301: No Rest for the Wicked

Synopsis

The episode opens with Tallahassee Turner in a dream of the charge up San Juan Hill. Teddy Roosevelt leads the Rough Riders under fire, and Tallahassee shoots one Spanish defender and then cuts down several more with his cavalry saber in a trench. When he turns the bodies over, they are not Spanish soldiers. Dom Druncard lies dead in a Spanish uniform, Major Bakersfield is dead at his feet, and the last body is a short blonde woman with a flapper bob. A name comes to him: Mary. The dream shifts to Mary (Mary the Hoebag) holding the group at gunpoint and asking whether he will catch the bad guy or help his friend.

Tallahassee wakes on the floor of a small cabin, covered in sweat, with Grant Jameson leaning over him. Jameson is the Major's old army friend, and the investigators drove to his cabin on the outskirts of New Salem, Massachusetts, after the events at Orchard Run in Deadlight. It is September 1925, about noon, ten hours after they arrived. Tallahassee insists that he only sweats because he is manly, and Jameson says he gets the same night sweats from the Great War. The storm has died away. The group goes over the gear in the truck, which includes plenty of ammunition, spare shotguns and rifles, one still-assembled Molotov cocktail and a machete, but to Dom's disappointment no flamethrower. They agree not to drag Jameson into what is going on, and he gives them directions south past a farm to New Salem.

Billy and Simeon want to rest for a few days first, but the Major calls a huddle and admits that three days earlier he visited Corbitt (Bernard Corbitt) at the Arkham Sanatorium. A gruff orderly named John walks him to the room and gives him five minutes. Corbitt sits staring into space until the Major mentions the other gate and New Jerusalem. Corbitt mocks him for shooting and blasting his way through everything, says he hid things in his journals because his master (rendered as something like "Ramasekva" in the recording, probably Ramasupva) can read his mind, and calls Mordecai Shep a nobody he pays, "more like a body keeper." He hints that what waits in New Jerusalem is worse than his "child" in the basement, that others interested in his work are already far ahead of the investigators, and that people like him are everywhere. Corbitt is still laughing as the Major leaves.

The story shakes Tallahassee, who says he is ready to go home and write another book. He has watched a creature built from body parts and seen the group put blood on Mary and watch her burn. The Major accuses him of running as soon as the going gets tough. Simeon Kantstandyerbitz asks whether he wants to live his adventures or just write about them, and says he is going forward whatever it takes. Dom reminds him how many people the dead light might have killed, and Billy McConnell admits that he is also struggling to square what they have done with his oath to the law. Tallahassee reluctantly agrees to go on. The Keeper explains that Tallahassee lost more than a fifth of his Sanity in Deadlight and is now indefinitely insane. His bouts of madness will be handled narratively, he can make reality checks, and Simeon may be able to treat him with psychoanalysis. The amnesia from his last bout has left him with only a hazy memory of Mary's death.

Before they leave, Jameson warns them that New Salem is a bad place that does not like outsiders. He recommends Ezra Denny, who owns the tavern, tells them to avoid a local troublemaker named Ike Watson, and says he has heard bears in the woods at night. On the road Billy spots a truck and a wrecked campsite a little way off the road. The tent is shredded, a sleeping bag is torn and strewn about, and there is fresh blood on the grass and bushes from the night before. Billy finds a camera satchel, and the camera inside is a Kodak Brownie No. 2 folding camera like Tallahassee's. The Keeper brings out a real 1920s Brownie he found at a thrift store as a prop.

Tallahassee tracks shoe prints and drag marks, along with deep marks that look like claws, until they stop at two deep impressions. Billy looks up and finds blood and claw marks on a tree some fifteen feet up, then another mark on a second tree, as if something leapt from tree to tree carrying the body. Tallahassee draws his .45 and decides it is no bear. The group rolls Sanity, and both Tallahassee and the Major fail. The players then work out the dead photographer's favorite camera settings from his notes, and Tallahassee feels confident he can develop the film if he finds somewhere to do it. Back in the truck, the Major finds his Colt in his hand without remembering when he drew it. They drive on past a small farmstead and finally arrive in New Salem.

Funny Moments

• Tallahassee wakes up drenched and explains that he sweats a lot "because I'm manly." Jameson agrees that he gets manly night sweats too.
• In the dream, the Keeper describes Dom as dead in a Spanish "unicorn." A player answers that this is exactly how Dom dresses.
• Jameson says he could not have served under Major Aloysius Bakersfield without learning to always keep extra bullets and nets around.
• The Major twists the saying into "as soon as the going gets tough, the Tallahassee gets going."
• Billy sums up the stakes with "that dead light and the butthole monster," and a player concludes the plan is to fight a bigger, more violent butthole monster and a bunch of Corbitts.
• Tallahassee decides the tree-leaping killer moves "like a baboon," as he describes in his book about the baboons of the forest.
• The Keeper proudly reveals that his prop Kodak Brownie came from a thrift store, and that he talked them down to 15 bucks.

Notable Quotes

• "I just sweat a lot. It's because I'm manly." —Tallahassee Turner
• "As soon as the going gets tough, the Tallahassee gets going." —Major Bakersfield
• "Do you really want to live your adventures or do you just want to write about them?" —Doctor Simeon Kantstandyerbitz
• "We did establish there's no flamethrower, which is a crying shame." —Dom Druncard
• "Oh, we're everywhere, Bakersfield. You have no idea how many." —Bernard Corbitt