Halloween, 5:30 pm, Somewhere along the Aylesbury Turnpike, West of Arkham

The Meddling Kids cruise down the road. You’ve got a gig tomorrow in Dunwich. You’re not going to sit home on Halloween, and you’ve seen ads for a carnival – the Carnival Pandemonium – near the town of Aylesbury. So you’ve set off to have a good time, advertise the gig, and – Bongo thinks – maybe sell some weed.

It's Bongo’s van, but Doug is driving, since Bongo is in the back rolling a joint. Kelly sits next to Doug, and Brandy is in the back with Bongo. The radio is playing some tunes from a few years ago that bring back memories of high school.

The twisting, turning country road rolls away beneath you as aging mill towns, farms, and apple orchards blur past the windows. A cheap air freshener shaped like a pine tree swings wildly from the rearview mirror. The brisk October air is kept at bay by the hot air pouring from the vents with the smell of a heater that hasn’t been used in eight months. Orange and yellow leaves blow across the asphalt in swirls as the setting sun dapples through the dense trees that line the road. You come to an intersection at the ruins of what must have once been a farm. The road sign to the right reads Dunwich 8 Miles, while the one on the left reads Aylesbury 3 Miles. A wooden sign next to the Aylesbury sign simply reads Carnival and has an arrow pointing left.

There’s an overwhelming sense of Deja Vu as you look at a dilapidated barn at the corner and see a crudely painted phrase on the wall facing you.

How do you run from what is inside your head?

Please everybody, give me an Intelligence roll. If you make it, you recognize the phrase as a quote from Alice in Wonderland. Also, since it’s Halloween, are you dressed as anything?

Feel free to describe yourselves and what you are doing and yack with each other in character (please do!).
This message was last edited by the GM at 12:36, Sat 30 July 2022.

All I’m saying is a band that can’t get a job on Halloween is going nowhere fast, guys. You know I love you all and Meddling Kids. Rock is my jam, man! But I’m supposed to graduate in… June? Is graduation June?

Anyway, Art History has been a pretty sweet ride but I don’t think any museum’s gonna hire me. So I gotta get my head into the game—football I mean. I got two more games to make my mark and get picked up by some NFL team. BU’s not going to any bowl games this year. You dig?

I'm not some egghead brainiac like Kelly or a successful businessman like Bongo or a knockout girl like Brandy with a rich daddy. I mean, sure, I'm a good-looking dude but it's easier for girls, y'know? I’ll be bustin my hump in the old man’s construction business the rest of my life. Hang on!

The muscular, good looking guy makes a hard left, cutting off a station wagon full of trick-or-treaters as the mom driving screeches to a halt. A werewolf mask and hairy paws go bouncing off the dashboard and into the lap of the girl in the passenger seat. Those accessories and his BU letter jacket constituting the entirety of the Teenage Werewolf costume he hopes will get him half off the carnival admission. The smell of marijuana wafts up from the back seat.

And that's another thing. I gotta cut down on weed, man. it's bad for my wind. Not to mention no team’ll sign me with a drug conviction these days. I gotta get serious about my future, man. He reaches back to cop the joint from Bongo and takes a righteous hit, holding the pungent smoke deep as he passes the joint to Kelly.

Doug Stevenson rolled 61 for INT 45.
Not the sharpest bulb in the tool shed.
This message was last edited by the player at 14:24, Sat 30 July 2022.

In reply to Doug Stevenson (msg # 2):

OOC: Was all that an internal dialogue or was that conversation to the rest of the characters?

Sean/Bongo (Bongo…Sean…Bongo….Sean….yah I’m both, I’m neither…I don’t know…I’m used to everyone calling me Bongo…to the point I’ve mostly internalized it, there both me man… but I do still think to myself as Shawn… but you know, whatever, it’s cool, are we really our names anyway? Those cats are my family, and I’m Bongo to them…so I AM Bongo……yah, man, rolling this joint is taking so long…) has the paper curved between his fingers, an ample amount of ground bud sitting in a mound in the paper, while he drops little black sticky balls of this real good Hindu Kush hash he got in a small brick last week. He thinks to himself: Man…I still have 1/4 of the brick left to sell. This van has got itself some nice hidden compartments…Thank you Darrell for your Injun-uity…hah…injun…uity…that’s funny man…anyway… hopefully at this Carnival, I can load it off, keep a bit for myself…good stuff man.


He looks up at the road around him, the other cats in the car…Doug is so stoned man…immaculate..


10:54, Today: Bongo rolled 23 using 1d100.  INT 65.

To the rest in the van he says: “Yah man…the Cheshire Cat… ‘You can run from a killer, you can run from your responsibilities, but you cannot run from your thoughts.’ Such a good book…he must have ate some mushrooms to come up with that in the 1800s man. We almost there yet Doug?…roads getting bumpy and I’m rolling a joint man…And listen cat…our band is going somewhere…we’re good…we’re gonna be playin’ The Fillmore East…and West sometime soon man….”

Then Bongo thinks to himself: Oh…shit…that Hindu Kush…MAN!…that is some heavy shit….It’s too much work to think of a costume…if I’m doing it, I’m going big…and that ain’t happenin’ man….

As usual, he is just wearing his wide bottom jeans. bell bottoms are too cliche hippy…and his favorite cleanest dirty white t-shirt.
This message was last edited by the player at 18:27, Sat 30 July 2022.

Doug keeps driving the van down the road. The carnival should be pretty soon. His wolf-paws and mask have fallen down below the seats and are rolling around.

Kelly and Brandy seem to both have decided to take naps. (Girls!)

The music on the radio begins to fade as the DJ’s voice cuts in:

“That was Donovan’s Season of the Witch, and before that, we heard the Rolling Stones’ Paint It Black, rounding out our trip back to 1966. Our spooky tour of the 1960s continues after local news and weather with Jake Hitchens on your number one rock station, WAAF, Worcester!”

After a brief musical intro, you hear,

“State police are still searching for eleven-year-old Alice Lambert, who was taken from the Worcester State Hospital five days ago by a man posing as an orderly. State Police Detective Brian Reynolds told reporters that while the investigation has been going slowly, they recently received an anonymous tip suggesting Alice may still be in Massachusetts.

"Alice is described as four foot eight inches tall, seventy-eight pounds, with blonde hair and hazel eyes. Doctors advise that her psychological state is such that she is unlikely to speak to strangers or make direct eye contact.

"Witnesses describe the suspect as being a white male in his mid-thirties, slender, and of average height. He has short black hair, blue eyes and was last seen wearing a white hospital uniform. Anyone with information should immediately call the Massachusetts State Police tip hotline at 1-800-555-3400. The Forgotten Child Foundation is offering a reward of $10,000 for any information that ultimately leads to Alice’s safe return.”
This message was last edited by the GM at 14:14, Sun 31 July 2022.

When sleeping Kelly doesn't take the joint, Doug snatches another puff to top off and reaches the reefer back to Bongo. He exhales explosively and joins Donovan for the last chorus.

You got to pick up ev'ry stii-ii-iitch yeah
Must be the season of th' wiiitch
Must be the season of th' wiiiiitch
Must be the sea-son of the wii-ii-ii-ii-ii-ii-ii-ii-iiitch!

His warbling demonstrates why Brandy is Meddling Kids lead singer.

Hey, Bongo my man, how'd you like to pull in that ten grand for findin' little Alice? That'd be sweet huh? Course, prob'ly not a lot left of her to find after five days with that lunatic, y'know? Poor li'l tyke.

Hey girls! he shouts, slamming his hand on the steel dashboard so it rings like a gong, Up an' at 'em! Wakey-wakey! I think I see carnival lights up ahead!

Bongo looks up from the bong he took from it’s secret storage compartment, smoke rolling out of his mouth and nose as he speaks: “Yah man, let’s get the girl from the paedophile ass! If he happened to take her to this carnival for some random unknown reason. Otherwise, how will we even know where to start to look? But yah, she drops in our lap, we get the $10 grand! You want a hit off the bong Dougey my boy?”

Brandy rouses herself from her weed induced slumber.

"The paedogirl who what now? Who's a paedophile again? Look whatever, I don't really care because - well you know why - can we just keep the noise down? God. Ugh my eyes are so red."

Brandy rolled 19 using 1d100.  INT 50.
This message was last edited by the player at 12:31, Mon 01 Aug 2022.

Glad you're here!

Since Brabdy was asleep when you passed the graffiti, she didn't see it. Somebody could tell her about it, though.