CHAPTER ONE: Jack's Journey: Opening Hours

[Laraqua]

OOC,Does he leave the door open?

[Seon]

Spoiler:

Most store doors close on their own unless held open, don't they?

[Laraqua]

OOC,Good point.

Standing behind the open bar in front of two open windows with the lights on inside does tend to make you feel a little exposed, although you can see anything approaching the door from at least ten feet away from the storefront. Still, his hands tire on the shotgun before anything happens which just ratchets up the anticipation of something coming to pass. The kitten ends up coming to the precipice that is the edge of the counter, peeking down, and meowing plaintively as it's not brave enough to take the jump but obviously wants to come down. Apparently the kitten hasn't discovered the bar stools on the other side of the counter that would provide a convenient step down.

[Seon]

Jack sighed, put the shotgun down, and picked up the kitten, setting it down on the floor.

[Laraqua]

The kitten immediately latches onto Jack's hand as a ball of playful fury, claws and teeth digging in like a dozen tiny needles.

[Seon]

Jack pulled out the shotgun from the counter, put the barrel against the demon's back, and pulled the trig-

Nah. There will be too many questions. Besides, it was a waste of ammo. He had to save some for the drunk circus strongman/Toccassy/Rochelle. Jack sighed. He should have seen it coming that the kitten was a fiend. "Hey, get off!" he said, trying to shake the kitten off.

[Laraqua]

The kitten glances up at you in shock and horror as you begin trying to shake it off, and it clings on for dear life, ears perked up rather than flattened against its head now that you've decided to try to fling it off your hand. Oddly enough, it stays on and you realise that you've been grappled by a kitten. Luckily, it's only the palm of your hands its attached itself too.

Oh well, at least it removes some of the stress of the situation. Or at least, the seriousness of it.

[Seon]

"AAAAARRRRGH!!!" Jack said, beating the kitten to death against the counter. "THE PAIN! THE PAIN!!!"

Nope. Wait. He just cleaned the damn bar. He put the frightened kitten on the floor and began to try to pry the mouth open.

[Laraqua]

Once the kitten is near the ground it drops off and stares up at you with big, cute eyes and meows at you. It then proceeds to rub its furry side all over your shoes, purring like a mini lawn mower.

[Seon]

"Good Kitty," Jack said. "I ain't patting yah."

[Laraqua]

Now that the kitten is safely on the ground and he can return his attention to the window, he sees that the fog hasn't lifted and there's no one in sight. How did that man die anyhow? And who killed him? It'll be getting dark soon within the hour and then where will he be? At that point, there's a faint hiss from the heaters as the power goes out. Hopefully, it's just one of the fuses that have blown. Rochelle keeps spare fuses in a locker in the cramped cellar but the fuse box itself is up in the kitchen area. Well, at least he won't starve. Alternatively, there's a flashlight in Rochelle's desk drawer that he could use to keep the place lit enough to see by. It'll be a pain balancing the shotgun and the flashlight together, though.

[Seon]

"Oh, White Claudia, a Blackout!" Jack muttered. "You know, in horror movies, this is always the time when the monster decides to jump the protagonists. Whelp. Time to play god!"

He brandished the shotgun threateningly at nothing in particular. The kitten meowed encouragingly.

"Why thank you," Jack said to the kitten. He moved over to Rochelle's Office, grabbed the flashlight, and stuffed it into his pocket. No reason NOT to steal it. It's Rochelle's after all, and it was her fault that the place was so breaking down.

He opened the cellar door.

[Laraqua]

The cellar door is a trap door behind the bar counter. The bar itself is gloomy with only the filtered light from outside lighting up the place (good thing he opened those shutters) but that gloom isn't enough to really light up the cellar. Crates and boxes and casks loom up here and there as vague silhouettes. Unfortunately, the locker box sits between two towering piles of boxes of girly pre-mixers on the opposite side of the over crowded cellar. Even if the monster doesn't get him, the ankle bruisers will. He pulls out the flashlight and slides the switch-y thing and ... nothing happens. Opening the back it up, he sees that there's no batteries inside. Where did Rochelle keep the spare batteries?

Oh yeah, in the lock box with the other odds and ends.

[Seon]

Jack peered down into the darkness of the cellar and tried to listen to hear if anything was even remotely alive in the cellar.

"Maybe I can use the kitten as bait to lure it out," Jack muttered.

[Laraqua]

The cellar is deathly still and quiet, which oddly enough just makes it all the more ominous. The thought strikes Jack: While he was sneaking around one side of the car, could the killer have snuck around the other side and gotten into the bar?

[Seon]

"See," Jack said to the kitten. "If I had a handgrenade, we wouldn't be having this problem right now. So, kitty, did you see a homicidal maniac walk into the bar? Just one? Two? Three?"

Hang on a second, Jack smiled. He had a lighter. Thank God for his smoking habits. He began to search the bar and the office for things that he could light to provide a source for..well...light.

[Laraqua]

There are plenty of flasks of hard liquor that could have a rag stuffed down the mouth... No, wait, too much fire. He could make a flaming cocktail. There's chair legs if he broke one off. There's the pool table cues. Either of those could be wrapped in rags. Paper could be taken out and lit up though that'd burn pretty fast.

[Seon]

Jack donned his trench coat and stuffed the sawn-off shotgun somewhere in his clothes so that he could whip it out in an emergency. "Don't try this at home," he said to the cat.

He took a bottle of hard liquor and stuffed a rag down it. It was a cheap one anyhow. Rochelle wouldn't miss it too much.

He took out a lighter, flicked it to life, and descended into the gloom of the cellar, with the home-made molotov cocktail in the other hand.

[Laraqua]

The flickering lighter provides very little light but luckily he's not exactly descending from a well-lit room into a pitch black room. More a man coming from a gloomy room into a pitch black one. He can see the huddled masses of the various crates, boxes, and other assorted items as he heads down the steps. Once off the stairs, his shoes retort against the bricks, sounding harsh in the cramped confines of the room. He smacks his shins against one crate (that was bound to happen) and continues with little more than a bruise. He can just make out the glint of metal in the vague light of his lighter when the lighter itself becomes a wee bit too hot to hold. Shame it had to be a safety lighter.

Still, he grits his teethand gets on with it, crouching down to pull open the lockbox (luckily it's not locked) and then rummaging around inside for spare fuses and batteries sized for the flashlight. Unfortunately, it's a mess of random oddities filling that lockbox and it's difficult to see anything in the gloom.

Unfortunately, that's when the lighter really begins to hurt.

OOC,Con x 5 rolls were made to hold onto the lighter. You can either take 1 damage from holding onto the hot lighter to continue rummaging around in the poor light and get another roll or you can flick the lighter shut and wait for it to cool down.

[Seon]

Jack quickly shut off the lighter and took out his shotgun, putting the bottle somewhere in the pockets of his trench coat.