Chapter Two

Um. In this chapter we learn that 'paraphenalia' is indeed a euphemism. This chapter, while probably no more than a strong PG-13, is still not recommended for people of an Upright and Decent composition, or people who have an overly-good opinion of me. But chapter two is done! Woo!



"What is it?" asked George, sounding both horrified and fascinated.

"I don't know," said Stranger, eyeing it warily. "An eldritch horror?"

"Those have more tentacles."

"This thing has enough places to put tentacles."

"I don't think the Great Old Ones were into flappers, Strange."

"I'm desperately trying to come up with an explanation here other than the obvious," Stranger said. "That my late uncle didn't actually own what, for all intents and purposes, appears to be a hundred-year-old flapper marionette Real Doll."

"The world is a horrible place," George said, patting Stranger on the back. "You learn to block it out eventually."

"I'm the cynical one here," Stranger replied. "Why are you lecturing me on my own game?"

"Because you just inherited a 90 year old man's collection of 'paraphenalia,' which appears to be a code word for sex toys and drug stuff. You've been sheltered, my man. You need some sort of buck-up speech."

Money Pusher, in the corner, gave a little cough, to remind them of his presence. Surrounded by crates, some closed, and some open to reveal their risque contents, he looked as out of place as a nun in a den of depravity. He'd told Stranger his name, and Stranger had resolutely forgotten it as soon as possible. Money Pusher seemed more appropriate.

"If you two gentlemen might halt your investigation of the inheritance for a moment, there are still papers to sign," he said primly. It was almost impressive, watching him keep his calm and professional and above all priggish manner, surrounded by the toys of the depraved from before he was born.

Glad of the chance to ignore the bit of uncanny valley and anatomical impossibilities that was sitting in the middle of his living room, Stranger went. An hour later, he'd signed a stack of papers four inches high, in triplicate. He had no idea what any of them were for, but evidently the process of taking custody of... certain items was a long and fraught process, and at least a couple seemed to be waivers. He wasn't all that worried about it, though. It wasn't as if he was ever going to use any of his new inheritance. It would be just his luck to contract a new and virulent disease from the ancient wood and ivory toys. Plus there was the whole pre-owned aspect. He shuddered at the thought.

"Very good sir," Money Pusher said, smiling a prim little smile. "Enjoy your new inheritance. I suggest you find somewhere dark and cool to store it, however - humidity has the most awful effect on antiques."

Stranger nodded, a bit dazed. George had fallen asleep half an hour since, sitting in an armchair, his feet up on a crate yet closed. As Money Pusher left - by god, even his walk was prim - George snored once, loudly, and woke himself up. Sitting up a little blearily, he asked, "What now?"

"Now," Stranger said, grimly, "We catalogue it all."
-----
It was nearly midnight before they finished. Even George was looking a bit ill by then. The drug stuff hadn't been too bad. In fact, Stranger had even let George have his pick of the various bongs that they'd unpacked, as a sort of payment for helping out.

(When George had chosen the pink glass dragon bong, Stranger had raised an eyebrow.

"What?" George had asked, defensively. "The workmanship is amazing. And it will look good in my apartment."

Stranger had somehow managed to refrain from asking both, "Which apartment?" and "A pink dragon bong will look good?" He was quite proud of that.)

Unfortunately, the drug paraphenalia had not made up the majority of the crates. Now, after nearly twelve hours work, they were standing amidst piles of the shredded paper packing material, crates and lids, and piles of enough erotica to probably kill lesser men. George's laptop, which he'd thoughtfully brought with him when he'd heard that Stranger had to deal with a lawyer, now displayed a highly inappropriate spreadsheet, as opposed to its usual calculations and accountant-speak that could make the most hardened paper-pusher cry. They knew exactly how many of each object they had, what condition each was in, how old they estimated it to be, and a decision on whether they ever wanted to touch it again. (The answer, for every single item, was NO, with a varying number of exclamation points.) They also knew that neither of them would speak of this night again, to anyone.

After a long, quiet moment, George turned to Stranger and said, "Want to head back to my place and get thoroughly, pass-out drunk?"

"Oh, hell yes," Stranger said, fervently.

-----

When Stranger woke up, he was lying on the ground. At least, he assumed it was ground, and not floor, because it had that unpleasantly gritty feeling of concrete, as opposed to the polished tile or plush carpet of George's place. Which meant he was no longer in George's place. Crap.

Unfortunately, to see if his assumption was correct, he was going to have to open his eyes - not exactly a thrilling prospect. Of course, continuing to lay sprawled on an unknown concrete surface wasn't thrilling either. Getting run over wasn't on his top-ten list.

His inner debate was interrupted by an obscenely loud groan, just beside his head. It sent a wave of agony through his skull, and he gave his own groan. This triggered a response from the other groaner, and they spent the next minute or so trading groans, like some sort of hang-over-based ping pong. Finally, however, Stranger managed to pull himself together enough to say something coherent. "George mufflewaughwuffle?" Semi-coherent. The name was there, anyway.

"Stranger wufflemufflewaugh?"

"Wifflemifflewuff. Grumblegroan?"

"Mumblemufflewaugh." It was George, and he was as hung over as Stranger was. He was obscurely comforted by that. Misery loves company, and also increasing the general amount of itself in the area. That must have been what prompted him to open his eyes, he decided later. That was the only explanation for why he did it, when he knew the agony it was going to cause.

And cause agony it did. He whimpered. Next to his ear, so did George.  Smothering the urge to fall back into a feedback loop of hang-over-ness, Stranger sorted through the shafts of pain and actual information his eyes were receiving. Sunlight, almost right above him, so they were outside and it was around noonish. Blessedly, there appeared to be leaves obscuring at least some of the cursed Day Star's light, so probably either in a park or one of the posher avenues. Either was possible. Rolling over - away from George, because rolling towards him would almost inevitably result in smacking skulls, and he didn't even want to contemplate that kind of pain - he investigated the ground level surroundings. It seemed to be a sidewalk, with actualy greenspace beyond it, so it probably was a park. Or a very, very posh avenue. A squirrel ran past him and up a tree a few yards away, chittering at him halfway up the trunk. He scowled at it.

A burst of laughter from a ways along the path alerted him to the presence of other humans in the area. Struggling, he managed to get up on his elbows to find them. A pair of old geezers were sitting at a bench, with a little folding table and chess board set up in front of them. They were talking and arguing like old geezers did. They were a prime example of the geezers who populated every park in Boston, and Stranger therefor dismissed them immediately.

To his right, George was getting himself semi-upright as well. Stranger whispered to him, "Do you have any clue where we are?"

"Shhh," moaned George. "Not so loud. And I'm not entirely sure what city we're in."

Stranger looked at him in horror. "We wouldn't have left Boston, would we?"

George just shrugged, his eyes closed. "Don't think I have my phone. So don't know." Stranger looked at the geezers again, speculatively. They'd at least know where they were.

Getting to his feet was a struggle, but he was quite proud that he managed it without actually falling over or taking more than five minutes. He was almost able to remain completely vertical without the aid of a tree, even. When he looked for his quarry, he found them sitting in the same place,but no longer playing their game. Instead, they were looking at him, with that grin that only old geezers missing most of their teeth can level at the young. A grin that says, 'In my day, I'd have been able to drink three times what you did, my lad, and have not a headache nor a sense of naseau the next morning to haunt me.' Stranger plastered a grin on his face, silently hating the pair of them, and staggered over.

"Ho, boy," called the one with more hair. "Have fun latht night?"

"Hope it was enough to balance out this morning," cackled the one with more teeth. "Don't know if there's that much fun in the world."

"Excuse me," Stranger said, in his best polite-to-a-fault voice. "But would you two gentlemen be able to tell me and my friend our current location? I'm afraid we rather lost track last night."

"I'll say you did," said Toothy. "You lost track real hard." He ws still grinning. His teeth, as many of them as there were, were all a vaguely off-putting shade of brown.

Hairy spoke up. "Well, right now, you're in the park that'th next to the old packing plant, except they got rid of that, oh, a good twenty yearth ago, tho now it'th probably another thet of apartment-th. That thtreet over there," he didn't actually point towards what street he meant, "is Oak thtreet, whifch uthed to be the middle of the plant, but it ithn't anymore. If you go down thataway, you can jutht keep going until you thee the place where Harmon'th Diner uthed to be, I think it's a Mickey D'th now, though, but you'll thee it, and if you take a left, you'll find Main Thtreet, except it'th not Main anymore, it'th thomething elthe -"

"It never was Main Street, you old fool," Toothy said. "It's been Elm since before we were born."

"No, I thwear it was called Main when I wath a lad," Hairy said, turning from Stranger. "Becauthe the Mainth lived there."

"Your memory's going then," said Toothy, getting into the argument. "It was named after the trees all along the way."

Stranger turned from the geezers and staggered back towards where George was unsteadily getting to his feet. Slinging an arm around his shoulder, they wandered off in search of something familiar.
-----
It turned out that the geezers hadn't had any idea where they were, because evidently Stranger and George had passed out in the Boston Public Gardens. They had found out when George nearly stumbled into the Frog Pond. They escaped and made their way, reasonably dry and mostly sober, back to Stranger's little flat, on a necessary errand. Stranger was going to get some clothes and his laptop and camp out at George's place until his inheritance was sold off to the highest bidder. George assured him there there would definitely be a bidding war. The way he phrased it was, "Think of the internet. Think Rule 34. We'll be able to get you enough cash from this stuff that you never have to worry about selling another story again." Stranger had protested in vain that he liked selling his stories. "Then think of it as fuel for the story of a lifetime. You've got the seeds of a wicked horror story sprawled in your living room."

"Don't remind me," Stranger had said, a bit glumly. "I'm trying to forget."

But despite it all, he was definitely in a better mood by the time they got to his street. Sure, Malcolm's was closed and he was going to have nightmares about the marionette killing him in his sleep, but at least his life was almost settled again.

That's when he saw the Tall, Dark, and Mysterious Valley Girl on the building's front stoop. He looked at her, thoroughly put out. "Hello?"

"Oh, hello," she said, cheerful enough to send him immediately back into the gloom. "Are you Mr. Stranger? I'm here to make a business proposition to him."

"... Maybe?" he asked. "Are you someone who's bound to irritate him?"

A single, perfectly plucked eyebrow shot up. "Whyever do you think I would annoy him?"

Because you use words like 'whyever,' he thought. But what he said, "No reason, ma'am. It's just something I ask." He went up to his front door, ignoring both the semi-frantic and rather lewd gestures that George was miming behind his back and the presence of the - rather attractive, he had to admit - stranger, and unlocked it. "I assume you want to talk inside?" he said, in an cheery manner to match her own. It might be worth the assault on his privacy to see her reaction to the marionette still lying spreadeagle in the middle of his living room.

"Oh, yes, that would be lovely," she trilled, and followed him inside, George trailing in behind her, making obvious appreciative noises.

Nothing more was said until they were actually inside Stranger's apartment. He turned as he entered, hoping for a good view of face upon seeing the marionette, but the only reaction she displayed was a slight widening of the eyes. Not, he decided, worth having her in his apartment for the next who-knew-how-long.

Then George closed the door behind himself, and a complete change came over the stranger. Over the course of the door swinging shut and latching, she went from a ditzy socialite secretary for some lawyer that Stranger definitely did not want to deal with, to a highly scary woman in her own right, who was probably going to eat his soul. Also, she seemed to be suddenly British, her accent switching from Southern California to Cockney in a heartbeat. "Alright, boys, apologies for the act on the front stoop. I'm trying to stay a little low-key for the moment. I am here to make a business proposition, though." She looked at Stranger, her eyes gleaming. "I'm going to be your bodyguard until you get Missy the Marionette out of your posession."