Chapter 7: The Four-Man Team Appears
Early morning.
Marcus pushed open the door of the pet shop, and the stench of cats, dogs, and birds mixed with their waste assaulted his nostrils.
He felt like he'd opened a dumpster in the summer heat.
I desperately need an employee. Kirsty, when can you get here?
Marcus muttered.
It took him an hour to finally feed and clean the pets. Taking care of these animals had even made him—now a supernatural entity—sweat profusely.
He stared at the group of creatures running around, scratching their cages and wagging their tails.
No way!
He had to find a temp worker to tide him over today.
He went to the counter, grabbed a piece of paper, wrote a message, and taped it to the door:
"Pet shop hiring two part-time workers, no experience needed, today only until closing, $100 per hour."
Buzz buzz. His phone vibrated.
Marcus pulled it out.
The message was from the private investigators who had reported yesterday afternoon that Frank had gone missing after boarding the plane.
It seemed they'd caught up with him after he landed.
But upon reading the contents, Marcus's expression shifted.
According to the timeline, Frank was supposed to return to the house alone to open the box.
But now things had changed.
Frank had indeed returned to the house in Staten Island, but he wasn't alone. A brown-haired woman had approached him at the airport and returned to the house with him.
The detectives had thoughtfully sent information about this woman:
Giovanna Dursley, an ordinary office worker from Manhattan, who suddenly quit her job ten days ago and came to Staten Island.
This woman had been loitering around the airport exit, approaching everyone she met. After Frank disembarked, she spoke with him and then returned to the house with him.
Ten days ago—that was exactly when the others entered! The heavy-set man, or the woman in the baseball cap?
Marcus decided to quietly take a look.
"Boss, I'm here."
Marcus looked up at the sound of the voice.
The dark green curtains of the second-floor window were drawn back, and an unremarkable-looking person wearing casual clothes was waving at Marcus.
Marcus sighed. "Truly a professional private detective—completely forgettable face."
In movies, those guys in trench coats, fedoras, and sunglasses are all fake.
He entered the building and approached Detective Seventeen.
"Give it to me."
Marcus pointed to the binoculars in Seventeen's hand.
"The woman bought food from Joey's Deli five minutes ago, exchanged seven sentences with the owner, and just went back inside."
Detective Seventeen reported, handing Marcus the binoculars while trying to impress him.
Marcus looked through the binoculars at the wooden house across the street.
In the attic on the right side of the second floor, the old curtains were covered in cobwebs.
Open suitcases and clothes were scattered haphazardly on the floor.
Two dirty sleeping bags were laid against the wall, being used as makeshift beds. It seemed the two people were camping out there.
On the inner sleeping bag, Frank—with his thin mustache and rakish look—sat leaning back, cleaning his nails with a knife.
The woman carried a bag of food upstairs into the attic and offered Frank a burger.
Frank reached out but didn't take the burger. Instead, he grabbed the woman's wrist, trying to pull her into his arms.
The woman took a step back, shook off his hand, threw the burger she was holding at Frank, and pointed at him while saying something.
Frank didn't speak. He picked up the burger, cut off a piece with his knife, and slowly—still staring intently at the woman's face—put it into his mouth.
The woman calmed down after a moment, went over and sat on the other sleeping bag, starting to eat her burger while talking to Frank.
After they finished eating, Frank, with a strange smile, whispered something in the woman's ear, then took out the puzzle box and began to manipulate it.
Upon hearing this, the woman's expression clearly became excited. She got up, closed the window, and drew the curtains.
Marcus observed carefully.
Appearances can change, but body language and mannerisms are different—especially the woman's eyes, which carried an arrogant air.
He was certain this person was the woman in the baseball cap.
Meanwhile, inside the house,
Frank and Shadow—the woman in the baseball cap posing as Giovanna—sat facing each other on the floor.
Shadow was excited.
Frank had just said he knew how to open the box.
The reason she'd entered "Hellraiser 1" was because she'd bought reliable information from a contact using survival points.
Supposedly, her contact hadn't found anything in this world for over a month. Finally, following a coded message, she'd searched the residence of another companion who had entered the world with her and discovered recorded plot information—but her companion had already disappeared.
Because she'd missed the deadline, she hadn't had another chance to enter this world until now.
According to the intel, the main quest item in "Hellraiser 1" would arrive at the airport from overseas at the beginning. By simply waiting there, a plot trigger might activate.
And now, the Lament Configuration from this quest was right in front of her. She could immediately complete quest one, gain a large number of survival points, and perhaps there were other rewards inside the box.
She didn't dare attempt the other two quests, but she figured the difficulty of this one lay in finding the item.
As for the two ordinary men who'd entered at the beginning, she didn't care about them at all.
Coming back to her senses, Shadow watched the puzzle box slowly deforming in Frank's hands. The window began to vibrate, and a gray light rose from the baseboard, illuminating the attic.
The puzzle box continued to twist, accompanied by wisps of electricity, until the last piece clicked into place.
A massive doorway suddenly materialized in the room, and a howling wind swept through from behind it—the chilling air from hell seeping into their very bones.
Two chains shot out from the box, hooking Frank and Shadow.
Shadow was stunned. What was happening?
Why was there a trap in the box? According to adventure stories, shouldn't it contain treasure or ancient secrets?
Then, countless chains with hooks descended from the ceiling, each hook stained with blood and scraps of flesh.
They swayed and clanged against each other.
A razor-studded pillar rose from the crimson floor, spinning rapidly.
Then, amid Shadow and Frank's screams, the chains suddenly hooked into them.
Gear-tipped torture instruments rose from their backs, slicing through their spines, blood spattering everywhere.
The chains instantly contracted and pulled, tearing them to pieces.
Then footsteps echoed on the filthy ground, and a black figure slowly emerged from the darkness:
His head was etched with a crisscrossing grid of ritual patterns.
At each intersection, a nail was deeply embedded in his skull.
His body was wrapped in a black leather coat, his ribs exposed beneath, and his waist was adorned with various instruments of torture. (The Hell Priest—Pinhead)
Behind him followed three others:
The one on the left had shrunken, wrinkled skin, no eyes, only a lipless mouth with two rows of exposed teeth constantly grinding together with a crisp sound. (Chatterer)
The woman in the middle had a nail pierced through her nose, her collarbone and the side of her neck pierced by fan-shaped steel wire, and a hole in her throat revealing bloody tissue. (Female Cenobite)
The one on the right was obese with a bulbous head, wearing small sunglasses, his tongue constantly licking his lips, layers of fat drooping from his face, and an open wound protruding from his abdomen. (Butterball)
The foremost figure—Pinhead—bent down and pieced together several fragments on the ground like a jigsaw puzzle, forming Frank's face.
As for Shadow, a worthless soul, she wasn't worth his attention.
Then, he skillfully picked up the puzzle box, gently turning it with his fingers, and with a flicker of electricity, restored it to its original state.
Meanwhile, Marcus sensed a chilling, otherworldly atmosphere spreading from the room across the street just as they drew the curtains.
It seemed to be expanding, and Marcus recognized this aura immediately.
The aura of hell.
He needed to move fast.
(End of Chapter)
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