HFTH - Episode 191 - Leads

Content warnings for this episode include: Animal death (Shank as usual), Violence, Kidnapping and abduction, Death + Injury, Blood, Gun Mention, Static (including sfx), Body horror, Religious Violence

Intro - Northern Star

There is a star in the north that has always fixed its eye on you, and long into the night did you hold its gaze. With one move after another, your family journeyed closer to it, from a sinking Florida to what remains of Boston, to the far northern forests of Canada. The air became crisper, colder, and you could see your breath in the air most mornings, and yet you did not seem much closer. As you sat on your boat at night, you wondered—why does it call? Why do I answer? It was as if somehow, all the miseries of your life, all the quiet loneliness, would be answered the day you reached it. But when you went further north than you had ever gone before, the sky began to change. The stars were strange, and burned in emerald green, and spun in vast circles as time lost its meaning. But directly overhead, a single star remained, unmoving, satisfied. Beckoning as a window, as a smiling eye through a screen door, into a deathless place whose skies are written with a Hello from the Hallowoods.

Theme.

Right now, I’m sitting in a splintered chair on the porch of a log cabin. It sits in the northern end of the Stumps; it is conspicuous. The paths of the exits from the city outskirts lead up toward its hill; its front door lies in pieces, its glass windows are shattered. It is a home for death, and death waits for its prey to come creeping for the bait. The theme of tonight’s episode is Leads.

Story 1 - Room for One of Us

Shelby could hear Riot and Russell working outside, rustling in the distance. They gave an owl hoot every so often to signify that they were still alive and unkidnapped.

She sat on the basement steps; Shank had found his way into a cool dark space that lay unfinished beneath the house. The flaming sky of Scout City cast a thin red glow through the cracks of the floorboards above them.

“You’re clear on the plan?” she said, gritting her teeth as she pulled the crossbow against her body. It took a lot of leverage to load it and lock it in place, which was difficult to handle one-handed.

Shank did not say anything, but the tilt of his head told her that he was listening.

“What’s wrong? You’ve been quiet,” she said. “Since the fight. We’re about to get our revenge. Isn’t that what you live for?”

She had begun to notice that where the pale bone of his human jaw had been revealed by the Wicker’s blast, black tendrils of flesh had crept out from beneath his pigskin face to close the gaps, sealing him into the head again.

“Ain’t nothin’,” said Shank. “I’m ready when you are.”

Shelby sighed, as the crossbow locked into place, and she set it down, began to worry about re-attaching the bone saw to her arm. It was a cumbersome weapon, and she still had not fit the harness that attached it to her arm particularly well; it tortured the stump that remained of her wrist at times.

“I can’t imagine you’re nervous about the Quartet,” she said. “Or about killing. Did something come up during the fight?”

“Don’t wanna talk about it,” Shank said.

“Or are you worried about what comes after?” said Shelby. “You felt that, didn’t you?”

Here she touched her jaw.

“There’s nothing left under there. How is the witch going to remove the mask without…”

“Stop trying to get in my head,” Shank hissed, and immediately he was across the basement, the basement steps creaking under his weight. His pig-toothed face was inches from hers. “There ain’t but only room for one of us in here. Why do you give a shit?”

Shelby met his gaze, frowned at the deathly vapor of his breath.

“Old habits,” she said. “When you work with someone, tracking down murderers, facing death at every turn, you need to make sure you can rely on them. You have to trust that when everything else goes to hell they’ll pull their weight when it counts. And I don’t know what’s going through your head right now.”

“No,” Shank breathed, and then withdrew a few paces down the stairs. “And ya never will.”

“No complaints from me,” said Shelby, wincing as she cinched the strap of her saw. “Because after this I’m getting out of the business, and you’ll leave Scout City forever, and that will be the end of it.”

“Hehhhhh,” said Shank, shaking the soil of the basement as he sat back down. “What about you? You gonna take your mask off?”

Shelby said nothing, only raised an eyebrow at him, questioning.

“I seen what you look like every time you see your little Clementine,” Shank said, and she didn’t like the humor seething in his corpse. “Does it make you sad? Make you wanna cry that she don’t remember you none, don’t know who the hell you are? When the work is done, you gonna break down and scream and whine like a newborn runt?”

Shelby glared at him.

“Fuck you,” she said.

He unveiled two rubber-gloved middle fingers in response.

Shelby looked up to the ceiling, and squinted.

“The calls have stopped,” she said. “It’s time. In case I don’t see you before you leave, well.”

“Yup,” said Shank, and shrugged. “Right back atcha.”

She ascended the stairs, where a wooden chair sat at the end of a hall of flimsy floorboards, and stepped over its back to sit, crossbow in one hand, the cleaver hanging from her belt. This time, she was the hunter. She’d hidden well, disguised in the forest, waiting to see how close they’d get before she lunged for the kill.

Interlude 1 - Quiet Hours

A peculiar silence has fallen over Scout City. It is not peace, as the disaster is not gone—each time it seems as though the fire has relinquished its hold on one neighborhood, news arrives that it has secretly spread into another. It is the silence of the community, volunteers dead on their feet after hours of running, no longer screaming and calling as they toss their buckets of water against the blaze. It is the uneasy tension of crowds packed into emergency caverns, wondering if even now the Instrumentalist killers might be among them now, whether they would notice a knife in their ribs before it was too late. It is the silence of five A.M. It is the silence of the hunters, resting their eyes for a moment before they move. It is the silence of the hunted, waiting with bated breath for the first strike. It is the silence of a fire, embers drifting up so high they almost touch the great dry canopy of leaves in Scout City. We go now to a dreamer.

Story 2 - Sheriff's Boy

Danielle sat in her nest in the Upper Trunk; the lounge hung out over the boughs of Scout City, and through its glass windows she could peer down at the movements of lights and crowds below. The heat of the day had remained almost unbearable into the night, and that was before the fire that was clearly loose in the city. With the clamoring noise that echoed up from the street outside, it seemed like no one was getting sleep in Scout City tonight.

There was a creak of her apartment’s streetside window opening, and she backed away from the glass to peek over the edge of the lounge pit across the floor of her apartment.

“Hello?” she said.

A moment later, she could make out Diggory’s tall black boots stepping into view, as they pulled the window shut behind them and strode into her kitchen.

“Diggory,” she said. “What’s going on? Is everyone alright?”

“Oh, there is much to discuss, Danielle,” Diggory said, and they came over to sit on the kitchen floor, legs dangling down into the cushions of the lounge. Danielle was bleary-eyed, hair a tangle, wearing only a robe and her Rosenbrace, and in comparison to Diggory she seemed put together. Their black jacket was scuffed with burn marks, pockets of blistering in the material, and their hair was in a mat across their face, which they put their long claws up to cover. “It has been, as you would say, a night.”

“Are you okay? Do you need anything?” said Danielle.

Diggory frowned.

“I never do,” they said.

“I thought I’d ask though,” said Danielle. “Give me the rundown.”

“Shelby has been harboring Shank,” said Diggory.

“That’s, uh, not good,” said Danielle. “I’ve seen what that dude can do up close and personal. Or, up dream and not in personal. He traumatized a dog. Also killed three people in forty seconds.”

“That is not even the start of it,” said Diggory. “Shank struck out on his own and fought the Quartet. They were expecting him. He has a fear of fire which they took advantage of. During this, he killed one of their members. Heather McGowan, the deputy.”

“The ginger one?” said Danielle.

“All of the McGowans are ginger,” said Diggory.

“Deputy, I mean,” said Danielle.

“Yes,” said Diggory. “When the other deputies reached us, we had found Shank again. We fought Scout City’s deputies to resist his arrest. Publicly. The deputy named Ignatius lit fires which got out of his control when we… skirmished. I met a very nice deputy named Oswin, but Shelby cut both of their hands off. We ran. We are making a plan to fight back. I went to Valerie to inform her of our plight, but she does not trust me entirely, I think. Everyone else is gathering at a cabin in the north end of the Stumps. We are luring the Quartet out there. We are going to try and finish their reign of terror tonight.”

“Uh,” said Danielle. “Like, kill them?”

“That seems likely,” said Diggory.

“Good,” said Danielle, shaking her head. “I’m just… wow. What do you need me to do? Go with you? I can do that. Just let me get my shoes…”

“Actually,” said Diggory, raising a hand. “I was wondering if you would be willing to sleep.”

“Let me guess,” said Danielle. “Perchance to dream? I will say though Diggory, it’s not as easy as you might think. If you’re hoping I can track down the Quartet, they have to be asleep, and it’s like combing through a box of a thousand pictures that are constantly changing. People might dream of violent things but it doesn’t mean they’re serial killers, and the Quartet members might not have anything on the surface to make them suspicious. Delving deep into every Scout City resident’s memory would take like, a year and a half.”

“It doesn’t have to be every resident,” said a voice, and Danielle looked up to the kitchen to find two spirits appearing there, Percy with his dark eyes watching her intently, and Ratty waving at her with a wink. “We have names.”

Marketing - Lead Magnets, Reprised

Lady Ethel Mallory

In marketing, a lead magnet is a piece of value you deploy, usually for free, to dredge up interest in your potential customer base. But in order to get the lead magnet, the customer just has to jump through one little hoop—give us an in. An email so we can send this lead magnet right to your inbox. A phone number so that our sales representatives can get you that free evaluation and keep talking to you afterwards. A mere morsel of your nightly dreams so we can allow you to experience the wonderful new innovation of dream-based advertising. You don’t realize it, but by the time you’ve taken that first little step at no cost to you, you’ve entered the first stage of a five-step process to becoming a lifelong customer.

All of which is to say, you already support me for Queen of America. You just don’t know it yet. But if you need shelter, come seek out Box Polaris, Box Pleiades, Box Virgo, Box Pisces, Box Ophiuchus. We are offering a free subscription to our Prime Dream 2.0. No need to sign away your life’s possessions. No long-term commitment. Not even an obligation to use our dreaming technology. We can offer you protection. We can offer you haven. Escape the desperate struggle of your life and join our land of plenty. We are hiring at a rapid rate for the employees that will make our country dream again.

Story 2, Continued - Sheriff's Boy

If you are really seeking a decent, well-paying job, I hear there is still a donut place around with good hours and free lunch for employees.

We return now to Danielle O’Hara.

In dream, Scout City was a tree of shadow that stood in a vast black expanse of forest. It was dotted with lights like stars, but they were few and far between tonight—she raced between them, passing the mind of a baby dreaming of shapes and colors in a sling pressed close to its mother deep beneath the city on the shores of Lurch Lake. She passed, far outside the city, the mind of a man who dreamt lightly beside the depot of water barrels and buckets assembled several blocks down from the blaze. But she was looking for two minds in particular:

Cole Kane, sheriff’s boy.

Ben Alder, junkseller’s son.

When she found Cole, it was further out from Scout City than she’d expected—nearly half a mile outside the Stumps, lying on the forest floor unconscious. Ratty had mentioned they’d fought. She descended to touch the sphere of light that burned in the outline of his skull, and pressed her hand to it, and was pulled into a brighter vision. She stood then in sunlit fields, with yellow-green grass waving and a wooden country fence stretching out across it. Green plains spread out to mountains that Cole had likely never seen in his life. Cole was a younger teenager in this dream, and he leaned with his father on the fence, although Virgil’s cowboy hat obscured any view of his eyes. They seemed to be talking but not with any legible words; the sounds that were in tune were the trickle of a nearby river, the sawmill song of distant cicadas.

She thought it appropriate to give herself a breezy country dress and a wide-brimmed leather hat, and stood in cowboy boots half a grass field away. Cole’s attention seemed to drift from his rambling father over to her, and she raised a hand to wave. He tilted his head, but did not seem to really grasp the implications yet—he was deep in the story he was telling himself. He wouldn’t be for long, though; she felt the horizon darken as his brows furrowed. She approached, smiling all the way.

“Howdy,” she said. “Whaddya know about them killings?”

“What?” he said. But by that time she had reached him, and her hand had gotten a hold of his blond head in an instant, and she was into his head properly. She could feel him wrestle, his mind reluctant to leave behind the idyllic dream they were departing, but she had no choice. She was looking for snippets of conversation, of memory, of anything that could be useful to them.

Ratty, all the more vile and frightening in his memory. Vincent, grimacing and taunting. Do you think this is the part where I kill you?

The brass-masked Ben Alder tilting to him. Don’t let the old man go. Bring him back to the chapel.

And the Chapel itself; in through its gnarled wooden doors, the vaults of stonework within, the masks of the Quartet flashing and the sunflower-masked Fifth String laying on the steps of the altar. How afraid he had been. The church organ bristling with inner ghosts.

“Hey,” Cole said, and he was running down the church aisle behind her, trying to tackle her. “I know you…”

“We’ll know each other much better after this,” she said, and twisted to touch his head again as he tackled her, and then they were in a flaming warehouse, kneeling next to a bloodied Heather.

Talk with the fifth string

In the old chapel

She will tell you everything

If you wanted to crack the case, first you had to get inside of it.

“Get out of my head,” Cole said. He looked as he did now, minus the face full of pine needles. He let go of Heather’s massive hand, and looked up to where Danielle stood in the flaming wreckage of the Roots District warehouse. “I know it’s you, Danielle. You don’t know what you’re dealing with here. It’s best that you stay out of it and keep your mouth shut.”

“Are you kidding?” said Danielle, sitting on a crate and crossing her legs. “You’re so screwed. Scout City deputy starts helping the Quartet? We’ve already identified half your crew and I am going to be on you forever after this. Don’t fall asleep. Every time you do I’ll get your secrets. Do you understand what you chose tonight? This city—your own father you love so much—they’re going to rip you apart.”

“This city is changing,” said Cole, and looked down to Heather’s body. “Monsters that rip people apart like this walk in the streets. There are people in this city that promote them. Love them. You’d know more than anyone, wouldn’t you? You see their nightmares.”

“There’s no such thing as monsters,” said Danielle. “There’s the people you care about and there’s the people you’re hunting down. Nightmare and problem are not the same. People are afraid of all sorts of things that aren’t real. You could have done a lot of good if you’d taken what you had learned and came back to Scout City. How can you do any of this in good conscience?”

“Never said it was,” said Cole, standing up. Even in his dreams, he wore a badge. “In good conscience. But I haven’t killed anyone. Not yet. If I had said no, sorry, not right now, to the Quartet, they would have drawn and quartered me on the church floor. No doubt about it. I can be more useful this way.”

“Useful to who? Scout City? Or the Quartet?” Danielle said, an eyebrow raised.

Cole was silent at that.

“Better make up your mind soon, huh,” said Danielle. He was fading, suddenly, vanishing from the scene, and the fire was sputtering out. He was waking up. She sighed, and left his head; and then where his glowing mind had been resting on the forest floor, he was gone. She returned to her body, lying comatose in the nest over Scout City, and woke with a start. Diggory sat above her, and Percy and Ratty drifted closer to the level of the ceiling, watching her intently.

“Well?” said Percy. “Any luck?”

“That depends,” said Danielle, frowning, “on how much he remembers.”

Interlude 2 - Motivators

I am fascinated, dreamer, by the method that Syrensyr has established to guide the hands of the Council of Heavens. I am beginning to understand as I lurk here in the intermission, spectating their conversations. How do you maintain a pantheon? Get them to collaborate and respect each other’s boundaries, maintain balance and focus. He has a different approach for each. Some are given riches or rewards, others titles or respect. Yet others domain and territory, or responsibilities in which they can take pride. He looks to each of their efforts and praises their achievements, while at the same time using the threat of each of the others as a motivator. But more than anything, they are united similarly by a desire that they share, even if they would resent the comparison to any other. Ephelzeph with their winds and storms, Olbsalolb with his elemental concoctions, Xyikxyz with her experiments with life and the void, Tolshotol with his love of suns and stars. Even Skryekeskrye, I have to expect, to a lesser degree. They each take pride in their creation, and are given by Syrensyr the opportunity to practice their art to its highest degree, receive glory and accolade for their unique craft. In a kinder universe, perhaps there would be one more member of the council, one who filled the universe with life and brought its endings to a close.

I exclude Noptilnopt from this list, as I do not know yet what motivates him, or why he is here. But time will tell; I intend to speak with him again, and get to know him better.

We go now to one who takes risks for his friends.

Story 3 - The Scoop

Arnold gulped, and mustered his nerve for a moment outside the door. He had to have no doubts about his ability to succeed; if his friends didn’t trust that he could do the job, then they wouldn’t have sent him into the heart of the danger, away from the trap-laying effort. He pushed the door open, and stepped inside.

The offices of the Scout City Almanac were alive with lights and ringing bells, and a half-dozen people whirled around the space from desk to desk, writing, transporting stacks of paper and trolleys laden with vials of ink, and at the far end of the room the massive black fungus convulsed within its glass enclosure like a beating heart, pumping a thick black substance into golden gutters which fed the ink refinery.

And over at the far end, half-hidden behind her desk and typing furiously, was Victoria, eyes narrowed at an unruly sentence, thumbing her mustache. She was as well-dressed as ever, baggy white sleeves over a purple and crimson satin vest, and the steaming cup at the edge of her desk said that she was putting off sleep as long as possible. The chaos of the writing room moved around him, stacks of paper wobbling in one writer’s arms, two cups of coffee nearly spilling out of the hands of an editor, as he passed through it over to her desk, but no one stopped him—there were more exciting things to hold their attention than Arnold Eggers.

He came to the edge of her desk and stood there for a moment; she did not look up to him. He went to clear his throat, except instead of a quiet and phlegmatic harrumph, an explosively loud noise emanated from his lower chest and he felt strange inflations along his neck and clavicles. He covered his mouth, but by then there were a few long moments of silence where the entire office was still, and Victoria stared up at him, brows furrowed over her golden eyes.

“Arnold?” she said.

“Uh, hi Victoria, long time no see, can we talk?” he managed.

“Arnold, it’s nice to see you, but if you haven’t noticed Scout City is on fire and having a bit of an emergency and the news could literally mean life and death for people so we really have to keep it moving,” Victoria said, lips pursed, but there was a mote of curiosity in her eyes too. “Why did you come here at four in the morning? Is it true that the Groundskeepers were part of the confrontation with the Deputies that incited all this?”

Arnold took his groundskeeper’s hat off, and wiped his grimy brow.

“Yeah,” he said. “I was there when Ignatius started the fires.”

“Is it true that the Scout City Groundskeepers were protecting Shank, the Instrumentalist Killer, during that confrontation?” Victoria said, and Arnold noticed her hands had moved away from the typewriter to a pad and pencil.

“Victoria, I’d like to talk to you alone,” Arnold repeated, glancing around to the other staff, who eyed him hungrily. “But yes, kind of, but again, we didn’t start any fires. It was Ignatius and the Deputies that…”

“Is it true that Ignatius had complete control of his flames until he was thrown into a building by Shank?” said Victoria. “The exact circumstances regarding how the fire began are being compiled into our report, but there’s a good deal of variance in eyewitnesses. I know how reliable you are.”

“I am!” Arnold said, far too loudly, and then grit his teeth. “I am. Uh. Reliable. And I came here to reliably tell you that if you really want answers about the Instrumentalist killers and everything that’s going on, go to the old Accordi place, north end of the Stumps. Then you can see for yourself.”

Victoria studied him, and set her pen down.

“Arnold,” she said. “What’s going on? What do you know?”

“You know, there’s one question you haven’t asked me at all, and it’s, how are you Arnold, I heard a guy threw fireballs at you tonight, I’m glad you’re okay,” said Arnold. “That last one isn’t a question I guess. But it’s what I would be asking you if you had come in here after fighting a guy who throws fireballs and it was my job to write the papers. But I and a lot of other people are putting ourselves in danger tonight and all I came here to do is to ask you to do your job that you care so much about. Tell people what’s really happening.”

Victoria stared up at him, open-mouthed, and could not seem to find anything sharp to say. He turned, and ignored that she and her protests followed him as he left the office, and stopped only once by the end. There was a bald, wrinkly little man with thick round glasses staring up at him.

“I’d prepare for a longer obituary section than usual tomorrow,” said Arnold, and then departed. As soon as he was out of sight of the office windows he took a large bound upwards, and hung twenty feet up the side of the Lower Trunk’s wall of windows and bark surface until he saw Victoria in her long black raincoat and fedora pass beneath him, moving out quickly towards the crowds beyond. Well, the wolf is on the hunt, he thought. Now to hope she catches the right pig.

Outro - Leads

Leads. If Skrykeskrye is to be believed, there are threads of destiny and fate that draw each being inexorably into the future, mooring us at strange and yet predetermined harbors as we complete our lifelong voyages. Threads winding around us, criss-crossing and uniting us all in a web of the universe’s own design.

I do not put much stock in this. I think we are animals. Gentle and ferocious at times. With defining traits. Like your cellular matter or my infinity of eyes. Choosing each moment what we think is best. Sometimes swayed by joy or anger or optimism or fear. Inching into the future one hesitant decision at a time, or sometimes unbound in a bold run, overeager and unburdened by string. Is that still the universe’s own design? Is that still destiny? Or does it only feel like fate each time you choose and do not regret the choosing?

Until you have chosen your last choice, dreamer, I am your loyal host Nikignik, leading you always back into the Hallowoods.

The bonus story that goes with this episode is called 'Afterimages' and is available on the Hello From The Hallowoods Patreon. Consider joining for access to all the show's bonus stories, behind-the-scenes and more! Until next time, dreamer, please knock before entering. Sometimes a moment is needed to drag the lid back onto the ark so you are not blinded by the incredible power of the god within. Too many faces have been melted by just bursting the door open.