rebirthorder: (Maria ; nagia)
Rebirth Mods ([personal profile] rebirthorder) wrote in [community profile] fuckthistown2019-02-23 10:36 pm
Entry tags:

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.


scammin: (Basic - Crossed Arms)

I.

[personal profile] scammin 2019-02-27 05:22 pm (UTC)(link)
[Sweet Dee isn't wasting so much time deciding whether or not she wants to bring cans of unappetizing food back. Hunger turns her into a savage, and she's packed up a garbage bag of nonperishables that'll take her a good hour to drag and heave back to camp.

Her current mission, now that she's raided a food bank's worth of spam, is to find out if there's alcohol somewhere in the bowels of the back office, something to sate that beast of casual addiction that only seems to rear its head at the most inopportune times. The kitchen is a total loss. Back at Paddy's she hid beer in the office ceiling, but whomever owned this Blue Catfish shithole didn't think to do her a solid.
]

What kind of crappy diner doesn't have beer? [She crawls back out of the ceiling and lightly, peevishly punches the plywood tile, leaving it slightly out of place, and then the jukebox decides to go hog-wild with the Johnny Cash and the horror soundtrack and she comes back out.

She isn't expecting to see a teenager with a fistful of change vexed by an evil jukebox, but that's what she gets.
]

Why are you playing shitty remixes full of screaming?
freezeyourbrain: (hope you don't think i'm too well-adjust)

[personal profile] freezeyourbrain 2019-02-27 09:09 pm (UTC)(link)
[ JD doesn't jump so much as jerk, twitching in surprise. He darts a look over his shoulder before mostly dismissing the woman. He spares a moment to wonder what's in the bag, and if he should try to take it from her.

For now, though, he just rolls his eyes.
] Obviously, because I love shitty remixes full of screaming. [ A shrug. ] I was in the kitchen when it started up. [ He shoves change into the jukebox and selects a different song, which plays for about twenty seconds before descending into screaming and begging.

It doesn't change back.
]
scammin: (Basic - Deadpan)

[personal profile] scammin 2019-02-27 09:29 pm (UTC)(link)
[She doesn't seem deflated when he rebuffs her; she's used to being dismissed and belittled. It only justifies the tone she was going to take anyway, which is acrid.]

Well, I didn't turn it on. [She seems more perturbed by the idea that he might think she actually wants to sit in this putrid diner listening to Johnny Cash than the idea that it must have been a third party fiddling with the knobs.] I already went through the kitchen, boner, so have fun with all the canned stuff that was even more inedible than all this spam.

[When he starts it up again, she gives him a glare that could be described as either affronted or straight-up crazy-eyed. The screaming seems to go on forever, like it could gleefully keep annoying them for the rest of the day if they give it the chance. Dee rolls her eyes and wrenches open the water closet near the diner restroom, retrieving a broom.]

Here, let me try. [She steps forward and grips the broom, stabbing it downwards into the dash of the jukebox until the plastic cracks and the glass shatters and she can start yanking all the musical options out with her hands.]
freezeyourbrain: (sometimes i'm a normal human)

[personal profile] freezeyourbrain 2019-02-28 02:34 am (UTC)(link)
[ It's kind of an impressive display of frustration and violence, in JD's opinion. A surprising lack of uselessness out of an adult. His opinion of her ratchets up precisely one notch.

Problem is, ripping out the jukebox's workings doesn't seem to do much, or if it does, it's not for long. The second she steps away, the jukebox is whole and repaired again. Dusty, too -- not even his fingerprint on the button he'd pressed remains.

The jukebox returns to Johnny Cash & the Murder Victims, live in Silent Hill, and he'd swear Cash's voice sounds smug, though the victims still sound terrified and desperate.
]

That went well. Maybe we can unplug it. [ JD doesn't seriously think that unplugging it will do anything, either, except maybe give whoever tries it a nasty shock. ] I'll give you an especially shiny quarter if you try.
scammin: (Basic - Put Out)

[personal profile] scammin 2019-02-28 03:04 am (UTC)(link)
For God's sake. [If bashing open the dash let off any steam, the way the jukebox repairs itself undoes any benefit. Dee's expression could be classified as a lethal weapon. She kicks the jukebox, then throws the broom aside and lets it clatter. Then she hijacks JD's quarter and tries to get the jukebox to play something she likes, which tends to be trashy 80's crap.

At least once the jukebox is playing "The Living Years (Snuff Tape Mix)" it doesn't grind her nerves as badly. It gives her some respite as she gets down on her knees and tries to shove the jukebox away from the wall so she can unplug the thing.
]

So, what's your over-under on this place being haunted? [Dee doesn't seem particularly bothered by this, because she has an incredible capacity to just move past things. Nothing sticks to her. She's human teflon for responsibility, guilt, weirdness.]

I mean, if it's not that, it's someone hiding in the ceiling, and they'd better be scared we'll fuck them up for playing shitty country music when they show their face.
freezeyourbrain: (observing)

[personal profile] freezeyourbrain 2019-02-28 04:29 am (UTC)(link)
Right now I'm at fifty, but it's not like money's good for anything here. What would you rather bet instead? [ He says it matter-of-factly, though when she makes her joke about somebody hiding in the ceiling, he cracks a small smile.

If only it were likely to be that easy.

He's got enough of a self-preservation instinct that he takes a few steps back.
Just in case.
]
scammin: (Basic - Insisting)

[personal profile] scammin 2019-02-28 08:24 pm (UTC)(link)
What's the point of a bet if there's no money? [Dee says that, but them she backtracks, because the truth is she does enjoy the thrill of the chase. Not as much as her (legal) father, who gets into betting everything from Russian roulette to body parts, but enough that the idea gets her competitive streak going.] Okay, ghosts. If it's ghosts or monsters or anything supernatural, you owe me whatever alcohol you find looting for food, and if it's something normal I'll give you all the sauces and flavorings I find that make this stuff edible.

[With remarkable upper body strength, given her bony frame, she shoves the jukebox away from the wall.]

By the way, money's going to be real useful on the first suckers who come out here and don't realize it's useless yet. Get them while they're fresh and stupid. [She snickers and pulls the plug out. Teamwork isn't that high on her priorities list. And then she pauses, looking at the outlet as blood starts to ooze out of it, and then outright spill. She lurches away from the rapidly spreading pool.]
Edited 2019-02-28 20:24 (UTC)