LTCmdr. Quentin Collins - House of Secrets

2 views
Skip to first unread message

Justin Partridge

unread,
Oct 17, 2021, 11:29:35 PM10/17/21
to sb118...@googlegroups.com
((Interior. Holodeck, The Crypt.))

Collins: Okay, I am loving THIS less...

 

MacKenna: Indeed.


Quentin Collins kicked up a fair amount of dirt as he scrambled to his feet, but thankfully he didn't move too quickly as to bonk his head on the low-built masonry and stonework of the Crypt. It was a touch stock, but the detailing still was miraculous. Heavy earthen smells permeated the air around them as well as a dampness that seemed to set into his bones. For a mockup of a creepy-crawly locale, this one was aces. But it's cramped-ness and imposing corridoring quickly wore out their entertainment for Quentin, who was trying to pad at the wall, now that his eyes were adjusted to the darkness. Trying to pad through the stone for some sort of egress.


His companions shuffled around him, similarly lost in the murk.

 

Mason: A little cliché if nothing else.


Hope: Spooky, too.  


Quentin started to laugh, but the sickening scraping of stone on stone cut the mirth off in the pass of his throat.

 

Quentin tried to peer downward into the corridor's inkiness, but couldn't see much. Aside from the shift and push of the dark in odd ways. But that combined with the increasingly gross sound of the stone scraping told the tell well enough. They weren't alone.


Quentin felt himself gulp slightly and his pads with his hands on the walls became slaps. There had to be some kind of mechanism! There was ALWAYS some kind of mechanism!


oO Right!?!? Oo 

 

Mason: We definitely have company.

 

As if on cue the stone was joined with another ghoulish sound. The dry creak and scape of bones. And the weary moans of those who formerly housed them.


Quentin whirled and could see them now. Shuffling up and out of their resting places. Some slower than others, but steady all the same. Like time and tides. They were coming for them. Quentin's movements became almost fevered, aggressive. He had to find the latch. He simply had to.


He didn't know what exactly was going on, or if there was some sort of intentionality to the program currently psychologically torturing them. But he did know, that all of this still was ringing true to Collinsport. And if that was true, that meant he and his friends might be in a...tad more danger than he was willing to let slide.


Thus HIS responsibility to get them to the other side of...whatever the blazes this was.


And still the dead approached. More carefully now.

 

MacKenna: And perhaps not all dead.

 

Mason: I doubt it could be considered alive either, whatever it is.


Hope: Maybe it's a vengeful mother come back from the dead   

 

Collins: Let's try not to wait around to find out, yes?!


MacKenna: RESPONSE

 

Cassie, alongside Quentin jumped suddenly as the Voice from before once again boomed through the basement. Rollicking heavily off the stone and making it sound 40 stories tall, six feet underground.

 

Voice: Curiosity has led you astray.

 

Supporting the Voice were The Dead, now some fully shambled out from their homes and plodding through them into the dirt

 

Collins: Everyone, watch yourselves!


He hollered impotently behind him, still clawing and snapping at the wall around them. Still not trying to breach too close to the encroaching dead. If only he could-


A SCREAM! Quentin whirled around to see Cassie Mason clawing at her own arm.


MacKenna: RESPONSE

 

Mason: T...the coffin, a hand just… ::she wrapped her arms around herself, moving closer to the others as best she could in the darkness.:: Can we look for a way out? Please?


Hope: BOO!  


Grace stifled her mouth and barely resisting laughing out loud.

Hope: Sorry.

Quentin whirled back to the wall and almost punched it, despite the macabre humor of the new arrival! He was so frustrated and even in the heat of the moment his mind was trying to assign every bit of blame to him. It was just what it did sometimes. Instead Quentin finally just KICKED the wall! Spitting up more dirt and dust through and over the top of his shoe...and also depressing a switch disguised as a square of stone.


A heavy switch threw behind the wall and Quentin pushed slightly. And the wall, the section directly to their left gave way into darkness slightly. He turned a wild eye to his friends and unwilling participants in his mind's probable house of horrors. But he wouldn't stop helping them. Not until his dying breath.


oO Touch wood and spit on the floor...Oo


Collins: I found it! Help me!


Mason/Hope/MacKenna: RESPONSE


Like clockwork, all their strength pushed on the door and finally swung it completely away. And they scrambled again into darkness. Just as moldering and broken nails had started to scrape at the back of Quentin's collar.


They walked for a bit, coming upon a few lit, removeable braziers, which Hope grasped admirable, lighting their path slightly. In the darkness two paths emerged. Hope lit them both for a few moments and then turned them, with an air of shockingly charming cheek.


Hope: Two paths before our eyes. One leads to certain doom and the other is a way out.

She looked at her group and waited on their cue. Cassie was right. They needed to get out soon.

Mason: RESPONSE

Collins: Honestly, it's a coin flip, but I don't think we can go back.

MacKenna: RESPONSE

It was as good a plan as any. So our fellowship of the scream continued on into the darkness.

They walked and walked and walked and walked for what seemed like ages. Lit only by Hope's burning brazier.

Eventually, they made it to the next "level". Sectioned off anachronistically by the freestanding, Rec-Center like door standing amid the dirt and dark. Quentin reached for the handle, hesitated slightly, but only for a second.


And then opened the door.


((Interior. The Church.))


It looked PAINFULLY normal. A dozen or so parishioners sat across the pews, but no one was on the parapet. Just the lonesome organ player, piping out some Angelicin nonsense dutifully. Quentin's feet groaned heavily on the wood planking under their feet.


Quentin turned to his companions once more, concerned for their current states.


Collins: Are we okay? Did any of them follow us?


Mason/Hope/MacKenna: RESPONSE


Quentin was about to speak again but the Voice returned. Crackling through the Church's ancient PA system, again providing it a more unearthly tone and timbre.


The Voice: Your Secrets Isssssolate Yooooouu.


Quentin huffed and thought...


oO Well, that's a bit camp, right? Oo


Until one of those very secrets stood grinning at him in the center aisle. A squat, but warm woman from his schooling. Someone who had also been dead for...almost twenty years now? Passing slightly before Quentin's exodus from his hometown. Almost ten years past since he had seen her last.


When he was a Junior in high school and she was teaching him AP English II. Quentin just stood there, gawping.


MacKenna: RESPONSE

 

Collins: Y-yeah, that's Mrs. Moltke. S-she taught at my high school. But she's....


Moltke: Quentin Collins! Why, as I live and breathe! A long way from hanging from your beltloops on the Town Square's flagpole, right?! Oh, my lands, I remember how those boys chased you! And then just LEFT you there! For the WHOLE lunch hour! HA HA HA, goodness, I can't tell you how much I laughed about that...


Quentin's ears and cheeks burned read hot. This was officially NOT fun nor funny anymore. He felt their eyes on him and he felt once again 16 years old and powerless to understand the ire he's drawn. Even though, a deep, dark part of Quentin did (and still does slightly) think that he HAD deserved it. That he HAD overstepped something. Simply by existing.


He took a deep breath. Those were thoughts that could wait until AFTER they were out. He waved off the pitying looks.


Collins: I-it's okay. Whatever this is, it's just trying to mess with us. Eyes up, though. You may know some of these people too...


MacKenna/Hope/Mason: RESPONSE


--
TAG/TBC
--

Lieutenant Commander 

Quentin Collins III

Chief Science Officer

--

U.S.S. ARROW NCC-69829

ID: E239512QC0

--

F.N.S. CONTRIBUTOR

(SB118 Forums


Reply all
Reply to author
Forward
0 new messages