View source for Nathan - Haunted House/Log

{{OOC Warning}}
It's late this evening at the edge of the 'Zone, the suburban area steadily becoming a blight and a scar on the city. Most houses here haven't seen maintenance in decades, their yards are weed choked and often have cars, furniture, or other things strewn about, the charm of the neighborhood gone years ago. The distant pops of gun shots can be heard deeper in the 'Zone, but things are fairly quiet right here. So why the hell are you here, exactly? You can blame this on Damian, he's the genius who insisted 'oh hey let's go for a walk!' and apparently decided to lead them this way. At some point during their walk he's taken to holding onto Nathan's arm, his footfalls slightly less sure of themselves and Damian himself just sort of mentally wandering off on his own, looking at things that aren't there and otherwise being an annoying cat. It might help if he wouldn't sniff at his catnip toys quite so much, but he can quit any time he wants to!

Nathan's grip on Damian's arm tightens just a little bit every time the shifter tries to wander off. "No you don't," he mutters through his teeth. "I can disappear, you've got no such luck."

Catnip toys which totally aren't Joel's fault. Just wait until we start bringing Damian pumpkins, though, which are apparently just like catnip! Imagine pumpkin pie! Joel seems relatively unperturbed by the the unprettyness of the neighborhood, moseying along with Hots D (He of the Sunny Disposition) and Damian. "Hey, where's my concern?" he asks of Nathan. "I can't disappear either."

Nathan says, “Yeah, but you're not in danger of wandering off after shiny things, either. I can only babysit one of you at a time.”

"Oh, sorry.." Damian mumbles, "I thought I saw a um. A thing." he says, more or less confirming Nathan's assumptions.

"What kind of thing?" Joel looks with interest in the direction Damian last twitchily looked, but apparently doesn't see much, and stops walking, eyeing their kitty friend. "Maybe we should walk somewhere else, huh? We're going for a walk, we went for a walk. We could continue it somewhere else, like the arboretum, where Damian could just scamper to his heart's content." Stupid Joel has no sense of how plots work!

Nathan says, “Yeah, you know, the thing about cities that have places called Warzones, they're not usually walking-around kinds of places. Even for us. What do you say we just go get some coffee now?”

"Heeeeey, that's what I was looking for. A bubble" Damian mumbles to himself, paying no attention at all to the other two's worries. He stops walking, pulling Nathan to a stop as well, which possibly stops even Joel. From up the street just a little ways, a man who would fit in just about anywhere comes out of a falling apart, darkened house, trots quickly down the sagging stairs and leaves the yard. Head down and hands stuffed quickly into his pockets, he doesn't seem in too big a hurry, perhaps on his way to a late night job. The house he leaves, however, couldn't possibly be livable, boarded up and with white, half ruined papers stapled in places that probably mark it a condemned structure. "Don't worry, brothers, we're right where we're supposed to be." Damian assures with a confidant smile.

Nathan shoots a look at Joel over Damian's head, managing to communicate with remarkably expressive silence 'why do we listen to this guy?'

"Whaaaat..." Whatever Joel was expecting for their nocturnal ambulations, this isn't it. This crappy-ass house that someone just scurried out of, cockroach like. Bubbles. Ruined paper. Joel Archer is city-renowned for having terrible judgement, and even he seems to have some reservations about this place. "Damian, what the hell. If you need to buy drugs or take a leak, there are better places to do either." Nathan gets a shrug. Joel doesn't know why they listen to Damian, either.

Nathan says, “Seriously. Damian. Let's just go and I'll buy you a coffee. Or some pot. Whatever.”

You say, “Or a coffee pot!”

Nathan releases Damian long enough to smack Joel on the shoulder. Some things are just important.

"The thing about warzones is that they need people like us walking around, some times." Damian says, looking upwards and around in a searching, fascinated sort of way. Nothing happens for a minute, and the cheetah looks like he's about to say something, possibly an agreement that they could just go, when suddenly from close by there's an explosion of gun shots; several booms from what might have been a shot gun all at about the same time. The man walking down the street is startled like crazy and bolts off at a run, and Damian is also pretty startled, jerking to cower slightly behind the musician. At the abandoned house, exposed bits of windows light up during the shots all over the house, and of course, it's all followed by the unearthly wail of, dun dun DUN! The daaaaamned. Or a crap stack of really startled stray cats. The noise lasts ten seconds, maybe less, before chopping suddenly into silence. "..Whoa. That was awesome." Says Damian.

Nathan is saying "No, no they don--" when all the shooting starts, and then it's nothing but reflex: /drop/, motherfucker, and take your friends down with you.

"Fuck!" Joel drops into a crouch, if not fully hitting the pavement, when the shooting starts, and looks around wildly for some kind of better cover. When the lights and the wailing start up, he stares, stares, stares at the house. Then when the silence hushes everything, Joel switches to staring at Damian. "What part was awesome? Cause I'm pretty sure I missed it."

Nathan hisses under his breath "I /really/ hate you sometimes," keeping a hand hard on each of Damian's and Joel's elbows.

Damian is made to kiss pavement easily, blinking his vision like mad and still seeming a bit on the blind or hallucinating side. "No you don't." Damian says, and when the silence carries on - there are of course no sounds of coming sirens in this neighborhood - "Don't worry, there's nothing living there yet." Damian assures, beginning to pick himself up while staring at the house with facinating, "Go and explore. It doesn't look all that inviting but it's not that bad."

Nathan remains on the pavement. "Uh. /No./"

"Go and /explore/?" Joel slowly rises, back to his feet and looking at Damian with alarm. "Really? Are you kidding? Why would I do that? People are getting shot around here. Having been shot before, I'm gonna go ahead and tell you it's /extremely/ uncomfortable." He looks at the house, and then back to Damian. "You don't even like houses. And this one makes strange-ass noises. I'm thinking that the amount of things that could go wrong here is a lot more deterring than the things which could go right are enticing."

Nathan says, “You're gonna have to talk me into that. What was that noise if there wasn't anyone in there? And the lights? Is this some cheetah thing?”

"No one got shot." Damian assures, but he could very well just be making that shit up. "That was just the bubble popping. This is one of those times where you get to decide to make a difference or not. It's a new wound on the great beast, it could become infected and spread, and later become unhealable altogether. We agreed we're fighting on the same side of the war, right? Well, here's a great oportunity to learn how to attack instead of just defend."

Nathan slowly gets up from the pavement. "Tools of the Unmaker, remember?" he says, indicating himself and Joel; but then he just mutters "Fuck my /life/," and starts walking toward the house. "What could possibly go wrong?"

''Damian pages: The house is dead quiet, and has an aura of disquiet about it, a certain vague living quality. For a house.''

''Nathan senses “Joel's aura was all about wariness, unhappiness, annoyance, Getting The Fuck Out Of Here. But it seems Damian has pushed /all/ the right buttons, and now the colors are guilty, concerned, compassionate.”''

''You sense Nathan's is whatever color is weary resignation to the fucking mess that IS his life.''

Joel's gaze seems to unfocus for a moment, like he's looking through the house rather than at it, then he snaps back to focus and frowns. "Aw, fuck," he says, then seems both surprised and relieved when Nathan is stepping towards the house. "What better than tools of the Unmaker to go fix the unmaking, right? We're like double fucking negatives, canceling shit out. Damian, what are the odds of you staying out of trouble?" He doesn't even wait for any particular answer, just trots forward with the intent to open the door before Nathan does. He's a better meatshield!

Nathan doesn't say much of anything after that, but he smacks at Joel's hand when the latter appears determined to beat him to the doorknob. It's a reflex. Unavoidable.

"That's the spirit!" Damian says, his sunny disposition unwavering, "I'll be *fine*, trust me!" Which is what gets people into these messes any how. Once free of Nathan, Damian gropes blindly to the side for a fence to hold on to, but *he* isn't going. The bastard.

''The house, a two story tall family affair with signs of a basement, is old and fallen into abandoned disrepair; its roof sagging and the stucco finish cracked and crumbling, its exposed walls dirty with neglect and rot. Its windows are largely boarded over, though several of the plywood sheets have come undone by nature or vandals, and the sheet, with its condemned property notice covering the front door has been removed entirely. The weed choked yard is dark with shadows wrapped by a rusted and battered chain link fence that has fallen over completely in some places. Cracked stones make an uneven pathway from the sidewalk, through a broken gate, towards the loose and leaning steps of the house. Its front door is wood with a trio of little beveled glass rectangles marching down its upper end. The house is dark and silent, devoid of human or animal sounds, its back door blocked by nailed plywood.<br>''
''Your obvious choices are:<br>''
''Run Away<br>''
''Front Door<br>''

''<OOC> Joel gets into a slap fight with Nathan before they go into the house.<br>''
''<OOC> Damian says, "hahahaha"<br>''

Nathan doesn't even /expect/ Damian to come; that, when he thinks about it later, presuming there is a later, will be the depressing part. "Quit it," he snaps at Joel, and opens the damn door. Turn to page 27...

''<OOC> Joel lols so bad.<br>''
''<OOC> Nathan says, "Us=dorks"<br>''
''<OOC> Joel says, "Quit it!"<br>''
''<OOC> Nathan says, ""YOU quit it!""<br>''

Nathan's getting mean about the doorknob, so Joel lets him open it and will suffer paroxysms of guilt when, by opening the front door, Nathan will become the first person to die in the horror movie. "Bit of a fixer upper," Joel remarks, looking around the exterior of the building. "Still though, you know, with some renovations, could be nice... Just gotta work on the curb appeal and screaming death wails, we could turn this place /right/ around."

''Stepping into the abandoned home, the scents of natural decay and dust assault your nostrils, not an altogether unpleasant smell, earthy with a hint of mold and dry rot, the scent of the unused, the forgotten and lonely. From just inside the front door, a hallway moves straight ahead through the house towards an ajar door that might lead to a kitchen, the bare edges of a small table and some counters can just be seen through the gloom. The hall is narrowed slightly near the front door, allowing a set of stairs to lead up to the cobwebby second floor. To the left, a set of French doors, closed, lead into a dark and moldering room with the scent dust, paper, and rotted leather, the dark forms of toppled shelves seen through the door's glass. To the right, another set of French doors, wide open, lead to a dusty living room, its visible furniture in terrible shape where it isn't broken altogether. Two smaller doors can be seen as well, one leading to the small storage space under the stairs, and the other to a modest but unremarkable bathroom.<br>''
''The dust on the hallway floor is recently disturbed, two clear sets of foot prints leading from the front door and through the open doors to the living room; a larger male boot tread, and a smaller, daintier female dress shoe, crossed again by the boot tracks on their way out. For the more acute senses, a faint whiff of alcohol, blood, and recent sex linger in the still air.<br>''
''Your obvious choices are:<br>''
''Run Away<br>''
''Living Room<br>''
''Reading Room<br>''
''Storage Closet<br>''
''Kitchen<br>''
''Upstairs<br>''

"Ha," Nathan says humorlessly, and steps through the door, sharpening eyes and ears all but automatically as he enters the dusty confines of The House. He sniffs lightly, observing "I don't smell gunpowder," under his breath; of all the catalog of things he can smell. The footprints- one set departing, one not- lead him toward the living room. Slowly.

Joel stalks in with the same alertness as Nathan, ensuring they're both screwed in the event of especially bright or loud stimuli. "Smells like a party," Joel observes. "A tasty, tasty party." Curious, he follows Nathan towards the living room!

''This was once a very nice living room with a fine, curtained view of the yard and street out front, though it's become in recent years a fine spot to have a few beers and make out. The couch here may be an unholy cousin of Joel's own; a spoiled greenish color the fabric was never meant to be, sagging at its middle and with unidentifiable stains on its ragged cushions with the occasional sight of some hideous little skittering bug. Its once matching arm chairs have had their legs broken out from under them, their warped arms and backs sitting at funny angles, a mass of splinters and broken wood and glass all that remains of the coffee table. Dust fills old tracks from visitors, discarded beer cans in many different states of rust are likely brought by the same folk, as are crumpled candy wrappers, used condoms, and a single tennis shoe. The chandelier is caked with webbing and stripped free of its crystal baubles, fallen slightly from the ceiling, and in the darkness the peeling wall paper bears a queasy resemblance to a series of long, interlocking teeth. The only other door in the room is slightly open, enough to reveal a little bit of a dining room beyond.<br>''
''The room is not empty, however, the body of a young woman lies sprawled on the bare floorboards, the still settling dust of her struggle slowly, slowly snowing down through the still air. Dressed nicely but for a night out on the town, she lies on her back, head dropped to one side. The hem of her long skirt rests near her splayed apart upper thighs and one of her shoes has broken a heel from kicking at the floor hard enough to leave gouges and score marks in the wood. Shirt torn slightly at the collar and long hair a wave of dusty dark brown on the floor above her head, a dual set of dark finger marks can be seen wrapped around her throat, and she has obviously been hit once or twice in the face, her dead expression one of great surprise and shock. A tooth, still wet with the woman's saliva, lies on the floor several feet from her body. A thin, oozing trickle of blood pours thickly and lifelessly from the corner of her mouth and one nostril onto the floorboards under her cheek, the still warm liquid seeping down through the cracks in the warped boards.''
''Your obvious choices are:<br>''
''Hallway<br>''
''Dining Room<br>''

Nathan stands in the doorway, looking at the dead woman with a moment of quiet pain, if not, sadly, of surprise. "Double negatives, huh?" he says quietly, and then steps back again to look around the space above and around. "That sound.. didn't come until after he killed her."

"Oh, god..." Joel crosses the room to kneel down by the poor woman's body, searching for signs of life that aren't there. "Oh, god. Beat and strangled in a creepy fucking house." Fingers touch lightly over the bruises on her neck, then Joel cradles her head with one hand, reaching with the other to try to close her dead eyes. "There are so many ways to die," he says quietly, timing of The Noise forgotten for now. "There are so many ways to die." He might be getting some of that still-warm blood on his hands, but seems to have no interest in it.

A quiet, irregular dripping sound begins beneith the floor, echoing too quietly for any but the best hearing, the remaining blood on the floor soaking into the parched wood and spreading quickly into a dark stain.

Nathan's attention is drawn back to Joel. Anything else here, no matter how awful or amazing, can wait. He crosses back to him, kneeling down to slip his arm awkwardly around Joel from the side, an attempt at comfort that he knows will be useless; but he has to, anyway. He doesn't say anything; he doesn't need to.

Joel makes an attempt to straighten the woman's skirt, positioning her arms and her head in a more restful position. Totally messing up the crime scene, in other words, but everyone knows WoD cops are useless unless they're corrupt or PCs! His aura aches for her, sadness and anger at the helplessness in arriving too late. "We should have come in sooner," he says unhappily, even though they of course had no way to know. "We should have been here. Is there a blanket, or something? We should cover her. Something's dripping," he adds, but Joel seems a little too distracted to pay that much mind.

Nathan doesn't reply; but he starts unbuttoning his overshirt. Totally incriminating himself, in other words, in addition to messing up the crime scene; but as he slips the shirt off to give to Joel he pauses for a second, looking hard at something just to the side. "Did you see that?"

Joel looks up, but it's too late. "What? No, I didn't see anything," he says, taking the shirt and gently placing it over the woman's battered face. It might be Nathan's shirt, but as he won't be leaving any hairs for DNA evidence, they'll find Joel's and conclude the two of them killed this chick together. Then they'll get a cell with a window and die when the sun comes up! PLOT TWIST. "What'd you see?"

Nathan says slowly "I don't know," turning away from Joel just a little bit. His previously hidden undershirt is now revealed to be a faded Residents t-shirt. "It looked like... a person, but I couldn't see much." He stands slowly, moving toward the place where he may or may not have seen anything.

A dripping, mirroring that under the floor boards, begins elsewhere in the house, the sound drifting through the still air to be bouncd and absorbed until just a trace of it drifts through the dining room door.

Joel looks sadly at the shirt-covered woman, as though he wants to say some words but can't think of anything. "I'm sorry," he finally whispers to her, before rising to his feet. "The dripping is... moving," he blinks. "What if that guy we saw leaving wasn't what killed that woman?" Joel casts a brief, worried look to Nathan, then walks toward the dining room!

Nathan stands in one spot for a moment, remarking only "Cold..." before he moves cautiously to follow Joel. "Damian said there isn't anything living here yet. Something about bubbles. Maybe this.. crime.. is calling something. And he wants us to attack instead of defend. I don't know about you but I don't think attacking is my calling."

"Then pray really hard," Joel suggests. He sounds somewhat serious.

Nathan says quietly "I am."

''Once a fine dining room worthy of entertaining guests and having one's employer over for a roast, this room hasn't escaped the ravages of either time or teenagers. An elegantly shaped dining chair sticks out of one wall, its legs soundly caught in the dead wiring that runs through the wall, several others toppled and broken, while a couple of others sit perfectly in place, untouched all these long years. The rug under the table is moth eaten and ragged, torn in places, its designs lost forever and leaving little more than the dull underweave to be seen. The table itself is a heavy and beautiful piece of craftsmanship, with carved legs ending in lion's paws, and delicate etching all along its polished edges. The table fairly glows with polish and care, not a scratch marring its perfect surface and a silken dining cloth drapes over the tables long sides and hides most of its middle. A banquet covers the dining table; a great roasted ham speckled with cloves and glazed in honey rests on a grand platter at the center of the table, the 'good china' laid out at each place whether there still be chairs there or not. Bowls of beans, mashed potatoes, gravy, a plate of flakey biscuits with a dish of butter, sweet potatoes and candied carrots all steam their silvery warmth into the air above them, filling the room with their freshly home made goodness, with wine in a couple of bottles ready to be poured. Serving spoons or forks in each dish stand ready to be used, and not a speck of dust mars a plate or glass.<br>''
''Two doors lead away from this room, a door with a handle leading to the living room at one end, and at the far end across from this, a door with no handle but a small glass window set at adult eye level, and built to swing both directions to make serving the dining room from the kitchen easier.''
''Your obvious choices are:<br>''
''Living Room<br>''
''Kitchen<br>''

Nathan says, “.....That's unusual.”

Joel stops, blinks, and stares. "Yeah," he says after a moment. "That's unusual." A pause, then, "I'ma eat something," Joel decides, with Joel Logic <tm>. He's reaching for a biscuit! "Then we'll know if it's real or a hallucination, right?"

Nathan says "Are you out of your fucking mind?" and goes to peer through the window on the kitchen door.

''<OOC> Damian dies''

"No more than usual," Joel says, and takes an experimental bite of the Delicious Flakey Biscuit.

Nathan squints through the window. "When that thing makes you go all 28 Days Later, don't blame me when I have to cut your head off."

"No one ever got zombieism from eating a biscuit," Joel defends his choice. "I'm already dead, anyway, what's the worst it can do? It can't even give me the runs."

''Damian pages: It may be paranoia due to Nathan, but you could swear the biscuit moved on your tongue. Just a little. But it's so delicious!''

Nathan turns away from the kitchen window, having not spotted anything of interest, and starts moving around the room looking for further cold spots. "Nobody ever got zombieism from eating a /normal/ biscuit. Does this--" he waves his hand around the room-- "scream 'normal' to you?"

"No, but it doesn't seem like zombies. I've met zombies, and there weren't any biscuits involved." Joel continues to munch the DFB, then stops, and stares at it. He turns the biscuit around, peeling it in half to examine its innards. Looks like a biscuit. He sets it down. "Nathan, hand me that ham."

Nathan says, “No!”

"I'm testing a hypothesis! Stop interfering with my efforts to figure out what the shit this food is," Joel replies. He's grabbed a fork, and he's gonna get his own ham!

Nathan warns "You're gonna explode or something." He stops near the edge of the room, listening. "Do you still hear that.. dripping?"

''Damian pages: Oh god it's definitely moving, pulsing slightly. And... doesn't really taste like ham. Meat, definitely, but not.. ham.''

Joel tries out the ham, thoughtfully... then freezes, and spits it out on the floor. He looks downwards, as though trying to determine whether it looks like anything other than chewed-up ham. "I don't hear it. And you're not going to like this."

The dual drips do persist, the one from under the living room floor boards, and one from further on in the kitchen. A slow, slugging sound.

Joel probably does hear it then. Dammit, Damian.

Nathan says "No. /Really?/" and cracks open the kitchen door, peering in cautiously.

"Yeah, okay, so, I ate the biscuit," Joel explains the results of his exhaustive scientific Creepy Food Discovery Process. "And it tasted great, like, that's a really fucking good biscuit. But it felt like it... moved. So I tried the ham." Cause that makes SENSE. "And it not only moves, it pulses. It's meat, but it's sure as fuck not ham."

It's pointless to say he told Joel so, so Nathan doesn't, but he does sigh very slightly.

"But we know something new, now," Joel justifies himself, lamely.

Nathan says, “You seen 'Alien'?”

"--Cant *do* this! --od damn it, those are my b--" A woman's distorted, tinny voice echos through the kitchen door when it's cracked open, overlapped by the arguing voice of a male, "--fix this! --ry!" And the distant, wavering boom of a shot gun and a tinny scream.

Joel stares! And leaps toward the kitchen! The world will never know if he's seen Alien.

Nathan's progress in opening the kitchen door has been more cautious than Joel's-- cracking the door an inch at a time-- but his more methodical approach to weird fucking shit may well be derailed by his more emotional counterpart.

''This kitchen was a house wife's dream long ago, built with plenty of space to putter about and dutifully serve one's husband and family with fine cooking. The linoleum on the floor is cracked and warped, peeling in places much like the Formica counter topping. Doors hang from cabinets or have fallen off completely to lie discarded on the floor, revealing dishes and cookware both cracked and whole, all caked in dust and providing homes for various insects. Dishes have spilled out onto the floor as well; some of the 'good china' lies shattered, the grand platter in jagged pieces with serving bowls toppled and snapped.<br>''''
A thick butcher's block sits atop the kitchen's disintegrating center island, dust free and unmarked by time, a shining cleaver with its point buried deeply in the wood standing sentinel over the kitchen. Thick, silken threads of a blood scented blackish red liquid bleed slowly and lifelessly up through the cleaver wound in the wood, sliding wetly up the polished blade before dripping up to a pool on the ceiling. The pool is small, only a bit larger than a dinner plate, but seems to ebb and rush with a weak pulse, tendrils of the gravity defying blood beginning to slide slowly and lazily like vines or the stupid feelers of a primitive insect across the ceiling, wriggling through the texture there and oozing upwards into small cracks and rotted holes.<br>''
''There are several doors leading from the kitchen; along one wall, a swinging door to the dining room, an ajar door with a handle leads into the ground floor's main hallway, as well as another swinging door with a great hole in its middle and a small, adult eye level window leading to a moldering play room. A warped back door blocked by nailed plywood would lead to the back yard but is rendered useless, and a smaller closed door with a knob presumably leads to a cellar or pantry through a side wall. Part of this last door is peppered with a million tiny holes as is the wall beside it, and sprayed with a dark, flaking rust stain that had run down the teeth-like wallpaper and pooled on the floor, smeared in many places as if by a downward sliding body.''
''Your obvious choices are:<br>''
''Dining Room<br>''
''Hallway<br>''
''Play Room<br>''
''Basement<br>''

Nathan barely takes a second to parse the contents of this room before snapping "And don't touch that!"

''<OOC> Joel dies!''

Joel rushes into the room with all the recklessness Nathan doesn't have, then freezes, and gapes. His gaze travels from the butcher block's wood-wound, up the cleaver and then the ceiling, at which he stares, aghast. But at least he isn't volunteering to start licking the blood so they know what species it came from. "Wh... what /is/ this place?"

Nathan says, mostly to himself, "One death," looking at the really extremely disturbing cleaver. "Two deaths," barely inclining his head back the way they came. "One bang, two bangs.. do you remember how many?" His eye turns toward the basement door; the basement, where the fresh blood must be pooling. "I think... this place is waking up."

"Why is it waking up?" Joel looks around, frantically. His powers are limited when there's nothing to hit. "How do we make it /not/ wake up?!"

Nathan says, “I'm just guessing. This obviously isn't the first murder that's happened in here. Damian's... Unmaker, however he described it, don't you think that's the kind of thing that'd draw it right the hell out? Unmaker-- demon, Satan, whatever you want to call it.”

"I have never understood anything less than I understand this," Joel despairs, hands reaching to his head in what seems a gesture of some distress. "The house is remembering who got murdered in it? You realize we're both here and we both got murdered, right? That can't be good. And how does any of it relate to pulsing meat biscuits?"

Nathan mutters "I'm making this shit up, okay? Maybe I'm right, maybe I'm wrong," he says, moving toward the basement door. "Fucking Satan can't keep my shirt," he adds under his breath.

Joel hunches his shoulders somewhat unhappily. A last look around the kitchen, which is still devoid of problems he knows how to solve, and then Joel follows his favorite apostle towards the basement.

Joel's last little brief scan around the room seems to be enough to catch the sight of peril! "NATHAN!" he yells, and then everything explodes into motion and chaos -- the cleaver freeing itself from the wood and flinging itself towards the musician, Joel flinging himself in turn at the cleaver. He manages to catch it before it chops Nathan in the back, clinging to its bloody handle. His fangs are out and he looks a little freaked, which is perhaps understandable as the thing struggles against his grip.

Nathan whirls around at Joel's shout, dropping into an instinctive half-crouch, his eyes the size of saucers and not small ones either as he turns around in time to see Joel wrestling with the bloody cleaver. He grabs for the bloodstained butcher block, working to jam it back in front of the blade and try to keep it there long enough for him to open the basement door.

"Kill it!" Joel shouts, irrationally, as Nathan attempts to affix the bloody blade in its block again. "Kill it with GOD! Say something holy at it, Nathan!"

The cleaver wriggles in Joel's hand, a living thing straining to turn and attack the thing holding it. It was *about* to hatchet itself some vampire face when Nathan's brilliant thinking instead causes it to chop soundly into the wood with a meaty splating sound. Joel is instead given nothing more than a wooden tap to the face instead, lucky bastard. Still the cleaver struggles, and tries to wrench itself free, making vaguely squishy sounds in the block's wound.

Nathan joins in the fight with the blade, a struggle that would no doubt be comical if it weren't so deathly bizarre. "I'm not an exorcist!" he half-yells; the blade struggles against the block and Nathan starts to sing to it, to Joel, to the house, to himself. My spirit looks to God alone, my rock and refuge is his throne (Russia, 107)

Joel winces and prepares for the worst, but is saved from a head-cleaving by Nathan's skill with a butcher block. He continues to hang on to the cleaver, staring at it in horror as Nathan sings and it struggles. Squishsquish. "What do we do?" he asks, the singing apparently soothing him enough that his fangs disappear with a quiet 'snik' sound. "Do we have to take it with us now?"

Nathan says "What, like it's a pet? It's not a pet! Can we-- I don't know, tie it in there with something?" He almost starts laughing at the stupidity of his life, and starts in on verse two. Trust him, ye saints, in all your ways; pour out your hearts before his grace.

"This is the worst pet ever," Joel groans, hands now smeary with blood -- the woman's, the cleaver's. Most unappetizing blood ever. "Go get your shirt off the lady, we can tie it into the block with that."

Nathan strips off his t-shirt instead. It's just a lot fucking faster.<br>
AND HAWTER AMIRITE<br>
YOU KNOW YOU WANT IT

With the amount of frantic struggling, pushing and pulling from both sides, the cleaver is doomed to be soundly embedded in its block whether it like it or not. Which it does not. It wriggles in a desperate attempt to free itself and rend the undead, but it's thwarted by a fucking *teeshirt* for crying out loud. Seriously, it has no arms, it cant get out of this. God damned teeshirt. The singing may not have caused any noticable effect beyond the house itself groaning and settling. Perhaps it wants to sing too!

Nathan sacrifices another piece of clothing to bind the struggling cleaver into place as tightly as he possibly can. The singing made /him/ feel better anyway. He resumes trying to open the basement door for Godsake.

Joel holds the knife into the block while Nathan, sexy mediterranean bod half nekkid, ties it into place. Opening a kitchen cupboard, Joel throws the knife block in there and closes the door, provided the cupboard isn't filled with bodies or something. "Nathan, hold up a sec."

Nathan holds up a sec.

Joel shrugs out of his leather jacket, and extends it towards Nathan. "Put this on. It's enchanted, and maybe it'll help if you get cleavered again. Plus I think it's easier to face evil when you're wearing something."

Nathan points out "I faced Kurt Cobain wearing less than this," but he puts the jacket on anyway.

"Kurt Cobain wasn't an evil fucking house," Joel points out, now prepared to follow Nathan into the basement.

Nathan says "No. But he was an asshole." To the CREEPY BASEMENT.

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