Sully is just attempting to step back into the drawer and reach up to get one of the jars when the two drawers slide out.

"Jee-zus!" he yells and tries to jump down to the floor, clearing the edge of the drawer but landing a bit off-balance.

Sullivan (Sully) Quinn rolled 23 for Jump 20.

Sully stumbles backwards. As he does, he spies the contents of the newly opened drawer to his left: a male corpse, clearly long dead, the cold flesh mottled and gray, the mouth sewn closed with dark thread. As the drawer opens fully, the reporter is certain that he sees the dead man’s eyes snap open, their unblinking gaze empty and milk white.

A moment after Sully tumbles to the tile floor, any doubt regarding what he glimpsed vanishes. The dead men in each of the now opened drawer both sit up, their lifeless bodies moving stiffly as they begin to climb out, the scent of decay suddenly overtaking the other odors within the embalming room. As they come to their feet, both corpses groan, a noise muted by their sewn together lips. Despite both showing no emotion on their gray faces, their unflinching stares communicate absolute malevolence.

OOC: So…before proceeding further, I’ll need everyone to provide me with a Sanity roll. A success will result in the loss of a single sanity point. A failure will incur a loss of 1d8 points.

Sullivan (Sully) Quinn rolled 19 for Sanity 50.

"Look out!" screams Sully (probably redundantly), scrambling to his feet and pointing at the undead corpses.

Did Sully manage to grab one of the bottles before jumping down?

OOC: He did and it survived the tumble. The glass that makes up the vial is thick, akin to those used to store acids in chemistry laboratories. The vial bears the number 29.

Arthur, perhaps redundantly himself, snapped several photographs as the thing opened its eyes and advanced upon them. He didn't entirely do this consciously, but entirely without thinking about it. When he realized what he was seeing, he turned to his compatriots, looking to usher anyone tarrying towards the exit to the room.

OOC: Where is the exit in relation to us, by the way?

Jake will try to kick the drawer closest to him closed hoping to trap the guard inside. They have gruesome disguises, but they’re Halloween outfits, surely? Nevertheless, the setting is giving him the creeps.

OOC: Using an iPad in a hospital bed latest night. No idea how to copy & paste my roll, or style text. But he made his SAN roll

08:26, Today: The Keeper, on behalf of Anthony Wells, rolled 3 using 1d100.  Sanity.

Everyone passes their sanity checks and manages to keep their wits about them.

Although no one may intend to attack the dead men, I’m still going to treat the current situation as combat, since the order of actions taken is potentially important.

Based on everyone’s Dexterity scores, the investigators and their foes will act in the following order:

1. Jake Morris
   
2. Anthony Wells
   
3. Arthur Flatt
   
4. Sullivan Quinn
   
5. The Dead

Jake, if your intent is still to kick the drawer closed as you previously stated, I’ll need you to provide me with a Strength (STR) roll.

Jake makes an awkward shove with his left foot, trying to shut the steel drawer closest to him.

OOC : Rolled 68 vs 55  STR

The rising corpse is able to pull itself from its drawer before Jake can slam it closed. It stumbles, but manages to right itself as it stands, its milky gaze fixing on the detective.

OOC: Arthur, the only visible exit from the embalming room is through the pair of eastern doors, the same ones that each of the investigators entered through. They lead back to the covered walkway. Both of the walking dead are on the opposite side of the room from the exit. There is nothing blocking any of the investigators from fleeing in that direction.

Jake already has his gun out, but he’s keenly aware that they are the intruders here. There is no possible justification for shooting anyone, especially kids in Halloween Costumes.

But they don’t know that, . . .  Maybe?

He points the big Colt directly at the closest kid. Damn! Those costumes are good!

“Hold it right there, buster, or I’ll blow yer fecking  head off.”

The Professor wasn't sure what he found more disconcerting. First, there was the presence of what appeared to him to be undead corporeal revenants described in certain cultural practices, which were unsettling in and of themselves especially found where they were. Second, there was the fact that his comrades had started yelling during a late night breaking and entering expedition he had foolishly entered into.

He couldn't really help a yelp himself as well, inspired by the first fear and quickly swallowed by the second. Clutching the tablets close to him, he began to flee.

Though he snapped a photograph, Arthur wasn't keen on sticking around. He'd done everything he could in this situation, he wasn't cut out for a fight.

So, he stepped back, out through the eastern doors, and went straight outside. He knew the way out, and he intended to take that path quickly.

"Come on, Jake! Let's get out of here!"
Sully hastens across the room and through the doors, holding one open for the detective.

Jake backs away from the drawer guys and slips through the door (if he can get away before they reach him.)

"Close it! Quick!" he hisses to Sully.

The dead man who Jake attempted to trap in the drawer swings at the detective with a closed fist, the blow missing Jake’s shoulder by inches.

15:02, Today: The Keeper rolled 71 using 1d100.  Fighting - Zombie.

The second of the animate corpses appears to focus on Anthony Wells, making a noise like a gurgling growl as it lurches after the fleeing professor.

Jake is able to dash through the doorway just behind Sully, who slams the door shut behind the detective. For a moment, the mortuary walkway seems quiet and strangely normal to the four investigators, especially in contrast to the surreal scene that just unfolded within the embalming room.

The brief illusion of peace is broken by a loud groan and a heavy blow which rattles the embalming room door.

Arthur posted up at the next door, ushering his allies further to the exit. "Come on, don't slow everyone, the whole jig is up!"

Jake glances around for a way to secure or jam the door, at least long enough to give them a few moments to flee. It's sinking in finally that the costumes are not actually costumes and that the . . . things on the other side of the flimsy door are dead bodies, reanimated somehow. He can't quite put out of his mind the empty graves they uncovered earlier as well. How many of these . . . zombies might there be?

But the city of New York is less than a hundred yards away, bustling, modern, with no place for the reanimated dead. If they can get away they can be safe and regroup, decide what they want to do with the knowledge they have gained.

Though again, he has no clue how this horror show relates to the case they are investigating. Unless . . . unless the dead things are what have been attacking the living in the vicinity of the cemetery for generations. For some kind of ghoulish sustenance, perhaps. Which would explain the macabre scrapbook as well.

His mind is a bright whirl of conjecture, but his guts are ice cold with fear as the dead pound on the other side of the door.

"Leg it!" he cries to the others. "Scatter. Get away. If one of us escapes, they'll know what happened to the others."

He holds his pistol up, determined to give the other men a least a few steps toward the door. He's not planning to sacrifice himself, but he has the gun, and he's a sight more sprightly than some of the others.

OOC: Fun scene!

As Jake puts his weight against the doors, Sully whips off his tie. He loops the fabric around the door handles and ties a tight knot. The quality silk should stretch without ripping for a while, even if it stretches. His brain is a whirl as he tries to make sense of walking dead men.

He gives Jake a nod and runs up the covered walkway, jumping from the loading dock to run for the fence where they left the ladder. He really wants out of this cemetery.
This message was last edited by the player at 21:05, Fri 29 Apr 2022.

He had to credit Sully for his quick thinking. For his part, the best he could manage was quick feet. He wasn't as spry as he'd once been - at least he liked to tell himself that he'd once been spry - so he had to use every ounce of his hustle to run for where they had left the ladder.

An instant after Sully knots his necktie around the door handles, another hard blow rattles the doors, both visibly shaking in their frames. As the group runs down the walkway toward the carpentry shop, another pair of strikes on the doors can be heard, the noise easily audible to the fleeing investigators over the sounds of their own rapid footfalls and breathing.

The group of men dash through the shop and back out into the shadowy graveyard. As before, the cemetery has the appearance of being empty, with no one besides the fleeing investigators moving amongst the memorials. Glancing toward the two story residence, the group can see that the house remains dark. No lights come on within any of the windows. It would seem, at least for now, that none are aware of the disturbance in the mortuary.

Moving with as much haste as they can muster, the investigators reach the iron fence on the Stanton Street Cemetery’s eastern side, climbing onto a crypt to reach the ladder waiting on the other side. As they begin to cross to the dark street beyond, the men hear the distant sound of a crash, coming from the direction of the mortuary. Fortunately, each is able to exit the graveyard before anything emerges from the building.

Taking the ladder with them, the investigators hasten to a dimly lit street corner a few blocks away, where they halt their retreat to catch their breaths. They see no signs of pursuit in the direction of the cemetery.

Alternately hacking up phlegm and cackling with laughter, Jake pants and grins around at the other fellows when they duck around the corner and slow to a stop, out of sight of the weird cemetery.

"We're all too old for this!" he gasps, flattening himself against a wall and sneaking a quick peek back the way they came.

As soon as he is satisfied they are not pursued, he will suggest they adjourn, either to Wells' office at Columbia or to an all-night cafe somewhere not too distant.

"So what did we get?" he asks, placing the scrapbook of horrible deeds on the table and inviting the others to share their loot as well. By his recollection, there were a couple of engraved metal plates and some jars of dust, though he's not certain those ever got taken.

"Pretty darn certain that our boy Bishop is involved in some seriously creepy stuff and knows much more about the killings around here than an innocent man would."

He's still having a little trouble wrapping his mind around the assault by the animated dead bodies and hoping that someone else might even have a rational explanation for what they saw.

Sully runs with the others, pacing the prof to make sure the older man doesn't get left behind. He comes to a stop when Jake does, gasping and chuckling and coughing. "I feel like a kid again. That was nuts." He mops his brow with his handkerchief. "Who were those guys?"

He puts away his handkerchief and brings out his flask, taking a swig of the rye whiskey and offering it to his companions. From the side pocket of his coat, he produces the vial of powder.

"I still got this."

Puffing hard, Arthur put his hands against the wall and leaned in. He realized his hair was a mess, and set it right.

"You feel like a kid? I wish I did."

Arthur took a swig, and produced a pack of cigarettes, offering a smoke and a light to anyone who wanted one.

"So, Jake, I guess it's safe to assume no one's actually winning that bet."

It takes Jake a moment to remember the five-dollar bet about there being a smuggling operation going on in the graveyard, but then he grins and nods at the jar of powder Sully just put on the table.

"Guess we'll know when we find out what that is," he says, taking the proffered smoke and light from Arthur.

"Pretty sure it's not cocaine or heroin, but it might be some kind of exotic drug or spice. Whatever they've got going in there is bad news, and we can be pretty certain they're not going to like the fact we know what they're up to."

He exhales smoke and looks over at Professor Wells.

"Any chance you can get this stuff analyzed at the University, Professor? And maybe there's someone who can help us translate what was on those metal slabs."

Professor Wells indicates that there are experts at Columbia University who might be able to assist in identifying the objects the investigators were able to escape with. He shows the others the pair of steel tablets, which he kept hold of during the group’s rapid retreat.

The investigators agree to meet at the Professor’s office at Columbia at mid morning the following day to discuss their next steps. One by one they depart into the dark of the late New York evening.