The Return of Gary Martin

Part 5: Revelations

Friday, October 25, 1935
Gerti thinks that the plan is to go to Virginia and beat up Joseph Peltzman. Everyone else is not as convinced that this is the absolute next step. (Roderick thinks Tommy looks a little frazzled). Gerti insists that the moral that they have been learning from the past years is "beat up the bad guys!" but it's still unclear if Joseph is the bad guy or not. He's likely either a dupe or the central figure in the conspiracy. Or maybe just some other escapee. Maybe if the group brings Sheila and drops her on Joseph? Though it's a bit socially awkward to say "Hey, Sheila, will you come use your weird powers on Peltzman for us?" since she claims not to have any.

Stalling for time, the group ransacks the Martin house again. They find the $44 again (which, Roderick notes, is nearly enough. Enough for what? He can't tell). There's a hiding place in his closet, a folded-lengthwise blanket with nothing in it yet; it's the right size for a shotgun or rifle, or a sword (and $44 is nearly enough for a gun). Gerti thinks that someone should go to the fence and try to buy whatever it was that Gary was going to buy. Charlie pokes around and determines that Gary was in the market for a rifle (he doesn't buy it).

"Ten guys with guns isn't that impressive." -Tommy
"Maybe it was going to be a bigger plan before and then they realized that they only had ten guys." -Roderick
Roderick calls Dr. Schreber's office, where he reaches Sheila (who says that Dr. Schreber is "out." Roderick finds this very disconcerting - since when does Sheila allow Dr. Schreber to go out by himself? In any event, he encourages her to talk to Gary to see if she can find anything out. Gerti wants to call Dr. Schreber's house to see if Sheila answers there too. She is persuaded not to, however.

Roderick disbelieves that this is a weird conspiracy with the other escapees. "There aren't any rituals that call for mystic rifle sacrifice! -Roderick
"On Halloween? -Gerti
Sheila reports back in. Mr. Martin apparently had an assignment to kill at least fifty people on Halloween. He had a wedding at a church picked out to start shooting people from the tower. He thinks that the other guys have similar assignments. He doesn't know what for (though Sheila offers some comments about the barriers being thinner then, and five hundred people being probably enough blood).

Time to tell the FBI! This is the era of J. Edgar Hoover, the FBI will happily stomp all over bad guys! But maybe they shouldn't mention the ritual sacrifice part. Happily, Tommy has a friend, Johnny Smith, at Quantico, who he arranges to see on Saturday in Richmond.

Saturday, October 26
The group (sans Eddie, who is in bed and ill, and Dr. Schreber, who more messages have been left for), board the train for Richmond. Tommy briefs them on Joseph's situation - he's staying with his brother, Bernard.

Tommy runs into Adele on the train, and they have tea in the dining car. Roderick wanders by, and notes that Tommy is there by himself, but across the table from him is a ghost, that appears to be draining him somehow. Roderick dashes about getting the ingredients for an excorcism (a bell, a bible, and a candle), and drops them on the table and starts to chant. Adele excuses herself: "It looks like you're on duty again." Roderick is pleased to have banished the ghost, though it's news to Tommy that she's a ghost.

Sheila and Dr. Schreber show up in the dining car - they seem to have managed to get the messages in time to catch the same train! How useful!

Hotel rooms in Richmond are obtained.

Sunday, October 27
Roderick, Charlie, Tommy, and Dr. Schreber observe the house (Gerti and Sheila have gone to church), and see Joseph and Bernard leave. Joesph's aura is much like Gary's, with the inner core hanging by a thread, but the outer aura is stronger. Roderick and Charlie go to break into the house, but are thwarted by the fact that the doors are locked. They go back to the hotel.

Roderick comments that it's odd that Sheila went to church, and wonders about how she and Dr. Schreber got on the same train. Dr. Schreber says that he's had Words with Sheila, that he fell asleep in his office and woke up the next morning with her driving his car to the train station. Roderick: "I'm glad I'm not you."

"We need to talk to this guy, whether it's at a party or tied to a chair." -Gerti
Roderick thinks recruiting the top personality of Joseph to help them is a good idea. Tommy meets Johnny Smith, and gives him a line about this being the case that could make his career. Johnny is mostly willing to be talked into it, though he says he's not arresting people with no evidence.

The group, including Johnny, go to the Peltzman house, where Johnny produces a warrant to talk to Joseph and search the house. Dr. Schreber gets put in charge of talking to Joseph, while the others find a rifle and bullets under a loose board in Joseph's bedroom. They take the bullets out (and lock them in the trunk of the car), and then confront Joseph with the rifle. He snaps to his alternate personality, who goes for Johnny's gun (not, to everyone's chagrin, the unloaded rifle). The pair scuffle and Joseph is whomped into submission and then taken into custody.

Dr. Schreber interrogates him and determines that he also had an assignment to kill fifty people at a church (he had a funeral picked out) on Halloween. Personality #2 doesn't know where all the other guys are, however.

Monday, October 28
Joseph, back in his right mind, is helpful after being talked to by the FBI and Bernard (who confirms the alternate personality).

Later, including much later The FBI gets its act together and goes after the other eight escapees. They get seven of them; the one in New Orleans isn't using his real name, and does kill six people before he's taken down (the fact that the police are on high alert is likely why he gets taken out so quickly). The escapees are all otherwise in custody, and their second personalities appear to be decreasing in severity. Could this be a happy ending?

However... During the waiting-for-Halloween phase, Tommy runs into Adele again; he's been working on his plane at the hangar, and she's been watching the planes land and take off. He tells her that Roderick says she's hurting him. She looks worried and says that she would never mean to hurt him. She says she thinks it'll be over soon; in her first dream she saw her grave, and it said 1871. She met Tommy in 1869, and it's 1871 now. Tommy tells her that he needs to get her to see Roderick, get in the car quick - she says she'll try. Sadly, by the time they get to Roderick's, she's no longer in the car.

Roderick and Tommy go to the graveyard - Roderick thinks Tommy is getting worse, and there's a little line of astral energy going from Tommy to Adele's grave ("The wages of sin are death"). AND IT'S AFFECTED BY MAGNETS! Roderick tries an exorcism; it does something, but the magnetic link is still there.

Gerti looks Adele up, and finds an obituary - a fall. She reports back to Tommy that Adele's husband pushed her down the stairs. Tommy says he knows, he was there. Gerti also discovers that Adele is mentioned as having been pregnant at the time of her death.

Roderick recruits Father MacNamera to come kill an undead ghosty vampire thing that's killing Tommy. He brings his stakes and rowan and such. On the night of All Saints Day, the party proceeds to the cemetery, where they proceed to dig up Adele's grave. Adele doesn't look as if she's been dead for very long, and Dr. Schreber quickly notes that while Adele is dead, the baby is not. Gerti browbeats Dr. Schreber into delivering the baby. Roderick confusedly thinks that something Vastly Terrible is about to happen, and faints. Most people lose some sanity, especially Tommy, who starts wandering aimlessly off with the baby, and is quickly dragged by Dr. Schreber to a hospital ("He was left on our doorstep"). Back in the cemetery, Father MacNamera stakes Adele, and then the grave is filled back in. There's no longer a magnetic connection from Tommy to the grave.

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