Day Phase One - Welcome to Bridgton, Maine!
Squee opened her eyes slowly. The sun was beating down on her face, and for a few moments, she simply enjoyed the feel of it. Some people took things like fresh air and sunlight for granted, but not her. No, she would always be thankful for such small miracles. With a yawn, the woman sat up and looked around. It appeared that she was not the first one to wake. Fay and Herzinth were already awake, talking in hushed tones about nothing in particular. “Hey,” she said softly, lifting a hand and waving sleepily. Herzinth, seeing that she was finally awake, smiled.
“Morning,” he told her. “glad to see you’re awake.”
“Were you waiting on me?” When she received no answer, she tilted her head slightly. “Is something wrong?”
“Nothing is wrong,” Fay replied.
“Just eager to get moving.” Herzinth added.
Squee nodded, demonstrating that she understood. “Staying in one place for too long can be awful.” Herzinth smiled, and she smiled back.
Fay stood up, dusting the dirt off the seat of her jeans and adjusting her belt. “It is time to wake up the others,” she announced, and the two sitting by the ashes of the previous night’s fire nodded. Splitting up, they gently shook the unconscious bodies until they awoke. Werecat and Aragorn, who had fallen asleep side-by-side in the sand grumbled a bit. Fay touched Cringer’s shoulder gently, and the man sat up with a soft, sleepy smile. A small, rare smile crossed Fay’s own lips at the expression, but it melted away quickly. Grey, TP, Cordi and Zed were the next to wake. Finally, Sebas, who rubbed her temples and muttered something about how nice a cup of coffee would be.
“I am not a morning person,” she groaned. Then she made a face, causing Kanga and Aragorn to emit shrill peals of laughter.
“Where is everyone else?” Grey asked.
Fay shrugged, and Squee replied, “probably still off doing their own thing.”
As if on cue, Knight and Scribz approached the ka-tet, hand in hand, both smiling.
“Nice night?” Cordi asked with a grin. Knight giggled, but Scribz only gave Cordi a knowing look.
“So we are still missing Alpha, Rilla and Jorick.” Squee announced. Fay nodded.
“We can go look for them,” TP stated, but Squee shook her head.
“We will start packing up now,” she told him. Then she addressed the whole ka-tet. “I’m sure that they will show up while we are getting ready to move on. Then we can go.” Everyone nodded and dispersed, off to collect their own belongings.
----
Zed looked up, from his backpack and saw a hazy figure moving across the beach. After watching the shape that was sprinting toward them for a few seconds, his eyes widened.
“Fay!” Zed yelled.
Fay jogged over. “What is wrong?”
The person running toward them slowed to a halt, breathing heavily.
“Cordi,” Fay said firmly. “What happened?”
“It is Alpha, isn’t it?” Zed asked.
Cordi looked at him strangely, then nodded. “Yes, he’s dead.” The other members of the ka-tet, who had crowded around the breathless Cordi, gasped.
“Show me.” Fay demanded.
----
“I had come over here to pee,” Cordi explained. The ka-tet had formed a circle around Alpha’s dead body. “I didn’t want to do it near you all, because I’m a little shy and-” Fay lifted her hand and gestured to Cordi to get on with it. “-and then I saw him. I thought he was sleeping, so I flipped him over and saw the blood and...” her voice trailed before she burst into tears. Cringer moved forward and wrapped his arms around her, then looked to Fay for further instruction. In response, Fay reached down with her left hand, withdrew her gun from its holster, and addressed the whole group.
“We need to find Rilla and Jorick immediately.”
“Do you think someone killed them too?” Grey asked, pushing forward from the rest of the group so he could be closer to Fay. The woman, however, refused to comment on the question.
Instead, she simply said, “quickly now.”
----
Only a few moments later, they were standing over the lifeless body of Jorick. Just a little ways down the beach was what was left of Rilla, though no one really wanted to look at that any longer than they had to. Fay had used her gun to shoot a lobstrositie that was picking through the torn remains of the man’s clothing. “Careful,” she had warned. “They’re poisonous.”
“So you think someone killed them?” Grey asked again. Squee sent him a warning look, telling him to drop it. Though Cringer had a hand on each Werecat and Aragorn’s shoulders, and Sebas had her arms wrapped around Kanga, the three men looked as though they were about to start crying at any moment.
The ka-tet stood in silence.
“It must have been one of us,” TP said finally. “I mean, we are the only people out here.”
“No,” Fay responded firmly.
“What do you mean, no?” Zed barked. “You cannot just say no like that! Offer us some sort of explanation! TP has a point!”
Fay’s stunning blue eyes were often regarded by many to be the most beautiful eyes they have ever seen. But at that moment, as she stared Zed down, they were nothing more than terrifying. “We are ka-tet,” the woman said coldly. “We do not kill our own kind.” She looked down at Jorick and shook her head. “No, something else must have done this. There are many beasts in the woods on the other side of this beach. Big cats and the likes.”
“And one of them just happened to be carrying a knife with them last night?” TP interjected sarcastically.
When the reply did come, it was calm and collected, as it always was. “We should hope not, but I have seen stranger things. We should keep moving just in case.”
----
Before they left, the ka-tet buried their fallen comrades. The graves, which had been nothing more than holes in the sand, were each marked with a pieces of wood fastened into crosses.
Cordi withdrew a Sharpie marker from her bag. “Someone should write their names on the crosses. Maybe in big block letters or something. I would do it, but I am a writer, not an artist.”
Herzinth shook his head. “Do not look at me, I am a writer too.”
“Yeah, same here,” Grey replied. “Jorick was the artistic one.”
“Stephen King sure had a thing for authors.” Fay mused. She was met mostly by confused looks, except for Scribz, who nodded.
----
They traveled for a few hours before they found the door. It was a strange thing, to see a wooden door standing alone in the middle of a beach. But as they approached it, they realized that that was precisely what it was.
“What do we do now?” Werecat asked hesitantly.
Squee thought for a moment, then replied, “I guess we go through it.”
“But we do not know where it goes!” Cordi protested.
“No, we do not,” Sebas replied softly. She took a step forward. “But there is no other way. Somehow, I know it, and I am sure you all do too. This door is here for a reason. All we can really do is go through it, and pray that we end up on the other side in one piece.”
And that was what they did.
Knight approached the door first, and without glancing back at his ka-tet, he pulled it open. All he could see on the other side were pine trees. Then, without hesitation, he stepped through. It was a strange sensation, but one that he found familiar and not unpleasant. As soon as he was on the other side, he began looking around. This place looked modern, with a paved road beneath his feet and telephone wires running over his head. Once the others arrived, many said the very same thing. This looked much like the rural American towns they had experienced before. The sign a few yards up the road that welcomed them to Bridgton, Maine in faded, peeling letters confirmed this.
“Is anyone familiar with Maine?” TP asked.
Cordi nodded. “Our best bet would probably be to follow this road. Not that I know it will take us to the tower or anything, but I know some real food and a bed would be really nice.”
Squee agreed, and the group began making its way down the road toward what they assumed to be the town of Bridgton. They were tired from their trip, but the thought of a Big Mac and large coke made them pick up the pace.
“I wonder what time it is,” Knight asked Scribz.
Scribz shrugged. “It is hard to tell with all of this fog.”
“Yeah,” Knight agreed. “This fog is weird. Maybe we are near a big body of water or something, and it is rolling off of that.”
Unfortunately, it was not just fog rolling off of the water. It was much more than that.
----
As they walked, Zed moved up alongside Sebas. “So, do you think someone in the ka-tet killed those three guys?”
The woman thought for a long while before replying. “I like to think that people are not capable of such violence, especially those that we have come to call members of our group.” She took a deep breath. “However, I know how people can change. I have seen it. I have seen good people do bad things.” A pause. “So yes, I suppose I do think someone killed them, though I cannot think of who.” Zed nodded, then moved on to the next person. He asked all members of the ka-tet, save for Fay if they thought someone among them had done the killing. The answer, it turned out, was unanimous. They all did.
“Fay,” Zed called. The woman stopped and looked at him. “I think we need to talk. I have spoken to everyone, and-” He was cut short by the sound of a gunshot. “Whoa!” He cried, looking to Fay with wide, frightened eyes. He had hardly seen the woman flinch, let alone draw her gun and shoot. But there she stood, smoking gun in hand. “Were you trying to kill me?”
“If I were trying kill you,” Fay retorted, “you would be dead.”
“But you missed.”
“I did not miss.”
Zed turned around and saw the body of a strange spider-like creature lying on the pavement behind him. It was unlike anything he had ever seen, as large as a cat, and covered in strange pinchers and antennae.
“Guys,” came Scribz’s nervous voice. “Guys, we need to get moving. Now.” They looked to him. “There’s something in the mist.”
They turned and ran, but not before they saw the small hoard of those spider-things hurrying toward them. Exhausted from the past month of traveling, they knew they could not get far. Luckily, they did not have to. An old barn sat open just off the road. Without hesitation, they moved together into the building, the last one inside closing the big door.
“What were those things?” Grey gasped, trying to catch his breath.
“Fay,” Werecat whispered. “Are we going to be able to shoot them all?”
“Perhaps,” came the soft response. After the woman checked to make sure the doors were secured, she turned to Zed. “But first, Zed will share what is on his mind.”
“No, I think this is more important-” Zed started.
“Absolutely not.” Fay sat down on a bale of hay and motioned to the man. “If you have something to share with me, please do so.”
Zed nodded. “Well,” he began, “I think I speak for everyone when I say there is definitely a murderer among us.” Fay raised one eyebrow, and so the man continued. “We need to figure out who it is and kill them before they can kill any more of us.”
“So who would you propose will kill then?” Fay questioned. Her voice was uncharacteristically sharp, and Zed flinched as if he had been cut.
“What about Cringer?” Knight suggested slowly. “I mean, he spent a lot of time with Alpha. He easily could have killed him.”
“That is absurd!” Cringer responded. “I was with him because I cared about him! You all heard how scared he was of the dark. He was crying about it to everyone before we entered the tunnels. I just walked with him because I wanted to help him.”
“Just like you helped Rilla and Jorick?” That was TP.
“What is that supposed to mean?” Cringer cried.
“We all know you were jealous of their relationship!”
“What? No! I loved them together! In fact, I am the one who paired them up, if you care to know!”
“That does not change anything.” Came the simple response from TP.
“Did you really kill them?” Werecat asked softly.
“No!”
“I am starting to think you did.” Scribz told her, his hands on his hips. “And I need to protect the rest of this ka-tet.”
“How will you protect them?” Cringer asked hesitantly.
“Why, kill you,” said TP.
Before the man knew it, he was being scooped up by Scribz and Grey, and they hauled him across the barn to a broken window. As he finally realized what they planned to do, he began crying. “No, no, please no! Have mercy! Do not kill me like
(Charyou Tree)
this! Please! I did not do it!”
They slowly eased his body through the open window. There was a sudden cry of protest from Fay, and she lunged forward, but she was held back. Cringer continued to cry as he was dropped
(Charyou Tree)
through the window. But his screams did not last long.
-------------------------------------------------------
Day Phase One Has Ended
Cringer has been killed. His role was Susan Delgado (Dark Tower).
Night Phase Two Begins
Please send all Night phase role actions to Nat.
Reply With QuoteOriginally Posted by Seravee
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