Frederick Engelhardt wrapped his shirt around her leg the best he 
could, and carried her out, with Juliette Hobb supporting her torso. 
They ran into a hallway that had suddenly appeared outside, and at 
the other end, task force agents moved in. One of them called for a 
stretcher. 


Cassandra Pike's eyes closed, and she muttered an apology; not to 
the task force, not to Fred or Jules, but to the lonely-looking cat at 
the other end of the hall, sitting outside of Room 13. 


"Sorry, Oliver," she muttered. "Momma can't play with you right 
now." 


Cassandra Pike slumped in the arms of her colleagues. 


October 27th 


"How is she?" Frederick Engelhardt looked through the windows of a 
set of steel doors. 


"Bad," Claude Mattings wavered, resting against the wall in front of 
the operating room. "Really bad. They... they might be able to 
reconstruct the femur. Doc says he's never seen anything like it." He 
took off his glasses and rubbed them violently; salt residue had 
coated them. "You know how much force it takes to shatter a human 
femur?" 


"Will she live?" Juliette asked. 


"They got enough blood in her that she won't die from a severed 
artery, at least. And they got out the bone spur." He put his hands 
over his face, and shook. "We need to stop this. Now. We- we've 
almost got the whole picture." Claude pulled one hand down and 
formed it into a fist, his nails digging into his palm. "It... it was 
stopped before. We need to figure out how to stop it again. We 
have... we have to find Gideon." 


He glared at Hobb and Engelhardt with a glare that would kill a 
Basilisk. "We're going to show this thing why you don't screw with 
Sloth's Pit." 


« Chapter 7| Black Autumn Hub | Chapter 9 » 


It's Just A Jump To The Left 


October 28th 


The former house of Richard Gideon had been left abandoned in the 
middle of a wild apple orchard. Sloth's Pit had three different 
orchards in it, all of which were said to have been planted by John 
Chapman himself. This was the only one that saw no use, and as 
Squad 25 went through the orchard, they saw why. 


Seren Pryce stopped to inspect an apple dangling off of a low- 
hanging branch. It was solid black, but not rotten, and smelled 
sweeter than any apple that she had ever seen. It smelled like 
caramel, and the end of summer. "What the hell?" She muttered. 


"These things are freaky." Nicholas Ewell agreed, walking past her. 


"Does Partridge know about this?" She asked, pulling herself away 
from the tree. "Black apples. Kinda wonder what they taste like." 


"Probably nothin' good," Ewell walked alongside her through the 
rows of trees. Behind them was Raymond February, bundled up 
against the chill. The weather had gone from unnaturally warm to 
bitter, borderline wintry cold, and it seemed to be getting colder the 
closer they got to the house. 


February shivered, "Detecting a one degree Celsius temperature 
drop since we r-reached the perimeter of the property." 


"Possible spectral activity?" Ruby frowned. "Wouldn't surprise me." 


Robert Gideon's house was what came to mind when one thought of 
"haunted house". A three-story Victorian mansion with a large, 
peaked roof, bay windows, fading grey paint. In front of it, a single 
oak tree grew, its branches looming over the roof. "A ton of places in 
town are haunted. This is bound to be one of them." 


"Spectral, or... hmm." Pryce frowned. "What other kind of anomalies 
produce temperature drops?" 


"Some kind of wormhole?" Ewell hazarded. "I've been in Multi-U a 
couple of times when they were doing tests. Swear to god, it drops 
twenty degrees every time they fire up that damn thing. You see the 
produce?" 


"Yeah. Fucking freaky." Blake shuddered. "I've seen Arkansas black 
apples before, but those were just a... really dark red. This is 
something different." 


"Like something out of Snow White," Raymond agreed. He looked in 
through the windows of the house, his eyes going wide. "What the 


"What is it?" Blake looked in with him. "Holy—" 


The inside of the house was bustling with life. Kids were running 
about in badly-made masks, the kind of quality that a Peanuts 
character would wear circa 1970. A figure in a long, black robe stood 
over the children, before following them out of the room. Then, the 
scene flickered, and repeated. 


"Holy crow," Pryce swallowed. "Temporal anomaly?" 


Ewell looked into the front door, and frowned. "If it is, it might be 
confined to the window. I'm not seeing anything in here." 


"Hold on." Seren removed her rifle from her back and carefully 
detached the scope from it, looking through the glass. Through it, 
she saw the house transformed from dilapidation to grandeur, with 
Halloween decorations covering the outside. She whistled, and 
shook her head. "Yeah, shit. There's some kind of temporal effect 
going on." She turned around 360 degrees, and saw that the area of 
effect ended at the front doorstep. "I'm going to radio the Site and 
see if we can get Delta-t to come out here." 


Blake nodded, looking into his bag and removing a magnification 
visor from it. Ruby did the same, and found themselves looking into 
the past. Blake felt something tug at the back of his mind, and 


winced. "What the fuck?" 


"| felt it too," his sister groaned, rubbing her skull. The view through 
her visor flickered between the house decorated for Halloween, and 
the house as it stood today, dilapidated. "Oh shit." 


Blake winced, falling to the ground. "Guys!" He looked back at his 
squad mates. February tried to reach out to him. "Don't! | think— 
shit, | think we might be getting dragged back!" 


From the outside, the view was horrific. Layer by layer, the twins 
seemed to be disappearing, starting with their skin, then their 
muscles. They would occasionally flicker back into their time, before 
vanishing once more. "Just— get a time sink out here!" Ruby yelled. 
"We-we're gonna try to find—" 


With that, the Wonder Twins were gone from 2017, and found 
themselves elsewhen. 


October 28th, 1969 


Ruby and Blake hid below the front windows, their hearts racing. 
They talked to each other, silently, in a language only they could 
comprehend. A twitch of a brow, a quirk of the mouth, a certain 
pattern of blinking; they reasoned that it was just them being able to 
read each other's body language so well that they could talk without 
speaking. 


It was something a bit more complicated than that. 
Ruby? Blake looked at his sister. 
Yeah? 


| think we're a little screwed. He took out his pocket knife, and 
looked at the house behind him. The stone foundations were 
relatively soft, easy to carve something into. What should | say? 


Our initials, an-and maybe the date? It's uh. She looked around. 
October, obviously. If | had to guess, '69, because of course it is. 


We could see the past through some of the glass here. Ruby looked 
through her visor, and saw her squadmates pacing about. February 
looked especially concerned, and seemed to be praying, while Pryce 
was on the radio. / think they're waiting for a Time Sink. 87 has one 
in storage, right? 


Yeah. At least one. May be an older model, though. Blake creeped 
around to the side of the house. Let's try to do some recon. 


Yeah. We're gonna be stuck here for a bit. Might as well... find out 
what we can. 


The Time Sink arrived, carried in a pickup truck. It was an older 
model, developed by Xyank and co. some time ago, but it would 
serve its purpose well enough. 


Driving the truck was Alexander Carracos, whose head was siill 
bandaged from his encounter with a certain vampire. He had a tablet 
with him, trying to work out how to operate the sink. "Okay, uh... | 
gotta be honest." He looked at what was left of Squad-25. "| have no 
idea how this works." 


"I've seen one of these before." Ewell climbed into the bed of the 
truck. "Halloween 2015. You remember, the whole thing with the 
time ghosts caused by some kids jumping into that dumb well over 
and over?" He inspected the sink, and fiddled with a few knobs on it, 
before flipping a switch. 


A soft, pulsing hum echoed through the orchard. Pryce, warily, 
stepped onto the front stone steps of Gideon's former abode, and 
upon finding that she wasn't sucked into the past, gave a thumbs-up 
to Ewell and February. "We're good. Now we just..." She swallowed. 
"Shit, what do we do?" 


February looked into the window. "The scene's not repeating 
anymore. Put your scope up, see what you can see." 


"Right." Pryce brought her detatched scope to her eyes, and 
gasped, her jaw dropping open. "Oh. Oh my fucking god." 


Ruby and Blake looked through a window into what they thought 
was the house's parlor. Within, almost twenty children giggled and 
ran around, all in costumes. At a table in the center was a bow! filled 
with a black liquid; the smell was powerful enough that Blake could 
smell it through the closed window. 


Cider, he frowned. Black apple cider. 


So, we have a bunch of kids running around a house of a person 
associated with two child killers and a possible Sarkic cultist? Ruby 
shivered. | don't like this. 


That makes two of us. Ruby craned her neck to look further in, and 
saw... someone, in a hooded red robe, with a symbol of a black 
apple blossom embroidered on the chest. They were standing by a 
young girl, whose mask was off at the moment. Ruby's eyes went 
wide. That's Hubble's kid. 


What? 


His daughter, Eliza. | recognize it from the picture Mattings got. 
Blake looked uneasy. Are they... are... 


What a nice conversation you're having. 


A third party joined in. The twins’ hearts went cold. They turned 
around, and found themselves facing the inside of the house. 
Standing before them was a woman in a black veil, with rotten skin 
and eyes the color of the last light of summer. Standing by her was 
Richard Gideon, unhooded, a shotgun aimed at the pair of them. 


"Shit." Blake swallowed. 


"Uh." Ruby put her hands in the air. "| suppose it's too late to say 
‘trick-or-treat’ ?" 


"I'm afraid so." Gideon glowered at them. Something was wrong with 
him, and it took too long for either of them to realize: he was old. 
Almost impossibly old. The photograph Hastings had recovered was 
from maybe four days ago, and Gideon looked about sixty in it. Now, 
he looked closer to 300 years old. He coughed, and kept his 
shotgun trained on them. "I can't have you interrupting this. Clive, 


« SCP-813 | SCP-814 | SCP-815 » 


Zachary." 


Two pairs of arms wrapped themselves around the twins, putting 
them into chokeholds. There was something wrong with them, as 
well; their skin was wrinkled, old, dying. Ruby gasped for air. "What 
the hell are you?" 


"Old," Gideon coughed again. "And getting older. Mavra!" 


"Yes, lord?’ The Black Equinox had a hint of venom in her voice. 
Blake got the distinct feeling she didn't like being ordered around. 


"Begin the feast." 


"As you command." The Black Autumn flew through Ruby and 
Blake. 


They felt their souls scream as the sheer wrongness of whatever it 
was passed through their bodies. Ruby vomited on the floor, and 
looked over her shoulder. She realized she was looking into the 
parlor, where all the children had gathered. When she saw what was 
being done... 


She let out a scream of pure, eldritch horror. 


Seren Pryce had seen horrible things in her tenure as a Foundation 
agent. She'd shot a zombified Josef Stalin in the head. She'd had 
her arm broken by a tentacle of spaghetti summoned by a pissed-off 
Horizon Initiative agent. She'd grazed a werewolf in the back and 
watched it impale itself on a totem pole. 


None of that compared to what she was seeing now. The parlor was 
cloaked in darkness, and standing at the center was the Black 
Equinox. She had dozens of black, oily tendrils coming from her 
body, and each one pierced the body of a child. All nineteen of them 
fell to the floor, limp, as Mavra Isimeria began, for lack of a better 
term, feeding on them. 


Their bodies withered and rotted, and from their forms emerged 
snakes and centipedes and all other manner of horrifying things. 
One child was conscious enough to pull away his mask, revealing 


that his head was swelling and becoming bright orange. His eyes 
swelled up, and one of them started to pop— 


Seren couldn't take it anymore. She turned away and covered her 
eyes, sick to her stomach. She squeezed her scope hard enough 
the glass began to crack. Meanwhile, February and Ewell watched 
through their own scopes, completely horrified. 


Seren, eventually, looked through the glass again. On the other 
side, forty-eight years ago, three robed men entered the room and 
dug knives into bright orange, misshapen pumpkins, before reaching 
in and eating the raw pulp and seeds. Seren swore she saw blood 
among the pulp, and teeth mixed in with the seeds. 


"What the FUCK?!" Raymond February dropped the piece of glass 
he had been observing this horror though. "WHAT THE FUCK 
WHAT THE FUCK WHAT THE FUCK?!" 


"That... that's what she does? That's what the Black Autumn does?" 
Ewell backed away. "She-she turned those kids into f-fucking 
pumpkins." He leaned over, and started to retch. "Oh. Oh god. I'm 
gonna be sick." 


"It started in... 1969. Allen's books... force sleepwalking, and make 
them go to a-a particular place. Pumpkins everywhere. Those four in 
charge of a county fair... and she's taking child sacrifices. Holy shit." 
Seren put her hand over her face. "Holy shit. | know what this is." 


She turned her eye to the scope once more, and watched the three 
in there; as the men ate, their skin lost its wrinkles, and their hair 
seemed to grow a new luster to them. Pryce felt sick. "They're... 
eating kids to... to..." 


"Youth is truly wasted on the young, isn't it, Mavra?" Gideon asked 
the malevolent force this as if she were a butler. 
"Yes, my lord." 


Ruby ran forward, towards the one figure who hadn't partaken in any 
off the eating. Jeffery Hubble, she assumed. The agent's fist almost 


made contact with his body— but then a hole seemed to form in the 
middle of his stomach, and it went straight through his form. "What 
the hell?" 


"Jeffery's a bit... of a special case." Carter shrugged. "He's just here 
to observe. Our errand boy, essentially. Lord knows he doesn't need 
this." 


Allen grinned. "And we're automating the whole process, soon! The 
Uncle Zadok books are going to be bestsellers throughout the state, 
and bring so many children to the fairgrounds— where they'll feed 
us." 


"So, what?" Ruby gasped. "This is some kind of fucked-up 
immortality ritual?" 


"We tried several things," Gideon explained. "Faulty philosopher's 
stones, an expedition to the fabled fountain of youth. This is the only 
thing that works. We've done this for decades." 


"Bullshit!" Blake exclaimed. "The Foundation would have heard 
about you! We would have stopped you!" 


"What happens in Sloth's Pit doesn't leave Sloth's Pit." Jeffery 
Hubble intoned from beneath his robe. "It's one of the reasons we 
love it so here so much. We could summon Yaldabaoth and the 
Foundation would be none the wiser." 


"Of course, it means that the Black Equinox can't get out either." 
Carter looked at the form by Gideon, which let out a loud growl. 
"She's getting testy about that. Wants to see the world. We've bound 
her here, and here she shall stay." 


"So, what? You're just going to keep feeding it kids until the end of 
time?" Ruby snapped. 


"Or until we get bored," Hubble shrugged. He raised his hand, and a 
tendril of raw flesh extended from beneath his robe, slashing at 
Ruby's holster. Her revolver fell out of it and into the flesh's grasp. 


"Granola Sarkic," Blake gasped. "Holy shit."