I took a few hours, but we found Cole's house. He lived out at the edge of town, on a street that was literally about a mile from the motel, because of course it fucking was. We had to ask around a bit, and I have half a mind to think that the townsfolk were sending us to every possible road except the one we needed to find. Hell, the only reason we even found the road was because I though I saw Virgil hiding behind a tree next to the turnout.
The house was completely untouched. Truck parked in the driveway. Pretty decent sized ranch-house style place with a tire swing out front. I almost thought that nothing was wrong when we got there, but the door was wide open and someone, or something had left a couple of letter blocks right in front of it. Like they wanted us to find it.
There was nothing out of place. No broken glass, no blood, no body. The house was totally fucking empty. Shit, there was even a half-eaten meal on the kitchen table. Cole's back office looked like something out of a conspiracy theorist's wet dream. Cork board on one wall with all kinds of pictures and notes. It looks like he'd been seriously digging into some shady government shit. Deb and I scooped up as many of his notes as we could, along with the computer and a shotgun.
I don't think the shotgun will be much help, but it's worth having.
Then, we found the basement. Holy fucking shit, this basement.
Cole must have been at this for a long time. A whole lot longer than I've been at it, and a whole lot longer than anyone at DARKNET's been around. He had stuff that I swear to god was from World War Two. He had piles and piles and piles of documentation, meticulously organized. He even had a couple dozen photographs of Antlers, and one of a woman that was burnt out as shit and covered in blood. We grabbed as much as we could, and went back to the car.
Just as we were leaving, I saw her. Anne. She was standing at the edge of the forest, smiling like a goddamned maniac. She was wearing the same hoodie as before, but there was a lot of dried blood on it. Deb saw her too, and she ran to the car to get it started. Anne went into a dead sprint. She had this weird, unnatural motion to the way she moved, and she was on top of me before I had any time to react.
Jesus christ, dude. There was something wrong with her eyes. Her jaw cracked open, and there were so many fucking teeth. This...tentacle thing came out of her throat. She held me down with one hand, and with the other she started trying to force my own mouth open. Her whole body was distorted and wrong. The arms were too long, the legs were too long. Everything was so abstract.
Anne was about to force that thing down my throat when I heard this loud bang, and her face turned into this red mist. She fell back, and I ran for the car. Deb was standing there, holding the shotgun like she'd done this before. I have to admit, I'm kind of impressed.
Anne was squirming around on the ground, flailing and shrieking. Those screams were just so wrong. It was like something that was trying to emulate a human, but not quite getting it. Deb pulled the car out onto the road, and I saw Anne getting back up to her feet as we punched it back to the motel.
Going to try and review some of the notes we found.
Going to try and get the image of Anne's face out of my head.
