The awkward but earnestly enthusiastic young man Molly knows as Harald called Jacky has texted Molly a few times since their last get-together. He is surprisingly friendly, surprisingly smooth about friendliness, for such an awkward man; the occasional comment on a radio program, maybe the forward of an article he thought might interest her or that he found interesting, once a pretty hilarious diatribe against the Warren's Occult Museum and the Annabelle Doll. He generally texts a 'I hope you are well. Are you well?' after whatever it was that made him think of texting Molly in the first place. His texts usually come after the usual 9-5 grind. Not a big fan of texting during the day, it would appear.
And then one night, this text.
Hello. I would like some company on an adventure tonight or tomorrow night. Would you like to come? :-D
He uses a lot of emoticons.
Molly:
While they haven't seen much of each other since the date at the tavern -- was that a date? Molly would call it one -- they've remained in contact through text message, as was the default for many young adults and twenty-somethings these days. She'd texted him once or twice with an 'oh my god can you believe this asshole' story from her shift at the hospital. When he asked if she was well she'd inform him that she was. One of those led to a conversation about how she'd gotten a new puppy. If he could receive picture messages he'd get a photo of a little brown puppy with a black maw and nose, chewing enthusiastically on a pig's ear treat. It was the type of dog that would clearly grow to be big and lanky. No purse puppies for Molly Toombs.
The night that he had texted asking if she would like to join him on an adventure, Molly was about an hour and a half later answering. Her response came as:
I would love to! I'm not available tonight until way late-- I'm working. Tomorrow I have the night off, though, so I could meet you earlier.
This is followed close thereafter by another text, before he'd have a chance to respond to the first.
What kind of adventure is this?
Jack:
He does get pictures on his phone. His response to her dog would have been something along the lines of cute but too bad about Wilbur. Charlotte's Web reference. He wouldn't've shown her a picture of his own (ghouled [blood-tied]) pet Boots but perhaps where-ever he was texting from he leaned over to give the orange street cat a stroke, scruffing the intrepid Boots under his pointed jaw, playing with the intrepid Boots' ears.
He texts back promptly.
Splendid!
Tomorrow night it is ;-D
* :-D
An outdoors adventure so dress warm. I'll bring coffee, tea, or hot cocoa. There's a German place which does it right.
Have you ever visited the Riverside Cemetery?
Molly:
I don't make a point of hanging out in cemeteries. But a really good coffee will coax me out. What time?
And, whatever time they agreed upon, Molly would be there. She's standing out near the front gates, dressed in a pair of black leggings and black calf-high boots. The weather was unseasonably warm, but still chill enough to need layers or coats. She was dressed in a black jacket and had her hair back in a ponytail. Hair that has changed colors since Jack had seen her last. It used to be dyed black, but now it was a bold but natural toned red, and bangs were cut across her forehead.
She stood with her hands in her pockets and appeared to be uncomfortably waiting. She's had too many recent encounters with ghosts to be completely at ease just waiting alone at the gates to a resting place for the dead.
But she liked Jack, for all the awkward aesthetics and direct stares. She'd agreed to come anyways.
Jack:
Define really good coffee. Turkish, Italian, or just "not Starbucks"?
Say 6:45-7.
Bring the puppy if you like. :-)
He might've tossed that last suggestion off in response to her not usually hanging out in cemeteries at night quip. The puppy might be a puppy but any sort've dog makes attackers think twice about attacking, doesn't it? The little ones have teeth too and they bark and yip and are loud and just make attacking unlikely.
Either way, he arrives on time. The middle of on time: 6:50. He arrives in the guise that Molly has become familiar with (and why would he have any other guise?). He arrives wearing a warm coat down-stuffed buttoned-up to the scuff on his chin. He arrives wearing one of those hats with the ear-flaps and it looks maybe a little too big for his head and maybe a little ridiculous and gloves that don't match and he good boots instead of his usual tearable footwear and a scarf that technically hides the scruff of his chin and his mouth although the shape of his not-so-attractive face is unmistakable and nobody has eyebrows like that (Nobody, this Nobody, d'you see?). He is holding two travel mugs, which do not steam, because they're keeping the heat in, and when he sees Molly he awkwardly shoulders his scarf away from his mouth so he can say,
"Hello, Molly!" Her hair is red now, but he doesn't seem to have noticed it. Abstracted and distracted, focused on their adventure. He smiles that always-surprised smile he has like he's unsure of what is happening or what just happened and says, "I, ah, wasn't sure which blend you'd like better, so I brought two. I'm glad you could make it. How was your day?"
Chivalry isn't dead. Perhaps he has realized that they were on a date last time. Perhaps some of his nerd friends teased him and now he has brought her two blends of coffee and this is his version of a date. A - … Graveyard tromp at night! In winter!
--
And here's the Mask of 1k roll from the day I was originally gonna start this scene (grins)
Tithe
[Can I get one more witness please? Another Manip + Perf.]
Dice: 8 d10 TN7 (5, 6, 6, 7, 7, 7, 7, 8) ( success x 5 )
niko
witness!
Molly:
With the invitation to bring her puppy along with, Molly had done precisely that. The puppy was still small and cute enough that she wasn't catching flack for bringing it on public transit yet. So long as Florence continued to wag her tail and lick and gnaw happily on the fingers that came near her face rather than bite them defensively, Molly figured they could get away with this mode of transportation for as long as the dog fit in her lap. According to the dog breeding articles she's read when researching this breed, she estimates that will be somewhere around nine months, maybe a little earlier.
She had arrived early due to bus schedules not lining up with their agreed meeting time, but Molly hadn't been there for much longer than three minutes before Jack showed up, bundled in coat and scarf and hat and carrying two travel thermoses along with him. He would find Molly as previously described, standing in the grass and out of the way of street and foot traffic alike while waiting. Her left hand had one end of a leash wrapped around it. The other end, about five feet down, was hooked onto the light pink collar buckled around the puppy's neck. To see someone approaching up the sidewalk, the puppy stood up and walked as far as her leash would let her before just leaning against it stubbornly, trying to go and greet the stranger that walked nearer.
Molly didn't pay much mind to the leash leaning. She was busy being surprised, humored, and a little bit endeared to the fact that Jack showed up with what appeared to be home brewed coffee, considering the mugs in his hands, rather than paper to-go cups from a cafe.
"That's sweet of you," she commented in greeting when he explained that the mugs had two different blends, and she smiled when he was close enough for conversation and adjusted her stance to something more upright and less leaned back. There was a bit of a walk involved to get here from the nearest bus stop, and she was resting that off and deciding that she was going to just call a cab when they were done here.
"Oh, my day's been fine. Florence here has been working on 'heel' all day."
The puppy, in a state of being contrary, continued to strain to sniff at Jack's feet. Molly looked down and grinned almost apologetically.
"...Working on it, like I said."
Then:
"So, what adventure awaits us?" This said while holding one hand out in front of her to accept one of the two mugs.
Jack:
Florence strains against her leash to say hello. No doubt Florence can smell other animals on Jack's pants. Animalslike Jack, in spite of the predator he represents. They liked him before he learned how to speak their language and bid them do what he told them: one of the tools, he is certain, given to those in the dark, to use on their quest. There are enchantments and uncanny things, and in seeeking them out in being dragged off the path the uncanny hollows out one's bones and inhabits one completely: thus, the speech of beasts.
He smiles with his eyes at the puppy, and This Face has a lopestery lankster sort've lope, loping right on over. He starts to crouch (creak, bones-pop) in order to say hello to Flo but then hesitates since his hands are full. He is grateful when Molly takes one. She has her choice between a vibrant purple the deep color of an electrified plum from a surrealist's vision of the future ooooor that cherry glaze pie red, bordered in silver with a black cap. Once she's chosen the mug she wants to try first it's not just a smile of the eyes, but surprised smile of the mouth, the flap of his scarf twisting over it until he spits out, rocking back on his heels still crouched in order to respond.
"If you need any help with her training, I know something about dogs. Is she going to be a leash dog or do you mean to let her roam free?"
Then, more to the point, adventure. The word makes him grin. This Face's grin is not surprised. It's wide, sweet, crinkly around the corners, crinkly all the way up to his eyes around which there are more crinkles, all crook-teethed un-henged, dentist, dentist, wherefore were thou?, but y'know: sweet.
"You've never been here before? I'll give you a tour; that's an adventure in and of itself... Oh, I brought flashlights," for a moment he looks nonplussed, patting his pockets down one-handedly as if he can't remember quite what pocket he put them in. "But be that as it may, the adventure is to be one of discovery and perhaps uncovery. There is an urban legend about Riverside I'd love to track down," enthusiasm! "And tonight seems as good a night as any to maybe stumble across it. I hope you don't mind that I thought of you for it."
Molly:
The purple appealed to Molly more than the red. Being a woman with naturally red hair that she'd hidden from the world for a solid seven years before now, she often chose to avoid the color red if given the option. Something about struggling away from stereotypes. Plus, the color purple complimented her, or so she figured. The hot drink was sipped, and whatever the flavor was it pleased her enough that she opted to keep it.
When Jack had creak-cracked his way down to his knees, Florence hopped up to put her front paws on his leg and sniff-sniff at his collar and chin. If he didn't seem bothered by the attention, Molly did nothing to correct the dog's behavior. He'd expressed that he was good with dogs and asked how she planned to train her. Moly blinked once, then smiled, appearing pleasantly surprised. "I didn't know you trained dogs. I've read a few articles and books on the matter, but I'm always open to help. I'm hoping to have her able to be off the leash when all's said and done. I need an obediant and loyal dog, not a trapped one."
She made it sound as though she had a purpose for this pet besides simple companion.
As for their plan for adventure, Molly turned to look past the front gates and into the cemetary. The way the temperature and humidity had been lately, conditions were prime for mists and fog. So far the night looked clear, but such things could settle upon the land at any time-- especially since evening was still dropping and so were the temperatures.
A chuckle came before her answer. "Well, I guess I'm experienced in this field if nothing else now." There's a healthy dose of irony to her voice, and she took two steps into the cemetary before pausing, looking back, and waiting for Jack to start walking as well before joining him at his side.
"So, what's this urban legend?"
Jack:
The coffee is good. Blood-laced an added addictive substance other than caffeine. The coffee is strong, so it masks (with Jack, it is always masks, and masks, and pray it is always masks) any exotic 'taste,' other than good. Not enough to drag her into the Kingdom of Darkness, no, never that, but a Jack wants somebody he can rely on, and if he must do it with a blood-knot like a love-knot like a fairy trick, so be it. He scritches Florence behind the ears, chuffs her around the ruff, his balance wavering when he looks back up from the beast-guardian to the red-haired woman. Later tonight she might have a dream about Jacky. But he's here now.
The grin has faded into an owlish blink and: "Well firstly, how do you handle feeding time? Walk me through it?" His wolfman hairy eyebrows (plural? Really? More-or-less) hike up to punctuate the question. He has finally found one of the flashlights. It's a cheap thing, the kind you could buy for five dollars at any gas station, and he hands it over. Harald who is Jacky: full of gifts. Coffee. Flashlights. Dog training tips.
He gets up somewhat laboriously and follows Molly into the cemetery. The gates are open although it is late - perhaps because it is late. The Riverside Cemetery is not quite a ruin; it is a ruin being kept from ruination by a series of volunteers, by the preservation efforts of a historically-orientated society. But it is still a ruin, mouldering and wild. It is a cemetery that remembers how to be wild, perhaps because the bones which lie beneath the earth are so still and silent.
"As for the urban legend ... it would probably be catalogued as a Lady in White tale," he says, prefacing the story while they finish talking dogs, so she knows he's not ignoring her question, just giving a moment before launching into it. A moment that'll see them down the path, and the vast sprawl of corpses laid out. He does seem more alert and cautious in the cemetery.
Adventure!
Molly:
Later that night, though Molly couldn't imagine it yet, the emergency room nurse would dream of Harald who is Jacky. It would be dark and deep and important somehow, and she would wake up feeling a strange thrill to her heart and bones that would leave her pondering on her pillow for an extra few minutes before getting out of bed. She wouldn't guess that it was due to the fact that her awkward, homely, yet charming date was actually a vampire who had laced her drink with his blood. She was under the impression that if he were a vampire then Florence would be intolerant of him.
Foolishly enough, she trusted him. She couldn't imagine that he'd ever try to drug her.
Her eyebrows, no longer penciled in darker but a true rusty red to go with the freckles, raised higher on her forehead when she tasted the coffee. It was good enough that she had to ask, as they turned and started walking and after Jack had explained that they were chasing a 'Lady in White' tale: "Jacky, this is delicious. Where did you buy it?"
Florence would have hopped down when Jack stood up, after leaning into and loving on his hand for the much appreciated ruff scrub. She was a puppy still, so she trotted and ran and flopped and pounced more than she simply walked, but she didn't pull hard on the leash or try to run ahead of them much. She seemed relatively content still to keep herself near Molly and Jack's shins and ankles while they walked.
As for the adventure they were going on...
"Remind me, have you ever actually seen a ghost? Because I won't be surprised if we wind up finding one."
Jack:
He was human once. Jack. But he is not human now. He defaults to a courteous compassion for humanity (for the kine). He has never called them cattle in his heart (and he does not like the word kine flung around with callous disregard). He is a Jack and one should never trust a Jack to be other than a Jack. His conscience is quiet: charms are there to be used, even blood-charms, just be careful, be so careful, or
-- let's not explore the internal logic of the story of Jack. Let's explore Jacky's interactions with Molly. He smiles when she compliments the coffee. "A doughnut shop, believe it or not," is his answer, accompanied as it is by a crinkling of the eyes. He watches Florence gambol about, paying especial mind to the ground in general. What he's looking for isn't likely to be by the main gates, so as soon as the path opens up and there are choices, he veers leftward, off toward some of the wilder crypts, the older part of the graveyard.
"Have I ever -- ?" He blinks, and then grows quiet in his heart. His heart is always quiet because it is frozen into eternity. But he goes quiet in an internalizing way, thinking about things: "I think so," carefully. "I didn't see it, of course, but I heard it. And I once knew a man who was undoubtedly haunted by them. I do not know he lived with it. They troubled him when he tried to eat and they embarrassed him when he was in front of his boss. By making the air uncomfortable and… Other things. Have you ever actually seen a ghost?"
"Do you think cemeteries are likely hunting grounds for them?"
Molly:
The admission that the coffee had come from a simple doughnut shop was met with raised eyebrows-- not of skepticism, but of surprise. She accepted the information as it was and nodded and took another sip of her drink as they walked.
At some point she would switch which hand was holding what, so that the arm closer to Jacky was dedicated to a coffee mug and the arm away from him could work on wrangling the puppy. Mercifully, the puppy wasn't too difficult to wrangle. She liked being close to 'mom' enough that she kept up on her own. She was also accustomed to what the leash rules were. This freed up Molly's mind to focus on Jack's mentions of his own experiences with ghosts, and to field the questions that had followed.
Such as 'Have you ever actually seen a ghost?'At some point she would switch which hand was holding what, so that the arm closer to Jacky was dedicated to a coffee mug and the arm away from him could work on wrangling the puppy. Mercifully, the puppy wasn't too difficult to wrangle. She liked being close to 'mom' enough that she kept up on her own. She was also accustomed to what the leash rules were. This freed up Molly's mind to focus on Jack's mentions of his own experiences with ghosts, and to field the questions that had followed.
It had an ominous tone, but not near so much as her answer to his follow-up question.
"I think so, but probably not how you mean." True blue eyes skimmed the grounds around them as they walked. She picked out gravestones in the foreground that looked older than others, and peered out into the dark at monuments that stood taller than the rest. Though she walked smoothly and her shoulders were relaxed, Molly's eyes were suspicious and she seemed to be on alert, if not on edge. "I figure it's their hunting grounds. Meddling kids that go exploring legends wind up being the hunted. If we're lucky, they'll just keep resting tonight."
[[
Kenna Fly By @ 3:04PM
Perception 3 + Alertness 3 -- Go Molly Go!Roll: 6 d10 TN6 (1, 3, 5, 7, 7, 8) ( success x 3 ) VALID
jamie @ 3:04PM
Damn girl ]]
Jack:
The places where the cemetery is being allowed to go to seed are obvious to them both and the answer to 'where are these places?' is 'most of the cemetery is those places.' Further in: a beer bottle, some half-cleaned graffitti on an old monument. There: somebody's glove. Some scat from an animal. There: flowers, wilting, settled in a gravestone's votary niche. There: a burned out candle, a cheap tea-light the wind stole the flame from. A piece of paper, lost by somebody. A ring of trash. A shadow where there should be no shadow, although closer inspection reveals that it's just a madonna statue interacting with a barren tree. There is a sort of spare beauty, but it is very spare: and very dark.
The creature she knows as Jacky exhales. His scarf occludes his mouth most've the time like it is too big of a scarf for his scrawny neck so he needs to keep pulling it down to speak unmuffled. Ugly guy with his werewolf's brow, his poke of a nose, and now no mouth: or should that rather be an improvement? The point is he answers her with a considering, wide-eyed look. The widened eyes mark surprise more than they do wonder, responsive to that ominous tone.
"Ah, well. I certainly hope any hostile spectres or hunters stay in their earthy beds tonight, but. . . The lady we're hunting down particularly," here, his body wavers so he can kick at a scrub or a bush, then hop back nearer Molly's side again, "is an interesting legend. They say she is usually found in the wild places of this world and she takes on the names of human Virtues." A pause, a meditative smile, "Sensational stuff, I realize. But when she is glimpsed, she is dressed in stinking furs and leathers and behaves more like a woman raised by wolves than somebody human. They say she has animal eyes and animal manenrs, so if you see her, approach with caution. They also say that she has been seen here in this cemetery, accompanied by a four-legged friend."
"Probably not as sweet as you, Florence," he adds, a gentlemanly aside to the puppy, who he pauses to pay attention to again. Jack knows about animals. Jack knows about women who are nearer animals than they are humanity, too. He just doesn't know what happened to this one.
And Molly, considering what she does know of Jacky, probably won't be all that surprised when he blinks with realization, and then says (that undercurrent of enthusiasm for occult stories all too present), "What have you seen? I don't recall you being such a firm believer previously. Perhaps on your way, but, ah…"
---
Woo! I'll keep feeding you details over the next couple posts, so they can be further into the graveyard. :) Here's Jack's same roll, for my ref.
Tithe @ 3:25PM
Private Message to ixphaelaeon
[Perception + Alertness. Specialty: Hidden Things.]
Roll: 7 d10 TN6 (1, 3, 3, 4, 7, 7, 8) ( success x 3 ) VALID
ixphaelaeon @ 3:25PM
Witnessed!
Molly:
There are small, subtle changes in behavior that Jacky will probably pick up on due to his being the base cause of them. He'll be watching, seeing how the coffee fed to the woman would do its job, so he'll be able to notice such things. Molly herself doesn't, not right away. Or, at least, she chalks it up to all other elements -- the cemetery surroundings, the dark, the fact that she viewed this specifically as a date of the courting variety. Also, her own recent and unpleasant experiences with 'ghosts' or 'shades' or whatever it is that you wanted to call them.
One such change is internal-- how she's looking at Jacky and stealing glimpses from the side. She's looking at him like there's something new, or newly familiar about his face. Like she's trying to catch meaning from the eyebrows that protruded so far to the front on his side profile, or like she's trying to find precisely how his mouth and nose and teeth all work together to make words past the scarf.More to the point, she was trying to decide which lie to tell.
What she landed on was:
"Well the apartment above mine goes bump in the night. Not so much now, but a while ago when it was empty I was hearing noises in the wee hours of the morning when I got home from work, when no one would be up there. When I went to investigate the lights burst and the front door slammed closed and the whole place got cold. Then there was another time when doors closed and locked by themselves at this observatory in town, and that time there was an actual, like, ink shadow that shouldn't have been there hanging out in the corner of the room. It felt like it was trying to pull me in, but there was an alternate exit that I managed to find my way out of."
She left out the part about her friend who spoke with ghosts. She didn't mention that she nearly had her face lit on fire by a stove or her rib cage busted up by a flying sofa. That she'd been possessed and puppeted by the unliving before. She certainly wouldn't try to describe what it was like to have gravity flip ninety degrees so that she could cling to a doorknob to avoid falling backwards into a wall. She'd had a difficult enough time trying to describe that last one to someone that had shared the experience from the other side of a locked door.
She left out the part about her friend who spoke with ghosts. She didn't mention that she nearly had her face lit on fire by a stove or her rib cage busted up by a flying sofa. That she'd been possessed and puppeted by the unliving before. She certainly wouldn't try to describe what it was like to have gravity flip ninety degrees so that she could cling to a doorknob to avoid falling backwards into a wall. She'd had a difficult enough time trying to describe that last one to someone that had shared the experience from the other side of a locked door.
Jack:
Jack is a patient Jack. A careful Jack. He doesn't give blood-knots love-knots to just any mortal who sees in the Day and he doesn't trip over his feet and stumble in the rush to complete the trick that is the spell he can wait and will wait so that it seems natural natural feeling strengthened and then time and then time and then strengthen again and then well then he will see if the last step is necessary. Usually it is not.
Usually it is not. Arms brush, jacket sleeves a quiet whisper of solidity, of presence, no ghosts here. The cemetery is quiet in winter, crickets sleeping, ants sleeping, animals mostly sleeping, somewhere a dog growling, they both hear it, the growl of another dog, and Florence hears it too, knows that the other dog is far from her, knows that the other dog is still an other dog.
"Is that why you were reading up on ghosts when I met you?" he asks. "The apartment above yours, that is." He rubs his forehead with the pads of two fingers (gloved, for the cold, so the pads of two gloves. There's a hole near the wrist that reveals hairy skin). He seems to believe her, but that shouldn't be a surprise, either, since he asked her to come with him to a cemetery to hunt down an urban legend, since he has always been eager to know more and to explore it. "Did anything happen either time that set them off, so to speak? An instigating event?"
He makes a gesture like he wants to push up his glasses, but they are in his pocket and he is surprised to find that they aren't where he thought them. His flashlight flicks on, watery light creeping in the direction of the dog-growl.
"The legend we track down tonight. Another item of interest in some of the stories I've heard, she apparently disappears where she stands. I'm interested to see whether or not there is a sign of this disappearance in the ground. A mark. Perhaps I am too hopeful?" that quick surprised smile, a quick shrug.
Near a crypt, the door ajar, Molly can see a foot wrapped in rags, just laying out (as if attached to a body), though generally the bodies are buried rather deeper, huh? It's just a smudge in the dark, and it twitches, but Molly is alert.
Near a crypt, the door ajar, Molly can see a foot wrapped in rags, just laying out (as if attached to a body), though generally the bodies are buried rather deeper, huh? It's just a smudge in the dark, and it twitches, but Molly is alert.
Molly:
Somewhere, in a yard whose property came near to the cemetery's border, a dog growled. Florence's floppy ears lifted and she stopped in her tracks. Although most puppies would be expected to bark back at another dog, to test what asserting dominance is like, Florence did no such thing. She just stared and sniffed in the direction of the sound, but started to follow along after Molly again when the leash started to lose its slack and 'mom's' black boots started to crunch on the cobbled-paved path through the grounds and away.
A red ponytail worn high and neat bobbed when Molly nodded to answer Jack's first question. "Yeah, I don't much enjoy being left in the dark. If there's something living over my head, I'd like to understand it at least enough to know how to avoid pissing it off." She smirked a little, as though humored with her own sense of irony. What she'd said expressed a heavy dose of her sentiment toward Vampires as well. "No instigation that I can really think of, no...." Molly thought about it, then shrugged. "Maybe these events have just always existed, but don't play themselves out again until a tripwire of some kind is activated?"
Or another type of trigger. Like that of having a spirit magnet such as Nate in your life.
Jacky had started on to speak more to the legend they were tracking tonight-- the woman in furs who would attack. He wanted to know, wondering aloud, if any mark would be left to mark the place where she vanished from sight. As though the energy spent to perform such a feat between states of being-- spectral and not-- would scorch the earth. Molly appeared to be considering this at first, but her attention drifted while he was still speaking and her steps had slowed a little.
She'd seen the crypt, and the twitching foot in rags.
Molly's steps stopped all at once, from somewhat slow to nothing. She reached across her chest with the hand that wasn't holding the coffee, that had the noose of the dog leash looped around her wrist, and grabbed hold to her companion's coat sleeve. Color was slipping from her face, freckles thrown into sharp relief as a result, and her eyes were wide and locked onto the crack in the crypt door.
Her voice didn't shake or quiver, though, when she quietly asked: "Do you see that?"
Jack:
"It does make sense that there would be a kind of threshold one needed to walk across, metaphorically of course, and then once one was over the threshold, one found oneself in a new world." This is in fact what Jack knows - knows with a madman's surety, with an intensity of vision, a Mystic's whole-hearted devotion - can happen to anyone. "Ah, not an Area 51 Star Wars sort of new world, obviously, or an alternate reality where alternate reality means a different universe, just -- "
This Face's steps continued on past Molly's once and then a-waver stumble awkward half -- the lopestery stride drawn up suddenly short by her hand on his coat sleeve. He takes a step back to re-take the place at Molly's side, and he nods. He does not immediately flash his flashlight toward the crypt door, but keeps it pointed low, at the ground. "Yes," he says, his voice lowered. He puts a finger to his lips, or where his lips are behind his ridiculous scarf, and then begins to creep close, the better to get a look at whatever is inside.
Molly can also see, near by, a shovel that someone apparently forgot on the ground, although Riverside Cemetery (this part of the Cemetery) doesn't still accept new tennants. Yes: new tennants. Let's put it like that.
This Face's steps continued on past Molly's once and then a-waver stumble awkward half -- the lopestery stride drawn up suddenly short by her hand on his coat sleeve. He takes a step back to re-take the place at Molly's side, and he nods. He does not immediately flash his flashlight toward the crypt door, but keeps it pointed low, at the ground. "Yes," he says, his voice lowered. He puts a finger to his lips, or where his lips are behind his ridiculous scarf, and then begins to creep close, the better to get a look at whatever is inside.
Molly can also see, near by, a shovel that someone apparently forgot on the ground, although Riverside Cemetery (this part of the Cemetery) doesn't still accept new tennants. Yes: new tennants. Let's put it like that.
Molly:
Whatever it was that Jack had been explaining about new worlds and crossing thresholds was lost the moment that Molly spied the thing hanging from the crypt that twitched and pulled on the tight cords of her sense of calm and control. Jack had paused and swung his flashlight beam over to investigate what she'd pointed out to him. Molly's own flashlight was now aimed there as well, retrieved from where she'd tucked it away so she could manage her coffee and dog leash alike. Now the loop of the dog leash was around her wrist and that hand was operating the cheap plastic (but functioning) tool instead.
He'd stated, simply, that he saw it as well in a voice that was low, indicating quiet and stealth were to be utilized. Then he held a finger to his face, up against the scarf, to confirm what she'd picked up from his tone alone. She broke her eyes away from the crypt long enough to look up at Jack's face, or what showed of it anyways, and try to gauge how much concern he had for the situation. If he was going to be approaching this with the same lighthearted spirit of curiosity and adventure as she'd gotten from him based on their conversations up to this point, she worried that things might not end well for him.Molly knew of the things that bumped in the night. She knew that there was too much trouble hovering around the concept of a jerk-jerk-living-maybe foot hanging out of a crypt in a graveyard. For all she knew this would be the night she learned zombies were real.
[Perception 3 + Alertness 3 -- What wicked thing comes this way?]
Roll: 6 d10 TN8 (4, 4, 7, 7, 7, 9) ( success x 2 ) [WP] VALID
Jack:
Jack. He does seem intent on finding out whatever it is they're looking at is. He seems intent and though he creeps (he is a creep [a crawl] a shiver [run]), he is not at all hesitant. He does not seem over-cautious, but nor does he seem heedlong. He just seems: intent -- adventure! Yes. Light-hearted? Perhaps not now. He doesn't give her an excited look and smile or gesticulate fiercely. He just: creeps forward.
Behind him, Molly goes to pick up the shovel, and then the dog, and then she follows in Jack's wake. She notices something on the shovel, when she is following Jack: something that could be weeds, or roots; something that could be finer, something like hair, caked on with the dirt. Maybe.
Jack stops a foot and a half away from the open mausoleum's door, peering in. Then he looks over his shoulder, his thick and unkempt eyebrows moving in overtime, to meet Molly's eyes, to make a quiet gesture. The foot they saw, bandage-wrapped: it does belong to a body.
It's hard to tell if the body is male or female. There are so many jackets and blankets on. And hats. Garbage bags, for insulation. Somebody without a home who decided to make the mausoleum their winter-side shelter. There's a little portable battery operated heater, a little stove. There is also, as Molly will find, a dog inside:
a wakeful dog, who watches them both. Not with a more-than-animal intelligence, but with wary alertness. The dog is lying beside its master or mistress, who makes a sudden noise: a snoring snuffle, phlegm-caught.
Molly
She probably looked quite a sight-- this occurred to Molly a she crept toward Jacky when he beckoned her from the crypt door. Here she was, a woman in her mid-twenties slinking around in a cemetery after dark has cloaked the world, on edge because she thought the dead may be rising, holding a puppy in one hand like she would protect it, and the shovel in her other hand like she would wield it (but really she's never bludgeoned anyone with a shovel before, so she probably wasn't holding it properly for that). This felt like a ridiculous out-of-place kind of adventure, not unlike when Flood picked the lock at a pawn shop and coerced her to join him in his breaking and entering adventure.
She really could only hope that this night didn't end like that one did.
When she reached his side she crowded it just a little, leaning near to his arm and flank to see past the crack in the door. She was wound tight like an overtuned guitar string, tense like she as expecting to see the worst.
There were no zombies, so her grip on the shovel relaxed and the shoulder at the top of that arm unworked the knot it was trying to find its way into. Rather than the rot of something long dead finding mobility again, there was a figure so wrapped in old clothes and blankets that it lost gender and age and identity beyond <i>the homeless</i> She breathed out the breath she had been holding, and on that she whispered her relief to herself: "Thank god for that."
There was a dog in there, watching them sharp and careful. Florence's breed of dog wasn't a loud one-- another reason why Molly had selected the Rhodesian Ridgeback over a Rottweiler (which was the original dog she was thinking of buying). Instead, the puppy's floppy ears perked up high and her little nose wiggled and flared as she intently investigated the person and other dog (!! other dog!) inside the structure.
With the snuffling-snorting noise the person made, Molly glanced up at Jack and raised her eyebrows, then looked sheepish and tried to cover that up with a small grin. No longer wanting to crowd the crypt now that she knew who and what were in there, she stepped back away from the door.
Once stepped back, while waiting for Jack to join and probably lead them onward, something tugged at Molly's sense of calm and comfort. She had noticed the spade of the shovel before, noticed that there was something curious clotted onto the end of it, but initially thought nothing of it due to more pressing matters being on her mind. Now that she was assured (for the moment) that no dead things would come to try and take her and her date, Molly had some time to take in the details.
Like the hair-like matter clinging to the dirt on the end of the shovel. Without a word (because she didn't want to wake the transient and then have to deal with them), she adjusted her grip on the shovel so she was holding it closer to the spade and brought the tool closer to her face, so she could better inspect what was stuck on the edge of it.
She could only hope it wasn't actually hair.
Jack
If Jack were alone perhaps he would decide to feed on the homeless man in the mausoleum. The man is still alive. The hound is a best friend a good friend but not a problem for a persuasive Jack who is friend to animals. There is no perhaps about it. He would feed on the homeless man - because each night wicks some life from him and sends him toward deathless sleep or sleepless death: fixed, frozen - torpor - and Jack prefers to feed off the dreaming, the already-asleep, that they won't be terrorized. They'll just remember an erotic dream and be a little pale, come morning - while he has another night.
But Jack is not alone. He meets the dog's eyes and, his hands up, the flash-light still pointed so that it does not quite illuminate what's inside, Molly behind him breathing in relief and then beginning to with a lot less relief investigate the shovel and what might be there-on, he says, "Good dog. We're friends, just stay good and stay calm."
He cannot tell the dog that he'll be back later tonight as he'd like to - but he means to be back later tonight. The dog lowers its head although it stays alert and watchful; Jack steps back, and back again, and says low-voiced, "Well I suppose we might wake him and ask him whether or not he's seen Her, but it seems, ah, cruel."
The shovel. It is hair, for somebody used that shovel to hit somebody else over the head. The hair is thick and in the uncertain grave-light it is mud brown, caked to the metal.
Molly
While Jack made plans and silent promises to return where this transient slept later on, Molly paid no further mind to what was in the crypt. Provided the dog did not suddenly snarl and make an attack for her date, and given that the person continued to sleep-snort-snore and not wake to bring harrassment or danger, Molly would pay neither entity mind. Not while she was trying to decide what she was seeing glued to the shovel's spade.
Jack stepped back and spoke low, first to the dog and then to muse openly about the pros and cons of rousing the sleeping person. When he took his glance to Molly he'd find her standing, puppy tucked near to her chest with one arm (the puppy, in turn, stretching her neck to sniff but otherwise not struggling) and shovel held near its work end with the other hand. She was looking intently, seriously, at the material gunked up on its end.
Being perceptive as he was to the flow of blood, he'd be tuned in to how the blood runs from her features and leaves her pale beneath a wash of freckles. She blinked in disbelief, like doing so would change what she was seeing, but when it clearly didn't she lowered the shovel slowly and looked around. Like she expected something may sneak up on them in the darkness.
"I think we might have picked a bad night for this, Jacky."
And, if he pressed for curiosity, she would show him the shovel blade.
Jack
He looks at the shovel, at first without a sharp look, because it is just a shovel. But then soon enough Jacky's eyes do sharpen, and he reaches out to touch the handle too, turn it just so, without actually taking the shovel from Molly's hand.
"Where did you find this?" he asks.
Molly
There is no resistance to be found with moving the shovel one direction or the next. While Molly was distracted looking about into the dark and the shadows beyond them, she didn't startle when there was extra pressure to be found on the tool she carried. There was a brief glance back to spy Jack as he inspected the shovel more closely, turning it in her hand without taking it away from her.
The question to where she found it was answered by her nodding her head vaguely in the direction where the shovel was picked up. She'd clarify further with words.
"There, a dozen feet back or so. It was just laying in the grass. I was worried that it was the reason someone was laying in the crypt doorway, honestly, but...." She had trailed off, intent more on her surroundings.
She may have noticed something.
Jack
The awkward but enthusiastic (not to mention intrepid!) occulist gulps, adam's apple a-wobble and visible before he pulls that scarf up over his face again. He'd pulled it down to ask his question, you see, to soothe that dog, that hound, just barely, but the charm doesn't always work, Beasts and Men being what they are to one another, and when she indicates a spot he lopes in that direction, looking around as if for more signs or clues to whatever happened. The fog rolling in - skimming across indentations in the not-quite-kept-up cemetery, eddying around weathered stones, giving the cemetery a silvered look, blurring certain things - adds a certain ambience. The cold continues with that ambience, and over-head bat-song from a species that doesn't hibernate for the winter, scrapping for insect-prey - eerie sound.
Jacky is looking around, but he doesn't see anything.
Molly's the one with the sharp eyes right now; eyes that're sharper than a Sewer Rat's, than a Nosferatu's. There's nothing much moving in the shadows, nobody hiding, nobody crouched behind a headstone and no body lying easy, but her sharp eyes snag on something on the ground, and when she goes nearer, she sees a broken charm from a charm-bracelet. Could've been dropped at any time, right? But then next to it: a finger-nail, an acryllic nail. Also could've fallen off at any time, but if she goes in that direction, drawn by what she spies with her little eye, finally she'll find herself standing
yes, standing
on a patch of ground which feels like it isn't quite as hard (although it is still quite hard) as the dirt over there. And if she looks down, flashing that flashlight: well, it looks recently dug, and filled in.
Molly:
Against her peacoat, Florence wiggles, wanting to get back down and investigate. Molly complied after a quiet little whine escaped the animal and stooped down to let the little brown pup back onto the ground. She couldn't see anything or anyone moving about in the shadows. The only movement came from Jack when he walked over to where she'd found the shovel to see if he could spy anything else out of place.
This was when the fog started to roll in. Molly suspected this might happen-- the night was too perfect for it not too, both in weather pattern and in choice of activity. The day was mild and damp and night brought the temperatures plummeting, and encouraged the mists to fall and hang all the more. The woman shivered some and adjusted her outerwear, but did not manage much for one hand kept a leash and the other kept the shovel.
She was about to start walking after Jack, to check in with him and see what they should do next if nothing stirred or happened, when something caught her eye. The faint but distinct hard cut of metal lost in stamped down winter-dead grass. There was no light for it to gleam in, but it was there none the less. Molly's brow furrowed a little, and she walked nearer to where the bracelet was laying. It was when her feet found the density of the ground changing that she realized the other curious item was actually a fingernail-- an acryllic, the kind that women paid to have pasted to the ends of their fingers, but there was no guarantee that there wasn't a real human nail that got pulled up along with it on the other side.
Molly would investigate that in a moment. The fact that the ground was recently turned, though still hard from the cold, sent a cold shiver of dread down her spine. Florence sniffed at the nail, but before she had a chance to lick at it (and she was about to, too), Molly scooped her back up against her chest.
"Jack?" She called his name and it warbled a little, like a cub's cry for its mother. <i>Help, help, come this way and help.</i>
Immediately after, before he could have a chance to reply sufficiently, Molly cursed and let go of the shovel, letting it fall on the ground. Suddenly very worried about finger prints on murder weapons.
Jack:
The sound of his name pulls his attention from the patch of ground and darkness he was investigating. His eyes are sharp behind their dopey dreaminess; behind that glaucoma, the pupil elongated, spreading ink-stain strange. His eyes are sharp behind This Face because Jacks are sharp things, noticing things, Noticing Things, if not as Noticing a Thing as an off-duty nurse with a puppy in her arm. Florence whines, suddenly, shifting restively, uneasy, and Jack joins Molly at her side. He touches her waist, steadying, even as she drops that shovel down, suddenly afraid of -
"What is it?" His voice is hushed. "What'd you see?" He doesn't draw her this way or that for all the steadying touch. Because he doesn't notice what she notices.
And perhaps it is because she had a moment of eerie accuracy, of preternatural adrenaline-fueled clarity, but - the cemetery has certain sounds. The sound of ice-and-frost-and-water; the sound of wind-or-no-wind; the sound of winter-dead grass, of distant traffic distant enough that it's nothing, nothing at all, that faint screel of bat-song for a moment, and now
Molly thinks, at least for a second, she thinks on a subliminal level, that she hears something below her feet, crazy though it is. Maybe. Something there, under the hard packed earth. Maybe there's a radio or maybe it's a pipe line or maybe who knows. It's so faint.
Molly:
She really should have known better. That's what Molly was starting to tell herself. She wanted to go out on a date, that was all. She thought she could risk a walk through the cemetary chasing urban legends because it was so played out and hokey that it couldn't actually lead to trouble. But really, she just plumb should have known better.
She was sure that some young woman was killed out here, and buried in the churned feeling dirt under her feet. She was sure that the shovel was a murder weapon, and in a moment of heart-searing panic she was so afraid she would be pinned for the murder because here she had just gotten her prints all over the supposed weapon. She would later remember that her story would be reasonable, believable, and that there was no way she could have any connection to whoever was buried under the soil, so there'd be no reason to pin the murder on her.
A flurry of thoughts and worries and scenarios were tripping over one another in her head when the Undead Jacky had appeared. He touched her side, fingers to waist, quietly asking for information. For what it was she saw. For half of a moment she felt dizzy, and swooning seemed like a good idea, but Molly was sturdy and cool and wouldn't be toppled by hysteria. So she looked at Jacky for a second, eyes wide and bewildered, and explained:
"The ground's turned. I saw.. " She looked down, then nudged at the charm bracelet with the toe of her shoe. "This. And the fingernail, and..."
She trailed off, but not because she seemed too emotional to go on-- although that could also explain what happened next. She looked distant, suddenly, eyes out of focus like she was trying very hard to focus on something else. On what she could hear, based on how she subtly turned her head to try and catch more sound out of her left ear. Next, soon after, she looked down at the ground beneath her feet.
Then, where she was pale before she now must seem like a sheet, for the last of the color slipped away from her face. She adjusted the puppy against her chest and wrapped both her arms around the animal that while now small would grow to be large and intimidating. She stepped back off the re-packed dirt and swallowed hard, and when she spoke next she sounded distressed and her voice was thin.
"We need to call the police."
Jack:
Jack looks at the ground. He has pieces to put together: shovel with hair, a fingernail, turned earth in a cemetery, the reason he first came here - hunting down signs of lost mass-graves, monster-pits, devil-pits, holes-where-the-Sabbat-take-
Molly says they need to call the police. Jack considers which detectives are in the Ivory Tower's pay, that he knows of. He considers which Kindred he knows who might have Influence, and be called in lieu. The young man Jacky looks both concerned and nervous, his eyes gone dolorous instead of dreamy, and this time when he touches Molly's waist it's a firmer touch. This way, step back, sort of touch.
"I suppose this, ah, was not the best stomping ground after all," he says, sounding apologetic; a certain honeyed cadence behind the dry occultist's usual precision, and he'd clearly be pushing his glasses up if they were on. He blinks a few times, digging out his phone, fumble-fingered, although he sounds extremely reasonable (trustworthy), "I'll call the authorities, but er, it might be best if we don't wait around to give a statement. I've been hassled here before," just a dollop of frustrated sheepishness, "and the guy whose beat this is... Trust me, let's leave a sign, make the call, and just get out of here. Unless we question..."
He trails off, glancing toward the mausoleum again, where the homeless man is sleeping, clearly longing to know what happened, maybe that guy saw something, maybe -- but he frowns at the end. This Face frowns, that is. Jack frowns, too, a hopeful lilt of a glance at Molly and Florence, who begins to wiggle.
"Well maybe we should just head toward the gates. I'll leave my glove here as a marker," and so he does.
Molly:
All her life, Molly hasn't had any reason to not want to talk to the police. She didn't get in trouble outside of normal teenager shenanigans growing up, and when she went to college she hung out with a small group of friends but didn't join a sorority or go to parties that got too wild. She didn't break the law and didn't have a criminal record. She talked with police officers every day at work, knew some of them on a first name basis. Some (one officer Carole Klein) she was beginning to know outside of work as well, through their mutual acquaintence of the journalist Marszalek.
She wouldn't mind waiting to give a full report to the police and tell them exactly what she found. But then Jacky was frowning and making more pronounced the weight of hand and fingers at the cinched waist of her coat, encouraging and guiding her back. Not pushing or pulling, but convincing. She found that she liked this effort to lead rather than being irritated by it-- where earlier it may have been annoying or perhaps a touch overstepping, in this moment she was just pleased on some small level that was inappropriate for the setting, pleased that boundaries were easing enough that touch could happen at all.
<i>Not the time.</i>
The fact that she was uncomfortable with the sound heard-not-heard from under her feet made it easier to talk herself into going, for Jacky to get her to talk herself into complying and leaving behind the dirt and the bracelet and the fingernail with a glove to mark their place. After all, anything she could say to the police they would see for themselves, right?
So:
"No, no--" Molly interjected with a shake of her head and edged herself just a little nearer to Jack, so she was nearer flanked to his side when they started to walk away. "Leave him be." Of the person asleep in the crypt, that is. "We'll just go. Let's go."
With a glance back to make sure the fog hadn't started to sprout fingers and that nothing was coming from the dirt to follow, Molly let the squiggling pup back onto the ground to walk along with them. She was eager to be away from there.
Jack:
[his player was supposed to do an end post; but slacked. What a Jack-ass. Get it? Get it?]
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