Brothers of the Storm
The GM: Brian and Jon
The Characters:
Game System: Call of Cthulhu
Game Type: One-Shot
Synopsis:
6/15
10:15 A.M.
Elkhorn deserted. Power out. Phones down. Some weird electrical storms must be jamming cell phone.
Church wall collapsed. Covering cellar doors. Can’t get down. Repeated shouting but no answers. Probably can’t hear me over the storm.
Found a strange statue made of large stones and splintered wood (looks like branches from the woods). Roughly resembles a cat.
Found 3 cars. All engines tore out and missing various other parts??
--- Checked garage/gas station. Demolished. No extra parts or engines salvageable.
No engines anywhere???
--- Crane/800 lbs???
Started seeing children’s signs at about noon. All of them addressed to Tim. Noticed the crayon drawings don’t seem to fade in the rain?? No explanation.
CB to the station. No response.
General store is missing lots of junk food? Children wandering the streets? Alone?
Went to the county building. Looked in the Elkhorn directory. No home owners named Tim. Checked birth certificates, found an 8 yr old w/ a twin. Evan. As suspected, children.
22 Forest.
Corner house in town. NW corner. Small 2 story, 1 front entrance, 1 back door. No fire or candle light. Can’t see any movement. Mud is filling w/ water immediately so I can’t see any tracks. Entering house at 2:14 p.m.
2:20 1st sweep of house. Nothing but a few rats. Large rats.
2:28 2nd sweep of house. Empty. Have been joined by a cat.
_______________________________________________________________
Deputy Mary Jones folds her notebook up and slides it in the right pocket of her raincoat. She shines her flashlight around the empty living room of 22 Forest – Tim and Evan’s house. The house is empty. Empty and dark.
Where could they be? An attic I missed? No, I didn’t miss anything in the house. They have to be somewhere else. Where would they go to hide? School? The playground?
“Where did they go kitty?” Mary says. She bends down to pet the cat. The cat springs away from her hand, up onto the couch. The cat turns away from her and stares down the hallway towards the back of the house where Mary had left the car with the headlights shining into the back kitchen window.
The car lights shut off.
Mary pulls her gun and runs down the hall to the back. She fumbles with the door for a brief second and flings it open. The storm explodes into the white kitchen. She splashes out back and shines her flashlight around, gun pointing with the flashlight as it sweeps the dark. She sees the hood of her car open, the engine steaming in the cold rain. A few pieces of metal and tubing lie scattered across the ground.
“No, no, no!” She steps closer to the car and gazes into the open hood. “Oh God no!”
Mary curses herself for being stupid enough to leave the car alone. “What the hell did this?” She wonders aloud. She shines her flashlight into the darkness, towards the woods. “GOD DAMNIT! WHAT IS HAPPENING?”
She hears a screech coming from inside the house.
She turns and runs back into the house. Through the slippery, soaked kitchen into the carpeted living room. “TIM! EVAN!” she yells. Mary stops. The stairs are to her right but she is certain the sound came from the living room. She shines the light around, leveling the gun. Soaking from the rain she notices she is panicking and starting to pant.
“Tim. Evan?” She slows her breathing. Stay calm. She tells herself. “Is anybody there?”
Standing in the center of the living room she makes a slow turn. She sees another big rat scuttle across the floor to the back of the house. She watches it run out into the storm.
Mary lowers the gun and notices for the first time her hand is shaking.
The window explodes behind her.
“AHHHH!” She turns in panic and fires once at the window. Something large smashes into her. She screams and drops the flashlight. It spins off into the corner and in the brief twirl of light she sees something… not human.
A large bat-like creature is half bouncing, half flying around the room. Its head as large as a German Shepherd’s. It has teeth. It is going to kill her. Mary screams and fires off several shots as the thing bounces around the room snapping its jaws and gurgling hideously.
She hears a sick plunging noise and the bat thing screeches in pain and bounds off down the hallway, followed by a crashing noise from the back. Mary lays on the living room floor panting. The rain pours in from the smashed window. Her head falls to the side and she sees the flashlight on the floor, facing the wall, illuminating a small outlet.
I hit it. She thinks. Whatever it was I hit it and it was hurt. Then it got scared and ran.
Mary pulls herself up, grabs the flashlight off the ground and moves cautiously down the hallway to the back. Once she gets to the kitchen she can see the window and frame smashed outward.
Mary pauses for a moment, closes her eyes and prays.
She moves into the back yard. Nothing. The storm rages around her.
She moves quickly to the trunk of her car and opens it. She pulls off her raincoat and pulls out the bullet proof vest, fastening it on. She unlocks the shotgun, checks to see if it is loaded and pumps it once.
She checks her .45 to see how many bullets she has. Seven. And two more clips on my belt.
She puts her raincoat back on and heads out into the woods.
Mary loses track of how long she’s been in the woods. She shut off her flashlight long ago, not wanting the light to give her position away. She hasn’t spotted any signs of… anything.
Maybe this is a bad idea. What the hell am I thinking? Of course it’s a bad idea. What the hell was that thing? Some kind of large dog? Yeah right. A dog with wings. Maybe I don’t want to kill it so bad that I’m in the middle of the woods, in pitch blank, and goddamn I’m scared as hell.
Oh God. I forgot about the boys. What if that thing is after them… or worse yet, what if it’s gotten them? I can’t see worth shit here. The storm blocks out most of the sun and the damn woods block out the rest. What’s that smell?
Mary steps into a large clearing and crouches low. Crawling slowly through the mud and drenched bushes she pushes herself closer to two figures standing motionless in the dark. She levels the shotgun and moves around a large oak tree. Still crouched she braces herself in front of the tree.
Three. Four. Five figures. I see five figures standing. Large men? No. Something’s wrong. No one is moving. Are they statues?
Mary doesn’t move. She waits. She waits for the lighting that she knows will come.
Is something crouched over there? Behind that large statue. God I think they’re statues. Wait. I think there is something there. What they hell is that? My God is that a bear?
Lighting crashes and the clearing is blindingly bright for one frozen moment.
She sees it, the creature crouching behind the statues. The five large statues of men, made from engine parts and tractor tires and appliances. She sees the creature and something inside her breaks.
Even crouched she can tell it would stand at least eight feet tall. Thick bestial limbs are splayed out before it, twisting into short blunted claws. White furs spots its thick hide and its enormous eyes shine blue in the lightning. A massive jaw opens to bellow in rage.
Were it not for the coursing black dread pumping through every vein in Mary’s body she might have noticed the creature’s posture was not crouched, ready to attack; it was crouching in wide-eyed terror.
It was afraid of her.
Mary did not notice.
She stands, back still to the oak, screaming, and fires the shotgun. The thing cowers behind the statue and the blast pelts the engine parts. Scraps of metal blow apart from the statue and the thing rears back and roars in fear.
She fires again.
The creature is caught in the arm and howls in horror.
Mary pumps the shotgun and levels it again. She watches in morbid fascination as the thing picks up a 600 lb. engine block with one hand and flings it towards her.
“That’s… that’s impossible.” She whispers.
The engine smashes her face into the oak. Her skull shatters like glass.
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