I needed some time to collect my thoughts.
First, I'm missing three days. I don't mean that they didn't happen, I mean that I have no memory whatsoever of the last three days. I get snippets here and there, but for all intents and purposes, I can barely remember anything. I don't know why the last post date is so fucked up, but they're fixed now. Nothing about any of that made any sense. I can tell you what I do remember.
I remember that we ran out of gas after a while, and Deb just crying and crying. We were stuck out in the middle of nowhere, and before either of us could do anything, the headlights died. Almost ten minutes passed with nothing happening, and then the headlights came back on. There was Anne, along with nearly a dozen children. I can remember screaming, because Anne's face wasn't' a face now. It was a hole. All their faces were holes. I kept screaming while they were tearing apart the car.
Then, I woke up this morning. On the side of the road. Again. Fuck me sideways that's getting old already. My bag, along with all my stuff, was in a ditch on the other side of the road.
Wasn't sure what to do, so I just started walking. Turns out, I was still in town, because of course I was. Took me hours to get back to the hotel, and lo and behold, my key still worked. I'm not sure why I was surprised that it worked, but at this point, I'm surprised I'm still alive. Deb was inside, sprawled out across the bed.
I woke her up, and she seems to be the same way I am. No memory of what happened. She said that she remembered Anne turning into something else, but that was it. Just as I finished talking to her, I heard a toilet flush and looked up to see Virgil standing in the bathroom. He was wearing a bulky raincoat, with that same mask as before. He was splattered with blood from head to toe. Big, dirty gloves on his hands. He nodded to me, told me to sit down. Told me that we all needed to talk.
Virgil said I should be thankful that I had "someone in my corner on this one" and that his boss didn't want me dead. On the contrary, he wanted me alive. I asked him what he meant by "his boss". Virgil said that he worked as a "fixer" for "things", that when these "things" wanted something done, he could usually do it. The thing that had wanted us alive (he wouldn't say a name) was also working with Antlers. He said that the thing and Antlers were "associates of the Court."
Deborah cut me off, asked if he knew where her boyfriend was. Virgil was really quiet for a while. All he said was that Ted wasn't "part of the game anymore". She looked like she was going to cry. I would've done something, but I needed to know more.
I asked him the simplest question. Why me, why us?
"We were convenient."
Virgil said that he'd tried setting this up before, but that Rosenberg was "out of the picture". He said that he'd failed before, and that I, and by extension Deb, were his "aces in the hole." Redwood Falls was just one of many places were this was, or was going to, happen. The Reverend was just one of many people under "their" control, and that I could use my connections to try and expose them.
Who were "they"?
"The Court of the Black King."
He said that I needed to expose the Court to everyone, to the world. That if I did, people in high places could bring down the hammer and destroy it everywhere it lurked.
So, Virgil wants me to help him save the world. Basically. He nodded, and started for the closet. Before I could even say anything, he stepped inside, telling me to stay out of the bathroom while he was gone. The door shut, we scrambled over there, and of course, he'd vanished. Maybe that's how he gets around so easily, maybe he can disappear when people can't see him?
I might just be losing it.
Virgil's been right so far, so I'm staying out of the bathroom. I can hear weird, squelchy noises behind the shower curtain. There's...a lot of blood. A lot.
Cards on the table, I kind of don't want to check. For now.
