Moments later, Our Boring Hero and this week's bit of Monster Chow (I'm guessing) are taking their leave of each other out on the dark street. Sid heads off in one direction towards his probable doom while Dean hoofs it over to his pickup, and the sad lad hasn't even had time to pull his keys from his jacket when the dulcet tones of some heavyweight female shrieking reach his ears from the construction site above. DUN! Dean warily darts his eyes from one end of the street to the other and, once he's determined he's completely alone, he ducks into the pickup's cab to rummage beneath the driver's seat for a small flashlight and what I'm presuming to be an even smaller implement of demonic destruction, the latter of which he cautiously tucks into his inside pocket before hustling over to the construction site's entrance.

Once inside the building, which we can now see is being gutted for a complete renovation, Dean pulls his trusty pearl-handled automatic from his inside pocket, snaps on his flashlight, and makes with the Tough Guy Jazz Hands up the stairs to the second floor, where all the doorways are shrouded with appropriately spooky-looking plastic sheeting. He edges down the hallway, spinning to confront every random rattle and groan the ancient building has to give off until he reaches a particularly ominous bit of spooky-looking plastic sheeting that just hangs there, taunting him. Dashing El Deano sweeps the snide polyethylene aside to discover...an agitated flock of pigeons that proceeds to flutter around his head! "ZZZZZZZZZZZZZ!" Poor Raoul. Then again, after the madcap summer he's had, I'm inclined to leave him alone. God knows the tired thing could use the rest. In any event, Dean's about to hike up to the decrepit apartment house's third floor when he spots something on a far wall: The crisply outlined gouges left by a large, four-clawed paw in the crumbling wainscoting's blood-red paint. DUN! Again! Even more disturbing? That blood-red smear of actual blood a little further down the wall. Dun-dun-DUN! So what does Our Intrepid Hero choose to do?

Race back to that fabulous house he's sharing with Bendy Lisa and Brobdingnagian Ben, of course, because Season Six Dean is a gigantic pussy. Kidding! I'm kidding. He's simply being overly cautious now that he's out of the life and all respectable and such. To his credit, he's hacked into the Hamilton County 911 Emergency Call Dispatch database from his home computer to search for clues and has also rung up one of his contacts in the sheriff's department (I'm guessing) to see if anyone's been reported missing that evening. "So, no reports of anything near Vineland and Oak Street," he asks, "near that hotel renovation?" Apparently not, which is a blessing in disguise considering the fact that Bendy Lisa's just wandered down from above clad in a singularly unappealing pale pastel nightie-and-robe set to wonder who the hell he's talking to at 11:30 at night. Dean hastily ends the call while closing out the various incriminating browser windows he'd had open and LIES that he was "just setting up a poker game" with Sid. Because even though he's lived in Cicero for twelve full months, Dean has exactly one male friend, who happens to be the only other Cicero resident accorded lines this evening. As before, Bendy Lisa takes a moment before deciding not to call him on his obvious bullshit, and instead smiles and heads back upstairs after ensuring he'll be following shortly. Thus left alone, Dean repeats his nightly ritual of methodically locking all of the doors and windows on the main floor. This time, however, he also lifts the entrance carpet by the front door to confirm that no one's screwed with the massive devil's trap he spray-painted onto the floor back when he first moved in. Pretty sneaky, Dean.