shitless, and that fear had to go somewhere. It had all funneled into 
Sloth's Pit's personal bogeyman. The best way to get rid of any 
bogeyman was with five words: 


"I'm not afraid of you," Montgomery growled. He forced himself to 
believe it. "I'm afraid of what's happened to this town, of what's 
going to happen. I'm afraid of what's going to happen to her if | don't 
get her medical attention. I'm afraid of what will happen if | never tell 
her that | love her. But | am not. Afraid. Of you." 


The Goatman stumbled, stuttered, its form shimmering, before its 
axe hit the ground and vanished, and it stood before them with white 
fur, trimmed with red, one pair of horns and a face with yellow, 
hourglass eyes. 


It collapsed to its knees and groaned, retching. Montgomery 
Reynolds wondered if Tulpa could vomit. "Oh my god," The 
Goatman slumped against a tree, tongue hanging out. "Now | know 
how Coyote feels. Damn that stings." 


Katherine stood up, and stumbled, leaning against Monty to look him 
over. "...we could very well contain you, you know. Just... stop you, 
right here. Bring you back to the site." 


".,.you have worse to worry about than me," The Goatman stood up, 
rising gradually from the legs up, straightening its back, then its 
arms, then its neck to look at them. "This is bad. What happened in 
town is as bad as... what you did. To the camp." 


"We're not responsible for this," Montgomery held up his hand in 
parley. "We can assure you of that." 


"| Know. This is something from before you came here. | barely 
remember it myself." The Goatman rubbed his face. "The Black 
Autumn. We all agreed to forget it. 1969." He laughed. "What did 
Linus used to wait for? | can't even remember," he clutched his head 
in his hands and kept laughing. "Why am | laughing? It was 
godawful. We all agreed to forget. And we did." 


Katherine almost asked ‘forget what’, but then realized the utter 
idiocy of that question. 


"All | can tell you is that the worst is yet to come." He shivered, and 
entered the stone hut, crouching down in the doorway. "You need to 
stay as far away from the woods as you can. All of you. We... we're 
glad you got the town out safe." He picked up a tin can from a pile in 
the corner of the hut and chewed it anxiously. "I'm not the only thing 
that's awake in the woods." 


"Dr. Sinclair!" a voice called. 


"Reynolds!" another shouted. Members of Sigma-10, come looking 
for them. 


"Go," the Goatman said. "Tell them. The Black Autumn is coming 
again." 


The pair of them nodded, and limped towards the group of lights 
flashing through their trees and calling their names. After a while, 
Katherine spoke up. "We're adults, Monty. You don't need to beat 
around the bush." 


"I'm a decade older than you." 


"Seven years," she mused. "My mother married a man a ten years 
her elder. And you're... well, you're not that great at hiding feelings." 
She shifted against him. "I've known for years. And... well, | wouldn't 
mind sharing some unprofessional time with you." 


Reynold's lips quirked into something resembling a tired smile. "If 
you feel that way," he said, "We can find some relationship 
declaration forms. | haven't filled one out in six years, however." 


"They updated it," she sighed. "You have to list any anomalous 
properties or conditions you possess now. | have one from two 
months ago in the lab." 


Montgomery looked at the sunset. "Let's sign it over some mead, 
then? | still have some reserve from the Black Garden." 


"Sounds nice," she smiled, resting up against him. "Thanks." 


The two of them walked into the beams of the flashlights. They 
would get rest, get their injuries treated. Then, they would do what 


they had wanted to do for years. 


«Chapter 1| Black Autumn Hub | Chapter 3» 


Pictures of Plastic People 


October 21st 


Isaiah Howard Pickman dragged himself out of the archives for the 
first time in twenty hours. The man was no more than forty, but 
years of working in the dark, retrieving this and that for Researcher 
A or Agent B had taken its toll, nevermind the hassle it was to 
digitize the collection that Site-87 had. But, after several long, 
drawn-out hours, he had made his way out of the archives with what 
he needed. 


Dr. Sinclair was likely still asleep after the predicament yesterday. In 
a perfect world, he'd just drop off the data and get set up to watch 
the World Series in a couple of days— 


Instead, he ran into somebody who, in Pickman's opinion, was 
rather unpleasant. Before him was a tall, young man with salt-and- 
pepper hair that defied his age. He was lanky, borderline skeletal, 
and wore a pair of glasses so thick it made it look like his eyes were 
masked by shadow. The man looked down at Pickman with just the 
slightest amount of animosity. "Isaiah." 


"Claude," he retorted, shoving past him. "Move it. | have 
documentation | need to deliver to Dr. Sinclair." 


"She's resting," Dr. Mattings intoned. "She has three IV drips 
connected to her, and Reynolds is still getting stitches. Dumbshit 
opened up his arm to shoot fire." 


Isaiah wondered, like many other people who worked at S & C 
Plastics, what Dr. Pike saw in Mattings. Cassandra Pike was (past 
tense being the operative term here), by all accounts, a trainwreck of 
a human being. Between being whammied by 3773 so hard she had 
to take a quarter of a year off to a very large, very nasty fight 
between her and Dr. Mattings, she should have been fired a dozen 
times over. Yet, every time, Dr. Mattings vouched for her, and his 


word meant a lot; he was, currently, the deputy director of biological 
studies at Site-87, and parazoology fell under that purview. If he said 
Pike was invaluable, then by god, she was. 


Still, Pike had gotten better. Medication and therapy had seemed to 
help her out. Mattings was anything but mellow; his face screamed 
"sarcastic", and that was the general tone of his conversation as 
well, sometimes hurtfully so. 


Isaiah pushed past him. "Yes, well, they both asked me to look up 
something for them." 


"Autumn of 1969," Mattings walked with him. "Miracle Mets win the 
World Series, Wal-Mart is established as a company, and the whole 
country is still reeling from the fact that Apollo happened." He 
crossed his arms. "The... Unclassed Anomalous Entity, they said 
that this was worse than the Great Fuck-Up of '76?" 


"You're hearing it thirdhand," Pickman shrugged. "But according to 
them, yes." He opened the file he was carrying. "From what | can 
gather, a few things happened in Sloth's Pit in 1969. Biggest is the 
Douglas County Fair." 


"Just that?" 


"Couple of other things; local kid's author puts out a new book, 
‘Uncle Zadok’, doesn't sound very pleasant. The mayor resigned, 
which was unexpected." He leafed through the papers. "Finally, a 
fire gutted Berry's Restaurant. Should have stayed gone, if you ask 
me." 


"Their food would probably taste better as ash shoveled into your 
mouth," Claude admitted, leaning against the wall. "The fair in 
Sloth's Pit? Really?" 


"Yeah, they moved it to Superior the next year. A few newspaper 
clippings I've found talk about just... typical fair stuff." He leafed 
through the folder. "Candy apple booth being shut down because of 
high demand and low supply, reviews of the horse show, interviews 
with some of the animal keepers, and a Chevy truck being stolen at 
the fairgrounds.” He pointed to a particular piece. "Check this out." 


“New Girl Scout Cookies a Hit in Sloth Spit’. Good to know they 
made that mistake even back then." Mattings read further, brow 
quirking. "Wait, seriously? They tested Samoas here?" 


"I'm as surprised as you are." He closed the folder, only for a 
photograph to fall out of it. "Shit, grab that!" 


Mattings grabbed at the photo; it was a Polaroid, black and white. 
He peered at the picture, his eyes going wide. "I think you got a 
photo from the wrong section." 


"Why?" Pickman doubled back and looked at the photo. "No, see, 
written on the bottom, 10/31/69." 


"This photo doesn't make sense," Claude swallowed. The 
photograph showed a fire engulfing the front of the fairgrounds, and 
within it, one could almost make out a hellish, screaming face. Fire 
trucks were around it, dousing the blaze, but there was also a van 
among them, with a man next to it holding a camera towards the fire. 
"Look." 


The lights in the hall flickered, and Pickman's eyes widened. "What 
the hell?" He snatched the photo back and stuffed it in the folder. "I-I 
need to get to Weiss's office. We need to figure out what the hell this 
means." He ran off down the hall. 


Claude Mattings ran after him, practically skidding around the 
corner, turning the hall into where the elevator should be— only to 
find reality significantly altered from its previous state. 


Before him and the archivist lay collection of tents and barns and 
stalls, with the sound of screaming children playing in the 
background; screams of excitement, not of terror, like they were on 
a roller coaster as opposed to having their skin flayed off. There was 
a night sky above the fairground, and the stars of autumn shone 
overhead, somehow visible through the thousands of lights from the 
carnival. Signs advertising funnel cakes and elephant ears and 
candied apples and kettle corn and cotton candy lined what had 
once been the walls of the site, and on top of everything else, there 
was the smell of animals; horses, poultry, cattle, all of this mixed 
together in the background of the fair. 


When the two of them turned around again, they saw that this 
phenomenon had extended behind them. "Holy shit," Pickman 
swore "Holy shit, what the hell?" 


"Were the Fairgrounds on Site-87's land?" Mattings asked, backing 
away and bumping up against a food stand. 


"No. They were way up at the north end of town." Pickman held his 
folder snug against him. "What do we do now?" 


"We follow Grimm Countenance protocols. Refuse any food or drink 
from here, don't question the native's motives, and try to find the exit 
as soon as possible." He walked down the row of food stands. 


"Mattings?" Pickman followed behind him. 
"What?" 


"There are no natives. This place is abandoned.” He looked in each 
of the food stalls. All of them were empty. 


"Hmm." Mattings peered into the funnel cake and pretzel stand's 
window. "Signs of recent habitation, though. Fryer's on, and the 
batter for the cakes was being prepared." 


"And there's that," Pickman pointed at the air, as the sound of a 
rumbling ride and excited screams filled the space of the park once 
again. "So, something's here, or else we're being fucked with." He 
pulled away from the booth, and began walking. "I'm willing to bet it's 
the la—" 


Suddenly, Pickman tripped over a cable on the ground, and fell flat 
on his face, hands flailing to catch himself, eliciting a gasp of pain as 
his nose hit the dirt. 


"What is this?" Mattings stepped forward, looking at the thing on the 
ground. It was connected to a generator, rumbling away, powering 
all of the stands, but it wasn't any plastic cord; it appeared to be a 
vine. He took out a pocket knife and cut out a slice of the vine, 
placing it in a sample bag retrieved from his pocket. 


"Mmph," Pickman stood up, rubbing his head. He noticed a candied 


filled with running water, which flows rapidly in the direction of the 
double doors, parallel to the long sides. The water is somehow 
contained within the object and does not pass through the side door, 
which is otherwise entirely permeable; solid matter passes through 
easily and can be used to draw out water. This appears to be a two- 
level binary switch dimensional anomaly; i.e, when the side door is 
open, SCP-812 remotely accesses a 12m section of an otherwise 
normal body of running water. When the side door is closed, the 
object behaves more or less as a normal cargo container. 


In the event that both sets of doors are opened at once, all water 
passing through SCP-812 will flow out the double doors. This will 
quickly fill any space in which the object is stored, at which point 
pressure will be neutralized and normal flow will resume, passing 
through the object and vanishing where the double doors would be 
ordinarily. Any water outside the object will become stagnant. The 
side door continues to act as an impermeable membrane, and water 
will not pass through it under any circumstances save when it is 
forcibly drawn out. Closing the side door will halt the flow of water. 


The current is fairly consistent, hovering around 1500 L per minute, 
and has very low turbidity despite the object's corrugated interior. 
Tests have shown that the water is not saline but is quite rich in 
dissolved minerals (around 240 mg/L - 40% Ca2+, 40% CO3?-, 5% 
Mg2+, 5% SO4?, 5% Fe3+, and 5% PO,3-). This composition 
strongly suggests that it is part of a subterranean river system. No 
ambient light is evident within the stream, and GPS tracers released 
into the stream simply vanish from detection, corroborating this 
hypothesis. Preparation is currently underway for an unmanned 
expedition to explore the river system; the current is far too swift to 
dive safely. 


No connection is evident between SCP-812 and SCP-109. 


GENERAL MISSIVE 812-a: 

Researchers and general staff should keep in mind that all flood 
cleanup will be entirely manual. SCP-402 is far too valuable to use 
for simple labor reduction, so stop asking for it. Do us all a big favor, 
and just be more careful in the future. 

- Dr. Swanson, Supervisor 3-221, Site 19 


apple booth before him, which had a slightly rotten sign reading 
‘Sorry, Closed’. "Yeah. This is... some kind of version of the 
fairgrounds. No idea how to get out, though." He chewed his lip, and 
looked around. "If | had to guess, the exit is somewhere..." He 
started down the rows of food stands. "This way." 


"...huh." Mattings pushed his glasses higher on his face, and strode 
after Pickman. "Well, lead on, MacDuff." 


The two of them wound through the labyrinth of food carts, and the 
stars seemed to start to flicker out overhead. 


The smell of animals grew stronger the further on they went. The 
hoofprints on the ground and the large piles of scat by the side told 
Mattings that they were near the horse stables. From here, he could 
hear the sounds of horses nickering and cows letting out mooing 
sounds. Even so, the carnival music grew louder. 


"So," Pickman coughed. "You and Pike?" 


"Wedding's in February," Claude nodded. "Took us months to get 
the forms. We're probably just going to do it at the courthouse in 
Superior, honestly. She doesn't much care for silk or finery, and her 
family couldn't give less shits about me." 


Silk and finery? Pickman frowned. Who talks like that? 
"Ever been married?" 


"| was, once." Isaiah rubbed his hand. "Right out of college. She was 
beautiful, blond hair, brown eyes, a smile that could blind a man. 
But... it didn't last for more than a year." 


"Why?" 


"She got pregnant." He rubbed his beard. "| realize how that sounds, 
believe me. But | had some tests done the previous year and... well, 
found out | was sterile." He sucked air through his teeth. "| sued for 
divorce as soon as | found out. Still had to pay alimony." 


"Hmm," Claude thumbed his nose. "Well, Cassandra and | aren't 


intending on having children anytime soon. Or at all. | hate kids—" 


These last words elicited a response of silence. All of the animals 
stopped braying and knickering and clucking as they came into view 
of the various barns on the fairground. Sitting in front was the first 
sure sign of human habitation they had seen: a red pickup truck, 
parked in front of the horse barn. Pickman walked towards it. 


"What are you doing?" Claude asked.