After Mae left, it got worse. When my mom died...it felt like the end of the world. I was eighteen years old. I was just supposed to be starting my life, but it felt like I was ending it. I felt doomed. Utterly doomed. And I've continued feeling that way until just recently. Mae helped, when she came back into my life, but you've...fuck, I hate how this sounds," she whispered.
"Who cares how it sounds? Just tell me," he said.
"It's easy for you to say because you get to be the good guy in this scenario. It feels like you've saved my life. And it always sounds like I'm such a fucking useless delicate flower, a fucking damsel in distress like all these other girls who sit around waiting for some guy to come and fucking save them for Christ's sake-"
"Bea," he said, "why does it have to be that? I mean even setting aside the fact that you've proven yourself capable, intelligent, strong-willed...all of it, a hundred times over, why can't it be that we did that, we do that, for each other? I feel the same way about you, and Mae, and Ann. You saved me. Yeah, I had stuff dumped in my life in a massive turn of luck. A house, cash, a fresh start. But how long was that really gonna last? And what's even the point of it if I don't have someone like you or Mae or Ann to share it with? Bea, you're more than independent, but that doesn't mean you have to be. You don't need me, Bea, you don't need this relationship, you want it. That's okay. Depending on someone is not the same thing as being dependent on someone."
"I need you," she said quietly. "I want to believe otherwise...but it isn't true. I need you. I need Mae. I need people like you in my life or...it's exactly like you said: what's the point? What's the point if you don't have people to share it with? I need you, because without you, without Mae, I'm just...continuing for the sake of continuing."
"If that's true, then I need you, and Mae, and Ann," Trent said.
"And that scares the shit out of me, too. It's a lot of responsibility but...that cuts both ways. It's a lot of responsibility to hand you." She shook her head suddenly. "Do you think Mae will be mad?" she asked quietly.
"That we're in love?" he asked. She nodded. He laughed. "No, she'll be thrilled."
"I don't understand that girl," she whispered.
"Are you mad that Mae and I are in love?" he asked.
"No...I'm not. But, I don't know, she started dating you first. It makes sense. And you're obviously pretty right for her…"
"She thinks I'm right for you, too. She was worried we wouldn't fall in love. She wanted this to happen."
"Fuck...I guess I shouldn't really worry about it because what does it change? We love who we love, it seems to be working, why worry?"
"Exactly."
"Except it's easy to say, not so easy to do."
"You'll get there, Bea. Just...know that you're loved. Platonically, romantically, pretty much every way. Whatever happens, you're loved. I love you. Mae loves you."
She giggled suddenly. "Say it again."
"I love you, Bea."
"Ah, God, that's...like a drug. Oh wow. I know this is stupid and crazy but we gotta have sex tonight, when we're done with whatever the hell this is."
"Okay," he replied. "It doesn't sound crazy to me."
"Good." She sighed suddenly. "I am scared, though. But I'm so pissed. I'm so fucking pissed off at them. They're like...everything shitty about the world today. A bunch of stupid old racist, sexist assholes who are totally fucking cool just outright murdering the 'degenerates'-ugh! Fuck. Like shit isn't fucked enough."
"We'll take them down," Trent said.
"We will," she growled.
They kept driving until they were past city limits, on a single lonely road that seemed to stretch off into the snowbound infinity. Finally, after quite awhile, they saw the building they were looking for. It was a tall, isolated structure, surrounded by vast winter desolation on all sides. Bea was leading the way, and so she slowed as they approached the parking lot. There wasn't a car in sight. Not in the lot or on the road.
"Fuck it," she muttered and pulled into the old parking lot. He checked the rearview and saw Gregg pull in behind them.
They both parked and got out of their vehicles.
"Come on," Bea said, popping her trunk. She pulled out her metal bat and handed it to Trent. "You get this. You've got the best arms for it."
"You sure?" he asked.
"Yeah, you're tallest, longest reach, and you're pretty strong. Hopefully you won't need to use it," she replied, slamming the trunk.
"I've got mine," Mae said, hefting her own bat. It was the same one that she'd been holding when they had first met. Her brass knuckles gleamed on her right hand. They were all armed. Gregg seemed content with his knife, and Bea had both a tazer and some mace.
"Let's do this," Trent said after looking around one more time.
They walked up to the front door. He pulled out the key that they'd found and slid it into the lock. It went in. He turned it. The door unlocked.
Trent opened it up. He expected someone, or something, to be waiting for him beyond, something terrible, but all that awaited him was a dusty old room that filled with winterlight as the doors were pushed open. Hefting the bat, he stepped slowly inside. The room beyond was old and concrete and totally empty. There were three other doors, one in each wall.
"Bea, check out left, Mae, check out the one ahead, Gregg, watch our back. I'll check the right door," Trent said.
"Got it," they all said, almost at the same time, and split up.
Trent carefully opened up the door. It was big and solid and metal, with no way to see what was on the other side. It squealed horribly and he winced and froze, then decided to just get it over with and pushed it open enough to get his head through.
Doing so gave him a view into a huge, open room that was probably eighty percent of the whole building. Huge pieces of metallic machinery, covered in layers of dust, were visible.
He listened closely, but he couldn't hear anything except for the dripping of water somewhere.
"What is it?" Gregg asked.
"Some kind of factory, I think," Trent replied.
"I've got stairs here," Mae said.
"Some long, empty room here, and it makes sense if this is a factory," Bea said. "That's what they always obsessed over: the mills, the mines, the factories, places of industry. Where all our dads used to work...oh God," she moaned.
Trent turned around and saw her staring, not at him but past him, to the wall beside him, a look of haunted horror on her face. "What?" he whispered.
"What if our dads are involved?"
"No," Mae replied immediately, "no, there's no way."
"She's probably right, Bea," Gregg said. "Maybe my dad could be involved, but I think he's too lazy. And I can't see Mae's dad doing it. And not your dad."
"Maybe," Bea muttered. "I guess we'll find out."
"Up the stairs," Trent said.
Mae led the way, baseball bat in hand. He was behind her, Bea behind him, Gregg watching their back. The stairs led up two flights, folding back on themselves a few times with no access to a second story, just the third. Which turned out to be a big hallway with a lot of doors. The four of them came out to stand in a loose circle.
"Wait, shh!" Mae whispered. They all fell silent, and waited, and listened. Finally she let out her breath. "Thought I heard something...I guess we should search this place. I mean there's gotta be something here, right?"
"There doesn't got to be," Bea pointed out.
"Let's just get to work. The longer we're here, the longer we run the risk of getting exposed," Trent said.
"All right, Gregg, with me. We'll go to this end, Trent, Bea, you go to the other end. Work our way towards the middle," Mae said.
Everyone agreed and they split up. Their footsteps echoed as they walked down the hallway, sounding ominous and vaguely threatening. Trent had to admit, if he ran a murder cult, this would be a great place to headquarter it.
He and Bea got to the first door.
"Ready?" she whispered.
He nodded, hefting the metal bat and rolling his shoulders a few times. Damn, was he actually prepared to crack someone in the skull? To kill someone? He'd heard stories that it was just one of those things you couldn't know until you were actually faced with it. He hoped he didn't have to be faced with it today.
"Go," he whispered.
Bea twisted the knob and opened the door, then stepped out of his way, her tazer in her other hand. Trent waited for someone to come out. No one did. He looked inside and saw...an empty room, the floor littered with dust and debris. The winterlight was strong here, coming in through some big, dusty windows on the far side of the room.
"Wonder what this was," he muttered.
"Doesn't matter now," Bea replied.
They finished making sure it was really empty and then moved onto the next door. This one led to a bathroom. Trent looked over it, finding stained porcelain urinals and dented stall doors covered in marker and spray paint. The mirrors over the sinks were surprisingly clear, though, and he saw bootprints in the dust.
"Someone's been here," he whispered, pointing.
"Great," Bea muttered.
Trent checked the stalls, opening each one, and finding them all empty. Two had toiletseats up, though, and although the toilets were stained with layers of everything awful, they actually looked functional. He was tempted to do a test flush, but it seemed smart to make as little noise as possible. They backed out and moved onto the next room.
This one had actual furniture in it, and looked recently used.
"Definitely someone's been here," he whispered.
It looked like a break room. There was a battered old couch covered in stains and cigarette burns, a deeply scarred coffee table, a pair of old vending machines, one for soda and one for snacks, an ancient arcade cabinet with a dark, cracked screen, and a shockingly new flat screen TV hung from one wall with a cluster of chairs around it.
Smelters paraphernalia hung from the wall around the TV.
"Fucking Smelters," Bea growled.
"You don't like them?" he asked.
"No. It's all my dad gives a shit about these days. God."
As they stepped out they saw Mae and Gregg coming towards them. Just a single door stood unopened now.
"Anything?" Trent asked.
"Two empty rooms and what might've been a foreman's office. There were big windows overlooking the factory floor in that first door, and there was a big desk and a chair, but it was empty," Mae replied.
"Well...let's see what's behind the last door," Trent said.
They all readied themselves and opened it up.
"Jackpot," Gregg whispered.
It did look significant.
It was like a boardroom, with one of those huge wooden tables and a dozen chairs around it, although the chairs weren't the fancy leather swivel kind, they were just a mishmash of random chairs. Some foldout, some recliners, some stools. At the head of the table, though, was a really nice leather chair.
"That's where the master of the order sits," Mae whispered.
"The what now?" Bea asked.
"You know, the guy in charge sits up there, and goes 'brew-ha-ha!', and makes decisions about who to fucking murder like Casey you sick fucks!" Mae screamed and dashed forward suddenly and cracked the bat into one of the stools, sending it flying.
"Mae! Mae!" Trent cried.
"What!?" she snapped.
"You have to calm down!"
She stared at him, real anger and tears in her eyes, breathing heavily, then she just shook her head sadly, her shoulders slumping. She wiped at her eyes as he walked over to her and put his arms around her.
"It still hurts," she whispered.
"I know it does. But we need to have a clear head about this, okay Mae?"
She sighed heavily, then nodded and let go of him. "Yeah. You're right. Let's see what there is to be found."
They split up and started searching the room. The table itself mostly held the old remains of fast food and coffee cups and bottles. Trent made for the chair at the front. He pulled it back and looked down into it.
"Holy shit," he muttered.
"What?" they all asked at once.
Trent grabbed a leatherbound book, not very large, but clearly old and worn. No, he realized as he examined it, not a book, more like a journal or a ledger.
He opened it up.
It was thin, not all that many pages inside, and on the first page he saw a series of names in three columns, written in careful black lettering. The earliest writing was a different handwriting style than the later writing.
"What is this?" Gregg muttered.
"Could it be everyone they killed?" Mae asked as they huddled around it.
Trent could see that most of the first row had little red Xs next to their names. Near the top of the second row, he saw his great-uncle's name.
"No...this is a list of cult members. What's the Police Chief's name?" he asked.
"Oh, I know this," Bea muttered. "Uh...Ax, something. Axer. Baxter!"
"Marlon Baxter," Trent said, tapping one of the names.
"Anyone we recognize in there?" Mae asked.
"We should leave, this is a huge find," Trent said, slipping it into his inner coat pocket.
"He's right," Bea said.
"Yeah," Gregg agreed.
Mae frowned, looking around, and finally nodded. "Okay, yeah. We've pushed our luck enough as it is. Let's GTFO."