Skip to content

The Radford Horrors

The Radford Horrors is the sixth and current canon arc of PITF, in which the disbanded task force is sent back to the town of its first case as consultants to a suspicious new agent, while the Biz sits out the story as Boris Yeltsin's prisoner and adviser in Russia.
Setting Radford, Virginia and Roanoke; Washington, DC; Moscow and Oryol Oblast, Russia
Episodes 4 so far (ongoing)
In-fiction dates April 1993, "a little less than a year" after the first Radford case
Main threat Unresolved: the offspring of the Radford Moth, the Safe Environment Fund and its gray van crew, and in Russia the servitors
Preceded by The Roulet Estate

Not to be confused with the first arc, The Radford Horror (singular). Dante called the sequel "an Aliens." (Radford Horrors 01)

Overview

Three months after Rhode Island, the Paranatural Incident Task Force no longer exists. President Ross Perot reads the file on its first case, which says a giant insect was responsible, fires the FBI Director for standing by it, and installs Rudy Giuliani. Perot's own handpicked team of five career agents has meanwhile vanished in the Radford woods; the arc's first cold open shows them being hunted. Giuliani recalls Andrew Howard, Kurt Larson and Huell Kendrick as consultants under Special Agent Daniel Webster, with two orders: find the missing agents, and "establish an acceptable fact pattern" for the original investigation. (Radford Horrors 01, Radford Horrors 02)

The arc inverts the team's usual position. They are no longer in charge, and their new boss, Ezra's second character, believes they were George H. W. Bush's political dirty-tricks squad and that "alien stuff" is a cover. Much of the comedy comes from Webster recording everything, counting how many people Kurt has skinned, and writing "Andrew Howard is a vampire?" in his notebook, and much of the tension from his slow recognition that the truth is stranger than his theory. (Radford Horrors 02, Radford Horrors 04)

Radford itself has changed. Molly Underhill is sheriff, Douglas Douglas owns a pinball arcade, and the woods are being bought and fenced by the Safe Environment Fund, which has armed guards, lawyers and a talent for bleaching crime scenes. More townspeople are missing, including Phoebe Augustine, and each absence is explained by a letter about treatment in Los Angeles. A slime that smells like the dead moth turns up in the trees and above an arcade window, and Wilbur Whateley, woken from catatonia by Andrew, says the moth was pregnant. (Radford Horrors 02, Radford Horrors 03, Radford Horrors 04)

A second storyline follows the Biz, a prisoner in Russia since January and now held in comfort at the Hotel Metropol. Boris Yeltsin, who fears his own officers have been replaced, questions him about every case the team has worked. When the presidential convoy is ambushed on the way to a crash site, the Biz saves Yeltsin's life and loses the sight of an eye. At the site, a dying survivor of a triangular craft says his people are "the opposite of aliens." (Radford Horrors 01, Radford Horrors 03, Radford Horrors 04)

Episodes

Episode Summary
Radford Horrors 01 The Biz parries Yeltsin's questions at the opera; the others search his apartment and are assigned to Webster and sent back to Radford.
Radford Horrors 02 An IRS raid, a fence, a tasering, a bullet that stops short of Andrew, a bleached clearing with moth-scented goo, and a rabid mouse.
Radford Horrors 03 The Biz rescues Yeltsin from an ambush; Andrew's fever and dream warning; Elizabeth George is taken from the pinball arcade.
Radford Horrors 04 "The opposite of aliens" in Russia; the gray van tape; Andrew wakes Wilbur Whateley; camp beside the missing agents' tents.

Principal cast

Player characters

Non-player characters

Monsters and entities

Key locations

Where it stands

The arc has not ended. As of Radford Horrors 04, the most recent episode:

  • The team is camped beside the missing agents' tents, waiting for McManley and his RV, with a 24-hour deadline from Giuliani to find the agents dead or alive.
  • A copy of the diner tape showing the gray van raid is hidden in a hollow tree, and two samples of goo await analysis.
  • Wilbur Whateley is awake and frightened in Roanoke.
  • Andrew is on rabies treatment that his body reacts badly to and is managing with blood; Webster has noticed the bag, the strength, the bullet and the blood, and has said nothing.
  • A Bivens lawsuit over the fence is pending against the agents.
  • The Biz is in Russia, blind in one eye, three Luck from Doomed, and in Yeltsin's confidence.

(Radford Horrors 03, Radford Horrors 04)

What is unresolved

See also Unresolved mysteries.

Trivia