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The dead body was a child, a preteen girl -- mauled to death by huge claws and teeth, it seemed. She'd been scalped, crudely. The white of her skull was visible in places. It had not been a good end.

The knight was already trying to take the body down. This was proving to be an impossible task -- she was solidly nailed up there, and though he tried to prise the nails out that held the dead girl pinned there they weren't giving. In desperation, he tugged on her hands. He tugged on her feet. Hands soiled with old blood, he moved away and for a long moment pressed his face into his forearm.

Hector took off his cloak and covered her head with it instead, tucking it behind her shoulders so that he did not have to look at her face any more. "She won't come down," he said, and due to the tremor in his voice set his jaw so that his next words sounded forced but calm. "You want to stay outside, Marlo? I'm not coming out yet."

Time to investigate the animal.

He'd been reluctant to face the dead girl a second time, but when hector had pretty much told him in an odd fashion to suck it up, he'd entered back into the hut. The fact that when he did manage to do so and look towards the hanging dead body, Hector's cape covered the girl's face, and Marlo could almost hug the knight. Not having to look at her face helped more then it should have.

Doing his best to ignore the dead girl, Marlo took a second to look at what hector was looking at. Then it took a second for him to gag a little bit. At least dry heaving was over and done with. "Her hair." It was just that. The girl's hair, now nothing more then a detached...thing. "What kind of sick ******** does this? Wait, no, I don't want to know. Just...forget it. Shelter or not this place is just wrong. All kinds of wrong. Let's see if we can't find something to use as an umbrella and leave." He wanted something, anything, to give him a reason to leave.

"There is dead kid on the wall. I don't know who killed her or why but I don't want to stay and find out." He pulled out a chair. "You're the knight right? This is your brother's cracked out fantasy land. Shouldn't you know what is going on?" Hands were slightly white. He'd yet to even sit down.

A strangled laugh came from Marlo. Shock affects each person differently, for Marlo, it was inappropriate emotional response, slight shaking, and deep breathing. He was both consciously and unconsciously trying to calm himself. If it was working had yet to be seen. The tiny strangled laugh went and quick as it had come, and a Marlo took another deep breath, leaning on the chair. "Blair Witch, Axe murderer, in any horror movie, the teens who choose to stay in the abandoned cabin end up dead." Marlo had never seen the Blair Witch Project. In the grand scheme of things, this was inconsequential as he was sure that a great divine justice act would not ride on if he had or had not fall asleep on movie night back at the Hillworth dorms.

Marlo looked at the hair when Hector could not. Slowly, he went to another bed, ripping off a large enough corner of the dirty bedding to do something with. The ripped cloth was offered to Hector. "You want to touch it be my guest. I'm all for appeasing spirits of the dead but let's go." A visible shudder passed through Marlo. "We can bury it later or something. But let's just go."

Marlo didn't make a witty reply to the idea of just how fruity Hector looked or who would die first. Rationally he was just hot on Hector's heels, flying out that door back into the twisting woods and rain. Irrationally he was thinking that those who say they die first or last tend to die quicker. Still, his priority was getting the ******** out of there.

"Okay, I vote we get as far away from here as possible. And if that thing turns out to be the item that traps us forever due to us trying to remove it from it's homeland or some s**t, let's find a spot, say a few words, and bury it." They were carrying with them the scalp of some little girl. So many levels of wrong. So many. "I don't want a documentary about my life playing on the discovery channel. I don't want to end up on the 11 o'clock news. I don't like the idea of getting killed in the woods. Period."

All Marlo could immediately respond with was summarized in one quick thought that bypassed his brain to mouth filter.
"I am not going to wrestle a goddamn bear for you Hector."
The teen's face was pale, sickly. No matter what he was thinking, that image was still lingering, just on the fringes of his mind. The notion of some sicko using the locks of hair for that...Marlo was glad his stomach had chose to empty itself earlier. But, Hector's fidgeting was getting in his nerves. they'd walked a way now. The cabin vanished from sight. Tappping on the knight's shoulder he pointed to a rather thick patch of foliage, complete with puddle at the base.

"Why don't we bury it." He felt a small wave of sickness as he corrected himself. "...bury her." The fact that it had dawned on him that they held perhaps the only non mutilated remains of little girl was sick and twisted. They couldn't do anything for her at this point. She was dead. The best they could do would be give a small piece of her a proper burial.

The nameless girl deserved that much, didn't she?

He hesitated as Hector dug, but, bitterness at what he said along with the fact that a piece of themselves had shown a vulnerability he'd not yet considered drove the Hillworth student to Hector's side, scooping out mud and water as much as possible, trying to pry away at the rocks that they eventually found deeper on. He could feel his fingers getting colder and pain pricking where gravel tried to break skin and the water cooled his blood. Rationally, digging in cold earth in such conditions was not a smart idea. You'd catch a cold, hypothermia, risk nerve damage. But the idea of just leaving the bundle to be found again, or to just abandon it seemed like a much worse fate then the common cold.

He pushed a pile around the edges, trying to keep the water from rushing in. It was working in a fashion. "So what then? You just give up?" The water wouldn't stop flowing in, not matter how hard her tried, it kept filling the hole. Damn rain. "That's stupid Hector" The hole was deep enough, they'd gone beyond a majority of rock mud, not hitting the harder earth that their nails could only scrape against. "If you hate the city so much make it better. Don't b***h about it, make it better." Marlo has stopped digging, stop trying to keep the water from filling the hole. His gaze rested on that scalp. "Make it so people notice, so that it'll never happen again." He rubbed his hand together, the cold was turning painful. <********, I don't know what I'm saying. Let's put her to rest. It's all we can do for now." There was a vulnerability in each person. Marlo felt that vulnerability in the rain, as they got ready to give a part of someone the only thing they could. A burial. It seemed worthless, but it was all they could do. All they could managed to do.