Desdichado
Hero
So named for the location of the players, not the characters! 
Some of the dialogue and exact details are reconstructed to give the same feel I remember, not exactly what we said or did ('cause I don't remember exactly what it was!) and the little intro is just to give my character some perspective. Also, I do have notes on the other character's names, but since my character doesn't know them yet, I'm just using quick descriptive identifiers.
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Damian Roberts wiped his brow and punched out. He brushed his greasy hands on his jeans, and picked up his thick flannel shirt that he used as a jacket in the quickly cooling Chicago fall weather. Behind him, the evening shift was already filing in -- the crane was already starting to unload cargo again, and he waved to Thompson, just starting his first load with the forklift.
"Hey, Roberts!" called out Dominic. "You up for a drink?" Damian smiled and clapped the large, muscular black man on the arm. Damian himself was tall and thin, wiry and quick, but not strong.
"Can't, buddy!" he said. "I'm headin' out of town tonight. Gonna do a little hunting with my cousin in Utah." Dominic stopped and did a WTF take.
"Utah?"
Damian shook his head. "Yeah, my cousin works for Nortel up there. We take turns each fall -- last year I dragged him to Michigan's UP, this year he takes me to the Uintahs or someplace like that for some bow hunting. Good deer in Utah, I hear."
Dominic gave a little salute and smile. "Good luck, my man!" he said.
****************************************
Two weeks later, Damian was about to the end of his vacation. He was back in civilization again, having just showered at his cousin's place. He had bagged a big buck, a five pointer, but not with the bow. His handy Desert Eagle had done the trick. It was due back from the meat processing plant tomorrow, and Jonas had promised to grill up some venison steaks before he left. Now, he was just sitting on his cousins back porch watching the sun set on the Wasatch front from his cousin's Salt Lake suburban home with a Bud in his hand.
Jonas came out back and sat with him. "Hey, me and Jen are gonna go catch a show with the guys -- that new thing with John Travolta and Samuel Jackson looks cool. You wanna come?"
Damian tossed back the final drops of his beer. "Naw, I'm heading downtown. I wanna stop by the Teamster's office and see what happened with the shipping negotiations that were going on while I was out roughing it with you. Where's that building again?"
"The Hurd Buildling?" asked Jonas. "It's right downtown on State Street and like 3rd or 4rd North, I think. You shouldn't miss it, it's got a big sign out front. Lots of other stuff in there too, though, I don't know where the Teamster's office is. Besides, is anyone going to be there this time of night? I thought you union folks always left right at four thirty!"
"Watch it!" Damian laughed. "But you've got a point; it's getting pretty late. Don't worry about me, I've got a long drive tomorrow; I'll stop by, and if you're already gone when I get back, I'll just crash so I can get an early start."
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Later that night, Damian was riding the elevator down to the fourth level of the underground parking garage. The building was nearly empty by now, but a few other folks were there with him. One young fellow, with a baby blue hat that would have made him look like a gangster if not for his Circle K shirt was quietly humming to himself and ignoring everyone else, another middle-aged fellow with a somewhat tatty brown suit had his nose buried in a book and a bicycle seat in his hand. An elderly woman with a large, carpetbag for a purse smiled at him. He smiled and looked away. Another man was there as well, better dressed, but with grease under his fingernails. The elevator beeped and the number three flashed on the display panel above the door.
Suddenly with a lurch the elevator stopped and went pitch black. The old lady let out a gasp, or small scream of surprise, and some of the other passengers muttered a little bit. Suddenly, with a flare, Circle K held up a lighter, with the gas turned up to provide the brightest and largest flame it could. "Dude, this lighter won't last long burning like this -- let's see if we can do anything about this quick." Nicely dressed also turned on the lighted panel on his cell phone.
"No service," he muttered to himself, but at least it gave a little more light.
Damian looked at the button panel, but there was no call button. Behind him there was phone, but when he picked it up there was no sound. "Up there!" someone said and he looked up -- a panel was in the back corner of the elevator ceiling. The larger guys boosted brown suit up, but he said the hatch seemed to be locked from the outside.
"So much for that," Damian muttered. Then, the four men all worked for a few minutes on the elevator, even using brown suit's bicycle seat for leverage until finally the inner elevator door came open.
"Damn lighter won't last much longer," complained Circle K. He seemed agitated, as if in quite a hurry. "I've got to meet someone on the fourth level at eight!" But just then, the emergency lights came on dimly. He quickly snapped the lighter shut protectively. The elevator still didn't move, so Damian, nicely dressed and Circle K all got to work trying to open the outer doors as well. After a lot of effort, they finally managed to prop them open a few feet. The elevator seemed to be pretty evenly stuck between basement levels three and four.
"Well, there's my truck," said Damian. His 1983 Ford F350 SuperCrew, unfortunately more bondo grey than it's original dark blue now, was parked just a few spaces in. "I've got a Coleman lamp in the box there. The garage itself was pitch black just a few feet beyond that.
Circle K leaned out and shouted into the gloom. "Leon, are you there?" There was no answer. He squeezed his way under the ceiling suspended evenly in front of the door and hopped down to the floor of the fourth level. Grandma came next, hopping down like a spritely gymnast making a perfect landing.
"That's how you do it, son," she said.
The elevator phone rang then. Brown suit picked it up, and in just a moment, his face went white and slack. Damian gave him a confused look as he slowly hung it back up. "Who was it?" he asked.
Brown suit looked at him for a minute as if unsure what to say. "He says he's hungry..." he trailed off softly. Then, a strange banging noise from below them. Damian recalled that there was construction on the fifth level of the basement. "Weird time for them to get back to work," he thought.
"Maybe we should get off now," Damian said. Brown suit nodded slightly, his face now a little bit sweaty.
"Yeah, good idea," he said as he started to climb out. Suddenly the elevator slipped a few inches down. Damian heard a strange snapping sound from above him, that sounded suspiciously like the elevator cables.
Nicely dressed shouted in alarm and reached for brown suit as the elevator lurched downward once more. He managed to just snatch brown suit from halfway out of the doorway and throw him against the back wall just as he was about to be violently decapitated by the falling elevator. With a sickening crunch, it slammed into the bottom of the shaft a floor and a half below, throwing Damian, brown suit and nicely dressed like rag dolls.
Damian sat up painfully. "Everyone all right?" he asked. He got back two muttered assents. Then the phone rang again.
Brown suit picked it up one more time with shaking hands. He held the phone up for the other two to hear. There was a strange electrical humming sound for a moment, then a deep gravelly voice that said simply "Welcome."
"Ok, that's pretty freaky," said Damian. Above them, they could hear frantic shouting. It sounded like the old lady trying to make sure they were all right.
Damian was boosted up to the hatch in the ceiling again, this time he pounded on it with the bicycle seat, but he couldn't get any leverage into his blows. "Screw this," he murmered, pulling the gun from his jacket. Two other sets of eyebrows went up. "Hey, I've got a permit!" he said.
But in the end, they decided not to shoot at the hatch, and instead went to work pulling open the doors. Before long, they could hear work on the other side as well -- apparently old lady and Circle K were trying to open the doors from their side.
They all stopped working suddenly as a heavy thump sounded from the top of the elevator. The hatch started shaking as if someone were trying to open it. "Who's there?" Damian shouted, but the only response was a frantic shaking of the hatch that seemed sure to rip it from its place. Then the sound stopped as suddenly as it began and was not repeated.
"I'm getting out of here," nicely dressed said, going back to the elevator door with renewed vigor. Damian and brown suit joined him, and before long, they had the door open. With the help of old lady and Circle K, they soon had the outer door open as well, and the three filed out as quickly as possible. Circle K had the Coleman lantern on, and his backpack seemed a little fuller than it had been.
"Hey, didn't I lock that box?" asked Damian. Suddenly he stopped. As they walked in front of the elevator, their hair suddenly seemed to stand on end, as if they'd walked through a powerful field of static electricity. A faint hum seemed to come from a nearby mechanical closet, and light that was more sensed than actually seen seemed to glow from behind it. Although the garage quickly faded to blackness beyond the range of the lantern, they could easily tell it was empty.
"This has turned out to be the creepiest night I can remember," said Damian. "I think it's time we go. Anyone need a ride?" The group filed up the stairwell to the fourth level and up to Damian's truck. Nicely dressed declined the offer for a ride, indicating his restored Harley further down the garage, near the end of the row. Brown suit eagerly loaded his bicycle into the bed of the truck -- which Damian already had running to let his headlights show nicely dressed where he was going. The ratchety sound of the diesel engine reverberated through the entire garage. Circle K was already in the back seat, and old lady was in the passenger seat in front.
Then Damian shouted. Two men, dressed as maintenance men, but moving with a strange shambling gait climbed over the railing from the fifth basement level and moved to cut off nicely dressed at his bike. Both were bearing crowbars.
Damian quickly jumped into the truck and bore it down on the two men, but they were too close to the side of the wall for him to cut them off. He stopped before getting to them, and hopped out again, staying behind his open door and pulling out his gun, shouting again to nicely dressed.
Brown suit narrowly dodged the large mirror that stuck out from the truck, and he ran forward, climbing into the bed and getting underneat the bicycle as best he could.
Nicely dressed, meanwhile, had seen the folks coming at him, and jumped on his bike as quickly as he could, turning it on. One of the men grabbed him around the waist as he gunned the trottle. He hung on for just a few feet, then fell heavily to the floor as the bike zipped past the truck on its way to the surface. He rolled a few feet, and lay still. Nicely dressed pulled the bike to a quick stop at the head of the ramp, turning to see what was happening below. The other man had come right to the truck, and with a wild swing shattered the door glass, hitting Damian in the torso. Old lady screamed and locked her door. Circle K was yelling to DUDE, GET BACK IN THE TRUCK! Damian popped off a shot with his gun at his assailant as he climbed back into the driver's seat. The man fell back heavily, a large hole in his chest. Then, to Damian's dismay, some kind of ethereal, rat-sized mosquito creature emerged from the man's head and headed slowly towards him. A sharp whip-like crack sounded, and Damian suddenly convulsed violently and slipped into unconsciousness. Old lady was screaming wildly now, although she mercifully hadn't seen the blasphemous creature yet. Circle K, his face white and sweating frantically climbed back into the front and pushed Damian to the middle. Although he didn't have a license to drive, he apparently was at least familiar enough with the thing to get it into reverse, pop the clutch and back the truck up as fast as he could, shouting to old lady to help Damian out. She dug in her large bag, eventually coming up with a bag of cough drops.
Then, Circle K saw the other man was up and lurching towards him. Swearing softly, he gunned the truck one more time, hitting the man and sending him crashing into the side of the garage. As soon as he was down, another one of the ghostly mosquito creatures emerged from his head. Old lady saw this one, and screamed again. Circle K yanked hard on the wheel to turn the truck around before either of the creatures made it to them, but the truck was so long that he was having trouble turning it around.
**********************************************
Well, that's literally where we stopped for the night!
It looks like we're having trouble getting together for the next few weeks, so it may be early May before we can see what happens next...
Some of the dialogue and exact details are reconstructed to give the same feel I remember, not exactly what we said or did ('cause I don't remember exactly what it was!) and the little intro is just to give my character some perspective. Also, I do have notes on the other character's names, but since my character doesn't know them yet, I'm just using quick descriptive identifiers.*****************************************
Damian Roberts wiped his brow and punched out. He brushed his greasy hands on his jeans, and picked up his thick flannel shirt that he used as a jacket in the quickly cooling Chicago fall weather. Behind him, the evening shift was already filing in -- the crane was already starting to unload cargo again, and he waved to Thompson, just starting his first load with the forklift.
"Hey, Roberts!" called out Dominic. "You up for a drink?" Damian smiled and clapped the large, muscular black man on the arm. Damian himself was tall and thin, wiry and quick, but not strong.
"Can't, buddy!" he said. "I'm headin' out of town tonight. Gonna do a little hunting with my cousin in Utah." Dominic stopped and did a WTF take.
"Utah?"
Damian shook his head. "Yeah, my cousin works for Nortel up there. We take turns each fall -- last year I dragged him to Michigan's UP, this year he takes me to the Uintahs or someplace like that for some bow hunting. Good deer in Utah, I hear."
Dominic gave a little salute and smile. "Good luck, my man!" he said.
****************************************
Two weeks later, Damian was about to the end of his vacation. He was back in civilization again, having just showered at his cousin's place. He had bagged a big buck, a five pointer, but not with the bow. His handy Desert Eagle had done the trick. It was due back from the meat processing plant tomorrow, and Jonas had promised to grill up some venison steaks before he left. Now, he was just sitting on his cousins back porch watching the sun set on the Wasatch front from his cousin's Salt Lake suburban home with a Bud in his hand.
Jonas came out back and sat with him. "Hey, me and Jen are gonna go catch a show with the guys -- that new thing with John Travolta and Samuel Jackson looks cool. You wanna come?"
Damian tossed back the final drops of his beer. "Naw, I'm heading downtown. I wanna stop by the Teamster's office and see what happened with the shipping negotiations that were going on while I was out roughing it with you. Where's that building again?"
"The Hurd Buildling?" asked Jonas. "It's right downtown on State Street and like 3rd or 4rd North, I think. You shouldn't miss it, it's got a big sign out front. Lots of other stuff in there too, though, I don't know where the Teamster's office is. Besides, is anyone going to be there this time of night? I thought you union folks always left right at four thirty!"
"Watch it!" Damian laughed. "But you've got a point; it's getting pretty late. Don't worry about me, I've got a long drive tomorrow; I'll stop by, and if you're already gone when I get back, I'll just crash so I can get an early start."
*****************************************
Later that night, Damian was riding the elevator down to the fourth level of the underground parking garage. The building was nearly empty by now, but a few other folks were there with him. One young fellow, with a baby blue hat that would have made him look like a gangster if not for his Circle K shirt was quietly humming to himself and ignoring everyone else, another middle-aged fellow with a somewhat tatty brown suit had his nose buried in a book and a bicycle seat in his hand. An elderly woman with a large, carpetbag for a purse smiled at him. He smiled and looked away. Another man was there as well, better dressed, but with grease under his fingernails. The elevator beeped and the number three flashed on the display panel above the door.
Suddenly with a lurch the elevator stopped and went pitch black. The old lady let out a gasp, or small scream of surprise, and some of the other passengers muttered a little bit. Suddenly, with a flare, Circle K held up a lighter, with the gas turned up to provide the brightest and largest flame it could. "Dude, this lighter won't last long burning like this -- let's see if we can do anything about this quick." Nicely dressed also turned on the lighted panel on his cell phone.
"No service," he muttered to himself, but at least it gave a little more light.
Damian looked at the button panel, but there was no call button. Behind him there was phone, but when he picked it up there was no sound. "Up there!" someone said and he looked up -- a panel was in the back corner of the elevator ceiling. The larger guys boosted brown suit up, but he said the hatch seemed to be locked from the outside.
"So much for that," Damian muttered. Then, the four men all worked for a few minutes on the elevator, even using brown suit's bicycle seat for leverage until finally the inner elevator door came open.
"Damn lighter won't last much longer," complained Circle K. He seemed agitated, as if in quite a hurry. "I've got to meet someone on the fourth level at eight!" But just then, the emergency lights came on dimly. He quickly snapped the lighter shut protectively. The elevator still didn't move, so Damian, nicely dressed and Circle K all got to work trying to open the outer doors as well. After a lot of effort, they finally managed to prop them open a few feet. The elevator seemed to be pretty evenly stuck between basement levels three and four.
"Well, there's my truck," said Damian. His 1983 Ford F350 SuperCrew, unfortunately more bondo grey than it's original dark blue now, was parked just a few spaces in. "I've got a Coleman lamp in the box there. The garage itself was pitch black just a few feet beyond that.
Circle K leaned out and shouted into the gloom. "Leon, are you there?" There was no answer. He squeezed his way under the ceiling suspended evenly in front of the door and hopped down to the floor of the fourth level. Grandma came next, hopping down like a spritely gymnast making a perfect landing.
"That's how you do it, son," she said.
The elevator phone rang then. Brown suit picked it up, and in just a moment, his face went white and slack. Damian gave him a confused look as he slowly hung it back up. "Who was it?" he asked.
Brown suit looked at him for a minute as if unsure what to say. "He says he's hungry..." he trailed off softly. Then, a strange banging noise from below them. Damian recalled that there was construction on the fifth level of the basement. "Weird time for them to get back to work," he thought.
"Maybe we should get off now," Damian said. Brown suit nodded slightly, his face now a little bit sweaty.
"Yeah, good idea," he said as he started to climb out. Suddenly the elevator slipped a few inches down. Damian heard a strange snapping sound from above him, that sounded suspiciously like the elevator cables.
Nicely dressed shouted in alarm and reached for brown suit as the elevator lurched downward once more. He managed to just snatch brown suit from halfway out of the doorway and throw him against the back wall just as he was about to be violently decapitated by the falling elevator. With a sickening crunch, it slammed into the bottom of the shaft a floor and a half below, throwing Damian, brown suit and nicely dressed like rag dolls.
Damian sat up painfully. "Everyone all right?" he asked. He got back two muttered assents. Then the phone rang again.
Brown suit picked it up one more time with shaking hands. He held the phone up for the other two to hear. There was a strange electrical humming sound for a moment, then a deep gravelly voice that said simply "Welcome."
"Ok, that's pretty freaky," said Damian. Above them, they could hear frantic shouting. It sounded like the old lady trying to make sure they were all right.
Damian was boosted up to the hatch in the ceiling again, this time he pounded on it with the bicycle seat, but he couldn't get any leverage into his blows. "Screw this," he murmered, pulling the gun from his jacket. Two other sets of eyebrows went up. "Hey, I've got a permit!" he said.
But in the end, they decided not to shoot at the hatch, and instead went to work pulling open the doors. Before long, they could hear work on the other side as well -- apparently old lady and Circle K were trying to open the doors from their side.
They all stopped working suddenly as a heavy thump sounded from the top of the elevator. The hatch started shaking as if someone were trying to open it. "Who's there?" Damian shouted, but the only response was a frantic shaking of the hatch that seemed sure to rip it from its place. Then the sound stopped as suddenly as it began and was not repeated.
"I'm getting out of here," nicely dressed said, going back to the elevator door with renewed vigor. Damian and brown suit joined him, and before long, they had the door open. With the help of old lady and Circle K, they soon had the outer door open as well, and the three filed out as quickly as possible. Circle K had the Coleman lantern on, and his backpack seemed a little fuller than it had been.
"Hey, didn't I lock that box?" asked Damian. Suddenly he stopped. As they walked in front of the elevator, their hair suddenly seemed to stand on end, as if they'd walked through a powerful field of static electricity. A faint hum seemed to come from a nearby mechanical closet, and light that was more sensed than actually seen seemed to glow from behind it. Although the garage quickly faded to blackness beyond the range of the lantern, they could easily tell it was empty.
"This has turned out to be the creepiest night I can remember," said Damian. "I think it's time we go. Anyone need a ride?" The group filed up the stairwell to the fourth level and up to Damian's truck. Nicely dressed declined the offer for a ride, indicating his restored Harley further down the garage, near the end of the row. Brown suit eagerly loaded his bicycle into the bed of the truck -- which Damian already had running to let his headlights show nicely dressed where he was going. The ratchety sound of the diesel engine reverberated through the entire garage. Circle K was already in the back seat, and old lady was in the passenger seat in front.
Then Damian shouted. Two men, dressed as maintenance men, but moving with a strange shambling gait climbed over the railing from the fifth basement level and moved to cut off nicely dressed at his bike. Both were bearing crowbars.
Damian quickly jumped into the truck and bore it down on the two men, but they were too close to the side of the wall for him to cut them off. He stopped before getting to them, and hopped out again, staying behind his open door and pulling out his gun, shouting again to nicely dressed.
Brown suit narrowly dodged the large mirror that stuck out from the truck, and he ran forward, climbing into the bed and getting underneat the bicycle as best he could.
Nicely dressed, meanwhile, had seen the folks coming at him, and jumped on his bike as quickly as he could, turning it on. One of the men grabbed him around the waist as he gunned the trottle. He hung on for just a few feet, then fell heavily to the floor as the bike zipped past the truck on its way to the surface. He rolled a few feet, and lay still. Nicely dressed pulled the bike to a quick stop at the head of the ramp, turning to see what was happening below. The other man had come right to the truck, and with a wild swing shattered the door glass, hitting Damian in the torso. Old lady screamed and locked her door. Circle K was yelling to DUDE, GET BACK IN THE TRUCK! Damian popped off a shot with his gun at his assailant as he climbed back into the driver's seat. The man fell back heavily, a large hole in his chest. Then, to Damian's dismay, some kind of ethereal, rat-sized mosquito creature emerged from the man's head and headed slowly towards him. A sharp whip-like crack sounded, and Damian suddenly convulsed violently and slipped into unconsciousness. Old lady was screaming wildly now, although she mercifully hadn't seen the blasphemous creature yet. Circle K, his face white and sweating frantically climbed back into the front and pushed Damian to the middle. Although he didn't have a license to drive, he apparently was at least familiar enough with the thing to get it into reverse, pop the clutch and back the truck up as fast as he could, shouting to old lady to help Damian out. She dug in her large bag, eventually coming up with a bag of cough drops.
Then, Circle K saw the other man was up and lurching towards him. Swearing softly, he gunned the truck one more time, hitting the man and sending him crashing into the side of the garage. As soon as he was down, another one of the ghostly mosquito creatures emerged from his head. Old lady saw this one, and screamed again. Circle K yanked hard on the wheel to turn the truck around before either of the creatures made it to them, but the truck was so long that he was having trouble turning it around.
**********************************************
Well, that's literally where we stopped for the night!
It looks like we're having trouble getting together for the next few weeks, so it may be early May before we can see what happens next...
