The cleanup crew¶
The cleanup crew is an unidentified armed group of soldiers without insignia and heat-suited "volcanologists" with flamethrowers, who converge on the old-town church at the end of The Radford Horror and afterward scrub it of evidence and remove the moth's corpse.
| Type | Organization (unidentified) |
| Aliases | Special forces; volcanologists; soldiers without insignia; flamethrower team; strangers |
| Affiliation | Unknown |
| Status | Unknown |
| First appearance | Radford Horror 07 (cold open) |
Overview¶
The group is never named or identified. It consists of two kinds of men: camouflaged, special-forces-looking soldiers with no insignia, and men in metal or reflective "volcanologist" suits who carry flamethrowers, heat-ray flashlights and "shadow" ponchos (Radford Horror 07, Radford Horror 08). The episodes never say who they work for, or how they knew about the moth when the task force did not.
History¶
Radford Horror 07¶
The episode's cold open shows a man in a suit finding the burned ground and ash pile where the party's mountain assailant exploded. He squats and riffles the ashes, lights a cigarette, and waves a team of soldiers and men in reflective volcanologist gear deeper into the woods (Radford Horror 07).
At the end of the church fight, with the team stabilized but badly hurt, Kurt moves to the tree line and sees soldiers without insignia, flanked by metal-suited volcanologists with flamethrowers, heading in his direction. Dante compares their flashlights to the one that set Kurt on fire in an earlier episode (Radford Horror 07).
Radford Horror 08¶
Kurt and the others drag the Biz into the woods before the strangers enter the clearing. They watch the special-forces men gesture at the burning church while the volcanologists circle it and break glass at the back. One stranger notices that the door was barred and orders a search of the surroundings, and Kurt recognizes the sound of flamethrowers (Radford Horror 08).
A searcher carrying one of the strange flashlights and wearing a shadow poncho closes in on the team's hiding place. Kurt kicks him in the groin so that his head bends into spray range, and Andrew fires the church-issued mace. Nothing comes out of the mace; instead the "nothing" passes through the man's head, and he collapses in a grand mal seizure. The team ties him up, strips him of the poncho and takes his flashlight, and the other searchers look in the wrong places, so the team slips away undetected. The tied-up man is not seen again (Radford Horror 08).
After the team is discharged from the hospital, they hike back to the old-town church. It is under police tape and mostly burned. The big stained-glass window has been smashed out, the moth's corpse is gone, and the cascade of gore from the crucifixion sites and the dog collars have been cleaned away. Dante and the others conclude that someone removed the evidence on purpose (Radford Horror 08).
Equipment¶
- Flamethrowers and heat-suited "volcanologist" outfits (Radford Horror 07).
- Heat-ray flashlights. Kurt tests one by the river in a welding mask and finds a blinding, unnaturally ultraviolet beam that turns a patch of water to steam (Radford Horror 08).
- Shadow ponchos: a dark, near-transparent cloth that packs down to almost nothing and passes impact straight through, yet is strong enough to hold a man's weight. Kurt guesses it is some kind of armor (Radford Horror 08).
Unresolved¶
The episodes never establish who the men work for or why they cleaned the church. The official police story, which blames the cartel, looks like a convenient cover for them, but no character says so.