Part 6: Curious Eddie Goes To The Hospital
Tuesday Night, October 18
On first watch, Gerti spots a squirrel climbing up and down the tree
in the front yard. She alerts Charlie, who later hears the squirrel
on the roof, possibly over where Junior is sleeping. They wake
Roderick, who is a little disappointed to learn that he's not dead
after all. He has not, in his studies, heard of vampiric squirrels,
and is unconvinced that running around on the roof is
especially suspicious behavior for a squirrel. Meanwhile,
Gerti and Charlie fill Roderick in about the whole bear trap thing,
and ask him if he can fix the Emil-dowsing pendulum. He removes the
magnet from it, and it stops pointing north, instead lazily rotating
back and forth ("He must be circling the house!"). A bit
later, Gerti spots something else moving outside, but Charlie is
pretty sure it's a raccoon.
On second watch, Eddie sees a guy in rags moving on the front lawn,
zipping from hiding behind one tree to hiding behind another. He
quickly wakes Tommy, and Eddie/Tommy/Roderick all watch carefully out
the front dining room windows as the man moves again, to hide behind
the nearest tree, the one the squirrel was climbing. As the hidden
man begins to draw something in the dirt with a stick, Tommy wonders
if this is a distraction, and Esme starts looking out the back windows
as well. She is eventually rewarded when she sees another dark
shape, flying slowly away from the house into the trees.
Esme alerts everyone to this, and Eddie decides it's time to make
another set of rounds through the house - when he gets to the room
that Cheri and Esme were sharing, Cheri is discovered to be missing
(her bed has a lot of blood on it), and the window is open. A furor
is raised, and the man (let's call him Emil) in the front yard takes
off. Eddie, Tommy, and Charlie charge out the back to chase after
Cheri and her captor (let's call her Myra). Meanwhile, Dr. Schreber
(who won't wake up) is carried downstairs to Roderick's favorite
couch, in case the house has to be quickly abandoned. They get a ways
into the woods, but don't really see Myra any longer, it being pretty
dark. However, Eddie spots a figure at the back door - when it
appears locked, it crashes through a back window into the kitchen.
As Eddie, Tommy, and Charlie curse and start running back towards the
house, Myra reaches the living room, and is promptly hit over the head
by Roderick with a bottle of melon liqueur (about the only thing the
group hasn't drunk). Myra grabs Roderick, biting him. Gerti hands
Junior to Esme and tries to hit Myra with her purse. Esme flees to
the front hall, whereupon Emil crashes through the front door (but
misses grabbing her). The trio from outside finally reaches the front
hall, and starts shooting at Emil, to little effect. Esme runs, with
Junior, into the kitchen, to gather some hot coals from the wood
stove. Roderick flails about with the oil lamp, and Gerti finally
manages to break it over Myra, but it goes out rather than catching
her on fire. Eddie and Tommy experiment with trying to shoot Emil
through the heart, and Tommy is grabbed and bitten. Trying to reach
over his shoulder to shoot Emil, Tommy shoots Charlie in the foot.
Charlie limps into the dining room and grabs a poker from the
fireplace. Swinging it into Emil's head doesn't seem to bother him
much, but when he starts trying to stab Emil with it, Emil isn't
pleased. Meanwhile, in the living room, Roderick is trying to light a
match, but only ends up scattering them around. Emil shouts "Enough!"
in German (Esme translates later), and flees. Myra releases Roderick,
and tries to head into the library, where Esme has showed up with the
pot of hot coals. Esme flings them at Myra, but misses. Gerti,
however, picks up one of them using the lace doily from the couch, and
sets Myra on fire. The flaming Myra hisses and grabs Junior away from
Esme. Esme grabs Junior back again, and Gerti interposes between Esme
and Myra. Myra flees through the window.
In review, a number of gunshots (including two through the eye by
Tommy) and whomping with both purse and poker were fairly ineffectual,
and they didn't flee from brandished crosses, nor was Emil slowed down
by the knotted rope on the front steps. How disappointing. Roderick
doesn't think Tommy is turning into a vampire, which is good. Esme
finds it odd that Myra understood German.
"Is it just me, or is whether vampires speak German somewhat
orthoganal?" -Roderick
Calling in the sheriff is deemed to be necessary, though exactly what
to tell him is less clear. There's some concern that Dr. Schreber's
unconsciousness will lead to trouble, as drug use is even then not
terribly legal, though presumably self-sedation by a doctor is less
illicit.
"I agree, we have to tell him the house was broken into and Cheri
was abducted. I'm not sure we want to tell him it was by
vampires." -Gerti
Dr. Schreber finally wakes, and patches people up (bitten people are
down CON, POW, and STR). Eddie calls and speaks to a deputy; within
short order, three deputies and Sheriff Turnbull are there, talking to
people. Sketches by Roderick and Esme of the perpetrators identifies
the woman as Myra. The sheriff is not necessarily completely
convinced about the being-shot- six-times- point-blank- and-not-caring
that Eddie describes, but doesn't argue. Some searching by deputies
in the back woods turns up a smashed-down bit of vegetation with
blood, that was probably where Cheri was temporarily stashed. The
three deputies stay in the house, while the sheriff returns to his HQ
to plan more searches (this time centering around the Collins house).
Investigation by Roderick and Dr. Schreber in the front yard
determines that the scratchings in the dirt are "FOOLS" in archaic
German. Charlie agitates for painkillers, and is given some.
Dr. Schreber wonders whether there are other explanations for Cheri's
disappearance.
"Either she climbed out the second floor window in the middle of
the night, or something grabbed her. You make the call."
-Roderick
"Well, she is French." -Dr. Schreber
Thankfully, the rest of the night passes uneventfully.
Wednesday, October 19
The next morning, Esme and Tommy go shopping in Greenfield for more
pokers, iron stakes, wooden stakes, broom handles, bear traps, raw
meat, medical supplies, pickaxes, normal axes, and crosses than any
three parties could carry. They leave most of it in the car, and hand
out reasonable amounts to everyone.
Amelia and Julian Apcott show up to offer support; they're given
Junior and told that if the group hasn't reported in by about 4:30,
they should flee to Greenfield at least. Mel Razen shows up, and
wants in on the story.
"Look, we can do this two ways. We can do the 'brave detectives
try and stop killer' or we can do the 'detective agency fakes vampire
attack to take advantage of credulous widow'. Your choice." - Mel
Eddie hands him a stake and a poker and tells him he can come along.
He's pleased. He's less pleased to learn that Cheri was kidnapped, as
he seems to have liked her.
The group sets out for the house in the woods. Again, they reach the
perimeter of woods near the cleared area, and spring a bear trap.
Dogs start barking from inside the house. The group heads across the
open area towards the front door, when a rifle shot rings out from the
house. A couple of people hit the ground, Dr. Schreber and Mel run
back for the cover of the trees, and Eddie, in the front looks around
for where the shooter was and where he was shooting at. As he spots
the rifle barrel poking out between two window boards near the front
door, he's seriously hit by the second shot, and falls, dying.
Charlie drags him back to the woods; Gerti, who has tried to get cover
on the ground, is shot in the arm before everyone gets back to the
trees. Dr. Schreber manages to keep Eddie from completely dying,
though he will need to get to a hospital ASAP.
The group flees back to the cars. Charlie drives Eddie, Gerti, and
Dr. Schreber to Greenfield Memorial. Roderick, Tommy, and Esme go to
talk to the sheriff. He wants to see where this place is on the map,
and how they found it - they suggest that Eddie found it and isn't
talking now. The sheriff basically says he and the deputies will go
take care of it (with an implication that he doesn't want to get any
more civilians shot).
After gathering up things like flak jackets and guns, the sheriff and
four deputies head out; Roderick, Tommy, and Esme (and Mel, who the GM
has forgotten about), after some consideration, they follow and park
behind the police cars to wait. Time passes. Shots are heard in the
distance. More shots are heard. More time passes. There's another
short flurry of gunfire. More time passes. As sunset approaches, the
three decide to head to the house before dark, aiming to get there
half an hour before sunset. They arrive at the house; there's a
wounded deputy sitting against the wall with an unwounded deputy
standing nearby, and there's the body of a dog in the doorway. The
unwounded deputy covers the approaching group, looking seriously
suspicious - when Cheri is brought out, unconscious and wounded, the
reason is more apparent. The deputy says she was shooting at them,
and takes Tommy's gun. Roderick notes that she still has greyish
tendrils fogging her mind under second sight.
"Shooting? I don't think she knows how to shoot!" -
Esme
"That did help us a bit." - Deputy Smith
The deputy confirms that the rifleman was Bascomb, and "has been taken
care of." There's some muffled shouting inside the house, that
appears to indicate that they've found the trap door to the basement.
The sun creeps pretty close to the horizon, as deputies shout about
having found a bunch of bodies in the basement. Esme starts worrying
aloud about the bodies and about it getting dark, and convinces the
deputy that the wounded and poor defenseless her should be taken back
to the police cars. Esme supports the wounded deputy while Mel and
the other deputy carry Cheri. They trudge some more through the
forest. It's about ten minutes to sundown. Roderick and Tommy try to
fall back while Esme attempts to distract the deputy, but he notices
them falling back. At about five minutes to sundown, Roderick shouts
"I dropped my medicine" and Tommy and Roderick sprint back towards the
house.
They shout into the house that they need to talk to Sheriff Turnbull,
and meet him in the entry hall. Roderick, somewhat wild-eyed, says
that the bodies in the basement aren't dead, they're about to rise,
and that guns won't work! Here, take the poker! He foists the poker
on the sheriff by force of personality, though Turnbull isn't entirely
convinced by this dead bodies rising stuff.
The sun sets. The screaming starts from the basement.
Roderick, Tommy, and the sheriff charge down the stairs into the
basement. Emil and Myra are standing, and each have a deputy. A
third deputy (hey, now we're up to five deputies!) has been shooting
at Emil to no effect, and starts to flee up the stairs. Roderick
grabs him, puts a stake in his hand, and sends him back down.
Roderick, Tommy, and the sheriff close, wielding pokers. Tommy hits
Myra, and the sheriff gets in a good stab on Emil. Emil pulls the
poker out of his chest and bends it in half, shouts "Kill them all!",
changes into a wolflike creature with clawed hands, and flies up the
stairs. Tommy and the sheriff chase after, leaving Roderick and the
deputies to deal with Myra. Myra finishes killing her deputy, while
the others poke her with spikes and pokers. She grabs another deputy.
The deputy who's been doing little good with the poker grabs
Roderick's hawthorn cross and brandishes it at her. While brandishing
still doesn't have a lot of effect, hitting her with it does
seem to cause damage. While she does kill another deputy in the
process, Roderick hits her between the eyes with the cross, knocking
her down, and the surviving deputy leaps on the poker sticking out of
her, and she stops moving. That deputy heads out to find the sheriff,
bringing Roderick's cross, and Roderick stakes the dead deputies.
Meanwhile, out in the woods, the deputy and Tommy have lost
Emil-the-flying-wolf, and the sheriff has stepped in a bear trap.
However, Esme, Mel, and the deputies do see him, lurking in the
trees. They brandish pokers at him again and he flies off eastwards.
The sheriff and Tommy link up with the rest of the woods-group, and
realize that they have no idea what's happened to the people in the
house. Heading back that way, Esme steps in a bear trap.
The body of Myra is transported to the Oakes funeral home and cremated
- Ellen sees "a woman with a thing sticking out of her" from an
upstairs window, and shrieks for a long time. The deputies' bodies
are also retrieved, and cremated. The question, though, is where Emil
is. Most of the party (except for Eddie, who is still in critical
condition in Greenfield) regroups.
Thursday, October 20
Cheri is in jail, and is throwing herself at the bars. The sheriff is
trying to decide whether to tranquilize her - Roderick warns that
she's probably much stronger than she looks.
Dr. Schreber, now the only unwounded party member, has another dream,
and states that Emil went east to the road, and then north. This
changes the search area, which had been focussing on going straight
east. The party plus some deputies heads to where Dr. Schreber
suspects Emil has gone to ground, and starts knocking on doors and
searching any building where nobody answers.
At one house, nobody answers, and while the deputies are searching the
house (and discovering a body), Gerti wanders into the barn, where
there appears to be a dead cow and a wild-eyed cow. On the way out to
report this, she falls down a not-closed-enough trap door, breaks her
collarbone, and hits her head. Everyone heads for her shriek. Emil
is in fact in the barn cellar, and is promptly staked by Charlie and
carried up the ladder, while Dr. Schreber tends to Gerti. Emil
catches on fire, possibly proving that you don't actually need a
crematorium if it's during the day.
Later
Eddie is finally released from the hospital, though he's again
confined to a wheelchair. Dr. Schreber talks to the deputies and the
sheriff to see how they're dealing with things; the deputies appear to
be deep in denial ("There were some people who were pretending to
be vampires...") except for the one Dr. Schreber provokes into a
nervous breakdown. Cheri, who seems to have been freed of Emil's
influence when he died, is released from jail and goes back to France.
The Apcotts return Junior.
Casualties:
Eddie: 1 sucking chest wound
Gerti: Bullet in arm, broken collarbone, concussion
Tommy: Neck wound
Charlie: Bullet in foot
Esme: Broken foot
Roderick: Neck wound
Part 5 Index