# McClaim's last job.

By [Epic The System Administrator](https://paragraph.com/@epic-the-system-administrator) · 2024-05-22

---

"The main working version is now, the killer is the butler!" Lieutenant McСlaim laughed nervously and, with trembling hands, reached for a bottle of cheap corn whiskey.

Ever since his days in the police, he disliked three things: lack of money, female clients and provincial towns. The latter is especially important.

"Beautiful facades facing the road, a rural pastoral, and behind them - a stinking swamp of ancient grievances, still quiet lunatics, hiding criminals and the devil knows who else!"

McClaim took a long drink straight from the bottle and coughed. This time, all the points he didn't like matched up.

For the past month, retired lieutenant and now private detective John McClaim has been sitting without orders, and, accordingly, without money. Potential customers were scared off by his unsociable appearance, the smell of whiskey at any time of the day and the habit of joking about things that for many are never funny. Well, the fact that he retired from the police at almost forty years old, having only reached the rank of lieutenant.

Therefore, the e-mail that came to his mail almost immediately captured his attention. Moreover, it came from the mail of an old friend.

"Help me, John McClaim, you are my last hope!"

However. Two weeks ago, McClaim communicated with Kate in a newfangled messenger, and here is the beginning. She could have easily called, sent a message.. Or not?

Further, it was written in rather confusing language that Kate decided to participate in the hunt for the treasure of the ancient cult of CHO. According to the information she obtained, they hid their gold somewhere in the provincial town of New Dunwich and Kate went there. But then something very strange began, the information she had obtained somehow leaked online and other treasure hunters began to come to New Dunwich. It's a shame, of course, but the problem is that they then began to mysteriously disappear. In the morning, Kate was talking to a colleague on a treasure hunt, and in the evening he was nowhere in town, and the locals chorused that he got into the car and drove away.

If this was an isolated case, it could be written off as an accident, you never know if a person suddenly had urgent business. But to give up the treasure hunt in the middle of the road and leave without saying a word to anyone... It was suspicious. And Kate needed the help of a detective to figure it out.

McClaim shook a cigarette out of a half-empty pack, lit it, took a slow drag and thought. Help is secondary. Kate has a lot of acquaintances who are familiar with the detective business firsthand. So why did she turn to John specifically?

The detective shook his head, stubbed out his cigarette and glanced briefly at the holster on the table.

"Kate is afraid. Judging by what's going on, she may well be the next missing person. And she needs not only the detective's sharp mind, but also the confidence that he will not be afraid to shoot if necessary."

The case was starting to smell very bad. But, Kate, Kate... McClaim couldn't leave her without help, they had too much in common in the past. So he sighed, hung a holster with a trusty Beretta on his belt, put on an old raincoat and went out to the garage where his Chevrolet Caprice was parked.

"Old, but not useless," the detective muttered nostalgically, glancing at the car. They had been connected for almost twenty years of service, so McClaim perceived the advice to replace "this antiquity" with something new almost as sacrilege. Moreover, he didn't have the money to replace it anyway.

The car did not start immediately. For almost a minute she screeched and sneezed with the engine, until finally she resigned herself to her fate.

John looked at the screen of the navigator he had been given on the day of his graduation. New Dunwich was found somewhere in the corner of the map, with a single access road.

"The perfect place to go missing. Rural wilderness, the only road and utter emptiness in the area."

McClaim drove out of the yard, stomped on the gas pedal and thought deeply.

"The case turns out to be pretty bad. Apparently, the treasure exists and someone is getting rid of those who got close enough. And the locals... They are either intimidated..." - the detective took out the last cigarette from the pack and nervously lit it - "...Or a share. Both options are just disgusting."

The former lieutenant had to shoot quite a lot. He seemed to attract situations that ended in gunfire. Drug dealers, street bandits, the mafia, all dreamed of planting a clip or two in John. Maybe that's why he wasn't promoted?

John stopped at a gas station, where he spent the last of his money on fuel and cigarettes. Either Kate will pay him for this order, or... McClaim preferred not to think about the second option.

The detective's phone rang, attracting attention. "Where are you?" - a message from Kate. "I'm going" - John hated long correspondence, preferring to call or meet in person, so he answered as briefly as possible. "I'm waiting. The Continental Hotel, apartment number 6 - fortunately, Kate treated correspondence in a similar way. In general, they were much alike and could have come together back then, if not...

The car swerved along the highway and McClaim looked in surprise at his white-clenched fists on the steering wheel.

"But it worries me. Until now."

The sun was already sinking towards the horizon when the Chevrolet Caprice finally drove into a town called New Dunwich.

\*\*\*

The navigator squeaked guiltily, once again failing to plot a route to the right place.

"The matter is dirty. Someone deleted the information about the hotel. Why?"

McClaim parked the car near a small cafe, next to which a young guy was propping up the wall, at the moment, enthusiastically digging into his phone.

"I'll find out from the locals. But why is the street so sparsely populated?"

"Hey!" - the detective called out to the only living soul on the whole street - "Guy, you don't know where the Continental Hotel is here, otherwise I just arrived, I don't know anything"

He tried to make the most polite expression on his face, which was always a problem. Maybe that's why, when he was a lieutenant, he attracted shootouts?

The guy, or rather even the young man, as it turned out up close, looked up from the phone and beamed with his face.

"Hello! Just arrived? Of course I will tell you! In a straight line, two turns to the left, then one to the right and there will be a big gray building, this is the hotel! Did you come for the treasure too?" - He rattled on

McClaim grimaced. Being a rather private person himself, he was suspicious of such people who immediately poured a stream of information on their interlocutors.

"And my name is Christopher, but everyone just calls me Chris. And you, too, call! I have also recently arrived here, but I have already learned everything! By the way, about the treasure..."

The detective listened.

"Here's what you know about cryptocurrencies?"

John staggered back and almost ran towards the car. He understood everything. In the wake of the search for treasure, these also came to the city... The new urban crazies. They go everywhere, accost people with their "cryptocurrencies". McClaim didn't even want to know what it was, only something connected with Beethoven and for some reason the miners was spinning in his head. But wasting time on useless conversations was not in his rules.

"Well, at least the others listened!" - offended flew into the back of the departing detective.

He shook his head, started the car and went to the address indicated by the chatty cryptocurrency enthusiast.

The address was correct. After a short conversation with the receptionist at the reception, McClaim finally found himself in front of a door marked "6".

He steeled himself and knocked briefly.

There was a rustle behind the door at first, and then it barely opened, held by a chain.

"The illusion of security. One strong kick..."

Kate's face appeared in the crack, instantly lit up with joy at the sight of the detective.

"John, you've arrived!"

\*\*\*

"... And that's when everyone started disappearing, I got scared, locked myself in my room and sent you an email."

Kate was sitting on an armchair, crossing her legs and slowly sipping whiskey and Coke, glancing towards the bedside table, from where three huge fluffy cats were staring at her.

"I didn't notice such a love for cats in you before! Has something changed?"

John took the bottle and poured himself a whiskey.

"That's how it all started with them," Kate sighed, "Imagine, I come home, and they're sitting on the table in the living room. And under the table, the sheets are scattered with the letters C H O. Well, I thought at first, Roger was joking..."

Kate looked at the detective with a strangely guilty look.

"You know, he always liked some non-standard ways to show attention..."

McClaim's fists clenched again, but nothing showed on his face.

"But I decided to find out what kind of CHO, I searched the entire Internet and found both about the cult and about New Dunwich only in the messenger on one channel..."

The woman sighed and looked at John slyly.

"I've always been easy going, you remember!"

John remembered. Remembered it very well.

"Well, here I am. Although..."

Kate trembled.

"I probably wish I hadn't come."

And McClaim did what the situation demanded - he sat down next to Kate and hugged her. She buried her face in his hand and burst into tears.

"Quiet, quiet. I've arrived, which means everything will be fine. I will immediately start an investigation and find out who is behind all this..."

Kate raised her head and a look of fright appeared on her face.

"You're not going to leave me here alone at night, are you? Please, John!"

Of course, Mcclayme couldn't do that. Moreover, the whiskey has not run out yet, and the past years seem to have disappeared into nowhere...

\*\*\*

The investigation has not been successful since the morning. The residents of the city, whom the detective decided to immediately take up, seemed to conspire, and told suspiciously identical stories about treasure seekers, how they walked around the city and the surrounding area, and then just got into cars and drove away.

A single legend? But McClaim would not be a private detective if he could not catch on to various little things, finding out where one or another resident of the city was at the moment when the treasure hunters "left". And then another failure awaited him. Virtually every resident of New Dunwich had a reinforced concrete alibi!

It was so discouraging, as well as suspicious, but, comparing the fact, John McClaim came to the conclusion that either the residents of the whole town specially came up with a single story, where it was thoroughly spelled out what each of them did during the day, or none of them was involved in the disappearances!

After finishing the last interview, the detective sighed heavily and sat down on the roadside curb. He wanted cigarettes, whiskey, and to leave this damn town without looking back.

"Stop!"

John jumped up abruptly, cracking his knees.

"If you believe that the locals really have nothing to do with it, then there is only one option left!"

McClaim remembered the words of the first person he met in the cursed city-"...At least the others listened..."

\*\*\*

The cocking trigger clicked dryly, causing the man at the cafe wall to flinch and drop his phone.

"Hey you! Chris, isn't it?"

John McClaim was slowly approaching yesterday's acquaintance, not lowering his hand with a pistol.

"Mr. Beretta has a couple of questions for you!"

Chris turned pale and slowly raised his hands in the air.

"Mr. Beretta and I asked around and found out one funny thing..."

The gun was almost pressed into the face of Chris, who was pale as a sheet.

"You are the last person the so-called "departed" treasure hunters talked to."

Mcclayme, without taking the barrel of the gun off the likely culprit, carefully bent down and picked up the phone he had dropped.

"That's why you're telling me everything now. And quickly, before my hand gets tired of holding Mr. Beretta and I have a desire to ease him a little, if you know what I mean!"

Chris began to nod quickly and minutely, after which he began to chatter.

"You've got it all wrong! They really left! We went through all the checkpoints, found nothing, and came to me! To make a check-in, get a consolation prize and leave!"

McClaim shook his head at the abundance of unfamiliar words, but the barrel of the gun was still staring Chris in the face.

"We have a Live Action Quest! "The quest for the gold of the CHO cult"! The participants encourage their loved ones to participate, they come here, go through an exciting quest and get part of the airdrop CHO!"

Chris lowered his head guiltily.

"Only the partners did not have time to prepare the quest, so we just made a route for a walk around the city, and instead of hints for the quest, they sent me"

The detective slowly lowered the gun.

"And of course you have proof? That everything you've told me is not some kind of bullshit, but the most truthful truth?"

He couldn't believe that the case, which he had already inflated into a whole thriller in his head, ended like this... So strange...

"Of course there is!"

Chris almost jumped.

"Here on the phone, in our channel, here they are all your "missing", bragging about prizes! You can write to them yourself, please..."

He looked pleadingly at the detective.

McClaim fumbled with the phone in his hands, found the chat he was looking for and clicked on the avatars and accounts of the participants for a while. When he came across a recording by a certain “Black Rodger” about how he coolly and mysteriously sent his wife on a quest, John gnashed his teeth, hid the gun and handed the phone to the owner.

"So there is no 'CHO cult treasure'?"

Chris breathed a sigh of relief, grabbed the phone and smiled.

"Well, there really is no cult gold. But, since you went around the whole city, that is, you actually exceeded our quest, I just have to add you to the top of our table..."

John McClaim stood and listened in silence. He didn't know yet that his life had finally taken a long-awaited turn.

---

*Originally published on [Epic The System Administrator](https://paragraph.com/@epic-the-system-administrator/mcclaim-s-last-job)*