<strong><span class="bbc_font" style="font-family: Georgia;"> </span></strong><br/><strong><span class="bbc_font" style="font-family: Georgia;">Interior of Simon’s Bull</span></strong><br/><strong><span class="bbc_font" style="font-family: Georgia;">Cape</span></strong><strong><span class="bbc_font" style="font-family: Georgia;"> Merrin</span></strong><br/><strong><span class="bbc_font" style="font-family: Georgia;">November 10, 2010</span></strong><br/><strong><span class="bbc_font" style="font-family: Georgia;"> </span></strong><br/><span class="bbc_font" style="font-family: Georgia;">Just after JJ asked about boarding up the vent, and as Leof was pulling on his jacket, and mere seconds after Sam began to head to the front door of the bar, the tickling sound that rattled around in the vent, making the ears of occupants’ of the bar tingle with the noise, came to a halt. A single cockroach fought its way through the narrow slats in the vent and fell to the floor of the bar, an inch or so in front of JJ. A second later and the bugs were pouring through the vent as if someone were forcing them through the shoot, directly into the bar. The room filled with hissing sounds and the roaches poured down the wall; some took flight and began to somersault through the air, dive bombing into the bars occupants. The swarmed not only out of the vent behind the bar, but from all the vents. An impossible number of the bugs was washing out over the flat surfaces in the bar. In seconds the bugs were crawling over people’s feet and charging upward over their bodies.</span><br/><span class="bbc_font" style="font-family: Georgia;"> </span><br/><span class="bbc_font" style="font-family: Georgia;">Louie gave a startled cry and picked up his baseball bat from behind the bar. Screaming, he began swinging wildly at the things as they swarmed up his fat legs. He nearly knocked Al off the bar, and his hit-or-miss, but mostly miss, swings did take the phone out of service; the call to 911 was terminally interrupted. Louie’s screams escalated upward, like some demented school girl he cried on an on until he fainted dead away in a pile of the bugs, finally his weight slaying more of them than his feeble attempts at hitting them with the bat.</span><br/><span class="bbc_font" style="font-family: Georgia;"> </span><br/><span class="bbc_font" style="font-family: Georgia;">A moment later and a shotgun blast was heard coming from the back of the bar. Two heavy sets of boots could be heard in the hallway coming from the back entrance of the bar. When they were visible to the rest of the occupants of the bar, the two large men looked around and smiled. Both of them had bestial features. The taller one, let out a little howl before its face transformed into some sort of hideous wolf’s head, its white t-shirt ripping and rippling off its body as the “man” grew to a height approaching 10 feet; its body roiled and bubbled as musculature slid and shifted into place. The shorter man said, “I’m so glad you could meet my friends,” with an open-palmed gesture toward the swarming cockroaches. And all at once the roaches began biting at those upon whom they had swarmed. Behind the bar, Louie woke up screaming, roaches tumbling into his mouth and crawling into the unprotected openings of his ears. The shorter man laughed as the beast thing charged into the room, long black claws extending from its finger tips; the shorter man stood in the hall, black talons elongating from his own finger tips until they stood a full 12” inches from the tips of his fingers. Red-black blood coagulated along the edges of the talons and then the room went completely pitch black, the only gloomy light came streaming in from the glass panels on either side of the front door of the bar—the red/blue strobe washed over the interior of the bar, but not in a way that would allow any sort of detail or clarity of vision for humans. A pair of distinctly red eyes was visible in the direction of the hallway where the other shorter but still very muscular man had been standing. </span><br/><span class="bbc_font" style="font-family: Georgia;">Al felt her hair seized and wrapped around a large fist as she was adjacent to the bar and in the dark the two large red eyes loomed above her face. The thing sniffed her, taking in a long, deep inhalation off the skin of her neck and up by her face. It laughed then and said, <strong>“You know Gerry” </strong>and tossed her away into the darkness. Al landed atop the bloated and flailing form of Louie. The whisper touch of cockroaches skittered over her and she felt the give of hundreds of their little bodies beneath her hands and torso.</span><br/><span class="bbc_font" style="font-family: Georgia;"> </span><br/><span class="bbc_font" style="font-family: Georgia;">A rumbling battle howl crawled out of the throat of the werewolf that had stalked into the center of the barroom, its movements only just barely lit by the pulsating police lights streaming in from the exterior. The sound could be heard for several blocks away. Larry Cotke was out of hearing range by then, but that sound always forced upon him an urgent need to urinate, and sometimes he didn’t make it to the bathroom. All the humans in the bar experienced an immediate and deep moment of fear, freezing them in place for a moment before they could react in any way to the howl or the new visitors. A moment later and the wooden front door of the bar burst into flames, the light blinding to the occupants of the bar who were nearest to the door. Sam is forced to back away slightly from her approach toward the door, reacting badly to the fire. With this renewed lighting, the lupine turned its attention to Micheal and growled before initiating combat with the dark haired man who normally towered over his physical opponents.</span><br/><span class="bbc_font" style="font-family: Georgia;"> </span><br/><span class="bbc_font" style="font-family: Georgia;">Anyone not immediately in the fray might have noted that both the shorter man who had discarded Al and approached JJ and the werewolf were not being harried by the roaches—the bugs skittered away from their feet, and while the roaches swarmed over Sam, none seemed to be biting her.</span><br/><span class="bbc_font" style="font-family: Georgia;"> </span><br/><strong><span class="bbc_font" style="font-family: Georgia;">Exterior of Simon’s Bull</span></strong><br/><strong><span class="bbc_font" style="font-family: Georgia;">Cape</span></strong><strong><span class="bbc_font" style="font-family: Georgia;"> Merrin</span></strong><br/><strong><span class="bbc_font" style="font-family: Georgia;">November 10, 2010</span></strong><br/><strong><span class="bbc_font" style="font-family: Georgia;"> </span></strong><br/><span class="bbc_font" style="font-family: Georgia;">As Detective Michaels began assessing the situation, rain continued to pour down onto the scene. Otis backed off from Abigail, raising his hands, his voice elevated over the fall of the rain: “Just do as the police officer is asking you, Abbey. Be a good girl. You know your father wouldn’t want you to upset the police. Remember what it says in Romans: ‘Every person must submit to the authorities in power, for all authority comes from God, and the existing authorities are instituted by him. It follows that anyone who rebels against authority is resisting a divine institution, and those who resist have themselves to thank for the punishment they will receive. Governments hold no terrors for the law-abiding but only for the criminal.’” The Biblical quote like ash in his mouth, Otis came to his knees near the front door of the bar, seeking some reprieve from the rain beneath the awning. </span><br/><span class="bbc_font" style="font-family: Georgia;"> </span><br/><span class="bbc_font" style="font-family: Georgia;">Looking over at Delilah, Otis said in a quiet voice, “I know Abigail.” There’s something pained in his expression, as if he knows there ought to be a way to help her, but that he has failed, as if he knows she has probably done something despicable tonight, but that he doesn’t want to know what it is, as if, well, as if he were utterly exhausted and tired of life and the people with whom it brings him into contact. Oddly his blinded eye contains more emotion and connection than the living one that he can turn on the people and surroundings about him. The blind eye carries with it a furious and murderous rage, one only just kept asleep by the waking mind and body Otis has. </span><br/><span class="bbc_font" style="font-family: Georgia;"> </span><br/><span class="bbc_font" style="font-family: Georgia;">As the detective approaches and Abigail decides what exactly she is going to do now, a howl pierces through the evening, oddly enough seeming to come from inside the bar, and a moment later the oaken door bursts into flames, causing those near it to hop or shift away. Otis looks over to Arathel and says, “Something is wrong here. I’m going for the guns. See if you can help that man in the gutter.”</span><br/><span class="bbc_font" style="font-family: Georgia;"> </span><br/><span class="bbc_font" style="font-family: Georgia;">Not waiting for a reply, Otis pushes himself up off the sidewalk and runs at full tilt toward his truck, scrambling for the shotgun he keeps beneath the seat and the shells in the glove box. He just hopes the detective will be too busy frisking Abigail to take a shot at him.</span><br/><span class="bbc_font" style="font-family: Georgia;"> </span><br/><strong><span class="bbc_font" style="font-family: Georgia;">Alley Adjacent to and Roof of Cobb Theater</span></strong><br/><strong><span class="bbc_font" style="font-family: Georgia;">Cape</span></strong><strong><span class="bbc_font" style="font-family: Georgia;"> Merrin</span></strong><br/><strong><span class="bbc_font" style="font-family: Georgia;">November 10, 2010</span></strong><br/><strong><span class="bbc_font" style="font-family: Georgia;">Just before bugs start pouring out of the vents of Simon’s Bull</span></strong><br/><strong><span class="bbc_font" style="font-family: Georgia;"> </span></strong><br/><span class="bbc_font" style="font-family: Georgia;">As the boy backed away Silas dropped the dog’s corpse. He hated being seen feeding. He always tried to be so <em>quiet</em>, but he just, well, that fucking tail always caught up on something. He licked at the gore staining his face with his tongue as his body began shifting back toward something resembling human. “Wuh, wait, wait!” Silas called out to the guy on the roof, “I know what that is! That’s . . . that’s <em>the book</em>! I can help you use it, I mean if you’re not already a wizard.”</span><br/><span class="bbc_font" style="font-family: Georgia;"> </span><br/><span class="bbc_font" style="font-family: Georgia;">As Reggy hears these words come up to him from the alley, he also hears someone hopping up and down, and then the grating sound of metal. It’s the fire escape. Whatever or whoever was down there—it seems to be coming up to talk with Reggy. As the first sound of weight resounds on the metal fire escape, the voice calls out again, “My name’s Silas. I won’t hurt you; I promise.” </span>