Play@YSDC

The boot is warm and smells of oil stains and skinned rabbits. It's hard to think why the musty odour reminds her of skinned rabbits, but it does. Something about that taxidermy shop has always lingered with her, deep in the recesses of her subconscious mind, to give her a metaphor she doesn't want. It's been days. She's sure of that. Days since Jack poked a conspiracy that killed him. Days since that woman Ash and the neurotic mother walked in through the doors of her bar. Ash had seen some kind of connection and she was such a vibrant, convincing woman. It was hard not to think that maybe the drug dealers were somehow responsible for the drowning ... or that maybe the lake was what did it. Something about her made all those horror stories seem real, believable.

Something about her led Rochelle into doing something stupid.

She'd tracked the dealers across the foggy lake as they made their way in the Indian Runner, her with nothing but a row boat, always somewhat out of sight, able to hear them even as they chugged along. She'd been so sure she'd been careful, so sure she'd kept herself invisible. She didn't even know who they were. That was the weirdest thing. Most drug dealers were paranoid but these guys hid themselves in darkened rooms and wrapped their heads in scarves or wore gas masks. It was like they knew they couldn't trust her.

They were right.

She'd followed them to a small dock further down the southern side of the lake that she didn't even know existed. She wagered that she was somewhere near where Hope House Orphanage once was, before it burned down, but she couldn't be sure. She couldn't see anything through that enormous fog as she'd paddled to the shore and dragged her row boat up the side of the embankment, far enough away from the dock that they surely could never see her. She could always follow the lake to the right and she'd find them.

Only no such luck.

They were on her out of the shadows before she'd managed to fully dock the oars. There were footsteps behind her and as she reached for her gun, there was a sudden explosion of sound and pain that arced across her head. For a moment she'd thought she'd been shot, or stabbed, but no such luck. Someone had smacked her across the back of the head. She could feel the blood congealing there even now. Everything had gone fuzzy. Maybe it'd been clear while it was happening but it was hard to think back on it. They'd shoved her in the boot of a car and left her there. She was concussed. She knew that. She had to fight not to sleep. But then the car started up and she was driven ... somewhere along a dirt road. The engine didn't sound healthy. It really didn't sound healthy as it rounded a bend. Then the engine cut out entirely.

The boot opened and she saw him there. A man in a hazmat suit, face obscured, and he yanked her out by the arm. She struggled, but she was still weak, that blow had really taken it out of her, and she was dragged out of the boot onto unsteady legs and shoved to the ground. He put a boot against her chest and dangled something over her throat ... a shovel ... then moved it so it was poised over her face.

This was it... She was going to die. Battered to death by a masked man with a shovel. She felt nauseous, and she felt dizzy. And sooooo tired. Maybe not doing anything was the best thing. She was so exhausted. And he was so much taller and stronger after all. And she was hurt and weakened from lack of food, water and the concussion.
But then, something stirred at the back of her mind "Rochelle Ann Turley, you have never given up easily". She lifts her hands to get a hold of the shovel (). Her arms are too heavy, she cannot hold on to it.

From somewhere out there comes a long, low sound that rises up into an eerie wail like an old air raid siren. The man looks around, then chuckles, the sound oddly muffled within the mask, and then he looks up and sees something beyond the car. His grip on the shovel slackens, and it's all Rochelle can do to try to roll out of the way, exposing the side of her neck to the blade as it drops down toward her. She catches a glimpse of red shoes from beneath the car and then there's pain and spurting blood as the sharpened shovel strikes her throat and slides off to hit the ground with a thud. The man continues to stare past her over the car and then, slowly, he reaches his hands up to grip the sides of his head.

She sees the read shoes, and she feels the blood flowing freely from her neck. Is this the artery? Is this it? Well, she thinks quickly, remembering her first aid classes, if it were, the blood would gushing out at intervals, consistent with her pulse. It isn't, "Okay, I'm not dying just yet." She decides to take this moment of her attacker being distracted by the red shoes, to get onto her knees and scramble away, away from the car. She is unsteady on her feet, but she runs, runs, runs.

I actually don't know what to roll for here,there is no "run" skill as such. I suppose you could roll my speed against his speed on the resistance table for me to see do I get away. Unless Red-shoes just shoots me in the back, that is ;) ;)

Rochelle charges to her feet, clasping at her wound instinctively, and staggers away. She can hear the man make a low groaning sound that rises up to a scream. Glancing back, she sees him struggle to remove the mask, blood pouring down the gaps, but she can't look long as there's so many trees and scrub in the way that she has to fight through, brush through, dodging around trunks and moving through the forrest. The blood flow is already slowing, but her throat still throbs with agony. It wasn't the sharpness that hurt her the most, then, but the weight. Her head throbs with each step and his wail is abruptly cut off as she continues to run away from the path. Abruptly, a dirt path appears before her, winding back up the slope and then moving forward in a line. There's a stone well off to one side with a steel grate lodged over the mouth.

She had got away! She couldn't believe it. She looked round to get her bearings . She did not have the faintest idea where she was.
She decides to check out the well. .
She also listens intently but can hear nothing http://invisiblecastle.com/roller/view/3439928/.
She sits down next to the well and peers in. She also takes stock of her possessions (if she has anything on her). She looks up, she can hardly see the sky for the trees. "What time is it? What day?" she wonders.

"Hey, who's there?" demanded a male voice behind her, half a dozen yards away.

She jumped to her feet and whirled around to look at where the voice had come from.
She also looks around to see are there any branches she could use as a weapon.

"Oh, my God," Lily whispers, her eyes fixed on the blood dripping from the woman's neck. She grabs onto her brother's arm purely out of instinct. She wants to say something more, but her voice catches.

This isn't how she envisioned her first conversation outside her brother's house.

Rochelle raises her fists and says "Who are you people?"

Pine trees don't produce the most powerful weapons although there is a piece of fencing that could be torn off with a little effort. Out of the two people facing her, however, one is holding a tyre iron and that'd likely win out of a fight with a splintery piece of wood. The man holding it has his lips twisted into a smirk though his eyes - his eyes hold a mixture of contempt and consideration - as though he were both sizing her up sexually, eyeing her off as an inferior being, and considering whether he might have to use his weapon against her. His brown hair is cut short in a crew cut and his body beneath the expensively tailored suit is obviously quite fit and strong, with the edges of a black tattoo visible around his wrists and poking up around his shirt collar. Other than that, he's quite an ordinary looking man.

"Slit throat yet you're all fight," said the stranger. "Women!" He looks down at the younger woman clutching at him. "Go tend her wounds. She's obviously been attacked by the same person who...." His fingers clutched the tyre iron tighter and his jaw clenched, then he re-directed that heavy gaze back at Rochelle. "What the fuck happened to you, and don't spare the details."

Show,Describe yourselves and what you look like.

"B-but I..." Lily's arms fall to her sides with a sharp movement, and she forces herself to look at the woman's face instead of her neck. Her gray eyes are too open, and don't blink; a few of her teeth are visible like little pearls wrapped in red velvet. The utter blankness of her expression seems permanently frozen on her pallid face. It's as though she's a life-size porcelain doll, just a collectible of the man who stands beside her.

She moves forward, her legs stiff and jerky underneath the heavy velvet of her skirt. "I don't know how... I'll try..." Her lips form the words almost mechanically. She doesn't seem to be talking to anyone in particular.

The edge of a wide, black ribbon is starting to come loose from one of her long sleeves, and she tears at it, intending to use it as a makeshift bandage. As long as she doesn't tie it like a tourniquet...

At the man's words, Rochelle's nape hairs rise. That was just the kind of treatment she did not accept from anyone. 41 years and this boy was talking down to her? She draws herself up to her full height, which is quite a feat considering she has just been slashed with a shovel. Her short dark hair is matted with blood, sweat has been trickling down her face (or are those wet streaks tears?)
She looks at the woman approaching her and then back at the man. "Well, quite frankly, I don't take orders, not from you or anyone else. So, if you will tell me nicely who you are, I may answer your questions , if not, then I guess you will have to take your girlfriend and get lost, young man."
Then she turns to the woman: "Give me that piece of cloth you have there, I will dress my wound myself, I don't exactly let strangers near my carotid artery, especially not if they don't even have names."
She now looks down at herself: her jeans are stained, but dry. Her shirt is full of blood, but that is no real surprise. There's also blood on her hands, which she wipes on her trousers. She stretches out her right hand towards the young woman, "Go on, give me that cloth."

The man's eyes flash in response to those words, and he grabs Lily's wrist, hard. "Let the bitch bleed," he says in a low growl. "She wants to get uppity, fine, but let her know her place in this. Victim. And victims don't get far in this world." He looks around, releases Lily, and laughs abruptly with a big flap of his arms. "Especially in this world. I've seen their handiwork. I've noted their choices. And I'm sure they only released you so they can run you down once more." He turns his grin on Rochelle, then lets it slip off his face with a kind of false compassion and pity. "I'm sure you'll get far with a wound like that. I'm sure you're in a position to draw a line in the sand. I'm sure you have no need for protection by someone who can actually keep you safe from them." He advances a couple steps. "And I'm sure you can fight me off, that you have strength enough to match those words, behind those paltry little fists and with all that blood loss. I'm sure you're tougher than me." He glances back at Lily. "See? This is the kinda stupidity the modern world enforces. Everyone's entitled to think they're superman."

Lily glances back and forth between her brother and the woman, the scrap of ribbon still clutched in her hand. The situation taking place before her is almost enough to make her forget the revulsion. Girlfriend? Is that what people think of us?! God...

"Charles, please..." She trails off into inaudible mumbles as the cold hand of fear grips her. Charles has never hurt anybody... well, she's never seen him hurt anybody. Still, she has some idea of her brother's strength.

You always said you'd use it to protect me.

The rivulets of blood on the woman's neck are almost beautiful. That's life, dripping from her throat. Lily stares, then swallows her fear, and everything becomes clearer.

What are you protecting me from now?

"I won't let you hurt her." A step forward, and then another. "You- you should be better than this, Charles. You're my big brother."

Lily places herself between them, looking into Charles's eyes for a moment. "I love you."

„Brother?“, she thinks to herself, „Well, maybe blood does run thicker than water, why else would she stay with him?“ She feels a slight dizziness, but at least the wound has stopped bleeding now. “But I will need some food and drink, like after donating blood. I think a lie-down is out of the question.”

“Listen”, she says, “I don’t know what your story is, nor do I know who you are. But I can tell you one thing: there’s a drug smuggling gang not far from here, they did in my bar tender, Jack. And they may have killed a little girl. I followed them to try to find out more, but they caught me. I think we should get out of here, because they will definitely come back. I have no idea where we are, but I need to get back to Silent Hill and talk to the police. I don’t know what your plans are, but if you know where we are and how I can get back, it would be great if you told me.”

The effort of speaking and standing has made her slightly breathless, she stumbles back a little, but steadies herself on the fence.

"We're on some kind of hiking trail," says Charlie, ignoring his sister's pleas yet still abiding by them. "We came down off an observation deck just off County Road since the tunnel was closed up for maintenance. We're also heading for the police."

"Observatin Deck, okay, then we're South-East of the city. That's gonna be a long treck for me." replies Rochelle.
"You wouldn't have anything to eat, by any chance? Some chocolate or something perhaps?"

Well, it always works in the movies... Lily frowns and folds her arms, not used to being ignored. At least she feels safer, comforted by the thought that Charles and the woman probably won't rip each other to shreds now.

"So we can go together, right?" She tries her best to look as young and idealistic as possible, with a wide grin and clasped hands. "Because you know where we are, and Charles can keep us out of danger..."

Wow, drug smuggling and murder? This town is so mysterious!

"If she can keep up," says Charles, swinging the tyre iron idly as he moves to pass Rochelle and continue on down the dirt path.

Rochelle yanks a plank from the fence and follows Charles.
She waits for Lily to come up next to her and says "So, why do you guys need to contact the police?"

Charlie grunts. "My car broke down on the Observation Deck and there was ... someone didn't like someone very much," he finished lamely with a glance toward Lily.

"Yeah, and someone isn't too fond of someone right now because he's being all grumpy and not giving straight answers," Lily grumbles. She gives Rochelle a this-is-what-I-have-to-deal-with look, complete with rolling eyes.

Despite herself, Rochelle grins slightly. "Ah, well, family, gotta love 'em." she thinks. "I see," she says "so, let's hope we can make it to town before nightfall. I certainly need a doctor as well. If we pass by my bar, you can stock up there on drink and food and use the phone."

The path opens up into a fog-shrouded graveyard with an iron gate dividing them from the yard. "Well, this is comforting. Historical trails, huh?" asked Charlie drily. He turns to smile at his sister, his smile genuinely warm, but his eyes are shrewd. "Bet you'll have a painting and a half out of all of this." He shakes out a cigarette, puts it to his lips, and lights the thing. It isn't tobacco smoke that pours out of it however, but marijuana. "Ahh, that's better." Charlie, one hand paused on the gate latch, then turns to look Rochelle up and down. It's not a leer, he's probably not capable of looking dumb and idiotic enough for a leer, though there is a degree of sexual interest there. "Red looks good on you," he says with a chuckle, before unlatching the gate and heading into the yard.

"What a jerk." thinks Rochelle. But her long experience as bar owner and bar keeper means that Charlie's behaviour is no problem for her. She's seen and dealt with worse, much worse. And self-defence is something she's quite good at.
She looks around and listens intently .

Lily raises an eyebrow at Charles's expression, though she's glad that it's directed toward somebody else. Ew. This is not the time. She's not even that pretty. And ew.

"I don't know why you think graveyards are so bad. It's just a bunch of dead people. Better than alive people." Shrugging, she follows him through the gate, a little skip in her step.

The graveyard seems pretty empty and quiet. There's a little church that overlooks the sprinkling of old, pitted graves that fill the grassy yard between the iron gates and the sloping cliff over to one side. "Wanna go take a look? See if you can see the town from here?" Charles asked Rochelle in a playfully dangerous sort of way. The man switched tones like a manual car switched gears.

"Sure, why not." Rochelle shrugs and follows th siblings into the graveyard. Dead people have never scared her. They rest in their graves, and that is it. Live customers are an entirely different kettle of fish, you may have to be wary of them.
"This Lily girl really has her work cut out for her, looking after that eejit of a brother. I guess she must often wonder if they really are related. She is quite lovely. And he's a stupid jerk. Oh, well."

Lily runs her fingers over the taller headstones as she walks past, feeling every mark and groove set into the old stone. How a person died, and how they're remembered, can say a lot about who they were in life. And epitaphs are always interesting.

She considers her brother's interest in this woman. Maybe it's an opportunity - maybe he'll get so wrapped up in her that she'll be able to sneak away. Or it's just a passing fancy, or he's just trying to be a creep. But a girl can hope.

And the woman mentioned a bar. Lily's twenty-one now. She could do all sorts of fun things and meet all kinds of interesting people there.

Except that Charles has all of her identification.

Damn it.

She looks around, the graveyard is quiet. Nothing is moving, or is there? .
She stops and looks intently.

There's some sort of chalk drawing of intersecting lines and spiralling circles drawn onto one of the grave stones. It seems to have been drawn recently, and with great precision, judging by the lack of smudging.

Lily turns away from a large arrangement of flowers and cocks her head. "Why'd you stop? You okay?"

"Look! Someone's drawn something on this grave stone. Really weird." She ponders the drawing for a while . "I know this..."

Rochelle does recognise it from a book she once found open in her pub. Some sort of old school sorcery-style book that the individual in question had claimed was a prop for an upcoming movie. It did seem somewhat likely. The guy, Radovan, was that type of guy. A creative type always selling his work. He'd come in all sheepish and for some reason had asked if Vincent had asked about it. Why an accountant would care, who knows? The image was meant to be some sort of travel ritual that would allow someone to move between two places with greater ease when you were already between places, but you had to understand the magic, which apparently equated to a mixture of mathematics and philosophical gibberish.

Show,A Know roll won't let you identify something like this. Occult will, though.

Rochelle traces the image with her fingers "It couldn't possibly..." she turns to Lily "I saw that in a book someone left in my bar, it is supposed to be some sort of travelling spell which allows you to travel between places... Total nonsense, but then again, why would anyone paint this on a grave stone." She sighs. "What the heck, I'm hungry, I'm tired and I need to get to the police, let's move on." She turns to the grave stone "If you really were a spell for travelling, now would be a good time to kick in." she smirks. "So much for magic." She turns to leave the graveyard.

"A spell? That's neat..." Lily keeps looking at the image even after Rochelle's turned away. She brushes her fingers over it, but all it feels like is chalk and stone.

Not wanting to be left behind, she hurries after her brother.

Rochelle leaves the graveyard, she really needs to get something to eat and drink. Now that she knows that they are near the observatory, she knows the way to Silent Hill.
She walks towards the town.

Beside the church is a small gate that leads all the way out into the southern streets of Silent Hill where the places are more farmyards than anything else though the more built up sections (if such a phrase applied to Silent Hill) was nearby. Her bar is a fair way away from here and they'd have to walk for ages along Nathan Avenue, and there's no police station this side of Silent Hill, just a fire station, so that'll be not much good either. Still, there's plenty of homes and shops and a bowling alley, if she needed to unwind soon enough. Charlie released a sigh and cackled a little, "Least we're amongst the living again. Let's go find a place that'll let us in."

Rochelle walks up to the nearest house and rings the bell "I don't know who lives here, although I'm sure I've met about everyone who lives in Silent Hill at least 10 times in my life. I'll be sure to recognize them." She looks down at herself, her bloodstained shirt and trousers, dirty hands and knees. "Although I'm not sure they'll recognize me." She looks at Charlie. "Perhaps hide that tire iron behind your back or something? They might otherwise believe you're hostile."

"Wow, you must have lived here a long time!" Lily walks up next to Rochelle, thinking there's no way she could seem more hostile than her brother. Even if she was the one with the tire iron. "So you must know about all the great places to go, right? Have you been to the lighthouse? I saw it on the way here, it was really pretty even with the fog. Is it always foggy here? How does anyone drive?"

Now that things are calmer, questions are going off in her mind like fireworks. Finally, there's someone new to talk to!

"Well, I was actually born here. And I went to school here. And then I couldn't stand it anymore..." her voice trails off, the smell of dead rabbit still seeming to cling to her clothes, her hair, her skin, after all these years... "Anyways, I went to the big city. New York. Worked in a bar and saved to buy my own. It was great, then 9/11 hit and everything changed. And I realized that small towns have their good sides. I sold up and moved back here. Old Annie was looking to sell her bar, I bought it and kept the name." She smiles. "Silent Hill is a nice place. But I was too young and, well, you know, family can be hard. But my folks are dead now, so no more problems in that department. But the fog is actually unusual. It does get foggy every now and again, of course, but not like this."
"What made you come out here? Vacation?"

Charlie looks lost in thought for a long few moments, then he gives her a harsh and toothy grin. "Hostile? Me? Ha! I'm a sweet-faced kitten when I'm handled right." That phrase seems loaded with meaning, but there's no sexual innuendo there, which is strange.

There's no answer at the door though somewhere, in the fenced off back yard, a dog starts barking.

"I know what you mean about family," Lily mutters. She glances briefly at Charles, but her next words aren't exactly about him. "My parents kicked me out of the house for dropping out of school. My brother's taken care of me ever since. I'm... I know I'm lucky."

Shuffling her feet on the porch, she looks at Rochelle, then shrugs. "But I bet you don't care about that, right? Everybody's got a sad story about a bad childhood."

Her face lights up when Rochelle asks about the trip. "Twenty-first birthday celebration. I'm going to get ideas for new paintings here. I'm kind of an artist." Though her statement is modest, the grin on her face is anything but.

"21? Well, congratulations! You're of age now by everyone's standards. I can even offer you a drink in my bar when we get there." She rings the bell again and bangs on the door.
"And I do care about your story, just because everyone has some sad story to tell about their childhood doesn't mean those stories should not be told. And Ican show you some really picturesque spots for painting." She listens at the door...

She shouts "Hello??? Is there anyone there? Please, we need help, please, open the door, we need to call the police."

There's no answer and no sounds coming from within.

"Oh, fuck this," says Charlie, pushing past her and pulling open the door to reveal a simple hallway with a grey ragged carpet spread across it, mud-stamped with footprints over the years, and with a single envelope with a bloody fingerprint lying on the floor, the letters spread out across the carpet, heading around to the right to the first open door. There are two more doors to the right in the corridor, two to the left, and one at the end with a window that looks out on the back yard.

"Anyone here?" demands Charlie, as he stamps over to a small side table with an old-fashioned phone. He picks it up and starts using the dial. 9. 1. 1.

He waits.

Lily's excitement is shattered by her brother's complete lack of propriety, and the scene behind the door. Wondering if Charles will mind, she creeps into the house and picks up one of the letters.

She considers the possibility that some strange festival might be going on. Like in other cities, where people dress up as zombies or pirates. Maybe this is a mystery town.

"What the hell....?" She looks around and also picks up one of the letters.
She goes to the open door, "Hello....?" and enters the room.

Charlie pulls his head back from the phone, looks at it for a moment, then picks up the entire phone and throws it across the hall, jerking the cord out as he goes. The phone hits the wall with a crash and breaks apart. He stares at it, panting, for a long moment, then straightens his tie.

The living room is much like any other cottage with flowery couches and a rocking chair with a ball of wool with two knitting needles sticking out of it, though it's all arranged around an old-fashioned large radio rather than a television set. Display cases around the walls proudly display a variety of plates. There's some sort of yellow tape visible on the other side of the glass window, dimly made out in the gap between the curtains.

Lily jumps at the sound, arms thrown in front of her face. She stares at Charles, panting as he does even though she hasn't exerted herself. Then, slowly, her hands clench and her mouth curves with disapproval.

"Charles, you can't go around barging into people's houses and breaking their telephones!" She walks right up and jabs him in the chest with a finger. "For all you know, somebody really is home, and congratulations! They think we're burglars now!"

Lily pauses.

"At least they can't call the police on us. Because you broke the phone."

For a moment, to any outsider, it looks like the threat of violence is imminent. There are no uncertain terms of what is about to happen, that she is about to get smashed across the room, though, of course, being his sister Lily knows better than this. Then Charlies bursts into laughter, big, rolling laughs. "Sis, you really know how to break the tension." He pats her on the shoulder, then brings her in close for a brief hug, before heading into the living room after Rochelle.

Rochelle picks up the knitting needles, turns on the radio, walks to the window and peers out.
"Whatever did the police say to you that made you smash the phone?" She asks, still looking out the window. "Oh boy is that guy disturbed." she thinks to herself. She's seen worse in 18 years of tending bar, but she knows a bully when she sees one.

Lily just stands there for a few seconds, staring after Charles with an expression of utter bemusement. She's annoyed, because he never takes her seriously; she's confused, because she doesn't know if she really wanted to be serious; and she's relieved, because that was a stupid thing to do.

He could have hurt her if he'd taken her seriously. It's not hard to feel the pain of imaginary bruises under her dress. No, she didn't mean it. It was just a joke to break the tension, like he said.

She takes a moment to pick up the rest of the letters, then follows him.

"There weren't cops on the line," says Charlie, as if it's the most obvious thing. "We'll have to walk it."

Rochelle turns around and faces Charlie: "Run that by me again: You dialled 9-1-1 and the phone was picked up by someone who were not the police???? I have dialled 911 in this town on more than one occasion, it was always answered by the police. So, you either dialled wrongly, or you're lying. Which is it?" Rochelle has had it with the boy.

Charlie swings his weapon back and forth thoughtfully. "Maybe I'm lying, maybe I'm not, but I didn't dial wrongly and if you think that then you're either stupid or hopelessly naieve. Which is it?" He snickers. "But then, you can always go next door and try to make the same phone call. I'd be interested to see what happens to you...."

Lily shakes her head, not wanting another potentially violent argument. "Does it really matter? Whoever Charles called, it didn't get us anywhere - and if we went next door, he'd probably just throw the phone again."

"It'll be faster if we just go. So let's just go." She points at her wrist, as if there would be a watch there, and taps her foot loudly.

"Does it really matter? Hmmm. Let's see: I don't know you or your brother, but I do know that lil bro has a violent temper, a tyre iron and is always just an inch away from knocking the living daylights out of you, Lilly. So, yes, it does matter."
She turns to Charlie "You think you are soooo intimidating, but, you know what? I had breakfast for 18 years with someone who was really scary, so, your childish behaviour does not really work on me. If you don't want to tell me who answered the phone, fine, but payback's a bitch." Thoughts of screaming, things breaking and tears flood through her mind, and then the memory of the moment she hit back. Her breathing slows. She draws herself up to her full height, and walks past the siblings, out of the house. Leaving the house, she does not look back nor wait for the pair. She walks up the road towards the town centre of Silent Hill, in the direction of the police station.

Charles just stares after her, frowning. "She's not all there, is she? Why would I destroy my way outta here?" He shakes his head, utterly mystified. "Look, sis, let's just follow her a short distance behind her. They'll go for her first."

"I don't know." Lily takes her eyes off Rochelle to look at the tire iron in Charles's hand. She's wrong, of course. Charles would never hurt her.

Never.

"I do think we should follow her, but..." She looks up at him, furrowing her brow. "Who are 'they?' There's somebody dangerous out there, isn't there?"

"Never you mind," says her brother with an encouraging smile that doesn't meet his eyes. "You just enjoy your birthday while I keep an eye on things. You like creepy, right? Well, looks like this town is just the holiday spot for you." He starts to walk after Rochelle, timing his strides so that he falls about three dozen paces behind her, swinging his tyre iron as he goes, and keeping his eyes on the surrounding undergrowth. "Feisty girl like that's bound to have a lot of enemies ... wonder if they'll come knocking again."

Rochelle holds the plank in her right hand, the knitting needles in her left "I would be much happier if I had my gun." She can hear Charlie's and Lily's footsteps behind her. And she notices, for the first time, that theirs are the only footsteps she hears. It seems like the town is completely quiet. "Silent Hill was always a msnomer. But today, it is eerily quiet."

She looks around , and stops walking to listen intently, eyes closed. "I don't believe it, there is no noise." she mumbles to herself. "And this fog!"

After about 30 minutes, she turns into the street where her bar is located.

It's a long walk through the fog-shrouded streets. Charles grumbles as he has to keen only an even dozen feet behind her to keep Rochelle in view, and seems to grow more anxious as time wears on, his fingers tensing and re-tensing around that tool. Everything is quiet, muffled even, as they head over the bridge toward the other side of Silent Hill. In one place, charred footprints walk, leading further into town before ceasing. The sky grows steadily darker as they cross that bridge, impossible quickly, and there's the sound of steel scraping against asphalt that sets their nerves on edge. Charles grabs Lily's arm, pausing, and looking around nervously. "Night doesn't fall that quick," he mumurs. His gaze search out the skies, as though trying to pierce the fog and darkness to see the sky beyond.

"What time is it?" Lily tries to pull away from him, and the footprints catch her attention. How does something like that happen? Maybe they're painted on.

No, that's silly.

"I wonder where everyone is."

Rochelle slows her pace, then stops. "What the...???" She turns to the pair and says "What time is it??? Night can't fall this quickly at this time of year." She walks to where the charred footsteps are, kneels down and examines them. . She touches them and rubs the tarmac. She looks her finger and smells the residue

Rubbing the tarmac pulls loose no residue. It's as though the asphalt itself has been blackened, though there's a faint whiff of smoke in the air. The footsteps appear to be man's sized. A larger shape of shoe, rather than true footprints.

"Hm, if someone burnt to death here, wouldn't there be more to see than just footprints?" She looks at the siblings. "Welcome to Silent Hill. This is "Combustion Street", so called because pedestrians spontaneously combust."
She turns around and heads straight for Annie's Bar.

Lily stops in her tracks and cocks her head to one side. "Charles, she knows we're here. And spontaneous human combustion is just a myth. Isn't it?"

Charlie grins. "Actually, no, it's what happens when you drop a lit cigarette into your fat rolls. The cigarette provides the wick, the fat provides the candle, and so long as you're passed out from whiskey you won't even notice as you go up in flames." He gestures upwards. "Whoosh!"

He hurries over to where the footsteps begin, ignoring Rochelle as she walks forward several paces. "Heh.... Odd, isn't it?"

Rochelle feels somewhat light-headed as though she's been this way before. She's seized by a powerful sense of nostalgia, as well, as though there were something about those footsteps that tugged at every memory in her mind. She can hear a strange noise in the distance, they all can, something between a distorted police siren and a musical instrument. It seems to be coming somewhat from the left as they come off the bridge, in the direction where the footsteps begin to curve, in the direction of Annie's Bar (though on the left footpath, rather than the opposite side which is closest to the bar).

"Uh... right." Lily just stands there and blinks at him, wondering if he was serious. It's never easy to tell when he gets like this.

I really don't think it works that way...

Rochelle steadies herself. "What was that noise?" she says to the others.
"Well, a couple of hundred yards down the road is my bar. You can have one on the house." She pushes on. But she walks slowly, with her eyes peeled and listening intently, she grips the needles and the plank tightly.

The three of them make their way across the asphalt of Riverside Drive, but glancing back over the bridge shows a bright light hovering somewhere off the lake toward the south. A lighthouse, no doubt, provides a beacon in the darkness though it is certainly further away than the bar. Charlie takes Lily's hand, forestalling any comments about visiting it, as they move on ahead. "Shouldn't we hurry?" demanded Charlie.

Somewhere, in the darkness to the right, comes a twisted gurgling sound and the slap-slap-slap of wetness against asphalt.

"But it's pretty," Lily mumbles to herself. Then she shakes her head and lets her hand sit limply in his.

The noise makes her spine tighten. "What... is that? Is this, uh, frog country?" She looks at Rochelle and swallows hard. Rochelle has a fence picket and Charles has a tire iron, but she can't help wondering if she'd be safer with the former.

Rochelle stops for a second, looking to her right.
She moves closer towards the siblings, instinctively making sure she stands in front of Lily, while Charles is covering his sister's flank. "No, not really. I mean, there are frogs by the lake for sure, but not here in town. Also, it sounds like something bigger. Charles, your tire iron might come in handy soon."
She puts the needles in her pocket and grabs the plank with both hands and holds it like a baseball bat.
"Can you see anything?"

The darkness presses in around them and it's hard to see more than a half dozen feet in front of them. Still, the noises are approaching toward them. It seems as though it might have wandered past them, but their voices have attracted its attention. If it's a frog, it's an incredibly large one.

Rochelle stares into the fog. She virtually tries to slice through the fog, but try as she might, she cannot see anything .

She breathes in and pulls herself up to her full height, her feet are planted firmly on the ground. She can feel her neck hairs prickling. This is not good. "We need to be quiet. Much more quiet." She wills the others not to speak, but of course, not being a psychic...

Lily surprises herself by drawing closer to Charles, trying to make herself as small as possible next to him. The noises in the dark make her feel claustrophobic, and she holds on to his hand like it's the only thing keeping her from being swallowed.

They stand still together and slowly, but surely, the hand slaps move past the bridge toward the left and down the road until they can hear it no more.

Rochelle slowly exhales. She keeps listening, not moving. After the noises have faded completely, she turns to the siblings, locks eyes with them and nods in the direction of Annie's Bar. She puts a finger to her lips and then starts walking quietly and slowly, ears straining and eyes peeled.

Lily nods at Rochelle's signal to keep quiet, and takes tiny steps to follow her. It's not easy - her shoes were meant to be pretty, not silent, and even her own breathing seems too loud. She imagines the movement of her lungs, exaggerates the sound of expanding skin in her mind.

She wants to scream, just to hear the echo and pretend they're not alone with whatever's lurking in the dark. But that's stupid and she knows it.

Rochelle is moving slowly enough for the siblings to follow. She hears Lily walk behind her and makes straight for the bar.
She stops at the door and takes a look. Then, she tries the handle.

Everything is locked up tight, as could be expected.

Show,You may unlock the doors or do other things outside the bar but, when entering any building or room, remember to wait for my descriptions as you never know what may be inside.

"Great! I don't have keys!" Rochelle slams her fist against the door. She turns to Charles: "We need to break in!"
She looks at the shutters: "We could force them open and smash the glass. Come on, help me."

*click*

The door opened. There was music playing from the jukebox, and orange glow of electrical lighting emnated from the open doorway. On the bar counter was a kitten, contently chewing on a piece of Salami. There was a trenchcoat laid out over one of the pool table, also clean. In fact, the room seemed to have an almost a glossy quality to it, serving as hard contrast to the hazy world outside.

"Oh, and..." Jack said, stepping out. He was in a clean change of clothes-where did he find that? He didn't even remember. "Look who decided to show up for work today. 'Oh Jack, could you keep the bar open for today? I feel sick so I'm going home. Oh and don't kill anyone and don't touch my teletubby collection or else I'll kill you and... Jesus Christ, what happened to your head?!"

His mouth widened in a mock concern. "Did you bang your head on something again? I told you to lay off that damn stuff, why won't you ever listen to me?" He sighed. "Anyways, I cleaned the bar. Also killed the skeleton in the closet and dumped out your pain killers so that you can languish in your pain. Come on right in. We gotta open up. Don't know why you showed up today but... sure. Oh Hey, you brought friends."

He turned to Lily and grinned. "Coming from the theatre, I presume? Nice dress, very Victorian... I don't know why you would want to come here to act in all the places in the world but..." he caught sight of Charles, frowned, and took a sniff. "Oh wait. I see what's going on here. Nevermind than."

He motioned the group to come in. "You all look like people who need a stiff drink," he said.

Rochelle is stunned "What are you...? You're dead. I mean, I saw them kill you. You died. You..."
Her eyes narrow "Who are you?" Her fists clench around the plank as she moves to put herself between Jack and Lily.

"You are dead?" Jack said, chuckling, turning around and shooting her with a look. "I could say the same thing." He trudged into the bar a few more steps and leaned on the pool table.

"But you know what, forget it." Jack yelled out, clutching his head. "It's always like this. You always say that you are sick, and when I come to check up on you later, you can't even recognize me because of the drugs."

He shook his head. "So how many doses this time, Rochelle? And does this guy," he said, pointing at Charles. "Need some drugs too? Think you are a big guy, hmm?" he said. "Moving from marijuana to stronger stuff?"

"What do you mean? I have never taken any drugs, ever! No, it was you who had to get involved! It was you who dealt in drugs, it was you who thought he he would make quick and easy money, wasn't it? It was you they stabbed, I saw your body. I followed you. I watched you, I watched them. Don't even start with me!"

She shoves him to the side and goes into the bar. "Lily, Charles, follow me!"

Jack broke into laughter. "Oh, now you are calling ME a druggie? Hell, you think you are talking to a dead guy!"

"Them? You mean addicts? Of course I've been seeking them out. I got my degree just to help idiots like them and you. Why do you think I don't quit?"

He chuckled as he picked up his trenchcoat and circled around the counter. "Ha, me getting stabbed to death. Do you really remember it that way, or is that just what you wish it could be?"

"Door to the employees only area should be unlocked. Your Teletubby collection is safely stored there, although your coat is gone."

His face went completely blank. "Some weird lady stole it. Along with whatever was inside."

Chuckle.

"Dead peope coming back to life. Hah! Doesn't work like that. Dead people stay dead forever."

He suddenly took out a glass and started cleaning it. "Your office is unlocked. Take a break there. You need it, Roche. You can also grab something from the kitchen if you are hungry."

Lily's excitement is only inflamed by the scene in front of her. Such a strange argument, not to mention the fact that it doesn't involve her. Still... maybe she should try and defuse the situation before Charles makes her leave.

"You're the most alive-looking dead person I've ever seen," she quips, walking around Charles and Rochelle. "You could be a revenant. Coming back from beyond the grave to carry out unfinished business."

She pauses for effect, then grins a bit too widely. "OoOoOoOo, and all that." With a giggle, she stiffly offers her hand for him to shake. "I'm Lily. What's your name? Is that your cat? Do you work here? I'm from Bellevue. Not an actress, I just dress this way because I like it. I'm actually a painter. The guy in the suit is my big brother."

Lily lowers her voice to a whisper that isn't very quiet. "Don't look him in the eyes, he'll think you're challenging him."

"Why thank you," Jack said, taking her hand. "My name is Jack. I'll be your bartender while Rochelle gets her act back together. No, madam, that is not my cat."

"And I am pretty certain that I am not a ghost, lady... But I can see that you are interested in the matters of the occult. In that case... I'm pretty certain that you are familiar with the Tarot?"

"Pick a card than," he said, pointing towards the face down deck spread across the table. "Any card."

"Jack! Snap out of it. What is wrong with you? Have you gone completely crazy??? Why are there no guests here??? What the hell is going on here?" She grabs the deck of cards and throws it across the room.
She takes a soft drink and looks at Lily and Charles "What'll it be?"
She opens the soft drink and drains it, opens another can and does the same. She also rummages around for food. "Jack, get me something to eat before I steal your cat's salami."

The kitten mewls and paws at the air, as though for effect. It mewls again.

Charles just shakes his head, but is content to listen to the whole thing until Rochelle offers him a drink. "Whiskey on the rocks." Then he continues to listen, head cocked to one side and obviously interested. "What sorta drugs?"

"Hey! I wanted a reading!" Lily throws a glare at Rochelle, then goes over to pick up the cards.

While glancing at cards such as the Five of Swords and the Star, she breathes a sigh of relief - Charles isn't going to force her out the door. Not until he gets his whiskey, anyway. And she has so many more questions to ask this bartender.

"If that's not your cat, whose is it? Is Rochelle always like this? Why does she think you're dead? Did you say teletubby collection?"

"Just a second Roche, a lunatic made a mess in the bar, so I'll have to clean that. Feel free to steal the kitten's food if you want, oh great and evil overlordess" he leaned down next to Lily and began picking up the cards.

"Well, first it was owned by this crazy little girl with the initials AG, and then me, and then the crazy lady who stole Rochelle's coat, then back to the crazy little girl, then back to the lady, and then back to the girl, and I decided to babysit it for a while they cooled off in the lake," Jack said. "I'm sure they'll be back. Eventually."

"Now Rochelle is a good person, don't get me wrong. Just simply confused of certain situations. Sometimes, she believes that she is... Someone else... Besides... She is... Dedicated... To keeping this bar operational. I just worry that she takes it too far."

"Here, see that?" Jack said, pointing at a random face down card. "Take it, don't look a it yet, that's your card."

Rochelle prepares a whiskey on the rocks and hands it to Charles.
"Here you go. It's on the house." "What are you going on about, Jack, what's with my coat? With the kitten?"

"Oh, it's a long story, Roche. I won't bother you with the details," Jack said. Having picked up all the cards except one in Lily's hands from the floor, he took the trenchcoat from the table and wore it.

"Now about the drugs Charles, it is a compound made from white Claudia, a local plant. I guess closest way to describe it is Cocaine, except twice as addictive and destructive. We don't" he glared at Rochelle. "Sell them here, nor do we have it with us. Actually, that's a lie, here you go."

He picked up a sealed bag filled with white powder from the bag and tossed it in front of Charles.

"I found it," he said, staring blankly at Rochelle and turned towards the Employyes Only area. "I'm not going to say where I found it... But here it is."

He suddenly broke into laughter. "Hah! The look on your face right now... Do you want me to divine your future? You, Charles? Rochelle? No? Well, wanna hear a joke? Have you heard about the deer who walked into the bar? No? Well, you better pay attention because... You might easily miss the punchline. Not that either? You people have no fun."

"Now Miss Lily... What college are you going to? You seem too young to be a professional painter. In any case, there are 4 suits in Tarot. Pentagram for Wealth, Cup for Emotion, Staff for knowledge, and knife... I mean sword for power. Or for stabbing people. And then there's all sorts of crazy stuff with Major Arcana."

"But the point in this game is not abou finding out what you are... But what you are not. Are you the wealthy, arrogant type like Vincent?" he raised an eyebrow at Lily, holding out a King of Pentagram card.

"I don' think so. Well, you are obviously not like Rochelle here either," he held up the High Priestess card. "Nor the crazy lady," he held up a Queen of cups and threw it into the air.

"Maybe you take after your broher?" he quickly held up the Demon card for her to see and put it back. "No, I don't think so. Of course, these are all face cards. You have to earn the right to be one of those. You gotta have your Joes and Bobs..." he flung random cards in every direction. "The Butcher... the Baker... The Marijuana stick maker..." he flung the entire deck to the floor. "The undefined masses... What makes you you? What separates you from these chumps?"

"But of course... There is a card which can be anything it wants. It doesn't add or subtract from others. It can be either your greatest ally or your greatest enemy. It comes when you least expect it... And the simple fact that he exists changes the game entirely."

He pulled out the Fool from his sleeves. "But if you ask me, we need more wild cards in the deck."

Lily's fingers tremble on the card as she clutches it to her breast, and the flush of excitement blooms on her face. "Oh, I... I don't go to college. I'm not a professional painter either - can I look at my card now? Please?"

"I love this town," she whispers, doing a silly little dance in place.

Rochelle takes food from the fridge behind the bar.
Eating it makes her feel better. She has now had 3 cans of soft drink and several sandwiches. She feels much better. She turns to the sink and starts washing off the blood. "To answer your question, Jack, someone knocked me out, ferried me around in the trunk of a car for... days and then tried to kill me with a shovel, luckily, he just tore open a wound in my neck and missed the artery. I ran, and I ran into these two. We were on our way to the police. I was gonna tell them that you had been killed." She looks at him and gives him a menacing smile "But seeing as you're alive and kicking and only stark raving mad means I will just tell them about the drug dealers."

She picks up the phone and dials 911.

"I'm sure that you'll find that is quite impossible," Jack said with a smile. "But you are welcome to try. You've been fighint so hard for such a long time... what's just one more failure, hmm? You know, I had high hopes of you."

He folded his arms. "When I saw you in the forest in the car, tied up by them. I thought you reformed. I was proud of you, even. But now I see that I was wrong. "

"You look surprised. I saw the whole thing, the strange guy in the gas mask with the shovel. Even if the entire circumstance of that event was imagined, as I suspect, there's this depressing fact: even in imagiend universes, there's always a hint of truth. Do you know what's even more depressing? Miracles don't exist."

He grinned at Lily. "But enough depressing story. Before I forget, here's the answer to your other question."

He handed Lily a folded newspaper clipping. "You can read it along with the card. I'm sure you'll find the circumstance of the incident... very interesting... and contradictory to what somebody claimed."

He kicked aside the mass of cards on the floor and moved to the jukebox, apparently getting ready to play a song. "Speaking of which, do you know what a male deer is called?"

Charles simply sat down by the counter. "Demon, huh? Well, what's those face cards mean anyway? Don't know nothing about tarot." He puts the wrench up on the counter and waits patiently to be given his drink. He seems like he's in his natural element and simply gives his sister a satisfied smile when he sees her dance. "You're one crazy kid, but I'm glad you're still having a happy birthday. Who knows? You might even get to see somebody killed if one of them bastards comes in through the door."

Rochelle tries the telephone, dialling 911.

Show phone comments,"911, what is your emergency?" sneers a voice over the telephone.

"A male deer is a stag, right?" Lily shrugs at Jack. Perhaps she should be more concerned about whatever went on with Rochelle, or 'those bastards,' but right now she's just having a fun conversation in a safe place, and nobody's about to start a fight. "Sounds like this town is full of crazy people, so I guess I fit right in - wait, do you mean asylum-crazy, or weird-crazy, Jack?"

Then she unfolds the clipping and reveals the card to herself, eyeing them both like a hungry, greedy child.

"Nah, the correct term is a buck," he said, pulling out the shotgun from the trenchcoat and aiming it at Charles. "Surprise, and I do but believe that the answer to that question is a mix of both. Mostly the former."

Charles takes one look over his shoulder and scrambles over the counter as Jack draws his weapon. "Get down!" he hisses.

Show,[b]Lily[/b] has a moment to react to the sudden drawing of a weapon, followed by [b]Jack[/b] who will have finished drawing his shotgun and may shoot, and then [b]Rochelle[/b] may react.

Rochelle, who is standing behind the bar, receiver in her hand, drops the receiver and ducks.

"No! No, you can't! Why are you doing this?" Lily drops everything and keeps shouting ineffectually, looking back and forth between the shotgun and the counter. All of this just confirms what she's suspected for the past five years - everyone will change their tune within a moment if you don't do what they like.

There are no good people.

"Stop it! You can't hurt him! I - I won't let you!" Despite her words, she remains frozen to the spot, neither placing herself in the shotgun's path nor running away.

Rochelle looks around behind the bar. She's looking for a weapon, rummaging. She whispers to Charles "He's gone crazy, we must stop him before he kills Lily."

There are bottles of liquor but they're all up against the wall a little higher up. There's cans of beer and soft drink at this level though. A trap door leads into a cellar but there's no way out through there since the new car park was installed. She could head out through the 'Employee Only' door that's behind the bar. The shotgun she normally kept bracketed behind the counter is now in Jack's hands. Charlie pulled a small ankle revolver from an ankle holster. "Let's spread out," he murmurs, moving toward the right and away from the 'Employee' door.

Show,Rochelle may still choose to do an action, followed by the end of Lily's post as it'd take her two rounds to say all that, followed by Jack.

"I won't let you?" Jack said, chuckling. "That's funny, I don't feel stopped. You aren't even trying, are you? Well, I guess your survival instincts are off from years of being coddled by your bloody drug-addict brother- how can you even live with that guy? He stinks. Bah"

He knocked down a nearby-pool table. "Tally ho," he said, grabbing onto Lily with one hand and pulling her behind the pool table with him and keeping her restrained there with a headlock.

"Now Flower-girl, can I call you Flower-girl? It seems appropriate for a Lily. Here, could you..." he handed her the shotgun. "Hold onto that for a second? Thanks, I need to grab something."

He pulled out a knife.

Rochelle picks up some cans of soft drinks. She moves towards the door "Employees only". She keeps to the ground and covered behind the bar.

Charles couches behind the counter and takes aim with his snub-nose revolver, ready to fire at whichever head or arm pokes up around the table. His crouch and gun stance gives the impression that he might be a police officer.

Show,not sure how BRP actually works on this but I'm going with readied actions are possible otherwise things get a bit silly. Having said that, it's a wide spread to aim at and plenty of cover so there'll still be heavy penalties on both sides for shooting. It's simply that he'll go first and will shoot any limb he sees, though even on a trigger happy moment he's likely to spot Lily if he sees her whole head come up.

"No," Lily whispers, trying to lean away from the glint of the blade. "No, no, no... let me go, please, don't hurt me, please!"

She doesn't want to think about what he's going to do with that knife. There is a shotgun in her hand and she can't move to use it, not to mention how heavy it is in her hands. And if she tries anything... he's dangerous, and stronger than she is.

The pounding of blood in her ears drowns out any sound her brother or Rochelle might have made, and her mind races. Did they run off to save themselves? Do they just not care?

"Let you go? But fun's just getting started!" Jack said, pouting. The knife hand went around the neck, replacing his headlock with a deadly point nicking at her throat. "Besides, I'm not gonnaa hurt you. Although he," he grabbed her arm and raised it above the pool table. "Might."

Charles hears nothing of their conversation.

Show,If Lily would like to contest his actions, you can make him have to roll Grapple.

Rochelle peers around the bar. As soon as she sees Lily's arm, she throws a can. . She hits her squarely. This should startle them and lead to movement.

"Stop, stop, I - I..." Lily takes a shallow, shaky breath and bursts into tears, not helped by the quivering of her throat against the knife. The can hurts as it bounces off her arm, bad enough to potentially leave a bruise. Her sobbing only gets louder.

"Charles, Charles, please help me, I can't - I can't - I..."

It hurts. The knife. It's scratching and it hurts.

"Oh I've had it with your whining," Jack said, pressing on her neck with the knife hard enough to draw a trickle of blood.

"But don't worry, I can help you get over that. Let's go for a little trip. Come on, get up!" Jack pressed on with the knife again.

"Drop your weapon and come out with your hands up," snaps Charles in a commanding and authoritative tone. "There's no way you can get out of here alive and if you hurt my sister, well, I'll just have to go for a gut wound. That can take days to kill."

"Alive?" Jack yelled back. "What an unfortunate choice of words!"

"This place fuckin' with your head?" asked Charles, his voice steady and oh so very reasonable. "Making you think you're already dead? All right, fine. Think that way. But I'm sure there's a lot more interesting people you'd like to cut right now rather than my sister. She's just a random stranger to you. So am I. You kill her and you die, twice or whatever you think this is, and that's it. But then you don't get to finish off any of the business that you'd really like to finish off, right? There's always unfinished business, am I right?"

"Oh why of course you are completely correct!" Jack said. "There are plenty of people I would rather cut right now than your sister, but then again how stupid do you think I am?" Jack grinned. "You are just going to shoot me as soon as I drop her, aren't you? Lily, Lily, could you get up before I cut more deeply into your throat?"

"You know, it's funny," Jack said. "You go about saying things like unfinished business and my head being shit over by this town, but you are also trying to reason with me?"

"Unfortunately for you, I don't quite care if I die. Are you sure that you can kill me with one shot, Charles? Before I notice what you are doing and slit her fucking throat? Drop the gun, bullets from it too."

"But you know," Jack said. "I'm not unreasonable. Far from it. We could work out a little deal."

Lily stands up, too afraid to cry anymore or even so much as speak. All she can think about is trying to be still as the knife pushes into her.

Doing what Jack wants isn't hard. She will listen if he makes it stop hurting.

Rochelle looks at the scene before her.
"Jack, dammit! Stop it, this girl has done nothing, you don't even know her."
She throws another can, this time at Jack. She misses.

"Wait! Wait." Charles winces at Rochelle throws the can, and then slowly lets the hold out swing from his index finger rather than holding it poised, slowly moving it over to the right and then lowering it onto the counter. "All right, you have control here. You have control. So why don't you tell us what you want here? What do you want from this? Maybe we can help you."

Jack raised an eyebrow. Oh, well, that was easy, he thought.

"Oh, so you really do care about her," Jack sighed. "It's always so nice to see family members who do that. So here's what's going to happen, Charles. First of all, I said drop the gun AND remove the bullets inside it, Charles. I don't like it if people don't listen to me, isn't that right Lily?"

"Aww, she's shy."

Charlie clicks loose the revolving cylinders (can't remember what it's called) and the bullets ring out across the counter top. Then he drops it over the other side of the counter top. "All right. Done. Okay, so let's figure out what you want. Everyone wants something, right?"

Rochelle waits.

"Well, what I want is simple."

Jack waved the knife dangerously closely to Lily's eyes. " I need answers to questions... But there are other certain things that I want... Such as..."

He paused before suddenly leaning in towards Lily's face. "You being a chicken?"

Lily gives a slow shake of her head, Jack's face blurring behind the clear sharpness of the knife. "I'll tell you anything you want, okay? I just... it's hard when you... you have a knife in my face!"

"No? Well, you look like chicken to me! See, if you act like a chicken, you get to be a chicken," Jack said.

"And that brings a good question to the table. Which dies first, the eggs, or the chickens? Which is it, Charles? Oh, and by eggs, I mean your eyes.

"Jack. Why are you doing this? What is it that you want? Lily and Charles are not even from Silent Hill, you don't know them, how could they possibly have any answers to any of your questions? They're complete strangers." Rochelle tries to calm Jack. She is clearly at a loss.
She looks around the room.

"Rochelle, shut it. If you try and do anything, I'll cut her."

"You know what? The way you're behaving right now? I prefer you dead! You are oh so brave, threatening a little girl with a knife like that. My, you are so tough." she says mockingly.
"How about you let her go and take on someone more your size? No? I didn't think so, you're just too weak, always have been, I assume. Only I didn't realize it. You know what: You're pathetic. You are so pathetic you let a hobo slice you open in the middle of this very room, right in front of our eyes." She spits at him.

Jack rolled his eyes, tookthe knife off of Lily's throat and drove it into her side.

Rochelle throws a can at Jack, aiming for his head and hits him squarely on the temple.

Lily throws her head back and howls in pain, an ear-piercing shriek shot through with gurgling sobs. The knife is hot inside her skin. She can feel it ripping, tearing; her blood congealing around the metal and soaking through her dress.

Streams of watery black trail down her cheeks, ruining that uncanny porcelain-doll image. Her little red mouth twists itself again and again as she wails in Jack's arms. Her hands go limp, and the shotgun drops to the floor.

Kallisto73 wrote:Rochelle throws a can at Jack, aiming for his head and hits him squarely on the temple.

Spoiler:

http://invisiblecastle.com/roller/view/3537864/

What should I roll for damage?

Jack's radio crackles. "Hello sexy, you still around?" murmurs a woman's voice with the slight slur of the fairly drunk. It sounds familiar but Rochelle can't quite recognise the voice. "Yeah, I'll bet you're still around like the aftertaste of ash in the mouth. My mind keeps twisting back to you, my White in Nining Armour." Okay, perhaps more than fairly drunk.

"The fuck?" mutters Charlie, jaw clenched from seeing his sister bleed.

Jack most assuredly recognises the voice. It's Ash.

"Ahh, crap," Jack muttered. "You know people, it was fun for a while, but I believe that it is time for things to come to an end.Gotta take care of a problem friend. She's always getting into these troubles that she needs help from."

"Lily here should be fine. I purposefully didn't go for the vitals." Jack blinked. "What, you didn't think I'm some murderous, insane bastard, did you? Before you go, Lily, don't forget to pick up your card and the newspaper article! IT COULD BE A LIFESAVER."

Jack tipped her over the table and leaned down to pick up his shotgun.

Now Jack is out of view (if you want to roll damage on the can, you still can but it won't change things much), Charles goes charging over the countertoward him. He slams into the pool table, intending to rock it back onto Jack, but the table is far too heavy and firm to be so easily moved.

Rochelle and Lily may also act before Jack arises with the shotgun.

"Let her go, Jack. And you, Charles? What are you doing just standing there while he sticks a knife in your sister?" Her whole aggravation, anger, fear and physical pain have transformed Rochelle. She picks up a bottle and smashes it against the counter to break it. She now holds a broken bottle in her right hand. She moves towards Jack.

Lily lands ungracefully on the floor, limbs splayed like a dead woman. She's not dead. She knows that, but it hurts less to stay still. It's awfully dirty down there, but she doesn't know if she minds.

Seon,Is the knife still stuck in her?

Kadael wrote:Lily lands ungracefully on the floor, limbs splayed like a dead woman. She's not dead. She knows that, but it hurts less to stay still. It's awfully dirty down there, but she doesn't know if she minds.

Seon,Is the knife still stuck in her?

Jack rose up and aimed the shotgun at Charles.

"Thanks for coming over," Jack said.

He fired once into Charles, shredding through him.


"Do you feel lucky, Rochelle?"

Charles is a large man, though not enormously so, and he's always had the stamina of an ox. That was one of the things that had always frightened Lily so. His body is tattered, riddled with shot, but he is not yet down for the count. Like most gunshot victims, he's capable of moving for at least a few minutes following being shot. "Lily, run!" he burbles, before launching himself at Jack and successfully grabbing hold of him. For those with a mind to run, there's the Staff door behind the counter or the Front doors. Either way, get far enough into the fog and there's a good chance he won't see you.

Show,we're not using the massive damage equals chance to knock out rules in this one though, don't worry, he lacks much in the health department now. Lily and Rochelle may act now, then Jack has to deal with the Grapple, then Charles again.

The radio crackles once more. "What? No quip? I'm disappointed. Maybe the dogs or the wolves or your own hand got you. Did your own hand get you, Jack?" Ash's voice chuckles over the radio through the silence.

Lily twitches when the shot goes off, but it takes the utter strangeness of her brother's voice to get her to her feet. The sight she's faced with makes her tremble: for all of her distraction, for the blood on her neck and the knife driven into her side, Charles has still been shot.

"You..." Her voice disappears inside her throat. She looks down, at the newspaper clipping and her card. Death. Endings. Inescapable things. Change.

She finds the strength to raise her head and look at Jack. The volume of her own voice surprises her. "You selfish, rotting bastard! A petty, weak thing like you deserved to die!"

Too late, reason kicks in and reminds her that she was about to be safe. She knows she can't help Charles, not without dying herself, and on some level she wants to just leave.

But she needs him.

Rochelle runs towards the grappled Jack and stabs him with the broken bottle. "Lily, we need to get help for Charles, but we need to make sure Jack goes down for good."

Show,25% chance to hit and 1d4 +db damage.

Rochelle misses with the beer bottle.

OOC: I forgot that I generally do the rolls here unless requested otherwise - Mr. Handy often does.

Laraqua wrote:

Show,25% chance to hit and 1d4 +db damage.

"...Get off me," Jack said, suddenly calm. He shrugged Charles off of him and then threw him down onto the floor.

Show,actually your turn involves a Strength versus Strength resistance roll and Charles has Strength 16. Yes, he's a mini-tank. On the plus side, he's not nearly as skilled up as you are. You have Strength 11 and thus would require to roll under 25% in order to break the grapple. If you had successfully broken the grapple, on your next turn you could have grappled him, then if he failed his Strength check, you could then throw him to the ground. At this stage, even if you had been successfully in breaking the grapple, there's no way you could have also dropped him prone. You can find a kick arse combat reference here because grapple is, as always, one of the more complex series of rules out there in BRP http://arsmysteriorum.weebly.com/uploads/2/4/8/0/2480968/call_of_cthulhu_combat_reference_sheet.pdf

Jack attempts to shrug off Charles but the man's grip is like a vice. Luckily, the blade doesn't sink home. Charles grip tights around his waist as he tries to crush the air out of him, knocking him into submission, and he cracks his forehead into the back of Jack's. The strikes aren't all that solid but it's enough to knock him out for slightly less damage (1) than would otherwise have been the case. Jack slumps in his arms, dropping the shotgun and twitching in a seizure as his battered body begins to slowly die in his arms. Only quick thinking and successful application of First Aid will keep him alive (and still unconscious). Charles slowly lowers him to the ground.

Everyone else may now act.

"Well, he is meant to be dead anyway. He is dangerous. I say, we finish him off." She picks up the gun and points it at Jack. At point blank range. She fires.
She turns to Lily.
"Let me see your wound." She gently pries Lily's hands away. "Shhhhh." "You will be alright." Sweat forms on her forehead. This does not look good. She looks at Lily: "Okay, I need to dress this wound, there's a first aid kit behind the bar, health and safety regulations." She grins wrily "And I only used recently and restocked when Jack was...".

She gets up and goes behind the bar. The first aid kit is there where it should be.
She also takes some of the kitchen cloth from the clean, folded pile. She also takes a bottle of whiskey.
She returns to Lily. "Okay, Lily, I'm going to disinfect your wound. This is gonna sting a little, do you hear me? But you will be fine." She opens the bottle and pours some of the whiskey onto the clean cloth. She then dabs at the wound very, very gently.
Next, she takes out a pad and breaks the sterile packaging. She puts the pad on the wound. Then she uses some tape and a bandage to secure it in place.
She curses inwardly "This is only going to do so much. This is serious. We need to get her to the hospital at once."

She then turns to Charles. She looks at him. . "You will be alright, Charles. Just rest a little, then you and I will take Lily to the hospital. Can't let your little sister die here, can we now?" She puts some more whiskey on a clean cloth and holds it to his lips. "Here, have some".

Charles stares up at Rochelle, blood-spattered, as he had just lain Jack's twitching body on the floor, and was far too close to avoid the blood spattering him. He clutches at his gun shot wound, but continues to stare up at her as she speaks, continues to stare up the smoking barrel of the gun at her happy, smiling face. When Rochelle lays down the shotgun to start attempting to use first aid on Lily, he snatches it up and cradles it on his lap, staring down at the utterly destroyed remains of Jack's head. "Who are you people?" he whispered. "Who the fuck are you people?" He shakes his head, shocked and confused. "He was your co-worker and you just ... you murdered him."

Show,With first-aid kits it's best not to presume they are where they should be. People have been in this location before and could've used it. In fact, people HAVE looked around the bar before and only found Health Drinks. I'll allow it this time but please be more cautious in your assumptions. I mean, you could open up a first aid kit and find a kitten's head inside instead of bandages. It is Silent Hill, after all. In other news, you can attempt a First Aid roll on yourself to use the First Aid kit. If successful, you can heal yourself for 1d6 hit points due to the powers of Silent Hill's medicines.

On some level, Jack's gun-mutilated body doesn't disgust Lily. It's almost fascinating. She's never seen a person die in front of her. Her mind wanders; she wonders if he felt pain, if he could feel his life leaving his body in an instant. What did he think in those last moments? Which of his senses was the last to fade?

Lily leans over, wincing in pain, and picks up the Death card with the clipping. "He was already dead, Charles. Stabbed to death right in this bar. At least, that's what the paper says." Everything in her vision blurs into a messy haze for a moment. She motions to her wound, the ugly gauze sticking out like a sore thumb against her now-ruined dress. "Maybe he thought this would be... appropriate."

She swallows uncomfortably, swaying a little. "I... Rochelle, we need to get Charles help. He's hurt really bad; I don't think I can do it myself... I don't feel so..." The floor ripples under her feet, and she leans against the upturned pool table, closing her eyes for a moment of peace.

"No offence, but I'll go with the once-living corpse over murder bitch's rants and some newspaper article that may or may never have been actually published." Charles snorts. "Then again, you probably would believe Weekly Weird News, wouldn't you?"

Rochelle looks in the first aid kit for something for her wound, she finds nothing that would help, so she just puts on a band aid to cover it after she has put some whiskey on it. She takes two swigs for good measure.
She is strangely calm. "I suppose I should feel shock or remorse at seeing Jack risen from the dead and then killing him like that. But I feel nothing, I'm totally numb. Probably nothing affects you if you've just escaped being shovelled to death."

She looks at Charles "Better a murdering, ranting bitch than dead. If I hadn't killed him, he would've killed me and Lily, not much you could have done about, my dear boy."

She looks at Lily. "Lily, please sit down. I will call an ambulance."
She goes to the bar, the receiver hangs from the phone where she had dropped it.
She picks it up....

There's nothing but a dial tone.

"What's with this town?" murmurs Charles, picking up the first aid kit and picking through it. "Okay, Lily. Sit still. This might hurt a little." He has more luck repairing her wounds. "See, told you I'd look out for you." His face is very pale and sweating, but Lily's feeling a little better. He leans back against the overturned pool table, breathing heavily. "Could use me a whiskey."

Lily nods, blinking back tears as she watches her heavily wounded brother. "I... I know. Thank you, Charles, I..." She steps forward and throws her arms around his broad shoulders. "I love you so much."

"Rochelle?" she sighs, tracing the watery streaks on her face. "Where's the restroom? I need to - I have to be away from here. For a little while."

Rochelle looks at her. She points towards the door "Staff only" and says: "I will show you. Come on." "Strength in numbers", she thinks, "This town has become so weird"..
She turns towards the door, she tries the handle.

The staff rest room is a single room with a toilet, toilet roll holder, hand basin, hand dryer, and some rather sparkling white tiles. There's no cubicle or anything like that. Just a single room.

The only less wholesome aspect of it is the large mirror with the cobwebbed crack in the upper corner that has a few smeared flies that have been swatted against it with the fly swatter that lays on the little shelf.

.
At the sight of the emptiness of the bath room, Rochelle sighs inwardly with relief. Then she catches herself "Funny, time was when you would not even have thought that there was gonna be anything in there except a spider."
She turns to Lily: "Take as much time as you need."

She then gets some more whiskey and walks back over to Charles. She kneels down beside him. She opens the bottel and holds it to his lips. "Slowly, you can have the whole bottle and more, but drink slowly."

After Charles has finished, she goes over to Jack's body and starts to search him.

Lily stands in front of the sink, makes faces at her reflection, and turns on the water. Damn that supposed-to-be-waterproof makeup.

Jack has a clip-on Radio, a small flashlight, a cellphone, switchblade (1d4 +db), lockpicks, Deck of Tarot Cards, Diary, Map of Sheperd's Glen folded up, a pack of Cigarettes, Lighter and a Pen.

Charles takes the whiskey bottle and drinks it gratefully, one hand still over his ruined torso. "So what do you think, doc? Just a flesh wound. Man, I need a nurse."

Rochelle takes all the stuff that Jack carries.
She reads the diary and looks at the map.
She offers Charles a cigarette: "Want one? Yeah, you do need a nurse. I have a car, I mean, I used to have a car, don't know where it is. The hospital is a good way off on foot in your condition. And... I don't know what we will find there when get there. Because this - all of this - is so totally weird. How can people rise from the dead?"

The diary is blank. The map of Shepherd's Glen has nothing marked on it. The town is off the road that heads into Silent Hill and has been deterioting for quite some time now and is nearly a ghost town. Silent Hill always used to treat them with rivalry and mild hostility though Shepherd's Glen was always too small to be treated as much of a tourist destination and therefore was never much of a threat anyhow.

"Place like this ... so empty," said Charles. "Really think there'd be a nurse? Don't wanna walk all that way for nothing. Maybe try for a pharmacy? They should be open now." He checks his watch. He's one of those few people who still wear them. "Damn, my watch has stopped."

Rochelle looks for a phone book "I'm gonna see if I can find a pharmacy that's open. But seriously, Charles, you are riddled with bullets. You need an operation." She looks him in the eye. "And I assume you know that even then you'll probably die anyway. If you die, what about Lily? Do you still have parents?"
She turns towards the door to the rest room. "She's been in there a long time. I'd better check on her, not that she has collapsed."
She walks over and knocks on the door. "Lily?" she says gently, "Lily? Are you alright?"

Rochelle had no ideawhere the closest pharmacy was though she was aware there were a few. She did have a phone book in her office, however.

Charles just grunts. "I ain't gonna die, lady. I'm made of tougher stuff."

When she heads down through the corridor to knock on the door, she finds that the door to the bathroom is slightly ajar.

Rochelle frowns, then listens .

The bathroom is silent.

Rochelle stretches out her hand, "Lily? Are you okay? I will open the door now." She pushes the door open very quickly and with some force, she does not step inside.

The bathroom is empty but otherwise is almost just as she had left it. There's still moisture in the basin with some mascara staining from where Lily must have been cleaning her face. Otherwise, the room is empty and otherwise ordinary but there is a small, folded white card sitting on the hand dryer.

Rochelle goes in and picks up the card. While she is looking at it, she goes out to Charles and says "Your sister's gone."

"My what?" He struggles to his feet, wincing. "Gone where?"

The card simply says:

WhAt Is LoSt MaY yEt Be FoUnD
oVeR tHe DaRk & uNdErGrOuNd
HaUnTeD pLeAsEs BrOkEn SoUnD
lIgHt ThE bOrDeRs & hUnKeR dOwN
rOsEs TwIsT tHe CoRdEd CrOwN
mAy YoUr BlIsS bE oVeR nOw

There's a sudden buffet of wind against the shuttered windows, rattling the steel casing against the wooden frames, as a billowing ash cloud passes them by, blanketing the door's window in darkness. The whole building seems to rattle and shake, the noise erupting loudly around them and encompassing them in noise and vibrations that shoot up and down their very bones. The electric lights flicker all around them. The CD player erupts in jarring static and fragments of music. Then the lights explode, showering glass shards everywhere, and the room is plunged into darkness.