Episode Transcript
Speaker 0 00:00:00 December 21st, 2012, 12:37 AM Hey, it's Damian. You know what to do.
Speaker 2 00:00:33 Fucking, hey, it's me. I know, I, I'm sorry I stormed out like that. I just needed to walk away before I said something. I,
Speaker 2 00:00:52 There are a lot of excuses that I could make about how I'm stressed and the new meds and how this time of year always sucks, but it's nothing you haven't heard a million times before, so I'm just sorry. I guess, look, I know it's hypocritical, but please come home or at least text me so I know you're okay. I don't believe any of that bullshit on TV about the world ending tonight or whatever. But we live in Vegas and the weirdos are gonna be out and we've gotta pick up Rory for her figure skating thing in the morning. Let me know when you get this. Okay, You forgot your keys. I'll leave the door unlocked and the porch light on. Love you. Bye.
Speaker 0 00:02:34 Hello everybody and welcome to Comp compelled Dual Desert song. I'm al my pronouns are they them. I like sunset and long walks on the beach.
Speaker 2 00:02:42 I'm Barry, My pronouns are he him I like causing problems. <laugh>. And we play TT r PPGs.
Speaker 0 00:02:52 For those of you who are listening to us for the first time, welcome. For those of you who listen to our first campaign where we played Dungeons and Dragons, we're doing something a little different this time we will be playing a monster of the Week by Evil Hat Productions, which for the uninitiated is a powered by the apocalypse system. So two D six s and that's it.
Speaker 2 00:03:12 Also, we wanna come right out of the gate by giving everybody that's listening to us right now. Fair warning. This is a horror campaign with heavy focus on trauma and psychological horror. We will be dealing with some very sensitive subjects. We always put out content warnings. You can find links to them in our reference posts on all of our social media, where at compelled dual on Twitter, Tumblr, and TikTok.
Speaker 0 00:03:39 And with that, everyone, welcome to the show.
Speaker 2 00:03:44 Friday, April 13th, 2018. 8:22 PM
Speaker 0 00:03:58 The city of Las Vegas rises out of the desert like a mirage, bright neon and the sounds of people carousing down the streets and oasis in the middle of the Mojave where ordinary people go to live their dreams for a night and people living their dreams go to die. Our camera zooms through the bright lights of the Las Vegas strip and pass the airport out into the night. We go over stretches of desert, empty to some eyes, but teaming with life nonetheless. We go down the Interstate 15 on the way to California, a pipeline between the Las Vegas nightlife and the harsh unforgiving light of Los Angeles. And we stop in the town of Gene Nevada. What was once a mining town has crumbled under the inexorable march of time. It has now become just another pit stop along the highway, home to one solar power plant and terrible's roadhouse, the biggest Chevron gas station in the world. 96 pumps in a candy village
Speaker 4 00:05:32 <laugh>,
Speaker 0 00:05:35 But our focus is on the solar plant. Our camera zooms in and over the panels ging in the low light and past them over the dirt and scrub of the Mojave. And as we settle on an unremarkable patch of earth with light hitting and gleaming off of the headlight of a motorcycle, a hand shoots out of the dirt. Barry, please describe your character.
Speaker 2 00:06:20 Um, here's the thing, I can't
Speaker 0 00:06:28 That you cannot,
Speaker 2 00:06:33 I don't know what I look like.
Speaker 0 00:06:37 The hand long fingered and pale black nail polish and glimmering rings just peeking out under the dirt claws at the ground before being joined by another very similar hand. And then the rest of a pair of long arms come out of the dirt ahead, shoulders a long torso and equally long legs until this figure is splayed across the dirt. Pausing for a moment, what are you doing?
Speaker 2 00:07:16 Flopping over on my back and staring up at the sky. Very confused.
Speaker 0 00:07:22 You see the clear night sky over the Mojave desert. Something that strikes you kind of immediately with like the metal gear alert noise in the back of your brain is that you cannot hear shit
Speaker 2 00:07:37 Like at all.
Speaker 0 00:07:39 If you listen very carefully, you can kind of hear like the rumbling of trucks over the interstate, but beyond that, no.
Speaker 2 00:07:49 Uh, maybe I have dirt in my ears. I'm gonna try to dig it out.
Speaker 0 00:07:54 Something hard and plasticy pops out of your ear into your hand as you dig around with your fingers, you bring your hand around so you can look at what it is. And it is a sparkly purple hearing aid
Speaker 2 00:08:10 That probably has dead batteries cuz I've been in the ground, huh?
Speaker 0 00:08:15 Yeah, it seems like
Speaker 2 00:08:19 Shit. I'm gonna smack it against my hand a couple times to see if it'll turn on and then I think almost reflexively kind of do the full body pocket pat down to see if I could find extra batteries because a responsible person would have those, but I don't know if I'm a responsible person or not.
Speaker 0 00:08:40 Yeah, you do the pat down almost in the back of your head, not even realizing that you're doing it. You go, Okay, phone. Yes. Wallet. Yes keys, yes. And then hearing aid case yes in your front jeans pocket.
Speaker 2 00:08:55 Cool. Do I have batteries?
Speaker 0 00:08:57 Yeah, you have not an abundance of spares but you have like one change out.
Speaker 2 00:09:03 Okay? We've established that my character has something going on where they don't know shit about fuck, but like does she remember how to put batteries in her hearing aids and turn them on?
Speaker 0 00:09:14 Yeah, you can do that almost reflexively just muscle memory as you're sitting up doing that you notice, yep, you can do that reflexively, you know what trucks are and you know the sound of them going over the interstate. You have no idea where the fuck you are.
Speaker 2 00:09:30 Oh, well that's fun. You mentioned in your opening narration thing there's a motorcycle nearby. Is is, is is that mine? Do I know what to do with that?
Speaker 0 00:09:42 Yeah, you see this bike, you get up and cross the stretch of dirt between you and it. Dig your keys outta your pocket. It's a couple of keys. There's a little skull key chain. It looks like one of the keys would fit in the ignition.
Speaker 2 00:09:57 Okay, cool. I'm going to climb on the bike and put the key in the ignition and turn it and in a very raspy dusty voice go. All right, so I'm hoping that that thing they say about riding a bike is true. At least room room I'm heading out towards where I heard the trucks earlier.
Speaker 0 00:10:21 You ride your bike into the town of Gene, there's just about nothing there. But you see the big glowing sign for a Chevron station. You pull in at one of the 96 pumps at this station. Are you gonna fill up your bike and go in?
Speaker 2 00:10:38 Uh, yeah I'm gonna go inside and just pay in there cuz I'm thirsty.
Speaker 0 00:10:45 Okay, you walk into this gas station and immediately feel eyes turned to you. You walk up to the counter where a pimply teenager is manning one of the registers and looking at you like he has seen something very strange.
Speaker 2 00:11:06 I spit some grave dirt onto the counter. Hey pal, can you hook me up with 15 on pump number 94 and a pack of yellow American spirits please?
Speaker 0 00:11:20 This guy keeps looking at you for a long moment and then says, can I see some Id <laugh> in that way that people who work customer service do when they don't have time to think about the implications of something.
Speaker 2 00:11:40 Uh, yeah you, you said I had my wallet in my pocket so I, I take it out and see if I've got like a license or anything in there. I hope I have a license. I'm driving a motorcycle. Am I a criminal
Speaker 0 00:11:51 <laugh>? If you pull out your wallet, it's a very simple black leather billfold. You see a couple of credit cards, a social security card which you're not supposed to keep in your wallet and a battered looking Nevada driver's license that has that bar across the top that says the owner of this license will not be 18 until this date and will not be 21 until this date. The picture is the world's most awkward and su teenager according to the license. Your hair is blonde, your eyes are brown, you are six and a half feet tall and your name is Kalen O'Connell. That's K A E L E N O'Connell.
Speaker 2 00:12:33 Who the fuck is Kalin O'Connell?
Speaker 0 00:12:37 The kid behind the counter goes, Uh, I don't think I can sell you cigarettes if you don't know who your ID belongs to. He looks very confused.
Speaker 2 00:12:56 Listen man, I've had a long night already. I'm Jones in and I'm pretty sure I'm at least like 21.
Speaker 0 00:13:04 You look down at the license to check and you will apparently be turning 24 on October 31st, 2018, which is also when this license expires. So you need to get on that apparently <laugh> great.
Speaker 2 00:13:18 Oh awesome. I need to go to the dmv. Why do I know that the DMV sucks?
Speaker 0 00:13:25 Do you need help ma'am? Can I call somebody for you?
Speaker 2 00:13:29 Nah boss, you're good. Just doing your job. I get it. You can't sell me the cigarettes. I need a dopamine hit though. So I'm gonna go hit up that candy village and uh, you got 96 bathrooms to go with those 96 gas pumps out there.
Speaker 0 00:13:42 This guy just keeps looking at you and then points off to the side and says bathrooms are that way.
Speaker 2 00:13:49 All right, cool. I'm, I'm gonna go find a bathroom. I need to look in the mirror like now cause if I still look like this motherfucker on my driver's license, we're gonna have an issue. <laugh>.
Speaker 0 00:14:01 Yeah, you find the bathrooms relatively easy.
Speaker 2 00:14:05 I look back down at my driver's license and sort of squint at it next to the sex designation and go, Nah, that ain't right. And then go in the lady's room.
Speaker 0 00:14:14 Yeah, <laugh>,
Speaker 2 00:14:17 I know the DMV blows and I know that I'm transgender. Those are the two linchpins of my knowledge in this world.
Speaker 0 00:14:25 <laugh>. Okay, you walk into the lady's room, it's got those floor to ceiling mirrors that gas station bathrooms sometimes have you turn to look in one and suddenly you're not in this gas station, you are in a cramped bathroom with like seventies a tile looking into a big mirror over a sink at a young woman who was drawing eyeliner onto one of her eyelids. Extremely tall, long kind of ashy blonde hair, big brown eyes, kind of a hawkish nose and like very severe angular facial features. Just squinting, concentrating into the mirror and you watch in the mirror as this woman stops and tilts her head and then looks at something off from the mirror and then you're back in the gas station and you see the same woman from that whatever that was. Tall, skinny, dusty, blonde hair tied back into a ponytail with strands falling out. The ponytail has mostly come undo on by this point wearing earrings with moths on them, a leather jacket over some t-shirt for a punk band. Jeans, sturdy boots covered in dirt and very obviously dead.
Speaker 2 00:16:10 How do you mean obvious?
Speaker 0 00:16:14 I mean that the woman standing in front of you was already fairly pale but this woman's skin has discolored and it has gone almost a bluish purple in some places. As you stare in the mirror, you notice that your eyes are wrong, the pupils are kind of fray around the edges and the Irish is have gone a stark fluorescent almost yellow and they give off a little bit of a glow as they reflect the light of the bathroom.
Speaker 2 00:17:00 Kaylin stares at herself in the mirror for a really long time and then slowly brings up a hand and just brushes a fingertip under the dark circles beneath her fucked up glowing eyes and says to the cavernous silence of the bathroom, Oh fuck,
Speaker 2 00:17:32 We cut to a different time and a different place. It is over a week before the scene we just saw it's about seven in the morning, but even at seven in the morning the Mojave desert is hot. The sun is beating down on the bleached dirt and scrub bushes and asphalt of I 15. Pretty unpopulated in comparison to what it will be in about three or four hours when all of the Angelinos wake up from their weekend binge drinking to head home and cutting a stark silhouette against the sunrise at his back. Moving through the rippling heat haze coming off the pavement, we see a figure emerge. A young man of 21 years old going on 22 stumbles along the side of the highway with one thumb absently held out to a string of cars that ardently ignore him. He's wearing gray sweatpants that say Clark High School down one leg and a red hoodie. Both that are very baggy indicative that they fit someone who was quite a bit larger before the malnutrition set in ahead of shaggy dark hair that looks like it was lovingly trimmed with the blunt edge of a Bowie knife, blows in the wind
Speaker 2 00:19:16 And a pair of warm brown eyes squint into the heat haze as the glare from the sun off the windshields of oncoming cars reflect off of his sharp hawkish nose and severe angular facial features. It's not uncommon to see wanderers on the road outside of Las Vegas. Our particular wonderer passes a street sign that reads South Las Vegas Boulevard, but he is far from the bright lights and bustle of the city. In fact, he's walking away from it. Not too far off. There is an exit sign for I 15 that reads Prim Nevada and a little beyond that there is a giant paper mache mermaid towering on an old repurposed billboard post over the road. What
Speaker 4 00:20:25 The
Speaker 2 00:20:32 Uh, I'm walking towards the paper mache
Speaker 4 00:20:34 Mermaid, I guess. <laugh>.
Speaker 2 00:20:38 Yeah, I think you're taking the paper mache mermaid as some kind of sign from the universe. You don't know a whole lot right now. You know that your name is Dian O'Connell. You know that you're running from something, but the name or names totally escape you. You know that you're running to somewhere or someone, but the names totally escape you. You know, you're close to home. The highway and the sand and the scrub and the creso bushes, they feel like home. You know you're close. But yeah man, the giant mermaid's kind of weird
Speaker 5 00:21:22 <laugh>.
Speaker 0 00:21:24 Yeah, I have, I have no idea where else to go. I would think if the mermaid's what I got then I'm going towards the mermaid.
Speaker 2 00:21:36 You head toward this big mermaid on the old billboard post cars pass you along the highway, kick up a bunch of dust into your face. It's like super rude
Speaker 0 00:21:48 And also not awesome. Yeah, boys and asthmatic and already not having a great day. <laugh>.
Speaker 2 00:21:53 Yeah, you're wheezing, you're coughing, you're struggling, you've been walking for hours. You're in a sweatsuit in the middle of April in the Mojave Desert, which is not fun. Once you reach the base of this old billboard post, you see a warehouse, like a warehouse ass warehouse. It's a big ray building made of corrugated steel, lots of garage doors down one side. There are several outbuildings scattered around this big main one and a dirt parking lot that has all of the parking spaces marked with spray paint and traffic cones. It looks a little slap dash and over the double doors into this big main building, there's a big vinyl sign that says in bright, fancy lettering, johansen's, eccentric emporium. There is also a mermaid on the sign.
Speaker 0 00:23:03 I mean this is probably the first building I've seen in a while. I'm gonna go in,
Speaker 2 00:23:08 Oh yeah, you came to in the desert just as the sun was coming over the horizon. You have no idea where you were before that, but you found your way to the highway and have been hoofing it along South Las Vegas Boulevard ever since.
Speaker 0 00:23:24 I think he pauses for a second, puts a hand up to his chest and takes a deep breath. Okay, Okay. And then he's gonna walk in and see if he can encounter people that are not driving past him.
Speaker 2 00:23:41 You walk into this place and immediately into a cheap tacky Vegas themed gift shop that fills you with a sense of tired nostalgia. There are snow globes, there are t-shirts, there are tacky license plate key chains with people's names on them and there's a mermaid. The counter of this gift shop is a giant plexiglass aquarium and you can see the corner of this giant plexiglass aquarium going down a set of stairs and onto like an exhibition floor that is just chalk full of, I guess you could say crypted memorabilia. There's like taxidermied jack elopes that have clearly been cobbled together by someone without a lot of skill and stuff like that. But yeah, there's a mermaid sitting behind a cash register. Her tails swishing back and forth through the water through this plexiglass. She's got a cell phone out and is just scrolling through it. She seems young, like late teens, early twenties and has a terrible spray tan and bottle blonde hair with about an inch and a half of mousey brown roots grown out. She doesn't even look up from the phone as you walk in and a little buildings just boldly goes. Welcome to Joe Hanson's eccentric emporium where all of your wildest dreams, streams or on display. How many tickets can I get for you
Speaker 0 00:25:33 Damien? A young man wearing his pajamas very clearly malnourished, wheezing, covered in dust from walking down the road in need of a haircut like a year ago. Wobbles up to this front counter, puts a hand down on it, smiles real big at this mermaid and says, Hi, I know you don't get paid enough to deal with bullshit, so I am so sorry about this. And then he passes out. <laugh>,
Speaker 2 00:26:06 The last thing you hear before you lose consciousness is this girl sounding much more panicked and urgent going, oh shit, oh god. And then a hiss and click of a walkie-talkie followed by uh, Luke. There's a customer service issue up at the front desk that we're gonna need you for. You have no way of knowing how long you're unconscious, but when you open your eyes again and can actually process what you're seeing, there's a dude hovering over you. He's on the shorter side, especially compared to you. You're like six two. This guy's maybe 5, 6, 5, 7 Filipino dude, dark brown eyes, dark hair with a very well kept up undercut and like a big Elvis style pompadur on top. Looks to be in like his early thirties. He's wearing khaki Bermuda shorts and a Hawaiian shirt that looks like it has crypts on it. Like there are sasquatches on this guy's shirt and he has on a little plastic name tag that says Luke, he's hovering over you, kind of shaking you by the shoulders and sits back with a look of relief when you open your eyes. Oh, thank fuck. All right, welcome back to the land of the living kid. You, uh, you got insurance.
Speaker 6 00:27:41 Um, I, I, I don't know
Speaker 2 00:27:47 And that's a no. All right Gina, do not call 9 1 1. We're gonna put him in the truck
Speaker 6 00:27:53 Now what?
Speaker 0 00:27:55 And then he's out again.
Speaker 2 00:27:58 You lose consciousness again to this gentleman. Luke, still looking out over your head at something beyond your line of sight going Gina, do not take the tail off. You are on the clock. We've talked about this and we leave Mr. Damian and O'Connell at the mercy of this mermaid and her manager
Speaker 0 00:28:24 And we are back with Caitlin. You bought a portable charger at the Chevron to try and charge up your phone, which thankfully is still working after it's uh, dirt nap and yours I guess. Uh, <laugh> you have so many notifications. You have over a dozen voicemails on this thing. You have tens of texts from multiple different numbers. It is overwhelming but you ignore all that and open up the maps app and just hit the thing that says home and let it give you directions. So you drive into the city of Las Vegas and into a residential neighborhood, not super far from the hustle and bustle of the casinos but far enough and end up driving down a side street into a kind of little block of townhouses. Your GPS tells you which unit you live in and in which townhouse. So you hop off the bike, unlock a little garage door, it's a manual one, it's not electronic and pull it up and pull your bike into the garage. It is a mess. This is somebody's hoarder den.
Speaker 2 00:29:44 Is it mine? Do I know if it's mine?
Speaker 0 00:29:48 You can't tell at all. There are two cars in here and old beat up cut list and a yellow Volkswagen beetle, but you manage to get your bike squeezed in in between them and the rest of the garage is just floor to ceiling, wall to wall, various boxes and like knickknacks. You see old toys in here for some reason. Uh, it, you cannot identify a theme to the mess, it is just full of shit. Like you have a pathway from where you park your bike to the door and other than that there is like no room in here.
Speaker 2 00:30:34 I think they're gonna try to go through some of the shit in the garage. I mean like if they have no idea whose stuff this is, I think investigating would be a good avenue into figuring out what the hell is going on. I'm looking at my stack of papers, I'm not good or practiced at playing monster of the week, so bear with me guys. Um, would this be investigate a mystery or read a bad situation?
Speaker 0 00:31:05 I think would be investigate a mystery because there's no like urgent thing happening.
Speaker 2 00:31:11 Okay, cool. So I roll plus sharp for that
Speaker 0 00:31:15 A
Speaker 2 00:31:16 Okay, first roll of the game. Here we go. I get plus two to sharp by the way, she's very smart. 11.
Speaker 0 00:31:29 Okay, when you roll, investigate a mystery on a 10 plus you hold two uh, one hold can be spent to ask any of the questions on this list. What happened here? What sort of creature is it, what can it do, what can hurt it? Where did it go? What was it going to do and what is being concealed here?
Speaker 2 00:31:50 Okay, so if I wanted to burn those two holds, I could ask two questions.
Speaker 0 00:31:54 Yep, exactly.
Speaker 2 00:31:56 Kay's still sort of trying to disentangle herself from the mess of her bike and the cars just looking around what happened here?
Speaker 0 00:32:07 Yeah, you start looking through this fucking hoarder nest, you're rummaging around and things. Like I said, there's a lot of children's toys in here, a lot of them broken but for some reason kept around. There's like boxes of tchotchkes like wrapped up in bubble wrap that have just been put in here. Um, you find ironically a St. Anthony statue buried under a bunch of shit must have been lost for ages. Uh,
Speaker 7 00:32:36 <laugh>
Speaker 0 00:32:39 You find various sports equipment. There's a baseball bat, there's a deflated soccer ball, uh, there's like a couple pairs of dance shoes for some reason like for little kids and you find a photo album. You have not gone through even half of this H nest, but this is a solid lead <laugh>.
Speaker 2 00:33:01 Well what I'm getting from all that is that like more than one person lives here.
Speaker 0 00:33:07 Yep. Uh, it appears that this is a family home between the fact that there is a photo album out here and like the children's toys seem like they are for multiple different generations. Like you see a lot of really old ones and then like McDonald's happy meal toys that seem recent to you and like do you know those little from the nineties, the little robot dog toys? Yes. Yeah, you find one of those absolutely busted <laugh> missing a leg.
Speaker 2 00:33:39 Uh, CA's not gonna look through the photo album yet, but she does tuck it under her arm. I'm gonna use my second question. What is being concealed here?
Speaker 0 00:33:54 You keep looking through this kind of hoarder den. You find a chair that looks like it's been smashed and there's a hole in the door that leads outta the garage into the yard. And as you are kind of turning and trying to get a look at this, something changes in your awareness. Suddenly you are much shorter and it's a daylight. There's a little bit of light coming through the open door into the backyard. You are leaning against a wall. There's the sound of somebody tinkering around with a car's engine and you see in front of you with the hood popped on the Volkswagen Beetle, a very large man with his back to you, he's wearing just work boots jeans tank top and he does not turn to look at you as he says, Hey kid, could you hand me the socket wrench and then you're back.
Speaker 2 00:34:57 Oh, that's where yeah, I think Kalin just sort of wraps their arms around their chest and holds the photo album a little tighter and then walks over to the door to the backyard, sort of stares at the hole in it for a second and just tries to open it. Is it unlocked?
Speaker 0 00:35:20 Yeah. You get the feeling that with the actual garage door locks, there's no reason to lock this one and as you step through it, yeah the backyard has walls like it is walled in and you're not there anymore. It's daylight again. And on the porch there is a lounge chair which looks ridiculous against the backdrop of a scrubby backyard and a concrete porch and there is an older woman blonde smoking a cigarette with a glass in her other hand and she puts her cigarette hand up waves and says, Oh, finally you kids are home and then you're back.
Speaker 2 00:36:11 Okay, I don't think she's doing so hot on reflex. She brings up one hand and just presses a thumb and a finger against her eyes and then shakes her head really hard like she's trying to get whatever these images are out.
Speaker 0 00:36:31 You walk across the backyard, it's again very obviously this is a family home. There is a rope that might have held a tire swing at some point dangling from a tree in the backyard. That lounge chair that you just saw is on the back porch and next to it is like a little tiny patio table that has a novelty ash tray on it. And next to that is a little lawn known with a blue hat holding it too lip. It looks stupid as fuck <laugh>.
Speaker 2 00:37:01 Okay, so whoever I live with has no taste. Good to know. Good to know.
Speaker 0 00:37:06 There's a little metal bucket like for water balloons on the back porch and as you get to the sliding door into the kitchen, it is locked. You're gonna have to find the key on your key ring.
Speaker 2 00:37:20 Uh, okay, I'm gonna start trying keys.
Speaker 0 00:37:23 The one that finally works is a little personalized one. It's like lilac purple with little cactuses on it. The lock catches with the click you slide open the door and walk into the grossest seventies kitchen just absolutely horrendous. Like the tile screams seventies but not in a fun way. Like it's like that really bad shade of orange that a lot of seventies kitchens are. Nah. Yeah and it goes up the walls from the counters like that's the back splash. Hideous
Speaker 2 00:38:05 God point of order. Seventies decor. Why? Why would you want to make food preparation surfaces have grout on them that you need to scrub? I'm so angry. I'm so angry that this is my home. Carry on.
Speaker 0 00:38:23 Yeah, you do have that whole train of thought. <laugh>, the appliances are also pretty old. There's a glass top table which is a safety hazard waiting to happen. You just it and a bunch of mismatched chairs, like three of them are from a set and they match the smashed one out in the garage. One of them is replaced with a real chair that looks like it was attempting to match the set but not really making it. And the other two are just like folding chairs, like the metal ones. There's a little like tchotchke cabinet on the other side of the table against the wall. There's a set of those like folding closet doors half open. You can see there's a washer and dryer in there and then you're not there anymore. You are sitting at the table just from your vantage point you can tell you're significantly shorter.
Speaker 0 00:39:17 And across the table there are two little kids bickering. One looks to be about eight or nine dark curly hair back in a ponytail kind of warmer skin than yours and a little less pale like kind of olivey big brown eyes in an oversized t-shirt gesturing wildly at this smaller kid who's like, if you had to guess six or seven kind of mouthier brown hair with straight cut bangs wearing a pair of overalls with the embroidered flowers on him. Also big brown eyes, skin tone a little closer to yours, pretty pale, cool undertones and she is rolling her eyes and this older kid huffs and just throws their hands up and then turns to you and goes, Okay, tell her I'm right.
Speaker 2 00:40:10 She starts panicking. It's a knee-jerk response. She's just shaking her head intensely. This isn't real, this isn't real, this isn't real.
Speaker 0 00:40:20 Okay. Uh, you are doing that. Your vantage point in whatever you're seeing doesn't actually change. You know that you are shaking your head and you know that you are talking but like what you are seeing doesn't change and what you are hearing doesn't change and you hear your own voice way younger responding to this other kid. Yeah, see I would do that but then I'd have to tell you, you're right, you're so annoying. This other kid just turns back to the smaller one and is gesticulating again and continuing to bicker and then a voice from the other side of the kitchen says kids, can you just shut up for a second? Both of these other little kids just go very quiet and you can suddenly hear the sounds of breakfast cooking very quietly just spatula against a pan and then you hear a deep breath and a sigh. Ca, can you keep your sisters under control for just two minutes? I'm I just, I just need two minutes and then this will be done and we can just, and then you are back.
Speaker 2 00:41:37 They drop the photo album onto this table with a clatter and just sink into the nearest chair and start trying to stave off a panic attack. She's grinding the heels of her hands into her eyes and still just shaking her head. Sort of starting to rock back and forth.
Speaker 0 00:41:58 Yeah. Um, after a minute, you don't know why you know this but like knowledge of like grounding techniques starts to kind of trip through your brain and you feel this driving need to keep looking into whatever this is. There are so many questions in your brain and you don't really know how to sort it out and you need to have more information
Speaker 2 00:42:26 But like the onslaught of information is actively hurting her and she's still feeling this.
Speaker 0 00:42:32 Uh, yep. According to the rules, this is related to the current mystery. We are uncovering the facts. I am invoking one of your dark side tags for the spooky so you can either dig deeper and get experience or you can back out.
Speaker 2 00:42:49 Can I go through the drawers and see if I can find some fucking cigarettes first?
Speaker 0 00:42:54 Yeah, you can do that <laugh>, you start throwing open kitchen drawers. You see a lot of mismatched cutlery, a lot of like cobbled together utensils, a cabinet full of pots and pans, none of them match. They are very obviously all from different kind of sets and uh, times you find a second different novelty ashtray and a couple packs of cigarettes in the drawer closest to the sliding door. This one is for some reason shaped like the head of a certain cartoon mascot. Not branded but shaped that way. <laugh>.
Speaker 2 00:43:35 Yeah, I don't think they give enough of a shit to really dig into that whole thought process. Kalin slides open the sliding glass door again. So there's some airflow sits down at the table, lights up and flips open the photo album. So can
Speaker 0 00:43:53 I mark experience do that? Yeah. You start flipping through this photo album smoking a cigarette. It is nasty. There weren't any packs of your cigarettes in this drawer. It was two packs of really stale. It turns out pyramids but you are just flipping through this photo album. Uh, one of the first photos in there is a wedding photo. The people in the photo are a white couple, late teens, early twenties. It's very clearly the mid nineties based on a, the way that the bride is dressed and the way you can see other people in the background dressed. It's not like a wedding photo at the altar. It's more relaxed you would guess during the reception. One half of this couple is a very large gentleman, big burley, wavy, brown hair cut, short, big brown eyes, very similar bone structure to you. Exact same big old hawkish noses, kind of more square in the jaw.
Speaker 0 00:45:00 You kind of have more delicate features and the bride is on the smaller side, you would say five and a half feet at maximum, probably smaller. She's very kind of slender and like the word that's coming to mind is like bird bone. They are sitting at a table smiling at the camera but they both look kind of tense. You flip a page, you see the same couple sitting on a couch holding a little baby in. I don't think it's quite the right era for like Oshkosh Baggo to be the clothes dejo but like that kind of deal, like very mass produced department store kind of baby onesies. It's overalls isn't it? <laugh>? Yeah, sure. It's overalls with like a teddy bear on the front. Ugh.
Speaker 0 00:45:57 The baby has kind of sandy brownish blonde hair and fully has a fist in their mouth. <laugh>, this baby is staring at the camera looking haunted. More pictures, the same couple in their baby, a few more people flitting in and out. You see the blonde lady that you caught a flash of out in the backyard. Very tall spindly figure. Uh, very similar bone structure to you and to the guy in this couple perpetually holding a cigarette in one hand in the glass in the other. You see a couple of guys that look very similar to the man in this couple. Same big old hawkish nose, very similar hair. You see pictures a little later a second baby gets added to the mix. Looks to be a couple years younger than the first curly dark hair. Big brown eyes wearing a lot of like very similar department store clothes but like aggressively gendered feminine ones.
Speaker 0 00:46:56 Lots of ladybugs, lots of birds. It's very upsetting. More pictures. You watch these two little babies grow up a few years. Again, it's all like mid to late nineties you watch a couple other little kids flit in and out, mostly accompanying uh, one of the other guys that looks like the man in this couple or a very round redheaded woman. You see what looked to be various extended relatives in different locations and then somewhere around the early two thousands the dark-haired in these pictures disappears and it looks like there's a time skip between the last picture that she's in and the next picture, which is the guy in this couple, those two little kids that you've been seeing and a very small girl with straight cut bangs usually wearing overalls with little flowers on 'em.
Speaker 2 00:47:52 Do any of these kids look like the ones that I just saw in whatever that was?
Speaker 0 00:47:59 Yep. The two younger ones in these last few photos in the album are exactly the kids that you just saw.
Speaker 2 00:48:07 Um, I rolled really good to investigate this mystery. I'm gonna see if I can like start pulling photos out and see if anything's written on the backs so I can identify these people.
Speaker 0 00:48:19 Okay, yeah, you pull out the first photo, the wedding photo and written on the back is Todd and Kendra's wedding 1994. You pull out the photo of the couple with their baby and written on the back is Kalin at three months, 1995
Speaker 2 00:48:39 Ca drops the picture on the table like it's made of dynamite.
Speaker 0 00:48:44 Are you pulling out more photos?
Speaker 2 00:48:47 No. No she's not touching the photo album. She just got smacked with the realization that this is a photo album full of her and she has no idea who the fuck all these other people are. It's too much. It's too weird.
Speaker 0 00:49:03 Okay, as you are grappling with that, you hear something almost too quiet to make out at first, but then the volume rises and you realize it's piano music and like instantly in your brain you kind of identify the piece. It's moonlight sonata by Beethoven.
Speaker 2 00:49:32 Well that's fucking horrifying considering that I've been in a totally quiet house for like 10 minutes. Uh, I'm gonna stand up, grab a butcher knife out of the knife block and slowly walk towards the sound. Hello.
Speaker 0 00:49:56 The doorway to the kitchen. Lets out into like the smallest hallway in the world. There's enough room for a door on either side. One probably leads into a bathroom and the other into a closet if you had to guess. And at the end of it there is a baby gate.
Speaker 2 00:50:12 Oh fuck me, do I have children?
Speaker 0 00:50:16 You look over the other side of this baby gate and there is a little sign hung from it that reads, No boys allowed,
Speaker 2 00:50:27 No boys. Who the fuck lives here?
Speaker 0 00:50:40 The piano music cuts off with a discordant slam as you walk through this baby gate.
Speaker 2 00:50:48 Ugh, I jump.
Speaker 0 00:50:52 You find yourself in a living room that appears to go the full width of the house much like the kitchen does again, very seventies. Some of the furniture looks a little more modern. Uh, if you had to guess you would say the coffee tables like nineties and the loveseat not the bigger couch, which is up against the wall with the window is early two thousands like not Ikea but like off brand Ikea and perpendicular to them is a big 70 style entertainment center with a mirrored back. As you look at that, you notice that the inside of it, apart from like the cubby where the TV goes, has been converted into what appears to be a habitat for some kind of animal. Like there's tubing going all up the sides and across the top and down there's what looks to be some kind of like litter or bedding. In one of the bottom cubbies there's like little hammocks and as you look at that, a ferret pokes its head up out of the bedding.
Speaker 2 00:52:02 CA's really jumpy right now. I think she screams
Speaker 0 00:52:06 <laugh>, the ferret that poked its head of the bedding rears back and then the hammock above it overturns as another ferret falls out.
Speaker 2 00:52:15 Oh god, there's two of them. Wait, are you the boys?
Speaker 0 00:52:25 The ferrets are ferrets so they don't respond. I think if you move closer across the room you can see that like they're both pressed up against. What you can now see is a plexiglass door on this one cabinet and there are actually double decker hammocks in there. One of them is embroidered with the name Poe and the other is embroidered with the name Hemingway
Speaker 2 00:52:48 <laugh>. Oh my god.
Speaker 0 00:52:50 Bad embroidery too. Like it's not, this is obviously not commissioned from someone who knows how to embroider. This is very clearly a labor of love.
Speaker 2 00:53:00 Caitlin kind of crouches down and at them. Well I'll be damned, I'm the mother of ferrets. That's a reference to something. What is that a reference to
Speaker 0 00:53:13 As these ferrets continue? Scrabbling against the plexiglass. You hear footsteps behind you.
Speaker 2 00:53:22 Whoop. Okay, ferret play times over. I'm whipping around and bringing the knife back up. Also, is there a piano in here?
Speaker 0 00:53:31 Yeah, I was about to say you turn around to see the other half of this living room that you didn't focus on before. Uh, there's a little like linoleum covered entryway in front of the door, a shoe rack with a bunch of shoes scattered around it. A carpeted staircase that goes up a little ways and then turns around a corner out of sight and an upright piano between the larger couch and the front door.
Speaker 2 00:53:59 Okay, but is the person who's walking down here you said I heard them behind me,
Speaker 0 00:54:04 There's no one behind you. You can still hear footsteps. It sounds like they're going up the stairs
Speaker 2 00:54:13 And there's like no one on the stairs. Like I don't see anybody.
Speaker 0 00:54:18 Uh, no, but like I said, the stairs kind of turn a corner after about four steps, maybe five and disappear outta sight.
Speaker 2 00:54:29 Okay, I'm gonna very carefully go up a couple of the steps and just kind of try to look around the corner to see if I can see anything at the top and kind of yell up there. Hello? Is anybody home?
Speaker 0 00:54:45 You have stopped hearing the footsteps. There is no answer and upstairs at least what you can see of it is completely dark.
Speaker 2 00:54:57 What the fuck? I mean, I guess we're onto like a new aspect of the mystery. Can I like do something to keep investigating?
Speaker 0 00:55:08 Uh, yeah, go ahead and roll again.
Speaker 2 00:55:13 11.
Speaker 0 00:55:14 Okay. Uh, that's two questions.
Speaker 2 00:55:17 Where did it go?
Speaker 0 00:55:20 As you kind of look around, try to get your bearings, you notice that there are damp footprints on the carpet of the stairs.
Speaker 2 00:55:31 What sort of creature is it?
Speaker 0 00:55:34 The footprints appear to be just a person's footprints. Um, and you haven't heard any inhuman noises? Just the footsteps in the piano music. The front door is locked and as you're looking around you notice that the lid on the piano is closed.
Speaker 2 00:55:53 I'm gonna turn around and go back to where the piano is and flip the lid up.
Speaker 0 00:56:00 It's loud, it's creaky. This is very obviously a kind of old piano that hasn't been opened in a bit. You would've heard this open and shut and you did not hear that. And as you pull it all the way back, you're not there anymore. It's mid-morning, you think by the light and you are looking down at this piano at the keys and at two sets of hands there's a little kid set of hands kind of clumsily moving over the keys and an adult set of hands over top of the kids' hands. The adult hands are very long and very fine bone red nail polish on the fingernails with a very small but like shiny and looked after wedding ring on the left ring finger.
Speaker 2 00:56:54 Uh, you said I was doing grounding techniques earlier. I'm trying for that again, I don't like this.
Speaker 0 00:57:00 As you are trying to ground yourself, you take note of the fact that as you are looking down at these hands, you are hearing Beethoven moonlight sonata and then you're back
Speaker 2 00:57:17 Very slowly and very carefully. Kaylin's gonna reach down and just plunk out three notes on the piano. That beginning ba bum s from the beginning of moonlight sonata and then pulls her hand back like she's been shocked and slams the piano shut.
Speaker 0 00:57:42 The house is quiet except for the anxious chittering of the ferrets in the entertainment center.
Speaker 2 00:57:49 I'm going back to the stairs. Are the footprint still there?
Speaker 0 00:57:53 No.
Speaker 1 00:57:59 Okay, okay, okay, okay.
Speaker 2 00:58:03 I'm going upstairs. My first, Okay, if someone's playing a joke, this isn't funny. I've already had a bad enough day, week, month. I don't fucking know. Things are really confusing and this isn't helping.
Speaker 0 00:58:25 You head upstairs and then you turn the corner. You notice there's another hole in the wall, like right at the curve of these stairs and you hit an upstairs landing. There is one door directly in front of you, two to the left and two to the right.
Speaker 2 00:58:44 Are they all closed? Yep. Okay. I'm gonna try the one right in front of me.
Speaker 0 00:58:55 In front of you is a little bathroom again, very seventies tile. You see another door directly in front of you. That one's open. You see a toilet and a bathtub. The one you are standing in is just a sink, a big built in cabinet and a mirror of the sink. It is empty.
Speaker 2 00:59:19 I'm gonna turn on the, and well, I would say that this feels rude, but apparently this is my house, so I'm gonna go through the medicine cabinet and see what I can Sure. Lock homes together about this place
Speaker 0 00:59:35 You pop up in the medicine cabinet. It's mostly like grocery store meds. Big bottle of ibuprofen, smaller bottle of Tylenol. Next to it there's a long expired and dusty little box of children's Motrin. For some reason there's a little bottle of like melatonin and next to it is a prescription bottle that if you pick it up it is prescribed to you. It is for ESO picone, which, and it says on the bottom generic for Lua, which you know, kind of essentially that's a sleep aid. And it says you have two refills left on that. There's a box of band aids, a mummified looking bottle of Flintstone vitamins and a refill pack of knockoff Venus razor blades.
Speaker 8 01:00:29 Huh?
Speaker 2 01:00:31 Okay, she shuts the medicine cabinet.
Speaker 0 01:00:35 You shut the medicine cabinet with the creek and there's someone behind you in the mirror.
Speaker 2 01:00:39 Oh hell no. I whip around with the knife. I stab
Speaker 0 01:00:45 The knife sinks into the wall, into the plaster above where the dial stops.
Speaker 8 01:00:54 <laugh>, what the fuck, what the fuck, what the fuck?
Speaker 2 01:00:59 She pulls the knife out of the wall and just spins in circles trying to see if there's anyone around like CA's in a bad state of mind right now. But were they able to get any kind of good look at what was behind them?
Speaker 0 01:01:16 You got kind of a blurry impression of a figure way shorter than you. Five four. Five five if you had to guess a mass of dark curly hair and a pair of big like greenish hazel eyes just staring impossibly wide into the mirror.
Speaker 2 01:01:42 Okay, you know what? Nope, nope, nope, nope, nope, nope. Fuck this. She turns on her heel, marches out of the bathroom and throws open all of the doors in this upstairs hallway.
Speaker 0 01:01:56 Not stopping to look in any of 'em, just throwing 'em open.
Speaker 2 01:02:00 Only looking in so far as to establish that there aren't any people fucking hiding out up here because someone was playing the piano. Someone walked up the steps with wet feet. Where, where are these people?
Speaker 0 01:02:20 You throw open the door. On the far right there is a very old dresser and a very old bed frame made up with these newish looking grayish purple sheets. The flat sheet and the pillowcase are folded and stacked. Uh, the room on the near right looks mostly abandoned. It's a little dusty. There's an unmade bed again. Older looking again, an older dresser. One of the nightstand has another novelty ashtray on it. You throw open the door on the near left. It is a wash in black fabric. You see a computer desk in the far corner and a window, so full of plants, black sheets on the bed, little nightstand with a couple of pill bottles on it, and a big poster of an anime character <laugh>. And you throw open the door on the far left and it is just a punch of red and yellow. Red bedspread. Uh, bunch of like half finished art projects tacked the walls. There's a guitar in the closet, clothes just thrown on the floor. It's extremely messy. And more various medications on the nightstand in this room. This one is also extremely dusty. Not quite as much as the other one, but like this has been left, this messy, abandoned for years. It has not been touched.
Speaker 2 01:03:50 And there's no one in any of these rooms.
Speaker 0 01:03:54 Nope.
Speaker 2 01:03:56 I'm gonna look down over the railing at the stairwell and if there's no sign of life down there, I'm gonna turn around and head into the least dusty room. The one that looks like someone lives there.
Speaker 0 01:04:10 There's no one down the stairwell. You walk into this room on the near left, like I said, very goth, <laugh>, black bedspread. There's kind of a big floral rug on the floor. Computer desk tucked into the far corner. There's a little corkboard above it that has just a bunch of notes and like a menu for a pizza place and a couple little pictures on it. There's a little pin that has the lesbian flag on it, just kind of tacked <laugh>. You move further in. You see this jumble of medications on the nightstand as far as the bottles that still have anything in them. There is one for Thorazine, which you recognize as an antipsychotic and one each for Spironolactone and Estrada.
Speaker 2 01:05:00 Kaylin kind of rifles through the bottles for a second and pauses on the bottle of antipsychotics and looks over her shoulder. Back towards the hallway. All right. All right. Yeah, it's all coming together. She just dry swallows one, just pop down the hatch.
Speaker 0 01:05:19 Girl help. Ok, are you continuing to investigate the room?
Speaker 2 01:05:25 Yeah, I think she rifles through the pill bottles again for a second and just sort of force of habit. Throws one of the estrogen tablets under her tongue and then goes to dig around on the computer desk.
Speaker 0 01:05:36 You get to this computer desk. There are a couple coffee mugs on it. A bowl of what looks like it was once fried. Rice only a little bit, but like it should not have been left there.
Speaker 2 01:05:50 Ugh. Okay, so I was in a depressive spiral recently. I turned the computer on. I still have the knife in one hand.
Speaker 0 01:06:01 So true. You boot the computer up, uh, while you're waiting for it to get started. You notice that like this shelf of plants is very well taken care of. You see like a little mister. Um, it's a bunch of like eclectic little thrift store pots with various plants in them. Can you role play sharp really quick cuz this is a bit harder than like identifying your meds. Yeah, sure.
Speaker 2 01:06:26 And 11 again.
Speaker 0 01:06:28 <laugh>
Speaker 2 01:06:30 Only elevens today apparently.
Speaker 0 01:06:33 All right. Uh, your girl has like straight up Bela donna growing in her window sill.
Speaker 2 01:06:38 Yeah, man,
Speaker 0 01:06:40 All of these plants are very ornamental and pretty, A few of them are extremely poisonous. There's belladonna, there's like a little bit of fox glove back in a back corner kind of going up the window. Dangerous, dangerous window sill, <laugh>.
Speaker 2 01:06:56 Fascinating. Is there like a password on the computer or can I just fuck around on it?
Speaker 0 01:07:03 It is password fucked, bucked shit.
Speaker 2 01:07:07 I type password.
Speaker 0 01:07:09 That doesn't work. Uh, roll plus sharp again.
Speaker 2 01:07:15 Seven.
Speaker 0 01:07:17 You dick around with a couple of passwords, just kind of inputting things at random. You're sitting there just the clacking of keys, the house creaking around you and then a password hemp pops up. It reads the raven.
Speaker 2 01:07:33 Uh oh. I have a ferret named Poe. I try Poe
Speaker 0 01:07:37 And
Speaker 2 01:07:39 I try Poe with a three instead of the E.
Speaker 0 01:07:43 That is not it either <laugh>.
Speaker 2 01:07:46 Oh, come on. Am I really? This fucking insufferable, the Raven? Uh, I tried never more,
Speaker 0 01:07:53 Eh
Speaker 2 01:07:56 Shit. Is my computer gonna like lock me out? Is this bad?
Speaker 0 01:08:01 A little bit of popup text comes up, just says you have one more attempt.
Speaker 2 01:08:05 God damn you me. I tried never more but with a zero instead of an o and a three instead of an e
Speaker 0 01:08:17 Insufferably. That is it. <laugh>.
Speaker 2 01:08:22 God, I hate myself. She starts like clicking around through files and digging through all of the apps on the computer. All right, what are your secrets? Kalin O'Connell. Oh God. I play League of Legends.
Speaker 0 01:08:39 Yeah, but and a World of Warcraft. Oh,
Speaker 2 01:08:44 Okay. Okay. No internet history right now. I feel like that would do too much psychic damage beyond what I've already endured. I turned it off
Speaker 0 01:08:53 <laugh>. Okay. Um, you hear something outside, you can like just barely hear something going on. You have hearing loss in your rooms against the back wall of the house. It's as good as you could have hoped for. It could be anything going on out there?
Speaker 2 01:09:13 Nope. Not today. I'm grabbing the knife and going downstairs.
Speaker 0 01:09:18 Okay. You grab the knife, you hustle downstairs. As you hit the bottom of the staircase, there's a pause, the knob of the front door jiggles, and then the door gets kicked in and you have an impression of a short, pale, dark haired figure.
Speaker 2 01:09:39 Oh, uhoh. We're not doing this again.
Speaker 0 01:09:42 As you yelled at this figure settles, you see that it is a young woman, white five, maybe seven straight black hair, big blue eyes. She is wearing a striped button, up a pair of jeans and a pair of sturdy boots. And she is holding a shotgun, which she cocks as she yells. All right, Nobody moved. Uh, she stops looking at you.
Speaker 2 01:10:09 I have the knife up. I'm ready to go.
Speaker 0 01:10:11 <laugh>. There is a long pause and then this woman says, Okay. Oh my God. She puts the shotgun down across the top of the upright piano and just runs over and gives you a hug.
Speaker 2 01:10:27 Kalin still has the knife up in stabbing position and freezes as this woman hugs them looking frantically back and forth between the open door, her and the ferrets in their enclosure. Uh, nice to see you. To who are you?
Speaker 0 01:10:49 She pulls back, looks up at you looking very confused and goes, What do you mean? Oh my God. Are you okay?
Speaker 2 01:11:02 No, no, I don't think I am.
Speaker 1 01:11:12 Um,
Speaker 2 01:11:20 For those just tuning in, welcome to the jackal lope America's premier pirate radio station dedicated to the unknown, the unexpected and general weird shit. Urgent update from the greater Las Vegas area. Several listeners have called in to report sightings of what appears to be a manifestation of the wild hunt patrolling stretches of the desert outside the city along Interstate 15. Historically, the wild hunt is a motif that occurs in the folklore of various Northern European cultures. The party currently roaming the Mojave is apparently more of a southwest flavored posse than the hunters of the original mythos. But we here at the jackal lope encourage everyone in the area to exercise caution. The site of the wild hunt has been noted throughout history to predict catastrophe, war, plague and death. People have also been said to be abducted into realms beyond the mortal world or conscripted into the hunt itself.
Speaker 2 01:12:21 Following encounters, if you're living in or around Las Vegas, stay inside after dark, if at all possible. Sick to populate in well lit areas and seek shelter immediately. If you hear writers on horseback or the howling of blood hounds, should you encounter, the writers do not engage. If they offer you anything in exchange for your aid, do not accept it. Whatever it is, it's probably cursed, run. Just run some stories. State that the middle of the road is the safest place to travel when fleeing the hunt. And any or all of these legends may have mutated since the veil came down. So don't risk your safety on the account of my advice, but with shit going as sideways as it is, anything helps, you know, stay safe everyone. And speaking of Vegas, here's welcome to fabulous Las Vegas by the Killers. Damien, you come to slowly, the first thing that comes back to you is a smell that hits you right in a place of unpleasant nostalgia. It is this heavy cloying smell of something that is so sterile that it stinks a clean stench. Your brain immediately says, hospital,
Speaker 0 01:14:11 Ah, fuck lad's, not again.
Speaker 2 01:14:13 You feel scratchy sheets and something itchy at the crook of one elbow. You hear the steady beeping of monitors and squeaking footsteps in a hallway outside whatever room you're in. Your mouth is bone dry and you taste ozone filtered oxygen.
Speaker 0 01:14:36 Ah, fuck. Let's not again.
Speaker 2 01:14:40 And then your eyes open. You're still having trouble with word finding, if that makes sense. You know that you have been in this place before, one of these sterile rooms with white linoleum floors and white blank walls and a cherry little dry erase board on the back of a particle board door, but you don't know where you are, if that makes sense. This is a building you've been in before that you're intimately familiar with, but if someone asked you to name it with a gun to your head, you couldn't,
Speaker 0 01:15:19 I don't think I have time to worry about that right now. Can I try and figure out how far I am from the nearest nurses station?
Speaker 2 01:15:28 Um, roll to read a bad situation, please.
Speaker 0 01:15:32 Okay, so that's a four on the dice. Uh, plus one sharp is five.
Speaker 2 01:15:41 Okay, so that is a total failure, which is sad and bad for you. But go ahead and mark experience for me please.
Speaker 0 01:15:50 Yay.
Speaker 2 01:15:54 You realize as you're laying here in this hospital bed hooked up two machines, an IV dripping into your arm, that you feel groggy and exhausted. Like, there's probably something in the IV that's a mild sedative of some sort. And as you try to parse out through the hustle and bustle of people outside in the hallway behind this closed door, you're not able to figure out where the nearest nurse's station is. And in fact, the door swings open and a nurse walks in. She's a very petite young lady in neat blue scrubs. Looks like she just got out of nursing school. She has like one of the novelty headbands, you know, bleach blonded hair up in a messy bun. She has a little badge clip with a name tag that's turned around backwards against her scrubs as she moves into this room and fixes you with a big $5,000 at the orthodontist. Smile and goes, Oh, morning sunshine.
Speaker 0 01:17:05 Oh, just swearing internally. Damien smiles back and just clenches one fist in the sheets. Uh, hi. Uh, sorry, I don't really remember what, um, where, where am I?
Speaker 2 01:17:25 This nurse frowns at you and then takes a couple steps over to your bedside, picks up something off of a little metal side table and injects it into the port on your IV and then leans down to kind of brush your hair back from your forehead. You feel a big bruise there? Like something aches. Oh, you took a pretty bad tumble back there, huh? My friend? I'd be more worried if your CAT scan hadn't come back. Okay. You're at umc, honey.
Speaker 0 01:17:57 Does that ring any bells for me?
Speaker 2 01:18:01 Oh yeah, she says UMC and you know that it stands for University Medical Center. It's somewhere, dammit. You know where it is? Where is it? But you are a, uh, frequent flyer at this locale. You know that much
Speaker 0 01:18:21 <laugh>? Uh, right, right. Sorry. Uh, so, uh, what's up doc?
Speaker 2 01:18:30 Well, I mean, don't gimme that much credit. I'm an rn, but, um, as far as we can tell, she leans down and picks up a clipboard off a hook at the end of your bed and flips back through a couple pages. You wondered into some tourist trap on South Vegas two days ago, early morning and just hit the dirt. Must have been a hell of a party.
Speaker 0 01:18:57 <laugh>. Uh, yeah. Yeah. Um, had a wild night. Uh, forgot the medical or bracelet. Uh hmm. How long until I can get outta here.
Speaker 2 01:19:13 She hooks the clipboard back into its place and comes over to look at some of the monitors that you're hooked up to. Again, just big unflappable smile teeth. Absolutely perfect. Like two. Perfect. Oh, don't worry about it, honey. Someone's coming to collect you.
Speaker 0 01:19:36 Okay. Um, uh, do, do I see my personal effects anywhere in the room? They'd probably be on a chair, right?
Speaker 2 01:19:45 Yeah. They're in a hospital standard issue, like vinyl padded chair with wooden arms in one corner in one of those little plastic bags with the little handles on top.
Speaker 0 01:20:01 Okay? Um, he just smiles at the nurse again and says, ah, okay. Um, uh, I, I'd like to sign out ama if that's okay.
Speaker 2 01:20:15 The corner of this nurse's smile twitches a little bit and something's wrong with her face.
Speaker 4 01:20:23 Oh,
Speaker 2 01:20:23 That won't be necessary, sweetheart. They're already on the way.
Speaker 0 01:20:30 Okay? Sure. Uh, I, I'd better get dressed before they get here. Um, can I, can I have my, my stuff?
Speaker 2 01:20:41 Are you trying to move at all right now?
Speaker 0 01:20:44 Yeah. As he says that he's gonna try and gesture at the bag.
Speaker 2 01:20:49 Your limbs feel like lead as you feel whatever, just got shot into your iv, hit your system. You don't know what it is, but you feel heavy and sluggish and this nurse's smile gets bigger. Too big, too big. Something's wrong with her face. Her eyes are too big. Her teeth are too sharp. Her chin is too pointy. She's moving too fast. Her hands are braced on either rail of your bed and she's in your face. Issing.
Speaker 4 01:21:18 I
Speaker 9 01:21:18 Said someone's coming together. Get you little runaway sit tight.
Speaker 0 01:21:25 You said I'm hooked up to oxygen, right?
Speaker 2 01:21:28 Yeah. You've got a cannula in your nose. You can feel it.
Speaker 0 01:21:34 Okay, I'm gonna roll to kick some mass
Speaker 4 01:21:37 <laugh>. Okay.
Speaker 0 01:21:40 I'm doing it with my combat magic. So I add plus weird instead of plus tough or in my case, minus tough
Speaker 4 01:21:47 <laugh>
Speaker 0 01:21:49 Nine.
Speaker 2 01:21:51 Okay. That's a mixed success. What are you doing, buddy?
Speaker 0 01:21:57 Uh, you said I'm partially restrained, but I assume I can still move and I assume I can like make gestures.
Speaker 4 01:22:06 Yeah,
Speaker 2 01:22:07 I wouldn't say restrained is the word that comes to mind. You're very sluggish and moving very slow. Also, you're hooked up to the iv. You have a couple sensors on your chest and this fucked up nurse creature is blocking you into the bed with her body, but you can still move around.
Speaker 0 01:22:26 Okay? Uh, I can do gestures, I can talk. I don't have a focus. Um, okay. He's gonna make a hand gesture just out of view of this creature and spit out a couple of words in a language he doesn't understand, just kind of instinctively. And then he's gonna exhale hard through his nose and like this fucking cannula on fire
Speaker 4 01:22:49 <laugh>,
Speaker 0 01:22:50 Okay?
Speaker 2 01:22:52 Um, I've seen enough Grey's anatomy to know what happens when fire and medical oxygen are in the same room <laugh>. And it's never good. Yeah, no. This whole place is about to explode. I'm gonna need you to act under pressure to not get Merced by your own magic.
Speaker 0 01:23:12 Well, I have, uh, an extra plus one because of a small slinger feature that I have. Oh, but it's plus cool. So I just have that plus one, uh, that is a seven.
Speaker 2 01:23:27 Okay? That's a mixed success. And on a seven to nine to act under pressure, the keeper, that's me, is gonna give you a worse outcome, a hard choice, or a price to pay. Um, I'm also gonna say because of the fact that you are lighting oxygen on fire, that's gonna double the harm of whatever attack you just did. So take off the minus one for not having a focus and then double it.
Speaker 0 01:23:56 Uh, okay, so that's just my, uh, fire effects harm, which is plus two. So a total of four.
Speaker 2 01:24:04 Okay? Um, this hospital room fucking explodes fire everywhere. The door gets blown off its hinges, the window gets blown out. You are unharmed, you feel the heat, but there's no damage to your skin. You don't feel any pain. This nurse creature, however, sh streaks and gets blasted back against the far cinder block wall and is instantly emd. So now here's your hard choice. The room is on fire because you rolled under a 10. The fire is going to start spreading. You just set a hospital on fire. Your choices are these, your stuff, which includes your arcane focus is in that plastic bag by the door and the window is blown out. You have the choice to either get your stuff and have to go out through the door and through this hospital or dip out the window and leave it behind. Fire's burning higher by the second. You have a split second to make this decision.
Speaker 0 01:25:23 Okay? I'm still groggy and moving slow, but I'm gonna sit up, uh, go, shouldn't do this, shouldn't do this, and then yank the IV outta my arm, son of a, uh, and then dive out the bed and get my stuff.
Speaker 2 01:25:39 By the time you do this, the flames are so intense and the structural damage to the room is so high that the ceiling collapses behind you on top of the bed where you were just lying in a curtain of flame. You cannot dip out the window anymore. You are gonna have to go out through the door and make your way down through this hospital. The hallway outside is chaos. And whatever had gotten into your veins through this IV is still slowing you down. You are stumbling. You are gripping at the wall to keep yourself upright. There are a sea of people pushing past you towards the source of the blaze, and somebody runs headlong into you. Just this kind of chubby East Asian dude in a paramedic's uniform, Short, dark hair in a scruffy, unkempt tear cut eyes wide as he stares at you and braces two hands on your shoulders. Yo, what the hell is going on? Are you okay?
Speaker 0 01:26:45 Um, uh, I'm fine. Uh, something's on fire.
Speaker 2 01:26:53 He opens his mouth to ask you a question, and further down the hallway you hear somebody yell, Why we need triage down here? And he just sort of claps you on the shoulder, pushes you back and runs past you, and you keep going.
Speaker 0 01:27:10 Can I find a supply closet and seal some scrubs?
Speaker 1 01:27:14 <laugh>?
Speaker 2 01:27:15 Okay, let me see what I'm gonna make you roll for that. I think that would be act under pressure. Again, you're in a very chaotic situation and need to find a specific area of a place that you're not super familiar with. As you're going through the hallway, you realize you've never been in this part of this hospital before. So try it.
Speaker 0 01:27:42 Okay? Uh, does this count as me dealing with the consequences of my own magic?
Speaker 2 01:27:49 I mean, you're the one what set the place on fire, so, yeah, I think so.
Speaker 0 01:27:55 Cool. 11.
Speaker 2 01:27:58 Okay. On a 10 plus, you do what you set out to do. You're able to find a supply closet where the door was left thrown open by somebody that has run off to deal with the big fire that's happening right now, and you're able to sneak in there and grab a set of scrubs.
Speaker 0 01:28:18 Okay? Uh, I put them on clutch, my stuff to my chest, and I, I'm trying to get outta here.
Speaker 2 01:28:25 The elevators are back through the flames and all of the people amassing in this hallway, so that's probably not a good bet. But you manage to find an emergency exit stairwell that you stumble down and out a side door into a parking lot under a baking desert sun.
Speaker 0 01:28:48 He's gonna take a second to just lean back against the wall and go in for 10 out for seven, Okay?
Speaker 2 01:29:01 As you're standing there calming yourself down, you hear a voice across this parking lot sounding confused and very worried and kind of familiar. Hey man, what the hell?
Speaker 0 01:29:17 I'm gonna reach into the bag and grab my hurricane focused, and then look towards the source of the voice.
Speaker 2 01:29:26 You feel your fingers close around a thin metal chain and a little dangling metal tag and look up to see a guy in Bermuda shorts and a Hawaiian shirt with crypts on it, standing there holding a get well soon balloon. He's wearing a little plastic name tag over his breast pocket that says Luke, and he is staring at you like you have grown a second head. This is the dude that apparently brought you here,
Speaker 0 01:30:02 Damien clutches a little tighter at this necklace and puts on a winning harmless smile and says, Hi. You're the, the guy from the, Yeah. Uh, crazy shit is happening in there. Something caught on fire. I I don't,
Speaker 2 01:30:23 He stares at you for a second. The balloons swaying in the breeze. Yeah, Crazy shit's happening in there. And you're walking away from the crazy shit dressed in the standard work uniform of this, uh, fine establishment. You know, there are some that would call that a cliche move, but I, for one, believe in the merit of the classics well played.
Speaker 0 01:30:48 The smile does not slip <laugh>, no idea what you're talking about, man. Uh, I needed some pants and, uh, mine are pretty not wearable until they go through a washer. You know how it is.
Speaker 2 01:31:06 He looks at you real skeptically for a second, and then lets the balloon go flying up into the air and sort of digs in his breast pocket for a set of car keys and takes a step closer. All right, well, you need to work on your sales pitch, but hey, if you need a ride outta here,
Speaker 0 01:31:26 Yeah, sure, man, that'd be great.
Speaker 2 01:31:28 He points his keying backwards over his shoulder, double clicks it, and you see this beat up old red truck make a beep, beep sound, and the headlights flash
Speaker 0 01:31:41 Still with that big winning smile, Damien nods and goes, Thanks man, Appreciate it. And he starts stumbling towards the truck.
Speaker 2 01:31:51 Okay? Uh, Luke, the tourist trap manager walks up and pops open the driver's side door and goes to get in the car.
Speaker 0 01:31:59 I'm gonna try andro him with my necklace. <laugh>, um,
Speaker 2 01:32:07 Roll to kick some ass.
Speaker 0 01:32:09 I'm not necessarily trying to kill him <laugh>,
Speaker 2 01:32:14 But you're rolling to incapacitate and I think kick some ass. That's the purview that falls under.
Speaker 0 01:32:19 Oh, no, absolutely. I was just saying for the benefit of the listeners, uh, that is a six
Speaker 2 01:32:30 Okay? Mark experience. That was a failure. Uh, but since you were not trying to inflict any kind of serious harm on this gentleman, nothing too horrible happens. You go over his back and try to get him around the neck with the chain of this necklace that you're holding, and he makes a kind of upset, choking noise for a second and then twists expertly out of your grip. But I will say, Damien, your arcane focus, which is a medallion on a thin silver chain bearing the image of St. Abigail, it's made of silver. And when you tried to get this dude with it, the silver had no effect on him. And you register that in a very tactical, analytic way.
Speaker 0 01:33:29 Damien pulls back, puts both hands up.
Speaker 2 01:33:32 Luke is clutching at his neck, looking at you with the utmost betrayal.
Speaker 4 01:33:38 What
Speaker 2 01:33:39 The hell man?
Speaker 0 01:33:41 Sorry. Sorry, I I'm gonna be real with you. I I've got some people coming after me and I needed to make sure that you weren't one of them.
Speaker 2 01:33:56 He stares at you blankly for a second, and then looks over at the hospital where smoke is starting to pour out of the windows and then looks back at you, and then looks back at the hospital, and then looks down at himself and shakes his head Every lost puppy in the fucking street. Get in the truck.
Speaker 0 01:34:20 I get in the truck before he can change his mind.
Speaker 2 01:34:24 Okay? He puts the keys in the ignition, and you two tear out of this parking lot down a winding mess of access roads and side streets until you are eventually spat out onto a Grand Boulevard lined with flashing neon lights and thongs of people moving back and forth. You see signs for museums and restaurants and casinos and every possible viant pleasure known to mankind. The of you are silent for a really long time, but as you near the end of this street, he shoots his eyes sideways at you while still kind of trying to watch the road and brings up one hand off the steering wheel to give you a little wave of greeting. All right, let's start over. Luke Jo Hansen, Nice to meet you.
Speaker 0 01:35:19 Damien cuts his eyes sideways at him and then says, You can call me Damian if you like.
Speaker 2 01:35:27 He snorts and guns the engine a little harder, Dude, I just watched you walk out of a burning hospital with somebody on your tail and now you're my responsibility. I think the horse is pretty far out of the barn as far as things I like go. This old red truck turns a bend in the road, and as you watch the desert open up like a gaping ma ahead of you, you see a sign that gets closer and closer to the windshield and then fades out the rear view that reads, Welcome to fabulous Las Vegas, Nevada.
Speaker 0 01:36:11 Kay, we find you back in the living room of your house, sitting on the loveseat as your guest sits on the main couch, just kind of like elbows propped up on her legs, steeping her fingers, and just staring at the coffee table.
Speaker 2 01:36:31 She left the gun in the entry hall, right? Like this is an important question.
Speaker 0 01:36:36 Uh, she put the gun down over the top of the upright piano and there it has remained.
Speaker 2 01:36:43 Okay, cool. Kay has the knife sitting on the coffee table between them.
Speaker 0 01:36:48 Lydia Antonov, as she has introduced herself to you is again about a five seven white lady in her early twenties. Straight pitch black hair. It's about shoulder length well taken care of, but not fashionably cut. We'll say. It looks like she shaved her head and then just grew it out. She is wearing a striped yellow and blue button up over a wife beater, very sturdy jeans and work boots. She looks like she just got outta the shower. And from how beat she is, she probably just got home from work. She looks up at you piercing blue eyes in a very square face and just says, Okay, run this by me again. Amnesia.
Speaker 2 01:37:38 I, I mean, I can only assume I don't know who you are. I didn't know who I was until I walked into a place called Terribles Roadhouse a few hours ago and tried to buy a pack of cigarettes. I wonder how that kid's doing. He seemed like really weirded him out. Do I weird people out? Is that a thing I do?
Speaker 0 01:38:00 Terrible. What were you doing? Yes, you weird people out. What were you doing in Jean? Doesn't matter. Oh my God. Okay. Um, she puts her head in her hands.
Speaker 2 01:38:12 Kate doesn't know what to do socially with this situation, which is a thing that's normal, but also she doesn't know that that's normal, so she just tries to mirror her posture and kind of leans forward and steeples her fingers. But it looks way more creepy because Kay's proportioned like fucking slenderman. Look, Linda,
Speaker 0 01:38:34 Lydia,
Speaker 2 01:38:36 Lydia, my apologies. I'm doing my fucking best out here. Trust me. I'm not having fun piecing my whole existence back together. Like it's the plot from Memento that's fucked up, by the way. I remember the plot of Memento, but nothing about my own life.
Speaker 0 01:38:53 Still with her head in her hand. She says, You didn't even like that movie.
Speaker 2 01:38:59 Okay? Okay. I'm putting pieces of the puzzle together. The DMV sucks. I'm transgender, I'm on antipsychotics. I didn't like Memento. I feel like that's enough to build a personality off of. We're getting places anyway, I'm not sure what happened on the other side of this whole situation. All I know is that I crawled out of a hole in the desert earlier this evening, followed my driver's license home, saw some pretty weird stuff, but I took my medication. So hopefully that'll stop soon. And then you kicked in my front door with a saw off shotgun. So enlightened me, I guess also the boys, which, which one is which? She points over at the ferret enclosure.
Speaker 0 01:39:43 You remember the ferret, but not okay. She starts ticking things off on her fingers. You've been missing for over a week. I'm gonna have to contact the cops about that. Uh, everybody's been worried sick. You were having some kind of fucking breakdown before you disappeared. And she points at the ferrets. The darker one is Poe.
Speaker 2 01:40:07 See, I had thought that mother's intuition, they get up and go over to the enclosure and let the ferrets out.
Speaker 0 01:40:15 The ferrets crawl up your arms and onto your shoulders. <laugh>. Oh, little noodles. Yeah. Um, and Lydia says, Oh, and by the way, I'm your best friend who you've known since we were literally in diapers. So this is kind of a mind fuck for me, just saying.
Speaker 2 01:40:34 I think it's a mind fuck for everyone. Lisa
Speaker 0 01:40:37 Lydia. We dated for like six months. You can't get my name wrong. It's illegal.
Speaker 2 01:40:43 Ah, okay. The lesbian pride flag pin. It's all coming together again.
Speaker 0 01:40:54 Can we go back over to my place because I, oh, I need to be sitting on a comfier couch. I need a drink and I need a snack.
Speaker 2 01:41:04 Can I, can I bring the boys?
Speaker 0 01:41:09 You know what? Yeah, it's, I'm right next door. You can bring the boys. Can we just, And then she stands up, puts her hands up, puts 'em back down and just turns, grabs the shotgun off the piano and walks out the door.
Speaker 2 01:41:25 Uh, okay, I follow her. I do bring the knife.
Speaker 0 01:41:29 Understandable. She leads you literally next door. Your front doors are like maybe 15 feet from each other. She shoulders open her own door, walks inside, just goes, Okay, okay, I'm okay. And then she gestures you in and then gestures at a very similar living room setup to yours and goes, Take, take a seat. Do you want, And then she looks you in all your undead glory up and down phrases and goes, Can I get you with snack? Is that, can I,
Speaker 2 01:42:09 I mean, I'm not hungry. It's probably weird that I'm not hungry, huh?
Speaker 0 01:42:16 Yeah, little bit. Um, I'm, Hmm, Okay, peanut free. What do I have that's peanut free? I got Starburst. I got bugles and I think I got a strawberry and cream yogurt.
Speaker 2 01:42:29 I have a peanut allergy. The plot thickens,
Speaker 0 01:42:34 <laugh>,
Speaker 2 01:42:38 Starburst will do, but I don't want the red ones. Those are trash.
Speaker 0 01:42:42 Yeah, I know yellow and pink ones. Got it. She heads off around a corner into what you presume is her kitchen. The layout seems very similar to your house. Hers is a little more compact, like width-wise. Um, there's not room for like a full hallway. There's just the staircase and a little bathroom under it.
Speaker 2 01:43:03 I just start missing with her stuff. I was invited in here just picking up things and putting them down. I think by the time she comes back, Kay has like one of those dumb ass coffee table books in her hands, like upside down, just flipping through the pages.
Speaker 0 01:43:20 Yeah, sure. Her living room is, it's been updated slightly more recently than yours. Uh, and it's way cleaner and more organized. But there's a bunch of like little stupid knickknacks around. You see like ceramic birds and there's a model of a rocket ship on the coffee table and somebody put together a Lego play set and just put it on the entertainment center. You don't know what that's about, but it's the Death star. So that's interesting.
Speaker 2 01:43:52 The Death Star. You say, Oh, I'm up poking at that. As soon as I see it, I'm up trying to like open it up and see if there's anything cool inside.
Speaker 0 01:44:02 It's really nice. The rooms are kind of detailed. There's no like outer covering, but there's the laser and a bunch of rooms and a bunch of little figures. You're messing around with that and still holding onto this coffee table book. When Lydia comes back around the corner and just goes, Can you put those down? We're like having a conversation.
Speaker 2 01:44:22 Kay puts Darth Vader back very sheepishly and then closes the book and puts it on the coffee table and sits back down.
Speaker 0 01:44:29 Lydia sits down this time on the couch next to you and just Worthlessly holds out a handful of Starburst. They are all either yellow or pink.
Speaker 2 01:44:39 I nibble a corner off of one and then offer it up to the ferrets
Speaker 0 01:44:43 Hemingway. The ferret takes this entire starburst out of your fingers.
Speaker 2 01:44:48 Good boy. Eat, grow strong.
Speaker 0 01:44:52 Lydia has resumed her posture from back at your house. She has a hard cider with a curly straw in it that she put down on the coffee table with no coaster and she just picks it up slurps and then puts it back down and says, Okay, let's start back from the beginning with what's going on with you.
Speaker 2 01:45:15 Uh, well, like I I said, I don't really know. I crawled out of a hole. There was a bike there. I assume it's my bike. I knew how to ride it.
Speaker 0 01:45:27 Yeah, yeah, it's your bike.
Speaker 2 01:45:31 And then I came back here. I I have a lot of questions, Laura, if that's okay.
Speaker 0 01:45:41 It's Lydia now. You're just doing it on purpose.
Speaker 2 01:45:46 Yeah, I am. Oh, am I an asshole?
Speaker 0 01:45:50 Kind of
Speaker 2 01:45:53 Interesting. Anyway, uh, I I came back, walked around the house for a little bit. Well, why is no one else home this late? It's a four bedroom house.
Speaker 0 01:46:07 Lydia cringes, uh, you're the only person that lives there full time. Um, your sister officially lives there, but she spends most of the school year in the dorms. She goes to school in, um, in Boston. So it's kind of a long commute.
Speaker 2 01:46:26 Oh, uh, uh, okay. Um, why are there holes in the No, no, I'll figure that out later. Um, I think I might be dead by the way.
Speaker 0 01:46:39 She gives you a long look again and then says, I am sure there is a different and more rational and less upsetting explanation for what is going going on with you.
Speaker 2 01:46:50 Well, I mean, one way to find out, Kay just kind of extends their arm across the coffee table with their wrist flexed so that Lydia could try to find a pulse.
Speaker 0 01:47:07 Lydia Grimes is, and then does put two fingers to your pulse point. There's a long moment of silence and then she says, that doesn't prove anything. It could be, um, uh, bradycardia. You have a family history of heart problems that, that could be it.
Speaker 2 01:47:24 Look, I'm just following the trail of logic here. I crawled out of a grave. I don't have a heartbeat. I look like this unless I look like this all the time. In which case, damn, kind of a rough situation.
Speaker 4 01:47:39 <laugh>
Speaker 2 01:47:41 Also, I'm noticing that I'm not breathing unless I have to talk, which is like definitely not a normal person thing, right?
Speaker 0 01:47:54 No, that is not normal. But you being a zombie is kind of a bridge too far for me, even given the general craziness of the world. So I'm going to just try to keep thinking of different explanations if that's cool.
Speaker 2 01:48:11 I suppose it has to be cool. My brain is the equivalent of a Ches sketch that's been tumbling around in a clothes dryer. I'm a blank slate baby.
Speaker 0 01:48:23 Lydia up hinges at the bridge for nose and says, I kind of hate this. I wanna go on record that I kind of hate this. Do, do you have other questions that I can answer?
Speaker 4 01:48:35 Mm,
Speaker 2 01:48:37 Yeah, a couple. Uh, what's with the novelty ashtrays? Do I usually see shit that isn't there? Are my poisonous plans used for evil purposes or just for aesthetic? Who the fuck my house smokes pyramids because I sure don't. Do I play piano? And what class do I main in League of Legends? Because that alone might save me.
Speaker 0 01:48:59 Lydia looks at you for a long second and says, Wow, okay. Um, your dad collected novelty ashtrays and Star Wars memorabilia. You are a diagnosed schizophrenic. As far as I know, the poisonous plants are just for aesthetic reasons and I assume you would tell me if it was otherwise. Uh, the pyramids are your dad again, you do play the piano and you main support like you do in every fucking game.
Speaker 2 01:49:29 Wow. Me and my whole family are like totally insufferable, huh?
Speaker 0 01:49:35 Ooh, I haven't even told you about the Catholicism yet. Uh, you're all an acquired taste. Let's say that
Speaker 2 01:49:43 K full body wins and looks off to the side in shame.
Speaker 0 01:49:49 Oh, Catholic. Yeah, it's bad. You were like really into it in high school too. It was a whole thing. Oh, Catholic with
Speaker 2 01:50:00 Repressed gender issues.
Speaker 11 01:50:02 <laugh>.
Speaker 0 01:50:06 Lydia actually laughs at that, which is the first time you have seen her not confused and upset since you apparently re met her about an hour ago. She looks at you and her face softens a little bit, and then the door slams open with a bang and someone yelling, What's up, sluts?
Speaker 2 01:50:27 I grab my knife.
Speaker 0 01:50:30 Lydia grabs your knife hand and just brings it down and says, Hey Augie. We got company
Speaker 11 01:50:37 <laugh>.
Speaker 0 01:50:40 You see, for lack of a better way to put it, a fucking guy.
Speaker 11 01:50:46 <laugh>. Okay?
Speaker 0 01:50:49 He's about five 10 ish, like a little bit taller than Lydia. White guy. Looks very similar to her, like very much the same coloration, especially very pale, big blue eyes, stark black hair. He has a buzz cut and he's wearing, uh, bottle cap earrings, a DIY crop top. There are several necklace chains disappearing into the crop. Top sweatpants, <laugh> and personalized navy blue CROs fucking guy. He swans in, looks at you, gives you the finger guns, and goes, Okay, you're alive. That's awesome. And then he leans over the couch to give Lydia a hug from behind and leans his head against her shoulder. And very dreamily says, I had a good night. I hope work was all right. Uh, mom's on a coke bender in Santa Fe. I don't know when she's gonna be home, but she texted me about an hour ago.
Speaker 2 01:51:53 Okay? This is just further confirmation for me that I am not into men because you sir, are a splendid creature, and yet somehow I still really do not want to fuck you. What is your name?
Speaker 0 01:52:05 He gives you kind of a weird look and says, Please never say that to me again. As Lydia says, his name is Augie. He's my brother. He's something.
Speaker 2 01:52:18 Is he always like this? He en chance me.
Speaker 0 01:52:22 Augie really looks at you for the first time and goes, Okay, I'm, I'm a little cross fade and I'll admit that something is not correct in this situation.
Speaker 2 01:52:37 I have amnesia and also I'm dead. Apologies if I managed to offend you at any point in the conversation.
Speaker 0 01:52:45 Auggie looks away from you and at Lydia who just nods tiredly. And then he looks back at you and then back at Lydia. And then he stands up, claps his hands and says, Okay, I'm gonna get some chips about this. And then walks into the kitchen.
Speaker 2 01:53:08 Damien, we pick back up with you sitting in the cab of an old beat up red pickup. Luke Johansen, the man who just rescued you from the hospital that you burned down is burning rubber down I 15 west. The sun is setting over the desert, sinking beneath the horizon. It's glare, making you squint against the light as he peels off the prim exit and turns onto a long winding road, skidding into a dirt parking lot beneath the long shadow of the big paper mache mermaid hanging off this abandoned billboard post. He turns the key, yanks it out of the ignition, and the rattling engine dies. And for a moment, the two of you sit in uncomfortable silence as he turns over to look at you. All right, so, uh, we got a couple things to talk about, but they're probably better discussed inside over a couple cold ones. Yeah,
Speaker 0 01:54:24 Yeah, sure. Um, can I get something to eat? I'm like really hungry.
Speaker 2 01:54:32 Yeah, we got snacks in the gift shop. Come on. He bails out the driver's side and just slams the door behind him and starts walking towards the lit double doors at the front of this big repurposed warehouse.
Speaker 0 01:54:47 Um, we're gonna hop out the trucks, shake off a dizzy spell and fall on after him.
Speaker 2 01:54:52 The inside of this place is much the way you remember it. Kitchy gift shop full of various Vegas themed and crypted themed memorabilia and a big plexiglass aquarium where the cash register is with the tails swishing back and forth through water that stinks of chlorine. The same mermaid that you remember is exactly where you left her elbows perched on top of the counter phone in her hands, just scrolling and idly swimming. You see that on one strap of her tacky plastic shell bikini. She has a little plastic name tag clipped on that says Gina, she looks idly up at you from her phone and tucks a strand of that grown out bottle blonde hair behind her ear and goes, Oh, great, you're back.
Speaker 0 01:55:54 Damien wins and says, Yeah, I'm back. Uh, sorry about all that. Uh, can I do something really quick? And then he presses his necklace against her arm.
Speaker 2 01:56:09 She sques at you and yanks her arm back and goes, Uh, hello. Back off. But the silver does nothing to her.
Speaker 0 01:56:20 Just checking. Sorry. Um, can I, And then he starts looking around for like a snack shelf.
Speaker 2 01:56:30 Yeah. Up near this register there's a bunch of bagged candies, like gummy worms and stuff like that. Some crackers, some popcorn. You can have your pick. It seems like Luke is not going to charge you for any of this stuff.
Speaker 0 01:56:48 Damien's gonna pick up a packet of Starburst and a bag of popcorn. Uh, pick all the red and orange starbursts outta the package and then tear open the bag of popcorn.
Speaker 2 01:56:58 As you are doing that, Luke looking extremely tired, sort of wonders up to the counter purchase both of his elbows on top of the plexiglass and just leans forward to put his head in his hands. Okay, Gina, I have to deal with the consequences of having a massive heart. Once again, thank you for picking up the closing shift, but uh, I know you got class in the morning. You can go home, Gina. The mermaid needs to hear nothing further than this. And with AOR sound hauls herself out of the water to sit on top of the plexiglass counter and peels off her tail.
Speaker 0 01:57:43 Oh, <laugh>.
Speaker 2 01:57:47 It appears to be made out of some kind of like stretchy latex or something. And underneath it she has two human legs that are clad in a pair of skintight black bicycle shorts.
Speaker 0 01:58:05 I apologize for thinking you were a real actual fish person.
Speaker 2 01:58:10 She swings her legs over the counter and jumps down to stand on the floor, throwing her a little name tag down onto the plexiglass with a clatter before she turns over to raise an eyebrow. At Luke c I told you that paying extra for the bespoke tail would be a benefit for business in the long run.
Speaker 0 01:58:30 Damien just very slowly and subtly peels a red starbust. As he's watching this conversation,
Speaker 2 01:58:38 Luke also roll his eyes and then reaches behind a display of tacky Las Vegas t-shirts to pull out a zip up hoodie that he wordlessly Hands over to Gina, the not mermaid Gina, the college student, if you had to guess by the look of her. Yeah, yeah, sure. Clock out and go home. I know you've got a long drive. She leans over the counter and punches something into the little register computer up there and dips. After she goes, Luke follows her up to the double doors and locks them with a heavy thk of metal and then reaches into a cooler of like energy drinks and sodas and stuff and digs around in the bottom until he comes up with a couple cans of beer and nods down the escalator next to this huge plexiglass aquarium that goes down onto this big exhibition floor looking thing.
Speaker 0 01:59:41 Damia nods back but makes no moves toward the escalator and just says, ah, after you,
Speaker 2 01:59:51 He kind of shrugs already cracking open his drink and just hops on the escalator and rides it down.
Speaker 0 01:59:58 Okay? Yeah. Now Damien grabs his starburst than his popcorn and falls after him.
Speaker 2 02:00:04 As you ride down this escalator, you get a much more expansive view of the big exhibition floor type thing. It is
Speaker 0 02:00:15 All
Speaker 2 02:00:16 Tacky crypted themed nonsense. There's like a hokey carnival ride shut down in one corner. There's a couple snack booths along one wall that are shut down for the evening and everywhere else is just packed full of Tom Foolery and Jack Assery. There's like a taxidermy unicorn that is clearly just a horse. There are a couple of aquatic weird looking things floating in tubes of formaldehyde. You follow Luke through this maze of chicanery until you finally come to a little bistro table set under the hulking shadow of what is supposed to be a taxi ader made SAS watch, but is clearly just the pelt of a very big grizzly bear that has had some doctoring done to it.
Speaker 0 02:01:19 Damian looks around for a second before he sits down at the bistro table and just goes, uh, nice place you got here,
Speaker 2 02:01:33 Luke Scoffs and plunks, the unopened can of beer in front of you. Eh, it pays the bills. Can you have this legally? What am I saying? You're wanted for arson right now. Fuck it.
Speaker 0 02:01:50 Damian takes it and goes, I mean I'm uh, What year is it?
Speaker 2 02:02:00 He looks at you with an extremely skeptical expression. It's 2018 pal.
Speaker 0 02:02:09 Ah, and uh, what month
Speaker 2 02:02:15 A pro. Are you a cop? Cuz if I ask you legally gotta tell me if you're a cop. Otherwise it's entrapment.
Speaker 0 02:02:24 I'm not a fucking cop. And apparently I turned 22 in September. Cheers. And then he takes a swig of the beer.
Speaker 2 02:02:31 He gives you another dubious look, but then clinks your cans together and also takes a drink. All right, so I've gotten myself in the shit yet again. It's what I get for having a charitable personality.
Speaker 0 02:02:46 Damien shoves a handful of popcorn in his mouth and goes, You literally refuse to call me an ambulance because it would be expensive.
Speaker 2 02:02:55 Well that's cuz finances were involved. Man, I gotta keep a tight ship running it around here. You understand? Anyway, you're running from something if it's the mafia, I have a couple avenues that I could use to help you get out of the country. If it's shitty family. I have more than a few tips and tricks. God knows the assholes that adopted me have been trying to track me down for years, which may or may not have something to do with me, you know, emptying their bank accounts before I dipped. But that's neither here nor there.
Speaker 0 02:03:29 Damien pauses for a second and then shakes his head and goes, I don't actually know what I'm running from. I, the last I remember I was 16 and I'm not anymore. So
Speaker 2 02:03:47 He reaches over and takes your beer back from you.
Speaker 0 02:03:51 Hey,
Speaker 2 02:03:53 His eyes narrow at you and then he slowly sets it back down in front of you. Okay? The amnesia. Excuse. You're good kid. Who'd you study under?
Speaker 0 02:04:06 I am literally just a guy. Like I said, nothing in the last five years. It was December 21st, 2012. I took my meds for the night, I went to bed and then I woke up walking down the highway.
Speaker 2 02:04:22 Luke raises an eyebrow at you and slowly takes a sip of his beer. Oh man, bacon. The night the world supposedly ended into your excuse that is a little hack need. I will warn you, this is just constructive criticism.
Speaker 0 02:04:38 Jamie eats another handful of popcorn and goes, they're night war <laugh>.
Speaker 2 02:04:45 All right, so you wanna stay in character. You know, December 21st, 2012, all that dumb brew haha on TV about the world ending and everything changing as we knew it. And then the sun came up and everything kept going the way it always has. And sure there were a bunch of people running around saying something like a wall came down or the realm of dreams had entered into the realm of the living or any of that dumb bullshit. It's all a political conspiracy. You get that right?
Speaker 0 02:05:21 A what? Why would, okay, uh, pretend I don't know that enlighten me.
Speaker 2 02:05:31 He reaches over and steals a handful of your popcorn.
Speaker 0 02:05:35 Oh, cool. You're literally snatching food away from a half star, not teenager anymore, but
Speaker 2 02:05:44 My fuck popcorn
Speaker 0 02:05:47 Damien just raises one extremely unhealthily skinny arm gestures at it and says, I used to weigh 200 pounds
Speaker 2 02:05:55 And my mother used to think I was straight. We all changed time marchers on. Anyway, imagine you're one of the big wigs sitting on top of all of the institutions that make the world go around and you suddenly get the opportunity to blame everything bad that happens on, well, in some cases, the literal, actual boogeyman. All the December 21st, 2012 bullshit happens and apparently shit breaks bad. Some farmer in Puerto Rico, guns down El Trou p Cobra on his land, The moth man stages a string of kidnappings in West Virginia. You don't wanna hear about the shit with the Jersey Devil. Couple years down the line, we've got a cartoon mouse sitting behind a CEO's desk in Anaheim. People say he was born from the dreams, a thousands of children, but now he's a union buster with his own paramilitary death squad. But hey, at least the assault rifles play when you wish upon a star when they shoot you.
Speaker 0 02:07:00 That is the one of those that I least want to be true. But it also seems like the easiest to verify
Speaker 2 02:07:08 Luke shrugs and takes another sip of his beer. I wouldn't know, man. I got arrest warrants in California. I try not to go that way Anyway, none of this is ringing a bell.
Speaker 0 02:07:21 Damien pauses looking down at his beer where the hand wrapped around it has started to glow just a little bit and steam is rising up through the hole in top and then then shakes his head really hard and says, Nope, not a thing. Just it's just a blank,
Speaker 2 02:07:43 Huh? All right, you know how to commit to the bid. I'll give you that anyway, I think I can find one of those T L D R things on the internet that explains the whole thing. He pulls a phone out of his pocket and starts tapping at the screen.
Speaker 0 02:08:01 Damien leans over to watch what he is doing. Where's the headphone Jack?
Speaker 2 02:08:07 Luke is like absolutely closing out a lot of apps and doesn't really look up at you because he's busy. Where's the Oh yeah. Uh, so there's no headphone jack because now you have to pay for the extra attachment that will let you use it as a headphone jack. It's all a racket planned, obsolescence, all that shit. Something the new CEO came up with.
Speaker 0 02:08:31 Okay, so why the fuck would anybody buy that?
Speaker 2 02:08:34 Well, apparently the new CEO is a siren and you kind of can't help but buy it because of, you know, siren things.
Speaker 0 02:08:45 What happened to the other guy? I mean, I know the first one died, but
Speaker 2 02:08:49 She ate him on live tv. I'm still trying to figure out how they got the CGI in there that fast. But, um, the tabloids called it a girl boss moment.
Speaker 0 02:09:00 Huh? I liked it better when I didn't know any of this.
Speaker 2 02:09:05 Yeah, you and everybody else suffering through existence right now. Oh, here it is. He pulls something up on the phone and just hands it to you. And it's one of those like Tumblr master posts that just says the veil comes down December 21st, 2012 with a bunch of links under it.
Speaker 0 02:09:26 Damien skims through this master post and then takes the opportunity to hit the home screen and start snooping through this man's phone. <laugh>. Uh huh. Very interesting. Hey, what's Grindr? Oh no.
Speaker 2 02:09:43 He snatches the phone back outta your hand and holds it protectively to his chest.
Speaker 0 02:09:49 I'm just asking cuz you got like 15 notifications
Speaker 2 02:09:52 And I'm just saying no, cuz there are plenty of guys on there that would love a boy with Swiss cheese for brains.
Speaker 0 02:10:00 Hey, rude, accepted but rude.
Speaker 2 02:10:06 He glares at you for a second and then kind of pulls the phone a little bit away from his chest to peek down at the screen. 15 notifications though. Your voice on fire tonight. And Damien, I need you to once again roll to read a bad situation.
Speaker 0 02:10:28 Hey, I don't like that. That was a six on the die, but I have plus one to sharp. That's a seven. Thank. Fuck.
Speaker 2 02:10:40 Okay, as Luke is checking his grinder profile, you start to hear banging and barking outside of this warehouse through the corrugated metal walls. Luke rolls his eyes and starts typing something on his phone. Fucking strays. I keep telling Gina to make sure the dumpster's closed and on a seven to nine to read a bad situation, you get to hold one and that hold can be spent to ask the keeper. That's me. One of the following questions. What's my best way in? What's my best way out? Are there any dangers we haven't noticed? What's the biggest threat? What's most vulnerable to me? Or what's the best way to protect the victims? If you act on the answers, you get plus one ongoing while the information is still relevant.
Speaker 0 02:11:36 Damien takes a deep, shaky breath and just looks at the wall in the direction of these noises. What's my best way out?
Speaker 2 02:11:49 The walls are thin here. You can get a pretty good bead on the direction the sound is coming from. It is coming from the side of the building getting closer. There are a couple of those big garage doors that you saw earlier, but they exit toward the source of this noise. If you want dip right now, your best option that's gonna put the most distance between you and whatever you're hearing is gonna be heading back up the escalator and out through the gift shop into the parking lot.
Speaker 0 02:12:29 I'm gonna stand up from the table, uh, not take anything with me, just look at Luke and say, Man, I suggest you get outta here. I'm I'm going to. Uh, and then he's gonna start heading for the door.
Speaker 2 02:12:44 Oh, he puts his phone in his pocket and gets up and starts walking after you.
Speaker 12 02:12:49 What
Speaker 2 02:12:49 The hell are you talking about? Get outta here. This is my place. It's just some dogs, man. Are you afraid of dogs or something?
Speaker 0 02:13:00 Oh, do they sound like dogs? Do they really? Cause to me they sound like coyotes.
Speaker 2 02:13:07 He stops and listens for a second. And yeah, the sound you are hearing is much higher pitched and more mournful than the howling of any stray dog you've ever heard. And you're not sure where, but you have heard coyotes before and you're not sure how you know this, but there's something deep and visceral inside you that sets off a fear response at the knowledge that coyotes don't hunt in pack. And then you hear the hoof beats not the even cadence of somebody riding a horse. It's, it's odd, it's wrong. It's something with too many legs that you knew if you tried to conceptualize it would hurt. You don't want to think about it. And then you hear something else long and low, the sound of a horn that says the hunt is on.
Speaker 4 02:14:31 Fuck the fuck.
Speaker 0 02:14:35 Damien looks at Luke and says, Run if you want. I don't, I don't give a shit. And then he bolts,
Speaker 4 02:14:43 Luke
Speaker 2 02:14:44 Isn't as freaked out as you are, but he doesn't understand why you're dipping all of a sudden and runs after you up the escalator and out through the gift shop into the parking lot. The two of you kind of skid across this dirt surface with the spray painted parking spots outlined across it. Clouds of dust kicking up under one guttering streetlight. That's the sole source of illumination. And beyond this small circle of light, the two of you see shadows, a rising unnatural mass of shadows colliding with the garage doors along the far side of this warehouse house. It is as if the night itself is seething and heaving and growing claws. And you watch these metal doors crumple like paper as they are torn off their hinges next to you. Luke's eyes go wide and you hear a jingle as he yanks his keys out of his pocket. Fuck, fuck truck. Go, go, go, go, go.
Speaker 0 02:16:02 Yeah, I'm going. I'm right into the truck.
Speaker 2 02:16:07 The two of you pile into this beat up old red pickup and you hear the ignition squeal as Luke cranks it and stomps his foot down on the gas pedal, burns rubber out of this parking lot and you can only watch in the rear view as the night grows more and more and more claws growing bigger, bigger, so big that it even dwarfs the paper mache mermaid swaying a top, the billboard pole in the desert breeze closes in a vice around johansen's eccentric emporium and pulls the whole building down, down into the dust until there is nothing left behind.
Speaker 0 02:17:09 Okay? We come back to you in the Antonina's living room. Auggie Antonov, who you now know is three years older than Lydia and kind of a mess he has given you. No other information is sprawled across the seat that you and Lydia are not sitting on staring at you open mouth as he twirls the chain on one of his necklaces. You see the charm sliding back and forth on it. It's a little hamsa. And he goes, Huh. So amnesia on death and now I'm caught up.
Speaker 2 02:17:46 I mean, you're as caught up as I am, dude, I don't know what to tell you.
Speaker 0 02:17:51 Huh? That's fucked up. And then he chomps down on a chip. Lydia has her head in her hands again. She goes, Yeah, all gets real fucked up. Do you have something to actually contribute to the conversation? And he points at her accusingly and says, I told you I was going out partying tonight. You cannot hold me responsible for not being prepared for this shit. And then he takes a ferocious bite of a chip and says, Have you called her family yet?
Speaker 2 02:18:24 Oh yeah, we should do that. Huh?
Speaker 0 02:18:28 Lydia sits up and makes this kind of like, No, absolutely not. Crossing the arm gestures in front of her chest. Not happening tonight, not doing it. Mm-hmm. I, ooh, it is so late at night. Uh, I need to sleep for a few hours because I have to go to work at one tomorrow. And before I do that, I have to call Frankie and Bailey and dozens and dozens of very worried Irish Americans.
Speaker 2 02:18:56 Kaylin does one of those full body wins again. Oh, Catholic and Irish.
Speaker 0 02:19:04 Lydia points at you and says, And I dated you for six months while you still thought you were a guy. So I demand a couple hours of grace on this.
Speaker 2 02:19:16 Yeah. Yeah, that's fair. Um, I'll let you to get back to your whole thing. Lydia, could you just walk me home? Real
Speaker 0 02:19:29 Lydia's performative, mostly righteous indignation deflates. And she scrubs a hand back through her hair and says, Yeah, yeah, I can do that. Um, do you need anything else tonight? Or I'll, I'll ask you. And we get there. Come on. And she stands up and offers you a hand to pull you to your feet.
Speaker 2 02:19:50 Kay. Takes it and leans a little harder on her than she can not feel guilty for
Speaker 0 02:20:01 Lydia squeezes your hand super hard and then does the kind of, I'm watching you gesture at Augie and says, You don't choke on any vomit before I get back. Do not text your ex and do not eat my last yogurt.
Speaker 2 02:20:19 Aw, you were gonna gimme your last yogurt.
Speaker 0 02:20:23 Lydia looks at you and then looks away and goes, Well, yeah, obviously, and then looks back at Augie and says, But you, I'll kill you.
Speaker 2 02:20:33 <laugh>.
Speaker 0 02:20:34 And Augie puts both hands up and very playfully, gives her a little salute and goes, I, I captain don't wanna start another prank war. She glares daggers at him and then pulls you out the door. The contrast between the ovs house and yours is striking, not really because of the look of it again, their house has some newer furniture but is still very seventies. Like the look is similar enough, but your house feels empty and lonely
Speaker 2 02:21:15 As soon as they're in the front door, Kay shuts and locks it behind them before turning over to look at Lydia with a guilty almost expression. Look, I I I know you're tired and you've got work. Um, I'm covered in grave dirt. I'm like really dirty. Um, and I, I want to go take a shower, but there's something up with the bathroom. I saw something up there earlier. I'm not asking you to shower with me. That's not the whole situation that I'm trying to spin here. Can you just hang out while I take a shower so nothing kills me. If that's possible, given the whole probably dead thing That sounds so fucked up. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Go home. I'm sorry.
Speaker 0 02:22:08 No, no. Um, she gives you a look like she knows something you don't and she's really sad about it. And then summons up a smile and says, No, I'll hang out. Uh, I've been in your bathroom before. I know there's the whole door in the middle there. I will sit on one side of the door. You can take a shower and we'll be okay. Yeah,
Speaker 2 02:22:35 Yeah, yeah. Good. I have sand in places I don't want sand. She's gonna go upstairs and rifle through the linen closet or whatever, grab a towel and go take a shower. Literally looking over her shoulder like every five seconds.
Speaker 0 02:22:55 I think Lydia sits down on the other side of the door with a thk and she just keeps up a stream of chatter the entire time you're in the shower. Nothing outta the ordinary happens.
Speaker 2 02:23:07 Okay? If there's like a, uh, like a bathrobe or anything in the linen closet, CA's gonna put that on and put their hair up in a towel and kind of just breeze past Lydia out the door and take a few blankets off their bed back in their bedroom before walking back out into the hallway. I, um, I don't wanna sleep up here. I I I know that's fucked up. I I know that's weird. Just hold on a second. She walks around to literally every room up here, opens all the doors, turns on all the lights, except for the bathroom, which is kept shut.
Speaker 0 02:23:51 Lydia just stands on the landing While you do this, she doesn't look surprised or confused that this is happening, which is not reassuring per se. She just waits for you to finish and then smiles and says, Okay, uh, you're sleeping downstairs then.
Speaker 2 02:24:09 Yeah. Uh, yeah. Uh, the couch is comfy enough it looks like, or, Well, is it, is the couch comfy? Can I sleep there? I I don't,
Speaker 0 02:24:21 It's not as comfy as it could be, but I know for a fact that you've taken enough naps there that it'll be fine. Do you want me to grab the out of the medicine cabinet or?
Speaker 2 02:24:34 Yeah, I'm probably gonna need something to put me out. Thank you. I'm gonna go set up Lydia. I'm sorry. I'm, I'm sorry. I don't remember. I'm, I'm trying to remember, but every time I try it's like there's all this scary shit in my brain that I don't remember and that makes it even scarier.
Speaker 0 02:24:58 Hey, it's, it's okay. I'm, I'm really sorry. This is scary and stressful for you. I can only imagine it's not your fault and we're gonna get you through it. Okay. And she kind of reaches up to pat the side of your face. It is all going to be okay, let's just take it one step at a time.
Speaker 2 02:25:28 Yeah. One step at a time. She counts every step to the bottom of the stairwell and just mummies herself in blankets on the couch and turns on the tv, leaves it on whatever channel it's on. Just once the noise
Speaker 0 02:25:48 After a moment, Lydia comes down the stairs after you, she's got the prescription bottle of sleeping pills in her hand. She rattles it a little bit and then says, I'll go get you a glass of water and then we'll be good.
Speaker 2 02:26:03 Yeah, I'll, uh, try to knock out without it first, but I appreciate the thought You should go home. I think Augie's in more imminent danger of dying than I am
Speaker 0 02:26:17 <laugh>. She rolls her eyes, he does his best. I don't fault him for it. He was very responsible our entire childhood. And now that I am a big girl who can take care of myself, he is entitled to some debauchery.
Speaker 2 02:26:31 I don't think there's anything in the world that entitles anybody to those Crocs. So you're very gracious.
Speaker 0 02:26:38 <laugh> God, right? They're so bad. <laugh>. She shakes her head. I'm gonna get that glass of water. You know, he's a rocket scientist. He has no excuse for this shit. A real actual space engineer. And then she kind of throws her hands up and she walks into your kitchen.
Speaker 2 02:27:03 Kaylin just sort of lays down on the couch and bundles up a wad of throw pillows under her head and stares blankly at the tv.
Speaker 0 02:27:14 Lydia comes back with a glass of water hand do that. And the sleeping pills, I think she leans down, gives you a kiss on top of the head, ruffles your hair a little bit. We are gonna get you through this, okay?
Speaker 2 02:27:29 Yeah. I'll hope I'll be fine. Something tells me I always am
Speaker 0 02:27:37 Right. Um, she nods to herself. Okay, well you might be just getting the hang of getting my name right, but I know for a fact it's in your phone. So call if you need anything. I am right on the other side of the wall. Try and get some rest before we have to deal with our other best friends and a significant chunk of your family. And, and she gestures at you. This whole situation
Speaker 2 02:28:10 Will too. Night
Speaker 0 02:28:14 Night. And then she walks out.
Speaker 2 02:28:17 Kay does get up and lock the door behind her and then goes back and lays on the couch and tries to sleep.
Speaker 0 02:28:27 You lay there for you don't know how long. It feels like hours, a few episodes of some sitcom play on the tv. You just can't fall asleep. You are bone deep tired and you try and close your eyes. You try and do deep breathing. You try everything you can think of and you just cannot sleep.
Speaker 2 02:28:57 Yeah, fuck it. They're gonna check the dosage on this bottle of sleeping pills and figure out how many they need to take and use the glass of water that Lydia brought them to take it.
Speaker 0 02:29:11 You lay back down you are watching the sitcom and you still can't fall asleep. You drift a little bit, not asleep, but trying not to focus too much on the tv. And as these sleeping pills take effect, you stop being able to move, but you still can't fall asleep. You are just laying there frozen as this stupid laugh track goes off on the tv and as it fades away, you hear the sound of someone choking and coughing something wet and viscous. And as you move just your eyes to look at it, you see a shadow go from standing to all fours on the ground, just making those choking noises, trying to throw something up. It looks like just this hoing big shape. The TV lights up a little bit more and you can see that this is a person choking and gasping on all fours on the ground. It goes on for minutes. Eventually the shape falls over on its side, just clutching at its chest and its stomach still choking. And then there's a pause and the head on this figure swivels to look up at you on the couch and you see that this is the man from the photos, from the garage, from the kitchen,
Speaker 0 02:31:16 Larger than life, but curled on the ground. His eyes are very similar to how yours look now, glassy, frayed pupils. He's older than you saw him in any of the photographs. You'd say mid thirties. And there is blood pouring from his eyes, from his nose, from his mouth, and he grs at you, just this big crooked smile with his bloody teeth. And as he opens his mouth, a glut of blood pours out of it. He doesn't seem to notice. He says, Should have got out while he still could kid. And then he just lays there staring at you.
Speaker 2 02:32:09 Kalin can't move. She can't even open her mouth to scream. So she just lays there on the couch and screams against the back of her own clenched teeth until her voice gives out.
Speaker 0 02:32:31 And that is where we're gonna leave you this episode.
Speaker 8 02:32:37 Welcome
Speaker 2 02:32:38 To Campaign to Everybody.
Speaker 0 02:32:42 Happy Halloween
Speaker 8 02:32:45 <laugh>. Oh God. Oh God. Oh God.
Speaker 0 02:32:49 We'll see you next time
Speaker 2 02:32:52 On Compelled Dual.
Speaker 2 02:33:29 Hey everybody. Barry here with the Postscript, just clearing up a couple housekeeping things here at the end of the episode. Welcome to Campaign two. We're so excited to have you. As you can see, we're doing a lot of really interesting new things with this campaign. We're experimenting a little bit, we're trying new stuff. One of those things is actually an interactive portion to the campaign that you can find on all of our social medias. This interactive portion is completely optional. It's not necessary to understand or keep up with the campaign. We just thought that it added a fun, interesting layer to things. If you'd like to participate, you can find us on Twitter, Tumblr and TikTok at compelled dual, and we tag everything for this sort of ARG interactive element with hashtag CD Desert Song. If you're enjoying the show, now's the time where we come to you hat in hand and ask that you consider going over to patreon.com/compelled dual and getting on board with some of our amazing patron benefits.
Speaker 2 02:34:36 We are an independent production. We don't do ad revenue. We don't have any source of income other than our Patreon and our day jobs that help us get this podcast out there, be that paying hosting fees, paying for our Soundtracking websites, paying for transcription services, all kinds of stuff. So if you're interested in being part of the magic, starting at just $2 a month, you can get access to lots of really cool perks. You can get stuff like early access to episodes, access to exclusive bonus content, access to patron exclusive playlists that we put up on our official Spotify account, and even letters and secret codes from your favorite character every month. Other ways to support us include leaving a review on Apple Podcast or Spotify because that helps get the show promoted, get our name out there. Or even more importantly, just telling your friends.
Speaker 2 02:35:35 If you like what you're hearing, we do a q and a live stream on our YouTube channel where we answer your questions about the episode and generally just have a good time. So we would love it if you guys would show up for that. Our next one is gonna be on Monday, November 7th at 6:00 PM Eastern time. And in regards to the next episode, we are moving to a biweekly release schedule because as you heard in this episode, things are a lot more involved with the sound design. The episodes are longer, the turnaround time on editing is just longer now. So you can look for episode two to be dropping on Monday, November 14th, 2022. Or if you are a member of our Patreon, you'll be getting your early access to that on Sunday, November 13th. Thank you all so much and we will see you next time.
