talien
Community Supporter
McKinley Boulevard: Part 1 – The Trail on the Stairs
BOSTON, MA – It was night. A long strip of road, McKinley Boulevard was once part of an upper-class residential area. Some crumbling manses had been razed or burned down. Others were cut up into apartments or rooming houses. A few, among them 17 McKinley, were more or less sound buildings that for various reasons were abandoned to vagrants, addicts, and runaways. Nearby small factories and sleazy businesses had for some time quietly used the abandoned properties as dumping grounds for refuse, adding to the general atmosphere of neglect and decay.
Archive parked the car at the front of 17 McKinley. Cars sped by recklessly. Vagrants huddled around open fires. Loud arguments occurred in the distance. Bottles were thrown and broke in impotent rage.
“You don’t have to do this you know.”
“I know,” said Hammer. “But someone’s going to have to watch your back.”
“None of the other agents agreed to this mission…”
“That’s because it’s not a mission,” said Hammer. “SINNER assigned it to us.”
“To me, you mean.” Archive looked back at the house, the same house that was in his dreams. “This is where it all started. The Labib Home for Children. An orphanage for raising future cultists of America.”
“This was the same place Richard Jacobs was raised,” said Hammer. “It later became the Allen Foundation under George Allen.”
“Right. That’s why Drake had SINNER dig up this info. If there’s really a cultist conspiracy, we’ll find it here.”
They got out of the car. In the distance, there was the flat crack of a gun firing.
“What are we looking for exactly?”
“Records of who those kids were and where they were placed,” said Archive. “Easiest way to determine the fate of those kids is to find out who they turned out be when they grew up.”
“Got it.” Hammer donned a headpiece with a flashlight over one ear. When Archive gave him a questioning look, he just put drew both Glocks.
With a solid kick, the wood over one of the window cracked. They crouched their way into the house.
The rooms inside were extremely dark. A little light came in around the window boards, just enough to make out the general layout of the rooms. The ceilings were eleven feet high. The rooms were stripped of most furnishings. Plaster had broken and fallen. Rain damage was apparent. Dust and dirt drifted everywhere along the walls. Trash, empty bottles, used needles, and moldering human wastes were present in most of the rooms.
The stairs in the entry hall were blocked off and propped up with odd lengths of lumber. A huge chandelier hung over the lobby.
Opposite the stairs were two statues, their great bulk almost too large to be noticed in the gloom. They were elaborately carved stone columns, each about three feet square and nearly eight feet high, flanking the entry between the first story vestibule and the hallway. One was horribly grotesque, made of an unknown element, combining the worst aspects of octopus, elephant, and human being. The other, in a similar style, portrayed a being that was very squat and pot-bellied, its head was more like a monstrous toad, giving somehow a vague sensation of both the bat and the sloth. Its sleepy lids were half-lowered over its globular eyes; and the tip of a queer tongue issued from its fat mouth.
“There’s a trail on the steps,” said Hammer. A fresh trail had been worn through the dust on the back stairs.
“There’s someone still here,” said Archive worriedly.
“Right,” said Hammer. “Let’s convince them to relocate.”
BOSTON, MA – It was night. A long strip of road, McKinley Boulevard was once part of an upper-class residential area. Some crumbling manses had been razed or burned down. Others were cut up into apartments or rooming houses. A few, among them 17 McKinley, were more or less sound buildings that for various reasons were abandoned to vagrants, addicts, and runaways. Nearby small factories and sleazy businesses had for some time quietly used the abandoned properties as dumping grounds for refuse, adding to the general atmosphere of neglect and decay.
Archive parked the car at the front of 17 McKinley. Cars sped by recklessly. Vagrants huddled around open fires. Loud arguments occurred in the distance. Bottles were thrown and broke in impotent rage.
“You don’t have to do this you know.”
“I know,” said Hammer. “But someone’s going to have to watch your back.”
“None of the other agents agreed to this mission…”
“That’s because it’s not a mission,” said Hammer. “SINNER assigned it to us.”
“To me, you mean.” Archive looked back at the house, the same house that was in his dreams. “This is where it all started. The Labib Home for Children. An orphanage for raising future cultists of America.”
“This was the same place Richard Jacobs was raised,” said Hammer. “It later became the Allen Foundation under George Allen.”
“Right. That’s why Drake had SINNER dig up this info. If there’s really a cultist conspiracy, we’ll find it here.”
They got out of the car. In the distance, there was the flat crack of a gun firing.
“What are we looking for exactly?”
“Records of who those kids were and where they were placed,” said Archive. “Easiest way to determine the fate of those kids is to find out who they turned out be when they grew up.”
“Got it.” Hammer donned a headpiece with a flashlight over one ear. When Archive gave him a questioning look, he just put drew both Glocks.
With a solid kick, the wood over one of the window cracked. They crouched their way into the house.
The rooms inside were extremely dark. A little light came in around the window boards, just enough to make out the general layout of the rooms. The ceilings were eleven feet high. The rooms were stripped of most furnishings. Plaster had broken and fallen. Rain damage was apparent. Dust and dirt drifted everywhere along the walls. Trash, empty bottles, used needles, and moldering human wastes were present in most of the rooms.
The stairs in the entry hall were blocked off and propped up with odd lengths of lumber. A huge chandelier hung over the lobby.
Opposite the stairs were two statues, their great bulk almost too large to be noticed in the gloom. They were elaborately carved stone columns, each about three feet square and nearly eight feet high, flanking the entry between the first story vestibule and the hallway. One was horribly grotesque, made of an unknown element, combining the worst aspects of octopus, elephant, and human being. The other, in a similar style, portrayed a being that was very squat and pot-bellied, its head was more like a monstrous toad, giving somehow a vague sensation of both the bat and the sloth. Its sleepy lids were half-lowered over its globular eyes; and the tip of a queer tongue issued from its fat mouth.
“There’s a trail on the steps,” said Hammer. A fresh trail had been worn through the dust on the back stairs.
“There’s someone still here,” said Archive worriedly.
“Right,” said Hammer. “Let’s convince them to relocate.”