---

---

At about the time two white girls wearing patterned harem pants and matching round glasses began to cozy up to Lenny and Bobby, Helen realized her presence was no longer welcome. She got up, taking one more hit on the bong, and walked to the door, where she dismantled the barricade set up to prevent too much smoke from escaping into the rest of the house. Helen wasn’t sure if she had ever been this high before; her head felt weightless and she felt like if she laid down she would sink into the floor and vanish like Willow. That said, Bobby had been spending a little too much time staring at Helen while playing 90s acoustic pop songs, so she figured staying here would end…badly. As she left the room, Helen placed her hand against the wall to balance herself. Then she drifted out, closing the door behind her. At the spot where she had placed her hand, a human eyeball now stuck out of the wall, its lids made of wallpaper but the eye itself startlingly human and the same emerald green as Helen’s. Bobby and Lenny didn’t interest her, but if those girls wanted to put on a show…Helen might as well watch.
Through the hallway, Helen stumbled, avoiding the Bacchanalia occurring around her as best as she could. In a word, things were starting to get out of control; one of the strikers on the soccer team had his hand stuck in the drywall; two drunk girls who Helen did not recognize had somehow figured out how to climb onto the crystal chandelier hanging over the house’s stairwell and were swinging back and forth as though they were on a bull ride. One of the guest bedrooms was open, and through it, Helen could see that several people had managed to climb out of the window and onto part of the house’s roof, where they were laughing and passing around a blunt. Helen rubbed her eyes, which were just about as dry as they could get, and continued down the hall, dodging two drunk girls making in a whirlwind of fury. Helen happened to know that those two girls were members of a local Christian youth group who had once hung posters around Kirby decrying the evils of “teenaged homosexuality”. Oh, how the times had changed.
Helen walked down the stairs, half slumped over the rail. Her head felt light but her body felt heavy and slow, a strange combination, and shifting focus from the eye in the wall to her own eyes was a task requiring considerable effort. She passed by Chad on her way down the stairs- he looked displeased. As she reached the bottom landing, she saw him at the top of the stairs, trying to figure out how to get the drunk girls out of the chandelier. Helen shrugged and continued onwards, figuring that what happened to the Charles family’s chandelier was the least of her worries.
Helen caught sight of Willow and Dexter across the living room sitting on the couch. Helen took off running, bumping into several people on the way, leapt into the air, and landed on the couch next to Willow, wrapping her arms around her friend and yelling “heeeeeeeeeey bestieeeeeeeeeee”.

"You really stepped up against that thing, by the way."

That comment caught Henry off guard, because in a way it was true. He had stepped up against it, hadn't he? In the moment it just seemed right, there were people around and it was causing damage and they all had lives and loved ones and businesses that their families depended on, and he had been trapped in Saturday Comics, so there hadn't been much thought to it. Initially it had been just 'get outside, get away'. When it took the light post and swung it on him, the only thing that went through his mind was 'I can take it'. But when it stopped trying to crush him and turned away, he kept fighting. He held the golem's attention until it was stopped, so that everyone else could focus on stopping it. He could-

"I could take it." Henry said, simply. Despite his previous showboating there was no pride to his tone. He wasn't saying he could take the golem, rather that he could take the punishment. He was almost embarrassed as he said it. He unconsciously rubbed the stress-fractures-now-bruises on his forearms from blocking the light post and continued. "If it had hit one of you, I'd have never slept again. So I took it."

Truth was, on some sort of basal instinctual level, it was better him than any of them.

His attention was thankfully shifted off of his own thoughts when he caught Willow round the corner of the stairs and take off running. It was enough that despite his ear plugs he could catch the last of what Dexter said before Helen was airborne: "And we have the only sewer gator north of the Mason-Dixon line available to us. I'll work on him."

Henry looked down to Elle and snorted at how good her timing was. "Seems we're in a good position to find out." he said, motioning with his head to the group that had been spectating. He pivoted and took a single step forwards to join the group, but left space for Elle if she was keen on joining the growing circle. It sounded like they were going to be visiting the underbelly of the city and were counting on him if they needed him. He could do that. He might be a bit big, clumsy, and he may not always have good ideas, but he did have his strength. The speederster had managed to scoot to the right just enough to avoid Helen getting a face full of his lap in her jump and was continuing. "It appeared below Saturday comics, so whatever it was, it had to have originated there. We might find some signs or a way to track it if we can navigate to that location underground. Unfortunately we can't break down some of the drainage access points, and we cant pull a manhole lid off in broad daylight."

"I might be able to help with that."

Dexter's eyes darted up to the lizard, who was looking mighty sure of himself in this moment. "That's... actually very helpful, Henry." the blur said, giving him the thumbs up in recognition. Maybe they could bust an iron gate or pull a manhole lid open now. A hundred pounds of manhole lid would be hell on anyone else, but that was cake for Henry. And of course Henry would go with them- his eyes scanned the growing group and he decided then and there that if it came down to it, for them, he would take the hit. He would be their shield.

𝕎 𝕚 𝕝 𝕝 𝕠 𝕨

“I saw it flee the scene,” Willow replied to Elle’s inquiry, “It melded with one of the sewer pipes and traveled down the tunnel. I have no idea where it could have gone, but…”

She paused for a moment to gather her words, adjusting herself as Helen began to doze off a bit with her head resting on Willow’s shoulder.

“I could explore the sewers well enough on my own,” she began plainly, “no need to open any manholes. I don’t know who would want to come with me, it’s very filthy down there. But we’d have to find a proper entrance if so.”

She really doesn’t have a plan. But jumping blindly into the sewers seemed like an alright place to start. Hopefully someone else chimes in with a better idea - where to start looking, what to bring with them - because Willows was getting too caught up in imagining what they could possibly find down there, and how dangerous it could be.

And what to tell her father, of course.

“Does anyone know the tunnel network very well?”

Monday, September 6th, 2010

Labor Day



Helen spent her day off mostly lying in bed, her head aching from the last night’s drinking and smoking. She nearly threw up shortly after waking up, though was able to pull herself together afterwards. She drank two liters of water and ate a plate of fried plantains with vegan bacon. Then she laid back down in bed, stretching out over the pink and green striped covers. The walls of Helen’s room were a pale sage, and art decorated as much space as it could: band posters, flower presses, a year-old wall calendar. To the left of her pink and white desk, dozens of Willow’s drawings (as well as a few of her own) plastered the wall. On the back of the door was a black poster with a large white pentagram in the middle. Around it were the words:

“God and Goddess
Wise and True
Guide Me Now
In All I Do.”

After several more hours sleeping off the hangover, Helen finally got dressed in a pair of blue jeans and a dark yellow tank top. She put on her hiking shoes and packed her backpack, which was green and polka-dotted with small yellow and pink flowers. She began to pack her bag. Into it she stuffed a phone charger, a bottle of water, a Nature Valley Bar, a pair of gardening gloves, and a small pocket knife. She stuffed a travel-size can of pepper spray into her pocket, as well as her phone and her keys. She laced up her brown hiking boots and wandered out of her bedroom towards the living room. Helen’s mom, Cassie, was sitting on the sofa, drinking a glass of wine with her feet up on a cushion. A rerun of Friends was on TV.

“Hey honey,” Cassie said. “Have you finally decided to become nocturnal?” Helen sighed--it was only 5 o’clock and the sun was high in the sky, but her mom had a point.

“Nah,” she said. “I just had a really bad headache this morning.”

“I figured,” Cassie said. “You must have been trashed last night.”

“Mom!” Helen said, her face flushing red.

“Oh come on honey,” Cassie replied. “When Willow brought you home last night she practically had to carry you through the front door and you reeked of weed.” Helen looked down at her shoes, embarrassed. Her mom had this way of trying to be relatable that only served to make Helen feel more embarrassed when she did something she wasn’t supposed to. Maybe that was the point.

“You just need to be careful sweetie,” Cassie said. “I don’t want you to get arrested or something!”

“Mom I’m not gonna get arrested,” Helen said. “Nobody cares about weed anymore--it’s not the 1970s.

Okaaaay,” Cassie said singsongedly. “So now that you’ve risen from your slumber, where are you heading? Back to Willow’s?”

“Yeah, probably,” Helen said, disguising her lie by looking down at her phone. Cassie smiled, her cheeks slightly pink from the wine getting to her.

“Awww,” she said. “You two are so cute together! I’m so happy for you!”

“Mooooom,” Helen said. “You know it’s not like that. Willow is just-”

“I know, I know,” Cassie replied. “I’m just teasing you! It’s my job as your mom!” Helen rolled her eyes and moved for the door.

“I’ll be back later,” Helen said. “Love you mom.”

“Love you too honey!” Cassie called out. “Don’t make bad decisions!” Helen groaned. She felt like she had already made a bad decision by walking out the front door.

---

6:00 PM

The waste tunnel sat at the end of a gravel access road off of Mount Gray Boulevard, about half a mile out of town. A wild and unkempt field stretched around the ditch, brambles and grasses and wildflowers all tangling with each other. The side of the road was littered with broken glass, chunks of asphalt, and the occasional heroin needle. Down the road, an abandoned construction site sat in an alcove, a mess of rusty rebar and jersey walls. Doug, Helen’s car, crunched through all of the debris on the roadside as it pulled onto the access road and down to the waste tunnel. The tunnel was built into a small ridge. It consisted of a heavy iron grate about the diameter of a person. A heavy iron padlock held the grate shut. To the left of the ridge and the grate, a rusting silo moldered, standing like some kind of scrap metal obelisk. A wall of scraggly trees disguised the tunnel from the main road, and if you didn’t know where to look you’d have never known it was there. The day was cloudy, and a slight drizzle tapped on the windshield.

Helen pulled onto the side of the access road, Doug’s tires squelching as it sunk into the mud. She sighed, looking out at the scene before her. It looked like she and Willow were the first ones there. She checked her watch: 6:00 on the dot. Where was everyone? Did they chicken out? It would make sense for them to have--this was a terrible idea. Helen turned Doug off and reclined her seat to look up at the cloth ceiling. Her stomach was a mess of knots and her arms were numb with fear. Helen was the kind of kid who did rebellious things just to get under the skin of grown-ups who acted like they had sticks up their ass. She was certain she would not do well in juvenile detention if they got caught.

“I’m not sure how good of an idea this is Will,” Helen said. “We really aren’t supposed to be here…”

𝕎 𝕚 𝕝 𝕝 𝕠 𝕨

“Yes we are,” Willow responds plainly. She smiles a bit as she stares at the large, open waste tunnel entrance in the distance. “It just doesn’t feel like it yet.”

She had assembled herself in preparation for the sewage-sifting. A heavy, grey, hooded nylon coat, clearly a little too big for her, going down to her knees. An old pair of ski goggles and a black cloth hung around her neck. A pair of black gloves, duct-taped around her coat’s cuffs - she doesn’t want to risk any filth getting on her, whenever she may have to stay corporeal. A pair of black snow pants and rubber boots, similarly duct taped (with a bit of difficulty, given their heftiness).

An unawares bystander might think she’s going on an extended expedition in the Yukon.

Or part of a team of amateur jewel thieves.

Or that it’s just part of the ‘standard Willow weirdness’. Doesn’t matter.

Did she over-prepare a little as someone who can phase through walls and sewer muck? Maybe. But she feels glad that she did - the preparation makes the occasion feel all the more important.

And exciting.

It wasn't often that Dexter had the chance to really open up the throttle. Usually there were swerves in the road, or obstacles like people or vehicles or buildings or trees or whatever that made going fast as dangerous as it was exhilarating. He had elected to leave his car, lest he run the risk of drawing any more attention than necessary- it would be just his luck that some cop with nothing to do would drive past the access road and elect to either investigate or tow. Neither of which were particularly appealing. So he had decided to walk.

There was no where in town that Dexter couldn't make it to in half an hour or so, in theory. That was assuming he was staying within the town though. Here it was an open, straight road. So now he was running. It was so rare that he got to do that. Even the track field turned too much for comfort. It stressed his ankles and hurt his legs afterwards when he took those turns at speed. Here he was firing on all cylinders. In the few times he had visited the CoL gym run by the Ted and Cotton pair, they had clocked his maximum speed on the vehicle treadmill at a little over three hundred kilometers an hour in a full sprint, but that had been limiting. Between the dangers of being indoors at that speed and the fact that he was limited to a small treadmill, he couldn't totally gun it. When Dexter hit his stride, he traveled as far as he was fast. Passing two hundred miles an hour, a single stride could carry him almost thirty feet. He couldn't turn or stop like that, so enclosed spaces or areas with obstacles became death sentences. His acceleration capabilities rapidly outpaced his braking power. Pun fully intended.

Fortunately it was a clear day, and he could see Helen's car with enough warning to hit the brakes without hurting himself or his shoes. That being- letting himself slow down naturally. Dexter finally came to a stop by Doug and rested a hand on it to steady himself and catch his breath. Like a car, stopping and going frequently taxed him a lot more than a sustained run, but he still wanted to take a moment to ensure he didnt gas himself out before the tunnel run. He checked his watch. Five minutes and fifteen seconds to get out here, two and a half of that being spent just getting out of town. 'I could've run faster.', he realized. He was getting faster. Dexter was clad in a simple work shirt with blue jeans and boots. Not at all the best running gear, but it would protect his feet and skin from whatever was in the water should he accidentally step in. He breathed, satisfied that he had caught up with himself, and approached the passenger window= which Helen rolled down so they could greet one another.

"Seems most of the group is here," he said, "Thanks for showing up. No way we're getting through that gate without Henry, though." he said, looking over to the access gate that had been dead bolted shut with a steel gate with bars two inches thick. Ramming it with the vehicle probably wouldnt even do the job.

"Over here!" the giant called from above them, emerging from the woodland on the other side of the road's hill, and easing himself down the hill's incline. Henry, like Dexter, had walked. Unlike Dexter his trip had been something akin to half an hour, although far less stress had been placed on obstacles and terrain. For lack of better wording, Henry was an all terrain vehicle. His shirt was about the only thing not mussed in some way. The bottoms of his pants were wet, likely from wading through a stream or two, and his feet were dirty. He hadn't even worn shoes, but then again he never did. The bottoms of his feet were as tough as Kevlar and three times the thickness. How he had navigated here through the woodland would be nothing short of a miracle to anyone else, but with his nose all he had to do was follow the scent of Helen's weed and sewage. Even if there were plenty of other places around that had one of those things, nowhere within his sensory range had both.

"Sorry for the wait." He said, knocking on the tail of the car with two light thuds. "I'm going to get to work, just come on through when everyone else is here."

The giant moved past the car, and gingerly slid down the cement incline to the floor of the access point. His leg had healed nicely, essentially good as new, but he wasn't quite willing to let it alone break his fall yet. He was too big, any uncontrolled fall could be bad. There were a few empty plastic bottles here and there, and some broken glass that was off on the other side, but not much else of note. He approached the gate and placed his hands between the bars, giving it a gentle shake to gauge the strength of the structure.

The whole entrance was protected by the gate but there was a door, about human sized, that was installed to allow easy entrance and access that was locked via a deadbolt and some sort of mechanical lock. It would be a lot easier to attack that weakness than it would be to try to tear the entire gate out of the structure- the rebar and steel was likely deeply embedded within the concrete and likely much stronger since it was protected from the elements. He repositioned, and lifted his foot to gauge distance, and when he was satisfied he delivered a swift shot to the door, approximately where the locking mechanism of the door was. The entire gate shuddered violently against his strength, the metal door warping into an aggressive concave and tearing the deadbolt out of the lock. The door was almost opened now, but with the deadbolt angled like this there was no way it could be opened unless he pried further. Fortunately, it was one piece of metal against two-thousand pounds of him.

Henry wrapped his hand around the deadbolt and half-curled, half-twisted the metal, which groaned under the immense stresses that it was never built to sustain. He grunted in exertion, but succeeded in tearing the deadbolt out of its bent metal lock. The door was fairly mangled now, half of its corner was scraping into the concrete. He huffed in frustration at this door's stubbornness, and delivered another, much angrier kick against it. The metal gate shook again, and the door finally relented as it was just about torn off its hinges and sent down the tunnel.

"It's open!" Henry called out. The sewer was accessible now. For better or for worse.