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(10/28) University Blues: Cabin Fever, Final Chapter
- Thread starter HeapThaumaturgist
- Start date
HeapThaumaturgist
First Post
Worked out pretty well, actually. I'm a large large dead weight for them to haul around.
Pretty much know you're up the creek when the biggest person you know gets mauled and thrown down the steps like a rag doll. I noticed very little "I charge the monster with my knife." and alot of "Run! Call the cops! The army! Ahhhhhhh!!!!!"
Mission accomplished.
Pretty much know you're up the creek when the biggest person you know gets mauled and thrown down the steps like a rag doll. I noticed very little "I charge the monster with my knife." and alot of "Run! Call the cops! The army! Ahhhhhhh!!!!!"
Mission accomplished.
HeapThaumaturgist
First Post
Cabin Fever Pt. 6
The police would not come in time. No one would come in time. Something existed, something was OUT there, that should not be. And it wanted them. And it would get them.
Wiley stood, still, stony. Watching the door. Listening. For a creak, a crash. He had the gun, a nine-mil. Solid, heavy. Heavier, really, than he would have expected. Brickel hadn't asked for it back. Honestly, he didn't blame him. The gun felt reassuring, powerful, and amazingly useless. A depressing feeling. He had the gun, and he wasn't in charge.
Scott had moved away from the phone, realizing how close he was to a window. He kept his knife, crouched next to Frank. His friend groaned and was shushed hurriedly. The quiet grew, grew oppressive. It moved, weighed, had presence. The hum of the air conditioner gone, each breath seemed loud.
And then it happened. A sound. The sound. A creak from the porch. A step. The quiet became fear, heavier. Wiley grabbed the gun tighter. Everyone held their breath, waiting for the door to explode, shouldered away by the thing outside.
There was a knock.
The four friends looked confused. Shouting, roars, tearing flesh, muzzle flashes? A polite knock? Maybe it was ... playing with them? Waiting for somebody to open the door, look outside, get his head ripped off. Nobody moved.
Nobody but the cabin owner. He opened the door, on a woman standing in the dark.
“Do any of you know Joshua Tehnoah?”
“My name is Craig.”
Brickel shouldered Craig aside and pulled the woman into the cabin.
“Introductions later, hiding from monster first.”
“Monster?” Jerri asked as she stumbled into the room. She already had an idea, however.
“Yea. About nine feet tall, looks like She-Hulk got it on with that old crying Indian dude from Wayne's World.” Pennick said.
“Moves like the wind, claws and long teeth, eats human flesh?” She asked.
“Not sure if it eats flesh, but it does a pretty good number on it. It tore our friend Frank up pretty bad. We thought he was going to die, but he's been showing signs of coming around.”
The woman ran her hands through her hair. “My name is Jerri Thaves. I'm a professor at a college near here. I think that thing out there was accidentally summoned by one of my colleagues, Dr. Tehnoah ... That or it IS Joshua.”
********************************************
The crone slumps into a comfortable chair, bone-tired. She remembers this kind of tired, working in the field with her mother and sister so many years before. She'd always had her gift. Others noticed it first when an uncle died, ten miles from their home, when she was five. She saw him, sitting beneath a great-spreading pecan tree. He had been eating an apple. They may not have found him for a week, otherwise.
A gift from God, Jesus be praised, the visions. She was a local phenomenon, an intricate part of her church. It was the community and the church that protected her, her entire life. Others wouldn't have understood, wouldn't have believed, or would have turned her into a tourist attraction like some West-Georgia crying-Virgin statue. Only recently, in her declining years, had Susan come to the attention of official figures. She had shown herself, had seen herself in a vision doing God's work in this way. The visions had started coming more often ... things in the world were changing.
The police would not come in time. No one would come in time. Something existed, something was OUT there, that should not be. And it wanted them. And it would get them.
Wiley stood, still, stony. Watching the door. Listening. For a creak, a crash. He had the gun, a nine-mil. Solid, heavy. Heavier, really, than he would have expected. Brickel hadn't asked for it back. Honestly, he didn't blame him. The gun felt reassuring, powerful, and amazingly useless. A depressing feeling. He had the gun, and he wasn't in charge.
Scott had moved away from the phone, realizing how close he was to a window. He kept his knife, crouched next to Frank. His friend groaned and was shushed hurriedly. The quiet grew, grew oppressive. It moved, weighed, had presence. The hum of the air conditioner gone, each breath seemed loud.
And then it happened. A sound. The sound. A creak from the porch. A step. The quiet became fear, heavier. Wiley grabbed the gun tighter. Everyone held their breath, waiting for the door to explode, shouldered away by the thing outside.
There was a knock.
The four friends looked confused. Shouting, roars, tearing flesh, muzzle flashes? A polite knock? Maybe it was ... playing with them? Waiting for somebody to open the door, look outside, get his head ripped off. Nobody moved.
Nobody but the cabin owner. He opened the door, on a woman standing in the dark.
“Do any of you know Joshua Tehnoah?”
“My name is Craig.”
Brickel shouldered Craig aside and pulled the woman into the cabin.
“Introductions later, hiding from monster first.”
“Monster?” Jerri asked as she stumbled into the room. She already had an idea, however.
“Yea. About nine feet tall, looks like She-Hulk got it on with that old crying Indian dude from Wayne's World.” Pennick said.
“Moves like the wind, claws and long teeth, eats human flesh?” She asked.
“Not sure if it eats flesh, but it does a pretty good number on it. It tore our friend Frank up pretty bad. We thought he was going to die, but he's been showing signs of coming around.”
The woman ran her hands through her hair. “My name is Jerri Thaves. I'm a professor at a college near here. I think that thing out there was accidentally summoned by one of my colleagues, Dr. Tehnoah ... That or it IS Joshua.”
********************************************
The crone slumps into a comfortable chair, bone-tired. She remembers this kind of tired, working in the field with her mother and sister so many years before. She'd always had her gift. Others noticed it first when an uncle died, ten miles from their home, when she was five. She saw him, sitting beneath a great-spreading pecan tree. He had been eating an apple. They may not have found him for a week, otherwise.
A gift from God, Jesus be praised, the visions. She was a local phenomenon, an intricate part of her church. It was the community and the church that protected her, her entire life. Others wouldn't have understood, wouldn't have believed, or would have turned her into a tourist attraction like some West-Georgia crying-Virgin statue. Only recently, in her declining years, had Susan come to the attention of official figures. She had shown herself, had seen herself in a vision doing God's work in this way. The visions had started coming more often ... things in the world were changing.
Heap, that's what I'm talking about. A great update, made me laugh. I love the quotes. Funny, but my friends and I talk that way, hmmmm.
The copy from your story you put in your signiture is what I was refering to in my previous post. It is very descriptive and moving, well done.
More please.
The copy from your story you put in your signiture is what I was refering to in my previous post. It is very descriptive and moving, well done.
More please.
HeapThaumaturgist
First Post
ledded said:
Yep. Undergrads at Auburn. I graduated from there in the summer and am currently getting my Masters at Miami University in Ohio.
Hopefully I can get a new game going somewhere up here. A little action in Cincinnati, head east and get into Mothman country maybe.
--fje
ledded
Herder of monkies
HeapThaumaturgist said:
Cool, our group from the Medallions SH is in Birmingham (and the d20 modern campaign is based there also), and at least one of our guys in an Auburn grad. Oddly enough, 4 of us are computer geeks except for the last guy, who is a bond trader.
Loved the SH. Great stuff, I honestly look forward to seeing some more of it. If you havent read the Medallions SH, give it a try sometime:
http://enworld.cyberstreet.com/showthread.php?threadid=53798
It's pretty much 5 normal people in Birmingham who suddenly find out that certain things they thought only existed in the movies are real, and somehow they are stuck in the middle of it.
HeapThaumaturgist
First Post
Cabin Fever Pt. 7
“Hey, wait a minute, I thought you said some guy was ...” Craig, the cabin-owner began.
“Shhh. So you're telling me you know that thing?” Wiley asked.
“Yes. No. I'm not sure. Just a suspicion I have. I wouldn't have said anything, but it's obvious SOMETHING is going on. I found a tree knocked across the road up, your friend is hurt, and I assume that the power is off?” Jerri said. She looked around. The children and their mother sat on the ground, no longer quite huddled. Confused.
“I thought there was a guy ou ...”
“Shhh. So how can you be sure?” Wiley asked.
“I don't know. I thought this was Joshua's cabin. Lot Three, Oak Lane?”
“This is Lot One, Oak Lane.” Craig said, moving close to the conversation, getting quieter. “Somebody had better tell me what's going on...”
“Shhh ... did anybody hear that?”
**************
Marty. Not Martin. Martin, Martin McCullough, was his father. Thirty years old and still Marty. If people knew he lived in an “Institution”, and people called him Marty, they'd assume he was mentally retarded. Only eighteen people lived at the Swann-Price Center, an unknown part of the little-known Monroe Institute. The Monroe Institute espoused introspective meditations, soundwave therapies, and other new-age healing techniques, and also trained civilians to perform their own “Remote Viewing”.
Eccentric, commercial, safe. If you can sell it like modern snake oil, it can't be of military use. The perfect place for MAJIC to hide a reborn STAR GATE program, the perfect way to do it. It's hard to keep a twenty year program a secret, but easy to hide it in plain sight. Eighteen functional remote viewers. Marty, not Martin, designation RV-3 attached to the Majority Agency for Joint Intelligence Control, Department Seven.
***************
The roof, it was on the roof. For something that large, it moved quietly, but it just couldn't hide the mass. Had the air conditioner been running, had they been talking any louder, they wouldn't have heard it at all. And they would be dead.
“Where can we go?” Pennick looked around. “We leave, it jumps down on us. We stay here, it jumps down on us.”
“Does this place have a basement?”
Craig shook his head.
“We don't want to get cornered, anyway. We're going to have to move.” Wiley said.
Jerri looked up, and started yelling.
In a language no-one had ever heard.
Brickel got ready to tackle her. She was obviously communicating with the thing. A strange woman appears at the door, says she knows something about what's going on, mysteriously doesn't get killed or eaten by the monster rampaging outside, and then starts talking to it in some obscure vowel-heavy language, probably telling the thing exactly where they were.
And now, it was answering.
The thing had a voice like a thousand cougars growling into the north wind ... overlaid on Tom Waits with a sore throat and a head cold. It spoke the same vowel-heavy language, screaming into the night defiantly.
Jerri shook her head. “It's Ojibway, like Joshua. Joshua had several ancient totem-statues of the clans. Only whatever that is out there claims to be of the wa-wa-shesh'-she of the Anishinabe ... Deer Clan of the Ojibway. But there IS no Deer Clan. Never was. It's just a story.”
The roof creaked over their heads.
“Well, you can stay and argue lineage with it, but we need to get out of here. Somebody try to get Frank upright.” Wiley said.
“What's just a story? It shouldn't exist at all, so what the hell if it claims to be from a storybook clan? I imagine it knows better than you do.”
“Maybe.” Jerri sighed. “Deer clan was supposedly cast out for breaking ancient taboos. Scattered to the winds in a Northern-Canadian winter ... There must have been something wrong with one of those totems, we must have mistaken one.”
“How long is he going to sit up there?” Craig asked quietly.
“Not sure. Maybe it's intrigued. Maybe it's scared. You do have a gun, and I have no idea how effective that will be. Did it seem ... solid?” Jerri asked.
“Yea, pretty. I shot it, it left. Dunno how bad I hurt it, though.” Brickel replied.
“Maybe it can be killed, if it comes to that. I'd rather ... find some other way. Things like this have a way of not staying dead.” Jerri said. “We need to get to Joshua's cabin.”
“Yea, but if we move, it's on us. We need a diversion.” Wiley said.
There was a cough from Frank. A wet cough.
“Well if you're planning on a jog, count me out.” He said.
******************
Hours of waiting at HQ for confirmation. A moment of excitement as the chopper is loaded. The ride is interminable. The strike team shifts, weapons safetied and slung across chests. The uncertainty is the nature of the beast. Deployments are often short and violently unpredictable. Agent Kincaid looks down. Fifteen minutes to the hot-spot. A lot can happen in fifteen minutes.
A lot will happen in fifteen minutes.
“Hey, wait a minute, I thought you said some guy was ...” Craig, the cabin-owner began.
“Shhh. So you're telling me you know that thing?” Wiley asked.
“Yes. No. I'm not sure. Just a suspicion I have. I wouldn't have said anything, but it's obvious SOMETHING is going on. I found a tree knocked across the road up, your friend is hurt, and I assume that the power is off?” Jerri said. She looked around. The children and their mother sat on the ground, no longer quite huddled. Confused.
“I thought there was a guy ou ...”
“Shhh. So how can you be sure?” Wiley asked.
“I don't know. I thought this was Joshua's cabin. Lot Three, Oak Lane?”
“This is Lot One, Oak Lane.” Craig said, moving close to the conversation, getting quieter. “Somebody had better tell me what's going on...”
“Shhh ... did anybody hear that?”
**************
Marty. Not Martin. Martin, Martin McCullough, was his father. Thirty years old and still Marty. If people knew he lived in an “Institution”, and people called him Marty, they'd assume he was mentally retarded. Only eighteen people lived at the Swann-Price Center, an unknown part of the little-known Monroe Institute. The Monroe Institute espoused introspective meditations, soundwave therapies, and other new-age healing techniques, and also trained civilians to perform their own “Remote Viewing”.
Eccentric, commercial, safe. If you can sell it like modern snake oil, it can't be of military use. The perfect place for MAJIC to hide a reborn STAR GATE program, the perfect way to do it. It's hard to keep a twenty year program a secret, but easy to hide it in plain sight. Eighteen functional remote viewers. Marty, not Martin, designation RV-3 attached to the Majority Agency for Joint Intelligence Control, Department Seven.
***************
The roof, it was on the roof. For something that large, it moved quietly, but it just couldn't hide the mass. Had the air conditioner been running, had they been talking any louder, they wouldn't have heard it at all. And they would be dead.
“Where can we go?” Pennick looked around. “We leave, it jumps down on us. We stay here, it jumps down on us.”
“Does this place have a basement?”
Craig shook his head.
“We don't want to get cornered, anyway. We're going to have to move.” Wiley said.
Jerri looked up, and started yelling.
In a language no-one had ever heard.
Brickel got ready to tackle her. She was obviously communicating with the thing. A strange woman appears at the door, says she knows something about what's going on, mysteriously doesn't get killed or eaten by the monster rampaging outside, and then starts talking to it in some obscure vowel-heavy language, probably telling the thing exactly where they were.
And now, it was answering.
The thing had a voice like a thousand cougars growling into the north wind ... overlaid on Tom Waits with a sore throat and a head cold. It spoke the same vowel-heavy language, screaming into the night defiantly.
Jerri shook her head. “It's Ojibway, like Joshua. Joshua had several ancient totem-statues of the clans. Only whatever that is out there claims to be of the wa-wa-shesh'-she of the Anishinabe ... Deer Clan of the Ojibway. But there IS no Deer Clan. Never was. It's just a story.”
The roof creaked over their heads.
“Well, you can stay and argue lineage with it, but we need to get out of here. Somebody try to get Frank upright.” Wiley said.
“What's just a story? It shouldn't exist at all, so what the hell if it claims to be from a storybook clan? I imagine it knows better than you do.”
“Maybe.” Jerri sighed. “Deer clan was supposedly cast out for breaking ancient taboos. Scattered to the winds in a Northern-Canadian winter ... There must have been something wrong with one of those totems, we must have mistaken one.”
“How long is he going to sit up there?” Craig asked quietly.
“Not sure. Maybe it's intrigued. Maybe it's scared. You do have a gun, and I have no idea how effective that will be. Did it seem ... solid?” Jerri asked.
“Yea, pretty. I shot it, it left. Dunno how bad I hurt it, though.” Brickel replied.
“Maybe it can be killed, if it comes to that. I'd rather ... find some other way. Things like this have a way of not staying dead.” Jerri said. “We need to get to Joshua's cabin.”
“Yea, but if we move, it's on us. We need a diversion.” Wiley said.
There was a cough from Frank. A wet cough.
“Well if you're planning on a jog, count me out.” He said.
******************
Hours of waiting at HQ for confirmation. A moment of excitement as the chopper is loaded. The ride is interminable. The strike team shifts, weapons safetied and slung across chests. The uncertainty is the nature of the beast. Deployments are often short and violently unpredictable. Agent Kincaid looks down. Fifteen minutes to the hot-spot. A lot can happen in fifteen minutes.
A lot will happen in fifteen minutes.
Last edited:
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