Episode 25

Alaire didn't know whether to run or stay frozen. It couldn't see her, but it could hear her. It may have already heard her, and if not, it was going to walk right into her anyway. The monster was inches from her face, and she tried holding her breath while she panicked. It was the beast with the misshapen head that stalked them from Gerald's house. The sewers must be their home.
She had a second the make a decision. One. And yet her body and brain remained handicapped. The monster's head emerged from the tunnel, and if not for the removed skin and missing facial parts, their noses would've been touching. Those dark pits gazed into her eyes as doom approached.
From above, Dylan came flying downwards, his pocket knife in his good hand. Without either of them noticing, Dylan had moved atop the tunnel and jumped down in time to stab the monster through the mushy skull. The creature thrashed, sending him and Alaire tumbling backward, but the knife seemed to do the trick, for now. Its arms twitched as it fled the tunnel and bashed into a tree, and then another until it croaked and rolled onto its back.
"Nicely done..." Alaire said.
"Thanks," Dylan cradled his other arm, "What are those ugly things anyway... They look like something out of a horror movie."
"Indeed. Hopefully, there aren't any more surprises..."
"Think those people can hear us?" Dylan asked.
"Maybe... and perhaps more monsters, if there are any. I doubt that one is actually dead..."
Dylan pointed to her gun, "We'll be ready this time. Kill or not, we at least stopped it for a second."
Alaire nodded, and Dylan used his traveling voice, "HELLO! THIS WAY! WE'RE HERE! THE OPENING IS THIS WAY!"
"HERE! OVER HERE!" Alaire shouted, "I really don't want to go inside..."
"Me neither," Dylan checked on the incapacitated monster still twitching under a tree, "Man, it stinks..."
"Wait, I think I heard someone," Alaire said.
Through the dark and narrow tunnel, the faint voices responded. It was incoherent at first, but Alaire and Dylan started to hear the running of footsteps splashing through the blood and the voices shouting with excitement.

They crammed the exit at first until a girl with bubblegum pink hair was pushed through. The rest of her was covered head to toe in guts. Her face looked so miserable like she could spend the rest of the week crying in her room. After her, two more people followed - also completely saturated in red. One of the men had a tie and the other a D-backs t-shirt.
"Thank the lord!" the man in the baseball tee threw himself into the white snow, "We're out. We're really out. Hallelujah."
"Who are you?" the man in the tie asked, "You don't look like a rescue team. No offense."
"We're not, really," Alaire admitted, "But we did come with Detective Robinson. I'm Alaire... This is Dylan."
Dylan lazily lifted his good arm to wave.
"I'm Ryan, as I told you earlier," he spoke while whipping blood from his face, "I actually barely met these two myself. He's Ethan, and this is Genessee. Where is Gerald anyway?"
"We don't know..." Alaire said, "We lost him recently. Things aren't looking too good."
The five of them huddled together, standing next to the river of blood, as Alaire filled everyone in on the situation at hand.

"So Gerald is missing. Aaron could be dead or captured by snowmen. And you weren't even sure you'd find us, but you were all baited here by a mad man... am I doing ok?" Ryan listed.
"Yeah sounds close enough," Alaire said.
"So we're still screwed?" Ethan whined, "Hey... How did you kill that... awful thing?"
Dylan watched the creature like a hawk. It hadn't moved and still had the pocket knife lodged into its head.
"We aren't really sure if it's dead, so we should get away from it," Alaire said.
"Or kill it again!" Ethan looked appalled, "Double tap!"
Ryan nodded, "I like his idea." But neither Alaire nor Dylan moved. Dylan seemed entranced by the sleeping (or dying) monster. He didn't look away or even blink.
Alaire was tempted to nudge him, but someone got to him first.
Hidden in plain sight, a white hooded henchman jumped Dylan and pinned him to the ground, shoving his face into the cold wet ground. The same thing happened all of them. The wind was knocked out of Alaire's chest as she was forced onto her stomach. Strong arms pulled her own arms back, and she yelped in pain.
Her captor pressed his mouth against her ear so she could hear every word clearly.
"Sorry about our bargain."
Bargain?
"But you did choose to come here... Consider the deal off."
His voice changed at the end of his sentence. Alaire felt the familiar sense of dread and hopelessness consume her. An evil not visible, but tangible. The atmosphere was so sinister and thick with corruption that she could taste it on her tongue.

*****

"Aaron?" Gerald hissed.

Moments earlier, a tied up and beaten Aaron was tossed into Gerald's view; careful to not touch the symbol. These weren't normal wounds. The cuts in Aaron's face were black and inky. Most of his skin had turned an odd grayish color.

"Aaron!" Gerald tried, "Come on, man..."

Gerald watched as more people started coming into view. One of them was Alaire, although she was being carried like a sack of potatoes by a man in a marshmallow suit. 

"Well, shit," Gerald grumbled. There they were; the missing students. And Ryan. Gerald noted there were only two of the students left, and he cursed under his breath. Ryan, Alaire, Dylan, Genessee, and Ethan were forced to their knees in a line next to the unconscious Aaron. 

"Hello, detective. You did it," Professor Kellor revealed himself from behind the line of victims, "You found them. Congratulations."

"How?" 

"We already played the 'how' game earlier," Kellor sneered, "I'll leave that mystery to you, detective."
Professor Kellor was still a missing suspect, along with Taylor, since neither were pronounced dead. But by the look of things, it's a miracle Kellor was still alive. Gerald wasn't shy in observing his sunken face with disgust.
"Where's Maren?" Gerald asked.
"Oh, well," Kellor hummed, "I got a little bored while waiting for you. You took your sweet time getting here... I wondered what you were up to. Hopefully not telling anyone where you were going..."
"Where is she!"
"I can't be sure, but I'm certain her face is still hanging in my office."
Gerald took a sharp breath. He was bluffing, hopefully... he had to be! "Wait, wait, wait..." He scanned the other faces of the white clothed people, or the henchmen rather, and realized that not only had he found the few remaining victims, but some of the dead ones too.
"I love the look of surprise on your face. Every time," Kellor said, "It's amazing really - what our lord can do."
Everything looked in order for something terrible to occur. The symbol in the snow, the victims in a line, Gerald tied to a rock, and the old man stepping out of the shadows. Not to mention the murdered victims from the last case that Gerald himself found along with the police. Witchcraft.
The old man, the psychiatrist, lingered in the trees while waiting for everyone to arrive. This time when Gerald stared him down, the black figure on Thanatos followed him like a shadow.
"Shall we begin."