The Nocturnum
Episode 6: Hunted
Original Air Date: 11/2/03
Cameo by Marc Blucas as Agent Riley Finn
Brief Synopsis
The group flees San Francisco, and along a stretch of highway (route 80) in the Utah desert, they pick up a lone hitchhiker, who is terrified and seemingly delusional. After helping the girl into the car, they determine that she has been through a horrific ordeal that has left her less than sane. The girl pulls a .38 revolver from *ahem* under her dress, sticks the blood-soaked implement in her mouth, and commits suicide in front of the group.This violence is exactly the type of scenario that the fiend haunting Walter needed to possess the van in which the cast rides. Cyan loses control of the possessed vehicle, causing the van to wreck, and stranding the Cast in a cellular dead zone. After a bit of walking, they come upon a lone diner in the middle of nowhere. A small-town police officer seems to be the only patron, though there are 3 trucks and an old Ford Pinto parked outside. The sheriff, who seems to be a fan of Cyan's, takes her back to the wreck to look over the cast's report of a suicide, and conduct a cursory investigation. Anita manages to hitch a ride to Salt Lake City (followed by Drake), where she can investigate Walter's demon problem at a Twilight Order Chapel House. The others remain at the diner, with "Peggy" and (surprise!) her hordes of blood-drinking zombies.
Thus begins a nightmarish evening of zombies, fiends from Hell, and brutality. Cyan is nearly raped by the sheriff, who turns out to be one of Peggy's horde, the Initiative shows up with orders to murder John, and Anita and Drake have a little run-in with the government in Salt Lake City. In the midst of the horror, the group discovers they are now hunted by the FBI and NSA, as well as the Combine, and encounters two mysterious new allies. The plot grows as they are drawn even deeper into the TemCo conspiracy. In the end, at a loss for other options, they agree to assist a mysterious organization to locate an elusive target named Timothy Ekloff, who may have the answers to the entire ordeal. All, that is, except for Daniel, who has become overwhelmed by the events of the past few months has has decided to--at least temporarily--take his leave of the group to hide out with the Ghost Dancers at Miner's Folly and collect his thoughts.
Great Quotes:
Director: The chupacabra has struck again! It's come very north...
Drake's Player: UFO crop circle sightings are actually just hungry vampires.
Katherine (wakes Anita up): I'm not for sayin' if this is a problem, but Drake's out in a field with boards tied to his feet...
(Regarding Miner's Folly)
Hitchhiker (Sobbing): It was just supposed to be a vacation. We were just on vacation.
(Cyan loses control of the van, which wrecks)
Drake: Walter, this is all your fault!
Walter: Drake, I've got to ask. I just spent the last hundred years in Hell. So, what's your excuse?
Cyan's player: Does the cooler have wheels?
Walter: You're looking at this all wrong. Compared to the torture pits of Abbaddon, this is nice!
Anita: Here's the story. We picked up this woman, trying to help her, but once she got in the van, she went crazy, attacked us, and crashed our van. She died in the crash.
Peggy (diner waitress): Lots of folks come in here. Sometimes I don't see 'em take their vehicles away.
Drake: How can I put this? There's Old Gods, and then there's Really Old Senile Gods. That's Still Mountain.
[DVD BLOOPER REEL OUTTAKE]
(Anita visits a Twilight Order Chapel House in Salt Lake City)
Walter: Oh, cool. You're not human. That makes this a lot easier on my conscience!
Drake (re: Walter's fiend): Of course, he wouldn't bring back something simple.
John (to Walter): I'm dead, and you really shouldn't be bothering me now...
Cyan: Look! I'm building a dirt castle!
Cyan (giggling, to John): You're dead!
Anita (Sighs): It's like a Quentin Tarantino film.
Walter: But do you know what it's like to have acid-soaked needles punched into every inch of your skin...forever!?
Anita: Don't get attached to the puppy in my car.
Walter: I think I've been sent back to Earth by the Great and Powerful Oz.
Anita: The puppy is going to die, anyway
Director: And welcome to the wonderful world of Animal Sacrifice, folks...
Walter: Who do you work for?
Walter: What did you do, Cyan?
Cyan (mumbles): Killed a man.
Anita: Vacations are bad.
Cyan: Everyone okay? Sorry!
Anita: It's okay.
John: Not your fault.
Walter: You're not allowed to drive anymore!
Walter: I think you're probably right.
Director: No, the cooler is pretty screwed.
Daniel: Or we could just tell the truth.
Anita: What, that we picked up a woman who was possessed by a demon and blew her own brains out?
John: Well, if you edit out the demon part it sounds feasible. And matches the evidence.
John: Then where do they go, if their trucks are still outside?
Peggy: Sweetie, I just serve coffee and pie.
Walter's player: Um, I stop eating my pie...
Anita's player: I'd like to politely decline any offer of pie.
"Reporter": So, you know about SH-01...
John: Yeah, more like S-H-I-T-01...
(cast and crew laughs uproariously)
Twilight Order Agent: Anita Blake...!?
Anita: Let me in!
Agent: You're wanted! By the FBI!
Anita: Please let me in?
Anita: No, but can I finish my little story?
Anita: No, I think you got sent back to Earth by something really bad, but it doesn't matter because we're focusing on getting the puppy out of here!
Cyan: How do you know?
Anita: I just do.
Cyan: Does it have cancer?
Anita: Yes.
Cyan: Rabies?
Anita: Yup.
Cyan: Why don't I believe you?
Anita: You should. You should always believe me.
John's player: Wonderful. Now we're all cultists.
Agent: I represent Eastern Mutual Insurance, of course.
Walter: But who owns Eastern Mutual?
Agent: My employers.
Walter: But who--?
Ebonor's voice (in Walter's head): Shut up, Walter.
Walter (yells to the sky): Oh, I see. Okay, you own Eastern Mutual Insurance! We're okay, now, Satan!
Great moments:
The hitchhiker pulls a .38 revolver from somewhere nobody should keep a gun, and blows her own brains out. The van is subsequently possessed by the demon, and run off the road, a smoking husk of metal.Cyan gets shy when the local sheriff fawns over her like a fan. She graciously offers an autograph.
Cyan is later almost raped by the sheriff, who it turns out is a zombie.
John, Walter, and Drake rave about how good the pie is at the lonely diner.
The group meets reporter Thomas Engell, who knows probably more than they do, but who as of yet isn't talking. They file that encounter away for future reference.
Anita pays her first visit to a Twilight Order chapel house, in Salt Lake City.
Cyan uses her magic to immolate the sheriff (zombie) when he tries to sexually assault her.
Cyan drives a police cruiser through the front of the diner.
Later, still scarred from that encounter, Cyan dismembers Peggy (the zombie lord behind the horrors) with a meat cleaver...she then burns the diner to the ground and begins her descent into insanity.
The Initiative shows up, en masse and bails the group out of a zombie attack. John is arrested, and taken around the corner by Agent Riley Finn, who informs him they have been sent to terminate John with extreme prejudice. Riley, being the honorable sort, wants John's side of the story first, and after John tells Riley what is what, Riley and John fake John's death and Riley leaves John with a warning not to contact the Initiative again.
The group performs a very complicated exorcism for Walter, flawlessly. In the final showdown on the Astral plane, Anita tears the fiend's horn off, and impales the beast with it (bully for her!)
The group finds a new and mysterious ally who appears to be working for the same side as them in the TemCo consipiracy. They gain new identities, in exchange for operating as agents for their new secret employers.