Delta Green - All Part of the Job

Killer Out of Space - Session 4a

Agent RUBY threw the van in reverse, and cut the wheel hard to the right. With the van now pointing directly away from the light, she put the accelerator to the floorboard. It took only a couple minutes to reach the house which the agents were using as a base of operations. RUBY parked the white van with the NASA logo out front, and she left it running as she and Agent SID got out. The front door was locked, and so they went around back.

The back door opened quietly, and RUBY immediately headed for a bedroom. She fell onto the bed and was asleep before she landed. Agent SID followed and waited for a moment. As soon as he heard snoring, he gently relieved RUBY of her gun.

From the junkyard across the street, Agent SETH saw the van pull up. He watched through night-vision binoculars as RUBY and SID got out. He whispered for ROSE to sit tight, and then he made a dash out of the junkyard and over to the house. The other agents were inside already by the time he got there.

After a brief exchange accusations and denials regarding the alleged abandonment of an injured agent, SETH and SID managed to agree that it was good that they were both alive. SID only wanted to curl up and get some sleep, but SETH had other plans – plans that required three agents. First thing was to hide the van. SETH moved it into the wheat field behind the house and covered it with a tarp.

That’s when they heard the hum of an electromagnet coming from across the street. The floating ball of colors had returned, and ROSE had hit her button. The thing pulsed and swirled for a moment, hovering in place. As SETH came running with SID stumbling behind, they saw the light float away to the north.

The agents each took up a spot by a different magnet, and they waited for the light to return. After about an hour, SID had already nodded off a few times, only to startle himself awake. He thought he saw something in the field behind ROSE, and so he shouted as he drew his newly borrowed gun. ROSE looked his direction, and SID fired a shot over her shoulder. She gave him a dirty look, and then she turned to see what he was shooting at. He’d been jumping at shadows for quite some time now, but it turned out that this time he’d actually seen something. A man stumbled out of the field, coming in her direction. He hadn’t made it ten feet out of the field before he fell forward and hit the ground. The man crawled through the grass toward the fence that separated them, and it appeared to ROSE that he had lost part of his right leg when he fell.

The man reached the fence, but it was dark, and his face was in the dirt, so she couldn’t see him well. He reached a shaky hand up toward her, and his fingers grasped at the fence. His skin was grey and cracked, and as the man clutched at the fence his arm fell to the ground. His fingers had literally broken off and fallen at ROSE’s feet.

She asked who he was, and he struggled to lift his face. She gasped when she realized it was Pete Watson, the doctor she’d met at the roadblock. SETH narrowed his eyes upon learning the man’s identity, but he wasn’t nearly as shaken as Agent ROSE was. His attitude was more of an ‘I told you so’, or maybe a ‘That’s why we follow orders’. He had advised the doctor to stay out of the quarantine zone.

It was nearly sunrise, and so SID and ROSE went back to the house for some sleep. SETH decided to scout for a bit first, and he headed toward the site of the downed shuttle. When he arrived, he was interested to note that the shuttle was gone. NASA must have found everything they needed and transported the incapacitated craft. Agent SETH scanned his surroundings with his night-vision binoculars, and he found some activity to the north. There were people in NBC suits moving through the fields surrounding the two farm houses he’d seen upon first arriving in the area. They seemed to be moving in a grid pattern and taking readings with electronic equipment.

He made a note of this, and headed back to the house. The sun was just starting to rise as he made it back. SETH took a spot on the couch, abut before he could fall fully asleep, he heard what sounded like two helicopters outside. Peeking out the window, he saw a large transport helicopter heading toward town. Then sleep caught up with him.

Killer Out of Space - Session 4b

Early that evening, the house was full of the smells of bacon and coffee. RUBY was awake and cooking, and that roused the others. They could hear some activity across the street at the junkyard, and so SETH decided to see what was going on. There were four Humvees parked there, and he counted ten people in NBC suits; six of them lowering a large object into a hole dug in the center of the yard, and four standing guard with assault rifles.

Agent SETH went out to the van hoping to find some NBC suits. There were in fact two suits, and so he took them. He also found a satellite phone. When he got back to the house, he tossed a suit to a semi-conscious Agent SID and told him to get dressed. He also handed the satellite phone to ROSE and asked her to see what she could do with it.

Once they were in the NBC suits, SETH and SID started for the junkyard. As they left the house, there was a commotion across the street. Everyone was looking all around, pointing and shouting. The four with rifles stood in the center of the yard, and the ball of pulsing color zipped out from behind a stack of junked cars. It paused in the center of the yard with the soldiers surrounding it. All four aimed their rifles, shouted, and fired. All four fell dead. Either the bullets had passed through the thing without effect, or they had all taken unlucky ricochets. Regardless of the truth, the end result was the same.

As the swirling ball of light headed off toward town, SETH and SID made it to the junkyard. SETH used the chaos to get close to the hole and take a few pictures of the object with his phone. It was a large, metal object with no writing or obvious markings that he could see. It looked like a grey Tylenol pill roughly eight feet long by four feet in diameter. There were cables running from one end of it into the dirt. The hole was just deep enough to hold the object which he guessed was probably a large bomb of some sort, and it was loosely covered and disguised with scraps of metal.

Before he was spotted, SETH put away his phone and slipped away toward the house. Agent SID wasn’t quite so lucky. Before he could make an escape, someone pointed at him and barked an order. He was instructed to man one of the magnets in case the ball of light came back. He did as he was told, and it was several hours before the color was spotted. Someone ordered the lights turned out, and then everyone waited.

The ball of pulsing, kaleidoscopic light made its way to the center of the yard, and the order was given to switch on the magnets. Only Agent SID managed to get his operational. The other two people were huddled behind their respective cranes. The ball of light immediately withdrew from SID’s magnet, pulsed a bit, and then sped off through the field to the north.

With dawn on its way, replacements arrived to stand guard during the day. Everyone else loaded up the dead and rode back to town. Agent SID went along. The pain in his throat was getting stronger, and he was hoping to get back to the makeshift infirmary from which Agent RUBY had kidnapped him the previous day.

Agent ROSE explained to Agent SETH how the satellite phone operated, and he traded his phone for it. ROSE looked over the pictures of the object while SETH called his commanding officer.

The pictures weren’t bad at all given the poor lighting, chaotic conditions, and the fact that they were taken on a cell phone by someone with no photography training. She could make out a groove in the top of the thing which appeared to indicate that it opened. As for what it may or may not contain, she couldn’t be certain. She was pretty sure it wasn’t a bomb, despite the cables coming out of the side.

SETH explained to his commanding officer that he was in Kansas, on his way to Los Angeles, but there was a quarantine zone in his way. He hoped someone could give him a number to reach the person in charge of the area. His commanding officer told him the person in charge was Brigadier General Justin Drake, and that the general had actually called recently to ask about him.

Agent SETH was told that the quarantine zone was in place for a good reason, and he should respect it. If he wanted to get to Los Angeles, his best bet would be to fly, but if he insisted on driving, he should go around. SETH thanked his commanding officer for his help, and he hung up.

The next day was rather uneventful. Agent SID was in the infirmary receiving medical attention. Agents ROSE, RUBY, and SETH were waiting until nightfall, and no one had heard from RED or SERGE in days. That night, the agents in the house decided to play it safe and watch the junkyard from their base. Just as the night before, the glowing ball of colors came from the north, and it seemed to avoid the junkyard on its way to the town. Just as the night before, it came back to the junkyard on its way back.

This time, two of the magnets were switched on, but the operator of the third seemed to have missed his cue. The color fled the two magnets and floated through the field to the north as quickly as it could. None of these details were lost on the agents, and they set to work on their plan.

Killer Out of Space - Session 5

The agents seem to have settled into a passive role. The next day was spent waiting for nightfall, but there was some discussion about the nature of the light they were seeing each evening, what effect the magnets seemed to have, and what was going on in the junkyard.

Agent SID checked himself out of the infirmary and went to see General Drake. The lieutenant admitted him, and the general remained quiet until he received a salute.

“What can I do for you, master sergeant?” The general seemed tired but not particularly busy.

“I’m feeling a lot better, and I’d like to go to the junkyard.”

“And just why in the hell would I want you out there, Sergeant Gump?” The general seemed almost amused by the request.

Agent SID explained that he and his friends had been watching the ball of light for a week now, and while he personally didn’t know much about it, the others did. The general asked where the others were, and Agent SID’s response was simply that they were in the area of the junkyard. General Drake ordered his lieutenant to gather a few soldiers and escort Sergeant Gump to the junkyard like he had asked.

Once it began to get dark, Agent SETH took up a position in the wheat field north of the junkyard and watched. There were nine people in NBC suits; one manning each of the three magnets, four with assault rifles, and two who seemed to be escorting a man who was not in an NBC suit. This man seemed to be in his late 30’s, and of roughly average height with a light build. He wore a dark suit with an ID badge clipped to his jacket.

The man seemed to be the one in charge. He spoke very little, and he kept his hands behind his back and his eyes to the north. After a while, a Humvee arrived, and Agent SID got out. He was accompanied by three soldiers in blue berets. None of them were in NBC suits, and they didn’t particularly seem to care.

They hardly had time to exit the vehicle before there was a glow in the field to the north. The man in the dark suit raised his hand without a word, and the whole yard fell silent. A moment later, the all too familiar ball of light emerged and floated toward the center of the junkyard. The man in the suit quickly lowered his hand in a sweeping gesture, like he was waving a flag to start a race.

One magnet hummed as it powered up, and then a second magnet did the same. The operator of the third magnet missed his cue because he was too busy hitting the dirt and covering his head. The ball of light pulsed and swirled for only a moment before flying off toward the town.

The agents maintained their positions through the night; SETH in the field, SID in the junkyard, and ROSE and RUBY in the farm house. Shortly before dawn, the light returned from the direction of town. Again, only two magnets were activated, and the color fled to the north. Agent SETH headed back to the farm house, and SID followed as soon as he managed to sneak away.

Agent RUBY remembered the orb she’d found in the well, and she gently removed it from her purse and placed it on the kitchen table for ROSE to see. She explained that it had been buried in the mud at the bottom of a well at the ruined farm house, and she offered her theory that it might be an egg containing a young version of the light that was terrorizing the small town.

The agents decided to rest until noon, and then they walked the two miles or so through the fields until they arrived at the collapsed farm with the overgrown fields and nearly hidden well. They looked into the well, but all they saw was mud. Agent SETH hammered a spike into the ground to anchor a rope, and SID climbed down. He sunk in the mud until it was a few inches over his ankles. He scanned the well, but he didn’t see anything. Before SID could feel under the surface of the mud, Agent SETH thought he saw a faint glow poke through and sounded the alarm.

SID climbed the rope as quickly as he could, and all four agents fled through the field and across the street to the abandoned farm house. Once inside, they caught their breath and discussed how to handle this new development.

Killer Out of Space - Session 6a

The decision was made to wait until nightfall and watch the well. As it was early afternoon, the agents had some waiting to do, and time passed rather uneventfully. Night did eventually fall, and when it did, the ball of kaleidoscopic light rose from the well as they had predicted. They watched as it floated through the wheat field to the south. Once it was out of sight, they made their move.

The agents quickly crossed the dirt road and hiked through the overgrown field to the well. Just as they had done earlier that day, Agent SETH set the rope, and Agent SID slid down into the well, sinking into the mud. RUBY held a flashlight, and ROSE kept watch.

SID felt around beneath the mud with his hands, and he felt several of the softball-sized orbs. He scooped one into his backpack, but the second one cracked in his hand. As the vivid, colorful insides leaked out onto his skin, he began to feel an intense burning with an odd sucking sensation. The contents of the orb soaked into his skin, and almost immediately his hand began turning grey. His flesh dried and cracked as he watched, and it was slowly moving up his arm. It was past his wrist before he managed to start climbing the rope with his left hand. He was right-handed, and he’d already lost the use of it.

Once he was back on ground level, Agent SID showed the others what was happening. ROSE and SETH paused with wide eyes, and RUBY held out her knife in a no-nonsense, “you know what to do” sort of manner. Agent SID took the knife with his left hand and looked at the spreading death of his dominant arm. It was half-way to his elbow.

SETH discouraged him from actually attempting to cut off his own arm, and for his part, SID was relieved. He sincerely doubted he had what it would take to go through with the operation. Instead, he pointed to the southwest with his good arm and announced his intention to return once more to the makeshift infirmary in Gove. RUBY was already on her way down the rope, and ROSE was lighting her way, but SETH wished him luck.

Agent RUBY’s feet sank in the thick mud at the bottom of the well, and she immediately set to work gently fishing the orbs out with a board and rolling them into her purse and two backpacks. There were still many left when her containers were full, but she left them. Climbing as carefully as she could, she made it back to the surface. She set the bags down about twenty feet or so from the well and motioned for ROSE to follow her.

The two members of R-Cell headed for the ruins of the barn to search for anything which could be used as an object of destruction; sledgehammer, explosives, tractor … They managed to find a rake and a ten-gallon gas can which was nearly full. RUBY carried the gas can back to the well and began casually dumping the contents to the bottom. She made sure to coat the entirety of the rope before lighting it and stepping back. The fire burned for quite a while, and the night air was filled with crackling, sizzling, popping, and whistling. Once the job was done, the agents each took up a bag and headed back toward the junkyard.

Agent SID stumbled for what seemed like miles through a dark corn field, and he hoped he was headed in the right direction. The fact that he found the edge of the field was a good sign, and the dirt road he saw was an even better one.

It was hard to see but easy to feel the progress of the creeping death of his arm. It was now past his elbow. He knew he didn’t have much more time, and his mind was already preparing him. That’s why he wasn’t surprised when he saw the ball of color coming down the road toward him followed by an odd rumbling sound.

The rumbling quieted as the ball stopped in front of him and spoke. In English.

“You there! This area is under quarantine. Come on out.”

Agent SID did as the rumbling ball of kaleidoscopic light ordered, and he put his hands in the air. As he did so, his right hand simply crumbled into dust. The ball of light then spoke in two different voices.

“Jesus! Did you see that?”

“Yeah! That’s messed up!”

“Damn it, man! Get in the jeep!”

The ball of light grabbed him … somehow, and the rumbling started back up as it sped him off toward town. He must have passed out because the trip was almost instantaneous, and when he regained his senses, two people in NBC suits were lifting him out of a jeep. They carried him into a building, and he once again lost consciousness.

The other three agents arrived at the junkyard to see what had become usual activity; one person in an NBC suit at each of the three magnets, four people in NBC suits with rifles patrolling, and two people in NBC suits standing next to a man in a dark suit with a NASA badge.

SETH took up his usual observational spot in the field while RUBY and ROSE simply walked right through the front gate. One of the guards saw them and headed them off.

“Who are you? What are you doing here? This area is restricted.”

Agent RUBY flashed her fake NASA credentials while Agent ROSE tried to look like she belonged.

“You’ll need to talk to Dr. Hudson.”

The guard motioned toward the man in the dark suit and led them over.

Dr. Hudson looked at them as if he expected them to explain their presence. Agent RUBY once again flashed her NASA credentials while Agent ROSE just fit in.

“Amelia Larce, NASA.”

The man raised his eyebrow.

“Doctor Morris Hudson, also NASA. You no doubt know I’m the head of field operations here, but I don’t believe I know your role.”

Agent RUBY explained that she knew about the ball of color, where it rested during the day, and what it did at night. She also explained that she and her team had found what they believed to be the creature’s eggs. To emphasize this, she gently lifted one from her purse.

Dr. Hudson made a thoughtful sound as he nodded slowly.

“Assuming this is in fact an egg, what were you planning to do with it?”

“I know you and your team have been having trouble capturing this thing, so I thought I would help. We can use them as bait.” She smiled to indicate that she was really only questioning his competency in a friendly manner.

Dr. Hudson sighed and nodded. One of the people standing next to him took the orb from her and looked at it for a moment. RUBY told him to be careful with it just as he squeezed a little too hard. The orb cracked. When the colorful contents oozed out, it dissolved a hole through his glove. The man in the NBC suit held up his arm and screamed as he dropped to one knee. He then rolled over onto his side, flailing and eventually only twitching.

Dr. Hudson barked an order, and one of the guards ended the man’s suffering with a single bullet. The doctor then turned a disapproving look toward Agent RUBY. She simply shrugged and reminded him the orbs were dangerous. The doctor told her to place the rest herself, and she did so.

Agent SETH had used the distraction to climb the fence and place the two backpacks in the trunk of a junked car. RUBY saw him, and he held a finger to his lips. No one else seemed to have noticed him, and so he climbed back over the fence to watch from the field.

While RUBY didn’t exactly call out Agent SETH, she did indicate to Dr. Hudson that she had another associate in the area. She suggested that part of the problem might be that there was only one person manning each magnet, and that she and her team might be able to serve as fail-safes. Dr. Hudson agreed, and so Agent RUBY called SETH over. Each agent took up a spot next to a person manning a magnet, and all that was left was to wait.

Killer Out of Space - Session 6b

Agent SID awoke in a hospital bed and immediately noticed his right arm had been removed just below the shoulder. A soldier in a blue beret was watching him from a chair next to the bed. As soon as the soldier saw that SID was awake, he stood.

“Ready to see the general?”

Agent SID nodded and made an effort to stand. There was a crutch leaning against the bed, and this helped a lot. The soldier escorted him outside and to the general’s trailer. He left SID alone with the general. General Drake leaned forward in his chair.

“I’ll understand if you don’t salute, Master Sergeant. Sit.”

The general indicated a chair on the other side of his desk, and Agent SID did as he was asked.

“I think today is your lucky day, soldier.”

SID didn’t seem so sure, and he let the general know.

“Well now, son. We just might be able to fix that. Can you sign your name with your other hand?”

Agent SID said he thought he might be able to, but he wondered why he would want to test the theory. General Drake slid some official looking papers across the desk. SID didn’t understand everything in the document, but it seemed to be some sort of medical release form for experimental surgery. He signed as best he could, and the general nodded.

“Of course this means you’ll need a promotion, soldier. If we put this kind of money into you, you’re going to owe your life to the United States Army. With any luck, I’ll shake your hand in a month or two, Captain Gump. And I’ll be expecting that salute as well.”

The general called, and two soldiers in blue berets entered to escort Agent SID to a helicopter. They took off in short order, and they headed east. From the ground, the other agents noticed the helicopter pass over the junkyard, but they were unaware that Agent SID was aboard.

Dawn finally neared, and with it, the ball of swirling color. It headed out of town and down the road toward the junkyard. The creature floated into the junkyard, and it didn’t take long for it to notice the two orbs resting on the pile of junk in the center of the yard.

The color hovered in the air just above the orbs, and it began to pulse and swirl furiously. Dr. Hudson shouted for the magnets, and with two people at each station, all three magnets were engaged. The creature seemed to bounce back and forth in a sort of force field, but it was unable to escape.

Dr. Hudson raised his hand and then dropped it quickly. As he did so, the capsule in the pit opened, and a bright light with a pale blue tint shot out. The ball of color seemed to flicker and fade before being pulled down into the pit. Once it was gone, the capsule closed.

There was cheering all around from everyone but Dr. Hudson and the agents. The doctor simply made a quick call on a satellite phone, and several minutes later, a white NASA van arrived. The people in NBC suits lifted the capsule out of the pit and placed it in the back of the van. Once the doors were closed, the van headed off toward town.

Amid all the celebration, the agents slipped away; ROSE and RUBY went to the farm house, and SETH ran to the field behind the house where he had left the other van. He quickly got it started and attempted to follow, but the van with the capsule had a head start. He arrived in town just in time to see the capsule loaded onto a transport helicopter.

He headed back to the farm house, called A-Cell to make his report, and then returned to the junkyard. He retrieved the two backpacks full of orbs and dropped them in a barrel. A liberal amount of gasoline and one match later, and there was no evidence left in the quarantine zone.

Mission accomplished. It may not have gone as well as he had hoped. He may not have ever found a trace of the man who called his Delta Green phone when he was still in the hospital. Agent SID may be dust in a corn field … It was still a victory. The “anthrax outbreak” was over, and the quarantine over western Kansas could be lifted. The American people would never know the truth.

The agents spent one final night in the farm house before making their way back to Wichita, and from there to their respective homes. A few weeks passed before Agent SID returned SETH’s call, but all was well.

SID had a new arm, and it didn’t just look and feel real. It was real. Not only that, but it was much stronger than it used to be. The only lingering side effect was that he periodically had blurry, fevered flashbacks; visions or dreams of his operation. There had been four doctors, but he was only ever sure that two of them were human. Whether it was the drugs or the stress, he had the distinct impression that the other two were very thin with grey skin and large black eyes.

Regardless of the truth, all four agents had survived, and they could finally say they were not in Kansas anymore.

Music From A Darkened Room - Introduction

R-Cell
Agent ROSE – Gia Jones, FinCEN Investigator, Leader of R-Cell – Computer crimes specialist (formerly Agent SAM)
Agent RUBY – Amelia Larce, DoE Nuclear Emergency Search Team

S-Cell
Agent SETH – Ian Trotter, INSCOM Special Agent, Leader of S-Cell – Army Intelligence criminal psychologist
Agent SID – Cramer Gump, INSCOM "Black" Ops Agent

Former Agents
Agent RAPSCALLION (deceased) – Tatom Merzos – U.S. Marshall’s office, Special Operations
Agent RAPUNZEL (deceased) – Yuki Anderson, FBI Forensic Pathologist
Agent RASPUTIN (retired) – Grigori Ruspokov, CDC Researcher/Surgeon – Russian-born naturalized citizen
Agent ROBIN (deceased) – Chika Takahashi, EPA Biologist and Environmental Scientist – Japanese-born naturalized citizen
Agent SÁBADO (deceased) – Marcus Hernandez, IRS Investigator – Computer crimes specialist
Agent SERGE (missing) – Ferdinand Bazinet, Federal Research Division, French-language occult documents specialist
Agent SLEEPLESS (deceased) - Reginald Longbottom, NSA Cult Infiltration Specialist


Seven months have passed since the Kansas incident. It is now a few days after Thanksgiving Day, 2010. Just as the agents are finally managing to return to some semblance of normalcy, Agents ROSE and SETH open their respective mailboxes. Amidst the countless holiday advertisements, they each found a plain white envelope with no postage, no post mark, and no return address. Both envelopes contained an identical message:

DIRECTIVE FROM A-CELL

You are to investigate the death of Agent GARRET, and the suspicious circumstances of said death. Focus attention on 1206 Spooner Avenue, Laconia, NH. This house has been brought to the attention of A-Cell before, and is deemed a paranormal threat. Extreme caution should be employed when investigating the Spooner Avenue house. It has been known to exhibit an unknown influence over skilled DG Agents.

Mission Instructions
•Determine the cause of death of Agent GARRET
•Determine if the 1206 Spooner Avenue house represents an ongoing threat to the public
•Once these two protocols are complete, contact A-Cell for further instructions

Possible Friendly Contacts
•Emil Yarrow, Parapsychologist
•Elizabeth Tucker, Antique Dealer

Green Box Locales
•Green Box 711 – Meadowbrook Store-It

Click to expand...

Agents RUBY and SID were informed, and all agents made their way to Laconia, New Hampshire.

Music From A Darkened Room - Session 1

S-Cell met at the Meadowbrook Inn to get settled as it was nearing midnight. R-Cell decided to meet up at the Green Box location and get started right away. There was no one in the office at the Meadowbrook Store-It, and there didn’t appear to be any night security, so ROSE and RUBY hopped right over the wall. It didn’t take long to find storage unit 711, and the lock was easily removed.

The door slid up to reveal a deep storage locker, and everything near the front seemed like it belonged. There was an antique table, a sofa bed, and two plastic wrapped twin mattresses. Behind the first layer, things still looked legitimate but borderline disturbing. There were three empty biohazard containers, two bags of quicklime, two new shovels, four pairs of work gloves, a hat-lamp, a three-and-a-half gallon metal container of gasoline with a pour spout, two new plastic gasoline containers, and three newly minted keys taped together in a piece of cardboard.

There was a third layer behind the second, and this is where things began to get questionable. The agents found 400 rounds of shotgun ammunition, two new Mossberg shotguns with serial numbers shaved off, fake IDs made out for one Arthur Donnelley (Meadowbrook gas inspector badge, and coroner ID), a Nikon F36 telephoto lens, a Nikon Reflex camera, the remains of two-dozen burned photographs with trace images of the house at 1206 Spooner Avenue, a 4-foot long, dirty wood coffin, and a notebook.

A small brass plaque identified the coffin as being that of one Anton Turé, and it was dated June, 1965. Agent ROSE opened the coffin to examine the contents, and she found the remains of a young child, now rotted to the point of disintegration.

Agent RUBY decided she would look over the notebook rather than help with the coffin. Most of the writing she found was barely intelligible scribbling and strange statements which seemed almost like math equations, but there were some details which seemed important:

Turé=not dead?/roaming the house?/only at night?/Grave? OCT10
Shovel, gloves, headlamp, cash? OCT 30
Burn it? Cruise tried: didn’t work. Others. Talk to survivors? Canadian mental health laws?
Music from dining room. Laughter/Noise upstairs.
Almost bought house! Means? +A alerted.
Someone else in house+Isari not returning calls.
Falcone death? Coroner?
Wheeler’s furniture/books or papers? Estate? NOV10
Talked to it tonight. Knew my name. Knows I’m watching. Called A today. Still no movement. Open house next week. Buy it? Burn it?

Click to expand...

Agent SETH checked into his room, ordered room service, and began to relax. As their hotel had a bar, and it was still open, Agent SID decided to go down and have a drink. It was quiet, but there were still some people in the bar. Agent SID struck up a conversation with a couple of older gentlemen, and he led around to the topic of the Spooner Avenue house.

The two men agreed that there was something very wrong with the house. Ever since the deaths of the original owners, there had been a long string tragedy; accidents, murders, suicides … They told SID it was best to just stay away. Agent SID thanked them for their stories, and he bought them another round.

Agents ROSE and RUBY closed up the Green Box, climbed back over the wall, and discussed what to do. It didn’t take long before they made the decision to investigate the house in person. Upon arriving, the agents found a typical suburban neighborhood with well-maintained houses and yards. The house they had been assigned to investigate was no different.

The lawn had not been mowed in a week or so, and the yard was covered in a thin layer of leaves. There was a room over the two-car garage, but otherwise the house was a single story. Ivy crawled up the front, but it wasn’t present on the other sides. The porch in front was covered, but the deck in back was not.

ROSE tried the back door and found it was unlocked. She stepped inside using her phone’s flash for light. Scanning the room quickly, she saw a fireplace, a couch, a few cardboard boxes, and some Styrofoam cups. Just as Agent RUBY was about to enter, the lights in the den flickered on and off quickly several times. During one of the brief moments of light, ROSE was sure she saw a long shadow of a woman in a gown, but the next time, it was gone. After the flickering had subsided, the lights remained on.

Agent ROSE was standing in the center of the den when her phone rang. Agent SETH was calling to check in, and he was not happy to learn that R-Cell was at the house alone. After a brief argument, they agreed to meet at the hotel to formulate a plan.

Shortly after 1:00 AM on the Monday after Thanksgiving, and all four Delta Green agents were spending their time in the lobby of the Meadowbrook Inn in Laconia, NH speaking in hushed tones and borrowing the free wi-fi to research 1206 Spooner Avenue and its long history of tragedy.

They knew that Michael Wheeler, a wealthy stone mason, had built the house in 1907 for his wife Isabelle. The newspaper article didn’t have much more information than that.

George and Margaret Cruise had purchased the house in 1956 after Isabelle’s death, and they began extensive remodeling including the rather expensive restoration of floor to ceiling, wall-length mirrors in the master bedroom. Friends and neighbors reported a change in George and Margaret’s behavior after less than a year in the house. George had become withdrawn and spent most of his time at work, or at church services. Margaret had become rude and pushy; by all accounts the opposite of her former self.

In October of 1959, George Cruise drove to a sporting goods store and purchased a double-barreled shotgun and several rounds, drove home, and then shot his wife. He quickly set fire to the house, and then he turned the gun on himself. One of the neighbors had managed to put out the fire before it could spread.

The house had several owners in the intervening years, but Agent ROSE was unable to find a complete list. The city’s website directed her to the city hall for more information, and so the agents put that on their to-do list for the morning.

ROSE was able to find information on the house’s two most recent owners. A woman named Yamilla Isari had purchased the house in 2007 and lived there until her recent suicide, and FBI Special Agent Arthur Donnelly bought the place a little over a week ago. The article said that “both suicides occurred under identical circumstances”, but it didn’t elaborate.

There were plenty of leads, and Agent SETH insisted on waiting until morning to follow them.

Music From A Darkened Room - Session 2a

The agents all awoke early and met at a local diner for breakfast. They decided to put an actual physical visit to the house on hold for the time being to focus on information gathering. SETH would check with the coroner regarding the death of Special Agent Donnelly, SID would check the records at City Hall and the Laconia Daily Sun newspaper for any useful historical information regarding the house, ROSE would contact Emil Yarrow the parapsychologist and Delta Green Friendly, and RUBY would scout the antique shop run by the other Friendly, Elizabeth Tucker. It seemed like a solid plan with minimal risk and fair potential.

Agent SETH arrived at the Lakes Region General Hospital and found a map. A red dot showed his current location as being in the main lobby, and his destination was down one floor. The morgue was on the first basement level, and so he took the stairs rather than the ventilation ducts as he had done the last time he was in a hospital.

The basement level was quiet, but he still made an effort to be stealthy. That effort seemed to backfire when he accidentally leaned on an emergency exit door, but he managed to get away before anyone spotted him. In fact, there didn’t seem to be much response to the brief alarm at all.

Agent SETH found the morgue which was a split room. Most of the room held the various contents of a typical morgue; operating table, tools, drawers which probably held bodies … A small corner of the room was carpeted, and it was laid out like an office. A tired looking man in his early- to mid-50’s sat behind a desk. His name badge identified him as Doctor Elmer Perkins.

Dr. Perkins looked up from his paperwork as Agent SETH entered, and he attempted a weary smile. SETH greeted the man and produced his INSCOM credentials. He informed the doctor that he was in town to put the closing touches on the life of Arthur Donnelly who he said was a highly decorated soldier in the U.S. Army before he joined the FBI. The doctor said he was unaware of Donnelly’s military service, but he was not surprised. Many service members transition naturally into law enforcement.

The INSCOM badge and cover story were good enough for Dr. Perkins, and he allowed Agent SETH access to the entire contents of Donnelly’s file. SETH took a copy of the death certificate, coroner’s report, and fingerprinting. The death was ruled a suicide by apparent razorblade cut to the throat though it was noted that no blade was found at the scene.

ROSE found the number for Emil Yarrow, an associate professor of abnormal psychology at Southern New Hampshire University. Dr. Yarrow was enthusiastic. He had never been inside the Spooner Avenue house, but he had heard many stories, and he’d always wanted to give it a look. He agreed to meet ROSE in Laconia that evening to discuss the matter further. After the call, ROSE headed to meet up with Agent SID as his work would be most likely to benefit from an additional set of hands and eyes.

Agent SID had walked to City Hall since the hotel was only a few blocks away, and the weather was cool but nice. He had the task of digging through old files and archives, and that task kept him occupied for hours. His research was slow and boring, but it was ultimately fruitful. With the help of the clerks at City Hall and the newspaper, he was able to organize a boxful of documents relating to the house and its long string of owners. The information wasn’t very detailed, but it provided a timeline and plenty of names.

Michael and Isabelle Wheeler had built the house in 1907. Isabelle suffered from a sort of wasting disease, and her husband built the house so that she might be comfortable for her last years. He died in 1910, but she had apparently survived to see the year 1956. A newspaper article briefly mentioned her complete recovery from whatever disease had been trying to take her life.

After Isabelle’s death, the house had been purchased by George and Margaret Cruise. ROSE had uncovered their tragic story the night before.

Searching for information on the Turé family turned up another tragic story. Adam and Rebecca Turé purchased the house after yet another owner’s accidental death. They had moved to Laconia from Montreal with their two small children, Elise and Anton. They lived in the house for about a year with no incident before Rebecca was briefly hospitalized for “mental exhaustion”. She returned home to find that her children were becoming violent and angry.

One day, she found Anton drowned in the toilet bowl of the master bedroom. The door to the bathroom had been locked from the inside, and there was no one else in the room when the door was opened. This incident was more than she could handle, and her already over-stressed mind snapped. Records indicated that she was hospitalized indefinitely at an unnamed facility in Canada.

Music From A Darkened Room - Session 2b

Agent ROSE’s Delta Green phone rang, and when she answered, Agent RUBY was on the other end.

“Hey, ROSE. It’s me. Look, I’m at the house, and … Are you busy? Can you come here? There’s something I think you should see.”

“I’m just helping SID go through some papers. Yeah. Yeah, I’ll be right there.”

ROSE excused herself from the rest of the research, and she left to meet up with her cell member. Agent SID kept reading, sorting papers, taking notes, making copies …

The person named Falcone from Special Agent Donnelly’s notebook was apparently one Andrea Falcone. Her cause of death was listed as accidental suffocation, but there was nothing more to be found about the matter. After her death, the house was purchased by Yamilla Isari, a citizen of the United Arab Emirates, and recent graduate of the University of New Hampshire. Again, the rest of her story, and that of Special Agent Donnelly after her had already been uncovered the previous night.

SID found one more story about an owner named George Weaver. Weaver was a doctor who lived just one street over on Valley Road. When the house was finally put up for sale following the suicide of its previous owner, he had attended the open house. Against the cautioning of his neighbors and friends, he purchased the house on Spooner Avenue and moved in. He was found dead nine days later in the garage. The cause of death was determined to be electrocution, and the time was set at 2:30 AM which was easily determined. Whatever caused the electrocution had caused a circuit to blow. All of the clocks in the house showed 2:30. An investigator had gone on record as saying the death was puzzling because Dr. Weaver’s car was in the shop at the time of his death, and there was no apparent reason for his presence in the garage so early in the morning.

Agent SID called SETH to let him know what he had found. SETH said he had just finished up at the hospital, and he would swing by in the rental car.

ROSE arrived at the house and found the front door unlocked. She tested the three keys from the Green Box and found that one of them locked and unlocked the front door. She heard RUBY call from the direction of the master bedroom, and so she headed that direction. She proceeded with caution since that seemed to be the room where most of the deaths had occurred; the two most recent ones for sure.

When she stepped into the master bedroom, Agent ROSE saw floor-to-ceiling wall-length mirrors around the entire room. There were two windows in the wall opposite the door through which she entered, and there was another door to the bathroom on her right. That was presumably where Agent RUBY had called from.

ROSE shook off the disorienting effect of the mirrors and was about to check the bathroom when she felt a draft. The draft kicked up a feather which had apparently been resting on the floor in the corner, and so Agent ROSE crossed the room to check the windows. As she got closer, she could tell that the feather was not actually in the room at all, but it was most definitely reflected in the mirror … or maybe it was only on the other side of the mirror. As she watched the feather come to rest, she heard a sound behind her like something small and metallic dropping to the wooden floor.

She didn’t turn, but she scanned the mirrors in front of her for some sign of what might have happened. There was nothing behind her, and so she turned slowly around. On the floor behind her was an open straight razor with dried blood on the blade. In the mirror on the opposite wall, she saw a woman with long dark hair in a thin dressing gown.

The woman smiled, and both doors to the room slammed shut. Agent RUBY’s muffled voice could be heard from the bathroom. The woman in the mirror waved her hand in an upward motion, and the razor lifted off the ground. She waved it in a crossing motion, and it slashed at ROSE, catching her in the left shoulder and spraying blood across the floor, ceiling, and nearby walls.

Agent ROSE called out for RUBY, and there was a pounding from the other side of the bathroom door. RUBY could be heard on the other side, but her words were muffled. The razor spun in the air sending spatters of blood in all directions. The woman in the mirror made another motion, and ROSE ducked just in time.

Her phone began to ring, and ROSE decided she was a little too busy to chat. Without taking her eyes off the razor, she set her phone to silent. The razor slashed again, and it caught her once more leaving her shoulder with a wound in the shape of an ‘X’. More blood sprayed the room, and the woman in the mirror seemed to be enjoying every moment with a murderous glee.

Music From A Darkened Room - Session 2c

Agent SETH’s phone rang, and he answered to hear Agent RUBY asking what was wrong with ROSE, and why she wasn’t answering her phone. SETH replied that he didn’t know, but the last he’d heard, ROSE was with SID. He hung up while RUBY was in mid-response, and called ROSE only to get her voicemail.

Agent SID’s phone rang, and he was blindsided by a none-too-happy Agent RUBY.

“SID, don’t you dare hang up on me, too! What the hell is going on? Why isn’t ROSE answering her phone?”

“Calm down. She went to meet up with you at the house about fifteen minutes ago.”

“Why the hell would she go there? I thought the plan was to stay away until we knew more?”

“Yeah, but you called her, and …”

“And she didn’t answer!”

“No, no. You called and told her you were at the house. Something about needing to show her something.”

“I’m not at the house. I’m at the antique store like I was supposed to be! What the hell …”

Agent SID hung up on RUBY and called SETH. SETH said he couldn’t get a hold of ROSE, and SID informed his cell leader of her whereabouts. Agent SETH said he was on his way to the house, and he would be by City Hall to get SID. Agent SID let him know that he had finished a while ago, and he had gotten tired of waiting, so he walked back to the hotel. SETH’s excuse was that he had stopped off at the Green Box to get a few things.

The banging on the bathroom door continued, and RUBY’s muffled screams added to the tense situation. The straight razor spun in the air, and it casually tossed spatters of blood. ROSE made a grab for it with her good arm, but she missed. She yelled at the woman in the mirror and asked what she wanted. The woman threw back her head in silent laughter, and then she made another swipe with her hand.

The razor sliced through the air, and ROSE narrowly ducked out of the way. The razor crashed to the ground and slid across the wooden floor. Rather than coming to rest in the corner, it instead slid through the mirror leaving only a reflection on the other side. The woman had disappeared, and the pounding stopped.

Agent ROSE made her way to the bathroom and opened the door. The bathroom was dark and empty. She turned her ringer on as she quickly made her way outside. She called SETH to let him know what had happened at the house.

Agent SETH arrived at the house and performed some quick first aid while calling 911 for an ambulance. In no time, ROSE was off to the hospital.

She was more than a little upset to hear that RUBY was actually at the antique shop like she was supposed to be, and not at the house like she said she was. SETH was more than a little upset that ROSE was at the house when it was agreed that they would all stay away for the time being. RUBY was more than a little upset that the other agents kept hanging up on her mid-sentence, and SID was only a little upset that he got the boring research job and kept getting forgotten.

For its part, the house was content.