Shadow of Lengburry

PROLOGUE

In the year 1867, a series of raids took place in the predominantly large town (at the time) of Lengburry. Many saw this as a act against groups that still clinged to the Confederate way of life after the Civil War. This was also widely considered among news reporters and journalists, a new act against the fight on liquor. No one truly knew for sure, how or why

these raids occurred, or where the people taken in the raids were taken to. All that is known is that the Mayor, and his entire family at the time, disappeared during the raid, never to be seen again. Several other families with close connections to the Mayor and his family as well disappeared in the midst of night.

This was only the first, of several more raids that were taken on the town. Many started to question the actions as a violation to society, but others had no worry in the matters. Acting as if what raiders were doing was actually a justified cause without a slim thought of what the raids were about.

The town never did recover from these brutal attacks on it, with the populace acting racist to any outsiders in the town. Several riots have even occurred when large groups of outsiders came into the town for a visit. Trade from the towns fishing trade and their multiple fish factories didn’t change though, even when everywhere else was driven dry of fish.

This though, was the very town that my next case was located at, and I still loathe the day I received that case.






















CHAPTER ONE

It was raining outside. Pellets of the down-pour pelted the glass that lead to my office. I sat at my desk, reading through a folder full of info on the Barthers’ case I finished a mere four hours ago. I looked at the clock: 5 PM. I still had time to finish up my report, I thought to myself when suddenly, the phone on my desk rang aloud.

“Hello?” I asked into the receiver as I put it up to my mouth, “This is detective Luchers speaking.”

“Detective,” a gunshot went off in the background, “we need your assistance immediately!” an officer on the line yelled.

“Where?” I asked simply.

“The Draeen Manor on Eastwood drive, 1328,” the officer yelled into the receiver again before yet another gunshot went off. The line ended, and I quickly jumped up from my office chair, grabbed my coat, and sprinted out of my office.

By the time I reached the front door of the Police Building, and pushed it open to reveal myself to the rain, a police car with several officers was already waiting for me outside. “Eastwood drive and quickly, “I barked at the officers. Apparently, they already knew where I was heading, because by the time I exited the building and began to speak, the car’s engine revved up and the back seat door opened.

The police car I sat in raced down the street, lights blaring and sirens wailing as we sprinted towards Eastwood Drive. It was a short-ish drive at the speed we were going. The manor was on a hill, and the only way up was up a short, two story staircase that went up a side of the hill.

I heard a gunshot go off as I exited the car, and I ducked my head. I wonder whose shooting. I climbed up the staircase quickly with several officers behind me. I reached the top, and saw –why- gunshots were being fired.

Several police men hide behind short stone walls, or bushes that the defenders didn’t know had police behind. Men sat up the second floor of the manor, guns ready to shoot anyone that came into view. An officer with a rifle was taking aim: the gun exploded, and the bullet whizzed through the air to one of the attackers, hitting him somewhere in his upper body.

An officer came up to me, crouching a bit as he did, “Detective, we’ve gotta situation here. A group of individuals, we don’t know how many, are holed up in that building, and our officers are having enough trouble keeping them occupied. We think they may have kidnapped several young people and…well, sacrificed them or somethin’. We need you to get in there, and try to talk them into coming out. If you can’t,” the officer handed me a fully loaded, nine millimeter pistol, “then do whatcha’ you can.”

Another shot went off, this time dangerously closer to me, “And one more thing. Before you ask why we called for you instead of SWAT or something. They personally –asked- for you to come,” the officer replied as I started to walk to the building.

That last sentence gave me a chill that I shook off as I snuck towards the building. I slid over to a side-door, and tried to push it open: un-locked. The door creaked and moaned as it slowly slid open to show me a sitting area of sorts. I slowly entered the building, gun in-hand, and close the door in my wake.

The sitting area was quite horrorific. Blood was splattered onto the furthest wall from me, as if slid their purposefully. A few limbs sat on one of the sitting chairs, rotten and old from decomposition. Rats scurried throughout the house, sprinting from me in fear. My god I said to myself as I looked over the scene before me. I stepped lightly through the house, watching where I stepped, careful not to step in any piles of decomposed flesh, or disposed food waste. I made my way to the kitchen, where a door to some underground basement sat. I tried to open it: locked. I cursed to myself, and looked around for the key: none.

Then I saw the stairs. I hesitated a bit, knowing that was where the building’s defenders were holding up. I went against my own instincts and slowly climbed up the stairs, gun ready to shoot any attackers.

I reached the top, and immediately noticed three doors wide open. I went to the first, and hid next to the entrance. I burst into the room, gun drawn and ready to fire, only to find a strange man with blood red and the purest white tattoos across his body. He sat in a chair next to the window, taking shallow breaths as he bled out.

He saw me enter the room and he started to laugh a bit, “Yes…we’ve drawn you in now…no…escape…” he said to me before chuckling again. As he chuckled, another bullet flew into his skull, exploding his brains across the wall. I covered my eyes, and quickly left the room, grabbing the key on a small table next to the corpse before exiting the room.

I climbed –back- down the stairs, heading for the door I saw earlier, hoping that this key would work: it did. I slowly pushed the cellar door open, leading me to a opened trap door with a wooden ladder leading only one way: down.

I sighed a bit, and climbed down the ladder slowly, trying to go down with as little noise as possible. The ladder moaned and groaned underneath my weight before it finally couldn’t take anymore, and fell apart. I fell hard to the rocky floor while pieces of wood came crashing down. Most missed me, and bounced away, but a few hit me. I laid there, groaning a bit, before trying to sit up. I coughed a bit, squinting to look through the dusty scene that I had created in my fall. I went in the only direction I could: forward, hoping, that it would lead me the right way.

I enter a dark, rustic room with metallic plating on the walls. I could hear a groaning come from somewhere, but I couldn’t tell where. I continued on, looking for where the intense groans were making their intent way from, and then, I found it.

I started to see a slight glow of green light from around the corner. I slowed my pace a bit, listening as the groaning grew louder. As I came around the corner, I couldn’t believe what laid before me.

A man was stuck onto a spike that was mounted onto the wall, the tip of it imbedded into his internal organs, and the pulsing green light sparking from it. Several other spikes dug into other limbs of the man’s body, making a horrendous array. I looked around and there were three more spikes, all empty except for one that had a long de-composed corpse in it. The man still alive on the spike had the same tattoos on his body as the man upstairs that I had watched die.

Why would anyone do such a thing? I asked myself as I looked upon the poor man. Then, I noticed something. Not pain, or despair…but pride. Pride shown in the man’s eyes. As if he –wanted- to be where he was. He –wanted- to be mounted on that spike.

I continued looking around the room, trying to find something to release the man from his prison. I found…something. Something un-like anything I had seen before. It was a metallic statuette of a being I can’t even begin to describe. Atop it, like a crown upon a king’s head, sat a glowing green orb. This was obviously the source of the strange, glowing green light I had seen earlier.

Hesitantly, I sat my hand upon the orb, and as suddenly as the ladder falling on me, the spike indulged into the man’s flesh moaned, and vibrated, releasing a faint green aura off of their metallic surfaces. The man screamed in agony as the crystal orb began to vibrate as well. His screamed for what seemed like an eternity until the glow illuminating off the crystal died down, and the man’s head hanged low.

My hand seemed to stick to the orb a bit from the sweat that filed off of it. As quickly as I could, I pulled my hand away from the crystal orb and backed towards the wall. I slid down the wall, and let my body fall hard on the floor.

Someone had just died by my hand. Someone, who for all I knew, was an innocent bystander, and it was my fault. I shook my head a bit, get a hold of yourself! I thought to myself.

I slowly stood up yet again, and rested my hands and head on the ‘wall’ behind me. Not realizing what I was doing, I let myself rest a moment. Then suddenly, yet again, I heard a loud groan reverberate out of the wall. Slowly, the wall began to pull itself apart, opening, slowly, creating a cloud of dust in its wake.

The massive door I believed to be a wall opened as far as it would. The intense groans of metal stopped, and the dust and dirt began to set. Hesitated at what might be beyond this opening, this portal into darkness, I re-armed myself with the pistol I had and prepared myself for the worst.

    I entered myself into a massive arbitrary. The ceilings stood high above me, and the walls sat hundreds of paces away. Another one of the strange green orbs sat near the middle of the room. The walls were covered in horrific scenes of violence, and desolation, all with the same figure I had seen before.

    I looked around a bit, and noticed the large, metallic (of course) cavern in the center of the room. It was about twenty paces wide, and god knows how deep. All the sources of light and illumination in the room seemed to just bounce off of the darkness it housed.

    Slowly, I walked towards the green orb. I, not even able to control my body, reached out to hold, to feel the orb. My body and mind -wanted- the orb, but something felt wrong...before I knew it, my hand rested on its warm, crystallized shell.

    The orb wailed. It hissed and moaned, burning my hand in excruciating agony, but I couldn’t let go. I needed to hold steadfast, I -wanted- to. Suddenly, the massive walls around the temple I was in began to open to a blinding light of some sort. I put my free hand up to my eyes to stop it from blinding me, and then...I heard them.

    They sung to me, they cried to me, their moans and wails joyed my body, but to my ears they sounded of gurgles and groans. Shapes of darkness began to move in the light, slowly, towards me. Towards the orb. Figures, fifty or more feet tall began stepping into the room.

    I looked around and one came out of the light near me. It looked to me, and I looked back...then I was filled with darkness.



End of Chapter One




















Chapter Two

Several months after being released from my year stay at the Insanitarium, I sat in my office, reading a short little novel I had picked up earlier in the week on the town of Lengburry, which was in-fact the location of my next case.

    It was early in the day when I received the phone call from a ‘Mister Brulke’ about me investigating the disappearances of several of his workers, and the decommissioning of his ‘General Goods Store’ in Lengburry without any notification to him that it would occur.

    He offered several hundred for me to do the case. How could I refuse? Besides, it’s not like I’d get killed or anything of that sort while on my trip.

    The novel I bought had loads of information on the town. Location of shops, the harbor, census for certain years, only problem was that it was made in the 1930s, not the 50s. For all I knew, everything had been changed, but that didn’t stop me from reading it.

    Very suddenly, I remembered I had to be at the bus station by nine or risk missing the early ride to Lengburry. I looked up at the clock, 8:25 it read off, 8:26, I hurriedly jumped up from my sit, grabbed my coat off the hanger, and raced out of the Police Station.

    I quickly jogged down the street, trying to get to the bus station before the only bus to Lengburry left. I would’ve driven myself there, but my police car was currently being used by my partner as she investigates the murders throughout New York.

    8:30 the watch on the building read. I started to panic a bit, and began rushing myself. 8:35. The bus station was another fifteen-to-twenty minutes away. Panicked, I began to sprint.

    With barely any breath left, I flung myself through the Almerty Bus Station as the clock rang 8:55. I jogged over to the Lengburry bus which had a giant logo on its side that said ‘First Stop, Lengburry’. I, of course, had already bought a ticket, and simply climbed aboard, handed the driver my ticket, and looked back to see what fine people would be joining me: no one.

    I sighed, and sat in the seats closest to the door. I looked at the driver who grunted as he saw my ticket. He was bald, with a muddy look to him, and bulging eyes. His skin was a grey-ish color, and his clothes seemed a bit too small for his bulbous body. “You’re going toe’ Lengburry, eh?” the driver asked as he looked back at me.

    I nodded un-pleasantly. There was a dead squirrel on his dashboard. “You best not go lookin’ for trouble there, or the townsfolk will sort you right out.” The driver replied to my nod with a sneer in his voice.

    I stopped listening to him speak when he started getting to the racism and what-not of the town, and that he left to get away from it. I simply looked out the window, at the meadows going by, the trees of green and soon to be yellow. Then an image flashed into my mind, more of several. Of the strange beasts that I saw all those years ago. Of the many dead bodies that were inside of that temple. I shook my head. That’s in the past now, John. Get over it.

    We continued down the road for what felt like hours, and was in-fact, several hours. By the time I arrived at Lengburry, the sun had started its descent in the sky, and soon, I would have to find a place to sleep.

    I quickly climbed off the bus and immediately noticed that I was in front of inn. Good source of information, if you know where to look. I went inside, and saw the big, burly innkeeper talking to one of the common folk of the town. Once they saw me, they went down to a whisper before the common man nodded and walked away, glaring at me.

    The innkeeper, whose name was Doyel, looked at me with a fake smile, “How may I help you today?” he asked un-chantingly.

    “I was going to ask if you had any information on the General Goods Store here. Why’d it close down, maybe clues on where the workers went anything like that,” I asked him nicely, trying to ignore his fake smile.

    The smile disappeared, and he replied, “Go talk to the drunkard behind the Old Penny’s Poor House. He usually knows something, but he won’t say anything ‘less he’s drunk,” the innkeeper replied before walking off without a goodbye and back into his office.

    I grunted. How rude of him to do that? No matter, least I won’t be staying in this town long. I quickly strolled out of the building and down the street. I got several odd looks from my surroundings, and a good view of the Town Square. The court house was almost centrally located, and the statue of the man who built the old fish factories on the harbor of the town.

    A police guarded a little pathway that lead somewhere…maybe somewhere I wanted to be.  I ignored it, for now, and continued on, taking a turn under this bridge, and going into the living district of the town.

    The Penny’s Poor House was clearly visible at the end of the street with the giant, rustic sign that read the name, and many old windows, the place looked like it should be condemned. I walked towards the building, and then felt eyes on the back of my head. The eyes of…something. I looked around, and noticed the robed figures standing high above, but nothing else. I shrugged it off. Probably nothing.

    I continued on and tried to open the door to the Poor House: locked. I grumbled a bit, and shivered as a cool wind blew by. I turned around, and began looking around for someone who could tell me where a key to the building was. I came upon the back-door of a pub where a bit of rucus could be heard going on inside. Suddenly the door burst open and an old man came stumbling out. He yelled back inside, “I’m jus’ goi’ ou’ere ta’ use ‘he ba’h’room. I’l be’h ba’c in’a’ sec’n’.” Some in-audible words were yelled back, and the stumbling man began humming a song. Stumbling over, he leaned against a wooden support beam and begin to relieve himself behind the building.

    He turned around slowly, pants zipped up, and slid down the support beam when he saw me, “’ell ‘ey ‘dhere ladd’e, whatcha’be’a’looki’fur?” he asked me with a very slurred voice.

    “I was wondering if you could maybe give me some information on the General Goods Store, or something along those lines,” I asked in return, hoping the man would give me a good answer.

    “’ell, ifcha’ got any licker on’yer’self’now, I’d’a’b’wil-n’ ta’ givecha’ sum’ in’ermachi’n on th’sture,” he replied in turn. I somehow knew that he was going to ask for that, and was at the time, quite happy that I had brought along a flask of liquor with me on this trip. Never know when you might need it.

    I pulled the flask from my coat pocket, walked over to the drunken, old man, gave him it, and waited and watched as he poured it into his mouth. He took a heavy sigh of relief as he pulled the flask away, “’Ell, d’he’unleh’ t’ing I can’te’lya’ ischa’ man’ger’ was’a ‘Bill Jurner’,” the man replied before coughing a bit from downing so much, “oh’yea, an’ take this,” he handed me a key, and I guessed that it was for the Poor House, and was actually right,” ti’s’ll lead’ya t’rough th’Pu’r’Hou’s, an’inta’cha’ riche’livin are’s.”

    I thanked the man for his help, and with the key in-hand, I went back to the Poor House’s door, slid the key into the locks opening, and twisted: unlocked.

    I walked inside and stooped around a bit: no one seemed to be inside. The walls’ paint had begun to flake and fall to the ground, while the floors of wood looked welted and old. The window panes looked like they were about to fall to the ground any second, and the curtains were moth eaten and torn.

    I walked down the hall, the floor creaking underneath my shoes, and the window from outside whispering into my ears with its cold feelings. I turned a corner and found two doors, and the hall way continuing down the corridor for thirty or so more feet. I went to the door closest to me, rested my left hand on my pistol’s grip, and turned the knob.

    Opening the door to the world revealed to me a room with several bunks in it. The beds were old, and diseased with insects and other critters running about them. A dead body sat in the corner of someone who must’ve died of a disease a long time ago, and the sheets on a few of the beds were bloodied. I began to gag a bit. The smell in the room was horrendous, the worst my nose has ever come in contact with. I quickly shut the door behind me, and went to the other door, hoping for something better then the last.

    I opened the door slowly and found an old man sitting by the glass window, looking out onto the town of Lengburry below. He turned around as he heard the squeaking of the door and he smiled a bit. That was the first –real- smile I’ve seen all day.

    “Well hey there, John. I see ya’ found yer’ way inta’ the Puur House,” the old man said to me. I was startled when he said my name. How could he possibly know my name? I hadn’t told anyone here in Lengburry it, but he had gone to some small town called Reverdin to the south. I pulled out my gun, “how do you know my name?” I asked him forcefully.

    The man started to chuckle a bit, “Oh I know lots of things. Lots of things.” The man turned back towards the window when suddenly he pulls out a gun of his own and rests it against his head. I heard him chuckle again before pulling the trigger and splattering the insides of his head across the wall. I watched in horror as he did so, and then realized that the police would be coming soon, and I would probably be blamed for the crime.

    I quickly left the room, and locked it as I did so. My head suddenly started to hurt, flash.

I opened the door with my gun drawn and found a man sitting in a chair by the window. He turned around to face me, and was startled when he saw the gun. I pulled back the loader for it and stared into his eyes before pulling the trigger.

    I snapped back into reality and began to stumble down the hall, and around the corner. Flash.

    I opened the door to the first room, and found a woman sitting on one of the beds weeping to herself. She looked up when she saw me, and retracted away when I pointed my gun towards her. She leaped off the bed and tried to run, but I pulled the trigger before she could. Flash.

    I started to hurry my stumbling as I tried to find the other door to the building. Flash.

    The child sat by the door to the Poor House with a piece of bread in his hands. He looked up at me as I pulled the trigger and busted the bullet into his head. Flash.

    I fell against a wall near the door leading to the other side of the house quarters of the town. My eyes started to fuzzy a bit, and my feet didn’t want to work with me. Flash.

    The old man stumbled out of the bar, and onto the ground outside. He looked up at me, and I down to him, before I pulled the blade from beneath my jacket and gutted it into his skull. Flash.

    I looked down and saw nothing no blood It can’t be real! I pushed onward, and shakily slid the key into the keyhole. I turned it, pushed open the door, and stumbled into the open roads of Lengburry.

    The fuzziness in my eyes subsided, and the stumbling went away as well. I quickly shut the door behind as hardy as I could, and walked down the steps. This part of the town was for the most part, well kept. Houses weren’t falling apart, and the paint looked as if it wasn’t even flaking off.  The old man had told me to try and find the Pharmacy owner, I’m not quite sure why though, how could a Pharmacy owner help me find my way into that store?

    Now, if I remembered correctly, he said it was the ‘Blue house on the corner’. I looked around, and there it was, a tall, two-story, baby blue house with tinted second floor and attic windows, with light shining through the first floor ones. I looked around the street and noticed that some of the towns’ folk were looking towards me suspiciously.

    I ignored them, and walked towards the Pharmacist’s house where I knocked on the door three times, to find a little girl, no older than ten, with jet black hair and very, very green eyes. Her skin was somewhat pale, and she stood no taller than five feet, but it astounded me that her parents didn’t answer the door.

    I bent down a bit and asked, “hey there little girl, are your parents home?”

    She shook her head, “Mommy’s sick upstairs, and daddy hasn’t come home yet.”

    I rested my hands on my knees, “can I come in and wait for your daddy to come home?”

    The little girl nodded, opening the door for me to enter. The house was quite nice with dark green walls, and hard wood floors. Vases of flowers, or other plants I’ve never seen before sat on counters, tables, buffet tables, and shelves. A little area on the hard wood floor near the door had an opened coloring book, and a dumped-out box with the crayons from it spread out along the book.

    “Is it okay if I go use your bathroom?” I asked the little girl.

    “It’s upstairs to the right,” the little girl replied before lying back down on the floor where she was before I knocked, and continued her coloring.

    I walked up the creaking stairs, looking around as I did. A small table sat at the top of the first set of stairs with a candle, a locked drawer, and a picture of the family in it. It was strange though, the father and the little girl were in the picture, but the mother had been torn out. I looked around a bit more, not really caring for the bathroom, looking for any clues. I then saw a second set of stairs leading up, probably to the attic, which would be a good place to search before the girl’s father arrived.

    I climbed up the second set, and found blank walls with no wallpaper or paint on them, and old hardwood floors. A large metal door sat at the top of the stairs leading to the attic with a lock on it, and a little window-opening with a sliding shutter on it. Hesitantly, I walked up to the door, and wrapped my fingers around the cold, metal shutter’s handle, and pulled back.

    The attic was empty, for the most part. A few crates and a sack or two sat along the walls, and pieces of woods were spread across the floor. I looked deeper into the attic, and found a pile of old, dirty beds piled about as if someone, or thing, had or has been sleeping on it. A crate sat next to it with several dimly lit candles and something small on it.

    Just as I was about to close the shutter, a monster I couldn’t even begin to describe jumped at the door, getting a hand, or paw through the shutter and hitting me in the face, I backed away, holding my throbbing head, as the monster banged against the door. It flung open, and hit me the face, knocking me out cold.

    I sat up, and held my hammered head. I retracted my hand from it and found blood. Great, now there’s one more thing to deal with. I looked about and saw that the attic door containing the monster had been ripped open, and then I remembered the girl.

    As quickly as I could, I climbed up from the ground, and stumbled down the stairs to the second floor, then around the corner, and down the stairs to the first floor to a horrible sight.

    Blood had been gashed all across the walls, and across the floor. The little girl had her body ripped open and apart, while her father held her in his arms, weeping.

    “Oh no,” I said aloud, going to the stairs. The father looked up to me, still weeping, “Why…why did you come here?” he asked me between sniffs.

    “I…was told to come talk to you about…the…general goods store,” I replied, shaken by the sight of the girl. Then suddenly, a police officer slammed the door open.

    “This is the last time we’ll let you get away, Doctor,” they yelled at the Pharmacist, blaming him for his daughter’s death. They grabbed the man by his shoulder, who let go of his daughter, weepingly, and began to drag him from the house.

    “but, he didn’t even do anything!” I yelled at the officers. Another came up from behind with a baton that he aimed at me.

    “Keep out of our affairs, outside, or you’ll be next!” the officer roared before following the other out into the streets.

    The pharmacist struggles against the officers hold, “Take the key and the book from the attic! Use them to open my Pharmacy!” he screamed at me before the police dragged him away.

    I was more than less stunned for a moment, and as the door to the house was slammed, I realized I was now alone in the house, no body of a young girl, no evil monsters....at least I thought I was alone.

    I climbed back up the stairs, up to the second floor, and then up the second fleet towards to ripped open attic door. I hesitated a bit, shivered as I looked inside, and then stepped through the threshold leading into the abyss.

    The attic was for the most part, dimly lit. Candles were the only illumination that I could find, and I repeadtly kicked a pulled up board or an old box.

    I went over to the pile of old mattresses from before that was next to the old crate with a candle on it, and that weird object I couldn’t describe until now as simply: a book. A brown book with no title, and no authors’ signature. It was obviously old, with signs of age all along its courses and on the edge of the pages. I picked it up wearily, and opened the cover, revealing it to really be the journal of the Pharmacist that had just recently been dragged away to god-knows-where.

    I began reading through the pages, looking at his notes, and the historical records he un-covered about the town of Lengburry, but then I froze as I reached the 23 page of the journal, not understanding the words that were read off to me. I tucked the journal away into my coat pocket, and began looking around for the key the Pharmacist spoke of, which was in-fact on the top of the mattresses. I did not know –why- these items were up here with the horrific beast that I had just encountered, and to the very day of me writing this I do not know why. They just –were-.

    I opened the front door to the house, and shut it quietly behind me, and looked around for a different way into the Town Square then through the vile poor house that had cause me to have illusions. I walked around a bit, and discovered that there –was- another way that led me directly to the Town Square. I cursed under my breath for not realizing that there was this way for me to go, before I started my walk through the arch.

    I came around the corner and bumped into a woman. She was tall, of course, she was in high heels, and she had medium-length black hair. Her eyes were green, her skin, pale, and she wore a large red coat that I could only think to have hid a luscious red dress underneath. “Oh, sorry, ma’am, didn’t mean to go running into you there,” I said to the woman as my hands shot up a little defensively, hoping not to get slapped.

    “Oh, it is quite alright. You are the…detective investigating the general store, correct?” she asked me in a questioning tone. I didn’t really think that news of me sped around that quickly, but I was more surprised by the fact that she wasn’t a total a-hole to me like most of the town.

    “why, yes, in fact I am. Who’re you, if I may ask?” I replied, sticking my hands into my coat pockets and holding the journal that was in one of them.

    She looked directly into my eyes with a fearful gaze. Not fear for herself, but fear for me, I didn’t know why at the time, “you need to get out of town –now-. If you don’t, and the cult thinks you’re trying to stop them…” she said to me. I started to realize some of the bizarre things in the journal. There really –was- a cult that had been founded in this town, but what did she mean by ‘me trying to stop them’ what would they even be doing?

    “What do you mean? It’s not like they’d simply go out to try and kill me,” I said to her in return, not realizing at the time that they –would-.

    “Look, just listen to me. Get out of town as quickly as you can, and don’t look back. This town has already gone past the threshold into hell, and you can’t stop it,” she said to me before walking off. I was disturbed by her last remark, and I turned around to stop her off, but she had disappeared. I couldn’t even hear her high-heels hitting the stony road.

    I shook my head, that was…disturbing I said to myself before continuing on towards the Town Square. I climbed up a set of stairs, and found myself at a little side-entrance to it. I pulled my hands from my pockets and jogged towards the pharmacy, ignoring the looks I was receiving as I did so.

    The front door to the pharmacy was locked with an extra set of locks that this key didn’t fit into. I cursed again, and looked around a bit before noticing the little side-entrance that was near-by the pharmacy main door. It had a rusted metal gate for a door, and the key I had actually fit into it. The path looked to lead to the pharmacy, so I turned the key, un-did the lock, and went through the rusted gate into the basement of the pharmacy.

End of Chapter Two

Chapter Three

    The basement was quite old, with dust and cob-webs almost everywhere, and nearly no lighting except for the ambient light that I was able to perceive. I looked around a bit, trying to find the door to the first floor of the building, which I did after that bit of looking of course. It was up a particularly creaky set of stairs that seemed to not want to stay silent as I went up them. I reached the door finally, and tried to open the door knob: locked. I pulled out the Pharmacist’s key, plugged it into the key hole, and turned, revealing a dark, ambient-lit shop-level of the Pharmacy, and something I didn’t expect.

    I turned to look around, and noticed a women standing in-front of something that I couldn’t see, “well what do we have here,” I said loudly and firmly. The woman jumped, and spun around to face me, “a common thief, eh?”

    “Who are you? What are you doing here!?” she yelled frightenly.

    “Jack Luchers, detective. And you young lady are breaking the law,” I replied as firmly as before. She stood up a little higher now, obviously regaining some of her courage.

    “You can’t arrest me. My father is the head of The Cult of Chyztho, mayor of this town. He’d have you killed for trying to, or worse, and you should know that!” she said angrily to me, receiving only a laugh on my part that dumb-founded her a bit.

    “Lady, I’m from out of town. Your threats of this ‘cult’ don’t frighten me,” I replied after I stopped chuckling a bit, crossing my arms at the chest-level.

     She seemed to be curious now after I said that, “You’re from out of town? Well, you best leave, the people here aren’t too…kind, to outsiders,” she replied in-turn, bowing her head a bit. I asked her about the general good store and she looked up again, “Oh…uhm, that was where…Brian, this guy from out of town worked…he was the manager,” I could tell she was lying to me about something, but I just let that go. I asked her about Brian, and she said she had no idea where he was, before pulling something from her pocket. It was a bloom, of some kind, and she laid it on the table between us, telling me to give him this if I ever found him. I had no idea what her connection was to Brian, but before I could ask anything, she ran out of the back door that I came through to enter the deserted building. I turned around to try and stop her, but just like the luscious woman from before, she had disappeared before I could even turn around. I frowned worryingly, wondering why I always receive the strange cases unlike my ex-partner Bill who merely watches ice cream trucks all day looking for signs of drug trafficking.

    I shook my head, deciding it would be better for me just to ignore the whole incident entirely. I looked back to where the woman was standing and found a safe, of all things, and she was trying to break into it for some reason that I didn’t know at the time. I quickly grabbed the heirloom that she gave to give Brian –if- I ever found him, which I probably wouldn’t, but I might as well.

    I went around the counter and over to the save, frowning at the combination lock that held it shut. I then remember the journal that the Pharmacist told me of. I opened and started skimming through it again, trying to find the combination, and then…I found this:

          With the birth of my daughter occurring, and me acquiring a safe for my Pharmacy, the only thing a loving father would do for a daughter he knew was doomed to die, is remember her. So that the reader of this, or myself, can remember the combination, it is my young girl’s birthday, February 13th, 1920…

    I counted in my head the date, 2/13/20 and put my hand onto the dial. 2…13…20, I turned the dial to. Like most locks, it was just a turn to the right, turn to the left, and back to the right. The safe popped open, and I took a heavy sigh, wrapping my fingers around the door to the safe’s holdings, and pulled it open…

    All that lay inside was a book, and another key. I was starting to think that this was more of a chase across the city, reading book after book, key after key. I then noticed the strange designs on the book. I hefted into the air, and it was actually quite heavy. It had the strange, demonic figure that I had seen all those years ago inside that temple. Images from then came back into my head, including that of the strange beast that I looked into.

    I shook my head. That was in the past, this is the present. I decided to open up the book, and see I could find anything. The print for the actual book was completely un-readable. It was symbol, after symbol, after symbol that I couldn’t even believe to be letters. On the margin of the first page though, was a little note from our dear Pharmacist:

    The key to the General Store rests with this book. DO NOT LET THE CULT HAVE THIS BOOK!

         I started to question the very reasoning behind me coming here. Cults? Demonic monsters? Disappearing people? Either I was going insane, or this town was like the woman said, ‘past the threshold to hell’.

    I grabbed the key that was supposedly to the General Store and went back out the way I came. The sun was creeping lower and lower into the night. I had to act quickly if I wanted to get a good lead on this case before night time swept through. I began looking for the General Store, and finally did, just across the way from the Pharmacy too, except the doors were boarded up, and the windows as well. Next to the building was the little side path that I saw that officer guarding, and he had just turned around to go on his little night-alley patrol. I jogged across the Square once again towards the little side path, and checking to see if anyone was following me, diverged into the alley-way.

    I began to sneak about, sticking to the shadows to make sure that the officer didn’t find, nor see me. He was only twenty feet ahead of me, and I was already getting nervous that at any moment he would turn around, and find me in the shadows. I shook the thought out of my head, and just continued onward. The guard eventually –did- turn around to check for anyone, but after he did so, he opened a door to some building that I could only think of as a bar.

    With a sigh of relief, I continued onward, still sneaking about and found a little side door. I peeked through the keyhole to see if it was a building, which it as in-fact not, and opened the door. The little side door let to an actual alley, not the cubby hole between buildings. I stepped through the door, and shut it quietly behind me, before turning around to find a man hiding in the shadows just as I did.

    The man stepped out of the shadows wearing a blue suit, and black gloves. He had short, brown hair and brown eyes to match, and as far as I could tell, wasn’t even –close- to being from this town. He looked at me a smiled a small bit, “I’m guessing you’re the detective that the whole town is talking about, yes?” he asked with a slightly toned voice, as if he was just a bit happy to see me. I then remembered who he was.

    When the raid on that Manor occurred all those years ago, he had been there calling the shots, and barking out orders to some of the policemen, I heard the chief call him ‘Agent Malone’.

    “Agent Malone, I take it?” using my memory to call him by his name was a smart move at the time; maybe it would help me, eventually.

    “So, I’m guessing you’re here ‘investigating’ those disappearances?” Malone asked me without a hint of a smile on his face.

    “yes, I am actually. But the real question is, why is an FBI agent in such a small town?” I asked Malone, this time cross my arms at the chest.

    “We’re interested in the trade here in Lengburry, and I was sent in as our ‘investigator’ for Lengburry’s fishing factories,” the agent replied, “I was just back here…investigating, as usual,” he said to me before walking off before I could even say a word, “have a good night, detective,” he yelled off before disappearing into the shadows of the night.

    I took a heavy sigh, releasing a cough as I did, and then pulled a piece of candy from my pocket, un-wrapped it, and threw it into my mouth. I looked around a bit, noticing a large, yellow newspaper truck and the back entrance to the General Goods Store.

I snuck over to the back-door and wriggled the doorknob: locked. “Damn it,” I muttered. I went down the steps from the door and looked around for a window, or another door. I noticed the small glint of a red light coming from somewhere to the right of the back side of the building. I went around the corner and found a small, little window entrance with most of the glass broken inwards. I thought it was strange, that such a little window was broken, of course, I couldn’t fit through it. I then, very suddenly, remembered that I had the key to the building. I cursed to myself realizing my insilence, and went back to the backdoor, unlocked it, and went inside.

    I found myself in the back part of the shop-level for the Store. Red lights flooded the room from never being turned off, and a foul odor filled the aroma of this part of the building. Following my nose to the source of the smell, I found a hefty metal door with the shine of darkness coming from underneath. I readied my gun with it in-hand, twisted the handle on the door slowly, and flung the door open to reveal the innards of the room to the red-light of the building.

    I found an old woman, a knocked-down chair beneath her, and her neck hanged by rope. She looked to have died some time ago, and that’s how I realized the smell was coming off of her decomposing body. “Gah!” I yelled as I saw the body, “so that’s where this horrid smell’s been coming from,” I muttered, putting my arm up to my nose. I shut the door quickly, and coughed a bit after I did so. I realized the back-entrance was still open, so I hefted over, shut it, and then traced myself into the main-floor of the shop.

    I opened the side door to the main floor of the shop and found a mostly empty shop with cans of food along some of the shelves, and rotten milk smell arroding from their storage places. The door, and all the windows to the front of the building were nailed shut with wood, so there was no hope of getting through that without making a large commotion. I looked around the shop, noticing where most of the items there were, and then found what I was looking for: the Manager’s Office.

    I slowly walked towards the Office door, gun drawn and loaded for anything, pushed the creaking door open, and found a mostly regular office. I sighed a bit, holstering my weapon, and entering the office, leaving the door open just in-case. Several shipment papers sat on the desk for strange animal meats, and other weird things. The safe in the office looked like it had been busted open. Why would Brian need to bust the safe in his own office if he knew the combination? It could’ve been some common street rabble, but I highly doubted that. I looked inside the safe: nothing. I cursed again, this whole adventure to the Store was a complete waste of t-

    I didn’t finish my trail of thought, because right then, I heard the back-entrance to the store’s door fly open, and the sound of a police officer looking to see if anyone was here. I didn’t have time to think, I needed to make a break for it. Now, I couldn’t just beat the crap out of the officer, or run by him, he probably has back-up, so I looked to see if there was a way for me to escape in that office. I searched for an entrance behind the bookshelves, a cubby hole for me to hide in, or a secret door next to the safe: nothing. Why did I even think there would a secret entrance? I don’t know, it just seemed logical at the time. I turned around a slid down the wall, before noticing a trap door underneath the desk. Hurriedly, I pushed the desk aside. That probably made quite a bit of noise, but I didn’t care at the time, I just needed to get out of there.

I flung open the trap door and found a rickety ladder that looked like it would break at any moment. I sighed to myself, hoping that what happened last time wouldn’t happen again. I started to climb down the ladder right as I saw the officer’s flashlight bursting through the side door to the shop. I climbed down as quickly as I could, listening to the moans and groans of the ladder beneath me. As I was about half-way down, it happened. Of all things of bad luck that could happen, the ladder fell apart, starting with the pieces I was on. I fell a good fifteen or twenty feet down to a hardy, dusty rock floor, coughing as I did. I looked up with a hazed stare, and found the officer looking down towards me, “serves you right for breakin’ inta’ our stores, outsi-ider,” the officer yelled down to me before throwing the trap door back down to its regular position. I was now completely alone, and in a dark tunnel beneath a town that may or may not be out to murder me.

    I groaned in pain as I tried sitting up. Some of the wood had hit me hard, and the falling onto rock didn’t help much either. I patted the dust and dirt off of my jacket, and wiped it off of my shoulders, coughing as I did so. The tunnel was quite dark, but some ambient light shined off into my vision. I looked around and sighed: only one way to go, and that was forward. I started going down the dark tunnels for what seemed like hours, going around corners, finding spiders or dead-ends. I was soon getting tired, and I began to bet night was nearly upon me.

    After an eternity of walking in these dark tunnels, I found a glimmer of hope: around the next corner was light, and it soothed me so. I began to hurry, trying to get around the corner so I could embrace the light. My body went around the corner, and I felt a bit of happiness. It was a door, and an unlocked door at that, that led into the alley-way between the buildings that I had gone through earlier to get to the back-entrance to the store. I wrapped my hand around the knob, turned it, and found myself back into the streets of Lengburry. I sighed a bit, and then realized the officer was gone, thankfully. I turned around and shut the door behind me before walking back out into the Town Square.

    I walked back to the inn I had stopped at earlier, remembering the owner’s offer of a bed for the night. I opened one of the front doors to the building right as one of the towns’ folk were about to leave. They shoved past me, glaring at me as they did. I shook my head, continuing inward towards the Inn desk.

    The owner stood there in his usual spot as always, “John, welcome back,” he said to me as I came up to his counter. Flash.

    Hands unknown to me appeared before me, unlocking the door to the office of the building. Blood was across the floor, and severed limbs sat on top of the window seal, and the cabinets. Flash.

My vision started to haze as before, “Uh…I’d like to take you…up on that offer for a…a room,” I said to him with a slight stutter something was wrong here.

    “Well okay then. You know, you look as if you just saw a ghost you know that?” Flash

    A woman lay tied up on the floor in the center of the office. The massive hands pulled out a hatchet, and as the woman screamed her blood-curdling cries, I dug the hatchet into her flesh, releasing a spewer of the demented blood pour I had created. Flash.

    I shook my head again, “Yeah…I’m…I’m fine,” I said at last. Another town’s folk came up to the desk and nodded towards the inn owner.

“Oh, if you would excuse me for one moment, I have to take care of something,”  the owner said to me before coming out from behind the counter, and following the other man to somewhere that I didn’t know. Curious, mainly from the strange images flashing into my mind, I slowly shalled over to the Owner’s Office. Next to the door on a hook hung a key, and I guessed that they key opened the Office. I took the key-in-hand, slid the key into the door-knob’s lock, turned it, and listened as I heard the lock click.

    I opened the door to a horrid sight. Blood was across the floor just like in my vision; all the limbs were where they were too. The body of the woman wasn’t there, but a safe behind a desk in the back hung open. Upon the desk were the bloodied-cleaver, and a high amount of blood. Holding my nose, I went towards the safe, slowly pulled it open, and inside was a revolver. Looking about, I grabbed the weapon: six shells. I sighed a bit, tucking the gun away, and putting the safe door back into its usual spot. I started to hear the owner coming back, and hurriedly, I went out the door, locked it, and went back to where I was before I broke into Doyel’s 9the innkeeper whose name I just had remembered) horrid office.

    The owner came back, and I watched him wearily. Now, it probably wasn’t a good idea to be sleeping in this inn, seeing as how I had just discovered that Doyel was a murderer, but I broke into his office, and I doubt the police here would do anything to stop him. “Right this way, sir,” he said to me, motioning me to follow him as the man from the town behind him went off, back home or wherever these strange people go at night. Hesitantly, I followed Doyel up the stairs to the second floor, “you know, you’re the third outsider we’ve had in this town in this week alone. Another one is staying in this very inn,” Doyel said to me as I followed him to my inn-room. My eyes began to weary, and I could tell I was getting tired –fast-.

    I stopped listening to the man as soon as we arrived at my room. I went inside, missing the last several things he had said, and I shut the door behind me, locking it. Now, in preparence for a quick escape if need be, slowly, and with as little noise as possible, I moved this dresser by the door in-front of the way into my room. A door on the other-side of the room leading to one of the other rooms was there too, so I opened it, went into the other room, and locked that door.

    Feeling a bit more safe, I went back to my room, laid down on the bed, and tried to fall asleep as best I could, hoping to get at least –one- good night sleep during this case.








END OF CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

    I awoke very suddenly, coughing in my sleep, hearing voices outside of my room. I grabbed my nine-millimeter pistol sitting on the night stand right next to me, and prepared it for firing. “he’s awake in there, I can hear him moving,” someone whispered to several others outside my door.

    I quickly grabbed the books and the keys as well, leaving my coat in the chair at the other end of the room as I slowly crept towards the open door I had made. “Break it DOWN!” someone yelled before the butt of a shotgun hit the door. Without even thinking, I fired at the door. I heard a scream of pain, before something, probably a body, fell and hit the ground. Another hit the door, and it busted open. I shut the door, locking it in the process, and then found myself in a trapped room. I looked around a bit, having a small bag around my shoulder with books in it, and a gun in-hand, I decided my best bet was to jump through the window in the room, hoping to make it across.

    I tried opening the window: wouldn’t budge, so hitting it with my gun repeadtly until it broke into a big enough hole for me to get through. I heard the dresser being knocked onto the ground, and my assailants coming into my room. In a rush, I jumped through the mostly broken glass, shattering the rest of it, and flew through the sky towards a well-placed window on the other building. I crashed through that window, and tumbled to the ground, coughing. I sat up, gun in-hand, and another attacker broke down the door to my left. I lifted my gun in reaction and blew off a bullet, hitting the attacker square in the chest. He fell back, dead, but another stepped over him. I ran in the opposite direction, trying to go down the stairs.

    A rifle shell flew up towards me from the lower stair-levels, I ducked back, deciding up the stairs would be better. I pushed through the door to the roof of the building, and shut it quickly behind me, running in the opposite direction. Several assailants began climbing onto the roof as well, while many stayed near the ground level and shot towards me. I aimed my pistol towards an attacker with a rifle aimed at me across the roof, and pulled the trigger before he could, hitting him in the leg. He fell towards the ground in pain, giving me time to sprint by him.

    I jumped from the roof I was onto the building next to me’s roof, crashing through yet another glass panel that set up there. I fell down, straight onto an air-ventilation system that had an opening on it. I tumbled through the opening and into the air duct, sliding away so that if anyone above me looked down they wouldn’t see me. I saw flashlights flying around, obviously look for me, “find him, quickly! Berel wants him ALIVE!” I heard someone yelling as the lights flew away. I took a heavy sigh of relief before the doors to the building I was in bursted open. I moved about in the air-vent slowly, trying to make little noise, and looked down through a small opening that was there, revealing to me that a part of the group had come searching for me –quite- quickly. I heard them walking around on the first floor. I slid through the shaft as quickly as I could without making a noise.

    It only took me a good five minutes to find an access duct to the outside, where it had begun raining shortly after I fell into the building. I kicked the grate, once, and watched in horror as it fell towards the ground ten feet to the ground. The flashlights’ lights all moved towards the window where the grate had fallen, I held my breath.

    I heard someone grumble, “pro’lly nothing,” before the flashlights skid away from the window. With relief, I jumped down into the alley beneath me, ducking underneath the window so as my hunters couldn’t find me. I stalked away, down the alley behind me, hoping to find myself a way out of this town, and maybe even someone to help me. Then I remembered the Pharmacist.

    I remembered where the police station was, and at the same time remember that all the town’s prisoners are kept there. I trailed down the alleys, following the mental map in my head, when suddenly an officer came around the corner, flashlight out. I hid myself behind a trash-container as he went by. I slipped up behind him, and knocked him out with the butt of my gun.

    I dragged the now unconscious police officer to the side of the trash-container before continuing on my way to the Station, hoping for no rough encounters.

***

    I flung myself to the ground as the bullets whizzed through the window above my head, “shit!” I screamed loudly as they did so. I held my hands to my ears as the machine gun rattled off bullets in my direction, hitting nearly everything but me. I started to hear the gun fire calm down, and with gun in hand, I pulled myself up from my position and shot at my two assailants. The first fell to the ground quickly with two bullets to the upper body. The other received a single shot to the head, following over next onto his friend. I took a heavy sigh of relief as the two fell. Tucking my gun away, I opened the door to the shop and left quickly, jogging down the road in a crouched position.

    I slid behind a crate as I started to make my way to the Police Station. The lights were on inside of the building, shining slightly outward; breaking through the sanguine of night. A few officers were talking on the other side of the station away from me, though one was looking in my general direction. Taking a chance, I sprinted in a crouched position across the street, hoping to not be seen: it worked. Taking a heavy sigh, I opened the door, and was face-to-face with the biggest, meanest looking man I had ever seen. Scars were clearly visible across his face, and his muscular tone was that of a body builder. With his intimidating height, he looked down at me and snarled. Grabbing me by the collar of my shirt, he hoisted me into the air, and flung me into through the station, straight into a wall. My back hit the wall –hard-. I slid down it, nose bleeding, possibly fractured, and an intense pain in my chest. With hazed eyes, I reached for my gun, but before I could the man wrapped his hand around my head, and punched me as hard as he possibly could right into the gut. The gun flew out of my hand, and he threw me on the ground near it. Slowly, I wrapped my fingers around its hilt in pain, I could see his shadow rising above me, grabbing me by the shoulders. He turned me around in the air, “Are you –prepared- to die, detective?” the man asked me with a deep, metallic voice.

    “Are you?” I asked him as I pressed the nose of my gun straight upwards into his stomach, pulling the trigger. The gun goes off, and the large-as-hell officer falls back with a bullet ripping through him, flinging me towards the ground. The man fell to the ground, making a large –THUMP- as his weight hit the wooded floor. The officers from outside flung open the main doors to the Police Station, but at the same time, I flung three shots from my pistol towards them, killing them both before they could even pull off one.

    Slowly, I helped myself off the ground and felt my nose, springing intense pain throughout my head. I cursed a bit from the pain, tucking my gun away once more, before I began looking around the station for the wall of cells they keep.

    Eventually, I found the cells, all lined up on the second floor of the police station, five in total, all made of rusted metal and stone walls with a small little window near the top for the occasional breeze of the outside world. In the first sat nothing but a few rats, and a corpse of someone I couldn’t recognize, but in the second, stood the Pharmacist, banging his head into the wall, covered in blood and other forms of matter. Before I could even say anything, he bursted his head apart with one final whack against the brick-surface, covering the wall with the insides of his brain. I quickly backed away from the cell blindly as the man’s brains splattered across the wall. Shaking my head, I thought to myself: what did they do to that man to drive him to commit suicide? Did it have something to do with the death of his daughter? I would never know, but as I passed the fourth cell, I heard someone exclaim, “Hey!”

    I spun around, and found a young man, short brown hair, and a lean body mass. He wore clothes that look as if they hadn’t been washed in a week. A little name tag on his vest read, “Brian, Store Manager” very clearly and large. Finally, I had found someone I was –actually- looking for. “Brian?” I questioned the man, coming closer to the cell, hand in-pocket, gripping the heirloom.

    “Yeah, now would you mind getting me out of here? I know for a fact you aren’t from here, seeing as how you SHOT THE OFFICERS DOWN STAIRS!” he yelled loudly. I pulled the heirloom from my pocket and threw it at him, shutting him up.

    “That’s something your girl wanted me to give you,” I said to him harshly. If he wanted to be a complete asshole about it, so can I, “now tell me where the keys to the cells are so I can get you out.”

    “The big guy, the reaaally big one. They’re on his belt,” Brian said to me, then felt his face, holding the heirloom in his hand, “This…this came from Amelia?” he asked me at last, looking down at the heirloom.
    “Yeah,” I said to him, going back the way I did. Down the stairs, and over to the giant body slumped onto the floor. I grabbed the keys off of his belt, and went back up the stairs, unlocked the cell door, and let him walk out before shutting the gate once more. Brian stretched his arms outwardly, before turning back to me, “look, we need to get out of this town. I know for a –fact- that there is a truck behind the Police Station, and they key to it is on that chain.