Story HourPost your ongoing tales from your campaigns, and read those from others for inspiration. Lots of other RPG boards post "Story Hours", but this is where it started!
“Daddy, daddy, daddy, daddy, DADDY!” came Alex’s voice.
Everyone groggily got to their feet. Blade’s son Alex was hopping up and down amongst them, completely ignorant that he was stepping on peoples’ chests and heads.
Blade snatched one of the robes supplied by the production company to cover the blood-soaked bandages around his chest. “What are you doing here?” Then realizing the implications of his son’s presence, he asked, “Where’s your mother?”
“Daddy, daddy,” Alex practically tackled his father. “Thank you soooo much for the puppy!”
“What?” asked Blade.
“The puppy! I always said I wanted a puppy and mommy wouldn’t get me one and then when Zander showed up she said some bad words but now she said I can keep him!”
“Uh…you’re welcome?”
“I knew you wouldn’t forget my birthday this year!” shouted Alex, beaming. “Mommy said you would and that I shouldn’t expect anything to be different but I knew it’d be different this year and oh yeah I didn’t forget your birthday either.” He dug in his pockets for a box.
“So you named the dog Zander?”
“Yeah, and he’s really smart! Here’s your birthday gift!” He thrust the tattered gift-wrapped box into Blade’s hands.
Blade looked down at it. Guppy and Archive, in various states of wakefulness, looked on in amusement. Hammer and Caprice hadn’t yet returned from their reconnaissance mission.
“Are you gonna open it?”
“Oh, right.” Blade tore open the paper and opened the box. It was a belt buckle with several coyotes in an Indian-style pictogram howling at the sky. Bits of turquoise represented the stars.
Blade hefted it in one hand. “Is this…solid gold?”
“Sure is!”
“How did you afford this Alex?”
Alex grinned. “Mommy said I could save my allowance and I did and after you got me Zander I saved up all my allowances and then mommy said I could pick one thing and I did and here it is! Do you like it?”
Blade, who slept in his jeans, took off the plain belt buckle he was wearing and slipped it on. “I love it,” he said with a genuine smile.
“Okay, dad, I gotta go!” He gave Blade a hug around the neck. “Mom gets mad when I’m out of sight for too long. See you later!”
He bounded out of the trailer. It slammed shut with a bang.
“He bought that with his allowance?” asked Guppy in disbelief.
“Yeah, Christine does well for herself,” said Blade. “But that’s not what’s weird.”
Vanvon filmed scenes throughout the day. Only Archive left the set to do research in the local library, which was miles away.
The manic director left Christine little time to catch her breath. All her scenes were crammed into the early shoot.
“Thanks for the puppy,” she snapped at Blade during one of her few breaks. “Alex would have had a meltdown if I didn’t let him keep the damn dog.”
“Welcome,” mumbled Blade.
“So what is this? Are you stalking me now? Is that how it’s going to be, you’ll be at every one of my shoots?”
Blade looked at her in disbelief. “You forget that I saved your life? Remember the lights falling? The crazy stalker?”
Christine looked sideways at him. She sighed and her defenses seemed to crumble. “Fine, right. I fired my security team after that, which is probably why Vanvon even let you on the set in the first place.” She jabbed a finger in his shoulder. “Look, don’t screw this up for me, okay? This film could be my big break. I need it. Alex and I both need it.”
Blade nodded. “I can make alimony payments again. As you pointed out, I’ve got a new job...”
Christine allowed a brief smile. “That’s not what I meant, but thanks. Just keep sending Alex gifts and I’ll consider us even. I’ve never seen him so happy.”
The boy was free to roam outside in the middle of the set with his puppy. The two of them ran around shouting and playing. To Vanvon’s credit, he refrained from bellowing at either of them. It wasn’t until Blade realized that Alex was dressed in period clothes that he figured it out; a kid and a dog running in the street would make for the perfect backdrop. Alex and Zander were just a prop to Vanvon. They were the next best thing to tumbleweeds.
“I’m glad,” said Blade.
“Listen…I was going to send Alex to camp.” Christine fixed her gaze on him. His heart skipped a beat. Christine was gorgeous, even when she was snarling at him. He forgot how startlingly blue her eyes were. “But he wants to stay with you. I told him I’d talk to you about it.”
“I think that’d be great,” said Blade. “I’d love to have him.”
Christine exhaled. She’d been holding her breath. “Good. I don’t like leaving him at camp. He needs a father figure in his life.”
The sun was setting. It was getting dark. “Alex!” shouted Christine. “Back to the trailer!”
“Okay mom,” came the faint response. The door slammed shut to her trailer.
The sunlight rapidly disappeared behind the distant mountains.
“Back to the saloon set, everyone!” shouted Vanvon. “It’s time for Jack’s scenes.”
Christine put on her game face and walked back onto the set.
"Can I have a cigarette?” she asked. “Where's my script? Derik? Derik!?"
"Yes," said VanVon. "What is it?"
"What is it?" asked Christine in disbelief. "What's the shot? What's going on here?"
Vanvon walked listlessly to her.
"All right," says Vanvon. "Christine, this is the scene from the night before, where you first have Drake for dinner. Dan has tried his damndest to convince you that hiring a hitman is not the way to deal with Buffer, but you don't believe him. Is that clear? Good, start eating. And you, Robey,” he pointed at a figure that was standing on the edge of pools of light, just outside their vision. “Ignore your guest and read the papers she brought you.”
Jack, dressed in his fedora and dark red duster, stepped into the light, but a gloom seemed to hang over him. His features were still obscured by the hat.
“Good,” said Vanvon. “Excellent. Roll camera. And--action!"
Christine ate uneasily while Jack pored over a document.
"Look at your host, Dolores," said Vanvon. "Could this have been the stranger who fought with Buffer?"
Jack, his face concealed by a heavy wrap, continued read the document.
"Are you afraid of him?" asked Vanvon. "Is he even human? How do you feel about eating near him? About spending the night with him alone?"
Christine ate distractedly.
"Now reach for the knife," said Vanvon. "Cut a slice of bread. Slice...slice...watch your finger, Christine..."
Christine, her attention fixed on Jack, cut her thumb. A little blood welled up.
"Damn!" shouted Christine.
"Look!" shouted Vanvon. "Blood, BLOOD!!"
Jack looked up, dropped the contract, and stood quickly. He began breathing very hard and tried to grab Christine’s hand. She pulled away.
"Damn it, Vanvon," said Christine. " I really cut myself!"
"Calm down, Christine!" said Vanvon..
"You did that intentionally!" shouted Christine. "That knife was sharpened like a razor!"
Jack grabbed Christine's hand again.
"Jesus Christ!" shouted Christine. "Get this off of me!"
Blade took a step forward when the light and camera tipped over and the darkness in the room was total. Guppy located another light and hooked it up.
Wilson was prone on the ground.
"My God," shouted Kalms. "Homer!" He rushed to Wilson's side and kneeled down. Behind him, the upended camera spooled film onto the ground.
"Homer!" shouted Christine, standing over Wilson’s body helplessly. "Damn it, Derik, he isn't breathing!"
Vanvon hurried over to him. "Christine, get back to your trailer." No one moved.
"I said get the film, take it to the trailer!" He shoves Kalms and grabbed Christine by the arm. "Christine, move!"
But Christine just stood where she was and stared. "Leave the rest. Christine, help him with the film."
Nothing.
"Randy!" shouted Vanvon. Nothing.
Vanvon stood speechless, his worst nightmare realized: he'd lost control of his film.
The film finished rolling out of the open camera. When it stopped, Hammer stood up from examining the body. “He’s dead.”
"Help me with Homer," said Blade. He and Hammer lifted Wilson's body and started to carry it out.
"We're finished for the night," says Kalms. "Everyone to their trailers."
They all hurried out. Vanvon glared at them, standing his ground by the broken camera.
"Let's go, Derik," said Kalms. "Leave the damn camera."
Vanvon followed angrily.
When the others were gone, the agents were all that remained.
Guppy was staring at his hand, a strange device patched together with duct tape. It looked like a spotlight. “That’s so strange.”
“What?” asked Archive.
“I built this device…it’s an ultraviolet projector. I tried to aim it at Jack.” Guppy looked down at his hand again, as if it didn’t belong to him. “But I couldn’t. It was almost like…”
“I still think we should have put the body in a freezer,” said Caprice as he shoveled another pile of dirt out of the makeshift grave.
“You mean the drink freezer?” asked Hammer.
“We could just tell people not to get any drinks,” began Guppy when Blade shushed him.
He pointed. Off in the distance, they could see the headlights of a vehicle pulling away. In total darkness, the driver couldn’t see what they were up to. Which was the point.
“That’s a Hummer,” said Caprice.
“Vanvon.” He nodded towards Guppy and Caprice. “Let’s go.” Hammer was still digging. “I’ll call you if we find anything.”
They took off in the direction of the hill where Vanvon’s Hummer was. It turned out to be the opening to a mineshaft.
The mine sloped downward into the earth. The mouth of the shaft was still clogged with hunks of stone and wooden timbers. There was a pile of rubble near the edge of the shaft and the timbers and stones showed recent marks.
Caprice wrinkled his nose. “You smell that?”
There was a hint of a vile odor wafting from the mine. The headlights from the Hummer pointed into the shaft, illuminating the interior.
Caprice, Guppy, and Blade crouched on either side of the Hummer, weapons out. “Archive, Hammer -- you guys better get up here,” said Blade over the cistron. “Vanvon’s in a mine talking to…the thing.”
"How could you be so stupid?" came Vanvon’s voice. "You KILLED my photographer, you fool!"
If the thing was speaking to Vanvon, they couldn’t hear it.
"We had an arrangement!" shouted Vanvon.
Vanvon shuffled in the mine. "You monster, why him?" he asked. "Don't you understand the film can't go on without him? There are others less indispensable. You agreed not to hurt my people."
There was a pause.
"Of course he's necessary," retorted Vanvon. "They're all necessary, do you understand? Don't hurt my people. Or…”
Vanvon’s tone turned threatening. "Don't think I can't harm you," he said. "I can harm you by not giving you what you want! Yes, forget again who's in charge here at your own risk. Now abide by our contract--and I will, too.”
The director stomped out of the cave towards his vehicle. Before Vanvon could reach it, Blade clasped one hand over his mouth and yanked him away from the opening.
Vanvon let out a yelp. Blade dragged him out of earshot from the mine, where Archive and Hammer were waiting.
Blade shoved Vanvon to his knees. Archive trained a handheld spotlight on Vanvon’s sweaty face. Hammer snapped on a pair of black leather gloves. He slowly screwed on the silencer to his Glock.
“What are you doing?” asked Vanvon.
“What I do best,” said Hammer. He crouched down. “Tell me what you were doing in there.”
“I wasn’t doing anything. What are you doing out here late at night anyway? It’s none of your damn business—“
Without looking, Hammer pointed the Glock at one of the tires of the Hummer and squeezed the trigger. There was a quiet thump and the squeal of air hissing from it.
“I’m going to ask you again: What were you doing in there?”
“You…” Vanvon swallowed hard. “I remember you. You attacked my set in Hollywood!” He blinked up towards the spotlight. “Who are you people?”
Vanvon’s head bobbed as Hammer struck him across the face. His nose started to bleed.
“You son of a bitch!” yelped Vanvon. “I think you broke my nose!”
“Stop lying to me and answer my questions,” said Hammer. “What were you doing in there?”
“I don’t know what you’re…” he flinched as Hammer raised a fist. “All right, all right! Fine! Just stop hitting me!”
“Tell us what we need to know,” said Blade, arms crossed. The interrogation was making him uncomfortable.
Vanvon’s flabby features sagged. “After the incident at my studio, the Organized Productions started suffering financial difficulties. We were running out of money, and I needed special effects shots for the creature. I was out here scouting for a location when I came across this mineshaft and started digging.”
“And that’s when you dug up Jack?” asked Caprice.
Vanvon shook his head. “Not at first. There was gold in there. Piled up. I took some out, hired a crew with it, went back and dug the rest out. Then I sold it and we were back in business.”
“How much?”
“About one million dollars worth,” said Vanvon. He seemed proud.
“When did you meet Jack?” asked Blade.
“Three days later. It dug its way to the surface, I guess. It took that immigrant worker. Then it came for me.”
Hammer forcefully turned Vanvon’s head to take a look at his neck. “No bite marks.”
“I offered to…” Vanvon swallowed. The admission was hard for the egotistical director to admit. “I made a deal with it. I’d put it in my film…at the end of the filming I was going to give it the lead actress…”
Hammer clicked off the record button on his cistron. “Thanks. That should be enough to indict you.”
Blade’s fist shot out, faster than the eyes could track. His clenched fist struck from the darkness into the spotlight on Vanvon’s face and then recoiled back. “That’s for Christine,” he snarled.
Guppy swallowed hard. “Well, I had my ultraviolet projector but…”
“But what?”
“It requires a lot of power,” said Guppy. “And there’s only enough power for it at the generator back on set…”
“And you didn’t have a long enough power cord to bring it here,” said Caprice with a sigh. “Great.”
“Well I do have shotgun shells.” Guppy loosened the carrying strap of the shotgun across his back. “I filled it with garlic powder.”
“Hope it’s really a vampire.” Blade nodded at Hammer. “Let’s flush him out.”
“We know you’re in there, Jack,” shouted Hammer.
The Hummer’s engine plaid a staccato beat while they waited in the desert night for the thing to crawl out of its lair.
A figure wearing a fedora and black overcoat slowly shuffled into the headlights of the Hummer. Its hands were at its sides. It kept its head down, so the shadow of the hat’s brim concealed its features.
“Come out,” said Hammer. “We just want to talk to you.”
The thing slowly slid back the edge of its duster. Its revolver, a huge monster of a pistol, hung loosely at its hip.
“Now we don’t want to have to hurt you,” began Hammer. Everyone was on edge, hands near their pistols.
The long, claw-like fingers flexed beneath the leather gloves, twitching over the revolver’s handle.
“Nobody needs to shoot—“
As if the word “shoot” was a command, the thing drew the pistol in a flash and, before anyone else could draw their own guns, fired. With a yelp, Caprice spun from the impact of the shot and collapsed face-first into the dirt.
Both of Hammer’s Glocks were out. He returned a hail of fire. The bullets ricocheted off the thing’s body as if he were made of stone.
“What the hell?” was all Hammer got out before a crack shot pounded the stone near his face.
Blade rushed forward with a roar, hatchets in hand. The thing calmly waited for him as he closed.
Blade brought both hatchets together on the thing’s neck in a scissoring motion. The blows were so forceful that the attack should have beheaded it.
But his hatchets bounced off of the thing’s throat with a metallic clang. Its free hand shot out, grabbing Blade by the throat. He gurgled.
Its arm outstretched, holding Blade up against the mine wall, the thing’s features were finally visible. It looked almost rat-like, with grayish-white pupils and fangs that jutted out at odd angles from its mouth. Its bald, deformed features were twisted with malice.
Hammer took advantage of the moment to fire both Glocks at it again. Bullets sunk through its coat, but the ones that didn’t disappear into its body bounced off.
“Guppy!” shouted Hammer. “DO SOMETHING!”
Guppy broke out of his shock and aimed the shotgun. Then he ducked just as Blade’s unconscious body hurdled toward him.
Hammer stood in front of the mine entrance, still emptying his Glocks. “Shoot it,” said Hammer calmly. “NOW.”
Guppy screwed up his courage and took aim again. The thing had stopped firing its pistol. It stalked towards them, removing its gloves one at a time with malign precision. It was done playing games.
Guppy squeezed the trigger and the shotgun shell blasted into the thing’s chest. It staggered and fell down.
“I got it!” shouted Guppy with glee.
Hammer shook his head as the thing rose up. He dropped the empty clips from his Glocks and reloaded them.
Guppy reloaded and fired again. This time the thing didn’t stop coming.
“I don’t think it’s working,” said Guppy in a panic.
“Then try SOMETHING ELSE!” shouted Hammer. The thing had closed to within yards of him. Hammer unleashed both clips into it at point blank range.
It laughed. Then, grabbing Hammer by the throat, it hurled him into the darkness beyond the Hummer.
The Hummer! Guppy tore the door open and dove into the driver’s seat. The thing was standing in front of him.
He shifted the Hummer out of park and slammed on the gas pedal. The Hummer lurched forward, screeching its wheels as it thudded against the thing. There was a shriek as it was pinned against the entrance to the mine.
The Hummer protested, revving louder. He couldn’t push it any further because the mine entrance was too narrow.
Guppy threw it in reverse. The Hummer lurched backwards. Guppy peered over the edge of the Hummer. The thing was gone.
He kicked it into drive, but the Hummer didn’t get any traction. That’s when he felt it lift up.
“Mother trucker,” hissed Guppy. The Hummer winched up higher and higher with a shriek.
Guppy threw himself out of the driver’s side door as the thing, arms straining beneath the chassis, twisted the Hummer over on its side.
He landed near Vanvon, who was tied up and watching the whole thing in awe. “Magnificent,” he breathed. “Fantastic! The drama, the special effects, I couldn’t choreograph this better…”
The thing stalked towards him. Guppy scrabbled backwards on all fours. Blade and Hammer were unconscious. Caprice was down in a pool of blood.
It loomed over him, drawing its pistol with exaggerated care. It occurred to Guppy that the thing was savoring the moment.
It pointed the barrel of the six-shooter in Guppy’s face. Only the glint of moonlight on the tip gave any indication how close it was.
There was a crack of gunfire and the thing’s head bobbed back. It sank to its knees and fell to the ground, dead.
“How did you do that?” asked Guppy in awe.
Archive blew on the smoking barrel of his pistol. “Magic,” he said.
Archive helped patch up the others with his medical kit. And yet it seemed they recovered better than they should have without a trip to the hospital. If they suspected other forces at work, none of them mentioned it.
“I’ve been reading up on this place,” said Archive. “Members of the Apache tribe were said to have a very rich gold mine located in the Superstition Mountains. A man called Miguel Peralta discovered the mine and began mining the gold there, only to be attacked or massacred by something in about 1850. Years later, a man named Jack Thorne treated an ailing Apache chieftain and was rewarded with information about the cursed goldmine. But when he found it, he encountered a thing known as ‘The Thin One’ or ‘The Skinny One’. Jack sacrificed himself to kill the Thin One, collapsing the gold mine on them both with dynamite. The Thin One is supposedly vulnerable to daylight and gold, of all things.”
“When Vanvon dug up the gold, he released the ward,” said Guppy.
“More than that,” said Archive. “I think that thing WAS Jack Thorne. They implant eggs in humanoids and use it to gestate…”
“Poor bastard,” said Blade, scratching his ribs.
“Doesn’t matter now anyway,” said Hammer. “He’s dead.”
The body was more than dead, it was dismembered. They had blown the thing’s head off and shoved a stake of wood, taken from an old mining cart, into its heart. It was wrapped up in a bag that Blade and Hammer dragged through the desert back to the set.
When they arrived, they found the crew setting up at the saloon. Kalms was putting the finishing touches on the set. Christine was in a wig and make-up. She was wearing a plain nightgown as well as a pair of stylishly anachronistic high heels.
“What the hell?” asked Blade. “Why is everyone up so late? What is going on?”
“Listen, Blade. This is the big finale,” muttered Christine. “Now stay out of the way, we’re cramming to fill the final scene.” She caught sight of Vanvon. “What the hell happened to you?”
Vanvon looked ignored her. “They’re filming His movie.” He looked around wide-eyed. “Whether they want to or not.”
“Whose movie?” asked Blade.
“Jack’s,” said Vanvon. “This thing…it has control over everyone. Can’t you see? We’re powerless to stop it!”
Nobody looked up from their duties. The sight of a dismembered body in a bloody plastic bag, or their beaten up director, failed to give them pause.
"All right, Christine," said Kalms. "In this scene, Drake, whom Dolores has put up in a spare room at the ranch house, sneaks into your bedroom after you've gone to sleep, and bites you on the neck. Really all you have to do is lie there in fear and Jack will do the rest."
Christine got into bed. Out of the shadows materialized Jack wearing a red duster.
“Son of a bitch! What the hell did we just kill?” asked Blade. He looked back at Hammer to confirm.
Hammer nodded back – the headless corpse was still dead.
They struggled to move, but it was like swimming up a waterfall. Harming Jack seemed impossible; their will was sapped with the very notion of the effort. Only when they diverted their minds to other things did the feeling disappear.
Jack took position between the bed and the mirror mounted on the wall behind him. He looked down at her, gently brushing her breast with his long nails.
Christine pushed his hand away. "Watch it, @$$hole."
Kalms exchanged an indecipherable glance with Hammer. Then he walked over to one of the cameras and nudged it over. It shattered in an explosion of glass and uncoiling film.
"Damn!" shouted Kalms. "Hold it! Set up the other camera. Bill, there's another reel up in the gallery. Sorry, actors. It'll just be a moment."
Jack, irritated, marched off the set.
“They’re stalling,” whispered Archive. “We may not be able to interfere with the film, but they’re rebelling in their own little ways.”
The crew finished setting a new camera on the tripod. Jack, climbing the walls, stormed over to them.
"I'm tired of waiting," says Jack.
"All right, places," says Kalms. "Let's have lights..."
Jack walked over to the set and resumed his position. Kalms adjusted the lights.
"Camera..." said Kalms.
Christine lay, acting fearful, in bed. Jack, between her and the wall, kneeled and was preparing to bite her when she stared him full in the face. Before Kalms could say "action," she started screaming.
"…end!" shouted Kalms.
Blade rushed to her side.
"What is it?"
"His face..." said Christine. "He doesn't...
Jack glared at Kalms.
"Let me have her," demanded Jack. "NOW."
"She's hysterical." Kalms walks over to Christine. "Let her calm down first…"
Jack pointed at Christine. She relaxed, fallen into a stupor. “Now she’s calm.”
“Give her a moment, for God’s sake!”
Jack once again stood beside Christine, whose eyes fluttered in a daze. Jack kneeled down beside her, ran his fingernails slowly along her legs and arms. She barely noticed.
"I'll take her now."
"Control yourself for a moment, Jack. Let’s do the final scene." There was another set already prepared outside in the street. "Okay, this is the scene," said Kalms. "Dolores, weakened by the nocturnal visits from Robey that she has already endured, begins wasting away; we know she’s headed downhill fast when she acquiesces meekly to Dan’s renewed efforts to make her rescind Robey’s contract with her on Buffer’s life. There's no help for it; the only way to settle this is an old fashion duel between men. A gunfight."
Kalms looked around. “We need a stuntman for this scene.”
Hammer stepped forward. “I’m the best shot…”
Kalms shook his head. “Sorry, but our lead hero isn’t a black man.”
Caprice took a deep breath. Beneath his clothes, his shoulder was bandaged. “That’d leave me then.”
Kalms nodded. “Fine. Costume? Makeup! Get him ready.”
The crew scurried, prepared for this eventuality.
“I need a hat,” said Caprice. “A big ten gallon hat.”
Jack stormed at the edge of the set. Although they couldn’t see his face, he was visibly frustrated.
“And boots,” said Caprice as the hat was screwed onto his head. “Big alligator skin boots.”
Archive slipped his pistol into Caprice’s holster. “Use this gun. It will penetrate his defenses, I hope.”
“Oops,” said Hammer, spilling a glass of water down Caprice’s shirt.
“Did you have to make it so obvious?” muttered Caprice.
“Sorry, Hotpants,” smiled Hammer.
“I need a new shirt here!” shouted Caprice.
“ENOUGH!” roared Jack. “We will finish this now!”
“Places everyone!” shouted Kalms. Jack’s back was to the east, where the sky was beginning to lighten. Dawn was coming soon.
The two combatants faced each other across the dusty road.
“And…action!”
Caprice drew his pistol, but Jack was too fast. The pistol was shot out of his hand.
“Pathetic,” came Jack’s voice in their heads. “This is the best you can do?”
Jack fired again, and Caprice fell to one knee, clutching his bleeding leg.
The spotlights flickered.
Suddenly Jack howled, clutching his face. Guppy stood, arms outstretched, holding a flashlight-type device connected to the generator. He had mustered every ounce of his will to resist Jack’s mental domination and fire the beam in the thing’s direction.
Its hat fell away. Tentacles writhed where its face would normally be. Its whole body was a latticework of pink tentacles stretched over a skeletal frame. It was if a human body had been stripped of its skin and the muscles rebelled, all struggling to tear off their moorings.
“If you’re going to do something,” shouted Hammer, “do it now!”
Blade surged forward, whipping his belt off. He wrapped the leather around his knuckles with the gold belt buckle facing outward.
Jack looked up from its convulsions in time to see Blade’s fist. He punched it in the pulpy mass where its head should have been.
It hissed and clawed his left arm. Blade retaliated with an uppercut.
“This is not how it’s supposed to be!” shouted Jack, its telepathic roar echoing in everyone’s minds. “My final stand…”
Blade grabbed both of its outstretched claws by the wrists. Straining, he forced them behind Jack’s back, wrestling it so the thing faced east. And the rising sun.
Blade held it as the first rays of the sun came over the mountaintops. They sliced through Jack’s flesh like laser beams, sizzling and popping the muscle.
Jack’s shrieks reached a crescendo, and then it abruptly burst, sizzling and popping into nothing but a puddle of goo.
“And cut!” said Kalms with a smile, even though the cameras had long since stopped working.
The arrival of the police to arrest Vanvon interrupted their argument only for a few minutes.
Standing in front of the team’s trailer, Christine shook her head at Blade. “You did it again. You had to go and screw everything up for me, didn’t you?”
Blade laughed. “Me? That thing was trying to kill you—WOULD have killed you, if it hadn’t been for me! You were so focused on the movie and your big break that you couldn’t see it was going to eat you!”
“You know, there is the possibility that it was mentally controlling everyone on the set…” began Guppy.
“Shut up,” they both snapped at him.
Guppy cleared his throat and went back into the trailer.
Alex walked out of Christine’s trailer, rubbing his eyes. “Mom? Dad? You fighting again?”
Christine bit her lip. “No, honey,” she kneeled down to his level. “We’re just having…a disagreement.”
“Does this mean I can’t visit daddy for the summer?” Tears welled up in his eyes.
Christine sighed. “Of course you still can.” She glared at Blade over his shoulder. “But daddy will be sending us alimony payments from now on.”
Blade crossed his arms but nodded.
Zander barked and Alex perked up, distracted. He ran off. “Zander! Zander, we have to get ready to goooo!”
“So…” said Blade. “Are we all right?”
Christine stood up. “No,” she said after a moment. “But we will be.” She stalked off towards her trailer.
Hammer stepped out of the trailer. “You know Archive’s pretty good with that medical kit of his. I think you should let him take a look at you.”
Blade frowned. “No, that’s okay…” But Archive was right behind Hammer, walking up to him.
“Let me see your ribs, come on.”
“No, guys, seriously,” he tired to shove them off, but Archive was already yanking up his shirt. Blood stained both sides of it. Fortunately, he wore a black shirt. “You don’t need to…”
Archive blinked. He peeled off one of the bandages. “Well I’ll be. After all that bleeding it looks like wounds finally healed up.”
Blade looked down in disbelief.
Hammer patted him on the back. “Told you Archive was good. Let’s get out of this hell hole and go home before Drake asks us what we were doing out in the desert blowing the heads off of illegal immigrants and staking them in the heart.”
“With a little makeup they can make anyone look like a vampire,” said Caprice, exiting the trailer. “That still doesn’t explain how he flipped a Hummer or dodged bullets.”
”He didn’t doge them,” said Hammer. “But whatever. He tried to kill us. End of story.”
“I told you Jack was mind controlling people,” Guppy shouted from the entrance to their trailer, supposedly out of earshot.
His teammates laughed. They made their way back to the team van. All except Blade.
His ribs were fine. No bite marks. Nothing.
“They’re totally healed over,” he whispered to himself with rising horror.
This scenario, “Skinwalker,” is from the Call of Cthulhu supplement “Dwellers in Shadow” by Michael Szymanski from Triad Entertainments. You can read more about Delta Green at http://www.delta-green.com. Please note: This story hour contains spoilers!
Hank “Guppy” Gupta (Smart Hero) played by Joseph Tresca
Jake “Blade” Iron Shirt (Strong Hero) played by Matt Hammer
Joseph “Archive” Fontaine (Dedicated Hero) played by Joe Lalumia
Kurtis "Hammer" Grange (Fast Hero) played by George Webster
Sebastian "Caprice" Creed (Fast/Smart Hero) played by Bill Countiss
Skinwalker is a scenario that’s big on ideas and poor on execution. The presentation is a big jumble, which makes it difficult as a GM to follow. There are actually two protagonists here, a Navajo “witch” and the thing he has unleashed. Both have similar abilities that involve taking people over by wearing their skin. Which is pretty creepy…
This is another scenario where the main antagonist has a shapeshifting power that it never uses to its advantage. For example, the Skinwalker possesses a woman’s skin, but since he can’t imitate voices, this immediately takes on a comedic Bugs Bunny image of a mousy secretary speaking in a deep baritone and smoking a stogie. The human villain doesn’t seem to have much in the way of goals either, besides being evil. The excuse for why he does so many ridiculous things (like undressing and dressing his victims) is that he’s insane. But he’s apparently insanely dumb; the first thing the witch does is appear as a wolf and warn the agents off.
Really? Seriously? He’s insane, he kills people, but he’s going to WARN the heroes off before they even suspect him, like a cartoon villain? Screw that!
There’s also a suspect whom the PCs are supposed to investigate because, well, because the town folk think he’s a little weird. The shape-shifting villain doesn’t capitalize on this means of diverting the investigation; in fact, he doesn’t even seem to be aware of the association.
Then there’s the Skinwalker itself, which doesn’t seem to have a plan other than to reproduce. In fact, the scenario is a little too fixated on the birthing that will take days to happen, without providing a narrative climax for when it should. So of course, I decided the PCs are going to find it right when it’s about to give birth.
To make this scenario more interesting, I cribbed from a popular horror movie and had the witch and the Skinwalker go on the offensive. Once the witch is spotted dumping skinless bodies, he pulls out all the stops and tracks the investigators, trying to figure out which one has the skin that fits him best. He walks around town in a form suspiciously like the person he wants to frame for his crimes, intentionally throwing the agents off his trail. And things spiral from there.
Defining Moment: When the PCs discover that the fingerprints on their van matches the dead body in the caves.
Relevant Media
Dwellers in Shadow: A collection of scenarios for Call of Cthulhu from Triad Entertainments.
I’ve Got You Under My Skin: I decided in this episode whenever the shape-shifting critter was on their trail, Blade would hear a song on a nearby radio. This was thanks to Coyote's influence...or was it? And in this case, it’s “I’ve Got You Under My Skin” by Frank Sinatra. Because Sinatra’s creepy.
Don’t you know you fool, you never can win
Use your mentality, wake up to reality
But each time I do, just the thought of you
Makes me stop before I begin
cause I’ve got you under my skin
--I’ve Got You Under My Skin by Frank Sinatra
PHOENIZ, AZ--Guppy was driving. They were on their way back from the latest mission in Arizona. Blade sat in the front, staring off into the space, deep in the thought. Archive tapped on his keyboard. Hammer and Caprice were debating on whether or not the man they killed in the mine was really a vampire.
He tried to keep his eyes on the road as they passed by an odd ruin atop a wide ledge. Black crows blanket the trees. An ugly, rusted van was parked nearby.
As they passed, Guppy caught sight of a tall man in a dark overcoat and hat dropping something—something wrapped in what looked like a bloodstained sheet—down a sinkhole.
“Do you see that?” asked Guppy.
Blade was staring at the man too.
As Guppy watched, the figure turned and seemed to peer right at him as they passed by.
A police siren shrieked right in front of him. Guppy yanked the wheel hard; a cop was tearing down the road on the wrong side of the street, ducking around an eighteen-wheeler. The van shrieked and then tilted. For a second gravity hung in the balance as the vehicle teetered. Then it rolled over, tumbling off the side of the road into a ditch.
To Guppy’s surprise, they had landed wheels down.
“Maybe we should let Blade drive again,” said Hammer, extricating himself from the pile of other agents.
“I saw a man dumping bodies!” shouted Guppy. They all got out of the van.
The cop was heading due east towards Culver’s Pass. The team’s van was pulled over a bit further down the road, close enough that they could jog there.
It was clear that the cops hadn’t stopped where the body dumping had occurred, but a ways before it. The area was obscured from their field of vision by a rising hill.
It was sheriff Colorados. His patrol car was pulled over to the side of the road near a battled old pickup truck. IT was half-hidden in the gully that ran parallel to it, the same gully that had caught the team’s van.
“Colorados,” said Blade in greeting. Colorados nodded back. “We almost crashed into you back there. Everything all right?”
Colorados shook his head. “We think this was Virgil Nist,” he said, pointing at a pool of blood in the passenger seat of the car. “But there’s no body. Just a lot of blood.”
“We saw something a little further back,” said Blade. “Looked like it was a man dumping bodies a little further east from here.”
Colorados sucked on his lower lip. “I’ll call for backup.”
There was a small ruin on a wide ledge a hundred feet up the face of the cliff. Guppy, Blade, and Caprice made it up top. Archive and Hammer stayed below with Colorados.
The ledge that housed the ruin was littered with rubble and patches of mesquite, which made moving around an awkward affair. Dozens of ravens sat around the ruins, squawking. A great deal of brush has grown over the structure.
Caprice brushed away some foliage. “I think I found the entrance.”
The kiva was relatively intact, and much of the roof still remained, framing the opening through which its original inhabitants entered. The main feature of the chamber was a central pit, its smooth, curved lines contrasting with the jagged opening ripped into the floor. This was an entrance to a cave system.
They looked around at each other. “Guppy, you’re the lightest, so we’ll lower you down.”
“What?” Guppy peered down into the hole. “No way Jose.”
“Come on Guppy, he’s right, you’re the lightest,” said Blade. “We’ll pull you back up whenever you say so.”
Guppy looked down into the hole again, shining his flashlight here and there. It didn’t penetrate the gloom. “I don’t like this at all.”
But Caprice was already tying rope to his waist. “You can do this.”
“You know, my specialty isn’t spelunking,” complained Guppy as he was lowered into the cave. “I’m actually more of a science guy myself.”
He suddenly got quiet. The only sound was the creaking of the taut rope that Blade and Caprice held.
“Guppy?” asked Caprice.
“I’m…oof…trying…oof…” The rope was swinging to and fro. “To swing…got it!”
“What is it?” asked Blade.
”A cell phone.” Guppy clicked it on. “It was recording video.” He pressed another button and it began to play.
“The cave-in appears quite recent, within the last month or so, and by the looks of things here, I’m not the first one to find it,” said a redheaded, bookish-looking woman with glasses. “I shined my light down into the chamber below, and there was something large and smooth down there.” Behind her, a humanoid figure loomed, raising a shovel in two hands. “I’m going down for a look after…” There was a grunt and then the camera spun crazily, filming the opening of the pit as it fell from its owner’s hands.
“Oh that’s not good,” said Guppy.
“What?”
Guppy looked around. They were lowering him down more. It was easier to use his cistron than to yell up.
“Guys, I think there is some blood down here.” There were several spots of dark red against the rusty sandstone.
“And what’s on the cell phone?”
“A video of a woman. Someone killed her with a shovel, I think.”
He was lowered into a large ceremonial chamber of ancient origins. At the bottom of the chamber was a disturbing sand painting of two snakes arching over strange, dancing figures.
Guppy took a picture. “Blade, have you ever seen something like this?”
“It’s not Apache or Navajo, that’s for sure,” came his reply.
“Wait…I see something…”
Guppy could make out the body of someone wrapped in a sheet with red stains on it, just out of sight of the hole above. Guppy gently touched down on the ground. He took a slow, hesitant step towards the body.
It twitched. Guppy nearly screamed.
Guppy took another step. “Are you…” he swallowed, trying to find saliva. “Are you okay?”
The body in the sheet began to convulse, struggling to escape and breathe. Finally, a bloody face worked its way out. It gurgled.
“What? Are you okay?”
“What’s going on?” chirped Caprice’s voice over the cistron.
Guppy ignored it. The man was pointing at his chest through the covers, digging around at the sheet.
Guppy tore it open and fell backward, gasping. Although the man was wearing clothes, he had been completely skinned. He struggled to say something.
Guppy got back on his feet.
“Hiiiiideeee” he wheezed.
Guppy shouted into the cistron. “I need backup! There’s a man down here…he has no skin!”
“Put him on the rope,” said Blade.
“What?!”
“If he’s skinned he needs medical attention Guppy,” shouted Caprice. “Tie him to the rope!”
“But that means I won’t have a rope!”
“Do you want to let the man die?” asked Blade.
“Oh, MOTHER TRUCKER,” grumbled Guppy. He unlatched the rope and, after a few minutes of trying to figure out how to wrap it around a skinless man, latched it around his waist. The man screamed every time he touched him.
“Jesus, are you killing him down there?” asked Caprice.
“He’s ready to go. Lift him up,” said Guppy. “I am staying RIGHT here, I just want you to know that. Because this place is totally freaking me out and it’s dark and it’s…” he slowly turned. “What is that smell?”
There was a horrible stench deeper in the tunnels, accompanied by a tremendous buzzing.
“Heeeeeellllp mmeeeeee,” came a whisper from the direction of the tunnel.
“I think someone needs help,” said Guppy. “I’m going to go in deeper…”
He crept further into the dank tunnels branching off the main chamber. A near solid wave of noxious, putrescent miasma boiled out of the cavern amidst a roiling cloud of flies. There was a huge cocoon, a sagging, half-rotted husk of undefineable material. It was approximately six feet long and two feet wide.
A drop of body fluid splatters on Guppy’s shoe. Then another.
Guppy looked up.
The light from his flashlight revealed many skinless bodies stuck to the ceiling of the cavern. The whole place was filled with them.
One of the bodies, a woman from the looks of her matted hair, pleaded with skinless features, “Heeeeelp mmmeeeeeee!”
The paramedics showed up too late. All of the victims were dead by the time they got there. It took over an hour before the agents were able to return to their van. It was not in the shape they left it in.
“What the hell happened?” asked Hammer.
“I thought you two were with the van?” asked Blade.
“We were helping Colorados scope out the crime scene!” Hammer shouted back.
“Hey, buddy,” said one of the paramedics. “Someone was snooping around your van before, thought it was one of you guys.”
Clothing was scattered everywhere. Vests, BDUs, even underwear.
“What did he look like?”
“Weird guy in a tattered overcoat and a broad-brimmed hat. Was sniffing your laundry. Holding big handfuls of it under his nose. Looked like he was liking it too.”
“Son of a bitch,” said Blade.
Colorados walked over while Hammer scanned the exterior of the van with his cistron.
“I picked up a print on the door handle,” he turned to Colorados. “I’ll send it over to you; check AFIS and see what you come up with.”
“Rumors speak of a witch,” he said.
“A witch?” asked Hammer. “The kind that rides around on broomsticks?”
Colorados shook his head. “Skinwalkers. A Skinwalker’s a Navajo witch. They are always up to no good, casting curses and poisoning the orenda. They can change their shape, become a wolf or rattler or some such.”
“Is there anyone around here we can ask about this sort of thing?” asked Blade. “The only shaman I knew is dead.”
Colorados nodded. “Michele Blackmoon,” he said.
“If she’s not the witch herself,” said the paramedic. “She was a nice lady, but since she came back from college she’s been into some strange stuff.”
“Guppy,” asked Blade, but the smaller Indian man was already on it.
“Got her address. Not far from here.”
They piled into the van. Thanks the arrival of the fire trucks, someone had winched them out of the ditch.
“Maybe I should drive,” began Blade.
Guppy slid into the driver’s seat. “I’ve got it! I’ll be fine.”
“You’re sure…”
“Yes!” Guppy leaned on the gas pedal, lunging the van forward. “Fine!”
They couldn’t have been more than a few minutes into the drive when the radio started playing Sinatra’s “I’ve Got You Under My Skin.”
“I’ve got you under my skin,” sang Sinatra.
“Shut that s**t off,” muttered Hammer.
“I’ve got you deep in the heart of me.”
“I didn’t turn it on to begin with!” said Guppy, staring at the radio.
“So deep in my heart that you’re really a part of me.”
Blade turned the knob a few times. The digital readout showed the stations change, but the music kept playing.
“I’ve got you under my skin.”
There was a thump on the roof of the van.
“I’ve tried so, not to give in.”
“Did you hear that?” asked Caprice.
“I said to myself this affair never will go so well.”
Hammer took out his Glocks. “Yeah. It’s big.”
“But why should I try to resist when baby I know so well,” the radio crooned.
“And heavy,” said Blade.
“I’ve got you under my skin.”
“I’ll get it off,” shouted Guppy. He slammed his foot on the brakes…
“I’d sacrifice anything come what might for the sake of having you near in spite of a warning voice that comes in the night and repeats, repeats in my ear: Don’t you know you fool, you never can win?”
And the van swerved wildly out of control. Guppy struggled with the wheel. For a terrifying moment it seemed as if the van would flip off the road. The vehicle screeched to a halt.
“Use your mentality, wake up to reality!”
Everyone glared at Guppy, then hopped out the van, weapons out.
Hammer clambered up the ladder to the top of the van. “Clear.”
“Clear,” said Archive after looking underneath it.
“Clear,” said Caprice scanning the back of the van.
The horn honked.
“But each time I do, just the thought of you makes me stop before I begin.”
They ran around to the front. “What?” asked Blade.
Guppy, still in the driver’s seat, just pointed.
“Cause I’ve got you under my skin.”
Standing on the road in front of them was a thing that was pretending to be a wolf. But it was most certainly not a wolf, as the skin was stretched over a muscled frame that tore at the rugged hide, revealing glistening red muscle streaked with white bone. Its spine poked through the back of its hide at jagged angles, as if someone had hastily stretched the fur over a larger beast’s musculature. It growled, and they could see the full length of its tongue between the gaps in its mouth.
“First vampires, now werewolves?” asked Hammer in disbelief.
Blade’s hatchets were out. “I’ve got it.”
He charged it with a roar. The wolf-thing bounded forward.
Man and beast clashed in a titanic collision in front of the van. The wolf-thing unbalanced Blade, knocking him on his back. He held his steel hatches crossed before him, keeping the snapping jaws at bay.
They all opened fire on it. Bullets pierced the flesh but had no effect. Little spurts of blood jutted out of the thing’s back, but if it felt any pain it didn’t show it.
Finally, Guppy took careful aim with his laser and, pointing at the wolf-thing’s head, pressed the trigger. The beam grew in intensity until the mangy head burst into flame. With a roar, the wolf turned and bounded off down the street faster.
Caprice looked at Guppy’s weapon. “I’m going to requisition one of those from Redlight next time.”
The rest of the drive was uneventful to Blackmoon’s house. It was an old, lonely house with a sunflower spinning wheel. Two cats sat contentedly in a window.
Blade knocked on the door.
A crazy-looking Navajo woman with wild hair answered. Cats spilled out, meowing loudly, through the opening.
“Who are you?” asked the woman. “What do you want?”
“Are you Michelle Blackmoon?” asked Blade.
The woman squinted her eyes at him. “Who wants to know?”
Blade flashed his badge. “We’re federal agents.”
“Don’t even start with that zoning crap!” shouted Blackmoon. “You can’t tell me how many cats people can have. I’ll have as many cats as I wanna have!”
“We’re not here about the cats, ma’am.”
She looked past over his shoulder. “You got anyone else with ya?”
Blade turned around.
“Was that scarecrow there before?” asked Guppy.
“I don’t think so,” said Caprice.
“That’s not my scarecrow,” said Blackmoon.
The old woman grabbed a shotgun from inside the door and pointed it at Blade’s head.
“You’ve got ten seconds to get your ass outta my yard. And don’t think I’m gonna tell ya twice!”
“Whoa,” said Blade, putting up his hands. “We just wanted to ask you some questions…”
The scarecrow suddenly bounded into action. It pulled a huge scythe out of the fields and effortlessly carried it. It took one, two, three mighty leaps through the uncut grass and then it was on the roof of the house. It barely made a thump.
There was a shriek of wood and plaster. Tile fell off the roof. Caprice and Guppy backpedaled to get a better look at it. “It just made a hole into the house!” shouted Caprice.
“Go on! Get out!” shouted Blackmoon. “What the hell did you bring into my house?” She slammed the door behind her.
Blade slammed his shoulder into the door. She had locked it.
They could hear her screaming through the front door. “Oh get outta here!” she shouted at a form at the top of her steps. “GET AWAY FROM MY BABIES YOU SON OF A BITCH! I’LL BLOW YOUR F**KING HEAD OFF!”
“Up the side of the house!” shouted Caprice to Guppy. They grabbed a gutter pipe and started climbing.
There were two shotgun blasts. Hammer hurled himself through a side window into the foyer. Blade followed suit.
Blackmoon was standing at the top of the steps, shotgun held limply in one hand. She gagged and gulped.
Behind her was the Skinwalker. Its flesh was pulled tightly over a skull, as if it were the flesh of a smaller man. The lips peeled back in a grin.
Blackmoon gagged again. The Skinwalker hurled her down the steps.
Blade ducked to the side as the old woman’s body flopped down the steps. Taking the steps three at a time, he buried one of his hatchets in the Skinwalker’s chest.
It laughed at him.
Grabbing his wrist, the Skinwalker flipped Blade sideways and then kicked him down the steps.
Archive dragged Blade’s unconscious body back through the doorway to the front of the house. To give them cover, Hammer fired both Glocks into the thing, emptying the clips.
The Skinwalker jerked as the bullets hit, but they had little effect. As it pointed, Hammer’s flesh split open in great rents across his chest and arms, as if he was a stuffed doll who had burst its seams. He fell to the ground screaming.
The Skinwalker started making its way down the steps when a series of gunshots interrupted its descent. Its head whipped around…
Peering down through the hole in the ceiling, Guppy and Caprice had their weapons trained on it. Caprice emptied his clip into the Skinwalker’s chest, knocking it backwards. It windmilled at the edge of the steps.
Guppy fired his laser at its feet. Screeching, the Skinwalker bounced down the steps. It landed on its back.
Archive fired his Glock into its forehead. It didn’t get up.
Caprice turned to Guppy. “We can cross Blackmoon off as a suspect.”
They hopped down into the house and clambered down the steps.
Their cistrons beeped. Caprice picked it up. “Hello? Yeah? We’ll be right over.”
“What’s up?” asked Archive, tending to Hammer and Blade’s wounds.
“Colorados wants to speak with us about fingerprints.”
“The ones he found on our van?” asked Archive.
“The same,” said Caprice. “They belonged to Virgil Nist.”
“Who’s that?” asked Guppy, afraid to ask.
“The dead man who you found skinned at the bottom of the hole.”
Colorados stood in the Phoenix police station, sharing the print outs of the fingerprints. “It’s an exact match.”
“Whatever it is, it’s dead,” said Hammer, recovered from his wounds with several stitches along his arms and chest.
“Nist didn’t have a twin,” said Colorados seriously. “There’s only one way his fingerprints could be on your vehicle when he was dying at the bottom of that chasm.”
“Skinwalkers,” said Blade.
“Right,” said Colorados. “Since Nist’s body still has its hands, it had to be the skin. Which would take incredible precision.”
The whole conversation was making Hammer uncomfortable. “We killed it. Find out who the man was in Blackmoon’s house and you’ll have your murderer.”
Then the lights went out.
“Hey, hey!” said one of the cops. “Whoa, whoa, whoa!”
Colorados picked up the phone. “Hello?” He put it back down. “WE’VE GOT LIGHTS, AND PHONES, OUT UP HERE! CAN SOMEBODY TALK TO ME? What the hell? Have we got emergency lights here or WHAT?”
The emergency lights cut on inside the building. Over the intercom, Sinatra’s “I’ve Got You Under My Skin” began playing.
“Are you kidding me?” shouted one of the cops. “We don’t have power but they pipe in music? Gimme a break!”
Colorados stood up. “All right people, we’re going into a lockdown situation. That means everybody sit tight and don’t move unless someone wearing a badge tells you to.” He turned to the team. “Let’s go, I need to make sure the prisoners are secure.”
Colorados led them to the holding cells.
“All right, let’s go, gentlemen,” said Colorados. “Get up, show me some skin. You in a coma, buddy? We have a blackout. That means emergency head count. Hey lower bunk. Let me see some skin.”
The prisoner gave him the finger.
“That is special.” Colorados moved to another cell. “Heads up, heads up. Move it down there. Thank you. Thank you for joining us. Show me some skin, that’s it.”
He moved to the next cell. “Heads up, gentlemen…” There was no response. “Gentlemen?”
Two prisoners sat in their cell, shaking in fear. One man pointed to the next cell. Colorados walked over.
Boots, a hat, a cloak, and other clothing lay carelessly on the ground. Colorados pointed his flashlight in the cell.
The Skinwalker and a skinned prisoner were there.
“What in the holy hell is that?” shouted Colorados.
“Shoot it!” shouted Hammer. He drew his two Glocks.
Instead of drawing his weapon, Colorados stepped over to the cell and unlocked the door.
“What the hell are you doing?” screamed Hammer. He tackled the sheriff, but not before the cell door was opened.
The Skinwalker simply stared at Blade. Slowly, Blade took a step forward.
“Blade!” shouted Guppy. “Snap out of it!”
Caprice and Archive fired their weapons at the thing, but it didn’t flinch. It just kept staring.
Blade stepped inside the cell.
Hammer got to his feet and, hurling himself at the cell door, slammed it shut.
“What are you doing?” shouted Guppy. “You’ll trap him in there!”
“It’s too late for him already,” said Hammer.
The Skinwalker walked over to Blade and, clasping him in a twisted lover’s embrace, smothered him with its mouth.
They stopped firing, watching in horror as Blade’s eyes rolled in the back of his head and he gagged.
There was the sound of something huge squawking and flapping above the cell. Then the ceiling exploded as a huge pair of claws tore through it, grabbing Blade by the shoulders. With another flap of its wings, Blade was lifted into the air.
“What the hell was that?” asked Caprice in shock.
“A shantak,” said Archive. “Someone summoned it.”
“It took him,” Guppy said over and over. “It took him.”
“Let’s go!” shouted Hammer. “Anything that large we can track!” He shoved Guppy towards the front entrance.
They sped behind the huge bird-like thing with a horse’s head, following its erratic path over hills and through deserts. It swooped down, depositing Blade near a cabin, and then spiraled up into the sky out of sight.
“Something that big…” said Hammer nervously. “We should call in a satellite strike or something.”
Archive shook his head. “It’s fled into space, if not another dimension. Shantaks are not of this world. We won’t see it again.”
They crept their way towards old log cabin. The door was open.
It was a two-room affair, a bedroom and kitchen/living area with a front and back door of rough planking. Blade was on his hands and knees, coughing and wheezing.
“Blade!” shouted Guppy. “Are you okay?”
“It…” he gasped, eyes red from choking. “It just jumped out…” he coughed again.
Archive examined the pottery pieces on the mantle. “These artifacts are quite old. They look like they’re Anasazi workmanship, the type of quality only found in museums.”
Guppy lifted the lid on one of the jars. He wrinkled his nose. “I don’t know what this is…but it’s disgusting.”
It was a thick, pink, semitransparent substance filling the pot to the brim.
Archive inspected it. “It looks like some kind of emollient.”
“Emollient?” asked Caprice.
“It’s used to make skin soft and pliable,” said Archive with a grimace.
“Then you won’t want to know what’s in this jar,” said Hammer. He lifted it up with the edge of his gun. It looked like a sopping wet pile of fur.”
“Wolf fur, I’m guessing,” said Archive.
“There’s nothing else in here,” said Caprice. “Just an old boiler.”
“If the thing left Blade, it had to go somewhere,” said Hammer. He didn’t seem entirely convinced that it had really left Blade.
Archive blanched as he opened the last jar. “I think I know what happened to that woman,” he said quietly. “Her skin’s in here.”
“Do you remember what happened?” Hammer asked Blade. “Anything?”
“I was throwing up something...” Blade wiped his eyes. “It was red and purple…it snaked down…there.” He pointed to one corner of the room.
Guppy got down on his hands and knees. “Yep. There’s a loose floorboard here.”
Blade leaned over and, inserting one of his hatchets into the gap, pulled upwards. The wood bent with a creak and then, Blade’s arms straining, flipped upwards. It bounced off the floor and clattered into an opening down below.
Hammer took a deep breath. “Who wants to go first?”
“It took me,” said Blade, “so I’ll go first.”
There was a ladder leading down. He took it one step at a time.
Peering through the darkness, he swung a flashlight beam across to the far side. The basement was huge, dug out by unnatural hands well beyond the length of the cabin.
Something roiled in the far corner.
More flashlight beams crossed to illuminate it as the rest of the team descended. They could make out the stretched features of a man’s face and hand, flattened, stretched, and enlarged to clown-like proportions in a macabre patchwork of flesh. It was a stitched quilt of human skin, and beneath it something started, as if suddenly awakened.
“Back,” gasped Blade. “Back!”
One of the faces in the flesh lifted up on a pseudopod. Then the whole thing began rolling like a sentient wave, skin falling over skin, tracking up dirt and grime as the quilt of flesh surged toward them.
Hammer unloaded both pistols reflexively, but the bullets merely punctured the undulating skin.
“Go!” shouted Guppy. He fired his laser, and the thing hesitated as the flesh smoked and burned.
With the rest of the team back up in the cabin, Guppy clambered up the ladder. One pseudopod grabbed hold of his leg…
Archive dumped the emollient down the shaft. The flesh shuddered and lost its grip on Guppy.
Stumbling onto the wooden floor, they scrabbled backwards.
“How do we stop it?” shouted Caprice.
“Fire,” said Guppy. He trained his laser on the boiler. “Can you lure it over to it?”
Blade blinked. “I…yes, I think so.”
The flesh flopped outwards over the hole, probing.
The boiler’s temperature gauged flipped to the danger zone. Guppy trained his laser on the heating element.
Blade ran over to the boiler. “Over here!” He held one of his hatchets. With a practiced throw, he hurled it at the flesh. The axe bit deep, only to be enveloped. The thing began extending pseudopods towards him.
“When it gets on top of that boiler,” said Guppy. “Shoot it.”
Hammer reloaded his pistol and nodded.
The flesh shuddered and flexed, rising up in a wall as it crawled halfway up the side of the cabin, across the floor, and over the boiler.
The boiler squealed from the intense heat. Blade flinched as bolts affixing the boiler to the wall fired out under the pressure, punching holes in the thick wood of the cabin’s walls.
“Now!” shouted Guppy he backed out of the entryway to the cabin.
Blade dove for the window, hurling himself through it.
Hammer fired a carefully aimed shot, piercing the boiler.
There was a terrific explosion as the boiler ripped from its moorings, propelled by a blast of scalding hot steam. It ruptured outwards, tearing through the flesh-thing as it rocketed upwards. The explosion blasted outwards and upwards, flattening the cabin, shearing right through the roof.
Hammer and Blade were stunned, flat on their backs from the proximity of the explosion and covered by splinters and logs.
“Holy crap,” said Caprice. “There can’t be anything left of that thing!”
“Get down!” shouted Archive.
A hail of bloody gibbets of flesh, bits of metal from the boiler, and chunks of wood showered all around them.
They were driving back to Phoenix in the van. Blade was at the wheel.
“So that was the Skinwalker?” asked Caprice.
“There were two,” said Archive, “the Skinwalker itself and a Navajo witch.”
“The man we killed at Blackmoon’s house was known as Charlie Two-Horses,” said Hammer. “Judging by the pelt we found in his cabin, he was also the wolf that attacked us.”
“But that doesn’t explain the thing down in his basement,” said Guppy with a shudder.
“That was the Skinwalker,” said Archive. “The place you found the bodies was its lair.”
“So Charlie digs up the Skinwalker,” postulated Caprice. “He promises it bodies in exchange for the same powers. Then he goes on a killing spree. The woman—“
“Anna Price,” added Hammer.
“Anna finds him digging around down there and the Charlie decides she’ll be his first victim.”
“Until we caught him in the act,” said Blade grimly. “It looks like he was stitching skin together for the thing so it could grow.”
“It’s a good thing we caught it when we did,” said Archive. “There were remnants of egg shells in the cabin too.”
“What was up with the weird song playing every time the thing showed up?” asked Guppy. “Why would it broadcast its presence?”
“I think that was something else,” said Blade.
“Like Coyote?” asked Archive.
“Like Coyote,” Blade said, but he didn’t confirm that it was actually Coyote because he suspected worse.
“There’s one thing I don’t understand,” said Hammer. “Why did it let you go, Blade? I thought for sure it would have ripped your skin off and added you to the collection.”
Blade didn’t say anything at first. “Maybe it didn’t want me.”
They laughed. “Yeah, you’re too disgusting even for a Skinwalker,” joked Guppy.
Blade didn’t laugh. Because he knew, deep down, that it had been forced out. By something that already called Blade’s body its home.
This scenario, “Darkest Calling,” is from the Call of Cthulhu supplement “The Stars Are Right” by David Conyers. You can read more about Delta Green at http://www.delta-green.com. Please note: This story hour contains spoilers!
Hank “Guppy” Gupta (Smart Hero) played by Joseph Tresca
Jake “Blade” Iron Shirt (Strong Hero) played by Matt Hammer
Joseph “Archive” Fontaine (Dedicated Hero) played by Joe Lalumia
Kurtis "Hammer" Grange (Fast Hero) played by George Webster
Darkest Calling is one of those scenarios that set up a moral dilemma in the hopes that the PCs will opt for the greater good and will thus just go along with the plot. To whit, a shaman commits murder as part of a ritual to banish extradimensional horrors. He’s the good guy in the greater scheme of things, and the scenario hopes the PCs will see it that way.
But they didn’t. Although they understood why the shaman was doing what he was doing, there was no way they were going to go along with the scenario. The scenario also puts them in the position of impossible odds: it’s assumed the agents go to speak to the shaman on a reservation alone with no backup. What a surprise, the PCs are overwhelmed and become the next sacrifice.
Except the agents were far too smart for that. They figured out the ritual pattern and laid a trap. So I had to play dirty and have some unexpected allies be in on the ritual too.
It doesn’t help that the scenario suffers from an error that is crucial to the PC’s success. According to the scenario’s logic, the first victim should have a dot on his left hand, the second should have two dots on her left foot, the third should have three dots on his right foot, the fourth should have four dots on his right hand, and the fifth should have five dots on his forehead. The PCs find Kate Draper with two dots on her left foot, making her the second victim. Paco Yuma, listed as male in the scenario, is described as having “a single gray dot painted on her hand.” So already we’re switching genders. Then it reads, “the middle right symbol has a single dot on the head (TRUE) matching the dot pattern on Paco Yuma’s head (FALSE, it’s on his hand), while the lower right symbol has two dots on the left hand matching the dot patterns on Kate’s left hand (FALSE, as the dots were on Kate’s left foot). This tripped me up something awful and I had to reread it a few times during play before I realized it was an error.
The other problem is that the agents are basically tied up and thrown down a hole. They wait for days before being sacrificed. No agent (and I would argue no PC) will just wait around without having a plan. To my surprise, their plan almost worked.
Almost. This is a huge turning point in the campaign. Things are about to get ugly and political.
Defining Moment: The defining moment in this game was when Archive was called upon to make an impromptu speech. He did an excellent job. And of course, the finale – this scenario marks the departure of one of our long time players as he leaves for Australia. We’ll miss him!
Relevant Media
Burden in My Hand: by Soundgarden. This is one of those songs that perfectly sums up the scenario, from Blade's alcohol problems, to being "haunted by my ghost," to following someone into the desert, to a dead woman's body. I love Soundgarden.
Follow me into the desert
As thirsty as you are
Crack a smile and cut your mouth
And drown in alcohol
--Burden in My Hand by Soundgarden
PHOENIX, AZ--“You know, if we keep this up, Caprice is just going to quit,” said Guppy glumly. One of their own had been called on to sacrifice himself yet again to the bureaucratic gods. Doing “paperwork” as they called it actually entailed much more than just paperwork. It meant being cross-examined by a committee, who wanted to know what was done and why.
In their most recent case, there was much cleaning up to do.
“We destroyed the Skinwalker,” said Archive. “That’s not enough?”
“There were records in the Phoenix police station of a man’s fingerprints who was most certainly dead,” said Hammer. “So no, it wasn’t enough. They had to set fire to the police station after the Shantak attacked.”
“What’s the cover story?” asked Blade.
Hammer frowned. “Native American extremists attacked the police station after believing some kind of messiah-like figure was killed in a shootout with federal agents.” As an African-American, he didn’t like the tone the cover-up had taken.
“They made Charlie Two-Horses out to be the underdog?” asked Archive in disbelief.
Hammer nodded. “It’s easier to believe that than a guy running around stealing skins.”
Blade sighed. “Whatever. The mission was considered a success overall or we wouldn’t be on this next case. We’re looking for Kate Draper, a Majestic friendly. She disappeared investigating a missing person in the Tohono O’odham Indian Reservation in the Sonoran Desert.”
“Isn’t that your people?” asked Archive.
“Yeah,” said Blade. “Which is why I’m mission leader. Again.”
”What is it with this place?” asked Hammer. “You’ve got all kinds of supernatural weirdness in Arizona.”
“I think this may be all connected,” said Blade. “What do you have on Draper so far?”
Archive looked up from his keyboard. “A couple of articles on missing persons and cattle, wolf, and coyote mutilations.”
Guppy cleared his throat. “I was able to hack into her e-mail account. She downloaded several online resources on the Kokoham people, a race of American Indians who once lived in the Sonoran Desert but vanished around 1000 A.D. Her e-mail also includes an electronic insurance form with her rental company; she was driving a Toyota Landcruiser, registration number GZB 334.”
“Great, we’ll have to track—“ began Blade.
“I also hacked her credit card transactions,” said Guppy proudly. “Her recent expenses match those of her expense reports except for one: a back country camping permit purchased at Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument three days ago.”
Blade shifted gears as he pulled off one of the exits. “Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument it is.”
Archive stared at Guppy in awe. “Remind me to never tick you off.”
A Papago State Ranger remembered Kate Draper. He told the agents that Kate was heading down to the southeast corner of the Ajo Range.
Numerous dirt roads crossed the monument, so it took time to find Kate’s vehicle. Eventually, the spotted her four-wheel drive parked at the end of a very long road.
Pistols out, they surrounded the vehicle.
“Clear,” said Hammer.
Using one of his lock-picking tools, Guppy popped the locks.
A quick examination revealed a Lonely Planet guide to the Southwest, an Apache-English phrasebook, some handwritten notes, a photocopied article, and a torn photocopy depicting a diagram of two stars. Archive took pictures of everything with his cistron.
Archive scanned the notes. “She was trying to draw a connection between the missing person cases and the animal mutilations. Tying it to some ancient Kokoham curse.”
They took a walking trail that led up through a rocky, mountainous pass east into the Monument.
Trekking through the Sonoran Desert was hard work. The trail continued for fives miles, and uninterrupted it took three hours. Though they brought plenty of water, the heat was brutal.
“This…couldn’t we have…” gasped Guppy. “Taken a helicopter?”
“I thought you Indians were used to hot weather,” said Hammer with a smirk.
“I am!” said Guppy. “But this…this is a desert!”
They bumped into Blade, who was staring down over the next rise.
There before them was the corpse of a woman. She was naked, face up, spread like a star and bound by ropes to stakes pounded into the earth. Her body was decorated with fresh cuts, creating a pattern of spirals, stars, crescents, and swirls. Everything between her abdomen and her knees had been eaten away.
Guppy stumbled away, gagging.
Hammer leaned down over the body. “This is Kate.” He snapped on a pair of plastic gloves and began talking into his cistron. “No clothes, jewelry, money, identification, or camping equipment. Bleeding indicates the pattern was carved into her skin while still alive, administered shortly before her death.”
Blade peered over Hammer’s shoulder. “The patterns on her body are a mixture of Tohono O’odham and Kokoham styles symbolizing creatures from the underworld.”
“Some of them are reminiscent of constellations,” said Archive on the other side. He got down on his knees. “See this? There are two gray dots painted on her left foot, one above the other.”
“The fatal wound in her midsection suggests an attack by a large animal,” said Hammer. “There’s a thick, orange substance on the wound…” He swabbed it with an evidence kit. “It smells vaguely of bile.” Hammer moved on. “The body is greenish around the abdomen. Her fingers, toes, eyes, and face have withered, and bloating suggests she’s been dead for at least two days.”
Guppy, who had been heaving off in the scrub but not actually vomiting, finally returned. “There is a circular depression of sand where nothing grows over there. It looks like it collapsed, like a sinkhole.”
Before anyone could respond, the thud-thud-thuding of a chopper overhead interrupted their conversation.
Hammer reached for his Glocks. “Looks like we’ve got company.”
“Drop your weapons and lay face down on the ground with your hands on your head!” shouted the loudspeaker from the helicopter.
”What the hell is this?” asked Hammer.
“That would be the Phoenix police department,” said Blade. “We’d better do as they say.”
They did as they were told. The helicopter landed and four officers left the craft to handcuff them. Two were in plain clothes and three were in uniform.
“We’re federal agents!” shouted Blade over the roar of the chopper. “Check our badges!”
“Right, sure,” said an attractive redhead with her hair tied back in a ponytail. She was dressed in dark-rimmed glasses, a t-shirt and jeans. “You don’t look like agents.”
“You don’t look like a police officer,” said Hammer.
She fished Blade’s badge out of his pocket. “CIFA huh? We’ll have to confirm your identities...”
“We’re in the middle of an investigation!” shouted Blade. But they were already being ushered into the helicopter.
She closed the door inside the chopper, muffling the roar of the engine. “I’m Andrea Knightly, detective in charge of the Phoenix Homicide Unit. Two hikers reported the findings to park rangers.”
“You’d better make the calls quick,” snarled Hammer. “You’re interrupting a federal investigation…”
“Hey!” said Knightly, poking one finger into Hammer’s chest. “I don’t care if you ARE feds, this is MY jurisdiction.” She opened the door again and hopped out. “If you are feds, I’m sure you won’t mind waiting while my men investigate the crime scene.”
She flashed them a smile and then, with a whirling motion of one finger to the pilot, closed the door again.
Linear Mode
And yet another word from our sponsors
