UTL S1E10: Murder by Florence

This week begins with Beau examining the body/boots of Jack Willis. Is it actually Jack Crabbe?! Beau almost cries with relief when he realizes these are not Crabbe's boots. However, they're good quality snakeskin with a yellow stripe running from top to heel, etched with the initials JW. Beau takes the boots but finds nothing else of value on the body. As he heads back towards town, he feels a shift in the air accompanied by a deep beating sound. Something large flies overhead.

At the same time, Jaker has helped Philip onto the spare horse and they're heading slowly back to town with Priss in tow. Something large swoops through the air and though Phil leans out of the way, Jaker is knocked off his horse and falls to the ground. Phil describes "the biggest fucking bat he's ever seen" (approx. 15' long with 30' wingspan), which flies off towards the town.    Philip shoots and misses, and then busies himself building a makeshift noise maker/bomb out of a flour tin and bullets. At the same time, Jaker shoots and hits one, prompting it to dive, attempting to sink its talons into Philip's shoulder. When it misses, thrown off by the impact of the bullet, it banks and heads back towards town with an ear splitting screech. Philip and Jaker head back to town.   Harold, Quentin, and Florence are still in the basement of Gerald Morensen's house. Harold hangs back in the machinery room as Florence and Quentin explore the left passage. The passage splits in a Y; the right side is dark, and the left side emits a purple glow.   At this point Quentin, no longer in control of his own actions, raises his rifle and points it at Florence's forehead. A voice in his head tells him to leave. Quentin regains control and lowers the gun. Florence demands that he relinquish it to her and thankfully he agrees, pushing past her into the purple glowing hall. Harold joins Florence and she shares her harrowing experience and her distrust of Quentin.    The purple room is full of animal cages, each with a tube of purple glowing liquid dripping into the water supply. This liquid resembles the substance Harold experimented on (and also the drops Marisa added to Quentin's drink). As Florence keeps watch near the fork in the hall, Quentin discovers a small cylinder that produces light, pockets it, and then begins to detach the hoses feeding purple liquid to the animals. Harold taps on a couple animal cages, enraging a fox and scaring a bunny.    Quentin then leaves the purple room and passes Florence to explore the dark hallway, newfound light in hand. He sees a 5' tall metal object that entirely fills the hall in front of him. At the same time, Harold peeked through the doorway at the back of the purple room to find piles upon piles of bones. He selects a few small ones and begins rigging them to break open and release the caged animals.   Florence wants to go upstairs, and when Harold insists on accompanying her they head up together. Reaching the top of the stairs Florence, still suspicious of Quentin after he threatened her (and for that matter knocked out Gerald and forced a metal box down his throat), pulls the rope ladder up behind them. She explains that she won't abandon Quentin down there, but merely wants to control the situation while they have a talk. As Harold and Florence talk, they realize that Gerald is no longer laying on the bed, and instead they see light under the now closed door to the main room and hear the whistled strains of Amazing Grace.   Quentin returns from the dark hallway to find the ladder gone and decides to explore further. When he returns to the large metallic device, he again hears the voice in his head: "I already told you to leave...". Quentin speaks out loud to the voice and continues forward, discovering something organic. Then his body is no longer his own and he freezes in place, light pointing at the wall about 10' up, illuminating a mass of tentacly appendages. Now the voice decides that he can't leave because he's ruined everything. To kill him or to experiment on him? Or both...?   Outside of town, Beau has met up with Philip and Jaker. Beau offers Philip the boots he took from Jack as they share stories of the flying creatures. As they hear screaming from the direction of town, Jaker spots two creatures flying away with human legs dangling from them. Beau pursues, but horses are too slow.   They return to town and find a woman sobbing "they took him". She's both distraught and relieved that her drunken philandering husband has been snatched "by Satan". As we wrap up, Jaker checks on his Uncle Jeb (who's fine) and Philip heads to Bawdy Bills, as Beau tries to find out who else was grabbed.

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