Heaven and Earth session 3

Heaven and Earth Session Three: Saturday, July 3rd, 1999 (8:30 AM - 3:00 PM)

Sheldon, after putting the phone down begins to do some more follow up research on the threads of the investigation they have so far.

Doing a background check on Peter Philips, all he is able to find is that he was involved in a potential GBH case when he was 6 years old with a bully. His parents almost pushed charges in this instance (because Peter was the victim) but it came to nothing. Nothing shows up after this point except for a court case ruling in his favour, awarding him $500,000 for the loss of two fingers at the Paper Mill in town, owned by Bob Southey IV. The court ruled in favour of Philips' claim that the Mill was lacking in proper safety facilities.

This leads him to dig into Southey. He uncovers that the Southey family, since the mill opened in 1902 have been the largest employer in the town's history. Without them they wouldn't have a town half this size, there would be no economy, etc. They effectively built this town and made it what it is in the modern day. A multi-millionaire, many times over, the thought of Southey being a suspect gradually falls off Sheldon's radar as he realizes that $500,000 is indeed pittance to a man like Southey.

Researching Colonel Lemar, he finds a few interesting loose ends. Lemar apparently was a fighter pilot in Vietnam where he rose through the ranks quite quickly. He returned to the States whereupon he was promoted and given a desk job in the Powell Air Force base in Potter's Lake. However, details of operations he took part in during his time in Vietnam had no follow-up reference (as though they didn't exist) and his 'training job' at the air force base completely vanishes from the records. Smells like a government cover-up.

Reverend Geebee gets the spotlight next, but nothing out of the ordinary comes up. He grew up in Potter's Lake, has no criminal record on file, and doesn't show up on the police or civic databases in any major way.

Searching back on Lydia Price he finds nothing until he goes further outside the down and out of state to Los Angeles where he finds a missing persons report dated 1978 for one Lydia Price, an artist, last known heading towards Northern Kansas. This fits perfectly with the time around the massacre at the Aurora Motel where they are saying. Investigating the case there he finds there were numerous fatalities in the murder spree as the owner of the time found his wife to be having an affair behind his back with one of the Motel staff in one of the rooms (Room 8). Three people killed in the spree were never identified - one of which was a woman and amongst her possessions was found a canvas and a set of paints, in Room 6. Lydia however, Sheldon remembers, was staying in Room 5 - is there any significance to this?

Looking back through arson reports, Sheldon finds nothing regarding murders involving burning, but does find references to reported fires having been spotted out in the woods by a clearing not far from lovers lane over the last year - approximately one fire every month, but not in any kind of regular order. He decides this clearing is the best place to start their investigation so he heads down the road to the diner to inform the others.

Meeting up at the Bel-Loc Diner (and finding several of his pancakes have been eaten), Sheldon puts his ideas to the rest of the team (including Miles who is chatting up the waitress and impressing her with his bullet-holed deputy badge). The group all agree the clearing seems a good place to start, and that after that they should take a trip up to the university to search the victim's room, check his files, etc.

On the way out of the diner, they meet a middle-aged woman cradling an orange striped cat in her arms as she wanders down the road looking down back-alleys and in dustbins. Joseph wanders over to her and asks if he can help, at which point she nearly jumps out of her skin and explains she is looking for her cat, Moggie. He hasn't been seen since last night at the Bar and Grille, where Katya remembers her from - the lady who had her back to her as she was talking to Annabella Visconti in the side booth in the main room.

They are about to let her go when as she is wandering off she mumbles something about how Moggie was so upset that his friend was now dead, getting burned to death. They decide to question her some more and find that Moggie apparently told her something bad was going to happen last night. 'He knew that boy was going to loose something more than just his fingers, and it looks like last night he lost it alright.' Moggie used to follow Peter around after they met out in the town late at night. The cat liked the student a lot and liked to be around him. He was last seen heading in the direction of the Motel, where she has been and heard about the death of the student (since by this time it is not yet common knowledge a murder has taken place in town). She wanders off again saying that Moggie will come when he's ready and has something to tell about his friend's death.

The team head out to Lover's Lane and the scene of the burnings after requisitioning a people carrier to take them all there (and fit Sheldon in too with his wheelchair). On the way they find two cars abandoned off the side of the road. The first contains two students who have spent the night there and are 'recovering', having a quiet lie-in - or they would have done until a big black trucker came pounding on their window… The next car is a different story. Inside they find a drunk holding the crumpled photo of a girl standing in front of the woods. Miles notices that, through the trees, he can make out flames and burning trees as she smiles. The date on the photo is six months previous.

The ID on his person reveals he is one John Carter, a law student at St Anselm's College. He has a crucifix around his neck and a half drunk bottle of whiskey on the seat next to him, most of which has spilt onto the floor. In the trunk they find another of Reverend Geebee's dolls and begin to think something is odd here. They decide to bring him in on drunken behaviour charges and try to wake him. Their efforts amount to nothing, so they decide to take him out to their requisitioned people-carrier. They secure him in the back, upon which point a small revolver falls out of his pocket (which is subsequently picked up using a twig and held in an empty crisp packet which doubles as an evidence bag). They search him and also find a switchblade. This immediately makes them even more suspicious and they radio in to make sure if the car is stolen, the gun is his, etc.

Five minutes later they get their response. John Carter, a resident of Washington DC, in town studying Law, confirmed owner of the car they have found and the holder of a gun permit for the firearm they have found - but not a permit to carry, only to own. They up the charges to carrying illegally at this point as well and try to rouse him again, and find he still remains asleep. Joseph checks the blade and finds it to be clean, but this doesn't necessarily mean it hasn't been cleaned they conclude and it joins the gun in the crisp packet.

Leaving Sheldon with Carter (because of the chair being impractical over the tree-stump littered ground), the other four head down the road a little way to the path that leads into the woods and towards the clearing where the trees were found burnt. Here, at the entrance to the path, Charlie works out the point at which the photo was taken that they found crumpled in Carter's hand. Working their way into the boundary of the woods they soon find their radio communication with Sheldon becoming weaker and Charlie's compass starts slowly spinning. Combined with the fact they can't see any animals and there is no sound other than the wind, they begin to feel somewhat uneasy.

Finally entering the clearing they find the twelve trees that have been burnt to date, almost skeletal and charred remains of the huge firs they once were. The open ground is littered with stumps of cut-down trees, and searching the area, Katya finds no other evidence of any other fires being set up other than those that burnt down the trees. Miles, examining the trees themselves, concludes it must have been an extremely intense heat that burnt up wood like that. Joseph keeps an eye out for any wildlife in general whilst Miles also finds a collection of broken capsules on the ground. Two of them are intact and spark Charlie's attention. They are white and red capsules, but completely unmarked, suggesting to Charlie and Katya that they could possibly be pre-release, experimental material. Charlie takes the two complete capsules and examines the powder in the broken ones - white with blue flakes.

Reporting this to Sheldon, his curiosity gets the better of him and he heads into the woods. His laptop immediately goes haywire and starts flashing random pictures from his hard-drive onto the screen. One of them has a glint of flames but is gone too quickly for him to notice what it was. Wheeling himself back out of the tree-line he finds the laptop working perfectly.

His hands flying over the keyboard he quickly puts together a simple program to allow him to create files filled with nothing but randomly occurring symbols, letters and numbers. He runs it a few times, and satisfied that it is working, he enters the woods. As he enters the tree-line once again, the program stops and freezes in an ASCII-artwork picture of two apple-trees side by side. Somewhat shocked by this he shows it to the others and they begin to wonder what can really be at work in the woods around them. He sets up a similar program, this time with sounds and finds that behind the static that pours out from the speakers, they can just about make out a few words in Latin that Katya and Sheldon manage to jointly translate as being 'Iophiel, where are you?' over and over again. Katya thinks the name Iophiel could well be angelic, possibly referred to in the Old Testament, but no-one can shed any further light on this at the time.

As Sheldon proposed an argument for weird electromagnetic disturbances in the area being the possibility for the radio and compass malfunctions he finds himself stumped to explain the laptop other than that it could be a wireless network (admittedly rare at this time), which in turn raises conspiracy theories about the Air Force base nearby. As Joseph and Miles look around, turning away from the conversation, Miles takes a photo and as he pulls away the camera sees a large wolf standing on the edge of the clearing looking towards them all. He looks back through the view-finder and again can't see it, no matter how many times he looks at the wolf. It stares back and Joseph brings it all to their attention.

Heading over towards the wolf, Charlie warns Miles that this is potentially very dangerous since the beast could kill him in an instant at that range. Miles backs off but the wolf simply stares onwards. Eventually, even after making loud noises at it, and without it responding, Miles walks close up to it and begins to stroke it, much to the amazement of the rest of those in the clearing. Around its neck he finds a collar made of platted intestines, upon which hangs a silver crucifix. This immediately reminds Charlie of the tale of the old man of the woods he heard during his research about the place before he headed out here to do some hiking.

The story goes that there is an old man who lives in a cabin the woods very few have been able to find (and never in the same place more than once) guarded by dogs, or quite possibly wolves he believes now, with entrails hung outside the porch, nailed to the wood. He carries a cross upon a staff and has eyes that can 'pierce the soul', as they apparently did to one hiker who came out of the woods mad and was retired to an asylum.

As they talk, the wolf suddenly pricks up its ears and turns back to woods and runs away. Miles runs after it immediately, calling for it to stop and come back. Charlie follows close behind, leaving Sheldon, Katya and Joseph to watch the two of them disappear into the darkness under the tree canopy at approximately 11:30 AM…

About two or three minutes in, Miles slows down and eventually stops from his run after the shadowy figure of the wolf he can make out just up ahead. He hears Charlie approach from behind and the two of them talk for a moment as they catch their breath. Charlie is particularly glad to be out of Sheldon's 'techno-mumbo-jumbo' explanation of what's been happening when feels things are leaning very heavily towards the supernatural being the only reasonable option. Checking their radios and mobile phones they can't get a signal at all. Nothing but static.

Inside the woods, it is almost pitch black, but in the occasional shaft of light from above they can make out the wolf standing, watching, and waiting. As they begin to move closer, it moves away, and Charlie soon suspects it is trying to lead them somewhere. He calls out to it to show them the way and they carry on moving. After twenty minutes they come to a decision that if the wolf is going to lead them anywhere, it must be within the next minute, otherwise it is going to take them a long time to get back (especially when they haven't marked their route and can't remember which way leads back to the clearing or to Lover's Lane). The wolf bounds ahead at an incredible pace in response to this and the two of them are only just able to keep up. Charlie repeatedly checks his pockets in this time to makes sure the capsules are intact/still there/haven't turned to pebbles and that he hasn't taken them and that this is a weird 'trip' of some kind.

A little under a minute later, they can make out the sunlight pouring in through a gap in the canopy up ahead in another clearing. They reach it, only to find the wolf has vanished and Charlie looks around, expecting to see a cabin and the old man of the woods. In the clearing though, there is no cabin, but they do find a large monolithic piece of black, almost obsidian rock jutting out from the ground at a slight angle. Covered in what look to be North American pictograms (which Miles makes a rubbing of) it also is the only thing Charlie's compass points to wherever he stands in the clearing. Five paths lead off from the clearing, which they reckon to be on a hill, although they didn't come in by any one of them.

They make their way down one of the paths which they spot is the more recently used one (by someone wearing shoes rather than boots, which is somewhat impractical for this terrain) and after another ten minutes come to a familiar looking tree, like a giant clawed hand pushing itself up from the ground. Charlie remembers it from having talked to Reverend Geebee - the Devil's Claw. Supposedly the safest place in the woods because it is the most frequented, it is where local kids come to tell ghost stories to one another, especially on Halloween. Deciding after half an hour of nearly constant jogging and running that this is the best place to stop, they sit down, check their radios and find they have a signal once again, so call they the others…

Back in the clearing after half an hour of the other two being gone, the three remaining decide it is time to do something. They sound the horn and sirens in the car, they try the radios they have, their cell phones, the radio in the car and nothing is able to get in contact with them. So, with nearly an hour passing by this point and no word from them, they decide one of them has to climb a tree and see if they can spot anything. Katya volunteers, saying though that she hasn't climbed a tree in years - which is impressive considering a squirrel couldn't have got up that tree much faster or more nimbly.

At the top of the tree, Katya can't see much as the canopy rolls up and down all around her, but thinks she can make out a possible clearing somewhere on the horizon at the top of another hill, probably a couple of miles away or more perhaps. She comes back down and they decide to head into town, taking the drunkard back with them (who still hasn't woken up yet). By this point it is 1:00 PM. They call in to the sheriff's office that the others are missing and start heading back to the town, only for the radio to crackle into life and for Miles to begin talking to them.

The author informs them that they followed the wolf out to a clearing which has in turn lead them to the Devil's Claw. They check on the maps in the car to see if they can find out where it is and find it isn't marked. They try once again to wake up the student who they believe, being a local could possibly tell them where the tree is, but is still out cold and refuses to wake up. The only other thing they can think of doing is for one of them their end to climb the tree and see if they can spot any local landmarks. Charlie does so and says he can just about make out a bell tower in the distance. Katya recognizes this on the map as being the tower to the church on the St. Anselm's College campus. She recommends they head out that way and they will meet them there in fifteen minutes. The two on foot head down the lone path which brings them to the edge of the lake and joins another which winds around its banks. They turn left and head towards the campus.

Back in the car, they drop Carter in at the cells where Deputy Marinovich says she will process him in and then deal with him later because she's got to go and take up her watch over at the Hollyvale Cemetery. Katya thinks this is rather odd, since why would the police be interested in watching a cemetery. Their fellow deputy explains that strange incidents have been reported there over the past few years, that there was a child kidnapping that happened there a while back too, and that they keep a close watch on the place. She makes her apologies and has to leave immediately. They take this as their cue to head over to the college and arrive to find Charlie and Miles just having started a conversation with a rather beautiful woman wearing thin glasses and holding a clipboard they met just as they were entering the grounds of the college.

The lady introduces herself as Geraldine Hardig, chancellor of the University. They begin to ask her a few questions about Peter and John. She informs them that Peter was studying law, as was John and that they were both in the same class together, Dr. de Brate's class. They were once friends, but after Peter stole John's girlfriend, Mary Stuart (whom she identifies as being the girl in the crumpled photo they took from John's car). The victim apparently stole John's girlfriend six months ago, not long after the photo was taken as far as they can tell. She also mentions the two had had public fights over Mary over the last couple of months, even after Peter had dumped Mary and was now seeing the local post woman, Victoria McCarthy?, whom Miles remembers was talking to the Air Force Colonel at the Bar and Grille last night, and was even mentioning about trying to find a Peter, that he had stood her up. Pieces of the puzzle start fitting together and he informs the others of this.

The Chancellor also explains that after the two police officers (Sheriff Bowman and Deputy Marinovich) came in late last night, early this morning to let her know about what had happened to Peter, Mary had overheard and has been hit pretty hard by this. She's currently being held for observation in the psychiatric ward of the infirmary on campus. Charlie asks a little bit more about her and learns she was taking Religious Studies. Recently she had been working on her dissertation, a study into the Book of Revelation and more obscure references to concepts in the Bible that have filtered into the public perception and been distorted over time (e.g. views of Hell, the Garden of Eden, etc.).

Over the course of the conversation, Geraldine seems to compliment Sheldon quite a lot on his technology and that he is evidently a man of great sophistication and intellect, despite being bound to a chair. With a grin he shows off his laptop which promptly shuts down on him for no apparent reason - but only for a few seconds, avoiding a potentially embarrassing moment. They ask her what the name Iophiel means and the Chancellor claims that she doesn't know.

Charlie asks if they can see Peter's records and have a look at his room. Hardig agrees to both, since they are officers of the law and says that she will take them to Dr. de Brate's office to view the records and they he can take them up to Peter's room, since she has a Philosophy class to teach currently. She says it shouldn't disrupt any other students, since no-one else lived on his floor. This sparks further questions from the team and she informs them that Peter lived next to the infamous Room 616, a place where an exorcism was performed back in the 1980's by one of the resident lecturers, Ezekiel Cage in the Religious Studies department. No-one has lived on the floor ever since, having reported to have seen and heard things they don't describe but they claim warranted the fact they moved out and found residential vacancies off-campus. This didn't seem to affect Peter who got along 'like a house on fire' up there. The team point out the possibly callousness of her statement which she had completely missed, and she apologizes.

Sheldon asks, since they haven't currently got anywhere to stay other than the jail cells, if he can stay in Peter's room tonight. She agrees, saying she will call on him later, just to make sure she is alright. The others jump on the bandwagon and also request spaces in the room, which they get. Looks like any prospect of a quiet night in alone with Geraldine just went out of the window…

The Chancellor shows the five of them to Dr. Adam de Brate's office where they find the lecturer out of classes, going through notes, surrounded by piles of text-books. Charlie says he's just going to step out for a moment and head off on his own to check out Mary's room, with the permission of the chancellor. A porter shows him the way.

Inside the office, with de Brate, they talk over Peter's and John's academic records. Peter was always a bit of a loner, he says, only really having a couple of people in his life - John, Mary and Victoria. His grades were suffering pretty hard and seemed to be on a constant nose-dive even since he came to the University a year ago. This continued even when he met Mary, but it was when he started going out with Victoria that his grades began to sky-rocket upwards. They suspect some form of cheating and cross-question the lecturer about the examination process and submitted coursework, thinking that Victoria may have been helping him. De Brate is sure this isn't the case. All assignments are handed in by the student, and all tests are written in-house, taken in the examination halls, marked on sight before being sent to Yale for external secondary marking.

Looking through John's record, he seemed to be the complete reverse of Peter. His records were consistently high even when he started the course and were going from strength to strength. Then Mary was stolen by Peter and his grade began to fall exponentially, continuing even steeper down when Peter dumped Mary in favour of Victoria, a woman ten years older than both of them. His personality changed too. John had always been a very happy and lively soul, but as soon as Mary left him, be became bitter, twisted and angry, turning on his former friend and getting involved in several brawls on the campus with him.

Meanwhile, Charlie heads into Mary's room. Finding it impeccably clean and ordered, he starts having a look through her things, finding her dissertation on a laptop and begins to look through. He searches for references to Iophiel and finds the name appears in a couple of paragraphs relating to Eden - Iophiel being the angel that was left to guard the gates of Eden after Adam and Eve were cast out by God. This leads him directly into his next search criteria, apple-trees. These are referenced to under a section about how the public has gradually come to accept that the 'Tree of Life' and the 'Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil' were apple-trees when the fruit is never actually described in the Bible. These references to Eden in close proximity make Charlie most curious.

Around the room he finds coloured drawings of burning trees, cabins, lakes, etc. all signed 'PP', tacked onto the wall at regular intervals. They are the only pieces of artwork in an otherwise sparse and very academic looking room. He asks the porter to show him to Ezekiel Cage, the exorcist who performed the act in the room next to Peter's back in the 1980's. The porter shows him down to 'the thicket' not far from the lake-side, round the back of one of the student halls of residence. It is a horse-shoe like enclosure of high hedges with a marble Madonna statue in the centre. Roses surround her feet. Blood flows from her eyes and an old man sits in a wheelchair, dressed all in black, wearing thick plastic rimmed glasses, looking at the blood-stains running down the statue.

The quiet, elderly man explains simply that the statue weeps whenever a tragedy hits the campus. It has bled before and will no doubt bleed again. It started weeping last night when Peter was reported to have been murdered and he has kept watch ever since he was informed of its start. Charlie doesn't push him much, but asks about the exorcism, complimenting his intellect in an attempt to get him to open up a little more. The priest/academic states that he's not sure if he did get rid of it, or whether it left of its own accord. He's not even sure if it was a demon at all - more likely a 'Goetia', a spirit, likened to the Kings of Hell, but not actually being demons themselves. He asks further about any rumours of black-magic cults in the area, thinking that if any groups are out there, they might be connected to Peter's death. The academic says he hasn't known of any such activity in the town since the 1970's when they used to gather out in the woods for their practices.

Charlie also asks him about the monolith they found, and the academic replies, informing him the place is called 'Megiddo's Hill' (another place mentioned by Reverend Geebee). In relation to the North American pictograms there, he states he has been trying to decode them for the last thirty years, and that someone is evidently interested in this because they tried to break into his office not too long ago and tried to break into his safe where the documents are kept. When pushed if he is working with anyone via correspondence about this, he quickly closes up tight and says that the messages go to a secure destination by a trusted University employed courier and that he has enough influence from people in high places to make sure that he doesn't have to answer where these messages go to. Somewhat taken-aback by this outburst, Charlie soon leaves the elderly gentleman, explaining if he has any more attempted robberies to call him. He heads back to the others and meets them as they are being shown by de Brate to Peter's room.

They find the floor he was on a quiet and desolate place, devoid of all life and sound. A bit like the woods in that respect. The lecturer notices a cigarette end on the ground and picks it up disapprovingly saying that no matter how much they lay down the law about no smoking on the campus, there is always one that breaks the rules. Sheldon thinks this is particular odd that someone should come inside to smoke when it could be hidden more easily outside, not that they can smell smoke anymore though - it must have been discarded some time ago.

Joseph notices a footprint of a boot in a faint muddy outline next to where the cigarette end was and sees it is pointing directly towards the door to Peter's room, which he also notices is slight open. Drawing his gun, he quiets everyone down and pushes the door open gently.

Inside, they find the room has been ransacked. The forensic nature in Katya comes to the forefront and she comments that it looks like a profession job - which rules out the Sheriff immediately she also states. Joseph collects the cigarette end for evidence and finds it is white, with a small red diamond logo still visible.

Miles takes pictures of the footprint and the room in general. Papers and books are strewn all around. To their left, above the head of the overturned bed is a poster of Orson Welles from 'Citizen Kane', a desk in one corner with a small television and VCR, a row of shelves where books, ornaments and a row of Welles videos sit, including small figurines, decorative mugs, candles, a snow globe and a musical box of a wooden cabin.

Charlie, looking somewhat confused informs them at this point as he looks at the Welles paraphernalia that he had a dream in the cells last night about a figure in a snow-storm, at night, holding a rosebud that bloomed to reveal a golden key. He hasn't seen the film, but knows from trivia that the rosebud is significant in 'Citizen Kane', but can't remember how. Joseph walks over to the snow-globe and finds a gold key taped underneath it. Katya quickly gets the tape of 'Citizen Kane'. They watch the first few minutes in which they see Kane's death and him utter the word 'rosebud' before dropping and thus smashing the snow-globe.

Sheldon goes over to the poster and sees the edges are disturbed. He peels it back from its tacking and finds a wall safe is hidden behind it. The key opens it. Excited, they find various things in the safe. Five plastic bottles of a drug marked as 'trycoughnamaldahyde', one that Charlie (who claims to have a certain pharmaceutical knowledge) claims not to have heard though. Katya remembers the drug from a medical journal she read about a year ago. She says it's an experimental drug, still in the testing stage - a neural inhibitor. The drug, according to the report in the journal is something that the government wished they had back in the 1960's when the MKULTRA projects were still running. It's designed to stop all mental activity for the period whilst it is in the subjects system. Linked to dream research, it has been known to completely stop the processes in the mind which are linked with the subconscious and therefore if taken before sleeping, can halt the production of dreams. Five test subjects are/were involved in the testing of the drug that she remembers and the tests were being run by the Pentagon's psychological division.

Opening the bottle, Sheldon finds they are a familiar looking red and white capsule. He suddenly has a thought and asks Katya what the effect of the drugs would be when combined with alcohol. She replies that it would effectively leave the user in an almost coma-like state for a prolonged period of time, that the two really don't mix. Sheldon immediately calls the sheriff's office and orders a toxin scan done on Carter, thinking he may have mixed the two (being the reason why they couldn't wake him up). Looking on the bottle for who they are prescribed to, they find only the word 'Greyscale' printed there. This sparks Sheldon into relaying the information from the phone call he had with Lemar in connection to the 'Red Tie Division', which makes another piece of the puzzle fall into place for Miles, since it was Lemar and McCarthy? talking in the Bar and Grille last night.

As strands of the mystery start coming together, they also find in there a wad of $1,000 in cash ($10 bills) and a large baggie containing the ashes of what look to be $1000 bills. Miles estimates there could be somewhere in the region of $500,000 in there - the money that Peter got for loosing his fingers from Bob Southey IV. This raises further questions. The money from the court case would have been transferred electronically to his account - why would he need to keep it in his safe, let alone burn it all (if was actually him that burnt it)?

Also, hidden at the back of the safe they find a diary. Sheldon reads through it but finds most of it is in an illegible hand, and very sparse. Two pages jump out at him though. One is simply the words 'EM- CHILD KILLER' scrawled over and over again, and the other one is a passage written larger than any other, taking up a whole page:

"It's the same every damned time... I only keep this to spot for inconsistencies, errors, something that might help me to understand what is happening.

The man in the cabin - the wild man of the woods and the world - dressed in dirty clothes. A ring of bloody holes around his head. He carries a staff made from a tree limb and animal entrails hang around him. A gleaming silver cross sits upon the staff, held in place by twine. His eyes pierce my soul and as the dogs growl at his feet, he points through the window to the clearing. There, the tree burns. Forever burning. Brighter than the sun.

I want to burn it all down, every Goddamned thing in this world, let it all burn. Let this planet by a burnt cinder in space for all I care. It was made for one thing, and that was to burn.

Burn it!

Burn it all down!"

'A very disturbed young man,' Sheldon concludes as they decide the next people they are going to pay a visit to on their list: Colonel Lemar and Bob Southey IV...