The room is dark. No lights. I’ve lit candles. A soft, but disturbing, droning tone comes from my laptop in the corner. I begin by telling this story.
It was 1981 and I was living in Ames, Iowa. I walked into Spencer’s Gifts with ten dollars in my pocket. On the shelf, I saw a large, white box with a cover that said "Call of Cthulhu." I thought I knew what that meant. I’d read the story in the library. I took down the box and discovered Spencer’s was trying to get rid of it; they ordered it by mistake. I bought it for ten bucks.
I took it home and read all the way through it. I didn’t quite understand it all, but I brought some friends over and we figured it out together. Because I bought it, we decided that I should be the Keeper (the GM). And I ran my first roleplaying game. My first game of Call of Cthulhu.
In college, I was the guy who ran Cthulhu. Other guys ran D&D or Traveller or Twilight: 2000, but I was the guy who ran Cthulhu. I’d show up in a black suit and I’d do my best to scare the living begeezuz out of them.
Ever since then, I’ve tried to keep a tradition. Every Halloween, I dress up in a black suit, I get a group of friends together, and I run Cthulhu. I’ve neglected the tradition the last few years, but I’m starting again tonight. The first of four short stories. Tonight, we begin…
Then, I had all four of them stand together holding hands. They closed their eyes and bowed their heads. As they waited patiently, an unearthly voice (powered by Garage Band) echoed around them.
I AM THE KEEPER OF THE WAY.
THE DOOR IS OPEN.
I used John Tynes’ "In Medias Res" from The Unspeakable Oath magazine as an inspiration. I told the players to open their eyes. At their feet was a picture of the Yellow Sign. I told them they were naked and covered in blood. Four of them. Two men and two women. At their feet, in the middle of the circle was a man with a strange symbol carved into his chest. (The aforementioned Sign.) Also, his face had been carved off, leaving just the muscle and bone beneath.
They did now know who they were or where they were or when they were. They had no memories. And one of them was wearing the detatched face of the dead man.
She’s wearing the dead man’s face.
She’s also got something in her mouth. Oh, yeah. It’s his detached tongue.
They remained there for almost a minute. Not speaking. Uncertain what to do. Eventually, they started asking questions, but they kept hold of each other. I can’t tell you why. The lights were out, they were together in a dark room. There was a dead man right there. They had no idea what to do. And they did not let go of each other.
After a minute or two, they started asking me questions. "Where are we?" "What’s around us?" "What time of day is it?"
In a barn. Hay. It is night.
Eventually, they dropped hands. Two of them went to opposite corners of the room. The couple sat down together, holding hands. I was worried until I saw they were smiling. Smiling, holding hands, sitting very close together. Like a couple at a scary movie. Excellent.
The girl peels the skin off her face and takes the tongue out of her mouth. They find a batch of clothes in the corner of the barn. Four jumpsuits, each with their last names stitched on the breast. And on the back? It says, "ARKHAM ASYLUM FOR THE CRIMINALLY INSANE."
One of them puts the jumpsuit back on. He’s saying, "I didn’t do this," to himself. Then, he asks me, "Is the dead man wearing a uniform?"
I tell him, "He is."
"Does he have a gun?" he asks.
I shake my head. "No," I tell him. "The gun is missing."
They all put their jumpsuits on. One of them has the gun in his pocket. The girl with the skin on her face has a knife in hers.
That’s when one of them spots a man wearing a black suit standing near the cornfield. He turns to tell the others, and the man is gone.
At this point, I think it is important to note that none of the players has a character sheet or dice in front of them. They will not reference a single piece of paper or roll a single die for the rest of the night.
From that point, things went downhill fast.
The Man in Black came to each of them, reminding them why they were in the Asylum.
"Your mother cut out your tongue for being a naughty girl."
"Remember the children you buried under the porch?"
"The old woman in the attic…"
One by one, he reminded them all. And when they asked, "Why are you here?" he answered, "Because you called me."
One of them found a car driven into a ditch. Two bodies in the trunk: a woman and a young girl, both very dead. Blood in the back seat.
And then, headlights coming down the old, dirt road. A pickup truck full of men returning from a hunt with shotguns and rifles.
And the Man in Black tells each of them–when each of them are alone–that he will keep his promise to help them escape… if they kill the other three.
The girl with the knife hides in a closet. When the woman comes upstairs looking for clothes, she opens the closet and the knife sinks into her throat.
One down.
The girl with the knife hides in the attic… where she sees the old woman and the woman she just killed, her knife freshly cut.
"I found a way out," the woman with the cut throat says.
One of the men climbs the stairs of the attic, sees the girl talking to no-one. He walks up silently behind her, puts the barrel of the pistol against the back of her head and pulls the trigger. Her face and brains splatter against the wall.
Two down.
The hunters hear the sound of the gunshot. They rush toward the house. The other man, still hiding in the kitchen, rips off the gas hose behind the stove and lights a match, rushing out the back door. The house explodes, throwing the man with the gun through the window, glass ripping open his throat.
The man with the gun tries to shoot his fellow inmate, but the hunters beat him to it. Then, he turns the gun on himself, puts it in his mouth and…
… it’s quiet in the asylum. They don’t put any mirrors in his room because it upsets him when he sees what’s left of his face.
But his friends come to see him. They smile and giggle and point.
And the Man in Black comes, too. With his dark eyes and maddening smile.
As I said above, this chapter was directly inspired by "In Medias Res," a scenario written by John Tynes in the pages of The Unspeakable Oath magazine. I used the opening scene and changed little bits, but it belongs to Mr. Tynes.
Thanks, John. Together, you and I scared the begeezuz out of them. And they can’t wait for next week.