There Came A Knocking

Synopsis
Who the hell is in the trunk of the car?

Plot
The show begins with Trick, Emma, Briar, Brian and Theo standing around the back of Theo’s Toyota Corolla. Emma begins to explain that the claw marks on Adisa Bellow’s chest was the cause of death. She also mentions that Adisa has been dead for 3-5 hours and most of her blood had already left her body before being placed in the trunk. The crew then continues discussing how to deal with the body and vote to go to the police station. The general plan was to go to the police and lie about where/how they found the body. They also once more discuss the implication of the cop on the road who came to give them the boost and the fact Trick mentioned to her that they were going to Adisa Bellow’s lecture. The crew once again also observes that they don’t have a signal on their cellphones and that the hospital lines might be down as well.

Indecision
The crew continues weighing their options and discuss dumping the body at the hospital, going off to bury the body somewhere or taking it to the police. When discussing hiding the body Trick notably mentions, “We could hide it. It’s the only option that doesn’t have a lot of complications. It does have some ethical... barriers, of course.” The group continues their discussion going in circles until a slightly fed up Trick asks Prof. Theo to hand him his keys. That’s when the crew remembers their additional friend Shadow Theo who has been standing behind them the whole time. As Theo gives his keys to Trick Shadow Theo mimes dropping keys into Trick’s outstretched hand. Trick then tells them he’ll go alone to the police station and will come back soon. No one believes that will work and Trick explains he just wanted to take the heat off the rest.

The discussion finally comes to the monitoring (or lack thereof) that the hospital might have of their predicament. Deciding they should all leave together they pile into the car. Brian, with his sprained ankle in the front seat, Trick driving Theo’s car, Briar on the Hump, Emma right behind Brian and Theo seated behind Trick. After Theo describes to Trick that he needs to pump on the gas three times before holding the keys for five seconds. It starts without a hitch but Shadow Theo just continues to stand there and stare at the car as he drives away.

Trick then mentions that the Shadow Figures might represent choices they have made or didn’t make which is met with some acceptance. Theo also mentions going to his study at Athmore University to look into these odd Shadow Figures. Trick also half-jokingly asks whether or not they need to stop anywhere on the way to the police. Brian marks an interest to go to a convenience store for something (notably not for the prescription he has for pain killers) and the Briar fumes about rolling up to the police station with a dead body and white chocolate mochas. Emma badgers Brian about his drinking problem by mentioning the mouthwash she has in her purse.

As they pull up into the police station they see an assortment of Shadow Figures. Briar sees five Shadow Figures, One appearing to be Shadow Theo, Facing the car off the sidewalk. Trick and Theo both see only three of the Shadow Figures. Trick waves at one of the Shadow Figures and the other waves back. He then says, “That was not a mirror. That was a direct response. I waved at one of them and they waved right back. Not like holding up a hand in the mirror, It was call and respond.” Emma mentions she can’t see them and Brian seems to be thinking about how to get his hand on hard liquor. Briar flips off the Shadowy Figures and they do nothing. After a quick jab at Trick’s profession they all get out of the car except Brian. All the Shadow Figures face the police station and act as if they are handcuffed. Spooked by the knowledge that the Shadow Figures represent themselves getting arrested, they climb back into the car within sight of the Police cameras and with the intent to head to Trick’s House.

Before they leave the police station Theo focuses on the Shadow Figures and his companions. Using his Aura Sight, he is able to determine the various Aura’s of both parties; Bright Green for Theo, Brian’s is Red, Briar is Yellowish Orange, Purple for Trick and Blue for Emma. Theo keeps the observation of aura’s hidden from the rest as they make their way to Trick’s Home.

Perfect Place to Live
Trick’s home resembling a plantation house but not palatial with a nice balcony and porch. He has a fenced in yard with some Feng Shui shit, pool and hot tub. There are no neighbors within eyesight of the property and there seems to be a wooded area nearby. The home is located in a wealthier area near the town’s lake. Trick drives Theo’s car into his three-car garage and everyone disembarks. Trick tells everyone to make themselves at home while Briar is freaking out. Trick admits he’s, “dying on the inside” and mentions he doesn’t see the stuff happening around him as “Not quite real.” The first of many paranoid checks for the contents of Theo’s trunk begins.

Theo can only think about the Slender Man. Some sort of internet meme. Trick proposes someone to study the body a little more but no one seems very willing to touch the Body. Briar mentions the Shadow Man from when she grew up to have claws like knives and not like the Shadow Figures that resemble themselves. She also admits that the last time she saw the Shadow Man since college in Maine. The body in the Trunk looks Blue to Theo due to his ongoing Aura Sight. Trick begins to dig through Adisa’s pocket and finds a small necklace whose clasp has been broken. The small pendant the necklace had was small and gold with an engraving of a giant tree trunk with the top of the tree missing. Seems fragile. Trick tries to Anal Eyes it for more details and realizes the markings were scratched into the metal and not made in a mold. The other side of the pendant seems flat and untouched.

Theo takes the locket from Trick and begins to examine it as well. He comes to the conclusion that this isn’t the type of jewelry Adisa wore. Emma jokes about the pendant being placed on her by the killer. They come to the conclusion that the necklace was too small for all the bruising on Adisa’s throat. In fact, the throat looks to have been bound by some sort of thick cord that take up 80% of her neck. Also happened post-mortem. Emma also brings up the freakish limbs patients that are under her care but are alive despite their strenuous circumstances. Then she touches the cuts tenderly and everything goes wrong.

Bloody Whispers and A Moment of Reflection
Emma begins to hear whispering in her ear and feels a sudden maddening pain in her chest as a giant bloody gash appears. She starts screaming “That was the first cut! That was the first cut!” and backs away from Adisa’s body. When she does there appears to not be a cut on her chest and no one else saw this phantom cut on her chest. She continues to answer Trick who is trying to calm her down. "I didn't see it. I felt it, it happened! I felt it, it happened! It's in my chest! It cut me!" She then clarifies that the one cut she felt seemed to be the first cut and felt like hot fire. Then freaking out once again says, “She bled. I bled. I felt the fucking blood! I bled. I fucking bled out of my chest! I bled out of a wound! I fucking felt it." Briar then mentions to Emma that, “Bet it doesn’t feel fake now, does it Emma?”

Trick finally managing to calm everybody leads them all into the house and offers multiple vices to cope with this maddening day. Theo closes the trunk to his car and brings the pendant with him in the palm of his hand. Emma goes to the bathroom where Xanax is located at Trick’s direction, Theo gets pointed to the coffee, Brian gets pointed towards the Liquor Cabinet and Briar is with Theo getting some coffee. Brian grabs a bottle of Whiskey from the cabinet and begins to indulge in it on Trick’s couch before anyone was even situated. As he partakes in the whiskey something odd happens, Brian’s leg starts to feel better. He also notices that all of the bottles in the liquor cabinet are completely untouched. Theo makes way too strong coffee in Tricks kitchen which Briar takes a cup of and adds some whiskey to it, which calms her nerves.

In the mean time Emma is snooping in the guest bathroom and realizes that Trick doesn’t have a lot of guests in his home due to the contents of the medicine cabinet. The house seems too perfect, like it’s expecting guests but never has any. Emma goes through the medical cabinet to grab a small pair of scissors and immediately pulls up her sleeves and stabs herself with them. Upon closer inspection you can see similar scars all along her fore arms. After popping four Xanax, getting cleaned up and readjusting her shirt she goes and joins the others.

Upstairs, Trick has a moment to himself. It’s revealed he isn’t doing so well as he reveals his sweat stained undershirt and vomits in the toilet. He takes his glasses and hat on before looking in the mirror fighting back tears. He tells himself, "You need to keep it together brother. Just keep it together. You have to be the voice of reason for all these people. You have to be the calm head. Change your shirt, splash some water on your face, and get back out there. You got this. You're Trick-motherfucking-Magnum. You don't back away from anything." He then changes his shirts after splashing some water on his face and goes back downstairs a little more composed.

When Trick reaches the living room, he sees everyone sitting in silence and thinking silently about their predicament. Trick checks on Brian who feels oddly numb. Not the numbness he usually feels but the fact that his ankle is perfectly fine. No bruising. No pain. Just nothingness. (He fails an unnatural stress check and gets a point towards his Awakening). He puts the empty bottle of whiskey on the floor beside the couch and ignores Trick’s inquiry. Trick then picks up the bottle and realizes that Brian had drunk the whole damn thing. Trick then admits to never touching the Whiskey he had partaken of before putting the bottle in the recycling. Emma, returning from the washroom at this moment goes and grabs the coffee with an odd cheeriness. Asking where the kitchen is Trick tells her to, “Follow your nose like Toucan Sam.” Briar notes that Xanax shouldn’t work as well as it did for Emma.

The living room has a big new sectional and a huge 4k screen TV on the wall. Emma remarks how clean the house looks even if it seems so unused. Briar keeps an eye on the new upbeat personality of Emma as they begin the discussion on what the hell they do next.

Guiltless Crime
The discussion begins with a Multi-verse theory about how the Shadow Figures look just like them. Trick suggests, "Picture that. All the different universes, all around. And then the intersection, in the middle there -- maybe that's where we are. And all those little universes are meeting at this point, in this time, in this place." After a little more discussion, Briar quickly changes the subject to the dead body in the trunk of Theo’s car whom brings up that the body is probably related to the Shadow Figures. Talking about the Body, Brian suggests they bury the body in Tricks yard and plant some bushes in the yard from the Greenery. Emma suggests stealing a vat of acid from the Hospital which she apparently, she has done similar shit before. Theo suggests throwing the body in the lake and weighing it down with cement blocks. Trick mentions breaking into the Crematorium and finally Briar mentions dumping the Body in the Woods by Half-Way Road. All of these suggestions are shot down for one reason or another as Trick goes to grab the newspaper from his front door.

As he goes on his front porch, he sees some Shadow Figures “digging” a hole beside his house. He takes note and then looks at the obituary section in the newspaper for anyone to be interred soon. He comes across a Nathaniel Greene who died at the age of 22. Survived by Mother, Father and Younger sister. After asking if Trick has cable/TV he borrows Trick’s computer to look up Doctor Adisa Bellow. It turns out Trick has crazy good wifi and that apparently the lecture did finish. Theo then asks Trick if he has a landline to which he responds “No.” and they all check for Cell Service which is a negative. Theo then mentions to the rest of them that the lecture went on without them. Trick checks the time on the desktop to fine a familiar date and time, 4:30 on February 13th.

Briar suggests that Theo shoot Adisa Bellow an E-mail. After some discussion they make an anonymous E-mail address to not arouse suspicion from the authorities. Theo under the name RandyFranko345 (set up by a tech savvy Trick. Theo writes, “Bellow, Do you have any new lectures coming up? I missed your last one and am hoping to catch the next. -Randy Franko” As Theo sends the e-mail a similar whispering sound with a hint of Adisa Bellow’s voice creeps into his mind for about 15 seconds even though he can’t understand what they said. E-mail sent; they return to the living room with Randy Franko left open on the desktop.

After some math they determine that Adisa Bellow should have by all rights been dead several hours before the lecture according to Emma. Trick tries to persuade Emma into touching Adisa Bellow again to try and get another glint of the murder. After she outright refuses Trick mentions his grand plan to get rid of the body of Adisa by sneaking her body into Nathaniel Greene waiting coffin.

The group then begins to plan our how to bury a body in the cemetery without being caught. Trick does a search for Nathaniel Greene and finds his twitter handle. There is a good number of messages that send condolences for his loss but nothing else important. Trick snoops around a little more and finds out that Nathaniel Greene did commit suicide via firearm.

As this is going on Briar looks out towards the back yard to find Trick’s dogs out in the back yard just hanging out. They have collars but aren’t tied/chained to anything. Briar brings up Tricks dogs who appear to be mutts. One being something like a Golden Retriever and the other par Terrier. He mentions picking them up from the paper as he approaches their food bowl. It seems completely untouched which Trick finds quite odd as they usually have quite the appetite. He then realizes Trick hasn’t been hungry even after the amount of time that should have passed. Everyone else mentions how they aren’t hungry either and Brian mentions how he’s drunk.

Brian starts pacing around the room and starts thinking about Trick’s idea and mentions he knows the gravedigger who works at the Cemetery. He mentions that the plan should work and Briar expresses that they should just get rid of the body already. Trick starts wondering about how the Hospital Employees are understanding 4:30 and whether or not they would perceive time passing even as the world is “frozen”. Emma mentions going to the Hospital and they all head to the Escalade to inquiry about the Hospital. Theo mentions how someone should stay with the bo- his car. Brian says he’d be willing to stay with Theo to keep an eye on the E-mail for a response.

Trick then calls his dogs in the house and starts playing with them a little. He tells them to watch over the two men and to not let Brian drink all the booze. It starts to rain. Tricks dogs seem nervous to the new people in his house but seem very well trained. The smaller one seems to follow the larger dogs lead.

Habit Forming
Before they leave, Trick feels compelled to check Theo’s Trunk. As he goes to open the trunk whispering enters his mind. As he goes to put the key in the trunk lock he begins to hear pounding from the trunk. Startled he shouts and tosses the keys by accident towards the garage door. The others follow Trick to see him freaking out. Then a voice come from the trunk saying, “Let me out! Let me out of the trunk RIGHT NOW! I’m going to call the cops[1]!” Trick then scrambles for the keys and shakily raises it to the trunk. The pounding continues. Trick tries to reassure the voice who responds, “Please let me out of the trunk! Please!” Yet when he opens the trunk it looks like nothing/no one is inside.

Theo attempts to use his Aura Sight but is not composed enough to see anything. The body is gone, no blood. Then Trick reaches inside of the Trunk and he feels a cold fleshy feeling. Trick jumps back from the trunk then asks Theo to feel around for the bottom of the trunk. Theo mentions how he doesn’t really want to do that. With pendant in his pocket, Theo reaches out to touch the space in the trunk. He feels the cold clammy skin of someone’s arm. Then he disappears.

Knocking on Heaven’s Door
Briar freaking out starts feeling around the bottom of the trunk and feels the body. Trick starts calling out for Theo in hopes for some sort of response. In the chaos, Briar fails an Unnatural Check while Trick, Emma and Brian (boosted by something) all are hardened towards the Unnatural. Briar runs back into the house to check the E-mail. Brian says out loud “Professor if you can hear us whack on the car!” Emma begins to respond how ludicrous that suggestion is when there is a knock on the roof of Theo’s Toyota Corolla. Trick begins to ask the Professor some questions, “One knock means ‘Yes’, Two means ‘No’.”

Q: Are you alright where you are Physically?

A: No response.

Q: Can you hear me, professor?

A: One knock.

Q: Can you see us, professor?

A: Two Knocks.

Q: Can you see anything professor?

A: One Knock.

Q(Emma): Can you see the body?

A: Two Knocks.

Q: Are you in the garage?

A: Two Knocks.

Briar comes back from checking the E-mail with no new updates at this point.

Q(Briar): Professor can you see shadows? Can you see something we’ve seen today?

A: One, Solid and Loud, Knock

Q: Are they trying to harm you?

A: Two Knocks.

Q(Briar): Are they helping you?

A: No knocks.

Q(Emma): Are we in trouble?

A: No Knocks.

Q: Are you still there professor?

A: One Knock

Q(Briar): Are they in here with us?

A: No Knocks.

After some speculation about the pendant.

Q(Emma): Touch the necklace!

A: No knock.

Q: Is where you are familiar to you?

A: One Knock.

Q: Are you in somebodies’ home?

A: Two knocks.

Q: Are you in a building where people work?

A: Two knocks.

Q: Are you outside?

A: One Knock.

Q: Are you in… the graveyard?

A: Two Knocks.

Q(Emma): Are you in the woods?

A: One knock.

Q(Briar): Are y-you where we broke down?

A: One solid knock.

Q(Briar): Is it 4:30 professor?

A: Yes.

The crew then decides to pile into the Escalade and head towards Half-Way road to try and find Theo. Trick pops inside for a second to get Brian a bottle of Whiskey but feels a pull towards a bottle of Scotch instead. He grabs it and hands it to Brian within one of his many paper bags. Brian stows the scotch in the glove compartment out of pure habitual motions. Trick checks on his dogs one last time and lets them know the doggie door is open for them to go and take business. Trick lets everyone into the Escalade and starts driving. Brian let’s Emma into the passenger’s seat while feeling bad for recent freak outs. Before going down half-way road Trick pulls out his phone and starts a stop watch to record the time passing them by. He also takes a picture of the odometer.

Not Alone in the Woods
We cut to Theo standing in the middle of the road with an odd bit of rain that isn’t permeating and a bunch of fog. His car is sitting in front of him and there doesn’t appear to be anything around him at first. Theo does hear some voices in the distance behind him. With that bit of information Theo uses his Aura Sight but finds it really hard to focus at the moment. He usually clears the mind and focuses inward before seeing the unseen which he discovered one day while reading. At the moment though he can’t seem to relinquish enough control. Theo asks “Hello?” out into the foggy sky. There seems to be a conversation on the other side of the car but no one is answering.

Theo opens the door to his car which seems to always be unlocked and the keys are in the ignition. He tries to turn the car over but to no avail and takes the keys out of the ignition. Theo is a little freaked out but succeeded his Unnatural Check. Theo then goes and checks the trunk of his car to find once again the body of Adisa Bellow just as he remembered her. Her eyes are open and staring at him. Theo takes the pendant out and observes it to see if it has changed at all. Using his uncanny sight, he comes to the conclusion that nothing has changed. The pendant upon observation resembles those flattened penny collectible coins. Checking the left pocket Trick originally took the pendant from he finds the Adisa’s pocket to be completely empty.

At this moment Theo suddenly hears Brian saying, “I don’t want your piss-mittens on me!” from over the barrier to Theo’s right. Theo then mutters something about how fuckey time is and begins to trace the strange sketch in his right pocket. As he fingers the sketch for comfort and calming himself down a little bit he comes to the sudden realization that he’s hearing the conversation between Brian and Briar had earlier over the wall. However, he finds it to be a little off the position of the Shadow Figures. He then says out loud, “How many times has this happened?” He then comes to the conclusion he has done this before. He then puts the pendant back into Adisa’s pocket. As he does so a Black Escalade pulls up behind him.

It’s a Long Road Home
Two and a half hours projected on the stop watch Twich sees Theo’s broken-down shitty car. “Well, fuck me. The Professors car right there. Don’t know why I’m surprised.” Trick then offers to let anyone out and continues to drive towards the broken-down vehicle. They all see Theo standing there by the trunk of his car. He honks to Theo who waves towards him. Trick rolls down his window and asks if that’s actually the Professor. Theo replies, “How many times have you done this?” He then mentions how he feels like he’s done these many times. Trick gets out for a smoke to find once again Trick and Brian have swapped cigarettes. They trade them back and start to smoke, Trick outside the Escalade and Brian dumbfound has his sagging on his lips. Emma observes the stop watch is at 2 hours and 45 seconds have passed but the clock in the car still reads 4:30.

Theo mentions he never tried to communicate with the people in the garage after he disappeared by knocking on the roof of his car. He also mentions the conversation he did overhear from the past. Both Trick and Briar can hear what Theo is saying and Trick questions if Theo saw an image of himself pissing at the spot they are standing in. Theo then mentions that the body Is in the trunk again and no one can see the Shadow Figures as the voices are coming beyond the barrier. Trick checks for service and sees he has it. He then tries to call his own voicemail to see if it works. The automated voice says, “You’ve reached Henry, Leave a message.” Trick leaves a message that says, "Trick, this is Trick. If you're getting this, I hope it's tomorrow. If it's not tomorrow, it's still today, and you're still fucked. But if you do get this, why don't you give me a call back? Alright. Love you. Bye." Right after hanging up his cellphone rings. The exact message comes over the cellphone but sounds a little distant.

As they stand there listening to the message on speaker phone a police car rolls to a stop in front of the Corolla. A male officer gets outside of the car and says. “You called for a jump?

End of Episode