NEW MEXICO. The nearest outpost of civilization is a good 50 miles away (a “Stuckey’s”). Desert surrounds the house, Murder Manor, on all sides.
MEET THE PLAYERS:
Seapunky
Eight
Cuitlahac
Doibr
krizteen
James
Ken
P.A.S.
Erin
Stacey
Cyd
Spinnwebe
It all started innocently enough.
It was Tuesday. James was brewing himself a cup of coffee down in the kitchen, when Spinnwebe walked in, still in full Batman regalia. It was the first time he had been outside of his roomin a couple days. "Hey, Spinnwebe, what's happenin'?" James asked him. Spinnwebe stopped dead in his tracks. His eyes grew wide and glazed over in fury. He suddenly lunged forward and grabbed James by the neck, choking him. "It's just Spinn," he growled. "Just SPINN!" James sputtered, but couldn't say anything. Spinn continued to throttle him, foam starting to form at the corners of his mouth. Desperate, James reached to the counter behind him and smashed the first thing he could get his hands on in Spinn's face; this just happened to be the Coffeemaker, filled with about a quart of percolating, piping hot coffee. The container shattered, spraying hot coffee everywhere, including into Spinn's eyes. He let go, and James shoved past him, making a break for his room, where his weapons are. Spinn, even more enraged, followed close behind. Halfway down the hallway, Spinn grabbed James and took him down, biting and clawing him. James tried to kick Spinn off of him, but Spinn was too furious to notice. "KILL! KILL! KILL!" he kept shouting, in between bites. The commotion drew Stacey, Doibr, and Mollie out of their bedrooms, followed after a few seconds by the rest, who stampeded down from upstairs in various stages of armament. Erin pushed to the front with his boken to get a better look at the struggle. James had his thumbs pressed against Spinn's throat, and Spinn was clawing at James' face. Erin took a second to decide which one of them he liked better, and brought his boken down hard on Spinn's head, knocking him unconscious.
"What the fuck are you doing?" called P.A.S., shoving past krizteen and Ken to confront Erin; "You should have let them fight it out!" He held his Garden Weasel in front of him, the tips still caked with a bit of Doibr's blood.
Erin looked at him, his eyes narrowing. "Why?"
"I was watching!" said P.A.S.
"I care," said Erin, and turned away. P.A.S., not appreciating this, shoved Erin with one hand.
"Come on then, bi-"
That was as far as he got before Erin backhanded him across the face. One of P.A.S.'s teeth flew, landing in krizteen's cleavage. She frantically dug it out, swearing. Meanwhile, P.A.S. turned toward Erin and swung his Garden Weasel, which Erin deftly blocked. Sensing that these two were going to need more room, the crowd backed up into the space by the stairs, giving Erin and P.A.S. ample room to fight it out in the hallway.
After a minute or so, Ken looked around and asked, "Where's Cuitlahac?" He was answered when Cuitlahac came running from the kitchen, a carving knife in his hand. He swung at Erin's throat, missing, clipping Erin's ear.
"Ah! Fuck!" Erin threw a side kick at P.A.S.'s gut, knocking him back against the wall, and swung his boken at Cuitlahac, who ducked.
"That's not right," said Cindy, who walked over to Cuitlahac and punched him, right in the kidney. It was very effective; Cuitlahac moaned and dropped to one knee.
Erin took the opportunity to turn back to P.A.S., who was just beginning to get his wind back. He smacked P.A.S. across the face with the boken; P.A.S. went down. James had managed to scoot sideways into the bathroom, but Spinn was still unconscious in the middle of the hallway. Slowly, his eyes blinked open. He sprung to his feet, emitting a primal shout which can only be described as sounding like, "HRRRAAAAAAAGGGGHHH!!!" James almost wet his pants. Cuitlahac took the opportunity to slash blindly behind him at Cindy, catching her on the hand.
"OW! FUCKER!" She punched him right in the mouth, cutting her knuckles badly on his teeth, three of which landed near Spinn's feet. Cuitlahac fell over backwards, looking up at her, just as she stomped on his nuts.
Stacey chose this time to have a go at fulfilling her blood oath against Doibr. Raising a small peeling knife in her hand, she plunged it deep into Doibr's shoulder, between his collarbone and shoulder blade. He screamed in surprise; she drew it out of him and prepared to stab him again, when Mollie grabbed her arm and shouted "NO!" Stacey elbowed her in the face, but Mollie held on. Doibr looked at the blood spurting from his shoulder and sank to the floor in horror. "Holy shit," Ken observed.
Spinn and James were fighting in the bathroom, as Erin kicked P.A.S. through the front door. They continued to spar in the front yard.
Mollie, her nose bleeding from repeated elbows from Stacey, finally wrenched the knife out of Stacey's hand. It flew across the hall, behind where Cuitlahac and Cindy were now punching each other. Neither noticed; Cuitlahac was studying the effects his most recent left hook had had on Cindy; apparently, it had hit her dead in the eye, because her eye had gone instantly red, and tears began pouring out of it. Cindy was gritting curses through her teeth. Stacey whirled on Mollie and hit her full flush in the face; Mollie stumbled and hit the wall, finally letting go of Stacey's arm, grabbing her head, and forcing it downward to meet her knee on its way up. It hit Stacey in the forehead, hurting a great deal, but not drawing any blood. Stacey wrapped her arms around Mollie's waist before she could knee her again, and took her down.
In the front yard, P.A.S. was beginning to understand that, as far as raw training was concerned, Erin had him. So, he slipped the heel off of his right shoe and threw what Erin thought was an ill-timed kick. However, the shoe kept right on going and bonked Erin square on the nose. P.A.S. took this opportunity to lunge forward with his Garden Weasel, but Erin was still able to swipe it away with his boken. He got in close to P.A.S. and landed a hard right to his face; P.A.S. reeled, and clumsily tried to run, but Erin got his left arm, put him in a half-nelson, and rammed him against the hard brick wall by the door. P.A.S., terrirfied, tried to kick up behind him but couldn't reach testicles, and so he stomped on Erin's foot. Erin gritted his teeth through the pain and slammed P.A.S.'s head into the wall, twice. On the third time, as Erin drew his head back with his boken hand, P.A.S. shot his head back of his own accord, surprising Erin, head-butting him on the nose. P.A.S. managed to wrench his arm free, and turned to face Erin once again.
James was not enjoying having his head in the toilet.
Spinn had forced him down there after a brief but heated struggle, and James was having a hard time getting loose. He was struggling with Spinn's arms, but couldn't get much leverage from behind. Trying a new approach, he suddenly elbowed up behind him, hitting Spinn in the chin, causing him to bite straight through the tip of his tongue. Distracted by the pain, Spinn weakened his grip on James, who was able to rise up enough to actually take a breath, as well as grab Spinn's head and bring it crashing down against the hard porcelain bowl. Spinn went limp and sank to the floor. James broke the porcelain toilet lid over his head, just to be sure; yup, out like a light.
Stacey was raining blows down on Mollie, who was occasionally sticking Stacey with a few of her own, though her position on the floor was lousy. As if in answer, Doibr slowly climbed to his feet and kicked Stacey off of Mollie. He then passed out. Stacey snarled and leapt at him, but was met by Mollie's foot, kicking her on the same side of the head Doibr had kicked. She fell over, and Mollie stood up and full-force soccer kicked her in the face. Stacey slumped over, out cold, and Mollie picked up Doibr and made off to his room with him. She shut and locked the door.
Cindy had just broken Cuitlahac's nose when P.A.S. and Erin came back inside. Cuitlahac had grabbed Cindy by the hair and commenced punching her in the mouth, when he realized she wasn't even paying attention. Vexed, he looked over at Erin and P.A.S. fighting and saw why. The two were fighting like men possessed. P.A.S. had finally managed to hurt Erin; a streak of blood ran down his nose. The two clacked their weapons off of each other, neither seeming to get tired. P.A.S. thrust and grazed Erin's thigh; Erin took it and swung his boken mightily, breaking P.A.S.'s arm. With a cry, P.A.S. tried to stab Erin again, but Erin sidestepped and brought his boken down in an arch over P.A.S.'s head.
It split wide open.
Erin's boken was embedded at least three inches in P.A.S.'s skull; P.A.S. looked very, very surprised. With a sort of final gurgle, he dribbled a mouthful of blood down his shirt and fell to the floor, dead.
"Damn," said Erin, "this is a great boken." He went to the kitchen to wash it off, leaving everyone else to stand there and gaze at P.A.S.'s dead body (except of course for Spinn and Stacey, who were out cold).
"What do we do with it?" asked krizteen, this being her first witnessed murder. "Do we just throw it outside?"
"Nobody ever said what to do with dead bodies," said Ken. "Let's weight him down and drop him in the lake out back."
Ken, Cuitlahac, krizteen, and James hefted P.A.S.'s body outside, where several large rocks were stuffed down his pants, which were then firmly roped off at the waist and legs. They waded in to their waists and threw him as far out toward the middle of the lake as they could. As his final act of defiance, P.A.S. made a huge splash and soaked everybody.
"Should someone say a few words?" asked krizteen, trying to remain at least somewhat godly, even though she was more concerned with wiping the annoying wet hair out of her face than the fact that someone had been killed right in front of her.
"Yeah, I've got a few words: Down the hatch," said Cuitlahac, and turned to go inside.
On the way back, Ken called James aside.
"James, have you noticed anything about the lake recently?
James looked at him. "No, have you?"
Ken nodded. "Remember all the ducks and birds and frogs and snakes that were around when we first got here?"
James looked at the lake. "Yeah... where are they?"
Ken raised his eyebrows. "Good question. Nothing's been out here for at least a week now. Nothing. Not even at night."
"Huh," said James, thinking. "I wonder what that means..."