Inside the Improper's smaller dining room they strung some bare workbulbs in order to set up the autopsy "lab." Dennis carried a steel worktable up from the basement.

"Does the tape player on your box work?" Mark asked, pointing to Dennis's radio/cassette combo.

"Barely-- the tape player's all fucked up-- it runs real slow but if it's just info on the tape we're looking for we'll get the substance of what's going on."

Mark plugged the music box into one of the wall outlets and it was at that moment that the bolt of lightning appeared (with thunder rapidly following in about half a second!) to crash into Dunkel's Hill which towered just behind The Improper. A few seconds later the power came back on briefly and then went out again. More lightning and more loud thunder followed and the power appeared as if it was staying off. They stood there in stunned silence until Dennis broke it.

"Looks like somebody upstairs is trying to hold us back from the truth, eh?"

"Agreed."

"You ready for another beer?" Dennis asked while fumbling around for his flashlight. He found it, turned it on and went to the cooler and grabbed two ice colds.

They went outside to the patio, staring into the now completely darkened small town. After about five minutes the power was restored. The electric company repair person had obviously done their job; they watched a power company truck in the distance, its domelight cutting across the barren cornfields.

"You wanna go back in and listen?"

"And ruin this kind of blissfully ignorant peace?" Dennis asked rhetorically as he got up from the ground and walked into the bar.

They ran the tape.

The tape recorder was running real slow: "...as best as I can tell, many of the people of this region live under the delusion that there is a female demigod that controls the day to day operation of their lives in a direct manner and provides them guidance. This being, named Tessie, reads minds. Tessie, according to church belief, is responsible for the magnificent crop growth this region is noted for.

"I have arrived at a time when the crops have been steadily failing-- the fields are laying barren-- and filled with rats. And flies. Yet the people I have talked to around here cling to a belief that Tessie will again be well and again able to provide.

"I've been snooping around a little bit, I am finding that there may be a living physical thing that these people think is their god. It is obviously hidden and not a part of their services, which they have let me sit in on. I suspect what they think is a god is more like some sort of deformed child, kind of like we think the Jersey Devil was." (Pause) (pause) (pause) (pause).... then Ray had become more frantic and started to sound like maintaining his sanity was becoming a problem.

Then the tone of the tape changes.

"How have people lived on the eastern coast for three hundred years and not have done something about these people! How have they been able to hide this horrifying religion? My god they sacrifice the infants of the poor! They slaughter babies in the name of Lucifer!" (pause) (pause) (pause) .... it started again: "Christ Almighty, they found my hidden camera. Now they know what I am really up to. I told them I was an agriculturalist, not an anthropologist and that I was interested in their non machinery farming methods. Whoever hears this, please, I don't care if it's the year 2030, these things must be dealt with. The devil is truly on earth. They show no regard for humans and they slaughter them like sheep....

(pause... static... roll)

"Tonight I forced my way into the tower and watched those lunatics tend to the beast. The creature truly exists and she is horrible. Or (pause) am I now suffering from the same sort of mass hypnotism or psychosis that these people are experiencing?

"My life my sanity ended the moment I stepped into Kurtzville. Is she human? Or is she a worm or is she a walrus, I can't tell.

"The old man, Grenden has spotted me and he is definitely on to me. I'm trying to keep to myself, tend to chores around the cabin but I know they are watching me, daring me to try to escape with the news I have discovered. The way I see it I have two bad choices: I try to run away or I run straight into the Historical Society and destroy the creature! I'm afraid I've lost what little sanity I had left after the breakdown ... (pause, roll of static)

"I think I did it," the tape went on, "last night I forced my way inside and got the jump on Binder. I gagged him and tied him up but Tessie began sending out those mind messages of hers-- I knew I didn't have a lot time. I ran to the tower. A voice got into my head. The voice tried convincing me to spare Tessie. I drove a spear into her. And again and again. And again. The townspeople's trucks approached. I managed to get out of the building but it's only a matter of time before they find me. I have no chance in the woods, the infected devildogs are everywhere. The roads are of course being watched. I shall make one more assault-- how did I become the avenger Willy?-- tonight I shall try to burn their vile Historical Society to the ground. Someone please find this. Oh sweet Jesus tell me before I die, who am I?

"Shoggoth--oootooth--behemoth! "

Roll of static. Click. End of tape.

."I'm going to go talk to Maureen tomorrow. I hope I can contain my rage long enough to learn the truth.

About 4 a.m. he staggered to his car and drove to the motel. As soon as he neared the lot he saw that someone was waiting for him in his motel room-- the lamp was on.