The Great American RENEXT Novel

[RJDiogenes]

At last it can be told! The most epic adventure that has ever unfolded in the lives of the ReNexters! Hold on to your seats! And your hats! And your popcorn!

Chapter One
by scotty

Safely esconced in our large, luxurious ReNext sanctuary, the 10 of us enjoy a relaxing meal, soothing beverages, and scintillating conversation. Pastor Eric and Cayla excuse themselves first, making goo-goo eyes at each other as they scamper up the stairs to their bedroom. An hour later, at 9:30pm, jgc adjourns, followed by RJ, then Lupy, Elara, huggle, Gary, Maddie, and scottydog, in that order.

At 3:12pm, everyone is awakened by a cacophony of crashing noises, floor thuds and thumps, several gutteral grunts and groans, followed by a blood-curdling scream. It's coming from the 3rd floor -- Elara's bedroom to be exact. Gary is the first to arrive, holding a wrench, a hammer, and his new pole saw. Lupy is next, cradling a mummified cat, and behind him is jgc holding Queenie, who gives the mummified cat an evil eye. Scottydog scampers down from the 4th floor, clutching two chocolate bars, and behind him is Maddie munching on ginger. Rj saunters in wearing his polka dot boxer, his tea-stained t-shirt, and clutching one of his prized Amazing Fantasy comic books.

Everyone walks in Elara's room, fearing the worst. Furnitures is overturned and broken. Shards of glass from shattered vases, windows, and lamps are strewn everywhere. Blood stains and small blood puddles are peppered all over the floor and end-tables. Wearing blood stained pajamas, Elara is seated at her computer, open wounds apparent on her scalp, neck, and torso. She is busy posting her latest injuries at ReNext's infirmary thread.

"Hey everyone," she replies, in a strong voice that belied her physical condition. "I'm almost done posting."

[RJDiogenes]

Chapter Two
by RJ

"Let me through," says Elara's sidekick, Dr McCoy. "I'm a doctor, not a linebacker." He begins treating her injuries with a practiced hand, but she seems to barely notice.

"What happened here? What caused all this destruction?" asks RJ, holding his comic book protectively behind scotty.

"I was visited by a poltergeist," Elara replies, finishing her post and logging out.

"And it attacked you, causing these grievous injuries?" asks Lupy.

"No, my horses and cats did that. The poltergeist was just here to throw the furniture around and deliver a message from the Great Beyond."

"Did you tip?" asks jgc. "It's polite to tip. You should always especially leave a tip in the bartender's tip jar."

"Yes, I tipped. And the message was: One of our sidekicks is going to be murdered by a malevolent supernatural being in the control of an old enemy within the next 24 hours!"

Lightning flashes and thunder crashes!

"What?!" RJ exclaims. "One of our old enemies hired Malificent to kill one of us?"

"No," says Cayla. "Pay attention. Malificent hired a poltergeist to kill an old enemy 24 days ago."

"That's not right," corrects Maddie. "An energy being was hired by management to kick us out on Monday."

"Tough. We have a lease," says Gary.

"Stop!" Elara shouts. "Old enemy. Supernatural being. A sidekick dead. Twenty four hours."

There is a flash of lightning, a rumble of thunder, and a general murmur of understanding.

[RJDiogenes]

Chapter Three
by scotty

Little did our heroes know that their sidekicks already had been meeting with each other weekly. These sessions operated as a quasi-support group for the sidekicks, who now carried the burden of being targeted by a past evil enemy possessed by dark supernatural forces beyond their control.

McCoy had assumed an informal leadership role is convening meetings to discuss common challenges faced by this diverse group of sidekicks. The other sidekicks looked up to the grizzled doctor as a legend, a miracle worker who kept Elara alive and even capable of running her farm despite absorbing injuries that would have killed the crew of an entire starship.

Under normal circumstances, McCoy would lead the sidekick meetings with the light touch of a country doctor who just wanted an excuse to socialize and informally chat about whatever was on someone's mind. No issue among the sidekicks was ever truly serious, unless you count the time that Yaphit, the Gelatin sidekick of scottydog, fell into a deep depression until McCoy ascertained that his gelatinous species was emotionally allergic to chocolate.

At this meeting, however, McCoy was all business.

"Listen," he said in a raised voice that commanded more attention than usual. "We're in trouble here. One of us is targeted to be killed in the next 24 hours, and I want to know what the damned blazes we're going to do about it."

[RJDiogenes]

Chapter Four
by RJ

Friar Tuck, one of Lupy's sidekicks, swallows a bite of fried chicken and says, "I'm sure we can depend on our heroes and mentors from Renaissance Next to protect us."

There follows a roar of tumultuous laughter, as everyone takes a turn giving Tuck a complimentary slap on the back-- he's got the best sense of humor in the bunch.

"Hee hee! Stop! You're killing me," gasps Ben the Bartender. "No, seriously. What are we going to do? I don't want to die. I don't want to die! I don't wanna dieee!!!"

Dr McCoy rushes over to the bartender, shakes him vigorously by the shoulders, and slaps him hard across the face. "Grab ahold of yourself, man!"

"Thanks. I needed that."

Maddie's sidekick, famous ornithologist John Audubon, says, "Folks, the sands of time are slipping away and we are no closer to finding a resolution to this dilemma."

Dr McCoy rushes over to the naturalist, shakes him vigorously by the shoulders, and slaps him hard across the face.

"I really did not need that, sir."

McCoy nods and returns to his corner of the room, feeling a little rejected.

"Since the nature of the threat is supernatural, we should track down an expert in the field," says Christie Love, RJ's sidekick. "Who do we know that is a Master of the Mystic Arts?"

[RJDiogenes]

Chapter Five
by scotty

"ELARA!"

...Who we only think has survived her many grievous injuries when if fact she has suffered enough wounds to kill ten thousand men. Elara is, in fact, a ghost who patrols the earthly world and offers inspiration to anyone who believes they cannot recovery from pain and injury.

How might Elara help the sidekicks?

[RJDiogenes]

Chapter Six
by RJ

"Maybe," McCoy whispers to Elara, as he sews up her ectoplasm, "this is the time to tell them that you yourself are a spirit form from the Great Beyond. In other words that you're dead, deceased, kicked the bucket, shuffled off this mortal coil to join the choir invisible...."

"Shush," replies Elara. "Do you want me to also tell them that you're a fictional character?"

McCoy shakes her vigorously by the shoulders and slaps her hard across the face.

"Alexa, end McCoy hologram," says Elara. "Okay, everybody, listen up. I must tell you something about myself that may have an impact on how we resolve this current crisis."

"You've lost a lot of blood?" asks jgc.

"Well, yes, actually. All of it. I was killed many years ago and am now a ghost masquerading as a mortal." Everybody stares and she just shrugs.

"I suspected this," says RJ.

"You did not," says everybody.

"No, really. She looks just like an actress in a silent film that was recently restored through a Kickstarter campaign: Belladonna of Bloody Brook Farm."

"Yeah, remember the stampede scene? Didn't go as well as they hoped."

"So," says Lupy, ordering the DVD of Belladonna of Bloody Brook Farm on his Amazon app, "how can your ghostly nature help us out? And have you ever considered starring in a sitcom similar to Bewitched or I Dream of Jeannie or My Favorite Martian in which a character who is more than human moves in with a regular human and hilarity ensues?"

[RJDiogenes]

Chapter Seven
by scotty

Elara looks supremely disappointed.

"Don't you all realize that I'm here to serve a far greater purpose than provide throwaway entertainment to the masses?"

This gets RJ's attention. "You mean you're here to teach us the secrets of immortality?" he asks.

"Or to show us how to produce free unlimited chocolate?" inquires scottydog.

"Give it a rest," says everyone in unison.

"All of you, QUIET!" says Elara. She cocks her head to one side. "Don't you understand?"

Elara then looks them over. RJ is thumbing through a comic book story of The Phantom. Lupy is looking at catalogs of Renaissance Faire costumes, scottydog is munching on another Snickers bar, jgc is knitting her next afghan, Maddie is sipping wine, Gary is reading the label on a paint can, and Cayla is adjusting her knee brace.

Elara gives an angry look. "Pathetic, all of you. Why do I even bother."

She then walks toward a large beige cabinet in a darkened corner of the room. "I was sent here to protect you from the demon who seeks to annihilate you. A demon who will unleash fury, hell, and levels of pain and bloodshed that you cannot even imagine."

Upon hearing these words, RJ puts down his Phantom comic book and begins browsing through an issue of The X-Cutioner. Scottydog lets out a loud belch.

Elara opens the cabinet door, her back to the group. "But now I see," she mutters, this time in a soft, slower voice. "You're not even worth protecting."

She ever so slowly turns around, toward the group.

[RJDiogenes]

Chapter Eight
by RJ

"Nevertheless," Elara sighs, "Clarence won't let me have my wings if I don't give it a shot."

"I have that on DVD," says RJ happily.

Elara steps to the side, revealing what's in her cabinet-- which is, strangely, a black-and-white spinning vortex. "Step lively," she says. "You're about to enter another dimension. Not only a dimension of ugly sights and grating sounds, but also of terrible smells and things that taste awful. Not to mention unbearable physical pain."

"Uh... I have to reread Werewolf By Night number one," says RJ.

"I have to take pictures of strange desert insects," says Lupy.

"I have a important academic conference in Hershey, Pennsylvania," says scotty.

"Queenie is asleep in my lap," says jgc.

"Tonight's pizza night in the hot tub," says Cayla.

"I have tickets for the new Shoebill exhibit at Arundel," says Maddie.

"I have to rebuild a 1916 Traub motorcycle from scratch," says Gary.

"Listen up!" shouts Elara, clapping hands together for attention, which kind of works. "When one of our sidekicks is killed in the next 24 hours, it will not just be a random assassination. It will be a ceremonial human sacrifice conducted by the Cult of Hortensimus the Hangry, who will then rise up bodily from the Netherworld and eat all of you alive in retaliation for blowing up her cousin's rental hall last Halloween. The only way to stop her is to go on the offense and jump through that portal! Now, who's with me?"

Before any of them can make it out the door, Elara has grabbed them and thrown them into the vortex.

[RJDiogenes]

Chapter Nine
by scotty

Cayla is the first to regain consciousness. She is lying on her back on a hard lumpy surface in near-darkness, with dust and debris all over her face. She coughs violently several times, waking the others.

"What the hell?" shouts Gary, who sits up and bumps his head on the very low ceiling of the chamber in which they find themselves. "Ouch, goddammit."

"You mean where the hell," says RJ.

"All this bloody dust is killing my sinuses!" declares Maddie. She sneezes three times, kicking up a cloud of additional dust each time.

"HOLY HELL," says jgc. "Something bit me!" The sound of a small critter scampers away from jgc toward scotty.

"Oomphh!" he shreeks. "It got me too! It's... it's a scorpion!"

"What's that god-awful smell?" asks RJ. "Wait a minute. I recognize that odor -- it's like the rotting, spoiled remnants of a Hungry Man Chicken meal, and maybe even a Marie Calender Meatloaf meal."

"Ummm... this can't be true," says Lupy, who crawls on his belly about 10 feel to his left. "Sweet fancy Moses," he exclaims, calmly peering into the darkness in all directions. "You're not going to believe this, but we're under my house. In the crawlspace, to be exact."

"That's scientifically impossible," says scotty, crawling a few feet to his right. He switches on the flashlight on his iphone. "If that were true," he says, pointing the light straight ahead of him, "we'd see.... Oh. My. God. Folks, look at this. Lupy's right."

In the far corner of the crawlspace, shaped in low pyramidal form, are dozens of mummified cats, stacked atop each other.

"Elara," says RJ. "Why in the world are we here?"

Elara brushes some of the dust and dirt off of her plaid farmer suspenders. "Besides getting our allergies all flared up, which McCoy will take care of if and when I re-activate him, we're here to do whatever it takes to defeat the Cult of Hortensimus the Hangry. They are pretty much all-powerful and invincible, but their achilles heel, their kryptonite is.... you guessed it: Mummified cats. The vortex sent you to the one place with enough ammunition to disintegrate the Hangry for all eternity."

[RJDiogenes]

Chapter Ten
by RJ

"So what do we achoo now?" asks RJ.

"What do we achoo now? What does that mean?" asks jgc.

"Do now," says RJ. "What do we do now?"

"It sounded like achoo to me," she replies.

"I heard achoo too," says Gary.

"Then let me rephrase," says RJ impatiently. "What do we need to do to get out of here?"

"Everybody take a mummified cat," says Elara. "And then we can move on to Phase II. Lupy, can you pass out...?"

"Sure, in fact I'm just about to. Cough cough."

"Let me finish. Pass out the mummified cats to everyone."

"Oh, yeah."

"I'll take two," says Maddie. "I like cats that don't murder my little friends."

Once everybody is cradling a mummified cat in their dusty arms, Elara takes a TV remote out of her overalls pocket and clicks it. Another spinning black-and-white vortex appears, kind of scrunched because of the low headroom.

"What channel is that?" asks scotty.

"Never mind," sighs Elara. "Everybody go through." She begins pushing them through.

They thud to the floor in another confined space-- but this one is confined just on the sides but is tall enough to stand up in. The walls are lined with bookcases that are overflowing with books and magazines. There seems to be a couch and a table and some chairs, but those are also covered with books and magazines.

"What is this?" asks jgc. "A forgotten sub-basement of the Boston Public Library?"

"More like a secret catacomb of Miskatonic University," says Lupy.

"I think it's the 70s," says Gary.

"Oh, there's my copy of... no, wait, that's a second edition," says scotty.

"It's just my apartment," says RJ. "Anybody want some Twisted Tea?"

"There's no time for that," Elara says sternly. "The clock is ticking. We have only hours left to go, and there are two more phases after Phase II."

[RJDiogenes]

Chapter Eleven
by scotty

"Did you say hours?" says scotty. His eyes bulge as he takes in the enormity of the priceless media around him. "That's enough time to enjoy some Twisted Tea and dive into RJ's amazing collections."

Gary raises his wrench to clobber scotty from behind, but Elara grabs his forearm to stop him. "Wait," she says. "Scotty's partially right about what we need to do next."

"I don't drink Twisted Tea outside of a hottub," declares Cayla.

"It's not the tea," says Elara. "It's RJ's collections. Specifically, his odd taste in Arsène Lupin films, which for reasons unknown are quite valuable. RJ, where do you keep your ten DVDs?"

RJ has a panicked look on his face. "Wait, what are you going to do with them?"

"What do these weird films have to do with defeating the Cult of Horticulture the Hangry?" asks Lupy.

"Hortensimus!" says Elara, who looks disappointed. "Everyone knows that mummified cats are only effective in combatting the Hangry if the cats are stuffed with Arsène Lupin films."

"Yeah, common knowledge," says jgc, rolling her eyes. She gets off the couch to brush away several Hyrdox crumbs clinging to her pants.

"Come on, Grape Man, show us where you keep these weird films," says scotty.

"Okay, but only because lives are at stake," says RJ, who pushes a button on the underside of his table. One of the bookcases swivels away from the wall, making a ghastly creaking sound.

"I've got some WD-40 that'll fix that," offers Gary.

RJ leads the group through the opening in the wall, into a vast cavern containing an immeasurable myriad of shelves, cabinets, and crates of all sizes. Tens of thousands of books, DVDs, and magazines are stacked to the ceiling in every direction. The faint scent of old parchment and mildew fills the stale air.

Approaching a huge oak Armoire, RJ taps some buttons on his smart watch, activating the Armoire's interior latch, springing open the doors. There, on the 3rd shelf from the bottom, sit his 10 DVDs of Arsène Lupin films, coated with dust and Hydrox crumbs.

"All of you, hurry," says Elara. "Take one of these DVDs and stuff it into your mummified cat."

"And just how are we supposed to do that??" shouts Lupy.

"Find a way!" snarls Elara, growing impatient.

"This is revolting," says Maddie.

Upon completion of this task, Elara takes her TV remote out of her overalls pocket and clicks it. Another spinning black-and-white vortex appears.

"Get in. We're running late. Time for Phase III," she declares.

[RJDiogenes]

Chapter Twelve
by RJ

The gang thuds to the floor of a nice, air-conditioned apartment, landing on top of each other in a big heap, until Elara carefully swings through the portal, avoiding them.

"Is there any possible way to refine the settings on that thing?" asks Cayla, from the bottom of the pile.

"I can't hear you," replies Elara. "You're muffled by a sweaty, dirty heap of human bodies."

"Hey, this is my apartment!" declares jgc, as the stack of human detritus separates and rises. "Don't move! Don't touch anything! You're all filthy!"

"Can we borrow your shower?" asks Gary.

"Oh, hell, no!"

"Why are we here getting jgc's apartment all dirty and upsetting her inner calm?" asks Maddie.

"Simply because," says Elara, as if lecturing a bunch of mortals who are oblivious to the complex infrastructure of supernatural magicalness, "each Arsène Lupin-imbued mummified cat must be wrapped in an 3x3 Afghan with a repeating fractal pattern representing Ouroboros. And I happen to know that jgc has created ten of them."

"Nine, actually," says jgc. Everybody looks at her sternly. "And a half," she continues. "I had to frog the heck out of that last one a couple of times."

"Well, get to work finishing it!" yells Elara, clearly losing patience. "We're running out of time! Like grains of sand through an hourglass run the days of our lives!"

"Also, Queenie is eating my foot," observes RJ.

"Fine, whatever," says jgc. She sits down in her comfy chair and begins Afghaning. "And stop watching me!"

About an hour later, after much grumbling and swearing, most, but not all, of it by jgc, the final Fractal Afghan is finished. "Finished!" she confirms.

"Good," says Elara. "Now everybody take an Afghan and wrap your cat." jgc cringes as her beautiful Afghans get all dirty in a Planck second.

Elara checks everybody's cats for proper wrapfulness, nods, and takes out her remote control, firing up a swirling black-and-white vortex near the front door. Queenie flees.

"Next up, Phase IV," says Elara, shoving them all through the vortex. "And then the hard part begins."

[RJDiogenes]

Chapter Thirteen
by scotty

The group is hurled into a semi-darkened cavern, much different from Lupy's crawlspace, RJ's collection warehouse, and jgc's semi-luxury apartment.

The sweet scent is an instant giveaway as to their whereabouts. Everyone's nose is in the air, as if taking in a sacred fragrance.

"We must be in scottyfog's chocolate factory," says Maddie.

"Actually," says scotty, "this is my bathroom. If you think this smells nice, wait'll you see the rest of my place."

"Your bathtub is made of solid chocolate?" inquires Cayla.

"What? Isn't everyone's?" retorts scotty.

"Elara, what are we doing here?" asks RJ.

"Scotty can tell you. He knows what we're after," says Elara, giving scotty a no-nonsense look.

"No. No. Please say no. They must not be touched. EVER!" says scotty with a look of panic.

"What is he talking about?" asks Lupy.

Elara sighs. "In any great quest," she says, pausing for effect. "Sacrifices Must Be Made."

Scotty collapses to the floor and curls up in the fetal position, whimpering.

"You don't mean..." begins RJ.

"Yes, I do." Elara looks down at scotty, who is now wailing. "Scotty, pull yourself together and lead us to... The SCCC -- the Secret Chocolate Catacomb Cathedral!"

The group lets out a collective gasp.

[RJDiogenes]

Chapter Fourteen
by RJ

Gary kicks scotty harshly in the butt. "Up and at 'em, Willy Wonka," he says. "We're burning daylight."

scotty rises unsteadily to his feet. "Yes, yes, of course," he says shakily. "Hero's Journey... self sacrifice... blah blah blah. Hey, who took a bite out of my bathtub?"

"Mif wuf Cayla," says RJ.

Cayla rolls her eyes and opens her mouth to show off her pearly white teeth.

"Focus!" yells Elara.

"Okay, okay," says scotty sadly. "There's no going back now." He pushes a hidden button under the bathroom sink and that section of wall pivots around 90 degrees, revealing a secret passageway. He beams proudly. "This is modeled after Batgirl's vanity in the old Batman TV show."

"Whatever," says Elara, and shoves everybody through the opening. It turns out that there is a narrow, forty-foot stairway carved out of solid rock going deep underground, resulting in a chorus of painful cries.

Minutes later, as their concussions begin to fade, the party gasps in awe at their surroundings: They are in a gigantic subterranean vault the size of Fort Knox or Scrooge McDuck's private safe, and it is filled floor-to-ceiling and wall-to-wall with every kind of chocolate imaginable-- and a few that aren't.

scotty wrings his hands together greedily. "My preciousssss," he hisses, and everybody backs away from him a little.

"Come on," Elara coaxes. "You know what we need."

scotty nods sadly and slouches forward, leading the gang through the narrow passages between stacks of crates and cartons and presentation racks and a few dry-ice fueled refrigeration units.

"I wonder who built this place," muses Lupy.

"Top men," says RJ.

Finally, at the very back of the cavernous vault, they come to a modest-looking pantry, covered merely by a humble piece of burlap. scotty reaches in and pulls out a small rectangular object and holds it to his chest. He looks up, meeting the eyes of each of the party in turn.

"Back in the Summer of '69," he begins solemnly, "the Quaker Oats company planned to test market a new cereal in select areas. For unknown reasons, the Powers That Be at the company cancelled the program before it barely began. Only one box of the cereal was ever produced, and I-- after many years and many lost lives-- was able to acquire it."

He holds up the box of Chocolate Quisp for everyone to see. On the front of the box, the Regular Quisp character has his arm around a chocolatey version of himself. The chocolatey version appears to be female and Regular Quisp appears to be making googly eyes at her.

"Ever since, I have rationed this rare treasure, eating only a single whatever-you-call-a-single-piece-of-cereal on special occasions." He carefully pops open the flaps of the box and uncurls the inner protective sleeve. "As of today, there are only ten pieces left. Wait! Eleven!" He quickly grabs a piece of the cereal and slaps it into his mouth, chewing slowly.

Elara grabs the box away from him and hands out the remaining pieces. "Now stick these in the left ear of your mummified cats," she says. "Get 'em in deep. Good. Now, on to the most dangerous phase of the mission."

She once again takes out her remote control and creates a spinning black-and-white vortex, shoving everyone through one at a time, scotty clutching his now-empty box of Chocolate Quisp.

"By the way," says RJ as he goes through, "a single unit of cereal is called a Tesseract."

[RJDiogenes]

Chapter Fifteen
by scotty

With a loud thud, the group lands in a heap at the foot of an altar. Slowly they all rise, finding themselves standing before a large wooden cross at least 12 feet high. Stained glass windows surround them, extending to the top of a 50 foot ceiling. Dozens of rows of wooden pews stand between them and an impressively large, dark oak double-door entrance and foyer.

"This is my church!" shouts Cayla.

"We're in the most danger here?" asks jgc.

Elara is about to speak but she is interrupted by the appearance of a tall middle-age man, clad in a black robe and white collar. He approaches the group, and Cayla rushes to greet him.

"Eric, what's going on?" she asks. They clasp hands briefly, and then he turns to the ReNext members.

"My name is Eric," says the man. He smiles gently, then his expression turns serious. "Elara informed me that you'd come. I'm here to help prepare you -- or at least, try to prepare you -- for the great evil that awaits you."

"Nothing's more evil than losing my Chocolate Quisp," says scotty.

Eric raises his voice. "Let me not mince words," he says. "Some of you will not likely survive the night."

"I've tried telling them how serious this is," says Elara. "But they just don't seem to get it."

Gary ambles over to the second row of pews, sits down, and props his feet up on the backrest of the row in front of him.

"Let me get this straight," says Gary, pointing a defiant finger at Elara. "You basically kidnap us, taking us from place to place with your inter-dimensional doo-hickey thing, and along the way you force us to carry around a disgusting corpse of a cat, and then if that wasn't bad enough, you force us to shove a DVD into said-cat, and then wrap the mutliated body in some kind of fractal blanket thingie."

"An Afghan," interjects jgc, with authority. "It's called an Afghan."

There is an awkward silence, and then a soft crunching sound fills the room. The group turns to the source of the sound. RJ, scotty, and Lupy are sitting in the corner, around a bowl, munching on its contents -- the Sunday service communal wafers.

Cayla rushes over and grabs the bowl. The three men flash a look of grave disappointment.

"Eric," says Cayla. "Please tell us what's going on. What is this evil? Is it the Cult of the Hangry?"

"Yes," replies Eric. He takes a notepad from his frock and writes a reminder to himself to order more communal wafers.

Eric begins pacing the floor as if giving a Sunday sermon. "The Cult of Hortensimus the Hangry," he says, spreading his arms wide, "has its origins in Cleveland. You probably think that the name Cleveland is derived from a family name, such as the great Moses Cleveland. Let me assure you...."

Eric then stares directly into Maddie's eyes. She is munching on ginger, but Eric's stare stops her chewing.

He continues, this time in a louder voice. "Let me assure you that Cleveland got its name from 'cleaving' -- the splitting and separating of bodies by a sharp instrument."

The sound of several gulps can be heard.

Gary removes his feet from the pew in front of him. He now leans forward to pay more attention.

jgc rubs her mummified cat nervously.

RJ removes a large piece of scotty's bathtub from his pocket and begins gnawing on it.

"The two leaders of this land of cleaving," says Eric, "have been killing internet board members' sidekicks for decades, and with impunity. They are brutal, remorseless psychopaths. Nothing and no one can stop them. And they happen to reside here in 'Cleave-land' and have been terrorizing this lovely young woman for the past two years."

Eric turns to Cayla.

Cayla's jaw drops. "The doctor... and Cruella...."

"Exactly," confirms Elara.