Jagger "Jag" Crowe (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
jaglikethecar) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
thesphererp2019-01-27 10:40 pm
jaglikethecar) wrote in thesphererp2019-01-27 10:40 pm
Entry tags:
Jagger Crowe » Memory Share » Network 001
[You should have known this was only going to go badly from the beginning. In fact, as you approach the door of the seemingly innocuous home in suburban Birmingham, Alabama you already think your partner, Chuck, has wasted this very nice family’s time. You take note of the Big Wheel parked haphazardly against the painfully domestic garage door, which you assume with no proof houses at least one SUV. You remind yourself as you ascend the front steps behind your ever-optimistic partner that this family, the mother you think, contacted you, that Chuck’s blog on your exploits seemed real enough to her that she reached out to you for help. Of course, you also remind yourself that Chuck convinced you to go through with this. You’ve never advertised, or offered help at all, related to your investigations into the paranormal. Up until this point, to Chuck ringing a stranger’s doorbell five minutes prior to the appointment time, you’d only ever visited abandoned places claimed to be haunted. In that time, you’d found a grand total of three. Sure, the Internet had had a field day, sure some local access station had contacted Chuck about doing something or something with something which you’d vehemently (maybe a little harshly) declined, but that was residual. The idea of walking into a stranger’s house, touching their things…what else would your abilities tell you about them? You don’t want to know, even as an exceptionally exhausted woman in her mid-thirties opens the door nearly as soon as Chuck rings the bell. You don’t want to know, but he’s dragged you here, and you’re going to have to find out.
She invites you inside and you follow dutifully behind your friend and sometimes confidant, but you aren’t paying attention to the prattling small talk she’s using to mask the nervousness of calling the two of you here. You’re both younger than I expected. Awkward laughs all around. She’s home alone. That doesn’t mean we’re inexperienced, Chuck responds, laughing just as nervously. Way to seem like a professional, Chucky. I’m sure that did wonders for her confidence. No, no, she retorts quickly, motioning in the edge of your vision to further illustrate her insistence, I never would have thought that. But she’s quiet soon and you feel her eyes on you as your eyes explore the pictures in her entryway. Here is one when the son was younger, two or three, smiling in his PJ Masks t-shirt, clinging to the blond woman’s side as she struggles to hold an ice cream cone in one hand and take a selfie with the other. And here’s another, the boy older, another selfie with mum, this one just outside the school bus for what you assume is the first time. She's more tired in this one.]
"We're happy to help, Miss Porter." [You pull your attention from the photographs as Chuck does his model best to garner your hostesses (client's?) attention. His auburn hair, blue eyes, and tall muscular physique usually went a long way to set people at ease in his day job (as a mattress salesman) and you can tell he's doing his best to use that to his advantage here. You offer Suzy Homemaker (Miss Porter, right?) your best smile, even though you're pretty sure you have no business being here.] "I'm Chuck Wagner, as you know. We spoke on the phone."
[She gives you an uncertain sideways glance before looking back to Chuck, in his white button down and sweater vest that you keep telling him makes him look like a creepy missionary, dark circles marring a face in her...late-thirties framed by a mid-length bob, blond, and slightly wavy, though the sort that suggested Miss Porter normally spent more time on it. She's tired, but she nods, forcing a smile (this is a woman who's used to forcing an 'everything's okay' smile from the look of it. That could be important).]
We did, Mr. Wagner and you...mentioned your partner...
[Chuck saves the day again as you give the conversation your full attention, as he motions in your direction.] "Please, Chuck's fine, and yes. This is my partner, Jagger Crowe." [You wince even before Chuck makes his joke.] "You could say he's the psychic brawn to my brains."
[You breathe a sigh and shake your head.] If it isn't painfully obvious, Miss, Chuck isn't exactly experienced with clients. [And you keep talking before Chuck's sound of objection turns into anything more.] You contacted us because there's something going on here you can't explain, right?
[Relief floods her face as you speak, and she nods vigorously.] Yes, God. It...are you sure I can't get you anything...?
[Chuck shakes his head.] "No, but is there somewhere we can have a seat? I'd like you to tell us everything, from the beginning, and I'd like to record it. Is that alright?"
Yes, of course. [You're led into a sitting room, here and there dotted with children's' toys, a rifled newspaper on the coffee table, more family pictures across the mantle. Chuck makes quick work of setting up the recording equipment and begins to ask her the same questions you know are necessary but still annoy you. "Can you please state your name for the record?" and on. She does so, "Caitlyn Porter". And then she begins to tell you both about how it started 6 months ago, with scratches, and how her husband called an exterminator, thinking they'd gotten squirrels in the attic but they'd found nothing, then it was a smell, normally down the hall from her room always moving. Your eyes scan the mantel again as she speaks, as though drawn there. Something is out of place. Chuck asks a question that had been idling at the back of your mind for a while. "Where is your husband, Miss Porter?" You vaguely notice her insisting Chuck call her 'Cait' before your eyes find it. There. At the end of the mantel. Some small voice in the back of your mind is wondering why anyone would have such an obvious horror movie prop on their mantelpiece, but you stand regardless, moving closer to the doll, chest moving quicker with your breathing which you barely notice. Even as you speak, you begin to remove the black leather glove from your right hand. You don't have to touch things with your bare skin to get an impression from them, but the glove's presence helps you control it.]
Please, don't touch that! [Her voice sounds quiet, like someone turned down the volume, and Chuck's even more so.] "That's sort of his job, Cait."
[The last thing you remember before your mind is flooded with images and the world falls away is the doll is warm to the touch, like flesh. Then, waves of ebony darkness flood your vision, viscus, undulating, seething with rancid meat and clotted blood. They surge forth, liquid but solid, wrapping themselves around your arm, encircling your body, your limbs are heavy with it, and as they begin to seeth around your head, filling your nostrils and mouth with their filth, you know it wants to consume all that you are, that they are, that is.
Strong hands, solid through the semi-liquid ichor, grasp your shoulders, pulling you from the flood, a voice, masculine, tries to pierce through the blackness, becoming clearer the farther they pull you from the drowning pool of death. '-ger!' 'Jagger! Can you hear me?! Jagger!'
Light pierces through the blackness finally, and his voice becomes clearer, though still muffled, and someone is screaming. It isn't until reality finds its way back to you, with its harsh angles and finite surfaces, and a rising burning in your throat that you realize it's you.]
She invites you inside and you follow dutifully behind your friend and sometimes confidant, but you aren’t paying attention to the prattling small talk she’s using to mask the nervousness of calling the two of you here. You’re both younger than I expected. Awkward laughs all around. She’s home alone. That doesn’t mean we’re inexperienced, Chuck responds, laughing just as nervously. Way to seem like a professional, Chucky. I’m sure that did wonders for her confidence. No, no, she retorts quickly, motioning in the edge of your vision to further illustrate her insistence, I never would have thought that. But she’s quiet soon and you feel her eyes on you as your eyes explore the pictures in her entryway. Here is one when the son was younger, two or three, smiling in his PJ Masks t-shirt, clinging to the blond woman’s side as she struggles to hold an ice cream cone in one hand and take a selfie with the other. And here’s another, the boy older, another selfie with mum, this one just outside the school bus for what you assume is the first time. She's more tired in this one.]
"We're happy to help, Miss Porter." [You pull your attention from the photographs as Chuck does his model best to garner your hostesses (client's?) attention. His auburn hair, blue eyes, and tall muscular physique usually went a long way to set people at ease in his day job (as a mattress salesman) and you can tell he's doing his best to use that to his advantage here. You offer Suzy Homemaker (Miss Porter, right?) your best smile, even though you're pretty sure you have no business being here.] "I'm Chuck Wagner, as you know. We spoke on the phone."
[She gives you an uncertain sideways glance before looking back to Chuck, in his white button down and sweater vest that you keep telling him makes him look like a creepy missionary, dark circles marring a face in her...late-thirties framed by a mid-length bob, blond, and slightly wavy, though the sort that suggested Miss Porter normally spent more time on it. She's tired, but she nods, forcing a smile (this is a woman who's used to forcing an 'everything's okay' smile from the look of it. That could be important).]
We did, Mr. Wagner and you...mentioned your partner...
[Chuck saves the day again as you give the conversation your full attention, as he motions in your direction.] "Please, Chuck's fine, and yes. This is my partner, Jagger Crowe." [You wince even before Chuck makes his joke.] "You could say he's the psychic brawn to my brains."
[You breathe a sigh and shake your head.] If it isn't painfully obvious, Miss, Chuck isn't exactly experienced with clients. [And you keep talking before Chuck's sound of objection turns into anything more.] You contacted us because there's something going on here you can't explain, right?
[Relief floods her face as you speak, and she nods vigorously.] Yes, God. It...are you sure I can't get you anything...?
[Chuck shakes his head.] "No, but is there somewhere we can have a seat? I'd like you to tell us everything, from the beginning, and I'd like to record it. Is that alright?"
Yes, of course. [You're led into a sitting room, here and there dotted with children's' toys, a rifled newspaper on the coffee table, more family pictures across the mantle. Chuck makes quick work of setting up the recording equipment and begins to ask her the same questions you know are necessary but still annoy you. "Can you please state your name for the record?" and on. She does so, "Caitlyn Porter". And then she begins to tell you both about how it started 6 months ago, with scratches, and how her husband called an exterminator, thinking they'd gotten squirrels in the attic but they'd found nothing, then it was a smell, normally down the hall from her room always moving. Your eyes scan the mantel again as she speaks, as though drawn there. Something is out of place. Chuck asks a question that had been idling at the back of your mind for a while. "Where is your husband, Miss Porter?" You vaguely notice her insisting Chuck call her 'Cait' before your eyes find it. There. At the end of the mantel. Some small voice in the back of your mind is wondering why anyone would have such an obvious horror movie prop on their mantelpiece, but you stand regardless, moving closer to the doll, chest moving quicker with your breathing which you barely notice. Even as you speak, you begin to remove the black leather glove from your right hand. You don't have to touch things with your bare skin to get an impression from them, but the glove's presence helps you control it.]
Please, don't touch that! [Her voice sounds quiet, like someone turned down the volume, and Chuck's even more so.] "That's sort of his job, Cait."
[The last thing you remember before your mind is flooded with images and the world falls away is the doll is warm to the touch, like flesh. Then, waves of ebony darkness flood your vision, viscus, undulating, seething with rancid meat and clotted blood. They surge forth, liquid but solid, wrapping themselves around your arm, encircling your body, your limbs are heavy with it, and as they begin to seeth around your head, filling your nostrils and mouth with their filth, you know it wants to consume all that you are, that they are, that is.
Strong hands, solid through the semi-liquid ichor, grasp your shoulders, pulling you from the flood, a voice, masculine, tries to pierce through the blackness, becoming clearer the farther they pull you from the drowning pool of death. '-ger!' 'Jagger! Can you hear me?! Jagger!'
Light pierces through the blackness finally, and his voice becomes clearer, though still muffled, and someone is screaming. It isn't until reality finds its way back to you, with its harsh angles and finite surfaces, and a rising burning in your throat that you realize it's you.]