"Lot 36" Trivia Quiz

Answer: Heart attack

In 1991, an elderly gentleman watches as George Bush announces the attacks that commence America's involvement in the Gulf War. Shuffling from his living room to his kitchen he tosses the remains of his microwave dinner out in the trash and drops his keys on the counter before donning an apron and butchering away at a skinned creature on his cutting board.

He chops the head off, but it falls to the floor and, frustrated, he bends over to pick it up. It's the last thing he does. As he reaches down, he has a heart attack and dies, staring into the eye of the skull on the ground.

Answer: A winning bid at an auction

Nick, driving through town listening to right-wing pundit radio, arrives at a storage building just in time for the auction. Today, he and the others bidding on lockers are in the long-term rental section of the building, and Eddie, the auction lead, acknowledges they call it the 'Gold Coast'-- it's for people who don't trust banks and leave it all behind in death, divorce, and debt.

They start with Lot 36. The unit was owned by the same man for years, but he's passed on. After cutting open the padlock, he gives a brief look at the contents to the bidders and Bill starts the bids. There's interest from the crowd, but the auction ends when Nick puts in a bid of $400. It, and all its contents, are his.

Answer: Every day

Nick makes a call to Tommy, who he owes a great deal of money, to explain that he's across county lines bidding on storage units to sell the items inside for a profit. Tommy insists-- he needs the money tonight. He splits cash from his previous unit with Eddie and offers to cut a check for Lot 36, much to Eddie's disgust. Before Eddie hands over the keys, however, he plays a VHS-- a video of security camera footage. On it, they watch as the previous owner of Lot 36 walks down the corridor with a bag, heads in for an hour or two, and leaves with the bag empty.

He's had the place since 1945 and he's been there every day. Something important must be kept inside.

Answer: A padlock

As Nick leaves the office bound for the storage units, he passes by a woman, Emelia, who makes her way in to speak to Eddie and pay her bill. The problem is that he sold the unit; her phone line was disconnected and she wasn't paid up. He admits that she tried to contact him, but wen he realizes that Nick is outside, he points him out-- Nick is the new owner of her lot.

As Emilia approaches Nick, she explains the issue; all of her family's letters, photos, and personal belongings are in the unit. Legally, he explains, she owns nothing in the unit. For $1,000, she can have the rest. In the meantime, he gives her the destroyed padlock from her unit's door and heads off to see what he's won.

Answer: Smaller than other storage units in the building

Opening Lot 36, Nick sets to work and finds a number of rubbish items of all sorts-- everything from old furniture to Christmas lights. Something is odd, however. When he looks into the nearby Lot 40, he notices it's bigger than Lot 36 by a longshot. Eddie suggests that building code in the 1940s, when they building was constructed, wasn't exactly perfect. Eddie also criticizes Nick for being so cheap. Emilia, for instance, is a nice lady; Nick should let her into her unit. Nick continues to refuse. He paid for it.

Soon, Nick is carting out the trash, and most of the contents are exactly that. He opens one case, however, containing a concerning album of photographs indicating that the previous owner had Nazi affiliations. He stows the book away and moves on.

Answer: A thug, there to scare him into paying his debt

When Nick reaches the back of Lot 36 he starts to find more concerning artifacts including ornate darkwood chairs and a massive pentagram emblem. As he seals them into the back of his truck and gets behind the wheel, however, he's ambushed by a man with a hammer and told that he has one more day to hand over $12,000, the debt he still owes to Tommy. The man hits him in the forehead before smashing out Nick's windshield. From the office door, Emilia watches on.

Nick heads inside to use Eddie's first aid kit and he reveals his find-- some antiques and potential gold accessories. Instead of bringing them to the five-and-dime he normally does, he receives a new address from Eddie. If the artifacts are good, actual collectors would be interested and they would pay good money for them. Nick tapes up his windshield and heads out.

Answer: Three

Nick ends up at Agatha's with his items of note, showing her a gold candelabra and the pentagram-inlayed emblem. She notes that the pentagram is part of a seance table, and a serious one. It's a wonderful piece. As she presses into one of the segments on top, she reveals a hidden drawer that pops open on the side, exposing three books-- 'Liber Primus, Daemonia', 'Liber Secundus, Symvolia', and 'Liber Tertius, Perilipsi'. Agatha admits it's not her field of interest-- books, that is-- but she has an associate who may know more and be able to give a valid appraisal.

Agatha calls up Roland and he comes quickly, immediately finding reason to be impressed with the seance table. Made in Austria in the nineteenth century, Roland explains, it appears to have been treated in a very specific way so as to summon an entity. The reddish tint in the lacquer is blood.

When Roland sees the three books, he's more thrilled than expected. He asks where the fourth is, but for three, he would pay $10,000 each. For all four, in excess of $300,000 to the right buyer. The problem is that the fourth, 'Liber Quartus, Sacramentum', is the rarest, made with symbols and spells to bind a demon to make it earthbound. It's the rarest because it burns down completely at the end of the transaction. Roland hands over some cash, but he insists that if Nick finds book four, he'll cut him a check the moment he does.

Answer: His sister

As rain starts to pour outside, Nick drives himself and Roland back to the storage building in his ruined truck. On the way, Roland admits he knows more than he's letting on. In fact, the previous owner of the unit they're returning to was a very rich man who made his money in steel in Europe and emigrated to America after World War II. Most importantly, he was known for making weapons for the Nazis; he was purely evil. He gambled his fortune away and had a bottomless appetite, moving through occult circles before invoking an entity, offering it a vessel to occupy and possess: his sister, Dottie Wolmar. They searched but never found her. It was quite the scandal.

As they return to the unit, Roland reveals that he brought the candelabra with him as it was made to provide protection from evil. Nick scoffs at this idea and puts his temporary assistant to work. They won't leave, he says, until they find the fourth book.

Answer: Yes

The search through the storage unit proves fruitless and Nick continues to toss useless junk into the trash, unaware that Emilia still remains watching from the side of the building.

Eventually, however, Nick and Roland determine something odd, notably that the far wall of the storage unit is completely hollow. They move furniture from the fake wall to find a lock on the floor and while Nick picks it open, Roland loads the candelabra with candles. And inside, they find something awful.

As soon as the door opens, they smell something awful; Roland calls it effluvia and warns Nick not to say anything in case something not from the natural world is found inside. They should not speak with it and they should not make eye contact with it, but it will hunger for the darkness within them.

As the pair proceed through a brick hallway marked with crucifixes and old newspaper clippings, they eventually come across a final chamber at the end of the corridor and there, on the ground, in a pentagram, they find the body of Dottie Wolmar. In her face, fused to the floor, the tentacles of the demon, weakened by time, writhe in the darkness. But Nick, seeing the fourth book on a stand across the room, makes things worse.

Answer: He breaks its binding circle

As Nick crosses the room to collect the fourth book he breaks the seal on the floor and unwittingly awakens the beast there. It writhes to free itself from the body it possesses. Though Nick grabs the book, it sets ablaze, beginning to be consumed for the ritual. Roland, standing between him and the entity, is pulled into its tentacles and consumed as Nick flees the unit.

Nick races to the hallway with the demon in pursuit, cranking the lights on and getting lost in the maze-like corridors of the building until he reaches the exit. He tries the knob, but it's locked, having shut and sealed from his last time taking out the trash. He yells for help only to be met by Emilia, standing at the window under an umbrella. Nick offers her anything in exchange for her opening the door, but she instead takes the broken padlock he gave her earlier and places it there before departing.

Nick runs, hits the lights one more time, and turns the corner, running right into the demon to meet his end.