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"We're not being hasty," said Marshall. "The key indicator of how not-hasty we're being is the fact that we didn't bring Dash along, because he probably would have tried to stab you with the Kraken tooth we retrieved."

Simon looked at the gold-inlaid carriage clock that sat on the mantelpiece above the Mayor's ornamental fire, then checked his own watch.

"But this appointment was only supposed to last a half-hour, and we're meeting other clients," he said.

"Paying clients," said Marshall. "Clients that don't talk to us like we're thirteen and they just tried to feed us to a werewolf."

Ongoing Verse: Microwave

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Ongoing Verse: The Powers That Be

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If Simon had thought that anything could soften the nightmarish hard edges of Wendy-Go-Go's character design, it would have been being rendered in plush form for manufacture on a massive scale.

If he'd ever thought that, today was proving him very, very wrong.

"Adorable, isn't she?" said Mister Radford, arranging the doll's simultaneously squishy and skeletal limbs in front of the packed display case. "I can remember seeing her show back when it first aired."

He gazed into Wendy-Go-Go's hollow eye sockets, and for a moment his face seemed very gaunt.

"Of course, they've updated the character design since then."

Ongoing Verse: Holmes Brothers

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Ongoing Verse: The Powers That Be

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There's blood on the ground and the strange, misshapen footprints in the soil are already overflowing with cold October rain. The full moon is reflected in the puddle's rippling surface, pumpkin-orange and hanging so low in a cloudless sky that the Harvest thinks he could touch it.

His mouth is dry, and the water looks cooling and sweet. He longs to drink, but his mother's voice whispers the old stories in the cavernous vault of his memories, and the Harvest King licks parched lips with a dusty tongue, and presses on.

Someone is wailing in pain, wolf-howl angry. He's close.

Ongoing Verse: Harvest

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Ongoing Verse: The Powers That Be

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The first Harvest King was a young man, the night he climbed Wolf Mountain in the company of Alderman Chaney. Now he is old, but his face is still unlined, his eyes clear and his hair thick and glossy.

(there are leaves in his hair and it hurts to pluck at them. he tries not to think about it)

The rock formations here are strange and twisted, and they capture and keep sound in a way technology won't replicate for years after his disappearance. He can still hear the echoing gunshot, and the night air smells of smoke and silver.

Ongoing Verse: Harvest

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Ongoing Verse: The Powers That Be

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Marshall Teller knows there were other Harvest Kings before him. The photographs with their wreaths of corn stalks and holly leaves have mysteriously vanished, and Mister Radford claims to have no idea where they went, but he remembers - old-fashioned clothes and crowns of dead and dying plant matter and a space, afterwards, where a person should have been.

Marshall Teller hopes that there won't be other Harvest Kings after him. Mister Chaney walks with a limp and eats more vegetables than he used to, but something still howls out in the cornfields at night, and Marshall dreads his twenty-sixth year.

Ongoing Verse: Harvest

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Ongoing Verse: The Powers That Be

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When the last barricade falls, Syndi can feel it. It's in the quality of the screams, the sounds of shifting debris. Something is coming to an end.

Her Miss Tornado Day sash, once a blinding satiny white any bride could be proud of, is fraying, grubby, and caked with gore. She slips out of it and unpicks the knot holding the two ends together.

Part of her is glad that Marshall can't see this, sure that he'd offer up some smart-alecky comment as she pushes sweat-damp hair off her face and keeps it there with a John Rambo-style bandana fashioned from a ribbon that once marked her out as a sacrifice for a sentient tornado.

Part of her wishes he was here anyway.

And another part of her wonders if she should have gone to Old Bob, when she was seventeen and her year was up, when the town chose a new Miss Tornado Day and she'd been sent out into the cyclone to die. Things might have turned out differently. For her, for the people she loved, even for Eerie.

If Marshall was here, she'd ask him about becoming the Harvest King. About the mountain and the wolf that howled in the night, and whether blood spilled under an October moon might have prevented all of this.

If he was here with her, hiding in the ruins of the Eerie Bingo Parlour, she would ask him whether it might have been worth it.

The tombola drum near the western windows begins to spin, slow at first, a handful of human teeth inside clicking against the rusting metal. Syndi reaches for the last remaining incendiary device - homemade hand grenades fashioned from stripped-down bingo dabbers and some sort of fruit cordial she'd discovered at the very back of the Parlour's walk-in refrigerator, covered in warning stickers and pulsating faintly.

Outside in the dark, something moves. The room she's in is three floors up, but the Garbage Men know how to climb. She'd seen them swarming like lizards over the surface of City Hall, the living surface of the building twitching and flinching at every touch.

She didn't blame it. In it's place, she'd have torn out her own foundations to avoid those clammy, grasping hands. Of course, in a very real way, the Garbage Men had already done that for her.

Syndi flicks open Janet's lighter and steps towards the glass.

Ongoing Verse: The Children

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Ongoing Verse: Milkman

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Ongoing Verse: Teller Family History

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If you've ever seen the Eerie Indiana tie-in books, you might have noticed the website advertised in the back pages: EerieIN.com

Surprising nobody, twenty years later this website no longer exists. However, parts of it are archived at the WayBack Machine.

Sadly, the snapshots from 1999 just show a white page with a parent directory, so we'll never get to see what frames-and-flash masterpiece was originally used to promote Eerie.

However, in 2001 an Eerie Indiana fan named MariaC bought the domain and turned it into the Eerie Examiner:



SEWER MONSTER SUFFERS INDIGESTION

Copywrite 2000 Maria C. and Eeriein.com

This past week, reports have been flooding in from all over Eerie of a variety of disturbances - most commonly strange noises and tremors which seem to originate from deep underground. Worried citizens have been calling the police department with such reports, demanding to know what is happening.

The Eerie Examiner got in contact two days ago in with Eerie officials concerning the odd goings on, in a bid to keep the people informed. It transpired that these occurrences are environmental in nature and, indeed, are of subterranean origin. We were also told that there is no immediate cause for concern.

The Examiner asked Professor E. Gore, a talented environmental biologist, if he would explain to our readership what is happening:

"Since its very beginnings as a town centuries ago, Eerie has been living in a unique symbiosis with an organism known to exist in no other part of the world. This creature currently resides underground and lives off the household waste generated by the community, thereby keeping this town clean and free from rubbish and other refuse, in return for a constant supply of food and a safe existence beneath the streets of Eerie.

"This happy relationship between the town and the creature has up until now been extrs up until now been extremely uneventful. However, recently the townsfolk have angered it."

Angered it? I asked the Professor how this happened, and what could be done.

"I cannot be sure why it is angry and, until that has been established, I cannot suggest an appropriate course of action. But I am quite sure about one thing: unless we do something soon, the creature will continue to become more and more restless and may even cause some damage. Eventually it may rise up from its underground lair and cause untold chaos before leaving Eerie altogether. When the town finally recovers from this, we will be left without any way of getting rid of our trash - Eerie is completely dependant on the creature for all its domestic waste disposal."

Yesterday, an emergency meeting was called between prominent citizens of Eerie in order to establish the risks and find a possible solution. The mayor of Eerie, Mr Chisel, the proprietor of the World O' Stuff, Mr Radford, Mr E. Presely and Mr Chaney met with Professor E. Gore to discuss the present situation. The Examiner was invited to attend the assemblage at the World O' Stuff which took place in the very early hours of the morning, before the store opened.

Professor E. Gore had time the day before the meeting to gather more information on the creature from Eerie records, and was able to trace the disturbances backce the disturbances back to a particular point. At the meeting, he shared his findings with the rest of those concerned:

"The creature is said to be very large, estimated to be around 50 feet across. Of course, this may not be entirely accurate. The records go back a long time… in fact, it is entirely possible that it has grown since then. It is also documented that it is octopus-like in appearance, only with more tentacles, and that it is pale blue in colour. That, and that it feeds off household waste, is all I can find out at such short notice. I have also been able to trace the seismic activity caused by the creature's movements using earthquake equipment from Eerie University. It seems that the tremors originate from manhole #666, right at the geographical centre of Eerie."

Mr Chisel was understandably worried:

"50 feet? Is that with tentacles?"

"Oh, no. That's just the body. The tentacles are much longer."

Mr Chisel, always concerned for the well-being of his town, felt the following questions needed to be asked:

"So, if this monster was to come up into Eerie, it would probably do a lot of damage?"

"Incalculable damage. And of course, afterwards, Eerie would have no means of disposing of its garbage."

"But that would mean having to rebuild the town! With a sewage system! And waste disposal! The taxes would havesal! The taxes would have to go up… I might not get re-elected!"

by this time, Mayor Chisel was a desperate man.

"We have to do something! Why is it angry? What does it want? Money? Human sacrifice? Chaney! Come on, lets see what we can do for Mr Sewer Monster, sir."

The Professor tried to calm things:

"Now, Mayor. Lets remain calm. There's no need for any of that. I think it's just a question of diet."

"What, like food, you mean?" said Mr Presely

"Sort of. The creature eats all the usual stuff that families throw out. That's where the trucks take it all, to the big fenced-off pit on the outskirts of Eerie. It reaches the creature by that route. I think people have been putting things they shouldn't be in their bins. Stuff that needs special disposal, or incineration."

"But I thought that people threw out all kinds of junk they aren't meant to all the time…"

said Mr Radford.

"Yes, they do. The creature can tolerate certain amounts, but recently, people must have been doing it more than usual."

The meeting was adjourned so that Professor E. Gore could do some more research, and so that Mayor Chisel could go and have a lie down.

The Eerie Examiner took to the streets of Eerie in the hope of gaining an insight into public opinion, and maybe to find out a bit more about what has been going on. I came across one very worried looking local, busy boarding up the windows of his house. His family and belongings were waiting in the car with the engine running. When asked what he was doing, he replied:

"I'm getting out of here! Haven't you heard? The monster is angry! I'm getting away before it starts running loose… didn't you ever see Godzilla?

The Examiner felt it had to point out that the whole Godzilla incident occurred under different circumstances, but he had jumped into his car and was gone in a screech of tyres before anything else could be said. Just then another tremor shook the ground. After what Prof. E. Gore had said, the hospital was my next stop.

I spoke to the care taker at the Eerie Hospital about the policy regarding waste disposal:

"Well, usually, all the hazardous stuff gets put in the big incinerator,"

He told me, indicating a large chimney across the yard:

"Stuff like needles, swabs, operation left-over bits, unused medicine, tubing, anything infected… all those kinds of things. But sometimes, it's easier to just stick it in the bin with all the reg'lar trash, you know? Instead of stoking up the incinerator. I mean, I don't suppose it makes any difference. The monster eats anything, right?"

The Eerie Examiner felt it had found at least one cause for the Sewer one cause for the Sewer Monster's wrath. I thanked the care-taker, but advised him to get the incinerator fired up.

By early afternoon, the tremors were getting stronger and stronger. In the absence of Professor E. Gore, the Examiner decided to forgo all thoughts of personal safety and to take up station near manhole #666, in case the creature decided to make itself seen. However, as soon as I got there, it turned out that someone else had had that same idea.

I approached the small figure keeping guard over the manhole from behind a dumpster. The grey-haired young man was holding a camera and eyeing me suspiciously. I asked him if he was looking for the Sewer Monster.

"Yeah. Manhole #666, right? Well, this baby's mine, so if your thinking of getting pictures of it, you'd better think again."

Ignoring the threat, I told him I was with the Eerie Examiner and wanted to know how he knew that it's lair was located under manhole #666:

"Look, I don't talk to the press, OK? Unless you'd be interested in buying the exclusive pictures of the Sewer Monster I'm about to take… I bet Werd TV would pay big bucks for a photo of this octopus thing."

He said, grinning evilly and nodding in the direction of the manhole cover.

Just then another shock wave struck. The biggest one yet, it dislodged several bits from the nearby buildings. Mr Radford of the nearby World O' Stuff ran up accompanied by Prof. E. Gore and two more kids.

"It's just a matter of time!"

Yelled the Professor.

"We have to appease it, but I still don't know how!"

He shouted as he ran up. The smaller of the two kids with him addressed the strange photographer I'd just been talking to:

"Hey! What are you doing here?!"

It seemed that Mr Radford was also anxious to have a word with him:

"Hey! That's my camera! That went missing from my store this morning!"

Just before anyone could perform any acts of violence, a terrible noise came up from the metal cover in the middle of the quiet street. Everybody understood that now was not the time for settling scores. The older of the boys, one Marshall Teller, spoke up:

"Simon and me traced the earth quakes on a map of Eerie, right to this spot. And we think we know how to stop the monster from destroying Eerie!"

The younger one evidently called Simon handed an extremely ancient book over to Prof. E. Gore:

"We got it from the library,"

He said

"It tells you about the monster and how it should be fed!"

This was probably incredibly lucky, considering the rumbles coming up from under the street were getting more and more frequent.

"People have been feeding it the wrong stuff by throwing out all kinds of junk. Me and Simon went over to the pit this morning, you know what we found? Car batteries, old medicines - even half a bag of quick lime!"

As another subterranean blast shook the street, Prof. E. Gore made a decision:

"That one must have been the quick lime. It says here that to soothe the creature when it has indigestion - and I suppose this can probably be classed as indigestion - to feed it lots of normal stuff, like newspapers, peelings, wrapping…"

"I've got a load of that kind of thing out back at the World O' Stuff. We'd better get moving."

Suggested Mr Radford

"And you're coming too. And when you've helped us get out of this, you can give the camera back and I might not tell the sheriff."

He said, addressing the grey-haired kid who was in the process of sidling off towards a nearby narrow alley as nonchalantly as he dared. It turned out he had been lurking in the many shadows at the World O' Stuff that morning as we discussed the Sewer Monster situation. Seeing the potential for making some easy money, he 'borrowed' the camera. Certainly shows initiative.

An hour later, all the normal rubbish we could find had been thrown down the gaping abyss of the Monsters feeding pit, where questing tentacles will have come across the bounty and dragged it back toy and dragged it back to the lair underneath the cover of manhole #666.

Thus Eerie was put out of immediate danger, and Mayor Chisel saved from the prospect of not being re-elected. The mayor was unable to comment following the events, as he was still suffering from nervous exhaustion at the time of going to press.

Eerie citizens will be glad to know that the remaining tremors will get fainter as the Sewer Monster recovers from what must have been a very upset stomach. Tighter controls are now in operation and all garbage entering the pit is screened beforehand. Better facilities are in place for the disposal of dangerous materials, e.g. batteries, chemicals, fertilisers, medicines, etc. and the hospital has pledged to in future incinerate all hazardous refuse.

Readers of the Eerie Examiner are asked to bear the past week's events in mind when about to bin any item considered dangerous to the Sewer Monster's health. Look after the creature, and it will continue to look after us by providing us with cheap and clean garbage disposal, keeping our town safe and wholesome - the pride and envy of all Indiana.

By Maria. Head reporter for The Eerie Examiner.
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It's Tuesday, so today you get a choice between two prompts. Pick one, combine both, pit them against each other - on Tuesday, you choose!

This week, your options are:

Mister Chaney vs Mars
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Hey, you just won the lottery! Sounds pretty good, right? After all, you just got a few million dollars, and are, unless you stupidly spend it all, probably set for life. Who wouldn't want to win the lottery?

Well, you wouldn't want to, if it was one of these lotteries. The Lottery of Doom is a lottery where the prize is something really bad happening to the "winner," usually death. The reason for the Lottery of Doom varies, ranging from an attempt to keep the population down, appeasing a dragon, wrathful god or Monster of the Week, select a "volunteer" for some dangerous or outright lethal task that needs to be done or just to be creepy. Sometimes the lottery players know that it's a Lottery of Doom, sometimes they don't. The lottery sometimes gets the perks of actually winning the lottery, but you aren't the able to enjoy it for very long, leading some characters to arrange some sort of inheritance thing.

So next time you buy a lottery ticket, be sure to read the fine print.

In a Town with a Dark Secret, expect this to overlap with A Fête Worse Than Death.


In the Eerie, Indiana episode "Mr. Chaney", the town uses a lottery to pick a "harvest king" every few years: Supposedly all that happens is that they're sent into the woods with Mr. Chaney as a guide, and if they see the "Eerie wolf", the town will have plentiful crops. Of course, every harvest king seems to mysteriously disappear (it's a running gag that they're all allegedly "in Spain"). It turns out that Chaney unknowingly is the "Eerie wolf" - the town regularly sacrifices one of it's own to Chaney in werewolf form, presumably so he won't run rampant. The lottery is apparently always fixed, and you can be picked to "win" whether you actually entered or not: In this case, the mayor had it rigged so Dash X would win, but Dash X in turn rigged it for Marshall.

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