I climb out of the car and yell out towards the rambler. “Weno! Is everything okay in there?”
Moment’s later the door opens. Weno is standing before me in a disheveled state of anxiety, her hair messy and her eye’s wild. It looks as though she might have been crying, but I can’t quite tell.
“Mind if I come in?” I ask, now realizing that I need to be delicate with my line of questioning moving forward. Something strange is definitely going on here, and it’s likely all happening somewhere deep down within Weno’s own mind.
I walk up the front steps and my old friend gives me a hug. “I’m so glad you’re here,” she offers with a grave sincerity. “I need your help, Bop.”
“I know, I know,” I assure her, “I’ll see what I can do.”
We head inside and immediately my desire for calm is put to the test. Around the living room are hundreds of hanging butt plugs, ranging from massive and black to tiny, rainbow-colored. They are dangling from the ceiling on strings, seemingly at random other than the assortment of anal sex toys positioned over painted letters on the far wall. The entire alphabet is scrawled there.
“What is all this?” I ask, trying to keep the tone of my voice as even as possible.
“It’s how my husband has been talking to me,” explains Weno. “Porp is somewhere on the other side, but he’s communicating through these butt plugs.”
I’m not sure how to react to this, so I make the decision not to, instead taking a seat at the kitchen table. Weno sits down across from me, still deliriously frantic but trying her best to hold it together.
“So Porp was at a game night with his buddies?” I start. “Was that the last time you heard from him?”
Weno shakes her head.
“When was the last time you heard from him?” I continue.
“Right before you got here,” Weno admits.
I just stare at her blankly, utterly confused again but trying to remain as professional as possible.
“And how did he talk to you?” I ask, knowing exactly where this is headed.
“Through the butt plugs,” explains Weno.
I turn around in my chair and gaze out across the cluttered room, my eyes landing upon the wall with the painted letters. “Through that?” I question.
Weno nods.
“Well, can we talk to him now?” I ask, humoring her.
Weno nods again.
“Are you listening, Porp?” I yell out.
A deafening silence falls over the room. I keep my eyes looked onto the wall of letters, not exactly sure what to looks for.
“Where are you?” I continue.
Again, we are greeted by total silence. I’m just about ready to turn back around when suddenly there is a loud buzzing, making me jump in my chair with surprise. I stand up and walk over towards the wall for a better look, making sure that my eye’s are not deceiving me.
They aren’t.
One of the hanging butt plugs is vibrating hard, rattling against the wall as it hangs above the painted letter H. The vibration suddenly changes to the plug over the letter E, then R, then back to E.
“Here,” I say aloud, impressed but still skeptical about this whole thing.
“You see!” Weno announces loudly. “He’s talking to me!”
I turn back to face the women. “Are you sure they batteries aren’t just acting up in these things?”
“They don’t have batteries,” Weno informs me. “Those aren’t vibrators, they’re just butt plugs.”
I stare at the wall in shock, unable to fully comprehend this incredible occurrence of the supernatural. “How can we get to you?” I question the wall.
Suddenly, the butt plugs begin to buzz rapidly, spelling out an entire paragraph before us as we scramble to comprehend the whole thing. When it’s finally finished, it reads: Please don’t come looking for me. I am happy here. Just wanted you to know I was okay, but I will not be returning from the upside down realm.
Weno is shaking her head. “There’s gotta be some kind of mistake. That’s not really him! Someone is talking for Porp and trying to throw us off of the trail!”
I’m inclined to agree. Unless this other world is something truly spectacular, I can’t imagine why Porp wouldn’t want to return home to his beautiful, loving wife.
“I’ll find him,” I turn and tell my old friend. “I promise you that I will find him and I will bring him home.”
Weno nods as I head towards the door. I don’t trust the wall to give me any new information, but the term “upside down realm” made me immediately remember those odd voices on the radio from earlier.
Right as I’m about to leave, I spot the hole in the wall again. “What’s the from?” I question.
Weno hesitates. “Just be careful, Bopper. There’s monsters out there.”
Without another word, I leave, but her warning continues to swim in circles through my mind..
I climb into the police cruiser and flip on the radio, listening intently to the static as it cascades over itself in a strange repetition. There are no voices to make out at first, but the longer I listen the longer I begin to detect anomalies in the pattern, strange organic spikes in the radio feed.
I adjust the dial a bit, then finally stop when the same voice from before bursts through the buzz.
“We’ve got to get out there to the old power plant,” exclaims the voice. “That’s where the door to the other side is.”
Immediate, I spring into action, throwing the car into drive and then peeling out of the gravel driveway. I’m shooting down the
