[Mask-on?]
Dice: 8 d10 TN7 (1, 1, 3, 4, 5, 8, 9, 9) ( success x 3 )
NobodyRiverside Cemetery, on Brighton along the South Platte River, and it has been warm lately, mosquitos breeding quick and heavy and dense clouds of gnats and at certain places in the Riverside Cemetery frogs sing or toads croak and then there is the rusty suggestion of claws or nails or some ethereal otherworldly creature crying, croaking a warning, throat clotted with the dust of Death, of Ereshkigal, a psychopomp, but what is it? It is just a rusty chain on some mausoleum door swaying because something on four feet insinuated its way too quickly by; or perhaps because of the breeze which combs through lichen-drenched stone and sparse grass and the field mice are hiding in their burrows because early in the evening the sky overhead shook trembled was full-bellied up with the ambience of thunder, yes, thunder, it was a dark and stormy night, but the wet air feels good and it is lovely in the cemetery with the waning gibbous moon casting its uncertain rays through the clouds which are just parting as if to illuminate the moment before certain doom don't go in there no no don't and
and somewhere in the 77-acres of Riverside Cemetery, there are a couple of people who are training for the Moonlight Mystery & History Tour popular in the fall but given occasionally in the summer to tourists of a certain ilk.
And somewhere in the 77-acres of Riverside Cemetery, there is also a Nobody, a nothing, a Jack, a Jack of Tours, Mysteries, Moonlight, History, a Jack of more History than you'd think to look at him, a Jack who is always an Unseen Presence until it is too late
(hello).
Wet grass smell. River smell. Night smell. Hush.
AlexQuiet, empty, desolate...in truth these are not the characteristics of a real cemetery, there is always life among the dead, the continuation of the cycle that was ever present even if mankind sought to halt its inexorable movement. But quiet, empty and desolate were the perfect traits that Alex was looking for as she headed out for an evening jog. Rain was a constant threat, and it meant other joggers wouldn't be around. The cemetery was usually a favourite of joggers, but tonight...it was all her's.
Or so she thought.
She booted along at a decent pace, sweat glistening off her brow in the dark, the swish of her hair in a ponytail mingling with her footfalls and the breath from her lungs. Together they added their own notes to the evenings symphony just another player passing through, a busker if you would, a busker of lifes unavoidable noise.
She wore a pair of running shorts and a black under armour tank top, it was hot out after all, and the humidity which hung in the air made such outfits all the more necessary.
NobodyAh, a jogger, a lone female jogger with a pony-tail swishing, delectable choice of lazy screen writers everywhere for discovery of horror or uncovering of horror, whether that horror is to be visited upon them or they are to visit the horror and be never seen again because the story moves on by doesn't it, it doesn't wait for the jogger to look at the dead body and catch their breath or do more than screen or peer and draw back and then it's all police lights, isn't it, or worse, and ah a jogger:
but this isn't a screen play. There are no dead bodies motionless half-hidden concealed in the grass there is just
oh, hello, hello. Hello. A corner, a curve of path, and a figure waving Alex down, a youngish man pale-skinned but alive, undoubtedly alive, no mist to wreathe him no fog to cling to him as he comes out of the shadows, the youngish man is leaning hard against a mouldering stone one of those dark blue granite ones which do not smoulder with pallor, and he is a pretty ugly guy, this guy, the figure waving Alex down who seems to be short of breath.
Jog on, firewoman.
AlexDelectable? If anyone thought Alex would make a good victim they were in for a sore, and very unpleasant awakening. Her limbs might seem lean, but there is a bulk to them, a tone and muscular build that betrays her inherent strength, normally she keeps such signs under wraps. But now she lets it shine through in every stride, ever pump of her arms. Beware, Beware, all timed with each practiced footfall.
But here was a curve, a breath in the true and narrow course Alex had set herself upon, a deviation, a disruption, and lo a young man who may or may not have some ill intention for the woman who was simply here on her own, for her own sake.
But he seemed short of breath, almost doubled over as if he had been running himself, or perhaps running from something and so...like that predictable knight in the adventure stories Alex slow's coming to a stop a few long feet way from the young man. She surveys the area quickly, before looking at the man and asking.
"You gonna live there kid?" She inquires as she took a tentative step closer to look him over, making sure he wasnt hurt.
NobodyNow, the pale young man flagging her down leaning hard against that mouldering stone, his air's a rusty blond, combed with neat severity to one side and his eyelashes are a likewise pale color, coppery, fish eyes goggly eyes Irish pug of a man but doesn't he have enough presence to overcomb deficiencies in the looks department depending on who's dealing with him the life (unlife) of an ugly (hideous [monster] Cursed, he knows: the Quest; what court is his, the Court of Many Faces, of Troubled Flesh) man is hard or can be especially oh especially in these days.
He doesn't look safe.
But he doesn't look like a thug, either, at least not a very scary one.
He looks down-on-his luck perhaps, those clothes being clean and neat (as his hair) but somewhat soiled around the knees (there is the flaw) and a little ill-fitting, black.
"I sure hope not," he tells Alex, a California drawl languid in his voice. "Could I borrow your phone? Mine's given out and I'm lost."
No sudden movements.
AlexAlex takes a moment to take the young man in, to weigh and assess his nature, his demeanor and all those little things which filter through one's mind in the moment of first impressions. He might not seem safe, but Alex was fairly certain [foolishly] that she could take him if things went awry. Give how he was breathing [another foolish belief] he likely couldn't outrun her with her phone if he tried.
The moment of first impressions passed, and finding no reason to simply slug the kid and take off, Alex pulled her cellphone from her pocket and held it aloft, waiting for the youth to note her intentions.
"Here." She said as she took several steps towards the man and held out the phone, it was held out, palm down..as if she meant to drop it into his hand rather then to pass it clumsily between their digits.
"Where are you from? Maybe I can give you some directions the hell outta here...especially as this is probably the last fucking place you wanna be once that second storm cell hits."
NobodyThe nobody in particular who Alex is playing savior to (save me, save me, cried the people in the city before the flood came down and washed them away and God looked down and smiled to see) doesn't grab her wrist at this time. He holds his hand out for her cellphone and then fumble-fingered adjusts to the make and type and then squints his eyes up into half-moons trying to remember the number for the person he wants to contact.
Through the haze of memory he cracks a grin, "Surely am not from a graveyard. It's a people I lost somewhere in the yard, you know how it is, think you're supposed to meet at one statue turns out no it was that other faceless angel on the other side of the hill, but by then it's too late."
Ah. He seems to remember the number and starts plugging it away to send a text.
"Thanks for this. Haven't seen a single human soul in this cemetery since I wandered off."
Thunder, again. Thunder rumbling.
AlexThe phone was dropped into hand and Alex, well she took up a casual stance near, but not to near to the man as he rambled on about his story of woe. His plans to meet someone [perhaps someone special?] at a monument that simply wasn't right. Alex's hard eyes softened, though only faintly at that, perhaps she had done something similar in her earlier life, maybe it wasn't all that long ago.
"Gotta watch yourself out here man, animals get into this place, real big nasty ones at times and with the size of this place it can take a long time to find someone." Alex mused as she looked in the direction of the storm.
"I hope your friends nearby, or you might be outta luck when it comes to staying dry tonight." Obviously that wasn't something she considered a problem for herself, it was only water after all.
"Whats your name?" She inquired, casually as she shifted her weight to one leg.
NobodyHe looks up at the thunder just as his thumb depresses to send off the text and he hunches his shoulders, vulture, rag-tag scarecrow of a man, solid under the rags or the scare or the crow, an automatic reaction when the Heavens get angry, the Heavens are full of signs, thunder is God, God is thunder, not difficult to see why once upon a time that's what people thought, that God is death thunder is death, Death is here when thunder roars, and anyway, and anyway, he looks up at the thunder and the text is sent and there's an ironical lilt to This Face's eyebrows which both rise when he looks back at Alex catching his breath catching his breath he hopes he stays dry tonight too and at the same time she's asking Whats your name?
He's saying, "Know any ghost stories?" A pause, caught-out-pause because he just talked right over her, didn't he? "Come again?" And when she repeats her question, if she repeats her question, he tells her This Face's name, "Danny and it's a treat to be so helped by you, a regular knight you are."
Alex"So I'm told way to fucking often for my liking." Alex says with a begrudged smile. "But what the hell can you do right? If I'm a fucking knight then so what." She said as she watched her phone in his hands, making sure it doesnt disappear into a pocket someone, swallowed up in the young man's clothing somewhere. [The youth were awfully talented these days]
Her gaze slid upward once more, finding the young man's features. They were unpleasant it was hard not to notice, but Alex had seen worse, FAR worse in her time [fire levelled the playing field after all] so she doesn't flinch, doesnt stare. Instead she met his eyes and shook her head.
"Not really, other then the lame ones like the hook man and shit like that, you know the ones over done about five hundred times to many." She smirked briefly before she turned back the way she had come.
"Come on, Ill lead you out, the exit isn't that far away."
Nobody"I don't walk off with strangers," he jokes, "I just borrow their phones. What's your name?"
He also glances down at her phone again and sends another quick text, but he has pushed himself off the rock, pale young man teetering in place for a moment as if he needs to get his sealegs, then he looks at her expectant his pale eyes bright with fog willing to be lead out oh yes lead the monster out Alex lead him right out he's Nobody To Be Worried About.
"Ach then, let me guess. You'd be a Josephine? Jo for short? I don't think I know the story about the hook hands."
AlexAlex looks at him as he jokes, a brow raised, a sardonic look on her features before she shook her head at the man. "Riiight, don't quit your day job Danny." She said as she started forward, heading in the direction of the parking lot, even being so kind as to walk rather then jog the way back.
"Josephine huh?" She inquires, without answering the question of the nature of her name. "How bout this champ, you tell me why you think I'm a Josephine and if we're still talking afterwards, I'll tell you my name. Hell I'll throw the old hook hand story in for free." She pauses briefly and looks over at him. "Deal?"
She'd start walking again at that point, with or without him. The phone after all wasn't important in the grand scheme of things. She could leave that behind if necessary. From a tiny pouch at her waist Alex pulled out a small plastic baggy filled with water and took a quick drink.
Gotta stay hydrated of course.
NobodyHe laughs but the laugh sounds rusty, as if it doesn't get used very often, as if it's stuck in his throat, as if it's been left out to be abused by the weather, and the rusty sound turns into a cough and another cough behind his fist, eyebrows raised in a devil's air of delight though he isn't devilish not this ugly pug of a man, this Face remembered perhaps from a wake or a Church service or who knows where Jack remembers his Faces what might stick in his mind how many years dead this Face actually is a ghost oh just a ghost oh what would a ghost do a ghost might do anything, mightn't it, and Nobody in particular, Danny boy Danny boy, doesn't welch on deals, puts the hand with his phone over his heart holds the other one up, and he is not a fast walker, but he doesn't stay by the gravestone with the phone not yet no.
"Your eyebrows," he tells her. "They look like they belong to one'a them fancy dolls and Josephine's a fancy name but Jo's not fancy. You don't strike me as all that fancy."
"No nonsense I'd say. Jo's a no nonsense name."
He's probably just spinning castles out of clouds, but isn't that any guess about something one couldn't possibly know?
AlexHe gives his reasons, a compliment wrapped within the folds of the words. He liked her eyebrows it seemed, and he fancied her a non fancy lady. It was close to home, and Alex paused to regard the man named Danny once more with a more inquisitive bent as she spoke.
"Well, I give you points for sneaking a compliment in there, but the fancy doll thing is pretty fucking creepy, just sayin." She offered as she started to move once more. "My name is Alex. Now that were acquainted I guess I owe you that story don't I?" She inquired, though she knew the answer.
"So it goes like this..." She starts, her arms folded infront of her after she slide the water packette back into its pouch. "Pair of teenages are making out in a car in the woods, and over the radio, just perfectly so theres a news report about an escaped mental patient." She pauses then and looks over at him skeptically.
"You have to have fucking heard this before."
Nobody[DO I LOOK ANGELIC? Manip + Performance]
Dice: 8 d10 TN6 (2, 3, 3, 7, 8, 8, 9, 10) ( success x 5 )
NobodyDanny boy cups both hands at his ears and puts on an expression of such virtuoso virtue, such unruffled and wholesome angelic innocence, such Precious Moments big eyes all a-gleam surely one expects Denis the Menace to grow up to be this guy, this guy with his rusty blonde hair and his Irish features, that by god he does look like the very incarnation of guilelessness, of Pure Sweet Sugared Untroubled Innocence, beatific in the bat of an eyelash-
He's totally got a halo somewhere. His exaggerated angelic air is meant to punctuate a shucks no ma'am not this one before nope.
Maybe it's a joke, too.
"I'll let you know when it starts to sound familiar."
Alex[Per+Subt]
Dice: 3 d10 TN6 (2, 7, 9) ( success x 2 )
AlexMaybe it was the accent, maybe it was the look or the conversation. But Alex couldn't help but feel that Dan, oh Danny boy that he was more likely to hurt himself before he dared step on a flea...so the idea of him hurting her was all the more ludicrous. It would be obvious in her walk, in the way she let her arms hang now, both swinging gently beside her as she takes more time to look around rather then keep her eyes fixated on Dan and his general direction and actions.
She still sighs however in frustration when he says he doesn't know it. "Alright, fine." She says as she seemed to center herself, ready to move on with the story.
"So the dude gets freaked out by the report. 'That aslyums not far from here!' He says as he looked around axiously. "Dont worry about it." The girl said. 'It's miles away and hey..I'll protect you, here let me lock the door.' So she does." Alex looks over at Dan once more, hoping that its sounding familiar. But if he doesn't stop her she goes on.
"So the guy calms down for about five seconds before he hears something in the woods. He whirls around in the seat and almost screams, but sees nothing. 'Theres something out there!' He cries and the girl shakes her head and puts an arm around him saying. 'Theres nothing out there but raccoons and tree's.' But then, another sound can be heard, a thump against a tree behind them, and when they both look back, nothing is there. " Alex pauses for effect taking a breath as she did so.
"So the guy is freaking out. 'Lets get out of here!' He cries out. While the girl shakes her head slowly, though even shes starting to feel it. 'Nahhh were good.' But they're both searching, both peering out into the night. Suddenly theres another bump in the night, but this time..this time its from the trunk of the car!" She declares loudly.
'So they both freak out, the girl puts the car into drive. A scrapping, scratching scramble can be heard as they take off, but both are desperate to get away.' " She lets her voice drop to normal then. "So they get back to the boys house, both feeling relieved, and slightly stupid. They're both laughing, joking about a raccoon's getting it on on the trunk as they get out, as they close the doors the girl cracks a one liner, but the guy isnt laughing. He's standing there...white a sheet, staring at the door. 'The hell is wrong now?' The girl asks as she comes around, and as she does..she screams!"
Alex pauses again and even lets a tiny, sly grin cross her lips for the briefest of moments. 'She screams...because there embedded in the side of the door, is a big...rusty...bloody hook!"
NobodyThis is when the monster surfaces in some tales. This is when the monster comes out of the deep, a shape coalescing into something true and something hungry, and this is when the monster bites deep, bites hard, this is when the monster feasts because monsters (didn't you know? He has learned, this Jack, this Jack who must always try to be brave and clever and quiet oh so quiet and hide yes stay hidden too) only and always feast. This: the moment of easing, the moment when the eyes begin to wander. The audience knows it.
But Jack isn't dancing according to that tune. He has another rhythm here, in his interactions with Alex the firewoman, he has a test; he is testing.
And listening, of course, innocent angel-expressed pale-as-a-vampire man, listening to her spin a campfire tale, listening too as thunder decides to hammer long and hard and long over their heads like hammers beating on sheets of metal again and again and again, crescendoing, and he looks up at the sky again step lagging a little half-trip.
When the thunder has had its say he looks over at Alex, his pale eyes a-gleam with amusement, and he says, "Seems Somebody Up There was listening, but wasn't that perfectly timed? And not poorly told at all. So that's the man with the hook."
He sounds satisfied. "And nobody gets hurt." A brief pause. "I could tell you a ghost story in return maybe, if you liked."
AlexAlex had finished, and realized only to late that she had gotten into it more then he had expected too. Perhaps it brought up childhood memories, maybe of a campfire, or a rancher's pot. The thunderous boom gave her enough time to readjust herself, gain control once more before nodding.
"Damn right they did its not every day that I tell a story like that... hell its a red letter day when I tell a story at all." She said as moved along, at ease now it seemed. Danny offers to tell her a story in trade and Alex shrugs as they walk on.
"Sure why the hell not, still a good ten minute walk to the parking lot, so knock yourself out Dan." She pulled out the water once more and took another drink, the heat that preceded the storm causing sweat to build upon Alex's face.
Nobody[Let's go with Charisma + Perf to see how well he's gonna tell this story before I BS it.]
Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (2, 6, 7, 9, 9, 10, 10) ( success x 6 )
Nobody[Fucking show off Nosferatu.]
NobodyHe tells her a ghost story.
Ten minutes until they reach the front gates (fifteen -- she miscalculated or calculated using her own stride. Danny boy's stride is a lot slower, not unhurried but honey instead of water rushing to its home), and that's more than enough time to tell a story and tell it so well the grass'll shiver although there's no wind to make it shiver.
Have you ever heard of the Market Street Stranger? he asks her. The Market Street Stranger in the late 1890s who strangled three women, ladies of the night, but bright ones, bright and sharp and businesswomen, a helping hand for their fellows or so the stories say, have come down to us, strangled in their homes with their backdoors left unlocked and thumb nail imprints left in their throat so sharp that the coroner of the time thought maybe if they got all the Johns to walk by that old folk story about a corpse bleeding when its murderer walks by would help them catch the animal who did it. That's how big the wounds were, see: but they'd been strangled, each and every one, then left limp in their beds, and one of these ladies was the prettiest Japanese woman you could ever hope to meet and her name was Kiku Oyama, and she sleeps here in this cemetery -- sometimes.
She was the last of the three to be killed and oh she did not go quietly, she did not go meekly,
(and here Nobody in particular builds up this picture of the hard-working prostitute, and the shadow that comes to steal her)
and when she expired at last a cricket sang outside her room, those damned crickets, which is why sometimes in the summer, times like this, when the crickets are singing, her footstep falls behind them and they grow silent, silent out of shame.
(This is the story he tells her.)
But that isn't the real ghost story, oh no. The real ghost story is Mrs. Julia Voght: clairvoyant, psychic, red-haired woman with a lot of gusto, who predicted that last death, who claimed to predict that last death anyway and isn't that just as good in the business of fortelling because who can prove you wrong? And she predicted that last death, and she was a real busybody, got put up for malfeasance once or twice and her husband was worse, petty criminals but still petty, and yet still Mrs. Julia Voght, she said:
I know who did it.
I know who strangled those women. They tell me at night. They sing to me. I feel it like a bruise beneath my skin when I sit a certain way I can't ignore it.
The police could ignore it, though. The police could ignore it real well, though she said:
He has butcher's hands. He's got a scar. He didn't look them in the eye until right before he reached, oh, he reached like this,
(and doesn't Jack show Alex just how he reached?)
but still they ignored Mrs. Julia Voght, who was a petty thief, until one night while her husband was in jail she went to her home (this is the story he tells her) and the crickets were singing, were usually singing, but they stopped after she got home and though they started up again like this
(He hums softly, soft cricket sounds)
soon enough they ceased again.
There was a knock on the front door; nobody there but she felt that bruise, that bruise she told the police she felt if she moved a certain way, she felt that bruise and she was scared though there was no reason to be scared except the crickets weren't singing, were they? No they were as quiet as they'd been after Kiku Oyama's last breath. She told herself she'd make tea.
She went to make tea. She put out a warm towel, wrapped the tea kettle in it as you did in those days, took it off, and then went to check the locks again. When she came back, the towel was gone, and she heard her name clearly spoken. A woman's voice.
Oh Julia, the voice said, You're about to be proven right as I was, and have no comfort.
And then the towel came down around her throat; and then the towel squeezed; and they say that she never did see the man who was the strangler but they also say it was no man who kilt her at all, but the women whose deaths she'd sought to profit by, the women whose prediction she hadn't been able to use to save them or to bring them justice, and did she live to tell the tale? The towel around her throat; the crickets, their dying voice;
of course she did. She told her neighbor, laughing but with a wince every time she moved as if she were sitting on a bruise.
And then the next morning, she was found dead in her home, a towel wrapped around her throat, strangled.
(That's the story Jack tells in his Danny guise, and he tells it well.)
AlexDanny speaks, oh and how he speaks. In truth about halfway through he could be talking about waxing his car, or walking the dog. Because Alex, Alex is beside herself. No longer is she clearly paying attention to the world around her, her eyes are not on the approaching storm. Really she isn't even looking at Danny...she is lost in the telling. She'd never felt this way before save at music concerts when the bass passed through her and the high notes danced about her head. It was that same feeling, that same suspension of reality that she felt as she listened to the tale of the Market Street Strangler.
Perhaps Jack cum Danny would be impressed with himself, because Alex's ten minute arrival time grows further and further as she slows to take in the tale. When at last he finishes Alex takes a deep breath before letting it out loong and slow.
"That...is so fucked up, but you tell it like your selling holy water to the fucking leper's." She says with a chuckle, an actual smile briefly breaking across her lips.
Nobody
The pale blonde shrugs his shoulders, false modesty, and runs his fingers over his neatly combed hair, but his ears lift a touch when he smiles, glancing back over the dark-saturated Riverside Cemetery, all full of shadows and possibilities and who knows what else: things moving in the dark.
"Holy water's supposed to be good for lepers, Father O'Malley always said. Holy water's good for everything, isn't that so?"
A joke. "Phew. I wonder where her grave is."
Alex"huh...never thought about it." Alex said looking around at the graveyard before them. She might well have heard about that Denver horror story before, maybe in class when she was young, or from a friend in her formative years. But now with the retelling by Dan, her interest is rekindled and her mind alight with the curious possibilities.
"You'd think it would be public record wouldn't you? I mean it wasn't that fucking long ago, and even old records we still keep in archives downtown."
Nobody"There's a lot of stuff people think are secrets that are actually just out there if you know where to look or who to ask, public record being what it is," Danny boy says, agreeing with her. He looks at the expression on her face as she looks at the graveyard, and then says, sounding really curious himself, "You got an interest in ghost hunting or the supernatural?"
AlexDid she have an interest in the supernatural....that was an understatement, but then all of her interest in the supernatural came from direct head on confrontation, not so much from hunting through a cemetery in search of some dead womans final resting place.
So Alex shrugs casually, trying to play it down and said. "Sorta, the supernatural that is...ghost hunting is just a bunch of funny shows you see on TV where people pretend to see shit so far as I can tell." She smirks once more as she started towards the parking lot again.
"But yeah...i guess I do." She said looking over at Dan before asking the logical question. "Why? You lookin for a watson?"
Nobody"I wouldn't mind finding the grave," 'Danny' says, "Not at all. Be a nice hike, wouldn't it? Especially at night, when all over is spooky and spooksome, sure, and the shadows are long, but I'm not the one who's the expert on the supernatural." He says it like he's got someone in mind. Which he does, see? "You ever meet a kid named Harald?"
AlexHe speaks of taking a walk one night to look for the grave, and Alex raises a brow, perhaps skeptical at doing such a juvenile thing...but his tale still rang in her ears and more importantly in her heart.
"Nah never met him...but if you ever do decide to go for that walk.....gimme a ring." She says, and in that moment she holds out her hand. "Also...I'd love my phone back right about now thanks." She said beckoning for him to fork it over.
Nobody
He looks at the phone as if he's forgotten he had it. More importantly: he starts and looks to see if he's received a text back from whoever it was he was texting, but no such luck. He says, "Hold on," and then sends another text. This time to a different number, if Alex looks through them, and when he hands her the phone it's with a cheeky, "So I can give you a ring."
He'd looked at the time, too, apparently, because the pale man looks out across the parking lot, squinting, and says, "I guess I should try and catch the bus before it's too late."
Thunder. Ominous. It's a bad sign. It has to be a bad sign; a couple of drops. "It sure was swell meeting you, Alex."
Of course he'll linger for any parting shots; and he's not a runner, or doesn't seem to be - but he does wander across the parking lot, going, going, around a corner, gone,
and then once out of sight, Unseen again.
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