fuckthistown | Test Drive Meme #2

Skip to Main Content

Entry tags:

test drive meme

Test Drive Meme #2

TEST DRIVE MEME

Well, I'm alone there now...
In our 'special place'...
Waiting for you...

Waiting for you to
come to see me.

I. Blue Catfish Diner - Daytime

Supplies in the Inn and Hotel have run low, so what is there to do but search the town? And restaurants and diners seem a good place to find something to eat.

It may take some doing to force open the diner's door, and the inside of it smells of dust and rotted food. There are dishes still on tables, and a horrible smell floats in from the kitchen. The roof must have developed a leak in its years of abandonment, and the black-and-white tile floor has cracked and mildewed without care. What were once shiny golden ceiling tiles are now black and grimy with tarnish -- and quite possibly mold -- and even the jukebox that looms over one corner has seen better days.

In the kitchen, a few cabinets hang open with huge cans visible. A closer inspection reveals things like Spam, canned chicken, cream of mushroom soup, and creamed corn. Not appetizing, maybe, but edible. Maybe even plentiful.

Just as you finish your inventory, something in the main room blares out static, and then the jukebox snarls a gamut of sounds from the beginnings of songs. It eventually settles on Folsom Prison Blues, but every so often, the playback intercuts with something else entirely --

The music cuts out, interrupted by a woman screaming something incoherent and agonized, or a man begs some merciless other for his life, or somebody else wails for everyone in earshot to run, run, don't look back.

Just as suddenly as the screaming started, it stops, and Johnny Cash returns to singing about the train he watches going by. Considering the things that happen in this town, the real question here isn't what happened, or how, but whether the jukebox is worth investigating, and what it will do if you try to change the song.

II. Lumber Yard - Daytime

There's only so much furniture you can break down for fires, not to mention only so many broken stairs anybody can skip and stay sane. Assuming anybody is still sane and you're not all having the same hallucinations.

For example: somebody closed the lumber yard's fence and chained it shut, and left a crucified man to watch over the entrance like some demented scarecrow. They left a mask and goggles on him -- or forced him to wear it, just to make his crucifixion more painful -- but if it was ever air-tight, something shattered the lenses in its eyepieces, and rather than eyes, dark, jagged holes stare sightlessly from where the lenses used to be. The person or persons who crucified him wrapped his wrists in barbed wire, and one clenched fist has fallen loose from its moorings. In his other hand, he clutches a knife, and somehow didn't let go, even in death.

What are the odds they promised they'd let him live, if he could cut himself free? Knowing this town, you probably shouldn't bet against it. Especially since it would take some serious strength to cut barbed wire with a single serrated blade.

Beneath the body, somebody painted the word O U R S in jagged white letters.

If you choose to enter the lumber yard despite this warning, you'll need to climb the fence. There is lumber here for the taking, though none of it looks high quality. But you're trying to stay warm and repair some stairs -- you're not exactly building your dream house.

Getting it out might prove to be a problem. You'll either need bolt cutters for that chain, or a key for the lock.

The corpse might not be a bad place to start, but neither would the dilapidated building.

III. Playing Field - Nightmare

The Playing Field overlooks the river, sloping gently down toward the water, but there are glints in the grass that hint at the presence of broken glass or maybe needles, and the river itself looks like a roiling mass of black sludge. Even under ordinary circumstances, the place might make you shiver. After all, is there anything worse than an abandoned playground?

Turns out yes: a not abandoned playground in Silent Hill's nightmares.

The worst part is the way they shake their heads: too quickly, so swiftly it's a surprise they don't snap their own necks. Back and forth, back and forth, like some sort of twisted bobbleheads, and the patches of hair still left to them bounce as they move.

No, the worst part is that as they move toward you, they scream with a noise that sounds like a baby's cry. It's a long, endless, almost gurgling wail, the kind of sound that would cut to the center of any parent's brain, right through the eardrums. The sound that means they need something. They need to eat. They need to be changed. They're scared and lonely and need to be held, to be reassured.

No, the worst part is their little shriveled gray fingers and how they end in what look almost like fishhooks. The better to catch you with and never let you go. At least not until they rip you to shreds.

No, the worst part is they know you're here, and they're toddling toward you, ungainly step after ungainly step. Slow, for now, but there's no guarantee they'll stay that way.

In the corner of the play yard, one of the swings is still moving sluggishly, back and forth, back and forth, creaking as it goes. It's the only swing left; the others all have rusted chains and have fallen to the ground.

Not a bad weapon. Just one problem: the children are between you and the chains.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[Have you ever kicked a baby? Sweet Dee has never kicked a baby. Sweet Dee doesn't believe she is the type of person who would kick a baby. That just seems a little dark, kicking babies, like that's probably the sort of thing that's in those black and white "don't" areas of life.

Sweet Dee kicks that fucking evil baby so hard its jaw seems to explode into a spatter of blood and go whizzing across the sandbox. Sweet Dee kicks that fucking evil baby so hard that it's definitively decapitated, squirting blood out its neckhole.

Sweet Dee kicks that fucking evil baby so hard that she thinks she broke her foot.]

God damn it! [She hoists herself up onto a monkeybars rig with Dipper, scowling in pain and clenching her hand over her foot.] Like the floor is lava? What are you, twelve?

[Actually, she realizes a little late, he looks twelve.

Great.

The ugly thought bounces around in her head that he'll probably be easier for these little titsucking monsters to eat. You don't have to outrun the bear...]

Give me the pipe. I have more reach.

Good job kicking those baby heads.

[Dipper has no problem kicking babies if they're evil babies. The future is going to be ruled by a giant psychic baby who seems kind of terrible so he's fine with selective baby-kicking.]

[These babies are very obviously monster babies, and therefore he is really messing them up, too. Splat.]

[He hands her the pipe without much thought because the logic is sound and he's used to adults being, at most, kind of weird. But he usually can trust them. Even Toby Determined was willing to throw himself at monsters with Edgy On Purpose accessorized rage. Like big mad.]

[He keeps climbing over playground equipment, because they are having trouble getting up there.]

I learn fast.

[And adapt quickly to using her arms instead of her feet; she beans another baby hard enough to cave its ugly skull right in. One eye pops out and rolls comically around, collecting wood chips to its sticky surface. She bludgeons another, and there's a certain maniacal rush that comes with it.

But the wild joy that comes with causing pain to monsterbabies is quickly replaced with fear and rage, as one of the little anklebiters grabs her knee and tries to climb up her like a cat.] Goddamnit you little cocksucker!

[She clubs it off her and drops into the woodchips. And then she makes a bolt for the fence. She doesn't bother to tell the little kid on the monkeybars where she's going.]

Thanks for the pipe, sucker!

[The beauty of climbing the playground equipment and staying together was that it was forcing them to follow behind them in a straight line. But with her running away, some of them start to scatter, chasing after her, while others keep trying to swarm Dipper.]

Hey!

[Now he's not herding them with someone else. Now he's bait and they're scattering over the playground, so he has to get past them. Unarmed.]

[He narrows his eyes.]

Alright, lady, open warfare it is.

[Fucked-up foot and all, Dee manages to scramble up and vault over the fence. A few of the monsterbabies try to follow her, but they aren't coordinated enough with their little fish hook fingers to untangle their hands from the first grip up. The squall and wriggle, but they've stuck themselves to the fence and can't fallow.

Dee crows and kicks the fence, battering one of them, and then crumples around her injured foot, hopping around as if that will help. She smacks at the fence with the pipe, knocking a few off and just beating a few others around. She doesn't give any evident shit about the thirteen year-old she left to get eaten or subjected to whatever these brats are going to do.]

[He catches up quickly. He's a little worse for wear when he reaches the fence, vest spilling some down (it was super handy as body armor) bleeding from a scratch on his arm and on his leg. The one on his leg is fairly deep but still superficial, causing blood to trickle down to his sock.]

[Other people might have died in that situation, but Dipper is not other people. Running from monsters has been his life for the past three months. Three days of those three months, he did it alone. During the apocalypse.]

[He vaults the fence quickly. Once upon a time he had to be physically thrown from the top of a fence because he was scared of falling. This time he drops down and lands in a perfect crouch.]

[Then he sees Dee, sees that she's only in relative danger at the moment, runs over and kicks her super hard in the shin. It's not enough to break anything or make her hobble, just enough to really, really hurt.]

[Then he zips out of the reach of the pipe, which he's gracious enough to leave her instead of taking advantage of her surprise to steal, and starts running towards the river. The bank is wide enough he can follow along it to somewhere else.]

[He briefly looks over his shoulder as he runs, and calls back to her:]

It's called karma!

Edited 2019-02-28 03:15 (UTC)

You little motherfucking son of a- god damn it!

[She takes a swing at him with the pipe, but he's long gone. Ignoring the pain in her foot and shin, she chases after him, practically foaming at the mouth with fury.]

You little shit! [She staggers to a stop, not because she's hurting and certainly not because she's decided against trying to beat the shit out of a thirteen year old, but because there's a sudden swarm of monsterbabies through a hole in the fence. Of course there's a fucking hole in the fence.

There's also a port-a-potty along the edge of the playground, presumably for moms whose ability to hold it has totally deteriorated, and rather than try to clock in Dee yells] in there! [at Dipper.

It's definitely not the nicest place to barricade one's self in from a bunch of monsterbabies, but a thick plastic door is better than getting ripped apart by those fishhook fingernails.]

[They need the breather. Dipper scowls but still dives in because they are getting swarmed and she's the one with the weapon.]

[(Stupid stupid stupid, trusting a stranger he didn't know. He's learned a lesson from this.)]

[She closes the door and locks it and they can hear the scratching against it. They just have to hope that they scatter at some point.]

[He narrows his eyes at her and looks like he's ready to defend himself at a moment's notice. They're crammed close together and he's not sure if she's going to hurt him to get back at him for kicking her.]

You deserved that. We could've worked together but you left me there as bait! And after I even gave you my only weapon and everything. I'm lucky I got out alive.

Edited 2019-02-28 23:32 (UTC)

[Crammed in a john with a pre-teen. This isn't how Dee wants to spend her day, much less die via sharpnailed monsters. She grips the pipe close, but to her credit, she doesn't try to bash him with it.]

That was like, five minutes ago! Get over it! [The monsters scrabble at the door, unable to get a grip with the plastic. This doesn't seem to deter them. Dee can feel her feet getting pins and needles, stuffed in here in a janky position.

Working together? Well, if the little turd's going to insist on it.]

I'm going to kick this door open and rip these little fuckers' heads off. Help me or don't. [She doesn't wait for him to agree to this plan.]

That's barely a -

[- Plan. And the door is open. Ugh, what is with this lady? She's just sort of flailing around instead of actually thinking ahead. ]

You're the one with the pipe, you stay in front and smack them! I'll try to kick any that seem like they're getting up again!

[All he's got is his little feet but it's better than nothing. Just like he kicked her in the shin pretty hard, he can try to kick at the monsters.]

[Kick kick kick, stupid babies with hooks for hands.]

Edited 2019-02-28 23:54 (UTC)

[Dee follows Dipper's plan, not because she's listening to him even remotely but because it's the most sensible course of action. And to her credit, she's incredibly good at mowing through monsterbabies with a pipe. In another life, she was the ace in the hole for an touring women's softball team.

One of the babies - the entire baby - ends up dangling from the netless ring of a basketball hoop thirty yards away. It squalls and kicks its little feet, but it's going to die of exposure, and see if she gives the slightest shit.

But there are a lot of them, and when there are only three left, one finally breaks past her and Dipper and clamps onto her knee long enough to knock her down. She bludgeons its head to pieces against the concrete, but the remaining two rush in to try and take advantage of how close her face is to the ground. One gets tangled in her hair, claws ripping her scalp and forehead, and Dee screams in rage and frustration more than pain.]

[Dipper doesn't want to help her. She's obviously super mean and probably would just leave him to die. But deep down he knows that's wrong. He knows that even Grunkle Stan would go in brass knuckles blazing, even if he didn't like someone. The Pines family does a lot of things wrong, like petty vandalism, stealing things, and pug trafficking. But when it comes to people, they look out for them.]

[So he does what one of his great-uncles would (reluctantly) do, what Mabel would probably do if she were here, what Wendy or Soos would do, what his parents would probably want him to do.]

[He goes for the one at her leg first. It's too close. One swipe and it could gut her. He grabs with just his bare hands and rips it away from her, kicking it down and stomping on it until it squishes. It scratches his legs up even more as it goes down and he yells a yell that's a lot like the way Dee yelled - a lot of frustration and annoyance instead of just the pain.]

[Then he grabs the pipe from where she dropped it and swings it at the one clawing at her hair as hard as he can. He has a bad angle on it for first swing, so he has to get in closer and when he does, it gets a good swipe in, tearing a jagged line in his shirt and gouging the skin underneath.]

[He hisses in pain, and then beats the stupid thing like a pinata - except what comes out is definitely not candy.]

Owww! Do they not teach the golden rule in monster-baby kindergarten?

[After that one falls with a squish, he turns to face the last one, running over to stand between her and the monster, and hits its head so hard it goes flying off into the grass.]

[Then he turns to her, bleeding from multiple places and panting from a combination of fear, exertion, and adrenaline.]

That's how you handle dead monster-babies without being a self-centered jerk.

[A pause.]

Jerk.

[He gestures with the pipe.]

Also, I am so not giving this back.

Edited 2019-03-01 00:21 (UTC)

[She gets up and she stares at him, one hand clapped to her forehead. Blood dripping down her face, into the collar of her jacket, down her wrist. Head wounds tend to do that, she guesses, even superficial baby-scratch ones. There's a cut around her left eye that could have blinded her, but instead is just streaming into her tangled hair.

She's not sure what to make of this bloody kid that just risked his life for her; somewhere in the back of her mind she tries to rifle through her memory and see if there was ever anyone who tried to save her life or her wellbeing at all. The question is like plugging the wrong code into a machine, nothing but error messages.

Magic 8-Ball: try again later.

He's got to be tricking her somehow. There's got to be a long con involved here. He must need her to buy him booze or turns tricks in his pimp castle or pretend to be his mom to break into someone's bank account. People don't just do heroic things; the world's way too depressing for that. She wished for heroes a lot when she was a little kid, but she's a realist now.]

You're a jerk. [The way Dee says it is some playground bullshit, the way someone talks back when they've been exposed as weak and in the wrong, when they don't have a leg to stand on and everyone knows it.]

[Dipper squints at her.]

Maybe the monster-babies aren't the only ones that didn't learn anything in kindergarten.

[What is she, five? "I know you are, but what am I"?]

[He - the literal child - takes the high ground and doesn't argue with her any further.]

We need to keep moving. We don't know if more monsters will come so we should try to find shelter. You can't stay out in the open during something like this.

[He knows that from experience. You have to run and hide and run and hide. It doesn't matter where you hide; it might mean staying still and trying not to breathe too hard under bags of trash, or cramming yourself in the tiny space between a dumpster and a brick wall.]

[He's done both.]

[He doesn't want to leave her, she's all messed up and hurt now, and doesn't seem to know how to handle herself in this sort of thing.]

[He rolls his eyes, mostly at himself, because of this really stupid feeling that he shouldn't leave her alone.] I promise I won't kick you in the shin again as long as you don't, I don't know, kick out my kneecaps so I'll be monster bait. Or whatever.

Edited 2019-03-01 00:42 (UTC)

No shit. [She doesn't have a weapon now that he has the pipe, and she doesn't like how that feels. It's not even that she feels particularly threatened, it's just a competitive thing. She hates when other people have something she wants, even only mildly.

She's deeply tempted to just tell him to eat a dick and walk away, let him try to act like a big man out here on his own. He got out alive once, right? Not her fault if he can't do a hat trick.

But she needs someone to watch her back, too.]

There's an abandoned diner a few blocks down. There's enough room in the ceiling for a skinny little shit like you to hide if anything nasty breaks in. [Dee knows this because she already cleared out the ceiling hoping to find a stash of something, anything, and then laid claim to it as the place she might want to store her own shit surreptitiously. The back office can be barricaded too, but she doesn't need to tell him that.]

I wouldn't kick out your kneecaps anyway. I'd just pop you on the head so you wouldn't scream so much.

Oh, I am definitely keeping the pipe. [An eyeroll.] Just...show me the way.

[Something about the way she's been talking is ringing some bells from the texts he got the other day, but he lets it go for now. It'll come to him.]

What's your name, anyway? I'm Dipper.

Edited 2019-04-05 18:45 (UTC)

[It's a bar, not a diner, but she's not trying to impress the kid so she doesn't go back and clarify. She starts walking, trying to hide the limp from where she nearly broke her foot on a baby.]

Deandra. Dee. Sweet Dee. [God, when was the last time she actually got to make a first impression on anyone? She doesn't even know what name she should use to present to the world, so she throws all three out there.] Who names their kid Dipper?

It's a nickname.

[He squints.]

Who names their kid "Deandra"? That sounds like the name of a pop star that only gets booked at shopping malls.

[He never promised he wouldn't take her off at the knees.]

[That sounds like a dumb nickname, and that's from someone who got lumped with "Sweet Dee" in middle school.]

Someone who wanted to come up with a twin name to "Dennis" and was too pilled-out to remember "Denise". [Burn in hell, Mom.] Who sees pop stars at shopping malls?

I'unno. Anyone who hasn't discovered Blamazon 2-day shipping, I guess.

[A shrug.]

Wait, you're a twin, too?

Is that like eBay? Because you can find great stuff on eBay. [Sweet Dee's particular favorite is ordering knock-off handbags that get "accidentally" ruined on dates with dimwitted guys too goodnatured to tell when they're being manipulated into buying a replacement for something they aren't responsible for.] Oh, god damn it. I bought a bunch of cheap animal tracker chips and now I'm not going to be there to pick up the delivery. Those sons of bitches better not ship them back to China. Oh, god damn.

[Because that's what one should worry about when transported to a strange town full of monsters far from home: not whether you'll ever get back to normal, but whether, when you do, you'll still be able to go out and chip your brother's movements to find out if he's banging any ugly chicks you can hold over his head.

She pauses in her shamble towards the bar.]

Unfortunately, yeah. Are you telling me there's two of you to look out for?

Why "unfortunately"? Being a twin's great. Mabel's my best friend.

[Like seriously. He'd made some great friends like Soos and Wendy but it's always Mabel first.]

And you probably don't have to worry about kneecapping as much with her. Mabel's a lot nicer than me.

[It's just facts.]

Unfortunately, because my brother missed the gene where you don’t grow up to be a massive skidmark of a person. [Seriously, Dippity Bippity, if you think Dee’s unpleasant...] Wait, hold on a second. Those names are familiar.

[Dee’s voice lilts up in offense like an Olympic diver vaulting off the board.] Do you mean the one who wanted to chain me up?

Edited 2019-04-06 01:55 (UTC)

[Wait. Wait. That's what rang familiar. She talks a lot like she writes.]

[Dipper's eyes narrow and his voice goes up an outraged pitch, too.]

You're the one that called my sister the B-word and threatened her?

Edited 2019-04-06 02:01 (UTC)

I didn’t realize your sister was ten when I called her a bitch! [Somehow, of the many indignities Dee’s suffered today, including at Dipper’s feet, being chastised by a child young enough to say “the B-word” is the clincher. Dee remains offended, although not at Dipper so much as at the universe.]

(no subject)

captainbuzzkill - 2019-04-06 02:54 (UTC) - Expand

(no subject)

scammin - 2019-04-09 19:50 (UTC) - Expand

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only