Originally shared by Peter G. Ghazarian
#Actualplay of #tremulus
Hazel Falls, episode #3
In the two weeks since the Chapel burned down and Preacher White disappeared, life appears to have quieted down a bit in Hazel Falls. The Captain had his gunshot looked at by a proper doctor from Gainesville, Doc Mull, and as he was a little short on funds, owes the Doc a favor. Feeling better, the Captain decided to do some investigating in his spare time into Lucy Kent and discovered she was a shy, unattractive shut-in who had been quite close with the missing McDaniels girl despite their age difference. Before her suicide, she had been spending a lot of time closed up in her room.
Amy spent the two weeks relaxing at her aunt’s home and carefully reading through Lucy’s diary. Though Amy can sense there is something important hidden in its pages detailing a budding first love, she is disturbed by the accompanying sense of dread and descriptions of what must be molestation and rape that pepper the text. Amy quietly shared this finding with Sebastian, but kept it from the men.
Traveling Jason Freely has taken the fortnight to ward off any police suspicions about his involvement with the suspected arson of the First Baptist Chapel. In fact, he managed to manipulate the Sheriff’s interrogations to learn about McCreely’s rocky relationship with his wife. Sheriff called of the arson investigation into Old Paul and Freely in exchange for promises of some future help in dealing with the Sheriff’s problems with the missus.
Meanwhile, Sebastian has been haunted by strange dreams and a horrible sense of guilt about the disappearance of Preacher White after she left him at the Chapel. She met with Jason to talk about her concerns over brunch at Louie’s Diner, and Jason urged Sebastian to let her worries go and simply enjoy the pancakes. As the Captain and Amy arrived to join them for the meal, the new waitress, Maryann, overheard their discussion as she poured their coffee and said she’d heard news of sightings of the Preacher out by the Nawauk Woods. After some fast talking on Jason’s part, Maryann let them know that Cletis Lowell had been the one to have seen him out there most.
Jason headed out at that point to take care of some business — and managed to get the keys to the Captain’s town car. He used the car to do ply his wares out in the tobacco fields to the sharecroppers, but didn’t manage to sell much. He did find a large, strange carving on a tree at the edge of the Nawauk Woods facing inward that matched a similar wordcut print in his strange Cyrillic book “Six Candles, Seven Shadows.” Then he headed to the ruins of the Chapel to look around.
Back at Louie’s, Amy was surprised when an out-of-towner wearing a fedora and a crumpled corduroy suit made eye contact, clearly recognized her, and then abruptly turned around to leave. Amy told the Captain and Sebastian she’d be right back and ran after the man. After a bit of chatting, he claimed to have seen her photograph before from an associate at his firm and Amy could tell the man would be investigating her. She shared this information with the Captain and Sebastian back at the restaurant. The three of them decided to drive up to Lowell’s plot to talk with him about seeing the Preacher up that way.
After getting ready, the trio took Sebastian’s car and came across Jason getting ready to poke around the ruins of the chapel. They stopped and talked a bit and the Captain decided he woudld drive his own vehicle up to the Lowell’s place. Jason told the women to go on ahead and that he and the Captain would join them shortly thereafter. Reluctantly, Amy and Sebastian had Sheffield drive them up to the Lowell place.
At the ruins of the chapel, Jason and the Captain poked around and found a tunnel of some kind under one of the dislodged flagstones. Using Jason’s flashlight, they could see a rickety old staircase descending to a very old door. They decided to go for more supplies before going further, and went to Joe Cole’s Pawn Shop to get them.
Sebastian and Amy arrived at the Lowell plot and struggled to make small talk with Cletis, who was curious about what they were doing out there. They pressed Cletis to speak with Tom, his son (and only family) about having seen the Preacher out in the woods naked and all covered in mud. Cletis reluctantly agreed and took them back into his house. They were surprised to see the windows had been nailed shut and the door had been barred to prevent the boy from leaving his room. As they approached the door, they all heard a strange gurgling sigh or gasp come from the room and Cletis rushed to get the door open. Tom was lying on the floor bleeding from a neck wound, and clasping a letter cutter in his hand. Two angry, red wounds marred his face where the boy’s eyes should be. Cletis panicked, pulled his boy out, wrapped him in a tablecloth and insisted Sebastian and Amy take him to see a doctor. They drove him to Tracy Alcott’s and she had her family veterinarian look after the boy. When Cletis couldn’t pay for the help, Tracy said she would waive the bill if Sebastian would help her to arrange a rendezvous between the Captain and his now-married high school sweetheart, Louisa Mae.
Jason and the Captain returned to the strange stairs beneath the Chapel now with a 30 foot length of rope, an oil lantern, and a crowbar in tow. On the way down, Jason managed to collapse the rickety old stairs, but the Captain caught him with the rope harness they had prepared and lowered Jason the rest of the way down. Freely set to smashing out the stuck door at the bottom of the stairs with the crowbar, hurting himself a little in the process. The door opened into a damp, packed dirt and gravel floored hallway with four doors. Jason checked the first door on the left only to find it was trapped with a guillotine-like blade. As he started to look around the hallway, he heard a strange sound just as the entrance into the hallway collapsed, trapping him inside. In the aftermath of the collapse, Jason heard a strange clicking and scratching sound come from behind one of the far doors.
Sebastian and Amy returned Cletis back to his home and when to go check on what was keeping the Captain and Jason. They arrived just as the Captain started trying to remove the stones trapping Freely. The effort seemed to be going well, until suddenly as the Captain was leaning against one of the side walls of the chamber, it collapsed outward and he fell 20 ft to a pool of shallow water and rubble, hitting his head and knocking him out cold. Sebastian and Amy panicked, unsure what to do.
Meanwhile, Jason heard the horrible, unearthly clicking and scratching sounds drawing closer, and tried to get away from it. He intentionally triggered the blade trap on the door and then rushed in to find a strange stone ritual room of some kind with a large font on one wall, a raised stone dais, and grooves of some kind in the floor. Looking around the room, Jason found an odd scroll, that upon closer inspection, seemed to be etched onto a leather made of a baby’s skin.
Sebastian and Amy descended down into the ruined starwell and looked through the collapsed side well down the well shaft the Captain had fallen down. They tried to determine how they could down to help him when they noticed Jason’s flashlight also shining into the basin of the well from another access shaft (through the font in the room Jason was in). Their conversation echoed and woke the Captain, who was confused. Jason decided to look around the room he was in further, and while doing so, the door to the room he was in opened to reveal an impossibly thin, white, mottled humanoid figure with a large, flaccid but disproportionate penis tinged slightly yellowish and a wrinkled grapefruit-sized head peering at him through the now-opened door. Jason began screaming uncontrollably and backed away into the corner of the room as the creature approached, caressed his cheek, and pulled the copy of “Six Candles, Seven Shadows” out of Jason’s pocket and took it with it as it left.
Frantic from Jason’s screams, the Captain tried to look for a good place to climb out of the well basin, but struggled to find one. Meanwhile, Sebastian and Amy set to work finishing the job of unblocking the collapsed passage from the entry room with the hallway further in. As they worked, neither paid very close attention to the rope dangling down into the hole that they had climbed down on. After clearing the passage, they were both shocked when they turned to find the rope was gone.