Alright. I think we're getting somewhere. Kind of. Sort of. Maybe.
I'm not really sure.
After we torched the diner, we headed into the town proper. The first place we tried checking was the corner store Anne was running before, but someone had broken every single gas can in the entire store. Boy, were they thorough too. Even the ones in the back. The only thing we salvaged was the gun from behind the counter (A Ruger, according to Deb), and a single can of propane from the dumpster out back.
So, not a total loss.
I spotted one of the kids on our way out, though, running through the shelves. I can't say for sure, because I started shooting before I got a good look. I think I hit it, though. I say "it" because I swear to god that the little bastard didn't have a face. I don't mean that it didn't have eyes; I mean that it had a hole for a face. Just-just a whole. Nothing inside but darkness. There was black blood on the shelves. Really hoping that's because I hit the thing.
I asked Virgil if he'd seen this kind of thing before.
He waited a long time before he answered. He took a deep breath, and as we were standing in that dark corner store, he told me that he'd seen all this happen hundreds of times. Hundreds of towns across the world. Virgil said that the things that did this were old, really old. He said that he'd traveled other realities where "the Church" had manifested, and everywhere it had manifested, it brought unimaginable suffering.
It always started with little things, and it almost always started in small towns like this. Virgil said that he wasn't sure exactly why they did it, but he theorized that it was because it kept them under "their" radar.
"They" were what he called "The suits."
The "Initiative."
I knew for a long time that DARKNET and myself weren't the only ones with a stake in this game, but Virgil said that it went even deeper than that. He said that there was an agency that handled the supernatural; that they would exterminate or exploit anything they found. The Church wasn't the exception. There had been a secret war going on for centuries, millennia even. The groups had different names, different doctrines, but the paranormal had always been the constant. I asked him how he knew that. He laughed.
Simple, he said. He'd seen it himself.
Part of me is thinking that Virgil is more of an "it" than a "he." Shocking idea, I know, but I just assumed that the mask shtick was just a quirk. I wonder if there's actually anything underneath. I don't really think I want to know. I know too much now, and the Church still lives. Not for long, I hope.
Left the corner store behind. Headed towards the library. Going to keep sweeping the town until we find the Church. It's my turn to carry the shotgun now, so I'm handing off to Deb.
Wish me luck.
