1.3 - Interlude I

Speaker 0 00:00:56 Hello everybody and welcome back to Compelled Dual. I'm Speaker 2 00:00:59 Al. And I'm Barry. Speaker 0 00:01:02 And we are a single player co gMed TT, R P g actual play podcast. Speaker 2 00:01:08 Previously on compelled dual desert song. All right, when you said you had someone after you, I thought it meant you had pissed off a lone shark. Not the fucking Fay. Come on man. Speaker 0 00:01:21 Oh, so the Fay, you believe in siren's eating people on live tv. That's too much of a stretch, but the fay, oh, that's fine. Speaker 2 00:01:29 I've got a plan, but for it to work we've gotta get you some new clothes. Speaker 0 00:01:34 Good morning sunshine. Speaker 2 00:01:36 I'd like to roll to kick some ass. Speaker 0 00:01:39 You see that Lydia and Augie Andina are standing behind you in the bathroom doorway. Speaker 2 00:01:45 Oh my god. Oh my God. Liddy, I'm so sorry. When shit breaks this bad, going off the grid is safer. Speaker 0 00:01:53 I get that you're helping me out a lot, but uh, any chance you're gonna tell me where we're going Speaker 2 00:02:00 North? Remember how I said if we were gonna make it out of this, we were gonna need cash? Why would me getting a voicemail from my brother make my sister and I have a fight? Speaker 0 00:02:12 Kira shakes her head and Beth from your other side very quietly says he died. Speaker 2 00:02:20 How Speaker 0 00:02:22 You read the label on this voicemail, which is Damien O'Connell, April 2nd, 2018. Speaker 2 00:02:31 Angie is, uh, how do I say this? She's real good at making people who want to disappear, disappear, Speaker 0 00:02:41 <laugh>. They're gonna look for me everywhere Speaker 2 00:02:46 And they're not gonna find you today. Get inside this thing, whatever it is, looks at you and does not see you and then it stands up, walks out of the cooler and you hear nothing. Speaker 0 00:03:09 Okay everybody, as we said last time, we are going to be doing end of session experience at the top of each episode as opposed to at the end of the previous one. Speaker 2 00:03:19 And because we have reached the end of our first mystery, we are going to be doing some stuff with leveling up. So we're gonna be doing things a little bit differently than you saw us do in Legacy our first campaign, a, because it was a different system, and B, because we're trying to do it in a way that feels more organic. So rather than having everybody level just in complete lock step with the PCs, we're gonna be doing it based on their experience that they're marking during Mr. East as well. Speaker 0 00:03:54 We will be giving every character on each team the same end of session experience. And this particular arc, because it was kind of low action because we had to get some exposition done, we will be leveling Luke and Lydia in lockstep with K and Dian this time and this time only Speaker 2 00:04:15 When new characters on our team are introduced, they will be entering the game at the same level as the PC's, but it's up to fate after that. Speaker 0 00:04:25 So let's do end of session experience for K and by extension Lydia first Speaker 2 00:04:32 Did I conclude the current mystery? Speaker 0 00:04:35 Yes. Speaker 2 00:04:36 Did I save someone from certain death or worse? Speaker 0 00:04:40 No. Speaker 2 00:04:42 Did I learn something new and important about the world? Speaker 0 00:04:46 I'm going to say no this time Speaker 2 00:04:51 Did I learn something new and important about one of the hunters? Speaker 0 00:04:55 Yes. So you're gonna go ahead and mark one experience, which if I'm correct, is just enough to get you to level up, Speaker 2 00:05:04 Hey, yes it is. Which means I get to pick an improvement. I am choosing to up my weird score by plus one up to a max of three. So now I have max. Weird. Speaker 0 00:05:16 And what did you choose for Lydia's level up? Speaker 2 00:05:20 I chose to up her tough score, so her tough score is plus two now. Speaker 0 00:05:25 Oh, okay. So let's do end of session experience for team day, man. Did I conclude the current mystery? Speaker 2 00:05:32 Yes, as much as you could. Speaker 0 00:05:33 Cool. Did I save someone from certain death or worse? Speaker 2 00:05:38 You emphatically did not. Speaker 0 00:05:41 Did I learn something new and important about the world? Speaker 2 00:05:45 Yes. I'm gonna give you a yes on that one. Speaker 0 00:05:48 And did I learn something new and important about one of the hunters? Speaker 2 00:05:53 Okay, this one's hard for me because you learned vague implications about Luke, but nothing concrete and not much about yourself either. So I'll give you a choice. You think about what you believe the right answer to that question is, and I will honor it because I could see how it would go either way. Do you think it's a yes or a no? Speaker 0 00:06:20 I'll say no. Speaker 2 00:06:21 Okay, so that's one experience for you and I believe that's just enough for you to level up as well. Speaker 0 00:06:28 Uh, correct. Um, Luke has one experience right now. Should I just have that carry over into his level up? Speaker 2 00:06:35 Yeah, this time go ahead and do it. Speaker 0 00:06:39 So I had Damien take another move as the spelled slinger, I took advanced arcane training, so I only have to use two of my tools and techniques. And I had Luke take another move as the crooked. Uh, he took the driver move, which means he has plus one ongoing wall driving and he can hot wire anything Speaker 2 00:06:59 Wise decisions. All right, let's get back into it. Damien, we find you exactly where we left you laying under a shelf in the walk-in cooler of Angie's Roadhouse in Mountain Springs, Nevada staring across the aisle at Luke Johansen, who is also under a shelf after watching and hearing one of the most objectively horrifying things of your life, it's quiet for a long time and in its own way, the quiet is almost worse. You are freezing cold. You can no longer feel your hands or your feet, and you expect Luke must be feeling similar discomfort. But if he does, he doesn't show it. His eyes never leave yours. The tear stains across his cheeks have started to go frosty and solid at the edges and through this long stretch of silence, he whispers to you, we need to go, we need to go Now. Speaker 0 00:08:14 Damien nods and slowly slides out from under the shelf. Speaker 2 00:08:20 You feel this mark of magical protection scrolled across the back of your hand in black sharpie flicker and fade as you break its boundaries by moving and talking. But you and Luke stand up and make your way out of this cooler into carnage. Everyone that was in this roadhouse when the doors were locked is dead and gruesomely at that. You see Luke look over one of the brushed metal kitchen counters at a pile of blood and flannel and straw colored hair and go, oh, oh God. Angie, Speaker 0 00:09:06 Damien keeps his eyes on the floor and keeps moving. Speaker 2 00:09:10 Hold up, hold up. We've gotta, they're kind, know the truck. We can't take that. Speaker 0 00:09:18 Damian stops still looking at the floor trying to keep his feet out of any blood and very quietly he just says, okay, what's, what's the plan then? I I don't, Speaker 2 00:09:33 We gotta, um, we gotta, you're looking at at the floor so you don't get the full vision of what's going on. But Luke walks over to this mangled body and knees down next to it and starts patting it down. Come on, come on. Speaker 5 00:09:54 Fuck. Okay, Speaker 2 00:09:58 Okay, there's a cro Outback, I've got the keys. We gotta back doors that way. Speaker 0 00:10:06 Damien crosses his arms over his chest rubs one hand up the other bicep and just nods. Okay? And then he walks the direction that Luke indicated still staring at the floor. Speaker 2 00:10:23 You follow Luke out through the kitchen and out a back door into the sandy dirt parking lot of the roadhouse. The darkness is no longer artificial. The sun has fully set by now and under the ging single street light, illuminating the parking lot, you can see tire tracks crisscrossed with hoof prints and paw prints, dozens of them. There's a dark sort of realization that you could have your pick of any car or motorcycle in this parking lot if you were willing to go back in there and dig through some pockets to find the keys. But that doesn't seem to be what Luke is focused on. His shoulders are set very rigidly, and he is just stocking off beyond the light of the parking lot to a small shadowed outbuilding with a rickety garage door on the front of it. He fumbles with something in his hands for a second. And between the low light and your mental state, it takes you a while to realize that it is a key ring. It takes you even longer to realize that the keys are smearing blood across his fingers. Speaker 2 00:11:43 You hear another sob and a gag. And then this garage door rattles up to reveal the most non-descript car you've ever seen in your life. Like it's a less than 10 year old champagne colored soccer mom van. If you had to guess, you would say the only thing that makes this car distinguishable is it's got some tint on the windows that's a little bit darker than you'd expect, but if you pass this thing on the road, you wouldn't look at it twice. And after knowing Angie for however briefly you did, you get the impression that that's the point. Luke unlocks the car, climbs in the driver's seat, starts the ignition and just stares at you. I mean, all right, gonna move on. This is a small town, but there's still only a matter of time before the cops show up. And that's the last thing we need. We gotta go. Speaker 0 00:12:44 Yeah. Damian slides into the shotgun seat. Speaker 2 00:12:48 The two of you burn rubber out of this parking lot, and under the glint of the one street light, you could see blood stains splashed up against the insides of the windows of the roadhouse. Speaker 0 00:13:03 Damien Flins, but stays silent until they are well out of sight of the roadhouse. I think as soon as they're clear, he very quietly says, you don't have to keep doing this. By the way, thank you for your help up to this point and I am sorry that it put you in danger and caused all that. Um, but you can just drop me off somewhere. I, I I'll manage Speaker 2 00:13:44 You. Drive under another streetlight and see Luke's jaw clenched so hard that you're sure his teeth must hurt. Speaker 0 00:13:53 <laugh>. Speaker 2 00:13:54 Fuck that. You know, Angie saved my life once, really stuck her a heck out for me. And I was just some stupid kid with a rap sheet almost as tall as I was. I wasn't worth anything. She died for you. What are you worth? Besides, it's not like I've got anything to go back to. Speaker 0 00:14:23 Yeah, me neither. I guess Damien just kind of sink slower in his seat and lead this head against the window. Speaker 2 00:14:33 The two of you hit the highway again and set off through the desert and you something weird start to happen as you and Luke lapse into silence between yourselves and his hands go still on the steering wheel after he puts the cruise control on the marks on the back of your hands, start to glow again and you feel that warm safe feeling covering you and the longer you drive, the more you start to see little almost graffiti looking ruins across the dashboard lighting up and pulsing in time with them after a while. You dunno how long Luke size and goes, okay, plan A was run and that was a disaster. So onto plan B. Speaker 0 00:15:32 Okay, I'll bite What's plan B? Speaker 2 00:15:37 He reaches out to trace one of those glowing ruins on the dashboard and peels off the interstate onto a beat up dirt road exit hide. Speaker 0 00:15:56 Hey Lynn, we pick back up with you, uh, about a day after we last left off. It's the next morning. What have you been doing? First of all? Speaker 2 00:16:07 Uh, willing to take a bet. Still couldn't sleep, huh? Speaker 0 00:16:11 Nope. Speaker 2 00:16:13 Cool. That being said, I think that I've been like repeatedly reality checking myself with this fucked up Eldridge voicemail that I listened to yesterday, like listening to it a couple times, writing down exactly what I heard, putting my phone down, walking away for a few hours, coming back, trying it again. Speaker 0 00:16:36 You had two more fucked up Eldridge voicemails. Have you been listening to those? Speaker 2 00:16:43 Yes. Doing the same thing. Everything related to this whole Damien situation. I am reality checking myself as hard as I can do that without anybody else to help me. Speaker 0 00:16:56 As far as you can tell, you're probably not hallucinating these voicemails like you are coming back to them. They are the same words every time. Uh, they don't move in your voicemail order like they're in the same order every time. You can't take pictures of the voicemails and like I think if you try to record them on something else that doesn't work, but they're not changing, Speaker 2 00:17:25 Okay, between that they're just trying to keep themselves busy, like finishing cleaning, maybe playing some video games. I don't know. I think she starts to go a little ape shit like in the wee hours of the morning after checking the voicemails for the fifth time and to herself and to the ferrets and their enclosure goes, oh God, I'm gonna have to get some new hobbies, huh? Speaker 0 00:17:52 Well the ferrets being ferrets do not respond except to bonk their little noses against the plexiglass of their enclosure. Speaker 2 00:18:03 Mm Good boys. Speaker 0 00:18:07 Yeah. Fucking ferret noises from the entertainment center. What are you doing? Speaker 2 00:18:14 I'm going to unleash the boys. They need some enrichment and then once they are out caving about the living room, I'm going to sit down on the floor with my phone and start going through my unopened smells. Speaker 0 00:18:29 The vast majority of them are just worried voicemails from your friends, your family, other various family members that you have contacts for who have apparently crawled outta the woodwork to worry about you. You do see one from your great-Uncle George. He sounds quite upset on the phone. Just big booming voice. Speaker 4 00:18:56 Now you listen here, you little shit. I don't care what Tom Fooler you're up to on your own time, but leave me out of it. Also, you couldn't come up with a better live and great, great-Uncle George is sick. I haven't even had the flu since I was 12. Couldn't find another old person to throw under the bus. I'm frankly insulted. Anyway, call me back. I'm worried Speaker 0 00:19:24 You keep going through your voicemails. A couple other ones. You get to one, the contact is simply labeled doctor's office. You play that one and you hear what sounds to be a middle aged woman. Say, Speaker 4 00:19:39 Good morning Caitlin. You didn't show up for your last session so I'm just giving you a call to reschedule. Call me back whenever you get this. Okay? Speaker 0 00:19:50 It is from a week ago. Speaker 2 00:19:53 Kay goes, oh and their finger hovers over the callback button but then pulls back at the last second. Speaker 1 00:20:02 <laugh>, Speaker 0 00:20:05 You have two from your sister who you haven't talked to yet if you would like to play those. Speaker 2 00:20:15 Uh, no, I'm just gonna call her actually. Speaker 0 00:20:19 Okay, you hear one ring, two and then without saying hello, a voice on the other end of the phone says, Speaker 4 00:20:31 I'm in the airport right now. You heinous bitch. Speaker 2 00:20:40 Hello Alice. Speaker 4 00:20:44 Hello Alice. You owe me $900 and the time and date of your death is tomorrow morning. Speaker 2 00:20:54 Well it's, it's not but I guess we'll discuss that when you get here. Speaker 0 00:21:01 She hangs up on you <laugh>. Speaker 2 00:21:07 Kay looks at her phone and then looks at the ferrets and then looks back at her phone. Well boys, it would seem that my goose is cooked and then she's gonna go back to going through her voicemails. Speaker 0 00:21:24 More concern and then you get to one, the contact is simply labeled work. You open it and you hear a very peppy voice on the other end. Speaker 4 00:21:34 Hi Caly. So as I'm sure you know, our policy is that if you have three no call, no-shows in a row, you will be terminated. And this is the fourth one. So we will be sending your last check to your current address and we wish you well. Speaker 2 00:21:53 Yeah, she swipes out of the voicemail mailbox and pulls up Google and types in how to pay my bills if I am dead. Speaker 0 00:22:05 Well you find a lot of articles about uh, what to do when a family member dies and they left behind some debt, which is not super helpful in your situation. Speaker 2 00:22:16 Okay? Okay. I'm gonna type in will my antipsychotics work if I am dead Speaker 0 00:22:24 <laugh>. The first result is an article from the NIH titled Antipsychotics, other Psychotropics and the Risk of Death in Patients with Dementia Also not helpful. Speaker 2 00:22:38 Super cool, super cool. I'm gonna type in will my estrogen work if I am dead Speaker 0 00:22:44 Cleveland clinic.org hormone therapy for menopause types, benefits and risks for multiple reasons not relevant to your situation. Speaker 2 00:22:57 Ca slumps forward, defeated and just sinks down to sit on the floor and opens her arms to the ferrets Poe Hemingway. I require comfort. Speaker 0 00:23:08 The ferrets begin to crawl all over you, which I'm sure is very comforting in the face of not being able to pay your bills and being undead and now owing your sister 900 fucking dollars. Speaker 2 00:23:23 Kay looks over at that last Google search of Will my hormones work if I am dead? And then looks back at the ferrets. Oh boys. And then she looks down at her chest and girls, this is what we call an impasse. Damien, we pick up back with you about two weeks later. It's been several days of very repetitive activity. You drive to an unoccupied house in the middle of the desert, you hide out for a few days, whatever has been pursuing catches up with you. You hop in Angie's car, which has proven itself to be like really good at dipping out of car chases and not being followed and you go find another abandoned house in the middle of the desert to hide in again. Lather, rinse, repeat. Speaker 0 00:24:24 Well, I'm bored outta my skull then, but it seems in poor taste to say so. Speaker 2 00:24:34 Yeah, I don't know if you've noticed, but Luke Johansen isn't exactly the kind of guy to be upset by comments made in poor taste. He makes a few of them himself, but most of the time that you're not on the road or trying to snag a couple hours of sleep here and there, he's on one of a growing succession of burner phones usually pacing out in front of the house wherever you're staying. He doesn't ever say who he's calling, but from what you're able to pick up just through watching through the windows, he seems to leave every conversation looking progressively more disappointed and worried. And more specifically, that's where we find you right now, sitting in the dusty hot living room of an empty house with thread bear curtains in the middle of the Mojave watching Luke angrily hang up a phone and shove it in his pocket. What are you doing? Speaker 0 00:25:38 Well, okay, first I'm gonna try and act casual and pretend I didn't see anything, which years of practice. I'm pretty good at that. I don't know if you want me to roll charm or not, but Speaker 2 00:25:50 Honestly I'm not gonna make you. Luke does not give a shit. He's at that point right now. He comes storming in through the front door and just lets himself drop onto an outdated dust covered couch and puts his head in his hands. Speaker 0 00:26:08 Damien's fiddling with the chain around his neck again and after a second just says so it seems like we're gonna have to come up with a new plan pretty soon. Speaker 5 00:26:24 <laugh>. Speaker 2 00:26:27 Yeah, that'd be great if we had any resources with which to come up with a plan. He looks up from his hands just long enough to toss the burner phone down onto the coffee table with a clatter. We're running outta safe houses in Angie's network and I have called literally every person I know how to call some of them. I've called twice. Everybody's heard about what happened at the Roadhouse. They're too scared to give us a hand and if they know what's after us, they're too scared to tell me what it is. I hate to be defeated, but, but we got nothing. A couple more shitty houses at the end of the world, a half a tank of gas and a box of cliff bars left at the back of the van. Can you make a plan out of those? Speaker 0 00:27:18 I mean maybe in high school when I was doing mushrooms, but kind of shit outta luck now. God, I wish I was on mushrooms. Speaker 2 00:27:27 He gives you a bail full look from between his fingers. I don't, after all the horror and trauma the past two weeks, you think I want to trip. Sit your ass. He just claws both hands down his face. Well, maybe we'll get lucky and starve to death before those things find us. If I go first, you have my permission to eat me. I'm sure that there's like microplastics and worse banging around in these old bones, but I should at least be a good source of protein. Speaker 0 00:28:00 Damien squints at him and then holds up an arm and says, Luke, I promise you're not gonna go first. Speaker 2 00:28:07 He kinda looks over your whole thing in size again. Yeah, but if you go first, I'm not gonna be that far behind you. Let's face it, Speaker 0 00:28:18 I'm sure you'll get something. It's just like a chicken wing Speaker 2 00:28:22 Christ on a bike that's dark Speaker 0 00:28:24 <laugh>. You think that was dark? You should have met my father. Half his jokes read like he was work shopping a suicide note. Speaker 2 00:28:32 Sounds like a fun guy. My dad only knew knock-knock jokes and had to be admitted to the hospital for any EKG after he found condoms in my room one time. Speaker 0 00:28:44 Yikes. Speaker 2 00:28:45 Oh yeah, I just counted myself. Lucky at the time he would've stroked out if he found the loop. Anyway, talking about family is making me even more depressed than our imminent deaths. So maybe we should change the subject. Speaker 0 00:29:01 Damien moves his hands from the chain around his neck to pick a string in his hoodie. Eh, it's not a full subject change, but all else fails. I got a great uncle that owned a house upstate and I don't think his daughter would've sold it yet. Speaker 2 00:29:16 Where Speaker 0 00:29:18 Up in, I don't remember what it's called. Speaker 2 00:29:31 The city where your family lives. Speaker 0 00:29:35 It's upstate. All right. I could probably find the way there. I just don't know. Anyway, even if that falls through, I have another great uncle who's a cattle rancher who lives near there and he's about the size of a barn. So if anybody can stop what's coming after us? Speaker 2 00:29:56 Well, it won't matter if we can't find the place. And you saw what those things did at the roadhouse and everybody there knew what they were doing. I'm not putting my money on an old man with a shotgun. Speaker 0 00:30:08 I don't know if you've met him, you might, but point taken Speaker 2 00:30:14 Maybe. Maybe we should go back to the city. I mean, it's the last place they're gonna expect us to go. And the good thing about Vegas is that it's a good place to disappear. That's why I came there in the first place. Speaker 0 00:30:34 Damien pulls a thread on his hoodie so hard that it snaps. I, I'm not sure that's a great idea. I mean they already found me there once and Speaker 2 00:30:46 And you'll be a hell of a lot harder to find in the middle of the strip than you will in the middle of the desert. Speaker 0 00:30:54 Damian is staring holes in the floor. I think in absence of a loose thread in his jacket, he has started just picking at his fingernails. I, I mean we also have to worry about collateral damage and Speaker 2 00:31:10 Luke sucks his teeth and runs a hand back through his hair. It's dirty as shit. You guys have not had the time to shower since you've been on the run. Look, I appreciate the chivalry as much as the next guy. Sur winds a lot, but you have the misfortune to be traveling with somebody that completely lacks it. All right? If it comes down to a choice between damage to my person and damage to collateral, I'm not above utilizing a meat shield. And again, real bummer for you. Sorry about it. I'm the one with the car keys. Speaker 0 00:31:42 All right, fine. He untangles his hands from each other, puts them down in his lap, takes a deep breath. Okay, I get it. I can. We grab a couple hours of sleep and then figure out more detail. I guess Speaker 2 00:32:01 He gives you kind of this weird, almost apologetic look as you kind of have that outburst and goes like he's gonna reach out to pat you on the shoulder, but then think better of it. Yeah, that's what I was thinking anyway. Those things seem more active at night. It makes more sense to head back in the morning. Look, I get that you don't like this, but Luke curls his hand into a fist and holds it up so that the back of his hand is facing you. And you can see that the mark that Angie drew there weeks ago is starting to away to the point that it's almost invisible. We're running out of things to hide behind out here. Speaker 0 00:32:52 Caitlin, the last time we saw you, you were contemplating your financial situation and you are impending double death by suicide. What are you doing in the wake of that whole thing? Speaker 2 00:33:07 Resigning myself to the void and just trying to find things to fill the time until my inevitable reise. I'm pretty sure that Kay has run out of things to deep clean, at least in the public areas of their house. So they're probably just like sitting at a coffee table, building a house of cards, like not even metaphorical, just purely out of not having any other shit to do. Speaker 0 00:33:32 Okay, you are doing that I think with how meticulous kay is about things. You're on like the fifth layer of this house of cards. It is spectacular, entirely pointless but spectacular. And then you hear a knock at the door, through the door, you hear Lydia and no's voice, can I come in? Speaker 2 00:33:58 If you must boys, back in the enclosure, Speaker 0 00:34:03 The boys run out from underneath the couch at your voice. They do not go back in the enclosure. Speaker 2 00:34:09 I scoop them up like the precious little noodles they are and put them very gently back in their hammocks. Speaker 0 00:34:15 Lydia comes in very slowly as to not spook you and just kind of purchase herself on the arm of the couch. So how are you doing? Speaker 9 00:34:29 Huh? Speaker 2 00:34:32 I'm great. I'm fine. I'm filling my endless waking hours with enriching and meaningful activities. Do you know that when you don't sleep you can do so much shit that it's possible to actually run out of shit to do and need to invent new shit to do? Speaker 0 00:34:50 Lydia swings one leg over the arm of the couch so she is just straight up sitting on it and adopts the most reassuring posture she can. Uh, I, I do see the house of cards. It's very beautiful. Do you wanna run to the Aldi with me? Because I'm gonna pick you up some groceries. If I let you live on Easy Mac for another week, Bailey will kill me and you'll get anemia or scurvy or both. Speaker 2 00:35:17 I don't need to eat. Speaker 0 00:35:20 This is a debate that we're gonna be having for a very long time so it's easier to just let me get the groceries. Speaker 2 00:35:26 Fine. It's your hard earned money you're wasting. But I'm not going to Aldi with you. I'll scare the children or something. Speaker 0 00:35:33 Aw, you used to love scaring children. She gives you a very like playful teasing eyebrow wiggle. I'm worried about uk. You're ditching all of your favorite hobbies. Speaker 2 00:35:47 Go home Lydia. I'm very busy. Speaker 0 00:35:50 She rolls her eyes and hops off the couch. Fine, fine. But I'm getting you the bad green beans. Speaker 2 00:35:57 I don't need to. Speaker 5 00:36:02 Okay. Speaker 0 00:36:04 She reaches out and gives you a reassuring pat on the back. Hang in there buddy. And then she walks out and closes the door behind her and the entire house of cards falls. Speaker 2 00:36:17 Oh man, that took me like six hours. Well, not cleaning it up right now. She gets up and walks over to the ferret enclosure and takes the boys back out putting one on each shoulder. Well po Well Hemingway time for us to do what all the other normal people do when they're trying to stave off crushing existential on. We we're gonna mummify ourselves in blankets and watch Seinfeld reruns. Speaker 0 00:36:47 The good news is that there is a blanket limply draped over the back of the couch in a very poor attempt at decorating. The bad news is that the blanket does smell like ferret Speaker 2 00:37:02 <laugh>. Ugh. I mean, I knew what I was getting into when I bought you guys, but do you have to rub your sta all over? Literally everything in this house. Damn it. She's gonna abandon her reruns for now and go throw the blanket in the washer. Speaker 0 00:37:20 You get yourself a small load of laundry. Throw in your detergent, get it started. There is a were and a Speaker 2 00:37:30 Did. My washer just break Speaker 0 00:37:34 By all appearances. Yes, Speaker 5 00:37:44 <laugh>. Fuck this Speaker 2 00:37:49 Day for real Speaker 0 00:37:51 At your horrible shriek, the ferrets jump off of your shoulders onto the floor and knock over the garbage can and Hemingway starts scampering through the garbage. Speaker 2 00:38:05 Nope. Nope. This is it. I'm getting my keys. I'm getting on my bike. I'm going back to the desert. I'm crawling back in the whole Hemingway. Get out of the trash now. Speaker 0 00:38:19 Hemingway has crawled into the half empty garbage can and shitters irritably at you. Speaker 2 00:38:27 I'm gonna act under pressure to grab the ferret Speaker 5 00:38:30 <laugh>. Speaker 0 00:38:33 This is not the intended use of act under pressure, but it's so funny that I'm gonna let you do it. Speaker 2 00:38:39 Minus one. What could go wrong? Kay stands there just staring at him. It's kind of like an okay corral situation. And then she lunges seven Speaker 0 00:38:55 Good news. You grab your ferret son bad news. You slip in the garbage that has poured out of your trash can and you bang your head on the side of a cabinet. Speaker 5 00:39:08 Oh, Speaker 0 00:39:10 So caly, you are laying there on your kitchen floor holding onto one of your ferrets who is covered in garbage. The other has presumably run under the fridge and is also getting disgusting. Your kitchen floor is filthy, your washer is broken, your phone buzzes in your pocket. You pull it out to see that you have gotten a text from Alice O'Connell. It says Connecting flight canceled. You get a second text taking a Greyhound, you get a third text, which is a selfie. This is the first time you've seen your sister's adult face. She does not have the bangs anymore, which is a surprise. She's a very square faced young woman, very obviously stocky just from looking at her from the shoulders up. Her hair's kind of slicked back and cut short. She is staring dead eyed into the camera and you see the interior of a Greyhound station behind her. You get a fourth text that reads $1,100. Speaker 2 00:40:29 Yeah. <laugh>. Yeah. Cool. Great. Awesome. Okay. Oh boys, you're getting a bath. When I get home, mama's gonna go find a laundromat. It's, it's fine. It's all fine. I'm keeping a very firm hand on my one son that I do have control over. Chasing PO out from under the fridge with a broom, throwing them both back in their enclosure, finding the car keys and driving around with my dripping wet laundry and dirty clothes until I find a laundromat. Speaker 0 00:41:06 You find every set of keys you can in the house and just kind of gather them all up. You get your shit out to the garage. Um, there are two cars in there. The beetle looks better maintained. The cut list looks ugly as shit, but to have kept an old car that looks that gross around this long, it must run. You figure, Speaker 2 00:41:29 Well, I'm gonna throw the wet garbage laundry in the the ugly car. Speaker 0 00:41:35 You pop in the driver's seat of this car and Speaker 4 00:41:41 You're not there anymore. You are still behind the driver's seat of this car. Both hands on the wheel very firmly, 10 and two. And from the passenger seat you hear a little bit garbled as if spoken around a cigarette loosen up a little bit. Kid. Nobody actually drives like that. That's an untrue statement. I drive like this theoretically. We haven't left the garage yet. I'm working on it. Okay, let me know when we're gonna start moving. Speaker 0 00:42:18 And you're back. Speaker 2 00:42:21 I think Kay reflexively does like a judo chop into the passenger seat like she's trying to catch someone in the neck. Speaker 5 00:42:28 <laugh>. Speaker 0 00:42:31 Okay, so the headrest on this passenger seat is lifted as high as it will go. You do a judo chop and smack your wrist right into the little metal bars that raise it up. Speaker 2 00:42:47 Okay. Okay, we're going. We're going. Everything is fine. Speaker 0 00:42:55 You drive around your neighborhood looking for a laundromat. You find one actually just a couple blocks over. You don't realize at first that it is a laundromat because it's just a building with a lot of big windows and the sign just says Bevs. But on your second pass around the block, you see someone coming out with a laundry basket perched on their hip. You gather that this is in fact the building you are looking for. You pull into a really bad parking lot. It seems confusing on purpose. Every single person in there is parked like an idiot. They're parked like they couldn't see the lines for the parking spots. You can see them pretty clearly. This seems like intentional malfeasance. You grab your shit outta the backseat and walk in with little tinkle of a bell above the door. Speaker 2 00:43:53 I want to paint a picture of what the patrons of this laundromat see. C a six and a half foot tall zombie who had bags under her eyes before she died and only has worse ones now dragging a bag of dripping wet, stinky clothing across the floor, just standing in the door <laugh> and collecting herself. Speaker 0 00:44:22 You stand there, a craft macaroni noodle falls out of your hair and a voice comes from behind the front counter of this laundromat. Speaker 1 00:44:33 Well Speaker 0 00:44:34 Kalin O'Connell as I live and breathe, Speaker 2 00:44:37 Yeah, must be nice. I'm gonna look over towards the source of the voice. Speaker 0 00:44:45 Behind the counter is a very small woman, pale, dark like jet black hair eyes that are really pale, silvery gray with her elbows perched up on the counter. Big smile wearing an apron and a name tag that says Bev Speaker 2 00:45:10 Kalin kind of stares at her for a second and shakes a couple more macaroni noodles outta their hair. All right. Uh, we're gonna save a really long and awkward conversation by you just telling me how we know each other. Speaker 0 00:45:27 She does the, like the full Leonard Dey one eyebrow raise and tuck some of her hair behind her ear. You see that she has just one single gray streak. Well, your family's been coming here for ages. Really? Uh, where's your sister? Speaker 2 00:45:44 On her way back from Massachusetts to kill me. She's a little late to the game. Do you have any washers open? Speaker 0 00:45:53 She points one thumb over her shoulder and says back there, sweetie. So I'm guessing it's comforters this time and not funeral suits Speaker 2 00:46:04 A blanket and some dish towels and my clothes that have a lot of old ketchup on them. Oh shit. There's a no possible way I could get lucky enough for my family to have a running tab here or anything. Huh? Speaker 0 00:46:23 The other eyebrow creeps up this lady's forehead at a laundromat. Speaker 2 00:46:31 Yeah. Had to ask, okay, time to go find a drainage ditch somewhere. Because I spent all the cash I had at a gas station a couple days ago, I just found out that I owe my sister $1,100. Oh. And I lost my job because I had the misfortune to shuffle off this mortal coil before I could call in. Speaker 0 00:46:52 Be nods and quizzically says, shuffling off this. Speaker 2 00:46:59 I woke up. I'm dead in a hole in the desert on Friday night and that's been the best part of my week so far. Okay. Speaker 0 00:47:06 Huh? That's rough buddy. Speaker 2 00:47:11 Yeah. Now if you'll excuse me, I'm gonna go look under the ash tray in my car for some spare change. Speaker 0 00:47:20 Bev apparently narrows her eyes at you and gives you a mischievous smile and then says, well, there's no such thing as a free lunch. But, and then she taps a help wanted sign on the counter. There is such a thing as an employee discount. Speaker 2 00:47:40 Kay doesn't trust like that. They narrow their eyes at her. Why Speaker 0 00:47:47 She shrugs. Call it a favor. I liked your grandmother. She was kind of a rare bird. Speaker 2 00:47:55 You're not a worried I'll scare the customers with my whole deal. Speaker 0 00:48:01 You can work the night shift. I've seen scarier people than you come in here at 3:00 AM a job's a job and I'm willing to bet you don't have the luxury of being picky. Besides, I'll leave and help you dodge taxes. Speaker 2 00:48:15 Can I pay taxes if I'm dead? Speaker 0 00:48:19 Only if you're a narc. Speaker 2 00:48:22 Yeah, fine. Okay. This day's already so goddamn weird. Speaker 0 00:48:26 Perfect. She claps her hands. <laugh>. Speaker 2 00:48:31 Kay jumps and flins a bit at her enthusiasm. Eyes going very big. Speaker 0 00:48:37 She does not even pause at your flinch. She just again, jabs her thumb behind her and says, go ahead and put your stuff in. I'll get your uh, employee a tremont together. Speaker 2 00:48:49 This lady's weird. I like her Speaker 4 00:48:53 <laugh>. Speaker 2 00:48:54 Okay, I'm gonna go throw all my shit in a washer and just wait cuz I don't have any tokens or money. Speaker 0 00:49:02 You stand by this washer and Speaker 4 00:49:07 You're not there anymore. You are sitting on, you know the ledges where you're supposed to fold clothes in a laundromat. You are sitting on one of those. You feel a need digging into your back, like into your kidneys in a way that seems purposeful. And you hear your sister saying something about transformers you don't know and your brother laughs and your father stalks around a corner grumbling, holding onto a jug of laundry detergent and then stops looking over at one of the washers and tilt his head a little bit Speaker 0 00:49:45 And you're back. And I think it takes you a second to realize that the eyeline of your father and that flashback matches up with where you're standing. Speaker 2 00:50:01 Um, okay. Yeah. Case used to this shit enough by now that she's not gonna pause to shake herself out of it. She's gonna try to follow that eye line and see what he was looking at. Speaker 0 00:50:12 You turn around, you don't see anything, just rows of washers. Speaker 2 00:50:17 Are you sure? I don't see anything because I have a thing with the spooky called the site where I can see the invisible, especially spirits and magical influences. Speaker 0 00:50:28 Yep. The only thing of note in that eye line is Speaker 1 00:50:33 You, Speaker 2 00:50:35 She looks back at where her dad was standing in the vision and back across the eye line and then down at herself and just very quietly goes fucking a Speaker 0 00:50:48 From right behind you. You hear? Speaker 2 00:50:50 What's that? Oh, nothing. I'm just slowly coming to the realization that I'm the culmination of a horrifying family curse. That's at least two generations in the making. Anyway. When do I start? Speaker 0 00:51:04 Bev from behind you laughs and then walks around you saying, oh, it's gotta be more than two generations. You have any idea how many funeral clothes have been dry cleaned here in the last 40 years? Bev for the record, cannot be older than 50. Speaker 2 00:51:21 Well, at least you won't have to worry about doing one for me. Speaker 0 00:51:25 That's something we gotta be grateful for the work we don't have to do. And then she holds out an apron to you and a name tag. Speaker 2 00:51:34 It's been like two minutes. How did you get me a name tag that fast? Speaker 0 00:51:38 I got a printer for him underneath the counter. The name tag is metal and engraved. Speaker 2 00:51:45 Okay. I put the apron on slowly. Do you want me to, what do you do when you work at a laundromat, by the way? Speaker 0 00:51:56 Hand out tokens, drink coffee and do the dry cleaning and folding. Speaker 2 00:52:02 So should I like, Speaker 1 00:52:05 Eh, Speaker 0 00:52:07 I own the place and I don't really care. So you can either start now or come back in a couple hours. Here, let me get this started for you. And she puts a couple tokens into the washer that your stuff is in and hits the start button and then kicks it. And it starts. Speaker 2 00:52:23 Yeah. If it's all the same to you, I'm gonna go home until this is done in the wash. I, I gotta get my fair. It's a bath. Speaker 0 00:52:31 Understandable. And she gives you a little two finger wave and then walks off down the aisle. Speaker 2 00:52:38 Weird lady. Okay. Just shakes her head and goes back out to the car. Damien, you are fast asleep on the dusty floor of this safe house in the middle of nowhere and you are dreaming Speaker 4 00:52:58 Not in the way that you usually do. You think. You seem to remember not ever really being able to remember your dreams or articulate them, but this is bright and vivid and Sears. Its way into your mind. You are in a high school, not your high school. You somehow know that. But there are hallways and lockers and a gym and a cafeteria. But there are also horrible shadowy things lurking in the corners and the sound of distant screams bouncing down the hallways. You feel a need to move faster and away. What do you do? I I think I'm just running. You take off running down this big corridor that you're in, turn a corner at the end, start down another one. And as you're running, you can sort of tell you're dreaming by the fact that you're able to apply logic to a situation where you should be blind with panic. Speaker 4 00:54:05 You realize that these hallways don't lead anywhere. You're going in circles. This is a labyrinth. And the further you move into this weird messed up high school scenario, you start to see that the doors on the classrooms are changing. They don't look like the metal classroom doors you would see in a high school. You see front doors with frosted glass windows. You see industrial looking doors like would be on the back of a restaurant or a store. You see a sliding glass shower door at one point and then you see your bedroom door. Not just a bedroom door, your bedroom door band posters on it and everything. Yeah. I'm gonna, I'm gonna try to run through that one and slam it behind me. You try. It's locked. I I I'm just gonna start trying other doors at random until one of 'em opens. I know you said I'm like lucid dreaming to an extent. Speaker 4 00:55:12 I can apply logic to the situation. I don't think I'm logically thinking out which of these doors to try. If my bedroom door is locked, I'm trying every other door. I just need to get out of here. You run to the door next to the one you just tried. It seems to be another bedroom door. Not yours though. It is locked. But as you are fumbling with it, you hear a sound behind your door. Something that sounds like footsteps moving across creaky floorboards and a familiar voice going d more footsteps moving further away. Damien a pause. Fuck me. I I'm going back to that one. I know it's locked. I am fumbling with the doorknob. I am slamming my shoulder against it. I'm trying to get in there. As you're doing that, you hear the beep of a cell phone and then a phone ringing and this voice on the other side seemingly oblivious to you trying to get in, continues to speak 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 00:56:43 And then you are woken up by somebody poking you very sharply in the ribs. Your eyes shoot open. You're not in this high school hell anymore. You're laying on the floor in one of Angie's abandoned safe houses and Luke Johansson is hovering over you in the dark, jabbing you in the side with one bony finger, eyes wide and dark with panic. Speaker 0 00:57:10 I'm sitting up and grabbing at the chain around my neck. Speaker 2 00:57:13 Luke brings a finger up to his lips as if to tell you shut the fuck up, don't say anything. And then pulls out a little ratty notepad from his pocket and a pen scribble something down and then turns it around to show you three words in big block letters. We've got company Speaker 0 00:57:37 Damien nods and then moves to kind of get up on all fours and crouch so he's in a more defensible position and then pauses and signs to Luke. You don't know sign, do you? Speaker 2 00:57:54 Luke stares at you like you're insane. So you assume no Speaker 0 00:57:58 We're the shot. Um, okay. That's less helpful than it could be <laugh>. Okay, I'm gonna, I'm gonna try to move towards the window and I'm gonna try to read a bad situation. Speaker 2 00:58:09 Okay, roll that for me please. Speaker 0 00:58:12 Oh, uh, five. So I'm gonna mark experience. Speaker 2 00:58:18 Okay, well the bad news is you don't know shit about fuck. But the good news is that reading a bad situation, even if you fail does not allow me the keeper to do anything particularly heinous. That wasn't going to happen to you already. So call it a wash kind of. Speaker 0 00:58:41 Yep. Okay. Uh, I just woke up. I had a super fucked up dream. I'm not uh, working in top form here. What, what can I perceive? Even though I can't read a bad situation, Speaker 2 00:58:53 You can't see anything. A lot of coyotes out tonight though. Speaker 2 00:59:00 Next to you at the window, Luke jabs you again points at the back of his own hand and you can see that the mark that Angie drew on there is gone. If you chance a look at your own hand, yours is gone to. So once those things roll up on you, it's not gonna be good cuz you won't be able to hide again. Luke pulls that little notepad out, flips a page and scribbles down something else, turns it back around and you see the word garage underlined three times. You know that to be where the van is. Speaker 0 00:59:39 Damien nods and then points at Luke and gestures in the direction of the garage. Speaker 2 00:59:46 He gives you a look like bitch what? And then points at you, points at himself and then points at the direction of the garage. Speaker 0 00:59:55 Damien rolls his eyes nods and then points emphatically at Luke <laugh>. Speaker 2 01:00:01 He looks kind of confused but goes off towards the garage. Luke is like very carefully and stealthily unlocking the doors in the van by hand so you don't get a little beep beep like you do from the remote. By the time you get out there and climbing in the driver's seat, Speaker 0 01:00:20 I'm gonna climb in the passenger seat, make sure the back window is open. I'm not gonna buckle my seatbelt, I'm gonna position myself backwards on the seat so I can shoot fire at something out of the back window if I need to. Speaker 2 01:00:33 Now we've had a lot of fun here today on compelled dual desert song, but we do just wanna give you guys a quick PSA practice vehicle safety kids click it or ticket. Speaker 0 01:00:44 I'm being chased by supernatural forces that want to murder me and my friend is wanted for many, many crimes so I don't really care about a ticket. Speaker 2 01:00:57 Luke fumbles through the center console of this van through a graveyard of remote garage door openers and just starts pushing all of them until the right one works and then he turns the key in the ignition and the van roars to life pretty loudly. But even more worrisome than that is these little rooms that had been drawn on the dashboard and have always glowed when the car is on sort of flicker and then fade and die, whatever magic was sustaining them apparently used up. Luke looks down at that goes shit and floors it. Speaker 0 01:01:42 I'm holding onto the back of my seat as hard as I can just sniping at Luke. Why the fuck did you keep all the other garage openers Speaker 2 01:01:52 So I could sell them for parts? I've got nothing else going for me right now. The van just books it down this dirt road towards the safe house where you were staying and Luke is like talking in a stream of consciousness almost like he's trying to keep himself calm. All right. All right. We're not that far from the city, we're above the interstate. It's Sunday night, I 15 west is gonna be a goddamn mess all night with all the people from Los Angeles headed home. If we could just make it onto the interstate, those things will have to cross four lanes of traffic to get at us. Speaker 0 01:02:26 Yeah, the operative word is if you see anything at the rear view, Speaker 2 01:02:32 He looks over at you like he's one second away from just haul off and slapping you. You're looking out the back window. Leg of loss. How about you tell me what you see. Speaker 0 01:02:44 I don't have my glasses. It's mostly just dark. Speaker 2 01:02:48 <laugh>. You you need glasses? Speaker 0 01:02:51 Yeah, I got the astigmatism real bad. We can talk about it later Speaker 2 01:02:55 If you can't see why are you riding shotgun? Speaker 0 01:02:58 Would you like me to drive? Speaker 2 01:03:03 No, you're with inside of the interstate when they catch up you can see something darker than the dark rising up behind you and hear the horrifying baying of those malformed spectral coyotes. See the gleaming eyes within the shadowy faces of the riders they are gaining on you. So here's what's going to happen. You're gonna act under pressure to keep these ghouls off your back and Luke is going to act under pressure to get you away from them. Uh, which is good for him because he has plus one ongoing while driving because of his new crooked thing. So here we go. Speaker 0 01:03:52 Uh, instead of acting under pressure, I would like to roll to use magic to bar a place or portal to a specific person or type of creature. I wanna bar the section of road behind us and the highway in front of us from Faye. Speaker 2 01:04:10 Uh uh Okay. Yeah, I'll allow it. Speaker 0 01:04:13 Yeah, I'm not expecting it to last long, just long enough. Okay, I got plus two to weird. That is an eight. Speaker 2 01:04:24 Oh okay. So it does not work perfectly. I need you to pick a glitch for me. Speaker 0 01:04:29 Uh um, it has a problematic side effect. Speaker 2 01:04:35 Okay? Um, and I'm allowed to add stipulations to this. I'm gonna say that it requires you to draw arcane symbols so you're just gonna have to like freehand the shit that Angie drew on your hand and the car to try to replicate it. Speaker 0 01:04:51 Uh, do I have anything to write with? Speaker 2 01:04:55 I mean Luke still has the notepad and the pen in his pocket from earlier. Speaker 0 01:05:00 Cool. Uh, I grab it. I don't even ask. I just grab the pen. <laugh>. Speaker 2 01:05:05 So how are you casting this? Describe it to me. Speaker 0 01:05:09 Uh, I got one hand on the chain around my neck. I'm as we're moving trying to freehand the symbols that Angie drew on the uh, the inside roof of the car. Like the ceiling of the car I guess trying to like hold onto the seat with my fucking elbow and mumbling words and again a language I don't think Damien even consciously speaks. And then once I have the symbol drawn, I'm gonna bring that hand down in kind of a swoop motion in front of me and kind of twist it in the direction of the back window. Speaker 2 01:05:45 Okay? So the symbol does glow much in a way that it did before when Angie drew it on the back of your hand and the symbols in the car. But you can see that whatever mojo she had going on with that lasts a lot longer than whatever you are capable of. It is already starting to fade in from the edges as Luke goes tearing up and on ramp and you guys hit the interstate. So now I'm gonna roll for Luke to act under pressure to get you guys out and away because of his ongoing plus one from driver, he gets plus three to this nine. Speaker 2 01:06:27 So he gets a worse outcome, a hard choice or a price to pay. Here's where your problematic side effect from your fucked up spell comes in. You are obviously able to use magic given your whole deal, but this is not the kind of magic that is your bag if I can put it that way. Your bag is setting things on fire and blowing things up so you and Luke are just booking it down the interstate. This si on the ceiling of the car is fading and fading and fading and you get stuck in a little bit of traffic which you know isn't great. Luke is just cussing by this point just curse words you didn't even know existed before now. But eventually this big snarl at the I 15 and I two 15 interchange clears up and you have a straight shot towards the strip just as this sill flickers burns out and then something happens in the car and you hear explosions and it just starts falling apart from the inside cause that's what you do. There's a rattling in the undercarriage. Luke starts cussing even louder. Smoke starts to billow from beneath the hood and he just starts screaming and then unfortunately loses control of the car. And you guys go spiraling with the screech of burning rubber into a guardrail. There is a shriek of metal on metal as this car just gets demolished. You hear from next to you the unfortunately familiar sickening snap of a bone breaking and Luke crying out in extreme pain and then Newton's first law kicks in. Do you know what Newton's first law is? Al Speaker 0 01:08:35 An object in motion tends to stay in motion and less acted upon by an outside force. Speaker 2 01:08:42 Yeah So uh, the car stops and you go flying through the windshield and this is why we wear our seatbelt Speaker 8 01:08:54 <laugh>. Speaker 2 01:08:56 I'm gonna have you act under pressure for me to not take an unstable injury. Speaker 0 01:09:02 Well I have a plus one because I'm uh, dealing with the consequences of my own spell casting. Speaker 2 01:09:10 You sure are buddy. Speaker 0 01:09:13 Nine. Speaker 2 01:09:15 Okay. Mixed success. You only take three harm but you are knock the fuck out, fuck you come to in the back of an ambulance where two paramedics have their backs to you because they are trying to hold a Luke Jo Hanson who looks both pained and livid down as he attempts to lunge at your gurney. Is he dead? If he's not dead I'm gonna kill him. Speaker 0 01:09:42 I'm ignoring him. I'm like trying to take stock of what hurts <laugh> and if I broke anything, Speaker 2 01:09:52 Um, everything hurts. Speaker 0 01:09:54 Cool. Speaker 2 01:09:55 You got some fucked up ribs for sure my guy. You feel like you may have hit the ground on your side and like rolled. You've got some pretty serious road rash which isn't pleasant and yeah, something rang your bell pretty good. You got a bad headache. Speaker 0 01:10:12 Okay, I'm trying to take some deep breaths because the last thing I need if my ribs are fucked up is for either my heart or my asthma to start going haywire. Speaker 2 01:10:23 You don't have too much time to collect yourself or listen to Luke's increasingly colorful threats because the ambulance that you two are piled into the back of pulls up in front of a hospital and you get rolled into an emergency room. Speaker 0 01:10:39 Ah shit lads, not again. Speaker 2 01:10:43 Yes, again, it appears to be a different hospital than the one you set on fire. However, there are small mercies. You and Luke get rolled off into separate trauma bays and his threats fade into the distance. This hospital is pretty busy, which makes sense. You assume it's the closest one off of I 15. You are actually left alone as soon as you are triaged. Apparently they have judged that there is nothing putting you in immediate danger. So you're just sitting there in your nasty dirty hoodie with an IV in your arm but there's no one around. Speaker 0 01:11:29 I'm gonna take a second to fucking collect myself. And then he grits his teeth, looks down at where the IVs in his arm and goes. I would be so grounded if and then mid-sentence just yanks the IV out. Speaker 5 01:11:49 Oh okay Speaker 0 01:11:55 Of a bitch. I'm gonna stand up. Is that something I can do without incident? Speaker 2 01:12:03 I mean yeah, this er looks a little short staffed. I think if you were to just get out and be walking around, if you hid the little hospital bracelet on your arm, people wouldn't know you were a patient. They might think that you're a strange dirty man, but Speaker 0 01:12:21 Is it one of the hospital bracelets that I could hypothetically rip off? Speaker 2 01:12:26 Yeah, it's pretty thin. You could probably do that without much issue. Speaker 0 01:12:30 I do that. Can I try and read a bad situation again? Speaker 2 01:12:34 Yes, you may Speaker 0 01:12:36 Go go gadget hypervigilance seven. Speaker 2 01:12:42 Okay, cool. You still get to hold one So you can ask me one of the questions from the list. Speaker 0 01:12:48 Are there any dangers I haven't noticed? Speaker 2 01:12:51 Not in here. You are aware of what the danger is and that you no longer have anything mechanically hiding you from it. So you're on a bit of a time crunch, but it doesn't seem like there's anything suspect inside the hospital. Speaker 0 01:13:10 Okay, with a quick glance around, do I know where Lucas is? Speaker 2 01:13:14 No. There's a lot of these little curtained off trauma bays. You would have to go looking curtain to curtain for him. Speaker 0 01:13:23 Okay? I'm ditching him and I'm finding somewhere to hide. Speaker 2 01:13:27 Ha brothers in arms. You content yourself with the knowledge that he would be proud of your ruthlessness and you go find a place to hide. Okay? Uh, roll plus sharp for me. Speaker 0 01:13:42 Okay? It's just me and my plus one against the world. Eight. Speaker 2 01:13:48 Okay. Mixed success. You find a very empty hallway and a big metal door with a plastic plate on it that is engraved with the words blood bank. I think you try the door like half resigned to the idea that it's gonna be locked because why would a blood bank in a hospital hospital not be locked but it actually opens? Speaker 0 01:14:16 Well, okay, gift horses mouths. Uh, I walk in, Speaker 2 01:14:20 It's a relatively small kind of cramped, extremely cold, refrigerated room. You are reminded uncomfortably of the walk-in cooler at the roadhouse. There are several rows of these tall shelves with units of blood labeled by type and date stacked up ready to go. I think instinctively you just move towards the furthest back corner of this room that you can and the mixed part of your success is that you found somewhere to hide, but you're not the only person hiding in here. As you round the corners of one of these shelving units, you see a very tall young woman who is made even taller by the big stompy goth boots that she is wearing kind of curled over one of these shelving units. She's dressed like she just walked out of a hot topic catalog, I mean ripped fish nets, black skirt with all kinds of chains and shit hanging off of it. Long sleeve fish net, top of the black crop top over it. She's got like a million different necklaces on and a bunch of like jelly bracelets on her wrists, chipped black nail polish. Your shoes squeak on the floor and she whips around to look at you. Speaker 2 01:15:50 You see that she is a light skin black lady. She has a light spray of freckles across her upper cheek bones and her nose. A couple facial piercings like a nose ring, an eyebrow ring, several ear piercings. That's not what is immediately noticeable. However, what is immediately noticeable is the fact that her eyes and her long coilly hair are the exact same shade of red as the blood smeared all over the bottom half of her face. Speaker 0 01:16:28 Damian freezes for a second. Speaker 2 01:16:31 She freezes as well, kind of limbs a kimbo. You look down and notice that in her hand there is a unit of ab negative that has a straw that appears to be taken from a Capris sun pouch jab through it. Speaker 0 01:16:49 Damien blinks and then says wrong room and turns to leave. Uh, Speaker 2 01:16:59 You try. The thing is that this lady is really fucking fast Speaker 2 01:17:08 From next to you. You just see a blur where she used to be and the Capris sun bag of blood laying on the ground and then you hear a slam as she freezes in front of the door, 12 feet across the room in under a second kind of tilting her head and smiling at you. You see she has two big pointy incisors. Uh, no see I count myself as a really, really good judge of character and I have a feeling that the first thing you are gonna do after you go out that door is stop in the middle of the emergency room and scream like a little baby about the girl in the blood bank having a high iron smoothie. And the thing is, I'm not done with my snack yet. Speaker 0 01:17:56 <laugh>, you are not as good a judge character as you think you are. I'm gonna snap and get like a fireball in my hand. Speaker 2 01:18:07 The hand that she doesn't have braced against the door comes up to her chest and she gives you this like impressed smile and nods are head at you. Oh, that's hot. Pun intended. Speaker 0 01:18:21 Damien kind of reaches back and acts like he's scratching the back of his neck but undoes the clasp on his necklace. I'm gay but I can appreciate a compliment. So thank you. And then he's gonna swing the necklace forward and try to like get the wrist that she has against the door with it, Speaker 2 01:18:40 Uh, roll to kicks and as Speaker 0 01:18:43 Oh good with my negative one. Uh, I rolled a nine, so it's an eight. Speaker 2 01:18:51 Okay, well your chain is coded on your sheet as a garage and you're not using it. Toro her so it doesn't do as much harm. I would say it does one harm but um, it's silver. So something else actually happens as this chain wraps around her wrist and you yank, you see steam rising off of her skin and she just shrieks and yanks her hand back off the door to kind of shake the chain off And you see that her arm is burned. The silver burned her. She yells, what the hell? And pulls when I say she pulls a knife <laugh>, I need you to get rid of the presumption. You probably have about it being like a butterfly knife or a switch blade. She pulls a fucking ceremonial dagger out of her bra. It really intricate. It's got all sorts of arcane symbols and shit on it and she just gets you with it. You take two harm. Speaker 0 01:20:01 Ow, Speaker 2 01:20:03 Ow. You just hit me with silver. Are you trying to kill me? What have I I done to you? Speaker 0 01:20:09 You're barricading me inside a blood bank Speaker 2 01:20:13 Because I'm not done with my snack. I didn't say you were going to be part of it. She looks down at her knife dripping with your blood. Eh? It's like Pringles. Once you poppy can't stop and she licks it. Speaker 0 01:20:29 Ew, don't do that. I could have hepatitis for all you know. Speaker 2 01:20:33 Do you have hepatitis? Speaker 0 01:20:36 I don't think so. Speaker 2 01:20:39 All right. She licks the knife again and makes kind of a sour expression. Ugh. Universal donor. It's like drinking sparkling water. Hint of a hint of antibodies. Speaker 0 01:20:54 I'm standing right here. Speaker 2 01:20:58 I'm sorry, I'm getting a lot of mixed signals here. Do you like want me to exsanguinate you cuz I can Speaker 0 01:21:08 No, but you don't have to insult me. Speaker 2 01:21:11 I made an observation. If I wanted to insult you, I would've gone in on your outfit first. Speaker 0 01:21:17 Yeah. Okay. Elvira queen of the damned, Speaker 2 01:21:21 She does that thing again where she presses a hand to her chest, the one still holding the knife and smiles. Thank you. That's exactly what I was going for. Look, okay, I wanna get back to my dinner and show of goodwill. You don't go out there freaking out and bring security down on my head and I'll fix that little scratch I gave you. Do we have an accord Speaker 0 01:21:48 I guess? Speaker 2 01:21:51 Great, great. She reaches out and wraps her free hand that's not holding the knife around your wounded arm and is still giving you that big shit eating smile. This might hurt a little bit. I'm gonna roll something for her. Okay, well that's a seven. So you get back three harm. It is excruciatingly painful. It feels like your blood is on fire and when she peels her hand away you have a gnarly ass scar down your arm where she got you. Without saying anything, she tucks the knife back into her bra and wraps that hand around her own wounded wrist and she's gonna try to do the same thing again. That is another seven. So she also gets three harm back, which brings her up to full, but it is excruciatingly painful and leaves a gnarly scar. She kinda like pounds one fist against the closed door and goes Speaker 0 01:23:00 <laugh>. Speaker 2 01:23:01 Who? All right. Okay, let's start over. Back to the ab negative corner. You could have some of the graham crackers and orange juice that they give people who faint I'll finish my snack. Speaker 0 01:23:13 They don't keep any of that in the, Speaker 2 01:23:16 I know it was a cruel joke. She sticks out that recently healed hand with the scar around her wrist. Dahlia Amari Castio Bennett very nice to meet you. Can I like get back to it? Speaker 0 01:23:32 He shakes her hand and goes, you can call me Damien, go ahead. I guess Speaker 2 01:23:43 Sick. She goes back, picks up that unit of blood off the floor and just starts slurping it again. Speaker 0 01:23:51 Damian kind of rubs absently at his new scar and raises his eyebrows at her and quirks a smile and goes, I know what you are. Speaker 2 01:24:03 She smiles very tight lipped around her Capris suns straw. Say it Speaker 0 01:24:11 Out loud. Speaker 2 01:24:13 She snorts and goes to say something and then you hear the PA system outside. Click on calling a code for a missing patient Speaker 0 01:24:25 And that's me. Speaker 2 01:24:28 Dahlia finishes this unit of blood with a slurp and just chucks it into a hazardous waste bin. Why did you escape from the hospital to go hide in the blood bank? Speaker 0 01:24:41 Uh, you want the easy version or the complicated version. Speaker 2 01:24:46 You seem like a complicated person. How about we go with easy now complicated after I save your ass? Speaker 0 01:24:54 Sounds good. I'm being chased by fake creatures who wanna kill me and I got in a car accident about it. Speaker 2 01:25:01 You have a feeling deep in your soul that there is something fundamentally wrong with the Vampire Dahlia. Amari Castillo Bennett. Because where that would horrify most people her grin just gets even wider and those big glowy red eyes of hers light up. Oh, that sounds like so much fun. Okay, well, um, I know a guy who organizes a lot of poker tournaments for the Sealy court, so I could probably pull some strings, get you under the radar for a little bit. Speaker 0 01:25:39 Who the what do you mean you have a guy? Speaker 2 01:25:44 He's not my dad Speaker 0 01:25:46 That raised so many more questions than had answered <laugh> Speaker 2 01:25:52 For a second. You see that she had started to look really defensive, but then she carefully puts that nonchalant expression back on. Just a guy. Okay. He helped me out of a tough situation, several tough situations and I think he could help you and he'll want to help you because I want him to help you because I think you're a fascinating little man. We should probably go, Speaker 0 01:26:18 Yeah, I'm I'm game for anything that gets me outta here. Uh, uh hmm. I have a friend in the ER that I probably shouldn't leave here. Speaker 2 01:26:31 Is he interesting too? Speaker 0 01:26:34 Damien wiggles his hand in kind of a more or less motion. He owned a crypted themed museum before it got sunk into the ground. Speaker 2 01:26:49 Works for me. Let's go. Dahlia reaches into this little like novelty goth heart purse that she's got slung over her shoulder and pulls out a wet nap and just delicately wipes the blood off her mouth and then goes out into the hallway. Are you following her? Speaker 0 01:27:09 Uh, she claims to be able to get me out of here. So yes, absolutely Speaker 2 01:27:14 Her big stompy goth boots and just her natural height make her a fair bit taller than you. So she's moving at a brisk clip down this hallway. By the time you catch up, she has made it back into the ER and is just pulling back the curtains on these trauma bays one by one going, are you Damien's friend? No. Okay. Sorry. Are you Damian friend? Ooh, that looks nasty. Speaker 0 01:27:39 Damien is peeking around all of the curtains behind her just to check. Speaker 2 01:27:45 This goes on for an uncomfortably long time. You are starting to get some stares from the staff. The code for the missing patient is still going, but finally Dahlia gets to another one of these little curtained off sections, pokes her head in and goes, are you Damian's friend and from inside you here? Where is that little shit bastard? Speaker 0 01:28:06 Damien says, nevermind. Let's leave him. Speaker 2 01:28:11 Hey, hey, hey. Come on now you Pekin. Luke has had his arm splinted. It has not been set yet. It doesn't look like he's just laying there hooked up to an iv, looking like he's enjoying the Dilaudid at least, but looking pretty worse for wear. He's all scraped up. He's got a big cut along one cheek. Dahlia just nods at him and walks around the corner of his bed to lean down and get his arm in both of her hand. All right, no time for pleasantries. This is gonna hurt like a lot. I'm gonna roll for her 11. So Luke doesn't have a gnarly scar from this, but it does hurt a lot. So you see this weird blackish red glow pulse around his arm and Luke goes ho, but then kind of flexes it. Confused as to why he can move it. He kind of blinks, considers his whole life for a second and then just shrugs. All right, where are we going? Speaker 0 01:29:26 Not sure yet. Speaker 2 01:29:29 Who's your uh, pal there? Is she one of the ones what wants to eat us? Speaker 0 01:29:35 No. Mm mm Speaker 2 01:29:40 Before you can say anything, Dahlia leans over sniffs Adam and goes, uh, be positive. Not my favorite. Speaker 0 01:29:51 That's a no. Speaker 2 01:29:54 She's like totally unbothered. She's pulled a phone out of her purse into starting to text. Help two boys. Let's go before the orderlies get here. Trust me, the restraints they put you in in this place aren't even the fun kind. Speaker 0 01:30:08 Noted. Uh, assume you're parked in the garage. Speaker 2 01:30:12 Oh, I have a ride. It's on the way. Speaker 0 01:30:16 All right, let's still get outta the building. That's a hustle. Speaker 2 01:30:21 Luke hops up outta the bed also very expertly yanks the IV out of his arm. You get the feeling he has some practice with these shenanigans as well. Speaker 0 01:30:31 Hypocritically, Damien says you're not supposed to do that Speaker 2 01:30:37 And you're not supposed to accept help from strange women lurking in hospitals, but here we are. He cuts his eyes over at Dahlia. What's your deal anyway? Why are you helping us? What's the catch? Dahlia still texting nods over at you without looking up from her phone and goes, cuz I wanna see what this little motherfucker does next. Speaker 0 01:30:58 You and everybody else who's ever met me, let's go out of the building. Speaker 2 01:31:05 Dahlia actually leads you out a side door like a fire exit because the front door is being guarded by hospital employees looking for a missing patient. And you emerge into a narrow alleyway in between the hospital and another tall stark building next to it. You hear the click of an acrylic nail on glass as Dahlia types something decisively in her phone and puts it away. Okay boys, we should be getting outta here in just a few seconds. So if you'll just follow me this way and then from the mouth of the alley you hear hoof beats. Speaker 8 01:31:46 Fuck. Speaker 2 01:31:49 She looks over at you seemingly unfazed. What? Did you piss off a polo team or something? Speaker 0 01:31:59 Not quite. We can't wait for your ride. We have to run. Speaker 2 01:32:04 I'm in pneumonias, baby. I don't run. Speaker 0 01:32:08 Cool. That's your choice. I'm gonna, and then, uh, Damien clutches the chain around his neck, swirls a fireball into his hand and I'm gonna read a bad situation. Speaker 2 01:32:21 Okay? You do that for me. Speaker 0 01:32:28 Hey. Speaker 2 01:32:31 Okay, you hold one, ask me one question off the list please. Speaker 0 01:32:36 If I got one question, it is always going to be what's my best way out. Speaker 2 01:32:42 Uh, the alley is a dead end, so you could go back into the hospital and try to get out another way. You could waste a considerable amount of time trying to pull up a manhole cover that is in the pavement some distance down, or you could just bull rush it. Honestly, you're not sure how much time you have left and there's a considerable amount of risk with going back into the hospital of being detained. So just booking it sounds like the best idea. Speaker 0 01:33:17 Yeah, I'm, I'm, I'm gonna pick running over getting stuck somewhere every time. Um, okay. Yeah, he's gonna turn to Dahlia and Luke and say at this point you either run or you get run down. I know which one I'm picking. Speaker 2 01:33:35 Luke nods sharply and jogs up next to you. Yeah, me too. You come in. Princess Dahlia rolls her eyes and just takes her boots off. I think she has a pair of those collapsible ballet flats in her purses that she pulls out and tugs on. Fine. Speaker 0 01:33:58 Uh, should we all act under pressure to get outta there? Speaker 2 01:34:02 Uh, no. And here's why. You're surrounded by the time the three of you get out of the sally. On one end of the approach to the hospital, you see a line of riders on their messed up looking horses. Horrible six legged coyotes nipping at their heels on the other end where the parking garage is, you see just one lone rider. If you squint, you can see the Celtic ruins stamped into the leather of his cowboy boots. I think the three of you freeze for a moment, just caught in panic and horror. And then Dahlia pulls the knife out of her bra again, goes, oh no, we're not having this. Slices it across her palm until a thin dribble of blood drips down onto the ground mumbles something in a language you don't know and I'm gonna roll something for her. That's an 11 baby. Time stops like the people moving in the hospital lobby. Stop moving these horrible spectral riders on their unseal, steeds, stop moving. It all just stops except for the three of you. Speaker 0 01:35:37 <laugh>. What the fuck? Speaker 2 01:35:40 Dahlia wipes her knife off on her fish nets and shoves it back into her bra. Are you gonna stand around asking questions or are you going to move? Speaker 0 01:35:52 Yep. Running, done, asking questions. I'm out. Speaker 2 01:35:56 Okay, so y'all have 30 seconds. Dahlia reaches down and gets you with one hand and Luke with the other and just hauls you around the corner of the hospital to where there's like a a horseshoe type thing that's under a roof for like people to come drop folks off in their cars. And the cars here are still moving. You notice this because you see a couple people kind of looking around the corner confused at the frozen horror show that's over there. But any problem that could cause gets cut off by a stretch limousine, burning rubber into this horseshoe and screeching to a halt in front of the three of you. Speaker 0 01:36:43 Damien looks at Dahlia and in awe says, you are the weirdest fucking woman I've ever had the fortune of meeting. Speaker 2 01:36:53 Thank you. Flattery gets you everywhere. You know the seconds are still ticking by. And in this limo you see the passenger side front window roll down to reveal not a chauffeur, but a like absolute maximum of 17 year old girl wearing plaid pajama pants and a Clark High School volleyball t-shirt. She's very pale, but you can see a patch of skin across her face where a sunburn is clearly peeling. Has sort of long, thick auburn hair pulled up in a messy bun and big green eyes that are narrowed in absolute wrath in dahlia's direction. Speaker 0 01:37:46 Damien looks at her for a second and then goes, you know, child labor's illegal in this state Speaker 2 01:37:53 In a very uns chauffeur like manner. She lifts one hand off the steering wheel and flips you off without looking away from Dahlia. I'm an intern. Get in Dahlia climbs in this limo like she's been climbing in limos all her life and sits very primly in the bench seat and then kind of pats the space next to her and grins up at you. Speaker 0 01:38:17 I I get in the fucking limousine. Speaker 2 01:38:22 Luke jumps in after the two of you and slams the door behind him and you set off outta the hospital parking lot into the night. Luke also has apparently been in a limousine before, at least long enough to know where the mini fridge is cuz he pulls one of those baby bottles of dom para and yawn out of it and just slugs it down. All right, normal day with my normal friends, how much worse could it get? Speaker 0 01:38:50 I really wish you hadn't said that. Speaker 2 01:38:55 Dahlia also reaches over and grabs a little mini bottle of champagne taking a much more delicate sip. Relax boys. It's all uphill from here. Speaker 0 01:39:06 Okay, we pick back up with you. It is well into the afternoon by this point and because your day had not been going badly enough already, you pull into your garage and discover that there is a little tiny crack in your windshield. Speaker 2 01:39:26 Kay. Turns off the ignition slams the heel of her hand into the steering wheel and goes, mother fuck. It's okay. It's an old car. There will always be neighborhood hooligans. It's fine. Speaker 0 01:39:45 It's just a little one. You can fix it with one of those windshield repair kits. <laugh>? Speaker 2 01:39:51 Yeah. Cool. I'm going inside to find my sons who are in big trouble. Speaker 0 01:39:58 <laugh>. Okay. The boys do not realize they are in trouble. You walk in and they are scrabbling at the plexiglass of the entertainment center. Speaker 2 01:40:13 I scoop them one in each hand. I just hold them up to my face. Am I a joke to you? Speaker 0 01:40:25 Hemingway Mushes his dirty, stinky little head directly into your cheek. Speaker 2 01:40:32 Ah, my little boy. No stop. I'm angry at you and you she hoists poe a little higher and glares up at him. I'm sure covered in under the fridge to try this. Speaker 0 01:40:48 Oh yeah. He's greasy and dusty Speaker 2 01:40:53 Going through the hardest week of my life. And what do my children do? Speaker 0 01:40:59 Post his head out and licks you on the forehead. Speaker 2 01:41:04 Oh, stop being cute. Kay. Kisses them both on their little heads very angrily and then schleps them upstairs <laugh> towards the bathroom. Uh, today's been weird and the bathroom already freaked them out for pretty good reasons. So I think they sort of just kick the door open and lean in over the threshold. All right, I got two stinky boys with me. If I come in, are you gonna be cool about it? Speaker 0 01:41:37 There is no response from the bathroom. Speaker 2 01:41:41 Okay, great. I'm gonna go give my ferrets a bath. Nasty little boys. Speaker 0 01:41:48 Okay, you fortunately do have a bottle of tear free baby shampoo that seems to be specifically for the ferrets. It's not your normal shampoo. Speaker 2 01:41:59 Well, yeah, I'm not a baby and I cry a lot so Speaker 0 01:42:05 You give the ferrets a bath. Uh, Hemingway apparently likes the water po spends the entire time trying to scrabble out on your arm. He acts like you are about to waterboard him. Speaker 2 01:42:18 See? And this is by, there's the no boys loud sign in the kitchen cuz certain stinky little gentlemen like to get under the fridge and get covered in grease and dust bunnies. And then we have to do this Poe. I don't know how to explain this to you in a way that you'll understand. You don't even understand English. Why am I talking to you? Because I'm lonely. All right. I'm so lonely. Speaker 0 01:42:43 Po shitters, irritably and nips at your fingers. Speaker 2 01:42:47 Don't you speak to me that way. You little shit. I'm your mother. I scrub him. Speaker 0 01:42:53 You emerge from the upstairs bathroom several minutes later with two fresh clean boys. I assume you're taking them back down to their enclosure. Speaker 2 01:43:06 Um, I've actually done some research on ferret care. It's actually not a great idea to put freshly bathed ferrets back in their enclosure. So I'm gonna go back into my bedroom and change into a hoodie and let them just chill in the pocket for a while. Speaker 0 01:43:21 Yeah. Okay. Yeah, you do that. I think you have a very worn and very comfy emo band hoodie and they just chill out in the pocket. Are you going back downstairs? Speaker 2 01:43:34 Yes. I've been kept from my signed feld runs for too long. I'm gonna go make myself some ramen and watch some tv. Speaker 0 01:43:42 When you hit the bottom of the stairs, you hear whistling from your kitchen. Speaker 2 01:43:49 Caitlin just rolls her eyes and reaches into her hoodie pocket to scratch Hemingway on top of the head. Hey Lydia. How was the grocery store Speaker 0 01:44:00 From the kitchen and comes a voice that is distinctly not Lydia Antonov would now haven't been in a bit. Speaker 2 01:44:09 What do I have on me that could be used to sell weapon Speaker 0 01:44:14 Two extremely sleepy ferrets determination and presumably your metal name tag from the laundromat Speaker 2 01:44:23 Hack. She goes down the rest of the stairs as quietly as she can. I think instinctively skipping the ones that will creak and just picks up the heaviest chaka in the house that she can find like a paper weight or something and advances towards the voice Speaker 0 01:44:44 Before you even move into the eye line of anybody who could be in the kitchen. You hear? Put that down, young lady Speaker 2 01:44:53 Feeling a deep, visceral fear that she cannot understand. Kay calls back now Speaker 0 01:45:02 A figure moves into the hallway right behind the baby gate. Almost six feet tall, blonde hair, very slender, you would say late fifties, early sixties. This is the blonde woman that you saw in the kitchen last night and that you've seen in a couple of your little flashbacks, visions, whatever. And that your friend Frankie identified as your grandma Bridget and who Frankie also identified as extremely deceased Speaker 2 01:45:38 K Hest. This paper weight or whatever they're holding a little threateningly but does not throw it. All right. If you're a hallucination, you gotta tell me cuz if you donuts entrapment. Should I go take my meds? Speaker 0 01:45:53 <laugh>? This old lady brings one hand up. Uh, you see that she's got a lit cigarette between her fingers. She takes a puff and she says, sweetheart, I'm frankly insulted that you think anybody could hallucinate me. And then she taps with her ring finger at a hearing aid in her ear and says, come in the kitchen so I can talk to you without these things. Speaker 2 01:46:17 I'm gonna go put the boys in their enclosure first so the ghost can't eat them. I know it's not great for them after their bath. Speaker 0 01:46:24 <laugh>, Speaker 2 01:46:26 I'm a good mom. Dammit. Speaker 0 01:46:29 <laugh>, Speaker 2 01:46:31 But then still holding the paper weight gonna go in. Speaker 0 01:46:37 Okay, you walk in the kitchen, uh, your grandmother is pouring water outta the tea kettle into two mugs. And as you walk in, she crosses the room, sets one on the table, and then grabs the other and sits down opposite it. And then she reaches up, pops the hearing aids out of her ears, lays them on the table, ghost hearing aids, apparently <laugh>. And you notice that last night she was wearing a bathrobe and slippers. Today she is wearing like mom jeans and a blouse. Like apparently the ghost changes clothes, which is something Speaker 2 01:47:21 Kalin puts the paper weight down on the table and takes a seat, stares down at this mug of tea and then back up at her grandma apparently. And signs, I've got a good amount of reasons that I shouldn't believe anything I'm seeing or hearing right now. Give me one to explain that I should. Speaker 0 01:47:50 She raises her eyebrows at you and signs back. I wasn't really around when things started getting bad for you, but I spend enough time with your mother to know that the things you see don't usually affect the world around you much, do they? Speaker 2 01:48:08 I dunno. I've spent a lot of time lately trying to reacquaint myself with the world around me. Speaker 0 01:48:17 Uh, she picks up her tea, takes a sip, and then signs always the flare for the dramatic with you. Speaker 2 01:48:27 I'm dead. If anybody's got reason for drama, it's me. Speaker 0 01:48:35 She raises her eyebrows and just looks at you for a second and then signs. Join the club kid. Speaker 2 01:48:43 K bites down on the inside of their cheek so hard that they taste blood and then signs back. What do you want? Speaker 0 01:48:53 Your grandmother smiles. Takes another sip of her tea and then signs to talk to my granddaughter. Drink your tea. It's getting cold. Speaker 2 01:49:04 Kay gives her a long suspicious look, but then takes a small sip of tea and puts it down. Speaker 0 01:49:12 It is delicious. Which kind of just makes you angrier. Speaker 2 01:49:17 She puts the mug down and shoves it away from her. Not in an angry way, but having that sip of tea felt like comfort and she doesn't know why. And that's upsetting. So she pushes it away and signs. I don't remember you. Speaker 0 01:49:43 Your grandmother signs back. I know. Speaker 2 01:49:48 I don't remember anything. Speaker 0 01:49:52 I know that too. Speaker 2 01:49:55 All I know is that I woke up dead in the middle of the desert a few days ago. All of the people who care about me seem to think that I'm losing my mind. And Damien's alive. Speaker 0 01:50:13 Your grandmother stubs a cigarette out in an ashtray on the table. Leans a little bit closer. You see that you and most of your relatives that you've met have had the same like lightish brown eyes. Um, except for your cousin Beth and apparently your grandmother who both have very light gray eyes. Your grandmothers are almost colorless and she turns them on you. And then she signs. Now we're getting somewhere and that is where we are going to end things. This time. Speaker 2 01:50:56 I feel really bad that like Damien's out here running for his life and Kay's washer broke. <laugh>, we have a discrepancy going on. Speaker 0 01:51:11 Don't worry. As your keeper, I will do my best to rectify that tone discrepancy in the coming episodes Speaker 2 01:51:19 Of compelled Dual Desert Song.