Vault of Mutterings

Thanksgiving.  It was that blessed time of year where students often found themselves traveling back home to stay with parents who likely didn't understand in order to eat more food than necessary alongside relatives that nobody could genuinely stand to be around.  While that was not the case with every attendee of East Texas University, local students, just like Debbie Winger, tossed a duffle bag full of dirty laundry into the back seat of the car, slid into the driver's seat, and made like a Willie Nelson song.  

Debbie's dread began to mount the instant the engine turned over.  The obligation of having dinner with her mother stung.  She loved her mom, no denying it, and her advice on careers was invaluable, but she knew with it would be coming a horde of needling questions.  How were her grades?  Was she dating someone?  If she was, was she taking full advantage of it?  

Where that left her was behind the steering wheel of her stark white Toyota Camry on a lonely stretch of East Texas parkway, empty save for the looming, nearly naked trees of Autumn, and her only company with her being the speculative imaginings of what her friends were doing about now.  Mike spoke of watching the “big game” with his dad and uncles, sprawling out lazily on sofas and recliners while trying to digest the enormous meal his mom and aunts would prepare.  And while she was no stranger to football, she was a cheerleader because it would get her noticed.

“You just need the right person to notice you, darling.”

Kip was staying on campus for the holidays.  His parents had invited him to come home, certainly, but he of course didn't agree with their politics, nor their ideas of what an ideal society was.  No, this Thanksgiving he was going to stick around Pinebox, protesting the useless slaughter of thousands of innocent turkeys meant only to sate the appetites of the affluent.  

Debbie wondered if she should feel insulted by that comment, but shrugged it off.  Kip was not the usual jockish type, like Mike, usually drawn to ETU, and he was maybe the kind of person she could be into perhaps in a past life, but he was so high strung she found him grating.  Not to mention how fearful she was of his lackadaisical attitude towards getting into trouble.  She couldn't afford that.

“You can't afford any negative publicity, sweetie!”

PK was different.  He was actually kind of oddly sweet, and strangely brave.  That was at least the case in the happenings at the house of Lisa Gray.  It was with this odd, sweet, strange bravery that he asked if she'd like to have dinner with his family, and despite Thanksgiving being completely new to them, they were going to assimilate it into their collective quest for the American Dream.  Debbie considered it, but soon changed her mind at how “Saag Paneer” sounded in her mind.  No, this Thanksgiving, it was nice to just focus on herself.

“Always focus on yourself, Debbie.”

The music on the radio cut to buzzing static serving only to emphasize the rain pattering against her windshield.  Not again, she thought.  It seemed something was always messing up on this car, even if it was brand new.  It was alright, she supposed.  Japanese cars were never likely to catch on in America anyway.  She reached over with a free hand to adjust the tuning.  Still static, and then, silence.  Her hand jiggled the volume knob to no avail, so she resorted to her tried and true method.  She whacked it.  The digital display went dark upon impact.

She noticed the figure in the road just in time.

Her foot slammed the brake pedal nearly to the floor, the car screeching to a halt, bumper only a few inches from this individual's knees.  Fury was the first thing that entered her mind, a fury that melted away as soon as she laid eyes on him.

Standing in front of the Camry was quite possibly the most handsome man she'd ever seen.  His dark hair was combed back, parted to the side, rain soaking into the shoulders of his perfectly tailored three-piece suit.  Both of them realizing that nobody was getting plastered by a front bumper, he smiled at her, adjusting his tie.  Music fluttered to life on the speakers.  

He calmly strode to the passenger side of the car, making a motion with his hand to roll the window down.  It took her a while to do, since she was far too busy staring at this obvious gentleman, but she eventually found the right button, the pane of glass sliding downward into the nestled confines of the passenger door.  

“Hi,” he began.

“Hi there.” She shuddered at the sound of her own drawl.  

“I couldn't trouble you for a ride, could I?  My car is a few miles ahead and I've already walked enough in the rain just to find a payphone.”

His hand slicked the water backwards out of his hair.  

“Oh God are you alright?  Did you have a wreck or somethin’?  Here!  Get in!” She immediately unlocked and flung the door open for him.  He sat comfortably in the passenger seat, chuckling.

“I'm fine.  Just ran out of gas.  It's actually my brother's car that I sort of... borrowed without permission.  I'm not used to how temperamental it is.”

“Mine's the same way, always somethin’ tearin’ up.  The radio was on the fritz a little while ago, ya know, before I almost... well...kinda run ya over.”

“Well thankfully you didn't, and I appreciate that very much.  Headed home for Thanksgiving?”

“Uhh...yeah.  You?”

“No, no, no.  My family, it's not one to celebrate many holidays.  We don't even call each other on our birthdays.”

“That sounds kinda sad, in a way.  Oh!  Sorry!  I'm Debbie.  Nice to make yer acquaintance, I guess.”

“Nice to meet you too, Debbie.  My friends call me Jerry.  It's honestly not that sad.  My brothers, we're not that close.”

The sudden desire to invite this man to Thanksgiving dinner welled up inside her.  At least her mother would be impressed with the man she brought home.  She could secretly profess that he was her new boyfriend, and with a suit like that, he was certainly money.

His voice snapped her attention back to the present, back to the wipers slinging away the rain from her view.  “I’m assuming you’re a student at ETU?”

“Yeah.  Meteorology major.  Kinda hopin’ I get to be a weather girl on TV someday.”

“A noble profession.  Perhaps I’ll see you forecasting sunny skies on Channel Five some day!”

“Thank you.  That would be very nice.  What about you?  Are you a businessman or somethin’?”

“A student of business actually.  I was on my way to the university for a visit.  If I happen to like it, I was thinking of finishing my Masters work there.  It seems like quite a college, in spite of all the strange stories I keep hearing about it.”

Debbie’s mind flashbacked to the night at the Gray house.  Back to the spirits of the slain victims of the Holocaust.  This guy didn’t know the half of it.

“Well, some pretty strange things happen there, can’t lie about that.  Place is full of...ghost stories.”

“Nice!  I like ghost stories…”

Perhaps it should have weirded her out, hearing him speak like this, but he was just so nonchalant about it, it was oddly comforting.  “There’s my car!  Thank you very much for giving me the lift.  Walking in this kind of weather, I could have caught my death...of cold, you know?”

“I hear ya,” she replied.  The Camry eased off the road, and the strange, handsome young man opened the door and stepped out.  “Debbie, right?  What might your last name be?”

“Oh, uh...Winger.  Debbie...Deborah Winger.”

“Deborah?  Nice, very biblical.”  He started to close the door and walk away.  She stopped him.

“Wait!  What about your last name?”

He halted.  “Mine?  Richards.  Jerry Richards at your service.”

“Richards, huh?  Well, it’s been real nice to chat with ya, Mister Jerry Richards.”

He chortled.  “Please, just call me Jerry!”  A heavy pause.  “Think I might be seeing more of you around campus, by chance?  I may have just made up my mind about attending…”

Her heart pounded in her chest.  “Um, sure!  Glad I could help you reach a decision.”

“Excellent!  Well, anyway, take care, and enjoy your Thanksgiving with your mother.”

“Thank you!  You know, you’re awful nice.”

He shrugged in the pouring rain.  “I try.”

His eyes locked with hers.  The static that had returned to the radio while she drove him here died away, a great tune now back on the air, it’s lyrics flooding her car.

Don’t you forget about me…

She stared back into his gaze, lost there for what felt like eternity.  “Take….take care, yourself.  See you around?”

He returned a devilish grin.  “Of course.”

The door shut behind him, her eyes following him as he walked over to quite the car.  She didn’t know it at the time, but he stood there by the 1967 Mustang Fastback, painted a rich, candy-apple red.  He waved at her, and she waved back at him before finally getting back onto the soaked, leaf-peppered parkway road headed to her mother’s house.  She rolled along, thrilled about the chance meeting that just took place, but also couldn’t shake how something he said seemed slightly...off.  She shook the thought from her head, and continued on her way.

Jerry watched her tail lights slip further down the lonely parkway road and into the evening.  He opened the door to the Mustang, slithering into the leather bucket seat.  The door shut with a heavy thud.  He settled into the car, reaching up to adjust the rear view mirror, saying out loud, “You know, I think I’m going to like it here.  Very much so, mister…”

With a free hand he opened the glove box, pulling out the registration card for the metallic red horse that encased him.  He read the name from it.

“...E. D.  Fletcher.”  He read over the card some more.  “Ew, Mister Fletcher, you should have better taste in license plate numbers than this.”  His head craned down to address the severed head in the seat beside him, its eyes frozen wide open in terror.  He snapped his fingers.  “There...That’s much better.”

The key slid into the ignition, engine roaring to life.  “Now,” he continued to converse, “Let’s go have some fun.”

The car lurched onto the asphalt, fire leaping from the blackened tracks of spent rubber.  The exhaust bellowed as the car, license plate CH405, hurtled past the large green road sign, rising like a tombstone from a blanket of fallen November leaves, that read:

                                                                Pinebox 77

This idea came to me at work a day or so ago.  Debbie is a character portrayed by the fantastic-as-always Meghan Caves on an East Texas University mini-campaign on SavingThrowShow.  Check out those videos, as that campaign is actually a preview of the new Savage Worlds Adventure Edition rules that will be coming soon.  Kip, PK, and Mike are her fellow cohorts on the show.  (Hi Other Jordan, Gaurav, and Dom! *waves*)

As for the gentleman?  Well, that’s a spin on a non-player character devised by none other than Jordan Caves-Callerman, who you can also find on SavingThrowShow as well, based off his esthetic from the Old Spice Gentleman class stream he was a part of.  Both of them are on the Deadlands Reloaded stream Wildcards (Only 4 eps left at the time of this posting!), another Savage Worlds setting that I SERIOUSLY recommend.  And yes, it is indeed HIM.

Why these characters?  Well, a few days ago, methinks, it was actually Meghan and Jordan’s third wedding anniversary, so, Happy Anniversary, you two!

It was always this place.

Every retreat into shadow in search for power led her here, the same, familiar table wreathed in smoke surrounded by darkness save for the halo of light that shone above them.  

Rosaleen didn’t enter here the usual way this time, however.  Usually she sauntered in, casually, pulling out the chair and sitting down for a game of poker with the all-too-common adversary.  This time she found herself waking up at the table, lifting her head from the green felt, groggy and exhausted.

“Well, well,” began the same old voice, like pancake syrup made from pure moonshine, burning all the way down.  “We find ourselves here once again,” he said, looking around.

She raised her gaze, looking around blearily.  “Wha..what happened?  Oh, fuck, my head.”  A hand raised to temple.  Her ears rang.  She slowly recovered herself, looking across to find him with legs perched on the table, cigar in hand, hat tilted to one side.  No chips.  No cards.

“Why am I here?”

“You tell me.  Isn’t this always the place you come to when you wind up in a pinch?”

She winced at how true that was.

“Why you are here, I have no idea.  How you are here, I can wager a guess.  Good call on the Shadow Walk express.  So very uncharacteristic of you.  You saved everyone in that room.  Quite...unselfish of you.”

Her eyes burned through him.

He drew from his cigar and formed a perfect circle of smoke in the air.  “I guess there’s a first time for everything.  Anyway, you knew what you were doing when you did it.  That many people, and you dropped out.”  He gestured to the darkness around him.

“Welcome home.”

Rosaleen finally felt well enough to sit upright, and she realized it.  This was just a thought.  Or was it a dream?  Her head pounded in pain too much for her to really care.

“Alright, fine,” she grunted in her sing-song accent. “But why you?  Why are you here to greet me?  Shouldn’t I be knocked out?  I didn’t think dreams could happen while you were out cold.”

“What is unconsciousness other than sleep induced by circumstance?  Besides, I do believe I’m more here because of you, not the other way around."

“Why would I even THINK of keeping company with you?  Seems all you want to do is kill me.”

He smiled like an opossum, a mouth full of too many teeth, all sharp and jagged.  Just like always.  His eyes burned unmistakably orange.  “Miss Byrne, I don’t want to kill you, at least not permanently.  Your body can perish, but your soul…”  He took a nice, long drag on his cigar, smoke filling the air.

“What about it,” she interrupted.  “You want to eat it?  Devour it like a thanksgiving meal?”

His eyes surged with light for a moment.  He was outwardly becoming excited.

“Not at all Miss Byrne, or Rosaleen, or Rose, or Sheer-shaaa, or however it’s pronounced.  I want to play with it.  Much like how a psychopathic child would play with a kitten.”  He chuckled like true villain. His grin became suddenly unbearable as the truth finally came out.  It would matter more now.  Every win, every loss, Rosaleen finally realized the stakes.  It came as no surprise.

What did come as a surprise, though, was how she watched his smile disappear, and he backed away into the darkness with a look on his face she was familiar with.  Her spine stiffened as she heard boots clogging on wooden floor behind her.  As a purveyor of fear herself, it was easy to recognize.  It was a look of pure terror.

Hell was breaking loose in the streets of Denver.  Mere moments ago an explosion rocked the second story of the Feathered Eel, an explosion, had it not been for the quick thinking of one Rosaleen Saoirse Byrne, would have killed them all.  Her, Gabe, Bogue, and Howell.

The Wraith had escaped up the street, Bogue and Howell gave chase.  Gabe remained, cradling Rose’s limp body in his arms.  He breathed a sigh of relief to know she was still breathing.  She wasn’t, unfortunately, waking up.

Thoughts were swarming around his head.  Could he heal her?  He reconsidered.  Wounds somehow were always found to be less severe, if severe at all, after he…

He scoffed at himself.  His mind went back to Coldwater Creek.  Back then he didn’t believe.  Even his final words to a ruffian he met in an attack on the woman from the traveling show were ones of blasphemy.  The complete denial of some omnipotent entity was spat into the man’s face before his life ended.

But what about since.  His touch, along with a few words of beseechment, closed the horrible gashes suffered by both Howell and James.  Words that were directed to what one might call a higher power.  A prayer.

But for some reason now, Gabe felt helpless.  He shut his eyes in painful concern.  All he wanted was for Rose to come back.  They could use her help.  Everyone could use her help.  

All he wanted was for her to be okay.

And then something happened.

Rosaleen shut her eyes and swallowed hard when she felt the sensation of a hand on her shoulder.  But just as suddenly her fear set in, at this touch, it just as rapidly subsided.  She turned her head and opened her eyes to see.  She grinned quizzically back into the smiling face of a strange, bearded,  white-clad gentleman.

“Miss Byrne,” he began.  His voice filled the endlessness around them, and yet seemed no louder than a whisper.  “May I take a seat?”

She had no idea how to respond.  Her heart pounded, but she was unsure if it was trepidation that drove her, or her insatiable curiosity.  A dozen questions danced in her head.  Words finally slipped from between her lips.  “Of course.”

The man pulled out a chair, and sat beside her, looking into her eyes with his own.  They reminded her of a clouds on a sunny day.  Slightly, ever so slightly, they reminded her of home.

“Who...who are you?”

He raised a hand.  “I cannot answer your questions.  I am not here for that long.  I am here because someone asked me to help you.  And, so I shall.”

“Who asked you?  Is it someone I know?”

He simply smiled.  “I think you know who,” he winked before assessing the darkness around him.  “However, Miss Byrne, as a result of my actions, you will have no memory of any this.  You already have too many questions weighing heavy on your mind.  I dare not leave you with another.”

“Why,” she implored.  It was the eternal question on her mind.

He chuckled, placing a gentle hand on top of hers.  “It’s time to wake up.”

A pulse of golden light.  Gabe had to shield his eyes.

When he turned back to where Rosaleen lie, she was upright, bright-eyed, seemingly ready to take on the world.

She awoke to a single sweet sound on Gabriel’s voice.

Nobody forgets their musical heroes.  I’ve already had to deal with two of mine passing away: Scott Weiland and Chris Cornell.  These were two of the many that dominated my radio and MTV back in the nineties.  

But “Zombie” by the Cranberries was one of the first songs I ever learned how to play on guitar when I was 16.  “Dreams” and “Linger” gives me the tingles even to this day.

I don’t know if it was Dolores’ Irish lilt or just the breathy ethereal way she sang, but she and the Cranberries made it to my list of musical heroes.  I found out the news a little after 1:00 PM EST.  I felt, and still feel, gut punched.

Foreword:  Some of the little bits of fiction I’ve produced as a fan of Wildcards were gentle and kind to me while I produced them.  All of them had growing pains.  Some were incredibly difficult.  All of them are too short.  I’m kicking myself for that.  Nevertheless, I’m proud of them.  They’re some of the first writing projects I’ve ever undertaken.  I love the characters and I hope I’ve captured some of those possible “off-screen” moments to the best effect.  

New season starts January 19th, and I am excite.  I wanted to complete these four concepts before it started, and i need nobody to tell me that they are rushed, partially (or even wholly) inaccurate to character, and likely awful.  I already know that.  I’m as embarassed about my writing skill as I am proud that I managed to produce them.  And, God Damn, I did love writing them.  And I will edit and revise them over time.

I want to thank Saving Throw, and the Wildcards cast and crew.  Deadlands is one of my greatest passions, and I now have it in my life.  You guys are great.

The roar of a shotgun echoed through the valley.  There once was a rabbit running through the grass, but Howell Melton had managed to pick it off.  Even though he had been staying in Denver, a place full of hotels, restaurants, and saloons that could serve him whatever meal he destired, he considered himself a consummate frontier gentleman.  Consummate gentleman aside, he was still a frontier man, and as such he found himself in the wild, foraging for the food he ate.

He gathered up the rabbit, adding to the other two he had bagged from earlier in the day, and rested on a fallen tree.  He pulled a brass shotshell from his bandolier, sliding into the receiver of the lever-action shotgun that had become a tried-and-true companion.  He was thankful for companions.  He had gained many in recent times.  He also lost some, too.

It was every day that Ludie crossed his mind, every day that he missed the home he had built with her, a home now a pile of ash.  At least he knew she was still out there somewhere.  It gave him strength.  It gave him hope.  It gave him drive.

“Ludie,” he began.  She wasn’t there, of course.  But sometimes things just had to be said.  “Darlin’, I just gotta talk to you.  I know you can’t hear me.  I sure wish you could.  You’re gone, the house is gone.  Hell, even all of Coldwater Creek is gone.  Everything.”

Howell looked up, his eyes beginning to sting.  His breath had never felt so heavy.

“One thing I know ain’t gone is how much I love you.  I miss you somethin’ terrible.  What I’d give to come back to our little place, and tell you all about the friends I’ve made.  I think…I think you’d like ‘em.  Everyone of ‘em.”

His feet shifted, his gaze returned to the ground.  He felt the wetness on his cheeks.  Lifting a hand he wiped the moisture away, and continued.

“You’d really like the preacher.  Everybody seems to.  Strangest man of God I’ve ever met.  You know I’ve never been a believer, but just somethin about him I can relate to.  I ain’t seen him do much people-savin’ in the religious sense, but in other ways, he sure is somethin’ else.  All of them, really.”

He looked out to the rolling foothills that stretched East back towards Kansas and Nebraska.  He began to tremble.

“He travels with a woman, Rose.  She’s pretty.  Not as pretty as you, though,” he chuckled.  “I don’t know where I sit with her.  Strange things keep happenin’ around her.  Cards show up outta nowhere right in her hands, and then she does weird things.  But threaten one of us, especially Gabe, the preacher I was talking about, and she turns into a real spitfire.  I’m not sayin’ I don’t trust her, but somethin’s just holdin’ me back.”

He reached up to remove his hat and stood, covering his heart.  

“Me and James have been workin’ together a lot lately.  We got some things in common, I reckon, he can track pretty well and we’ve been lookin’ for someone called the Baron and his men, and he’s been helpin’ me look for you.  He’s real good with a gun, too.  We’re holed up in Denver.  Remember how you said you always wanted to visit Denver someday?”

Howell bit his lip and sniffled.

“You wouldn’t believe the things we’ve seen.  A pumpkin headed man, men supposedly coming back from the dead, all sorts of crazy things.  I don’t know what being around these people has done to me, but I’m seein’ all sorts of things.  Sometimes I swear I they slip me peyote or something.”

He bowed his head one more time.

“Ludie, all I want is to be back together with you.  Our house might be gone, but we’re tough.  I know you are.  We’ll set up someone else, and everything will be fine. I…I love you Ludie.  Please don’t be gone forever.”

Howell took his kills and headed back to where he tied his horse.  Mounting up, he took one look back across the countryside.  He spotted an owl in a bare tree a ways off.  It stared at him in a way that confused him, but flew away in the blink of an eye.  Howell shrugged it off, and rode back to town.

By a crackling fire in the middle of the night, a shadow emerged from the nearby grove of trees, clad in blood-encrusted coat of a Confederate artilleryman.  Her eyes met the two others sitting around the flames, one tall and muscular, the other older and wise.  She joined them.

“Torte Law, still watching over them, I see.  I could ask you to stop, but I doubt that would do any good.”

“Star Lizard, I…I’m sorry.  How did you know?”

“Wolf-Who-Walks-Through-Fire followed you.”

She glared at the big man with his arms crossed.  He said nothing.

“I can’t just walk away from them without knowing if they’re ok.  With everything happening, I’m just afraid they’ll get hurt.  Or worse.”

He raised a hand to calm her.  “I know, Torte Law.  I admire your dedication.  The wind still whispers their names, as well as yours.  But you should know that the winds blow in many directions.  Your wind blows towards a different way.”

“Is there nothing I can do to help them?”

“Perhaps?  In time?  Perhaps not?  You must trust them to take care of themselves.  We all must prepare in our own way for what is to come.”

“And what is to come?”  Her fervor was beginning to rise.

He didn’t want to go out on such a night, but trails weren’t going to track themselves, and leads weren’t going to be followed up on their own.  The area around Denver wasn’t known for harsh cold as snow didn’t lay on the ground for long.  It wasn’t like further up the foothills, or even higher up within those passes that cut through the jagged Rockies.  

But it was still cold.  It was still December and snow still blanketed the ground as nature entered it’s wintertime slumber.  His breath fogged in the evening air as the sun began to sink below the mountains.  Some miles out, James Bogue was tired, hungry, cold, and downtrodden.  More than just a handful of directions to head, and none of them panned out.

Bogue had slowed Dot to a slow trot.  She was a good horse that he’d put to a lot of work in the last week.  A man would have thrown up his hands, quit, and headed home two days in to this trek.  She needed to rest.  So did he.

Whether Bogue was a believer of higher powers or plain old luck remained a question, but he knew better than to look any gift horse in the mouth, or treat the warm glow of a campfire as a disinterested lover.  When he spotted the light beaming from the ground ahead of him, he spurred Dot onward a little faster.  Maybe they had coffee?  Maybe they had food?

Once the camp was within his eyesight, Bogue’s shoulders slacked.  It only took one bad experience with a stranger at an evening fire to put him on edge from that point on.  He could have been killed much to easily that night.  But this fire only kept the company of a solitary man and his dog.

Bogue approached, and the main raised his head from a hot iron skillet upon which he was cooking.  The dog did as well, but just as quickly laid back down, curled up in a ball by the man to maintain the warmth the fire had blessed them with.

“Evenin’ traveler!  If you don’t mind my sayin’ you look like four miles of bad road.  Why don’cha warm them bones o’ yers here a mite.”

Bogue dismounted, snow crunching under his boots on his way to hitch Dot to a small, leafless sapling that grew nearby.  He strode over to the fire, bunching his coat around him.  The man already had a cup of coffee waiting for him.

“Thank ya, mister,” Bogue hushedly breathed, wincing at the cold air passing in and out of his lungs.  “Strange to find someone out in the snow like this.”  Bogue’s suspicions never rested a moment.  It was within his nature to keep an eye on everything.  He figured they had kept him alive this long, and hopefully would keep him alive a bit longer.  He rested on a downed log, brushing away the majority of the snow before he sat.

“Here for a reason, I guess.  I mean, you came along, right?”

Bogue could feel the muscles along his jaw tighten.  “I doubt you came out here to build this fire just for me.”

“Well no, but things just have a way of workin’ out.  Dolly and I just took a notion to roam about, I reckon.  They ran us out o’ Denver.  Vagrancy they called it.  Fella can’t even be a decent bum anymore.”  He reached down to pat the stringy old dog on the back.  He took a hard swallow of coffee, poking the frying meat in the pan.  Looking back up, the man’s eyes widened.

“Wait a minute.  I know you!”

Bogue froze.  He slid a hand to his revolver as slowly and calmly as possible.  Should this man be with The Baron or his men, he would end here.  His eyes never left those of his generous host.

“Mortimer!  Douglas Mortimer!  Fought in the Civil War!  You’re known as the best shot in the Carolinas,” the man extolled with ample pointing with his bouncing right hand from across the crackling fire.

Bogue nearly laughed out loud.  He knew then and there this man was no threat.

“Nah, I fear you have me pegged wrong, friend.  Name’s Bogue.  James Bogue.  I used to hail from Coldwater Creek.”

The man’s face curled into a disappointed frown.  “You ain’t Mortimer?”

“Nope.”

“Damn.  That’s a shame.  Well, pleasure to make yer acquaintance all the same.  More coffee?”  The man reached over to the hot coffee pot with a rag, grasping onto the handle to lift it up.  He poured himself another cup, and gestured it toward former marshal.  Bogue couldn’t refuse.

Both men topped off, staring into the dancing flames and the sizzling meat in the cast iron skillet sitting slightly off center of the blaze.  The night air around them grew deathly quiet.  The stranger broke the silence.

“Coldwater Creek, you say?  Heard about that place.  Ain’t much left of it now.  Me and Dolly never ventured towards them parts.  Won’t catch us fer from ‘round here.”

Bogue glanced back into the recent past, conjuring up the more vivid images.  From the airship, he could see the sinkholes opening up, swallowing buildings like hungry maws.  Fire shot up from some of them, and there were moments where Bogue thought he had already died and was gazing upon Hell.  Coldwater, as far as he was concerned, was now in the belly of the Beast.

“Yeah,” sighed Bogue.

As his stomach growled, the man grabbed the pan and an extra fork.  The fork he gave to Bogue, and motioned for him to take his pick of the two flat steaks in the skillet.  Bogue took the smaller one.

“Thank you,” Bogue remarked.  “Might I have the pleasure of your name?  I’d like to know who to sing the praises of later.”

“Who?  Me?  Called Peter.  Peter Pendelbottom.  You can jus’ call me Pete.  Nice to meet ya, Mister Bogue.”

“Nice to meet you too, Pete.”

They ate in silence.  Bogue polished off a third cup of coffee.  Good coffee, he noted.  Pete put another chunk of wood on the fire.  Dolly slept.  Dot stood calmly nearby, lapping up some melted snow near her hooves.  The sun dipped behind the mountains, but the fire was warm.  Bogue returned the fork to the man, rose to his feet and bundled himself up again.  “Pete, I thank you kindly for the food, coffee, and company.”

“Aw, nossir.  Pleasure was mine.  But before you light out, I hope ya find what yer lookin’ for.  I’ve done plenty o’ rangin’ in my time, so I can tell what you’ve been up to.  But don’t look too hard.  I’ve seen good men consumed by whatever mission they set themselves upon.  They didn’t stay good men long after that.  Now, iff’n you happen to head a bit further East, there’s a river.  It looks shallow enough to cross once you ride up on it, but it’ll fool ya.  Best thing to do is head upriver about a mile and there’ll be a ford.  Cross there.”

Bogue nodded.  “Thank you, again.”

“You keep standin’ there thankin’ me and you’ll freeze to death.  Best ya get on.”

Bogue continued to nod, walked over to Dot, and mounted up.  With the tip of his hat, Bogue clicked his tongue to his horse, and made his way back to Denver proper.  “Maybe we’ll meet again, Pete.”

“I kinda doubt that, Mister Bogue.”  The man smiled in the amber glow of the campfire.  “But good luck.  And Godspeed.”

It wasn’t until now Bogue had felt uneasy.  The man’s farewell, to his ear, had far more finality to it that was necessary.  Regardless, Bogue rode on.

The return surprisingly took nowhere near as long as Bogue expected.  Crossing into the city limits, he hitched up to the first warm building he found.  Once inside the saloon, Bogue kicked the snow from his boots, and headed over to the fire.

“Any luck?”  The bartender here had become nearly a friend, or at least a source of some of the more reliable rumors Bogue had followed.

“Nah.  Just a lot of nothing.  Only person I ran into was some drifter by a campfire out in the snow.  I’d have said to come into town with me if he hadn’t been run off.”

“Nobody been run out of here in a long time.  He have a name?”

“Pendelbottom, he said.  Pete Pendelbottom.”

In that instance, a person could have heard a pin clatter to the floor as far away as Abilene.  The entire barroom turned to look at Bogue, and spoke not a word.  Second passed by in the silence like an eternity.

“What?”

“You sure he said his name was Pete Pendelbottom?”

“Yeah.  Had a dog with him, too, named Dolly.”

Faces in the crowd grew pale.

“What’s goin’ on here?  Did I say something amiss?”

The bartender wordlessly took a bottle of whiskey from behind him and poured full a shot glass on the bar.  He motioned for Bogue to come get it.  “On the house.”

Bogue joined him, taking the glass into his gloved hand.  He started to speak again, but the proprietor raised a hand to shush him.  “Marshal, whoever you met, it sure as hell couldn’t have been Pete Pendelbottom.”

“Why,” Bogue questioned, lifting the glass to his lips for a sip.

“Pete Pendelbottom drowned trying to cross the river East of here ten years ago.”

Bogue held his breath, then spoke.  “What about the dog?”

“The dog went in first.”

A single lamp hung over the dealer’s table like a dead man on the gallows.  Everything else was shrouded in darkness.  Rose approached, pulling out one of two chairs there, and sat down.  She stared daggers into the shadows across from her.

“Deal.”

A match was struck and erupted into flame, hovering at the end of a long cigar.  With a single draw, the tobacco glowed brightly, and a cloud of smoke filled the air.  The dealer leaned forward.

He was different every time she came here, and she came here as little as possible.  For this hand, he was looking quite dapper.  Dressed finely with bowler hat tilted to one side, he had foregone the usual moustache for long sideburns and a tuft of hair under his bottom lip.  He could hold other forms, some of which were far more intimidating than this.

“New look?”

“Ah, Miss Byrne, what can I say?  I'm indecisive.  What brings you my way, if I may ask?”  His voice put her in the mind of sickeningly sweet bourbon.  Rose nearly had to choke back her own gorge.

“You may not.  I merely require a little...insight.”

The dealer nodded, cigar poking out of his smug face.  From his vest pocket, he placed a single black poker chip on the green felt between them.  “You know the stakes,” he bleated.

Rose huffed, clutching a hand to her bodice and pulling away as if drawing something from it.  Her fist clenched tightly, drifting to the table where upon relinquishing her grip she dropped a poker chip of her own.  He picked it up, fingers notably and grotesquely long, admiring it's deep red hue.

“You have to win that first, you know.  That is, if you win.”

With a biting grin formed around his cigar, he placed it back.  A snap of his fingers, and a deck of cards appeared in his other hand.  

“You're being very terse today, almost downright rude.”  Cards rippled together.  “Something very important must be happening out there.”

“Nothin’ you should fret about.  Just checkin’ on someone.”

He slid a card to her, then one to himself.  “Someone like...Marshal Hurless?”

Rose huffed again.  

He slid her another card, and another to his own hand.  “So huffy today.  You're right.  It's none of my affair.  How have you been as of late?”

“Fine.  Thank you so much for askin’.  Might I inquire as to the source of your newfound concern?”  Venomous sarcasm dripped from her teeth.

He dealt them both a third card.  “Now, now, Miss Byrne.  You and I both know how much duress you've suffered lately.  Especially at the hands of the pathetic entity known as Jack o’ Nines.  Thinking he could just have you.”  He bellowed loudly with laughter.  Rose was not laughing.

“I don't belong to anyone.”

Their fourth cards were dealt.  “Oh?  Not even your lover?  That wolf in shepherd's clothing?  How about that gunfighter?  He seems to care about you, too.”

Rose glowered. She received a devilish smile and a puff of smoke in response.  “I think you're just talkin’ foolishness, now.” A fifth card slid to her hands.  

Six, Eight, Nine, Ten, Ace.

Rose’s face locked as the game began.  She knew better to let the facade crack even a little.  On the inside she scowled at her hand.  Garbage.  She plucked a pair of cards from what she held and tossed them to the center of  the table.  He did the same.  

Eight, Nine, Nine, Ten, Jack.

She tasted the bile on her tongue.

She flourished her cards onto the felt, expressionless to the last.  The dealer looked to his hand, to Rose, then to the black poker chip on the table.  Rose went for it.

With speed the likes of a lightning bolt, the whole game changed.  Her adversary slapped his hand on the table, a pair of Jacks with a King kicker, and with equally blinding haste wrapped his long, now claw-like fingers around her wrist.  His other hand grasped her throat, like talons digging into her flesh.  Her mouth suddenly flooded with the stomach-churning taste of blood, heat, and dirt all mixed together.

“Sorry, Miss.  Looks like you lose.”

His eyes burned and glowed like the end of the cigar clenched tightly between his teeth, his lips peeled back in a snarl befitting a ravenous coyote.  He stared straight into her mind and her soul.  Her head started burn.

That's when everything went white.

Rose suddenly gasped.  Her head pounded with searing pain as she looked around to the blurred world around her.  She flung out a hand to steady herself against the nearby rain barrel tucked between the general store and saloon.  A few breaths and she righted herself.  

Peeking back around the corner of the building, she could see Gabe, James, and Howell still dealing with the Marshal.  Everyone else just walked on by without so much as a second glance.  As her vision cleared, she prepared her magic once more, pausing once to the sound of a soft whisper singing in her ear.

I'll be right here.  Waiting.  And know this: your soul will be mine.

His voice had never sounded so quiet, echoing loudly throughout the idyllic landscape that he found himself standing in.  He took it all in.  It was a sunny day, the sky bright blue, light streaming through the trees.  A neatly-kept dirt road meandered up a hill, and atop the hill, a plantation manor.  

“Hello,” Gabe sounded.  He earned no response except a gentle breeze caressing his cheek and the tinkling of wind chimes from the house ahead of him.  Looking back, the road kept going through an everlasting apple orchard. Gabe snapped his attention back to the home as the wind carried the subtle tones of someone humming.

The walk to the house was short and felt like forever. With every step, Gabe looked around.  One tree sounded like robins, another like cardinals, occasionally disturbed by shrill cries of blue jays.  Gabe thought, for a moment, that he stood in paradise.

At the base of the steps that led up to the polished oak slats of the porch, he called out again.  “Hello there, I say!  Is there anyone at home?  That’s a mighty fine tune I hear you hummin’.”  The front door swung open.

Gabe could see through.  Inside was a pristine residence, decorated in a strange mix of modesty and opulence.  At the far end was a doorway that led to another porch.  Humming drifted through, its tune akin to songs that had been sung by the congregation of Coldwater Creek.

Stepping inside, he saw rooms devoid of occupants, the only sound greeting him being the sound that boots make on hardwood floors.  The humming kept on.  Gabe turned an ear towards it as he stepped outside to the other porch.

Gabe froze.  To his right were a handful of rocking chairs, and to his left, the same, save for the strange man humming some old hymn.  He had never before seen such a familiar-looking stranger.  The man glanced at Gabe, then back to the panorama that the porch overlooked.

“Hello there, Mister Fletcher,” said the man.  The chair creaked as he gently rocked to and fro. “That's not necessarily who you are anymore, though.  I suppose you always were Gabriel Prior from the beginning.  Please, sit with me a spell.”

He gestured to the chair to the right of him, a small table between. Ice tinkled in the glass he held as it raised to his lips for a sip.  Gabe took a step or two forward, stopped, but finally joined the man with an inaudible sigh of relief. 

“You’ll have to pardon me, sir, but I'm not sure we've met.  Your accent does ring a bell, though. Tennessee?  Carolina perhaps?  All the same, you have me at a disadvantage.  You know me by name, but leave me guessin’ as to whom is my host.”

The man turned with warm eyes and a sly smile.   “You know who I am, Gabe.  And you know where I'm from.  You just don't want to admit it.  Lemonade?”

It was all Gabe could do to keep from laughing out loud at the glass and pitcher on the table he was certain was bare mere moments ago.  In turn, he simply shut his eyes, returned the man's grin, and nodded.  “So, is there any particular reason we're having this little chat?”

The stranger stroked his salt-and-pepper beard and ran his hand through his graying hair.  “Well, to answer some questions I'm sure you have.  Let's start with the one gnawing at you the most, then?”

Gabe took a sip from his glass.  “Ok then, why me?”

The man gazed out at the view.  “Why not?”

“Then apparently you do not know me as well as you make out,” Gabe returned with a chuckle.

“I know you better than yourself, Mister Prior.  It is no mistake that I call you forth,” the man stated. His countenance no longer bore the mirth from before.

“I'm not who you need.  I've done too many bad things to good, innocent people.  I've killed men in my time.”

“And David got a married woman with child and sent her husband off to die in battle.  Sampson took the jawbone of an ass and killed a thousand.  I still called upon them.  I still loved them.  I still needed them.  Just like I need you.  Does that assuage your anxieties?”

“And the lies?”

“Was it a lie when you saved the Riddle boy?  Was it a lie when you stopped a gang of outlaws from burning down the town?  Or when you saved the entire population of Coldwater from helping each other to death?”

Gabe trembled.  “What about Rose?”

“If you fear she will leave your side, I say have more faith in her than that.  She's been with you through very tough times.  I foresee her being with you through many more.  As for her...dealings?  I know her fate, but I cannot say.”

Gabe's chest heaved ponderously as his breath loudly escaped him.

“You know, though, she'd make a pretty good wife.  If you ask me, that is.” The man's smile reappeared. Gabe joined in, taking another drink of his lemonade. 

The man took one last drink of his own and set the glass aside, ice clinking as it settled on the table.  “Gabriel Prior, I'm afraid our palaver must come to a close, but allow me to leave you with these words,” he intoned. 

The rocking chair in which he sat suddenly seemed heavy and thronelike. His sight stretched far to the horizon and the sun which slowly began to sink below it.  And thus, he spoke.

“You've seen dark times, and you've endured no matter how bad things were.  But they're going to get worse, Gabe.  Much worse. Coldwater was just the beginning. Do not forget that I am here.  I will be watching.  And bear in mind I do work in mysterious ways.  Rely on your friends, they will support you, but remember where you come from and let it guide your heart and mind.  I'm only as close to you as you are to me.”

The breeze passed in peaceful silence.  The sky burned with the colors of sunset.  Gabe watched, uttering not a sound. 

The stranger smiled wide.  “Did you ever see such a beautiful sight?”

Did you ever see such a beautiful sight?

Gabe's eyes flickered open to the fleeting memory of a fatherly man's soothing southern drawl that was quickly replaced with the hustle and bustle of the busy streets of Denver below.  He looked up and met the gaze of the gleaming eyes of Rosaleen Byrne.

“Somethin’ wrong?”

She smiled and shook her head.  “Not really.  Just the soundest you've slept since, well, before Coldwater Creek.  Almost started to worry you wouldn't wake up.  Almost.”

He took one of her hands into his, admiring the sonorous Irish lilt her voice carried anytime she was genuinely concerned for him.  “How long was I out?”

“Nearly eight hours.”

Gabe gawked at her.  “Well I'll be damned,” he said as he sat up in bed.  “Where's Bogue and Melton?”

“Out.  James said he was off to find a general store to pick up supplies for us, but I wager he's looking for that Meeker fella.  Howell went along to 'keep James out of trouble’ or so he said.”

“Sounds like two men lookin’ for a fight.”

“Exactly.”

Gabe looked awkwardly around the room.  “I swear I think I had a dream.”

“A dream?  What about?”

“I don't rightly recall now.  But I think it was a good one.  I might be wrong, but for now, I feel like things are gonna be alright.”

The horses of James Bogue and Howell Melton slowly bore their riders back into town along with a pall of disappointment that clung to them like a morning fog.  As they made their way towards the livery that sat closest to the hotel they all chose as their new home, Howell peered to the mountains they sat beneath, and the dark gray clouds that tumbled over them. 

“Storm’s coming.”

Bogue didn't bother to look.

It’s the ooky-spooky month of October, when we celebrate Halloween, and focus our attention on things that go bump in the night.

I make no secret that my favorite RPG setting of all time is Deadlands:  The Weird West.  It’s alternate history steampunk horror set in (currently) in 1879, and being the fan of John Wayne and Clint Eastwood westerns that I am, how could I NOT find it awesome?

As time has gone by, however, I made a realization.  I was running the game all wrong.

The alternate history was already provided in the setting.  I had mad scientists with Phlogiston-powered contraptions.  I had monsters, I had bandits, I had heroes.  It was really cool, and really fun.

What it wasn’t, though, was scary.

I think, in this case, there are two kinds of scary:  terrifying and horrifying.  At this point I want to make a distinction.  Terror is not the same as horror.

I might very well be doing the definition of each word a disservice here, but trying to sum them up, terror is exemplified by heavy breathing, crying, running away screaming, rocking back and forth sobbing, unable to form coherent sentences.  And that’s fine.  In fact there are mechanics in the Deadlands systems just for running away screaming, tossing your cookies, or even dropping dead from cardiac arrest.

Horror is different.  Horror is what drains the color from your face.  It’s what clasps your hand over your mouth, to either keep you from screaming or being sick.  It’s what really makes your heart race, or even skip a beat.  It, not terror, is what keeps you up at night.

If terror is the overstatement, horror is the understatement.  It’s well known to all media creators within the horror genre that, of course, less is more.  I can think of no better recent example of this that is relevant to role-playing games than the entity, or idea, or whatever, that is Jack o’ Nines.

One of my more recent discoveries is the Savage Worlds Deadlands: Reloaded show WildCards on Saving Throw.  The game master, or Marshal if you prefer the old west flavor, Jordan Caves-Callerman, has been able to do something that only two other game masters have ever done in my RPG “career”, and that’s actually make me afraid of what’s going to happen to the characters.  It’s in his game that one of the characters, the huckster Rosaleen Byrne (portrayed by the fantastic Meghan Caves), is being stalked by someone, or something, called Jack o’ Nines.

It’s woken her up in the middle of the night, leaving behind mysterious pages of poetry and macabre illustrations, and unfortunately for Rose, nobody so far can help her.  To anyone else, (avoiding spoilers here) those pages are meaningless.  Rose is afraid, maybe even terrified.  Her terror is just the effect.  I argue that the cause is the horror of being seemingly at the mercy of something beyond her control.  And because she is afraid, I am too.  And we have never once seen what Jack o’ Nines is.

I read an article just this morning that claims good horror (at least in tabletop roleplaying) stems from making the characters fear their situation, and in turn, their players.  Streaming now brings in the audience, and when you can get your audience to fear the situation as much as the characters and their players, I consider that a job well done.

The next time I run a horror themed game, I’m going to try much harder to keep things low key.  I want my player characters to be shaking, hand reaching out to grasp the knob on the door before them, opening it with a creak, sure that something is there.  Something has to be there.  They heard it through the door.

Nothing is there.  Nothing was ever there.

It’s fine.  Everything is fine.

WildCards airs live Fridays 8:00 PM Pacific Time @ twitch.tv/savingthrowshow

Music does funny things to me.  It creates images, moving pictures in my mind, most of the time.  Sometimes, something comes along that leaves an impression, but I don’t realize the impression it leaves until I hear a piece of music that just makes sense.  This one happens to be about, arguably, my favorite character from a now-ended Shadowrun RPG show that I dearly, dearly love to this day.  She had gone through some serious shit, and one day Pandora gave me this gem that summed up, I feel, just about every relationship she had at that time.  It’s my first songfic, unedited, and likely using a faulty timeline (Post Galahad run, pre-brain surgery and dangerous jungle mission, just before the notes were written), aka expect a dumpster fire.  Also, in my headcanon, her actual full name is Acacia Lucille Fitzgerald.  That will make sense in a second. Song is here.

Fog filled the streets, thick and choking like a bank of smoke gravid with the moisture of a rainy day.  Thankfully, it was a quiet night.  People must have decided to stay home in the warm company of friends and family.  A bullshit answer, but it was better than the truth, that being that people were afraid.  More afraid than usual.

Of course they were.  A dragon made of the void of space was spotted above the city with a crash of light and thunder.  If you weren’t afraid of that, you either loved dragons, or were out of your god-forsaken mind.  Maybe even both.  Whatever it was, tonight the streets were barren.  So was her old apartment.  Ma1nFram3 was a person with a very short list of regrets, but right now she was mulling over the latest one.  It wasn’t the fact she had to leave her latest home behind.  Home was a very subjective term these days, anyway.

It was honestly the fact that she was sloppy enough to have to leave her apartment.  Sloppy enough that THEY found her.  It clung to her mind like the fog to the streets, and like her hand to the Ares Lightfire secretly tucked into the front pocket of her hooded jacket.  That’s where it stayed now, just like how a glance seemed to remain over her shoulder.  

Walking in the dense wall of gray droplets of water suspended in the air, all illuminated by the late night vigil of neon torchlight, Ma1n would make several rapid steps, glance over her shoulder, grip her pistol tighter, and occasionally slip a slender hand under the hood of her coat to stroke the top of her ear.  After the run on Galahad, which freed Twiggy successfully (an operative word), but just like the surgeries from those early days of her life, there was still a scar.  Something still lingered.  And she knew it was because her mother was still out there.

Lucy’s underground, she’s got a mouth to feed.  Am I underground, or am I in between?  Lucy’s underground she’s got a mouse to feed.  Am I underground, or am I in too deep?

A few more quick steps and Ma1nFram3 darted into an alley, jogged to a side door, and slipped inside.  Her boots began echoing off the walls of the stairwell, leading down to the bottom floor of a relatively secure parking deck where Dinah had been stashed for the interim.  One thumbprint later, and the door popped open.  Ma1nFram3 scrambled inside.  One whiff of the interior, and Ma1n was beginning to fear she was driving around in Mordecai’s towel.  

Mordecai.  A heavy sigh escaped her lungs.  She shot a look over at a tiny mound of balled-up, crumpled pieces of paper then unzipped her jacket, pulling out the jar of peanut butter flavored soy-based food product, and a pack of soy-based salted crackers.  The clerk at Stuffer Shack, and their pathetic security system, never knew they went missing.  With the jar open, plastic knife in hand, dinner was served.  

Ma1n nibbled here and there.  Her shaking hands would from time to time pick up the archaic pad of paper and pencil laying on Dinah’s interior floor, amid the dirty laundry, and empty soy crisp packages and drink cans, to compose. A few words later, the pad would go flying to the side with the pencil, as her hand would come to rub across her furrowed brow.  She never knew these kinds of words were so difficult, though having used them so many times before.  Her knuckles struck against her thigh, only for her to wince and massage away the pain from so many repeated strikes from earlier.  She considered just vanishing, but every time the thought arose, she would shake her head.  Of course they would forgive her, but she’d never forgive herself.

Show me love. You’ve got your hand on the button now. Sure enough, you’ve got your hand on the button now.

No, not THEM.  

Them.  That headache inducing, heartstring pulling, property damage causing surrogate family that she managed to somehow get suckered into.  The big, punchy one got on her nerves, but he certainly managed to always pull through.  His charge, that clever sneak-thief of a girl who could talk anyone into crying. Who could forget the Orc that always had a plan that never survived first contact with the enemy?  And of course the shaman, along with his big glowing shark and grimy towel?  There was no way in hell they were going to die because of her.  She had to leave.  

Lucy’s underground, she’s never coming back.  Am I still alive or has the light gone black?  Take me underground, take me all the way. Bring me to the fire, throw me in the flames.

She grabbed the pad and pencil again.  Words made it to paper, but it wasn’t long until the pad sailed into Dinah’s side.  Usually a digital person, being analog about all of this was turning into bullshit.  Leaving was going to be hard.  Staying surely would be worse.  What would make her stay anyway, she wondered.  Them?  Maybe him?  Her sigh was sharp enough to cut titanium.  Maybe, after all, he was the one she didn’t want to leave?

Her mind flicked over to the Captain, resonating through the van as her head thumped against Dinah’s metal, staring at the dome light above her.  Was that really even an option at this point?  Ma1n’s eyes widened in a silent scream.  No, this had to happen.  For everyone’s sake.

So, show me love.  You’ve got your hands on the button now.  Sure enough, you’ve got your hands on the button now.

Grabbing the pencil and paper once more, she flopped into the driver’s seat, leaning back to prop her feet on the dash.  The words started coming, and once again began to run dry.  Ma1nFram3 growled loudly, preparing to bruise her hand on the steering wheel, but caught herself.  She glared at herself in the mirror, chest heaving, tears welling up in her eyes.

She had never realized it before, or more the case of she ignored it until now, how much of her mother she saw in that reflection.  Her eyes began to flip through pages of memories and holoslates of thought, and suddenly shut.  If she went back, would they all be safe?  

I’d rather die.  I’d rather die than to be with you.

One deep breath in, one deep breath out.  Pencil returned to paper and finally the words came​.