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John spots a box of tools to the corner, with a hammer besides it. He also sees, on one wall, a fire extinguisher and, in the main room, besides chairs and tables, there is also a large, ancient looking, percolating coffee maker on one of the tables, probably big enough to hold five gallons worth of coffee. .
John hears Kenny cry out.
Kenny misses badly with the chair as he picks it up and it tries to open on him. (Wrestlers make it looks so easy.) The man lunges at Kenny with a backhanded attack to the face. slam:
damage The attack, slams into Kenny's jaw, lifting him off his feet. As his feet slam back into the ground, Kenny is a bit surprised he's not dead, the man is incredibly strong and the blow felt like it should have broken his neck.
Without making a spot check, Kenny can see folding chairs leaning against the wall.
The man does follow John out of the room, lurching almost drunkenly as he walks. He moves up the stairs but as John reaches the top, he realizes the man is not behind him. Kenny, waiting till the man is on the stairwell, moves into the door of the room. It looks like a classroom in a small country church. As Kenny begins to make out details he is aware of the sound of movement behind him. The lurching man has returned. He stares stupidly at Kenny for a moment, his eyes seeming to have trouble focusing.
The man lurches forward, brandishing his pipe, but John easily scoots out of the room ahead of his attack.
All through the whispered conversation, the digger makes no sign of having heard anything. When at last John speaks loudly, the man ceases his digging and cocks his head. Then he slowly turns. "Uh." he says, his lips barely moving. There is a real lifeless quality to his face and his eyes seem strangely unfocused. Then with alurching step he moves towards John. "Heelpp." He says in what is almost a wheezing groan. John is not sure if he is asking for help or calling John the help. Either way he is brandishing his pipe above his head like a club and lurching at John as if to attack.
Peeking through the door reveals,... ...an ungainly figure, the same one that the group followed, bashing and scrapping out the brick wall with what appears to be a short piece of iron pipe.
The digging sound continues.
Flourescent light bulbs on the cieling hum, flicker and then begin to shine, gradually growing brighter. The room beyond is filled with 6 tables, each surrounded by folding chairs. There are two doors on the west wall, both closed and two doors on the east wall: one closed and one partially open. Small plaques on the doors read 1-3, 4-7, 8-12, and Teens. There is another door on the far side of the room, as well as a half-wall counter It looks like a kitchen on the other side of the counter, likely reached through the closed door. The digging sound seems to be coming from the partially open door on the east wall. This is the door with 4-7 on it.
John sees that the steps do descend again down to the left. At the bottom, John gets the sense of a larger room opening off to the right and he can just see a suggestion of a table and metal backed chairs. The sound of digging and scrapping echoes in the room, but its source is still not near.
With no light, it is slow going down the stairs. After about ten steps, John puts his foot down and finds a floor where he was expecting space. He has reached some sort of landing and the wall feels open to the left. Whether there are more stairs or a hallway cannot be determined as it is pitch black. The sound of digging and scraping is louder but still some distance away.
There does appear to be a light switch on the wall near to the door.
The door appears to open on a stairwell going down. Unfortunately its too dark to see much detail.
John hears the sound of scraping and knocking coming from somewhere within the building. It sounds a bit like rocks hitting each other. The sound is loudest through one of the doors to the right. A door that is slightly ajar.
Kenny sees a small foyer, with scarlet carpeting. Stairs, about five feet from the front door lead up to a set of double doors and there are four doors off of the foyer, two to a side. Various things hang from the walls. Details are hard to make out in the dim light.
The pursued seems to have gone into the building. At least the front door is open. There are no lights on inside, though the street light allows you to see a short ways inside.
Kenny cannot read the names on the stones. It is too dark. There is a street-light in front of the stone building and beyond the building is a snow-covered street. There appears to be a house about a half-block further. Approaching the stone building you get the sense that it is a church building. There is a wooden sign in the front lawn of the building, but it is facing away from you. The tracks lead from the woods, through the cemetery and around the front of the stone building. Which makes sense as you just saw your quarry going around the corner of the building. There is no sign of anyone else in the area.
Kenny, only partially aware of what he is doing, begins reciting a chant. As his mind gets caught up in it, he reaches with his left hand and scratches open his right arm (1 point of damage). Almost immediately Kenny feels hot and then a little cold. There is a crack, like a spark of electricity...
Despite the fact that Kenny just gouged open his arm, he looks suprisingly energized.
The woods are lovely, cold, and dark. Soon the entire group is stumbling over unseen roots and small stones. Nevertheless, there is just enough light to prevent anyone from walking into a tree. After what seems like hours, but is probably closer to fifteen minutes, you can see a light ahead, an electric light of some sort. Walking a bit further, you come to the end of the treeline and out into,... a cemetery. A decent sized cemetery in fact. There is a large stone building down the hill at the edge of the cemetery and there are tracks through the cemetery leading from the woods to the building. You're quarry is shambling, even now around the corner of the building.
So are you following the man or going back to help with the fire? Its going to get very dark very soon under the trees if you move further away from the fire. But you can still see just enough, thanks to the reflective white snow, to stumble through if you want to try and follow.
There is a crashing noise as part of the burning house collapses in on itself. The man shuffling away is swallowed up in the darkness beyond the light of the fire. He is, however, walking in a fairly straight line.
As the two men rapidly back off, and the women with them, the pale, dead looking man loses interest and swings back around, heading once more into the dark woods. Kenny cannot tell if anyone heard him shouting. He is dimly aware that there is a lot of shouting coming from near the fire as the town excitedly rushes to fight it. Moreover, the fire itself is pretty noisy.
Both Kenny and John make their sanity check. The other two can make them when they check in. The man turns around, revealing a youngish face, made grotesque by a palid complexion, dead eyes and a slobbering, mindless expression. He is, as noted, wearing a black suit, complete with a black tie. He reaches out hands to grab at John. Initiative: Though he moves slowly, his appearance startles you enough that you react even slower. Slam attack: However, the attack comes slow enough John manages to skip back and out of the way. "Urrghhh," grunts the man.
John places his hand on the man's shoulders. He turns around slowly and stares at John.
AS you head under the trees, the light grows slightly dimmer, though the light of the fire flares up at times to keep you from stumbling too badly. John reaches the man, whom, he realizes, is wearing a ruffled black suit. The man continues to stumble away from John, his face hidden in the darkness, one foot dragging a little as if his leg is injured. His arms hang limply down by his side. Though John is not walking quietly, the man does not turn around but continues doggedly forward. Kenny is right behind John and the girls are right behind Kenny.
John reaches the tree line. The light from the fire clearly illuminates the footprints in the snow which lead beneath the trees. There is a faint sound of movement out of sight, and John can just make out the dim shape of the man under the trees, continuing to move slowly away from the fire.
A water tanker pulls up, lights flashing atop it like a fire truck. It appears to be manned by the mayor. Perhaps he parks it near his house. There is equipment along the side of the truck, including fire gear. Various people rush forward to get themselves dressed for the job. A couple of the older men are giving directions but it does not appear that anyone is really, "in charge." As everyone moves towards the truck, John looks at the house and something on the far side of the burning house catches his eye. For John...
Spoiler: John sees a figure stumbling through the snow, away from the house. It appears to be a man, maybe injured. He is most certainly fleeing the scene, albeit with a slow, limping walk. There are trees, perhaps an orchard, behind the house and the man is entering the trees.
The night outside is cold and as you leave the house, there is well over an inch of snow on the ground. It is a house on fire. You recognize it as the house of the dead man, the one who committed suicide. As you pull up, the flames burn hot, and smoke and fire billow out of the windows.
Both husband and wife are up, with her on the phone and him finishing getting dressed. "Fire somewhere, maybe," he says, "We all pitch in when there's something like this."
There was no suggestion of a military presence in town. Bed seems in order... As the night passes sleep comes hard. There are a lot of strange noises in the house as boards creak and the wind blows the roof. Finally sleep comes, only to be interrupted by the ringing of the telephone downstairs. Its about one in the morning. Somewhere nearby, a fire whistle begins sounding.
The fish is good. Dinner is excellent. While eating, the sky outside begins to darken. Snow, strangely, continues to fall. By the time dinner is over it is 10 degrees outside and there is an inch of snow on the ground. "That's something you don't see everyday in the summer," says their host, slightly puzzled as he looks out one of the windows. "So, anyone for bridge? Or do you have another game you prefer." The evening passes pleasantly and soon it is time for bed.
Yes, do you want to head to the church before it is dark, or call it a day?
"If you don't get to see it beforehand, most of us gather on the church-lawn to watch the fireworks."
"Everyone uses it, though Father Kilmon is the one with the keys."
"Actually it is. The only original building still standing in fact. The others, all being wood, didn't last. But they built that church solid."
"There's a few descendants around. The Kilmon's mostly. The rest of us are more recent."
There were five town fathers, and one of the earlier pictures has all five standing proudly in front of the stone church they had built.
Kenny notices that the town was started by a small group of goldminers, and that the very first building they built in town was a stone church. The town has grown slowly, with most of the original buildings being wooden shacks that are appearantly long gone.
"I'm sure there is, lots of old building made way for new buildings. Town's been here for about a hundred and ten years. Say, why do you want pictures of everyone?" John, flipping through the books, sees a lot of pictures of the town, but nothing that immediatelly grabs his attention.
"Old photo's huh? Well you are in luck that we do have a couple of scrap-books laying around with old pictures in it." She gets up and motioning you to follow, leads you into a room towards the back off of a kitchen. "My names Edie," she says as she guides you, "Good to have visitors. Is it still sunny out there. Forecast said it was supposed to be a nice day. I meant to get out and enjoy it but got reading. Right over here. We call this our craft room, used to be a sewing room, now we keep the craft books and what not in it and do some scrap-booking too on thursdays. These two books here might have something." She pulls out two large tomes with pink quilted covers and a lot of lace.
From the outside, the library looks like a two story, wood house with a broad front porch. There are a couple of rocking chairs on the porch and a checkerboard on a barrel. Its quite quaint, a bit like the outside of a Cracker Barrel, in fact. The front door is unlocked and the converted house inside is full of books in shelves and in boxes. There is an older woman sitting at a table, calmly reading a book. A radio is on in the same room playing some sort of soothing techno beat which, after a moment you place as Enigma's Sadeness. "Hi strangers," she says as a bell rings above the door, and she looks up to see who it is. She calmly places a bookmark in her book and places it on the table, "may I help you?"
"No, no place to buy them, but we all bought plenty though. I imagine we can let you light a couple with us. Though the show the mayor is planning should be pretty good, that is if it warms up. Its right cold out there. Kind of unusual, even for us."
I suggest we let this one rest in peace. |
