Delta Green: And the Darkness Spoke, session 2

Last night we played session two of “And the Darkness Spoke.” We had endless technical difficulties. I was handling that (Shane Ivey here), and I had spent the whole day dealing with other troubles and had no time to get it right. The result was that the recording only had audio from me, not the other players, making it useless. I’m posting this recap instead. You can view Episode 1 of “And the Darkness Spoke” at twitch.tv/arc_dream.

The characters are FBI agents with the Behavioral Sciences Unit in June, 1986. They worked together on a Delta Green case a year ago, investigating the “Red Death” serial killer.

• AGENT JAMES ALTEN: A young psychologist who has become obsessed with the notion that supernatural, or unnatural, forces are at least as powerful as human neurology. White male, age 32.
• AGENT DAVID GREENE: An ex-cop and Vietnam veteran with a troubled past. He’s burly and strong, but a pronounced limp slows him down. White male, age 48.
• AGENT JIM KILLIAN: A former classics teacher, educated at Columbia. He joined the FBI seven years ago out of a sense of public duty when his grandfather, a Navy man, passed away. White male, age 38.
• AGENT LORRAINE TIGNELLO: A physician and forensic pathologist who became fascinated with death after losing her parents very young. African American female, age 34.

Agents Alten and Killian went to the Grolier Club. It was already closed for the night, but Killian walked around it slowly, looking for security measures. It was the only occupant of a three-story, standalone building wedged between two taller structures. In back, an alley ran between it and the backs of taller office buildings. A chain-link fence blocked access to a small, grassy smoking yard and the club’s bright-red back door. Killian saw alarm tape on the windows but no security cameras.

Agents Tignello and Greene stumbled out of the Jamaica Bay waters. It was a long slog. They didn’t want to go through the gangsters they had met earlier. Eventually they made their way back up to an embankment under an overpass and began the hike back to their car. They drove back to the hotel. Greene paged Alten and Killian, who were driving back from Manhattan and quickly found a payphone. They advised them to get Tig to the nearest hospital.

At Jamaica Bay Medical Center, the doctors examining Tig became very worried that she might have an unknown parasite in her throat. Probing, they dislodged something. Tig began heaving as she felt something crawl down her throat. More senior doctors began to gather on the suspicion of a parasite and the chance that the hospital must file a report with the Port Authority. Tig waited until only a junior doctor was around and talked her into thinking it was a misunderstanding. Tig and Greene fled the hospital and returned to the hotel.

Alten and Killian reached the hospital an hour later. The senior doctor on duty scolded them for their friend leaving and said she must come back for examination. They made excuses, suspecting Tig of getting drunk or overreacting, but said they would tell her to come back. Tig and Greene had not given their names and neither did Alten or Killian.

Alten and Killian found Tignello and Greene at the hotel. They closed the curtains, sat down, and went over what happened. Tig downplayed it. She said she was feeling better, and never mentioned feeling something crawl down her throat. Greene had seen what happened. He was skeptical. He asked if she needed a closer examination or an x-ray. She shrugged and said maybe.

Everyone jumped as something hit the window, hard. It made a sharp, metallic sound. After a moment, they saw and heard the doorknob move as someone outside tried it and found it locked. No one said anything. There was another crash against the window. Someone outside began pressing against the door.

The agents drew pistols. Alten peaked from the side of the curtains and saw vague, dark shapes milling on the walkway. Four or five people, maybe, staying in shadows. They moved like the miserable shapes Greene and Tig had seen at the Disaster House. Greene said they had not liked bright lights.

The agents had adjoining rooms. Killian opened the door between them and went into the room he shared with Alten. He left the lights off but got his Polaroid camera from his briefcase. He opened the camera and held it in one hand and his revolver in the other. He looked out that room’s curtains but could not discern much more. The intruders were clustered around the other room’s door and not watching his.

An aluminum trash-can lid came flying up from the parking lot and smashed into the other room’s window. The intruders pressed against the door. Then the power and lights went out entirely. Light shone from the parking lot lamps and threw shuffling shadows against the curtain.

The other agents followed Killian into his room. He quietly unlatched the door and nudged it open. The intruders were focused entirely on the other door and did not notice. They looked like the withered addicts of the Disaster House. One of them was smearing something on the door.

The agents rushed out the door and to the nearby stairs. Greene, always slowest with his limp, hustled the the front because he had a flashlight in hand. He turned it on as they went down the black stairs.

Their cars were nearby. Killian walked to the trunk of his car, holstered his pistol, and got out his keys.

“There you are!” A cheerful, British voice called out. Everyone started and stared.

The enormous, hairless, diseased man from the Disaster House stood less than ten yards away. He still wore rags. For a moment, he held his arms out like a crucifixion. Then he began shambling toward Killian, and then noticed Tig. “Darling,” he said, and went toward her.

A body hit the ground with an ugly sound. One of the crackheads had leapt from the second-floor walkway. He stirred with an obviously broken leg. Others had turned and were clambering over the railing. Another smashed onto the roof of Killian’s car, shattering the front-windshield glass.

The next few minutes were chaos. Greene limped to the other car. Alten and Tyg shot at the fat man. They saw a bullet hit his neck and spray blackness from the exit wound onto Killian’s broken windshield. The fat man wagged a disapproving finger and shambled at Tig in a run, but his feet stumbled. She dodged away in panic and ran to Greene’s car.

Other addicts landed. Killian flashed them with his Polaroid. The crackheads recoiled for a moment. The fat man did not seem to mind.

Killian scrambled into the damaged car, despite the crazed, shuffling shapes atop it. He heard the rear windshield smash as one of them landed. Then the left rear window broke as another smashed through it and began to crawl in. Alten shot and killed a crackhead on the hood of the car.

The fat man stumbled against Killian’s car as he pursued Tig. The car lurched and shook with the impact.

Killian fastened his seat belt, got the car going, and gunned it in reverse, fishtailing wildly across the parking lot. One of the crackheads lost his grip and fell away. The one in the back windshield clambered in.

Greene’s car pulled out. He expertly swerved near Alten and screamed for him to get in. Alten jumped into the car. Greene peeled out, then stopped a hundred yards away. Killian’s car had not moved.

The addict had crawled over the back seats and grabbed Killian from behind. Killian drew his revolver but fumbled with it in the struggle and it fell to the floorboards. He wrestled with the addict clumsily, then screamed as diseased nails raked a wound across his cheek. He gunned the car again, still in reverse, over the sidewalk and into the busy boulevard. He kept the gas pedal slammed to the floor and steered wildly. Cars whipped by, honking and swerving. Then in a terrific crash the car slammed into a concrete embankment on the far side. The impact shook Killian painfully, but his seat and belt saved him. The addict was crushed as the back of the car crumbled.

Other cars had begun to stop on the boulevard. Killian shakily found his pistol and camera and stumbled out. His face and suit were covered in blood. A man in jeans and a baseball cap jogged over, holding his hands up. “I’m a paramedic,” he said. “You’ve been hurt. Sit down.”

Killian waved the man off. “That motherfucker tried to steal my car,” he said, eyes wild. “He’s still in there. Stay back.”

A man from a pickup truck came over, too, an off-duty firefighter, ready to help. Killian pulled up the ruined trunk of his car enough to pull out the duffel bag that held a shotgun and other supplies. He dumped the camera into it.

Greene, Tig, and Alten saw the huge, fat man walking across the motel parking lot toward them. Greene said, “Hell with this. Buckle up.” He gunned the car directly at the man. Tyg closed her eyes and screamed. Alten shouted, urging Greene on.

As the car barreled toward the man, he smiled and held his arms out in a crucifix pose once more. What happened next was seen clearly by Greene and Alten, and by the off-duty paramedic across the street, and by a few stopped drivers. Tig’s eyes remained shut. Killian and others were not watching.

It was like space inside and around the fat man twisted in on itself. A shape emerged, like a warp in the air and light itself, an elongated shape from which pseudopods sprouted.

With a clear view of reality being unmade, Greene and Alten felt something in their minds shift and break. Then the shape in the air was gone. The car lurched over whatever remained of the fat man on the ground. Greene had the presence of mind to slam on the brakes beyond it.

The firefighter near Killian had caught only a glimpse. He yelled, “What the hell was that?” A few drivers were screaming.

Killian hadn’t seen it, but he had felt something. “I don’t know,” he said, blinking blood away, scrambling for an excuse or distraction. “Maybe nothing. What’s in the water around here, anyway?” He was feeling desperate.

The paramedic near them was worse. He had fallen to his knees and was pressing his palms against his eyes, making a miserable sound. Then he began digging a thumb into one eye as if to grind it out.

Killian said, “God damn it. Help him.” He and the firefighter ran over and tried to restrain the man. The paramedic struggled madly. Killian tried to handcuff him, but the man shoved them both back. He surged to his feet and delivered a karate-style kick, hard, into the firefighter’s neck. The firefighter crumbled.

The paramedic screamed, “Keep off me! Don’t fucking touch me!” Killian backed off, holding his hands up and saying it was all right. The paramedic began kicking the fallen firefighter. Killian drew his pistol, rushed over, and pistol-whipped the paramedic behind the ear. The man stumbled and fell. He began crawling away, confused.

Greene swerved around cars and pulled to a screeching stop nearby. He yelled, “Let’s go!”

Killian staggered over with his duffel bag and pistol, looking around at the chaos. They heard sirens approaching. He shook his head. “Maybe we should stay and explain this. A gang hit or something.” His face and suit were a blood-crusted mess.

Greene said, “Get in and we’ll figure it out. We have to get away from here.”

Killian got in. Greene floored it and drove into Long Island. No one in the car spoke. After a while, Greene found a dark parking lot and pulled over. Tig had a medical kit. She did her best with Killian’s face. She sterilized the wounds as Killian grimaced and howled, did the best stitching she could, and gave him antibiotics and painkillers. She said he needed hospital treatment, or those fingernail-wounds would infect and leave terrible scars.

A little while later, the strung-out agents pulled into an all-night diner. They shambled in and sat at a table. They did their best to think.

The next game is next Wednesday night, 29 FEB 2018. If we resolve the technical difficulties, we will stream it live on Twitch and post the recording on YouTube a day or two later.