Carter shook his head, looking doubtful. "| don't know Marshall, 
looks a bit on the heavy side. If we can get it on the cart we can 
probably do it, but is it worth the weight?" 


Marshall ignored the question. 
"Well let's give it a shot then." 


Marshall and Carter gripped the underside of the safe and heaved, 
struggling to inch it over the edge of the cart, past the unconscious 
form of its former owner. 


A crack echoed through the room, and Marshall twisted as a bullet 
hammered into his thigh, instinctively dropping the safe and 
grabbing at his injured leg. As the man in the door blew the would- 
be security guard to hell, the safe tipped from Carters hands and 
smashed to the floor. 


A sound like a swarm of hornets came from inside the safe, growing 
louder every second. Marshall hobbled away, alarmed, and Carter 
backed towards the door. 


The safe burst open with an explosive bang, and a swarm of salt 
crystals flew into the air. The three stared in amazement at the tiny 


tornado, Marshall backing away as fast as he could move. 
"What the hell is th-" 


Another crack, and the man by the door jerked his head away from 
the new peephole in his cover. He brought his rifle to bear and fired 
a short burst, the guard spinning to the floor. The man grimaced and 
pressed his hand against his ribs, a kevlar vest visible through his 
torn suit. 


"Gentlemen, | am leaving in two minutes. Get what you're getting 
and let's go." 


"Hang on Dark, let's just see what we've got here." 


Carter tentatively reached towards the whirling cloud of salt, which 
had totally engulfed their cart filled with antiques. He shrieked in 
pain, yanking his hand away from the cloud raw and red. 


"God damn that burns!" 


Marshall ripped a piece of cloth from his now-ruined pants leg and 
wrapped it around his hand, stretching towards the cloud. The 
particles parted as his hand entered, and he felt something solid. He 
gripped firmly and jerked, pulling an ornate silver salt shaker from 
the cloud. The whirling salt remained where it was, shredded pieces 
of paper now visible amidst the storm. 


"| guess this is all we're getting today, you saw what it did to the 
safe." 


Marshall sighed heavily for the priceless art that had just been lost to 
this mysterious shaker, refocusing as Carters voice echoed through 
the room. 


"Fantastic Marshall, now can we go?" He was sucking on his 
fingers, staring curiously at the silver shaker in Marshalls hands. 


Marshall lifted himself shakily, using a bookshelf as a support. He 
heard another bullet ping off a metal cabinet beside him, and felt the 
rythmic thumping as Dark blasted another man off his feet. 


"Carter, help Marshall. I'll be back in a moment." 


Dark glided out from behind the door and into the ballroom. He 
staggered back into the room seconds later, a guard scrambling 
after him. Dark held his bleeding nose with one hand and took a 
swing at his assailant, missing by several inches. He twisted 
backwards as the guard grabbed at his overextended arm, ready to- 


A percussive whump filled the room, and the guard kicked over 
backwards, half of his head smeared across a nearby painting. 
Carter pocketed his hand-cannon. 


Marshall protested the destruction from where he had been dropped 
on the floor. 


"Damn you Carter, | had him." 

"He had your elbow!" 

Dark sulked as he helped Marshall up off the floor. 
"He broke your nose!" 


Dark handed Marshall off to Carter, swinging his rifle around into an 
easily accessible position against his hips. 


"He hit you in the face with your own gun!" 


Dark scowled on his way out the door, a guard immediately swinging 
at him from overhead. Dark jerked backwards out of range of the 
knife, kicked the man in the stomach, and fired a round through his 
chest as he hit the floor. 


Carter stopped talking, and made himself very busy walking 
Marshall to the door. The two of them hobbled out into the ballroom, 
giving a wide berth to the man with the gun. Marshall enjoyed the 
sight of a sizeable hole in the wall, the leg of an antique chair still 
visible in the debris. 


"You really did a number on that one, Carter." 


He grunted in reply, and Marshall shifted his grip on the shaker as 


they stood by the hole. Dark arrived a few moments later, a smear of 
blood barely visible under his suit. He hopped the few feet to the 
roof of an adjacent building, and caught Marshall as Carter tossed 
him down. 


"That was undignified." 
"You're the one who got shot, pansy. Suck it up." 


The three set off across the roof as an alarm began blaring from the 
building behind them. They would escape through an alley on the 
other side of the building, a van waiting for them, ready to carry 
stacks of forgotten art. They would disappear in the busy afternoon 
traffic, Marshall already plotting their next move. A whole new world 
had opened for them with this salt shaker, and Marshall planned to 
make full use of its appearance. 


He was finally getting out of the antique business. 


SCP-855: The Film Hall 


Item #: SCP-855 
Object Class: Euclid 


Special Containment Procedures: Four (4) members of security 
are to be present outside SCP-855's location at all times. No staff 
are to enter SCP-855 during "Horror", "Surreal", "Action", "Science 
Fiction" or "Disaster" phases. Any entities attempting to leave 
SCP-855 during the "Horror" phase are to be dispatched by security 
staff. 


Any personnel entering SCP-855 during its "Western" phase are to 
be monitored by security staff for signs of aggression. During all 
other phases, research staff are free to enter and monitor SCP-855. 


Description: SCP-855 is the designation given to Lecture Hall , 
located at Site .SCP-855 is equipped to seat one hundred (100) 
personnel. One reinforced skylight is present on the ceiling to allow 
the entry of natural light. 


Each month, SCP-855 will redecorate itself and temporarily develop 
anomalous properties, seemingly themed after genres of film. This 
continues for the entirety of the month, and has taken the form of: 


¢ Manifestation of entities 
¢ Mind-altering Effects 
¢ Hallucinations 


Genre Log: 


Month Presumed ‘Genre Effects 
January Action Reports of explosions 
came from within 
SCP-855. Security 
was Called in to 


Funding 


"Five incidents. Zero recoveries. Eight casualties." 


The man at the center of the room flopped a thin blue file on his 
folding table and sat down. A semi-circle of solemn, practically 
dressed officials sat on worn chairs around the individual drenched 
in sweat standing before them. 


Adjusting his tie and pushing his glasses up his sweating nose, UIU 
agent and legal specialist Damion Hill addressed the committee as 
firmly as he could. "Director Keynes, the losses were not the fault of 
our agents. We're simply not well equipped enough-" 


"Quiet on the floor, please." The Director clasped his hands together 
on the snap-up table. "Frankly, Mr. Hill, the matter of whose fault it is 
- your agents or the belligerents - is not a valid point at this stage. 
The Resource Planning Office is considering withdrawing all 
immediate funds from your division, claiming that it is a waste of the 
Bureau's time and money." He cocked his head at the handsomely 
dressed official carrying a grey suitcase quietly seated at the end of 
the semicircle. "| do not necessarily disagree." 


Relaxing back in his hard-backed chair, he added, "| suggest you 
give him - and us - a good reason to refrain from proceeding as 
such." 


Hill's glasses began to slide down his face again. As he propped 
them back up, he returned, "Sir, with all due respect, the Bureau 
itself is not devoid of guilt. Year after year my office has been denied 
the authority to enact threat orientation and the ability to respond 
quickly and efficiently to high-profile situations. The Bureau's 
practice of actively discouraging graduates from inquiring about our 
unit has led to a severe deficiency in our personnel count, leading to 
the possibility of numerical superiority being virtually unfeasible in a 
combat-" 


He was Cut off by Agent Jericho, an elderly woman sitting beside 
Director Keynes. "Numerical superiority?" she interjected 
incredulously. "| was under the impression you had apes to chase, 
not a war to win." A number of the attendants chuckled. Settling 
back into a cold, hostile gaze, she added, "Mr. Hill, your 
organization's very goal is to remove any..." she turned her nose at 
the term. "Paranormal objects from society, without society noticing. 


Hill's sense of courtly composure began to wane. He retorted, 
"Madam, presuming you have read the full length of the dispatches 
my subsection sends out bi-annually, you would know that the 
Bureau isn't the only group capable of combating abnormal entities 
on a large scale. Certain elements outside our jurisdiction have 
proven far more adept at interacting with the anomalous 
underground than we have since our inception." 


A young representative suited in green, seated in the middle of the 
left column raised his hand. Hill motioned for him to speak, and so 
he stood. "We've read your reports, agent. Our issue with them is 
the unprofessional nature of your conclusions. | recall dissecting a 
dossier on - the Men in Black, | believe you call them. " Snickers 
were heard. Keynes kept quiet. He continued, "In the past you've 
intimated that they are infinitely more well-prepared for the conflicts 
and brushfire wars that erupt daily in your area of expertise, and are 
likely the reason the UIU so rarely comes upon a fruitful case. | ask, 
then: why do you feel the need to press the Bureau to fund a society 
that, in all probability, became outmoded and irrelevant many years 
ago?" 


So this is what it comes to, Hill thought. 


"What you propose, sir, is what is at the crux of this matter." He 
scanned the room for signs of amusement. "Sixty-nine years ago, 
we stepped into a deep and unknown pool that we, though we 
thought otherwise, understood very little about. Communism, with all 
of its unscrupulous tendencies, poured into our temples and our 
cities, wedging itself and breeding like a virus. The GRU's court 
wizards sought to change us; Mr. Hoover tasked our fathers with the 
feat of their destruction. They succeeded, and changed the course 
of history. But what they couldn't change was the fact that our 
country had just staked its claim for dominance on a new plane of 


politics and espionage." 
He wiped his brow. 


Considering his words for a moment, he pressed on, "I will admit, 
with time our image has degraded significantly. Men and women 
before you have also asked why we need an organization of our 
own to collect and contain paranormal phenomena. Why interfere 
with business and politicking that we can't integrate with? Why 
shouldn't we ‘leave it to the professionals'? | cannot deny that this 
position isn't entirely unreasonable." 


The light shining on him was blistering, and once again, he adjusted 
his spectacles. 


"However, | propose to this committee - a counterpoint. For a 
century, this nation - our nation - has thickened and matured and 
built itself up to be what may be considered - a superpower. In 
collaboration with our European associates, we have established a 
globe-spanning network of communication and military superiority. 
Why is it then that we, ostensibly the most influential state of this 
twenty-first century, should be defenseless against a facet of reality 
we may have little to no conception of? There do exist men and 
women capable of isolating this world from ourselves, working 
around the clock to ensure our safety and comfort - this is true, 
however stringently we strive to deny it. But now | ask you; who will 
you run to should their soldiers rout, their barricades collapse, their 
fortresses - where we may seek no refuge, respite, or countenance - 
be overrun? One might say that in such a situation, any effort on our 
part would be futile; | find an apt analogy in Hector, riding out to face 
Achilles as he has slaughtered the Trojan army." He paused. The 
faces filling the room, gazing into his were difficult to read. 


"Perhaps it is so. But | cannot in good conscience recommend 
leaving such a situation to chance, nor can | taking the protection 
they have provided us with so long and throwing it away in an 
instant by choosing to leave ourselves physically and intellectually 
undefended. If you decide otherwise, so be it." 


He sat. 


About a minute later, Keynes stood to address the committee. 
"Those in favor of a brief recess?" There was a unanimous 
response. The other members, as well as the man with the suitcase 
at the end of the semicircle, left into a smaller, more private chamber 
located at the back of the room. Some of the younger council 
members, including the man in the green suit, appeared deeply 
thoughtful, their hands in their pockets as they entered the 
discussion chamber. 


After what seemed to be an eternity, the council filed back in. 
Keynes stood, while the rest sat, and the man with the briefcase 
silently exited the room. "You have your years’ funding, Agent Hill,” 
he pronounced. "This twenty-third tri-annual review of the Unusual 
Incidents Unit is formally dismissed." 


Funerals Are Fun 


My brother Ross died a week ago in a freak accident involving a 
slow loris. Turns out, they're related to monkeys, and poisonous. 
Who knew? | never knew Ross was into slow lorises, anyway. The 
doctor said there was a rash of slow loris attacks recently, which is 
strange, because they're kinda like sloths otherwise. 


Anyway, Ross died, and the whole family gathered for the funeral. 
Everyone was sad, you know, like you're supposed to be. Ross was 
never the family favorite, always a bit weird, but whatever, family is 
family, and he was young. His casket was open. The funeral home 
really did a great job at cleaning Ross up. Can't believe he's really 
gone. Are slow lorises even native to Boston? 


So, yeah, everyone was kinda in shock, but things picked up for the 
eulogy, though. | remember it clearly: "Ross. He was a sorry sack, in 
time. Life was all the pressure of reform and the purse. Think, for a 
moment, about the vittles he led and powerful tacky skin he scored. 
Was this a man of rage? Of ricin by the aliquot? No! Ross knew the 
buttery encapsulation of a full life. Like, | remember when he and we 
and they and he all went to the shivering place and there was just 
too much marshmallow. Tallow fat. We all cringed and wailed, but 
Ross? Nosiree, he just split open the pustules and boom! 
Esophageal ulcers for everyone!" 


Oh, that Cousin Johnny. Always such a riot. By the end of that, we 
all were in stitches. After a speech like that, | could barely keep a 
straight face as | walked up to the casket, took the knife, slashed my 
wrist and bled for Ross. 


When | was done, | passed the knife on to Aunt Bridget, and looked 
back at Ross one last time. That's when | noticed something weird. 
His gut was beginning to expand. | stuck around to watch as this 
bulge in Ross's belly started busting through his tux, all purplish and 
pulsating. 


In the middle of Uncle Earl's turn to bleed, that growth ruptured, 
spraying Earl and me and Fr. O'Reilly and Johnny in a real pale 
concoction that was like half-blood, half-pus. Did you know that the 
spleen is the home of up to half of all the lymphocytes in the body? | 
didn't. Still don't. Not sure why | said that. Anyway, Ross's spleen 
ruptured and sprayed us all. A couple of tentacles emerged from 
Ross's spleen and started grabbing at the metal hinges on the 
casket and the knife. Steel, iron, the tentacles were grabbing 
anything made of iron and started turning them into tin cans. Ross, 
from the casket, still dead, apparently, said, "Always recycle your 
iron!"