Chapter 8: Emergency Evacuation
"Run!"
Marcus made a split-second decision.
Without waiting for Detective Seventeen to follow, he turned and jumped out of the second-floor window.
The physical prowess of his supernatural body was perfectly demonstrated.
He forced his way into a taxi that had just picked up passengers, ignoring the screams of the girls inside, and slammed the door shut.
"Drive."
Marcus pulled a wad of bills from his pocket and tossed it to the driver.
The bald driver, seeing the money, didn't ask questions—he released the brake and excitedly hit the gas.
The car sped off, and Marcus finally had time to take out more bills from his wallet and hand them to the three girls beside him.
Upon receiving the cash, the screams abruptly ceased. The three girls stared at Marcus with six wide eyes, curiously studying him.
"Mister, are you running from the cops? Don't worry, I was in a biker gang when I was younger. I'll definitely get you outta here safe."
The bald, overweight middle-aged driver said, turning his head to stare at Marcus while driving.
Marcus looked at the driver, whose face was flushed with excitement:
"Eyes on the road. Promise not to turn around, and I'll give you another grand."
He continued,
"Don't worry, it's not the police. I'm just avoiding some… messengers from hell."
As he spoke, Marcus stuffed more than twenty fifty-dollar bills into the front seat.
"Oh, yes sir! You need a fake ID? Maybe you can show it to those hell messengers and tell 'em they got the wrong guy. I can guarantee it's good enough that even cops can't tell the difference, let alone hell messengers."
The driver didn't turn back, but kept talking.
"Shut up. I'll give you another five hundred."
Everything returned to calm, with only the taxi speeding forward, running red lights.
Marcus appreciated the driver's no-questions-asked attitude and didn't mind rewarding him generously.
He was just afraid that Pinhead would discover that he—a supernatural entity—was nearby.
If Pinhead suddenly became interested in dealing with the mess left by the Ice Cenobite, causing Marcus to waste his trump card, that would be disastrous.
In other words, the driver might have just saved him a valuable resource.
"Alright, stop the car."
Marcus said, having watched the taxi drive for ten minutes and get far enough away from Frank's house.
"Sir, here's my business card. If you need me again, just call," the driver said, handing Marcus his card with obvious eagerness.
Marcus glanced at the card. Besides the phone number at the top, the rest was densely covered with at least several hundred services, including "soothing sleep companion," "wake-up calls," and "pretend boyfriend."
He thought for a moment and pocketed it.
To Marcus's surprise, the three girls in the car—clearly just high school students—actually asked for his contact information, saying they would keep his "secret agent identity" confidential if he gave them his number, and wouldn't tell the police if asked.
Marcus casually dismissed the three girls, who had already imagined themselves in a spy thriller, and dialed his phone.
"Seventeen, it's me."
"Oh, sir, what happened just now? Why did you suddenly bail?"
"Never mind that. Are you still there?"
"Yes, sir. I saw you take off, so I ran after you for about half a mile, but nothing happened, so I slowly headed back."
"What's the situation at the house?"
"No one's come out, but there were screams. Also, I discovered that besides our three rotating teams, there are other people watching the house."
"Oh, don't worry about them. They're my people too."
Marcus hung up. It seemed that Frank and the woman in the baseball cap had already begun their journey to hell.
Marcus had no intention of saving the woman. Even if he'd tried, how could he explain that he—a newcomer—knew so much?
Besides, there wasn't enough time. Once the box was opened, it was nearly impossible to stop. Marcus wasn't going to waste his trump cards on a stranger.
Marcus had just sat down after returning to the pet shop when he saw three girls come to the door.
It was the same three girls from the taxi.
"Boss, we're here for the job interview! Oh, it's you, Agent Marcus!"
Marcus looked at the three young girls, averaging about five-foot-three, standing side by side—slightly speechless.
"I'm not an agent, and I don't hire minors. Thanks, here's cab fare, you can go home."
Marcus held out a twenty-dollar bill.
The girls all took a step back and shook their heads.
"We're already seventeen, currently freshmen at Staten Island Community College, and legally allowed to work part-time."
"Quick, show him your student IDs!"
"And if you don't hire us, we won't keep your agent identity secret."
The girl in the middle, with freckles and curly hair, had a desperate expression.
The three girls simultaneously pulled out their student IDs and handed them to Marcus, as if to say, "Your move."
"Hire us, we can be your informants!"
Marcus glanced at them: Misha, Lucy, and Elisa.
They were indeed all seventeen.
"Okay, but the sign says I only need two people."
"So, if all three of us work, we'll only get paid for two people? Is it really a hundred per hour?"
The three blinked at Marcus, looking like they'd gotten a great deal. It was true—several groups of people had already waited at the door for that hourly rate, but Marcus wasn't there, so they'd left.
"Fine, three people. You'll all be paid by the hour. You're Lucy, right? You can organize the work."
Marcus didn't care about the money. As long as someone could take care of the pets, that was enough. Seeing that Lucy was the leader of the three, he put her in charge.
"Yay! The boss is really a good person!" The three cheered, eagerly tearing down the job posting at the door, then running into the shop, happily playing with the cats and dogs.
He didn't know where they got the concept of "good person," but their youthful energy relaxed Marcus's tense nerves.
He smiled absently and ignored the three playing with the animals.
Detective Seventeen contacted him again.
"Boss, there's been no movement from the house for half an hour since that scream. Should we go in and check it out?"
Detective Seventeen was crouching on the roadside a hundred yards from the house, rubbing his left ankle as he asked.
He didn't understand why the boss had run earlier. He'd been monitoring the area for so long, and no one had gone in. He trusted his observation skills.
Turns out, the moment they closed the window, the boss suddenly jumped out the window to escape. He was so startled he thought there was a bomb in the room across the street, so he jumped after him, spraining his ankle. Luckily, it was only the second floor.
Marcus thought about Seventeen's question. So much time had passed—Pinhead's group should have already left. They wouldn't have stayed long after they appeared.
But now that place was definitely being watched by Pinhead's agent.
As the Hell Priest, Pinhead's current representative was no ordinary person. It was a Hell Dragon transformed into the form of a vagrant. They were called the Pillar of Souls, and it was a powerful supernatural entity in itself.
"Send someone to check. Don't touch anything, and take pictures for me."
"Continue surveillance. Report back to me if anyone approaches the house."
Marcus hung up, thought for a moment, and confirmed nothing was overlooked.
The only problem was that one of the resurrected bodies might be a woman.
Marcus was still considering what to do with this woman.
Should he show her mercy and try to learn more about the situation from her experience?
Or should he prevent her from disrupting the world's timeline and send her back to Hell?
Marcus felt he needed to observe the woman's condition after her resurrection.
After all, she would spend at least another day in Hell. Such a long time could drive someone to complete madness—twisted and insane.
Like Frank in the movie—after escaping Hell, he could even murder his own brother without hesitation.
(End of Chapter)
[+500 Power Stones = +1 Extra Chapter]
[+10 Reviews = +1 Extra Chapter]
If you enjoyed this chapter, leave a Review!
P*atreon/DarkFoxx (30+ advanced chapters)