Scene 1 - And the gunslingers followed...

It's still morning. You woke up, saw the farmstead, it was maybe 30 minutes walk away - and since you got here, not so much time has passed.

As Henry is talking to Spline and Beretta, a new, deeper, louder sound starts to come from the cellar. The sound of metal thudding against metal, with about 4 seconds between each thud.

Rose, Oscar, Beretta, Podge, and Spline look on apprehensively at the outer cellar door. From behind it they hear more thumps of metal on metal, and they are now accompanied by sounds of that metal twisting, and groaning - it sounds like the inner door is being pounded off its hinges, and doesn't have much left in it before whatever-is-behind-it gets through...

Henry and Mattie enter the barn together, and Mattie pulls out the package. As this happens, Henry hears in his head...

"Ahhhhh and here's another, Henry, I was looking forward to meeting you... come, open me, I'll give you what been searching for, what you need to fill that empty hole you've always carried inside you..."

As the voices speak to Henry, he finds himself lunging at the package, desperately trying to grab it of Mattie, to take and open on his own, without anyone else around...

There is again another shimmer, a thinning of reality, around Oscar as he projects his antipathy out towards this thing...

While at the same time, whatever it is, has managed to finally blast through the metal door, you can hear as the door is finally ripped off its hinges, you hear it clanging down, out, and into the clean room.

And the hoots and barking and clanking are all louder now the door is no longer in the way - but the noises also don't seem to be getting any closer. It doesn't sound like the thing has made its way yet inside the clean room - presumably because, for it, there is acid, the floor is acid. It burns... and so will not allow itself to come in contact with it.

The hoots and barks have a ring of frustration about them.

Henry gets his hands on the so-very-dark so-very-black package and it feels so GOOD to feel it, to get his fingers into it...

And it feels so GOOD to open it - the urge is so strong that he literally rips it open, sliding his fingers into the folds and flaps, and pulling and yanking it open so that its contents spill out, tumble out, onto the ground in the barn and the feeling of relief and GOODNESS is just overwhelming...

Lying now on the floor, Mattie and Henry see:

1. An envelope with the names Mattie, Rose, Henry, and Oscar written on it, sealed with a blob of wax, and apparently containing several - lots of - folded sheets of paper.

2. A wooden cube with various occult symbols garishly painted on its six faces, and a small flap on one side that looks like it folds outwards. This cube took up most of the space within the package.

3. Two tarot-like cards. Both have landed face-up. One is labelled The Monkey, and shows a hollering furious baboon beating its chest, baring its fangs, against the background of a room filled with electronics. The second is labelled The Sanatorium, and shows a bone saw and a heart monitor against the background of a gray corridor containing a medical gurney.

In the background, you had heard the sounds of barking and howling and hooting become louder - you assumed because whatever was in there had gotten rid of that first door - but as the package is being opened, the sounds diminish and become quieter again.