CHAPTER TWO: MOVING IN
--

Upon learning that Hieronymous Smith had accepted a job, complete with
room, board, and a modest income, his father woke him up at eight o'clock
the next morning and kicked him out of the house with all of his
belongings.

"After all," he said, "punctuality is a discipline." Hieronymous sat on
his suitcase, musing on this latest bit of gibberish disguised as an
elevating moral maxim and waiting for Wilf to show up with the car. He
wasn't sure how he would recognize what Wilf's car looked like.

When it arrived, however, he recognized it instantly. Hieronymous was not
much of a car buff, but he was fairly sure that a puke-green Volkswagen
Rabbit, covered in rust and bird crap, was not exactly a stylish ride. "Oh
well," he thought to himself, "better make the best of it..."

"Morning!" yelled Wilf from inside the car. He was still bundled up as if
he was exploring the arctic, but now sported a pair of leather gloves, a
brown hat of the sort worn by elderly gentlemen the world over, and a pair
of truly antique driving goggles that must have been made in 1905.
Portions of the straps of the goggles had decayed over the course of time,
and had been replaced by paper clips and duct tape. "Pack your stuff in
the car and let's get going!"

Hieronymous picked up his two suitcases and lugged them over to the
Rabbit. He tried to open the trunk only to discover that the trunk didn't
actually open.

"The trunk hasn't opened since 1974," said Wilf. "Throw it in the back."
Hieronymous opened the passenger side door and tried to figure out why the
passenger seat was full of long, white wax candles. "Shove those in the
back," said Wilf. Hieronymous did, and for good measure threw his luggage
in as well. The car wobbled and shuddered.

"Now get in," said Wilf. "There's another set of goggles in the glove
compartment if you want them." Hieronymous got in the car and sat down.
"Incidentally," said Wilf as he started the engine, "do you have your
license?"

"Er... no," said Hieronymous Smith.

"That's alright then," said Wilf. "Neither do I." With that, he backed the
car out of the Smith driveway at a hundred and twenty miles per hour. The
windshield wiper detached itself and crashed into the front door.

This was the worst car ride of Hieronymous's young life. The acceleration
pushed him against the passenger seat, and every time the car turned the
corner he was assaulted by twenty thousand long white wax candles. Every
so often another piece of the car would fall off; Wilf would simply say,
"Oh, ah," and would proceed as if everything was perfectly normal. As soon
as they got on the highway, Hieronymous's life started flashing before his
eyes. He was somewhat shocked to discover just how much of his life to
this point involved total and utter humiliation. Just as he was getting to
the good bit, he was jolted back to reality when the Rabbit's roof
detached itself from the main body of the automobile and flew into
traffic. He heard brakes slam on behind him, and could see a truck driver
in the rear view mirror preparing to do something rude.

"Isn't this fun?" yelled Wilf as they barrelled straight through oncoming
traffic at speeds that a Volkswagen is theoretically incapable of. "I
always wanted a convertible."

"Hrrgh," said Hieronymous Smith. He had lost the power of speech at the
corner of Ninth and Blenkinsop. He wondered for a moment if he would feel
safer wearing the other pair of driving goggles. He tried to open the
glove compartment only to have the door break off in his hand. He stared
at it dumbly for a moment, and then put it in the back seat with the
twenty thousand candles.

They barrelled along the highway for a little while longer, then all of a
sudden Wilf spun the car around and they shot up a poorly maintained
country road that seemed to appear out of nowhere. The road was incredibly
bumpy, and Hieronymous would have smashed his head against the roof if it
was still there. Candles flew out of the car in every direction as they
drove. Every so often, Wilf would wrench the car around and they would
barrel down a new road that was even bumpier than the last one.
Hieronymous tried to spot any signs of civilization, but all he could see
was trees, more trees, and bigger, larger trees. He was oddly relieved
when they passed a small log cabin in the middle of the woods, from which
a ragged hermit with a long gray beard emerged and fired on them with an
antique shotgun.

Finally the car slowed down, and Hieronymous could see a small collection
of buildings in the distance.

"Welcome to Bakersville," said Wilf. "Population... I dunno, but something
pretty small." The ... what was it, Hieronymous wondered? Town? Village?
District?  ... consisted of a square collection of buildings and streets,
running about ten blocks in either direction, with a few buildings lurking
further away from the settlement. Wilf drove the car slowly down the main
road that was Bakersville's commercial district, giving Hieronymous ample
opportunity to look at the buildings. They passed a couple of restaurants,
a coffee shop, a small shack made out of wood and corrugated metal with an
elderly sign in the window that read "General Store", a martial arts
supply store, a second-hand car lot, a post office, a small bank, and
finally a very large concrete building with a big sign in front of it that
simply said "CHEMICALS".

"Nice place, Bakersville," said Wilf. "Quiet." Pause. "Usually."

"What does that mean?" asked Hieronymous.

"Well," said Wilf, "people in this place can be kind of funny. Except us,
of course. We're perfectly normal. But there's a... well, how should I put
it..." He scratched his chin and started driving out of the town. "You
ever wonder what drives people to live in a place like this?"

"No..."

"Well, don't. Quite often you don't want to know. You'll probably figure
it out eventually, however." The car picked up speed as they shot out of
Bakersville again.

"Hang on a second!" yelled Hieronymous as the candles started hitting him
in the head again. "That's the way out of town!"

"Yeah," said Wilf. "We don't actually live there. Too noisy." The Rabbit
screamed in protest as Wilf floored the gas pedal. "An' before you ask,
we've gotta build up speed if we're gonna clear the chasm."

"CHASM?!" yelled Hieronymous, whose eyes flew open as he noticed the car
shooting towards a ... yep, it was a chasm. No other word to describe it.

"Best bit of the trip," Wilf yelled back. "Makes me feel eighty again!"
The Volkswagen hit an upward ramp, and with that they were airborne.
Hieronymous screamed. It was a very good scream, and only ended when the
car crashed into the ground on the other side of the chasm with a
WHMPF-THUNK.

All in all, Hieronymous was very, very pleased when the journey stopped a
few minutes later and they pulled into the driveway of what would be his
new home. For one thing, it meant not throwing up on the Rabbit.

--

The House was big. That was one of its few redeeming features. It was
quite big, and stood somewhere between five and eight stories tall. The
original building appeared to have been built by dropping other houses on
top of each other from a great height, so that it looked like a badly
sagging wedding cake. On top of that, other mad, cult-wielding architects
had grafted a hodgepodge of rooms and other "things" onto the building as
they saw fit, with no thought given to their design other than the best
way to appease the Ichor God Bel-Shammaroth. Somebody had recently painted
the entire affair a particularily violent shade of cobalt blue.

"Here we are," grunted Wilf as he turned off the engine, "home sweet
home." There was a thunk below him as the Rabbit's transmission detached
itself and landed on the driveway. Hieronymous slowly pried himself out of
the passenger seat and staggered out of the car, trying not to break
anything. He suddenly remembered why his parents had told him not to
accept rides from strangers. Wilf opened the front door of the house and
let them in.

"I'm back!" he shouted. "'n I got the boy with me!"

"Coming!" replied a female voice. Hieronymous took his shoes off and
examined his surroundings.

All of a sudden an elderly gray-haired spinster, wearing horn-rimmed
spectacles, a long green skirt and blouse, a hand-knitted sweater and
highly sensible shoes appeared from behind a corner.

"This," said Wilf, "is Mrs. Maple. She does all the cooking, and will also
be responsible for teaching you..." He paused to gather his thoughts, then
started reeling off a list of names. "Kempo, Brazilian Ju-Jitsu, Muay
Thai, Capoeira, Kendo, Aikido, Tai Chi, Ninjitsu, and about five different
styles of Kung Fu." He grinned.

"Uh... pleased to meet you," said Hieronymous.

"You too, Hieronymous," Mrs. Maple replied. "You're just in time for
dinner." They walked down the hall to the dining room. "Quiet here this
evening," she added conversationally. "The only other people in the house
tonight are Louis and the Psychic Apostle."

Mrs. Maple escorted the two men into a large dining room, where two diners
were seated around an astonishingly large table. The first diner was an
elderly man wearing a tie-dyed T-Shirt, hemp trousers, sandles, a red
bandanna, and a truly astonishing quantity of facial hair. He was
ploughing into his food with reckless abandon. Next to him at the table
was a small, wizened asian of indeterminate origin. He had a shaved head
and was wearing a long and incredibly food-stained red robe that went down
to his ankles. He didn't appear to be eating at all. As Hieronymous
entered, the first diner leaped out of his chair.

"Great Jumpin' Jerries," he shouted, spraying food out of his beard.
"You'd be Hieronymous, man?" He grabbed Hieronymous and squeezed him in an
incredibly tight bear hug. "This is ****ing great!" he yelled. "Young
blood around the place! Stick with me, man, it'll be ****ing great! We'll
go out, hit the road, see live music, spread free love, ..."

"This is Louis," said Wilf, somewhat apologetically. "He's a...
scientist."

Louis continued to prattle on, oblivious to this. "Build stills, drink
moonshine, dance naked in the woods, ingest peyote..."

"A ... chemist, mainly," Wilf continued, "... but he also knows a lot
about botany."

Louis glowered at him. "That's uncool," he replied. "By the way, Wilf,
where's my car?"

"In the driveway," replied Wilf. "It's sort of..."

"The transmission fell out in the driveway," said Hieronymous. "And the
door to the glove compartment fell off, but I put it in the back seat with
all the candles... and a windshield wiper fell off at my house, but my
parents probably kept it... and the roof of the car fell off at the corner
of Ninth and Blenkinsop..."

Louis stared at Wilf, open-mouthed. "My.... Rabbit?" he finally managed to
utter after a long pause. "My... Rabbit? Damnit Wilf, I had some of the
best years of my life with that car. I took acid with Robert Hunter in the
back of that car. I drove that car to Woodstock, man. It was... more than
a car." He swallowed. "It was... a friend." With that he slunk back to his
seat and gloomily started poking at his food, muttering under his breath
"The Rabbit died... the Rabbit died..." and occasionally weeping. It was
probably fortunate that Mrs. Maple chose that particular moment to return
with two plates brimming over with food. She plunked them on the table and
pointed Wilf and Hieronymous Smith to their chairs. Hieronymous sat down
and stared at the food for a moment. He wasn't sure what it was. Half of
it was raw, half of it was mushy, and a lot of it wobbled when he touched
the plate.

"Eat up," she said. "It's all macrobiotic, except for the roly-poly
pudding." Hieronymous tried, only to discover that the food tasted wierder
than it looked.

"You get used to it after awhile," Wilf whispered across the table. "Even
worse, you could end up like Louis. He actually likes this stuff."

Hieronymous took another mouthful of the food on his plate and chewed,
although it didn't really need it. "Who's the other guy?" he asked.

"The inscrutiable oriental at the other end of the table," Wilf replied,
"is the Psychic Apostle. He'll teach you how to develop your latent
psychic powers."

"Why doesn't he say anything?" asked Hieronymous.

"Ahh," replied Wilf. "That's because he's blind, deaf, and mute."

"Oh," said Hieronymous after a brief period of thought. "You know that
thing you say? 'Oh ah?'"

"Yes?"

"Would you mind if... uh, I started saying it?"

"Not at all, lad," replied Wilf. "I find it helps me cope with the
situation. Now eat your dinner and I'll show you where you'll be
sleeping."

"Oh ah," replied Hieronymous Smith.