Dark Lord Rob's DarkForce

We Learn Some Stuff

     We shook Brother Woodbine's hand. He had a firm well-met fellow sort of grip, not the sweaty nervous shake you might expect from a kooky cult leader, though he's the first I've met so I don't really have a reference point.
     Nathan, who has the same sort of grip, grinned in a "Fellow jock" sort of secret-society way. "So this is the doorway to Hell, huh? Not how I pictured it. Isn't there supposed to be a three-headed dog or something?"
     "And a guy on a raft?" I seemed to recall seeing that in a video somewhere.
     "I see you know your mythology," he said, with a hearty chuckle. "The folks you're referring to are Cerebus and Cheron, respectively. They don't exist, of course... but in a way, they do." He said the last in that same secretive way that Steve had used.
     "Uh-huh." Nathan said.
     Brother Woodbine re-seated himself behind his desk and folded his fingers in a thoughtful way. "You're probably thinking," he said, in a confidential tone, "That this is some sort of crazy cult. Don't deny it, I know you are. If I were in your position I'd think the same. I'm a born skeptic boys, from the 'show me' state."
     "Missouri?"
     "Well, not actually, it was a rhetorical point, to illustrate my mental state. Consider it a sort of 'Metaphysical Missouri'. I'm really from Wisconsin."
     "The Cheese State."
     "The Dairy Heartland. But that's irrelevant. What I'm saying, boys, is that the things I am about to tell you are real... no matter how crazy they sound."
     I don't have to tell you that he had our rapt attention from that point on.
     He stood up and strolled across the room. "Walk with me, boys."
     We shrugged and followed him out into the corridor. He led us from the back of the mansion, where his offices were, through to the front, where we got a good eyeful of just how impressive the building really was. The entry hall was enormous, with a tiled floor and a bannistered stairway that curved around the wall. It looked like something out of a movie; you half expected Shirley Temple to come tap-dancing down the stairs at any moment.
     "Wow!" Nathan and I said simultaneously.
     "Pretty impressive, huh? Knocked me out the first time I saw it. But I wasn't here as a journalist. I was here as an investigator."
     "Investigator?" Nathan and I exchanged a wary glance, but Brother Woodbine didn't seem to be messing with us.
     "Yes. I was an idealistic kid, and I'd heard things about this house, so I came out here to check it out; no one lived here at the time so I sort of broke in... don't tell anyone (wink). What I found here changed my life forever."
     A pensive look crept over his face. "Tell me, boys, what do you know about this house?"

Next: The House the Damned Call Home

Updated every Wednesday