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204: Night of the Living Dead Light

From Split LongWays

Synopsis

The episode picks up right where 203: A Night With No Moon left off, in the rain outside Dr. Webb's cottage. The dead light has chased Dom Druncard around the truck, and instead of lashing out with a tendril it flares wide and spreads like inky fluid around him. Dom has no Molotov ready, so he tries to dodge and then runs around the far side of the truck while the light surges after him. Simeon Kantstandyerbitz is in the back of the truck frantically putting a Molotov cocktail together. Billy McConnell, who has learned a strange incantation from Simeon, tries to cast it for the first time. He fails the hard POW roll, pays the cost a second time to push it, and only gets it off by spending eight Luck. He shouts for the light to be still, but whatever it is cannot comprehend the command, and the spell has no effect. Billy still pushes against its will and comes away with a boost to his POW. Major Bakersfield runs at the light with the open silver box, hoping to scoop it up like a net, and plunges it straight into the light. His fingers burn for two points of damage, and the box does nothing.

Simeon lights the Molotov in the back of the truck, but the light swarms over to him before he can get clear. He dodges the first tendril, which wraps around his shoulder and burns, and the second goes over his head. The third wraps around his other arm, and the two hits leave him at two hit points. Billy, with no idea how to fight the thing, rolls Idea and is told that the best plan is to get some distance and regroup. He heads for the front of the truck. Tallahassee Turner, who has been in the cottage reading the black journal the whole time, finally looks up, decides to flee, and runs for the front of the house. As Simeon braces for what looks like the end, a lightning bolt strikes in the woods nearby, and the light flinches away from the burning feeling and makes a beeline into the trees. Everyone piles into the truck, with Billy at the wheel. On the drive back the Major makes first aid rolls and patches up Simeon, Dom and himself for a hit point each.

At the Orchard Run Gas and Cafe, everything looks just as they left it, a flatbed truck still slewed across the muddy road and the roadster still parked out front. Dan Keelhan is at the counter talking with Jake and Teddy Brewer, and he is alarmed by the state of the group and wants to know where Dr. Webb is. Simeon, in pain and short-tempered, demands to talk to Mary (Mary the Hoebag), and he first jokes that they killed the doctor before admitting that the light did it. Jake chimes in that he told them about the light. Dan goes to fetch Mary from the kitchen, and Tallahassee takes the chance to read a second entry from the journal aloud. It is dated March 22nd, 1888, and describes how a Dr. Sanger performed a ritual on a bundled patient, drawing a symbol, chanting, and opening the silver coffer so the glowing entity could slither out and then return, leaving behind only ash. The journal lays the ritual out step by step, ending with instructions to reseal the box with wax, and is followed by pages of names, dates and payments in columns, with notation codes explaining abnormalities. Tallahassee works out that someone must have opened the box without the ritual, and jokes that they should wrap Dan up in a bundle and let the light have him.

Dan returns from the kitchen without Mary, and nobody saw her leave. Dom suggests that Mary and the sack-headed man from the cottage were connected, since his wallet held a picture of her, and wonders whether Mary had a malformed baby and the man shot the doctor trying to save it. Dan says that Mary does have a boyfriend, Clem Taylor, who stopped by earlier in the night with a friend. Teddy then relates what he and the others learned from Amelia after the investigators left. She talked about masked men with guns who broke into her grandfather's house and demanded money, and one of them shot him. He told them the money was hidden in a box on the mantle, and she broke down before she could finish. Teddy says that Amelia went out to the powder room behind the building with Winifred a while ago, and they have not come back. Tallahassee reminds him that he trusted him to keep Amelia safe.

The group splits up to search. Tallahassee checks the kitchen and finds only a pantry and, to his disappointment, no ice cream, though he settles for potato chips. Billy and the Major step out into the storm, and Billy finds Winifred Brewer unconscious on the ground outside the powder room, bleeding from the back of her head. He carries her inside while the Major checks the bathroom, finds it empty, and follows footprints around the back of the building before losing them in the mud. Back in the diner, the Major bandages Winifred, who will be fine, and Teddy laments that after 52 years together, one bad night has done this. Tempers flare when the Major points out that Jake and the others were left to guard two girls and failed, and Jake lashes out at the Major. Simeon's psychology roll shows that Jake is simply terrified, and Billy picks a fight, then backs off. The episode ends with Billy asking who wants to go to the gas station next door with him.

Funny Moments

  • Dom and Simeon trade friendly banter as the dead light closes in, with Simeon promising to cremate Dom with the Molotov.
  • While Billy rolls to push his spell, a player tells him to blow on the dice. Later Simeon, dodging tendril after tendril, demands to know how many tendrils the thing gets.
  • Tallahassee announces he is "kicking back on the couch reading a book" while his friends are being chased by a cosmic horror.
  • Before opening the kitchen pantry door with his gun drawn, Tallahassee declares that he smells ice cream. The Keeper tells him he does not, so he asks for potato chips.
  • Dan, when asked to fetch Mary, says he has plenty of jobs, since he manages both a diner and a gas station, which is at least two.
  • To needle Jake, Billy walks right up to his face and pretends to brush crumbs out of his beard, and Jake insists he keeps them there on purpose.
  • The Keeper closes the episode with the disclaimer that no psychologists were injured in its recording.

Notable Quotes

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