Cursed Souls Blood, Brains & Rock'n'roll

Chapter 25 Welcome to Dunwich

It was quiet. It was so quiet that the silence was eerie. There were no birds, no animals, not even the faintest whiff of wind. It was just an evil, oppressive silence, promising something evil. And the gray overcast sky only added a final stroke to the overall gloomy picture.
It looked like the gas station had been abandoned. The small house where the owner of this gas station once lived was in desperate need of repair. Almost all the paint had crumbled off the walls. The windows were boarded up with crooked boards, swollen from the many rains, but even behind the boards you could see the broken glass. A skillful sculptor could easily build castles and fortresses out of the dirt and dust accumulated on the columns. Everything signaled that there was no way to pay with a credit card in this place.

Will and Simon walked in circles, looking around the house. Alan stared silently at the front door.

"I don't think there's a living soul in here," Simon said, peering through another boarded-up window. "I don't think anyone's been here for centuries. It's filthy! How can anyone afford to live in such unbearable conditions? If it weren't for my manners, I'd be cursing right now."

"But then why did the old man send us here?" Will asked, a little horrified by the concentration of dust per square inch.

"Brains?" Rob's voice came from a hearse parked on the side of the road.

Alan tried knocking on the door again.

"No, no one answered," he summarized his modest attempts. "If the budget horror stories are to be believed, we shouldn't look in the basement."

"And why would we want to look in someone else's basement?" Simon asked. "I don't think we're going to find anything here. I think we should go back to the car and try our luck somewhere else. This place is affecting my sanity too negatively."

Disappointed and deceived by this turn of events, they walked leisurely to the car. But when the hearse was only a few steps away, Will's ears began to make rhythmic movements, urging his host to turn around and look at the source of the suspicious noise.

The source was a very grim-looking man who was walking in a slouching gait toward the house from the woods. He was dressed in shabby hunting overalls, and hardly suspected the existence of such an invention of mankind as a washing machine. In one hand he had a large ball of fur, which, to all appearances, had once been a living creature that looked like a fox, and in the other a hunting rifle. The man's whole appearance made it clear that asking him anything wasn't a good idea. Especially if you were a fox.

"Good day, sir!" Simon shouted at the top of his voice. "Excuse me, but could you help us respectable gentlemen like yourself with some gasoline? I can assure you that your help won't be unnoticed in the highest social circles."

The man pulled up in front of the house, glancing at the company around the hearse, and said sullenly:

"You are outsiders here."

"Yes, sir, you're quite right," Simon said easily. "We're not really from around here. We were told there was a gas station around here, so we..."

"We're out of gas," the man said, slinging his rifle over his shoulder and starting to open the door of the house.

"Simon, maybe we'd better..." Will started to say in a quiet voice, but Simon was ahead of him.

"Then would you be so kind as to tell me where we could get some gasoline?"

The man, as if in a trance, kept picking at the keyhole of the door lock with a crooked key, ignoring Simon's questions.

"Sir? Are you going to help us or not?"