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Tom's momentary glory is cut short as soon as the demon strikes back. Tom lets out a whimper as he tries to wriggle out of the monster's tentacle, but to no effect. As much as he fights it, the demon squeezes his leg harder and harder, leaving Tom immobile, speechless and gasping for breath.
Just after Tom starts to maneuver himself out of the range of the monster, he remembers how Sunny had wanted him to attack first. "Is this the real thing?" he asked back. It certainly seemed so, so Tom lifted his sledgehammer once more and hit the monster once more, despite himself.
Tom stares at the enormous shadow creature. He had been rooted in place by fear, but Sean's shouting, of which he could barely hear the words, wakes him from his reverie. Tom didn't even know how to fight a shadow, or what the creature might be able to do to him if he missed, but he couldn't just stand there while the creature's razor-sharp hands were cutting Allison to pieces. Tom charges the creature from behind, lifting his weapon above his head and using it to take the creature's arms off of its victims.
"Ready." Tom opens the door to the storage, the better for someone else to lead the way in to a sure combat.
Tom cradles his wounded arm. "So, the warehouse is now unguarded. No point in secrecy. Whoever might have been in there probably heard us fighting," he notes. "Is everyone alright now?" he asks in the vague direction of everyone else, mostly to Sunny and Sean. He doesn't make any motion forward towards the building. He rather tries to move backwards, in the middle of the group, or behind all the others. The creepy voices saying chosen one were still ringing in his head for a minute before it strikes him that this was the first time anyone other than Sunny had used those words about him.
Particularly unheroically, Tom had watched Sunny and Sean both fall under the two cultists, unable to rally the courage to do anything helpful. At last, he just barely musters the guts to take out his sledgehammer and use it on the other remaining cultist. "I don't get how you expect me to use that gun on a real monster," he whines.
Despite himself, all of Tom's efforts to keep his cool are lost when he looks into their eyes. He starts backing away slowly, making sure to pick up his pace whenever they do to stay a safe distance away. "Yes?" he answers, in a last ditch effort to remain courteous.
Tom's heart starts pounding as soon as he sees the men. He couldn't turn around now, lest he alert them even more if he came back with all of the others. He tries to wish them a "Good evening," as nonchalantly as possible, while walking right past them. He hoped they would assume he worked there.
However, his nervous smile doesn't seem to impress them.
Tom is taken aback by having the gun pressed into his hand, but he doesn't manage to protest before being whisked away to the storage center. Once there, he takes Sean aside and hands back the backup gun. "Sean, I've never fired a gun in my life. I guess I'm going to have to fire that one bullet so that Sunny doesn't drive me crazy. But I don't want to get us all killed because I took the gun from the only person here who knows how to operate the thing right." Upon finishing his exchange with Sean, he will go and look over the entire area before passing the weak part of the fence. "I volunteer to check out any place that isn't pitch dark." He remembered all too well those shadows at the mansion, but he still expected worse things in the dark than in the light.
"If they don't have such great security, I'm hoping we can just walk in? Preferably one of you can walk in with a plausible excuse and the rest of us can follow?" Tom asks. As eager as he was to get to the scene, he didn't want to sacrifice his reputation for it.
Tom listens to Arianne's report with a bit of relief. Only later does he start thinking more about what she had said. "Three lifetimes? Wait, if Jessie turned into an old man in a few minutes, and they kidnapped three of them... we may have to hurry." Tom hops into the van after Sean. "Yes. And quickly."
Tom jots the license plate number down on a piece of paper. "Thanks for the information, but you can keep the plate," Tom answers. He certainly didn't want anything on him that might link him to that group. He leaves to get back to the others and communicate what he heard, looking all the way way there for a car missing a rear license plate.
Brent McDonald is a homeless man who sets up camp the next block down from the Ashby manor. Tom figures he might be able to ask him about the subject.
"Hey, Brent? I was wondering, did you see anyone leaving the Ashby manor or walking away from it lately, probably also carrying away equipment of some kind?"
"As much as I hate to say it, I don't think we'll ever figure out what happened or why unless we catch whoever was doing it in the act," Tom grimaces. "I don't want to go back into that awful place. But maybe we can place a recording device inside there and get out quickly? Unless Sean is getting a shipment of hologram recorders sometime soon, or better yet, a robot to go inside instead of us" he laughs nervously.
Tom barely stifles a laugh until Sunny mentions the circles. "Yes, speaking of that, I sketched a picture of them. Maybe one of you knows what they were meant to do?" He offers the paper to Allison or Arianne or anyone else in the car who might be able to understand it it.
As soon as Tom hears about what happened, he starts walking even more quickly towards the exit. "And I thought it was only the cellar that was dangerous..." Tom walks together with the others quickly, the sooner to get far away from the dark house and to show the others his sketches of the runes calmly.
"How are you able to stay so relaxed? There might be others!" Tom shouts behind him. Nevertheless, he slows down enough so that Sunny doesn't get left alone. "I heard Sean yelling to get outside quick earlier, so I think we should pick up our pace. Maybe they're also in trouble."
"Chalk?" Tom turns around and notices the shadow trying to pull Sunny's shadow off of him. "Gosh, I don't think now is the time for drawing," he says with alarm, in time with Sean's yell. Tom jumps back into the cellar and tries to pull Sunny away from the danger. He is unsure of what to do with the shadow, but he tries to align his own shadow with Sunny's so that he can pull Sunny's shadow away from him, too.
Tom sketches the marks on the circle onto his notepad as best as he can. He offers to show them to Sunny before putting them into his pocket again. "It looks like a sort of circle to summon a demon. I wonder if Allison or Arianne could interpret it." Unless Sunny has reason to stay, Tom goes to leave the cellar.
"I don't know," Tom confesses. "I mean, I was hoping you might know. What do all these symbols mean and who drew them? Do we need to do something before these strange patterns summon a demon or something?" Tom looks around again carefully, and eyes the circle warily.
Tom doesn't know what all the strange runes and shadows mean, and he thinks it would be better to tell the others, who know better than he does, before touching them. However, since he was still looking for cameras and traps, he takes a look inside the crates and at the jagged hole in the back wall, to see whether a person or object were hiding beyond it.
Tom winces. He didn't like being alone there, but he knew that he was also the only one who could excuse himself if he were caught in the place (by anyone other than Detective Rowe, that is). "Alright. If I'm not back in a few minutes, come in and make sure I'm not transforming into an old geezer." He takes a deep breath, then tiptoes into the building. Sledgehammer in hand (though covered by his coat), he searches the place for cameras or traps.
Tom is a bit surprised to see Sunny at the manor ahead of them, but he has seen stranger things. "Yeah, apparently Ashby Manor is the place they went before they disappeared, so I guess this is more or less the scene of the crime. Let's go look around quickly before the police come and close the place off again."
Tom sends a note to Sean and Allison to tell them they would come meet them. Will we see you at Glimmershine mini golf or some other place? P.S. Sean, don't let Rowe see you.
After being sent out, Tom turns to Arianne. "We could speak with the other parents, but I doubt they'll know any more than this one. Why don't we go meet the others before Detective Rowe gets to the crime scene?" he suggests. "Oh, and we also need to warn Sean about him."
"Sir, I'm just trying to speak with him!" Tom says with some exasperation, then pleads with Arianne with his eyes for some support, before turning back to Mr. Nibbi. "Mr. Nibbi, what did you mean by that? Who's still out there?" Tom asks in an attempt to get as much explanation as possible before Detective Rowe took over.
"I'm a reporter, and your son's friend, Jessie, passed away. I wanted to ask him what he knows about the circumstances of the death, and interview him for Jessie's obituary," Tom replies.
Tom knocks on the door to the house.
"Yeah, sure," Tom answers. He already had the feeling this wouldn't be a completely ordinary task, so he was happy not to have to go alone. Using his phone's GPS, he leads the way to Emmet Nibbi's house.
Tom thanks the bereaved woman for her help. He then tries to look for information on the names she mentioned.
After hearing about Allison's vision, Tom thinks about the three people Allison saw Tom riding with. He heads back towards the house, and knocks on the door. "Mrs. Winnop? Sorry I kept you waiting. I wanted to ask something else. Do you know who Jessie might have been planning to be with the day he passed away?"
Still reeling with embarrassment from his earlier (partly) false alarm, Tom waits to hear what Allison saw before taking a chance at making another mistake.
"So, when I came to speak with Mrs. Winnop about her son, she said she saw him come back as a skeleton and he whispered to her before they took him away," Tom begins to explain. "I stayed at her place because she was really distressed and I didn't want to leave her like that. But I'm also afraid to be alone where the skeleton was... and I think you also might want to look around for skeletons, or whatever it was that caused them to come, right?"
Tom read about the death from a short obituary in the larger local newspaper. To verify the story, and hopefully be able to add a few more details to what was turning out to be a dull issue of his own paper, Tom went to pay Jessie's family a visit. When he got to the house, he was shocked to see a still-moving skeleton. He ran away as quickly as possible, and calls whichever ones of the group have phones in turn, until someone answers. "Hello? I just saw a skeleton at Jessie Winnop's house, and it was moving! Could I get some help here, fast?"
I accidentally missed Sunny's post earlier. Tom has a crucial role in what is to come. I am here to guide and defend him. May the earth shudder at his step, and his enemies flee at the mere mention of his name. "Uh, amen?" Though he plays along, Tom is not quite certain about the prophecies Sunny cites and sometimes doubts if Sunny knows what he is talking about at all.
Sometimes Tom gets a lead to a new story. Or Arianne is called by the Sect. Or Sean finds out from a contact. Or Allison does research. Or Sunny gets a heavenly vision. I'm fine with Boston. Where the mysteries happen (in Boston or out) might also be connected to how we find out about the monster.
"Well, I can't say they don't exist. There's not enough evidence to say one way or another. What I can say is that I had a run-in with some oddly-shaped creatures who tried to force me into a strange flying vehicle."
"I've figured out by now that Sunny is the real deal, but he's also sometimes kinda off his rocker. I'm still not sure which category the 'chosen one' thing falls under." Prompts for others Sunny: You’re a bit suspicious of them (maybe due to their unnatural powers or something like that). This whole "chosen one" business sounds kind of like those scams I fell for during the brief period when I was trying to invest my life savings. Arianne: They introduced you to the existence of monsters. Tell them how you feel about that. You summoned a creature of darkness before my eyes (is that something she would do?). That was when I stopped hoping to be able to pull off a mask and find a normal person beneath it. Sean: They’re your hero, exactly the kind of monster hunter you aspire to be. Tell them why you worship them. He is the proof that you can be a real monster hunter without being weird. Allison: Initially rivals, you both now respect each others’ talents. We went to college together, and... Prompts from others Allison: They act as your conscience when the power goes to your head. Ask them about the last time this happened. Apart from forcing Allison to be able to explain everything in normal person lingo, Tom tries to remind her of the important logistic considerations, like putting out magical fires she created after she finishes fighting monsters. Sean: This hunter is a cousin or more distant relative. Second or third cousin, far enough removed that they might have only seen each other at family reunions and wakes. But he's still family, and that means something to Sean. Aww, shucks. I remember writing you thank-you cards for the birthday gifts you gave me.
If Tom is a member, he probably doesn't know it.
Tom is fresh out of college (he majored in mass communications, and he likes to sign his name with B.A.). In order to start his career, he signed up as an investigative journalist for The Inquirer based on an ad in the local newspaper. As he later found out, The Inquirer was only two men strong (now three), its circulation was not much higher than that, and it was not quite the reputable newspaper he had imagined it to be. And, apparently, the role of the "investigative journalist" included going from door to door to sell the paper. Tom had always liked writing pieces about politics. But when he realized that politics doesn't sell copies, he sometimes felt a need to relax his principles of journalistic integrity, but mostly tried to find the oddest possible stories to publish. Nevertheless, he was passionate about journalism, and hoped to move his way up to better jobs as soon as he could find a better job offer. His current gig is just an uneasy start to his career, at least until he would be able to just write normal articles and be a normal person, as he would like to be. Tom is friendly and outgoing with other people, but stilted and uneasy when alone. He has become increasingly nervous, ever since his research for his articles about Bigfoot and UFOs turned out a little bit more successful than he had hoped.
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