After Sundown 1e

Cliché as it may be, it was a dark and stormy night. It could not have been elsewise, for the shadowy figures climbing the exterior wall of the office had waited for precisely such an occasion in order to make their ingress. It was their intension to take files that they believed were stored therein, and for this they needed to be protected from being overseen or overheard.

It had been two weeks back that Freddy had gotten the tip that these offices kept strange hours and were probably smuggling something, and after he'd gotten his gang to scope the place out, he was pretty sure that smuggling was the least of the issues. Men and women coming in and out at odd times of the day and night, rolled carpets going in thick in the night and coming out thin in the morning. People walking out who had not been spotted walking in since the surveillance started. There was a mystery going on, and Freddy was pretty sure the answers were inside this building.

Freddy wrestled the window open with more noise than he had hoped for, but behind the constant hiss of wheels on wet asphalt and the incessant patter of rain no one in the city seemed to notice or care. Once the aperture was enough for his muscular frame, he pulled himself in, with his assistant Velma close behind. The room inside was filthy and rank. It smelled like a refrigerator that hadn't been opened in some time, and piles of clothing and discarded packaging littered the floor. As his eyes accustomed themselves to the gloom, he began to make out... squash? The faint yellow light reflected and refracted from street lights through a million tiny prisms of water gave the soft outlines of some kind of growing operation. Pots, vines, and some kind of big fruit lined every shelf. He leaned over to get a closer look...

As Velma squeezed herself through the window, she felt a slight tug on the lodestone she wore tied to a string bracelet. That was odd, and she started to comment on it "Jinkrrrk-!" was all that came out as Freddy suddenly grabbed her by the neck. She could feel his powerful hands clamp down on her throat and began flailing her fists into his arms and torso with what strength she had left. The pounding made a muffled sound like dropping a steak on a counter, but he showed no predilection for loosening his grip to protect himself from the counter assault.

He looked at her purpling face with genuine interest, but what came out of his mouth was the most surprising part of the ghastly situation yet. "Now, huu maiyt you beee?" he inquired as if the words themselves were in an alien tongue. The wounds being inflicted on his body might have been of just passing interest and he genuinely seemed to not recognize Velma at all. And then realization dawned on her as she saw that the lodestone was pointing directly to Freddy.

She hoped the rest of the gang was having better luck, because the prospect of being made a puppet for some alien thing was not part of her plan. But even then she did not give up hope for herself, because there was still a chance she could reach her pocket...