"Here, it's here," Mae said, walking up to a bookshelf. Trent joined her. The bookshelf looked unused, covered in a thin layer of dust.
"You sure?" Gregg asked.
"Positive," she murmured. "Now shh."
They waited. Mae reached out a hand after a long moment, first directly in front of her, then up, higher, higher, then sighed heavily. "Can I get some help, babe?"
"Yeah." He joined her and raised his hand up to the top shelf, beyond her reach. "Now what?"
She didn't respond, instead staring intensely at the books up there. "Left," she murmured. He shifted slowly left. "More...more...stop. Back. Stop. That one."
He pulled down a particularly thick hardback. He studied it as it came down. "Huh."
"What?" Mae asked as he passed it to her.
"The Bachman Books."
"What's special about that?" Gregg asked.
"It's Stephen King's pseudonym. He wrote and published in secret in the eighties, to see if he could get that popular again as a nobody. But then someone blew his cover like a jerk. But what's significant about this collection is that it has Rage."
"So?" Mae asked.
"You can't find Rage anymore. Stand-alone copies go for like a grand. The FBI asked him to pull it from publication and he agreed to."
"Whoa! WTF, why?" Mae asked. "Was it, like, satanic or something?"
Trent laughed. "No, it's about some kid snapping, shooting his teacher, and taking the class hostage. I guess they kept finding copies of it in school shooter's possessions. You can see why that'd make everyone kinda nervous."
"Holy crap, have you read it?" Mae asked.
"Yeah. It's good, actually. Like, short, and weird, but pretty good."
"Huh." She shook the book. Something rattled around inside. "Oh I knew it." She opened up the book and saw that the middle of all the pages had been cut out.
"That's just disrespectful," Trent muttered.
"Yep." Mae looked down into the hole at the Black Goat totem that resided inside. "Fucking knew it, man." She closed the book with a snap. "Okay, let's-"
All three of them froze as they heard a car door close somewhere nearby. They all looked at each other, frozen in the upstairs library of the man who owned the Ham Panther. They waited, Trent frantically running through potential escape scenarios. They'd spent all of yesterday doing research on the guy who owned the Ham Panther and his wife. Stan had provided some information, Candy had managed to track down a bit more about where his wife might be. And so today they had decided to go for it.
It had gone well. She wasn't there, he wasn't there.
They'd broken in just like before.
Only this time…
"Oh fuck!" Mae hissed as they heard the key to the lock.
"Hide," Trent whispered.
"Where!?" Gregg whispered harshly.
"Anywhere!"
Mae and Gregg disappeared deeper into the room. Mae hid behind the curtains and Gregg ducked down behind a big reading chair near the corner. Trent slid over to the door and out into the hallway. He crept slowly forward, to where the wall ended and let out into the front entry and peered as slowly and carefully around the corner as he could.
The front door was just being closed by a middle-aged woman in a really expensive coat and a nice hat. She was talking on the phone, looking around like she was trying to find something. Trent swallowed and waited, watching. She was going on about something, what he soon realized was a soap opera or reality TV show or something. She walked out of the main entryway, into the kitchen, and kept wandering around and talking.
Trent began looking for a place to hide, just in case, praying that she wouldn't come upstairs. What the hell was she even doing? Obviously looking for something, so there was probably a decent chance that she wouldn't come upst-
"No, I can't find it. It must have slipped off my finger…" He heard her come back into the main room, then start walking up the stairs and started to panic. "Maybe I put it in the bathroom...oh wait!" She stopped almost at the top of the stairs. "I think maybe...it was bothering me so I took it off...when I was watching TV in the living room!" She turned around and walked back down the stairs. "It's just going to bother me if I don't have it, you know?"
Trent waited, his entire body rigid and tense, his heart pounding in his chest.
"Ah! Here it is! Okay, I'll be there in five minutes! Kisses!"
The cult member's wife hung up and walked back into the entryway. She stopped moving. Trent kept frozen, out of sight, trembling, trying to keep his breathing as shallow as possible. Finally, without a word, she opened the door, walked out, closed and locked it behind her. Trent didn't move until he heard the car engine start and then fade away.
Even then, slowly, he peered around the corner, just in case he'd misinterpreted the situation. She was gone.
"Fuck," he whispered. He went back into the library. "Okay guys, we're safe. Come on, let's get the absolute fuck out of here."
"Yep," Mae replied as she came out from behind the curtains. "Think I'm gonna puke."
"Outside," Trent said.
"Outside," Gregg agreed as he joined them.
They hurried out.
Trent opened his eyes.
Something was wrong.
He laid there in his bed with Bea, and Mae, and Ann. He could hear all three of them breathing in different cadences, but they were all asleep as far as he could tell. For a moment, he just laid there and stared at the moonlit ceiling.
For a few seconds, he couldn't remember anything.
He thought back while listening to the sounds of the old house around him. They had managed to get away from the house with the second (or technically third) totem. Candy had picked them up, driven them home, and then that had basically been it for the day after that close call. They'd gone back and forth for a little while on what to do next while the totem burned in his fireplace. In the end, they decided to keep working their way through the little guys, ultimately getting to the Chief of Police in the end.
Something creaked downstairs.
Trent swallowed, a bolt of fear shooting through him. He was sure he'd heard a noise. Gently, he reached over and put his hand on Bea's shoulder.
She came awake immediately. "What?" she whispered.
"I think someone's downstairs," Trent replied.
The fear in her eyes no doubt reflected his own.
"What do we do?" she whispered.
"Wake the others, quietly," Trent replied, then reached under his pillow and found the switchblade he'd stored there. "I'm going downstairs."
"Shit, shit...okay. Be careful, please," Bea replied.
Trent got out of bed and pulled on his boxers, then figured there was no real point in putting on anything else. If someone had a blade or a gun, it wasn't like a pair of jeans or a t-shirt was going to be any different than going in just his boxers. He stepped out into the hallway, resisting the urge to turn the light on.
The moon was out and full tonight and the lingering snow made it a lot brighter out. Consequently, he could see a lot better in the house. He got the blade out and walked to the top of the stairs. Maybe it was nothing, maybe he was just being paranoid. But as he stood there, staring down at the front door, he felt convinced someone was in there with them.
Slowly, he began walking down the stairs.
Maybe the cult was making its move. Maybe it was something completely unrelated, just a burglar or something. Or maybe it was just the wind.
Or maybe it was the Black Goat itself, somehow.
Trent reached the bottom of the stairs. He trembled in anticipation as he looked around. The shadows were thicker than he would've liked down here. He began to move into the living room, then paused as he heard something behind him.
Mae was standing at the top of the stairs wearing one of his t-shirts, a knife in her hand. Her eyes widened as he faced her. "Trent!"
Something moved behind him, and then suddenly he felt someone grasp his hair and yank his head back, and at the same moment he felt something sharp and cold press against his throat and he froze up immediately.
"Let. Him. Go," Mae growled, her voice low and dark.
"Not until I've had my say, girlie," the man holding the knife to Trent's throat replied. "You need to stop poking around, Borowski. Or your boyfriend's going in the ground. Do you hear me?"
"Let him go," Mae repeated, her voice lower now.
"Do you hear me, Mae Borowski? We know who you are. We know who your friends are. We know who your family is. You keep this up and someone's dying. Might be him. Might be your mom. Might be that goth bitch that works at the Pickaxe."
A look of utter calmness abruptly came over Mae's face. "What's your name?" she asked. Trent swallowed, wondering how the hell he was going to get out of this one. He was probably going to be okay, this felt like a threat more than anything else, not necessarily a demonstration or punishment, but it was all happening so fast and fuck he'd never had an actual knife to his throat!
"That don't matter. I just need to know that you understand the situation. Stop what you're doing, someone'll be around with an offer that we strongly suggest you take."
"Fine," Mae said. "I'll do what you want, and I'll consider your offer. But I suggest you get the fuck out of my house right now, because they don't need you, they need me. And they'll take it if I gut you or cut your nuts off." She raised a switchblade of her own and flicked it open. "You hear me? Because I'll fucking do it. You know I will."
She started walking slowly down the stairs.
Trent expected something, some warning or threat, but all the man said was "Stop! I'm going!" And there was actual fear in his voice.
How much did he know? Trent had to assume he was a member of the cult, but did they all know who she was? Who she was intended to be to them?
"Get. Out."
The man released Trent and then slipped out the front door in a flash. Trent stood stock still for several seconds, trembling, as Mae hurried down the stairs. She locked the door and then set her knife down and hugged Trent.
"Are you okay?" she asked.
"I, uh...oh shit, I don't think so," he groaned, his legs suddenly weak.
"What the hell was that?!" Bea snapped from the top of the stairs. He looked up and saw her and Ann standing there, both wearing little and holding something in their hands, weapons of some kind he had no doubt.
"Asshole cop came to scare us," Mae replied. "Come on, babe. Sit. Come on."
"How'd you know he was a cop?" Trent asked, his voice trembling as she led him into the living room.
"What the actual fuck was that?" Gregg asked, and Trent yelped.
"Jesus! I completely forgot you were there, shit!" he said, almost falling over.
"Sit," Mae commanded, guiding him around the folded out couch, where Gregg and Angus were laying, to the recliners. Trent collapsed into one of them.
"Sorry, we just woke up when we heard talking," Angus said.
"I was gonna jump him," Gregg muttered. "Are you okay, dude?"
"Need a minute," Trent replied.
Bea and Ann came downstairs and Mae kissed Trent, then moved back over to the front door and opened it up. She looked out, then closed and locked it again. "Fucker must've picked the lock," she muttered as she came back in.
"If he was a cop like you said he was, he wouldn't need to. They have skeleton keys," Bea said.
"Why do you think he's a cop?" Ann asked.
"I read his mind when I asked him his name. He didn't say shit, but he basically spilled his guts in his head. He's scared. He's not a member of the cult, he was basically reading off a script he memorized. His name's Frank Harlow. He's a cop, and the Chief sent him here," Mae said.
"Wait, so you really can read minds?" Ann asked.
"Yeah," Mae replied.
"We never proved that…" Bea murmured uncertainly.
"Think of a number, any number," Mae replied.
"Okay. Go."
"One billion eight hundred and four point nine," Mae replied almost immediately.
Bea's eyes bulged in her head. "Holy shit. Mae, that's-holy shit. Oh my fucking God."
"Wait, seriously?" Angus asked. "You can read minds? This is actual proof?"
"Yes," Mae said. "Think of something. A color."
"Okay," he replied.
"Magenta."
"No way," Angus muttered.
"Think of a date."
"A-all right."
"May thirteenth, nineteen ninety one."
"Holy crap," he whispered. "This isn't possible."
"It's from the Black Goat," Mae said. "I-it'll take some explaining, but that's not important right now. What's important right now is, first, Trent, are you going to be okay?"
"I think so," he replied. "I don't know if I'll manage to get back to sleep and I'll probably have goddamned nightmares from that, but I mean I'm not actually hurt. Just scared shitless. I'm starting to calm down, though."
"All right...so, um," Mae shook her head, rubbed one of her eyes, "ugh, adrenaline burst already wearing off. Focus, Mae," she muttered. "It's time for the nuclear option."
"What's the nuclear option?" Bea asked.
"We have to call my Aunt Molly."
"If the cops are involved they'll definitely be watching her," Angus said.
"Probably, but I think they're still disorganized. I had a look around that guy's head and he really doesn't know what's going on. And anyway, it doesn't really matter. We have to push this now, because they made their move. Obviously they're willing to send a cop to break into someone's home and threaten them with a knife. They know what we're doing."
"She's right," Bea said, "we don't really have a choice."
"I'll be right back," Mae said, getting up.
"Where are you going?" Trent asked.
"To get your phone and call my aunt."
"That's impossible," Molly muttered.
"That's what I said," Angus agreed.
"Do you believe me now?" Mae asked. She looked exhausted. Trent knew how she felt. They were all crowded into the living room now, the barest hints of dawn slowly peeking in through the drawn curtains and blinds.
"Do it again," Molly replied slowly.
"Fine, think of a, I don't know, anything. Just anything."
"...all right."
"Okay, you are thinking of...that episode of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine where they're trapped on Empok Nor and Garak goes crazy and starts killing people-I didn't know you liked Star Trek."
"Holy crap," Molly said. "I...how are you doing that?"
"The Black Goat, like I said." They had decided to just spill the beans on everything to her. That's what most of the past hour had been taken up by. After they'd called, she'd insisted on coming right over, and she had. As far as she could tell, she hadn't been followed. "It wants me to feed it. It chose me. And a side effect of its attention is some sort of power. The guy before me, the one with his arm missing down in the mine? He could phase through walls and I fucking told you that guy stole a kid and got through that fence on fucking Harfest Aunt fucking Mall Cop!" Mae snapped with a sudden vicious anger that startled them all.
"Mae...I'm sorry I didn't believe you, but...can you truly blame me?" Molly asked.
Mae stared hard at her for a long moment, then sighed tiredly. "No, I guess I can't. It does sound fucking bananas...so will you help us? Or are you going to do the cliched adult/cop thing where you insist we go to the authorities and they'll totally handle it?"
Molly shifted uncomfortably in the recliner she was sitting in, looking around at them all. "I'm reluctant to break the law, but...at this point, I have no choice. It's plain as day that the Chief has been completely compromised, that he's actively working against the law. Something about that man has always set me on edge, and now I know why...I've got a plan."