Scott smokes his cigarette and watches  the mummers play with amusement. He has no idea who Earl Lancing is, but assumes he’s  a sneak thief the old boy chased into the sewer. He stays well back from the smell, moving to get a good view as Earl is dragged out into the daylight.

"Careful, now, when you pull him into the light." Hoover said. "He is crazed. Well, dead and crazed. He will attack. Nearly took my arm, he did."

Hoover held out a rope burned and muck covered arm offering Daffyd the rope even as it tugged at the farmer's arm. The man wasn't as weak as anyone would have guessed.

"Here young man. Anyone that can load them stacks can handle this dead man."

Why does he keep calling the man struggling at the end of the rope dead? Scott grinds out his butt and steps back a big pace,  He’s beginning to suspect some kind of local film flam or Snake Oil pitch.

“Even revives the dead!”

Wilhelm found a local store, Morgan's Construction Outfitters, with one of those iceboxes selling on those entirely American novelties; the Coca Cola soda. The bottle was cold to the touch and covered in beads of sweat. The drink was lively with tiny bubbles and sweet to the palate. A true delight on a sweltering day, or what the local farmers often referred to as 'swamp-ass weather' due to the sweating. Mopping his brow as he walked into the shade between Morgan's and the next building, he found he could thoroughly with those sentiments.

Up ahead a small group men had gathered. They were assisting another man emerge from a hole in the ground. A whiff of the muck upon the man gave rise to the nature of the material the man had been crawling in. He seemed to be yanking a rope wrapped around one wrist. Something most curious. Though, Wilhelm did find that the Americans were an even more enigmatic nationality than the Italians.

Wilhelm looked at the ice-cold bottle.
"Coca Cola", he said very quietly.
His pronounciation was way off, he didn't know these two words, didn't know the beverage at all.

The man didn't care, it was ice-cold, could have written Poor Piss on the bottle, he simply pressed it against his forehead and his neck.

"Look at these poor bastards", he said to himself even more quietly, "working in this heat."

He enjoyed the bottle, observing what happened over there.
This message was last edited by the player at 17:59, Mon 25 Apr 2022.

Dai gladly took hold of the rope and as unfazed by the filth as the deputy, offered the end to Jake. Wrapping his arm around the rope to secure it, he set his feet once more and squared his broad shoulders, expecting to pull in a literal dead weight and looked at Jake for readiness before he began hauling. He mentally shrugged off the talk of dead men moving around and attacking as being the ravings of this older gentleman who was clearly a little touched; who else would go spelunking in a sewer and talk such nonsense. "Ready when you are, butt." he nodded to Jake.

---

Spoiler text: (Highlight or hover over the text to view)
OOC: FYI, "butt" is a Welsh colloquialism common to South Wales and is contemporary to the last century, give or take (or at least it is to the old boys in their 90's that I know from there!). It's short for "buddy" and akin to calling someone "mate"; not quite a term of endearment, but it's a casually familiar one. Dai isn't calling anyone an ass or otherwise being insulting and such would be clear from his tone and expression, though it wouldn't be outside of possibility to take offence from a misunderstanding. Just wanted to clear that up before questions were asked!

---

Jake stops before he takes hold of the shit-dripping rope. He removes his hat and gunbelt and hangs them on a fencepost. Then he grabs the rope and nods to Bas and the stranger.

"All set"

It took three of them working together to muscle the person on the other end of the rope through the drainage port. The tunnel beneath was little more than a yard square and filled with decades of mud, sewage, and whatever else. Once it was out in the sunlight, the person was odd, and as sure a the sun will rise, it was indeed wearing a suit the was missing large portion along the back of the pants, shirt, and jacket just those fitted around corpses in caskets. It moved with an odd sort of shuffle, its eyes were dimmed and looked rather dull. But, it did indeed see them. After a few heartbeats it launched itself awkwardly at Dafydd. Grabbing with both hands it grabbed the Irishman about the neck and tried to pull his face close to Dafydd's neck.

Jake yanks on the rope to pull the man’s head away from the Dai. He flips a loop of the rope around the upper arms and torso of the figure and bends the rope into the sort of hitch he’d use on a recalcitrant yearling.

Hanks eyes narrowed when the suit came into view.

He stepped out of the door of the funeral home and called out to the men corralling the muddy man.

"Pull him in here. Let's get him hosed off and find out who's grave he robbed."

Unsurprisingly Hank took this kind of thing seriously and his voice showed it.

Scott continues to watch with mild amusement. The fellow with his ass hanging out of his pants is putting on quite a show and the guy with the rope could be part of a wild west rodeo. He glances around, wondering if there is a place nearby he could get a cold soda pop and watch from a shady spot.

Without warning Hoover produced a small revolver from his pocket. It was small Stevens and Co. .32 caliber. He immediately stuck the muzzle to the things head and said, "Now, damn it, you settle down or I'll put one in your dead skull."

Thrashing against the ropes, the struggling and no-so-dead corpse flailed about wildly trying to get at Daffyd again. One of its hand struck the revolver which caused a single shot to be fired. The report wasn't particularly loud, but it was surprising. The corpse suddenly acted like a corpse and fell to he ground unceremoniously.

"Well, jumping Jehoshaphat!" Hoover shouted and dropped the pistol. "It killed itself!"

"Goddamit, Hoover, you just made a whole lotta trouble for ever'body," Jake says with a sigh. "Mr. Savege, will you please get the names an' addresses of all these men? Those two yonder too, I reckon." He indicates Scott and de Vries where they're standing a bit apart from the others, watching.

He picks up Hoover's little pistol and retrieves his own hat and gunbelt. Then he addresses the mortician: "Hank, I expect you better get Lancing's body over your place until th' coroner can take a look at 'im.

"Hoover you're under arrest. Let's get over to th' jail. We can hose you off before we go in. C'mon."
This message was last edited by the player at 04:27, Tue 03 May 2022.

Scott's not quite convinced that the man actually shot himself. It looks a whole lot like the other fellow (Hoover they called him?) had pulled a gun, pointed at the bare-assed guy's head, and then pulled the trigger. There might have been some flailing about there, but the sequence was pretty clear: gun, point, shoot, dead.

And now the young sheriff is taking names.

Scott has a moment when he just wants to leg it, but there's nowhere to go until his car is fixed. And it seems that he's now a witness to a potential murder investigation.

Shoot! Why did life need to get this complicated?

He puts a professional smile on his face and lights up another cigarette. He takes out his wallet and extracts his business card and his driver's license to help speed up the investigation.

"I expect the coroner will show up as soon as I remember where I put the stupid hat with "coroner" stitched on it."

He shook his head at Hoover.

"Be right back with a bag and a board."

He spoke to Dafydd, "Mind giving me a hand young man?"

As Jake made to sort out the situation Hoover just there staring. He was intent and then pointed and shouted "Look!"

Without warning the man with the hole in the side of skull suddenly stark to shake. Then the eyes seemed to start looking about. A groan escaped the corpse's mouth. Then it began to try and get up.

(OOC: everyone needs to make a sanity check. thanks.)

Dafydd cried out when the half-dressed and sewage covered man lunged for him and choked as it gripped his neck. When the sharp retort of the gun firing sent his assailant to the ground he leaned on his knees and tried to gather his wits, just focusing on breathing. When the officer started asking names and addresses, he began to panic; this was not a good start to his debut in this town. He should have known his luck at finding a job and lodging so quickly was going to turn around and bite him in the karmic rear end. At the sight of the, definitely now, corpse twitching and finding its feet, that low level panic at involvement with the law began turning into sheer terror at the dawning of his supernatural awakening. His eyes went wide and he stumbled back and away. "Wha- What the bleeding hell?" he stammered.

OOC:

00:43, Today: Dafydd Taliesin Morgan rolled 81 using 1d100.  Sanity (vs. 75)

Whel'p. Not a great start to the inevitable downward spiral into insanity. :D

Was this part of the show? Scott drew in a sharp breath as the dead man (dead twice over?) started to move. The gunshot had certainly looked real. The big hole in his head looked . . . nasty. And now he was trying to get up again?

The political organizer stepped back a pace or two. The scene seemed too surreal to connect fully with the triggers of fear that were sounding in the back of his mind, but he was pretty sure that if the corpse actually climbed to its feet and started trying to bite folks again, Mrs. Scott's eldest boy was going to be headed towards the horizon at a high rate of knots.

06:30, Today: Yoland Thomas Scott rolled 30 using 1d100.  SAN roll vs 60.

Seeing what was happening at the hole in the ground ?? Wilhelm shouted out:"Was zur Hölle ist das denn?"

In his terror he simply forgot where he was, his new home, the United States of A, big A, yes Sir, and they speak English over here.

Wilhelm started shaking all over and tried to start the sentence from the beginning:" What the hell is happening over there?"



14:17, Today: Wilhelm de Vries rolled 20 using 1d100.  sanity roll.
This message was last edited by the player at 12:17, Wed 04 May 2022.

"Godamighty!" screams Jake as Earl Lancing tries to rise yet again. He stomps on one end of the rope wrapped around Earl to pin him to the ground.

"You all grab onto th' ends a this here rope an' keep him down! Earl, you stay still now! You're undr arrest! Don't go resisting! Stop, dammit!"

Reluctantly, Jake draws his revolver.

Jake Westley rolled 94 using 1d100 with rolls of 94.  for Sanity 50.

It was a moment in time that none of them would ever forget. Especially old man Hoover. The old man seemed to make a squeaking noise and then just collapsed to the dirt in front of them. Dafydd had the sinking feeling of incredulity pushing down on his shoulders as if the weight of the world were suddenly there. It was overwhelming. Jake looked at Hoover. He didn't seem to be breathing. Then his eyes shot back to the corpse that was moving, after dying twice now, and once in front him only moments ago. He drew his pistol but lost track of what to do next. The others seemed transfixed as the horror of the moment seared its memory into the dark recesses of their minds. It was unnerving, let unavoidable to look upon.

Hank had started to leave but now he turned and stared at the moving corpse.

15:04, Today: William Henry Clark rolled 35 using 1d100.  SAN 65.

He blinked a couple of times and then headed into the Funeral Home to retrieve the aforementioned body bag and also a shotgun.

Scott shivered as if somebody had just walked on his grave, but the dead man seemed very . . . dead . . . now. So that was that. He looked around the town for a place to get that cold drink but waited patiently where he was for the deputy to collect his particulars. In his experience, moving rapidly away from police officers tended to get them riled up, and there'd been enough gunplay already this morning.

And until his car was fixed, he had nowhere else to be anyway.

A hand shot out and gripped Jake by the ankle. The corpse used this as leverage to drag its body up onto a knee. It reached out suddenly to hoover, gripping his overalls, and pulled itself up onto its feet. It looked wildly about and seemed to inhale.

There was a raspy exhalation of embalmed lungs and putrid stench, the thing grumbled out, "Must feed and feed. It burns."

Hoover screamed in panic and shock and collapsed to his knees. Henry had just made it to the door with the body bag and his father's old Greener double barrel when the thing spoke. He dropped the bag and immediately began fumbling buckshot loads from the his pocket.

Jake yanks his ankle out of the thing's grasp.

"Stop!Yerunderarrest!" he cries and swings at Earl Lancing's head with the barrel of his heavy revolver.

Jake Westley rolled 93 for Fighting 50%.

But the deputy is off balance as he strikes and misses, stumbling away a couple of steps.