Difference between revisions of "Log:Garreau-Fry B&E"

16 April, 2018

Franklyn and Jack break into Suzie Whyte's house to look for evidence -- and body parts like hair that witchy witches can use for, oh, brain breaking scrying in the kitchen while Jack gets eaten by ants in the basement. You know. The usual.

Suzie Whyte's House

"This is the best night for a break and entry. It's snowing and it's freezing." Jack points a finger at her. "If you try to hold this against me in the future, I will have Goblin chew up your shoes." The dog makes a surprised sound, ears lifting.

Said and done - Jack changes clothes - ranger uniform doesn't do well for crime - and gathers up useful gear. They'll have to take his Ranger car but they'll park it somewhere not even close. On the way, he'll pump Franklyn for information - two Whytes, one dead, one kidnapped? He'll want to know more about that.

Jack brings Goblin, cause Goblin makes for an excellent help.

Yes. It is the best kind of night for breaking and entering.

Franklyn does a few thing: first, she texts someone. Bloody millennials. That done, she busies herself with getting some stuff from her car boot -- stuffed hastily into that big black carry all bag she never leaves home without. /This/ done, while Jack is getting ready Franklyn promptly excuses herself to the bathroom for a while.

Like ten minutes. Women, am-I-rite?!

When Franklyn emerges, she's got her red-and-black wool jacket, and grey scarf and blue lined jeans and black duck booties on -- hauling her bag over her arm, flicking her hair out of her eyes. It's pulled up in a braided bun and hidden under a black knit cap, now -- did she fix her lipstick? Is that what took her so long?

"Okay Ranger Rick; here's the address." It's on a post-it note she passes over. What, no Google Maps?! Maybe the millennial isn't as app-happy as she looks -- or she knows enough about, well, tracking... "I'm going to smoke in your car. No butts there." Wait, like 'no buts' like no argument, or no butts like she's not gonna smoke at their destination? Franky's already giving Goblin a ruffle and heading out to whatever car Jack indicates.

There's a pause, then she looks back over her shoulder. "...Why would you outsource that to Goblin? If you want to be petty and ruin my shoes, you should chew them yourself." Then into the car.

Yeah. Frank'll smoke the whole way there - but at least she'll hold off on the sass for a while.

The house is a small one, but it IS a house. Ms. Whyte, unmarried, inherited her father's estate when he was murdered, and has been taking care of the property while legal issues are dealt with. Consequently, this is THE Whyte house in Fort Brunsett.

The drive is a winding one, through the increasingly woodsy area around Hart Pond. An area with which Jack would be quite intimately familiar, as a matter of fact, though Suzie's house is closer to the city side than the wilderness side.

An advantage to thieves: the neighbours do have trees blocking direct view, and there's a fair amount of yard space to add distance. Identifying B&E experts will be difficult beyond general body type.

A disadvantage: the house is, you know, WHITE. Dark bodies will show up clearly.

It is a two-story house with an attic and a peaked grey shingled roof. On the ground floor, there is an east-facing front porch with a trellis and columns which could be climbed to reach the shingled roof. The porch is enclosed with broad sliding glass windows and screens. The door is locked. Within the porch are a few pieces of white-painted, age-worn wicker furniture and a low table with magazines and a few random belongings. The wall of the house has window, door, window.

On the north side of the house is a small shed. The house itself has two bay windows on the ground floor, one which looks into an office of some sort, and one which has its curtains drawn. The second floor has three windows above a hip roof which provides the top of the bay windows below. One of those windows is suspiciously familiar to a certain witch. The hip roof could, with a bit of dangerous jumping, be accessed from the top of the porch roof.

Though not intimately familiar with breaking and entering, Jack's arrested his fair share of burglars - so he knows the basics. So, getting to the house he looks for anything that will shed a light on them; there any lights that will come on if they walk past? There any alarms on doors and windows? He studied the building itself quite thoroughly before moving towards it. "We could go in the back. Honestly, I want to go in too - Goblin can stay watch. Whatcha think?" he whispers to the woman. It was her idea, and she knows more than him. "You said bedroom - you sure that's where we want to go?"

The back of the building, the west-facing side, has a garden and more windows, all locked. The back door, too, is locked.

The other side of the building is a straight, flat wall, with more gardens, vegetables here, if the yard ornaments of happy dancing peas and beans and pumpkins are to be believed, where the south-facing sunlight will fall on them longer during the day.

Has Franklyn ever broken into a house before? Because when they pull up, she looks... A little nervous? Glances this-way-and-that. The smoking's stopped - but her knee tap-tap-taps and she's flexing her fingers within the confines of those fine leather gloves. When Jack speaks to her, the Garreau girl merely bobs her head; studying the house. Taking her time.

Really -looking-.

Ocular patdown of the premises from the perimeter complete, Franklyn motions to the east side of the house -- away form the garage, towards the back. "That way." Like Jack doesn't know it. She continues, all confident - hell, she's moving in that direction already. Headstrong, this one - maybe just as stubborn as the Ranger here. "There." She says, moving to point towards the window which is suspiciously familiar. This done, she squints and back-traces the dim outline of the windows to the hip-roof to the porch. Lips are pursed.

"...I've got some rope. You think that'll help, or like, do you just wanna get a boost up there and help drag me up?" Seriously. Franky sounds oddly, uh, confident? Ambitious. She sounds ambitious - whispering in the dim.

Jack follows her, content to do so - he nods approvingly at her choice, having indeed noticed the lights near the garage. "Goblin - you stay out here, if someone comes here, you bark and run back to the car. Okay?" The dog tilts his head and then dances a few steps before he moves to lie down flat in some bushes or near something he can blend in with the shadows.

"Boost me - I'll pull you up. Probably less of a hassle," he whispers, nudging her to get into position so he can do just that. Not that he's super strong, but helping each other, they should be able to do this.

Franky gives Goblin an upnod as they walk off - maybe she just really likes dogs, alright?! To Jack, however, she gives nothing - her eyes fixed on the house, as she goes about the whole shady business of scoping the joint out. Bag is hauled over her shoulder as she stoops, mimicking Jack's movements in the dark.

Like a shadow. Get it?!

"Mmph." No words - Franklyn nudges back defiantly, but then scuttles over to where she's been told to be - moving to lace her fingers together, brace them on her thighs, and give a space for Jack to boost himself up onto the roof. What, did she train in circus arts or something?! Must've been a long time ago, because she's not -that- great at the old heave-ho. At least when Jack gets up on the slippery porch roof and eventually reaches for her, he's met with Franky leaping to get ahold of his hands and scramble up the side. She weighs practically nothing - no big deal.

Once on the roof, Franky just... Well she's just trying to /remain/ on the roof now - looking to Jack, like any dude who spent any time patrolling NYC will know how to get into some dumb house in rural Vermont. After a moment, she points oh-so-helpfully to the 'right' window.

The 'right' window is unlocked, but a bit swollen because of the humidity. Guess the Whytes haven't sprung for metal window frames yet. Still using wood. With a bit of prying, it will open up easy peasy to reveal a female bedroom.

Jack eyes the woman when she's up there, crouches down on the slippery shingles. "What do you eat - air and sunshine?" he whispers to her. Like her being light weight is something to point out at a time like this - he should be thankful! But he grins, oddly exhilirated about all this. If he's nervous, he keeps it well hidden - maybe he enjoys being the criminal for once, trying out something new. Or... it's not the first time he's done something like this?

He nods and moves to the window and checks it - not locked. How convenient. He carefully pries it open using his hunter knife to get a wedge in first; he winces as it makes a bit of a sound, faint as it is: right now it sounds too loud. He sticks his head in and slides in if it's clear - but will wait just inside for Franklyn.

Franklyn blinks -- full of indignation at Jack's comment, if the click of her tongue is anything to go by. She speaking in a hushed hiss, keeping low as she creeps onwards; "Are you calling me a delicate flower? As /if/. Focus up Ranger Rick, we can exchange detox tips over spirulina smoothies /later/, alright?"

In the dark, it's hard to see her roll her eyes. But Franky does.

But that exhilarated vibe... It's a little contagious. She creeps on along after Jack - letting him go first, eyeing this-way-and-that before following in after the Ranger. Well -- assuming he doesn't fall into a bear trap and immediately die, or something. Frank's all cautious like -- reaching into her bag, to take out... Is that a bug sweeper? Taken out, before the flashlight? Yup.

The room is empty, and Jack gets a bit of a goosing unless he spots the corner of a low set of shelves in time to avoid them, but it's a very neat and tidy place. The bed is to the right side, with a white and frilly, old fashioned coverlet. Lots of fluffy warm blankets and pillows. There are bedside tables on either side, with fringed lamps. Pastel violets are painted on the lampshades. Flowers are the theme of the room, it seems, since little posies are painted on the walls and the area rugs are all florals, deep pile, sound-deadening. The area to the left of the window has a painting hung on it, and the wall opposite the bed opens into a walk-in closet. A vanity is beside the closet door. There is more storage space on either side of the (presumably) hallway door, which is closed.

"More like a poisonous vine..." Jack murmurs. She can probably hear it, and that hint of barely contained amusement in his voice as he teases her. Climbing in, cursing as he's hitting his upper arm against that corner, he then steps aside and looks around alertly, but offers a hand to help Franklyn climb in; "Watch that bastard shelf," he whispers. He's digging out his flashlight, wishing he had night vision goggles.

At first, there is silence -- Franklyn is staring down at the little bug sweeper in her hand, watching the LEDs which blink and flicker as she moves it around and... Nothing. No bugs detected. There is a little sigh, as she steps through the window -- making sure to avoid the low table which Jack nearly doinked himself on.

"Ohmygawd," Franky whisper-whines; can't she hear that amusement in Jack's voice? Doesn't she know not to fan the flames by engaging with the banter? "You don't even /know/, that's so rude - poisonous /how/? Like intoxicating and illuminating? It's all about /dosages/..." Chattebox slows her roll, a she squints in the dim and... Exchanges the bug sweeper for a little flashlight.

Franklyn keeps the flashlight beam angled away from the window - moving to twitch back the curtains with a gloved hand. "...Look for her correspondence -- diary, letters, whatever." Does Frank share what she's looking for? Not, uh, exactly - but she's trying to find a vanity - check out a pillow - see if there's an en suite. Hair. People typically shed a lot of hair -- Franklyn's on the lookout for some, and it better not be a /cats/.

A beat, then Frank says sadly - heading towards the vanity by the closet. "...She seemed cute. How old was she, again? Early twenties, right?"

"Sticky, smelly..." Jack whispers back. He's getting a kick out of riling her up here - at such a bad time too. They're burglaring, this is serious business. He shakes out of it, grunts at her and does as she suggests, as he's still here for a specific purpose; he moves to rifle through drawers to find papers, diaries, notes. Bills. ANything. Flashlight is between his teeth as he does, keeping his hands free. "I think so," he murmurs.

The vanity has a hairbrush with, yes, some hairs in it. There is no en-suite. Old house! Too small. There are also drawers in the vanity with old letters in them, childhood sweethearts, family members who live far away. The bedside table has a diary..

The diary has a little lock on it.

"I am not sticky." Franklyn insists - irked. She hotfoots it around the room, moving to reach into her bag, rummage around, and eventually take out some moderately sized ziplock bags. Really. What does she -have- in there? A full crime scene kit?! So much baggage. Flashlight tucked between ear and shoulder, it takes her a few times before the bag opens up -- then she's carefully plucking hair from the brush, and keeping it away nice and safe. A good few strands.

Any photos of Suzie around? Anything else? Frank may not notice that diary yet; Jack would probably have an easier time spotting it, since the vanity has all sorts of things nabbing Frank's attention -- maybe there's lipstick, or other girly curios... Ooh, letters? Maybe something from her dad, or...

"We've got time, right? I bet there's an office here, too..." Didn't Frank say she just needed to see Suzie's bedroom? What she after?

"I can't seem to get rid of you," Jack breathes, having a hard time not laughing. "You're everywhere I go. You even make me commit crime." He takes the diary in a gloved hand, eyes it like it's creeping him out. "Diaries - makes me feel dirty reading them, but here goes." He takes out a lock-picking tool, finds a tiny one, opens the diary without too much trouble. He glances over at Franklyn, seeing her take some hair; eyebrow goes up, but he doesn't ask. Nope. Not sure he wants to know right now.

"We got time. Few hours?" He squints at her, turning the flashlight her way for a moment, before it hits the pages of the diary - he begins browsing through, particularly checking the last entries that assumedly are the ones she made before she disappeared.

There are all manner of girly things on the vanity, indeed, though it seems Suzie wasn't huge on cosmetics. A bit of mineral makeup, concealer, all of it old and on the cheaper end. Eyeliner, lipsticks, nothing too exciting. The letters, should Franklyn read them, are mostly on postcards from places her father had traveled to while working on his books about psychic phenomena. He was something of a local celebrity as an openly psychic man. You know, before he got himself murdered.

There are photos of childhood, a young girl with a doting father, and no mother in the picture.

The diary itself goes back years, entries short, almost telegrammatic. Sometimes a year goes by without any entries at all, and others, there are entries once a week, or daily. The most recent entries speak of ghosts, or speak TO ghosts, someone named Hannah, and mention that she thought she saw 'one of them' again, following her. The earliest reference to 'one of them' comes, as it so happens, BEFORE her father's murder, but the phrase is never fully explained. It is not always in the same context, does not always have anything to do with ghosts at all. It is always describing someone watching or following her while trying to remain unseen.

"I can't make anybody do what they don't already want." Franklyn insists quietly -- a touch defensive maybe, and possibly irked. The cool, calm, collected vibe is not exactly wafting off of her today. Maybe it's all the crime.

When Jack starts fidgeting with the diary, Franky abandons the old letters and postcards after noting the /locations/ from which they were sent - fingers twitching, some old memory device picked up for learning lines in stage school - and she turns to look towards the Ranger and his cache of information. "I can read it." She offers helpfully, putting the bag of hair - ew - into her bag as she turns, and sneaky-steps over in Jack's direction.

Not that she's trying to glimpse any lock picking technique or anything.

"Okay, okay-- hey, key words are dreams, anything about her dad, being watched or--- fuck, I don't know? You're the-- move over, let me read too. You take that page, I'll take the other, and-- ohmygawd, look at her handwriting-- fine, okay, just a quick glimpse, we have thirty seconds, then let's find the office and take a peek and then go." ...Frank's so... Bossy. But does she even /know/ what she should be looking for? She ain't no cop. Just some girl reading another girl's diary. Not long before she starts to frown.

Jack sighs a suffering sigh but takes the diplomatic route - he holds the diary so they can both read, turning pages. "She was followed," he says - he tends to make things easy in his own mind. And that /is/ the thing he finds most interesting. "Her dad, she - followed. Hannah? Hmm. We should figure out who that is. Or was."

"We're taking this with us." And he'll pocket the diary, cause no way he's leaving it. "Don't worry, I won't hog it - you can have it if you want it," he adds, eyes friendly now. He's stopped teasing; reading the diary has him grimly serious.

"Let me just quickly check around here?" He starts looking under furniture, behind the painting, looks for hidden compartments in the walk in closet, taking a few minutes to do that.

"..." Franky is quiet for a long time as she reads - nodding occasionally to what Jack says, but really focuses up. The frown remains. "...I think Hannah is dead."

Said like 'I think Hannah is Scottish' or 'I think Hannah likes bread'. Totally a normal thing. Like it'd not be weird, for Suzie Whyte to be speaking to a dead woman. Stranger things have happened.

Franklyn nods as Jack mentions sharing the diary - because oh, they will - but when the Ranger moves to investigate more of the room, Franky finds herself drawn back to the vanity. The photos are examined again. In the dim, she... Has an expression which is probably too dark to see. After a moment, she carefully reaches out and takes one of the photos -- a father and daughter, smiling on some bright day.

It's carefully placed in her bag, then Frank turns to see where Jack's gotten to. "What're we looking for?" Like she wants to HELP.

"Hidden compartments. This girl had secrets - wouldn't she hide them?" Jack observes, lifting the mattress even, and peering in under the bed. "Search backsides of furniture, loose boards..."

There are surprisingly few hidden compartments in this room, but the dynamic duo does find a few. The back of one of the vanity drawers, for one. While Franklyn was messing around, she may have noticed that the left drawer was deeper than the right! The hidden drawer is why. There are more letters there, but these are written to someone named Hannah. They start off with little-girl things, talking to her with a child's candor about losing her mama to 'kanser' and being glad that Hannah came with them from their old house. There are doodles, old drawings, and, as she gets older, letters filled with female angst a girl would tell her mother, but wouldn't dream of unburdening herself of to her father. When the teenage years hit, there are many tear-splattered pages of school note paper, and one especially notable page 'wishes she could touch' Hannah, because the kids at school keep calling her Spooky Suzie, and it hurts. The letters end a few years back, though the diary entries which mention Hannah continue past that point.

There are a number of occult tools hidden behind a panel in the closet, but from the dust on them, they likely haven't been touched in years.

There is a fair amount of cash stashed under a set of loose floorboards under the bed, along with a runaway bag, basic supplies, survival gear.

Franklyn nods, after Jack points out the importance of searching for hidden compartments. She's on the lookout -- returning to the vanity, getting all thoughtful and inquisitive and nosey and finding that secret panel: soon, she finds the letters. Let Jack look at the other stuff -- Frank is speed reading, her flashlight illuminating all that text.

So. Frank might like be a poisonous vine or whatever, but she's really also a perfectly ordinary human girl, as well.

...A tissue emerges from her bag, and Frank not-so-subtly starts wiping at her nose and dabbing at her eyes. It must be the DUST. The dust covering the poignant letters lamenting the troubles of a teenage girl's to what Frank may suspect is her ghostly best friend or something.

Franky has a lot of feelings.

"Suzie was-- is, I think Suzie's a Mediu-- she can..." Franklyn sniffs in, clears her throat, and promptly bags up the letters in another evidence baggie. Where's Jack? Frank's not looking, but she is carefully pocketing her used tissue. No evidence must remain. "...I know a woman, who's... Similar. We can get in touch. I think she's still at the mortuary... What you find, Ranger?" Tight voice, like she was trying to hide her emos. "Think it's worth looking to see if her dad had an office?"

"Survival gear. Or get away gear if the shit hits the fan," Jack says, putting the floorboards back - he doesn't need any of that stuff in there. Instead, he turns a concerned look at the woman, noticing her emotions. "You okay?" He glances out the window, tilts his head to listen - he hears nothing though, so all good probably. Instead, he pats Franklyn's shoulder a bit awkwardly, not sure how to deal with this, but trying.

"A medium. Psychic, like her dad. I guess we should try to... either talk to her dad, or this Hannah." He noticeably shudders. No fan of ghosts, this guy. "Let's check his office, yeah." He heads to the door, to move further into the house.

"Bug out bag. Smart. But -why-? What were they afraid of -- who, exactly?" Frank says, sniffing in again and tapping her fingers over her cheeks once the letters have been commandeered. There is one more glance around - like the beam of her flashlight would suddenly pass over something that says 'HANNAH'S CONTACT DETAILS', with a lock of her hair or a bit of her bone hanging from velvet.

As if.

Instead Franky turns and gives Jack a /startled/ look, as the Ranger puts his hand on her shoulder. "I'm fine. You wouldn't get it. Gawd. Don't they give you sensitivity training -- or is that only for good dogs and mountain goats?" Squint to end those defensive words, then a slow move away from him -- Frank's heading towards the door, creeping along, trying to be vigilant even though, well, this might be her first official B&E.

"...You go first."

"I was sick for that 1-hour course," Jack retorts, but cracks a lopsided grin at her, eyes much warmer than previously. Hey, he might not be /good/ at showing a nice side, but least he means well.

Cracking the door open carefully, he quietly moves out to make his way to that office, assuming Franklyn knows the way and can lead him there - else he'll check each room.

Alas, no, no obvious bits and pieces of a corpse.

The upstairs has a bathroom, a closet, and the master bedroom, with a pull-cord in the hallway for the attic's folding stairs.

The downstairs has a kitchen and a living room/family room with a TV and an old piano in it, and, yes a den/office. Most of it is dusty, untouched for months, but the desk has seen active use, bills stacked, papers dealt with.

"Obviously." Frank quips back at Jack, then falls silent as she finishes looking through the bedroom and walks on.

Alas indeed; just Frank's luck: no easy answers for how to get connected with Hannah. Bummer.

Like a real bummer.

Franklyn follows after Jack - heading through the house on sneaky rubber-soled feet, being careful not to stumble down any stares... But by the time they get into the office and start their nosey around, where is Frank really? Sure, she's inspecting the dusty edges of the bookshelves, vaguely glancing at photos, possibly checking for secret panels behind furniture and...

Maybe she's just staring out into space a little bit.

Not like Ranger Fry over there, eh? Here he is, with his misty eyed companion stopping the search to get some dust out of her eye.

The duo isn't as lucky this time around. Maybe all that dust got in the way. There are no hidden passages or obvious secret entrances to sneaky places, though there IS a root cellar with an ungodly number of spiderwebs. And spiders. Like, we're talking epic how on earth are there SO MANY BUGS down there for that many spiders to all get enough food to survive? The place does have a dirt floor...

"Spiders. Impossible to talk to," Jack murmurs, and is dodging webs, glaring at spiders and trying just to make them keep away. He eyes the dirt floor, scratching his neck. "Seriously. Are we going to?" He glances at Franklyn, like he's wondering if they should do some digging.

Huh? Franklyn glances up from her Sad Girl Time?, belatedly hearing what Jack has to say. It confuses her for a second, before slowly realisation dawns and she nods. Right. Jack is weird - remember? We're all weird... A hand is lifted, but before she can gnaw on a nail Franklyn realises she's got a glove on. Damnit.

Seriously, did she zone out?

"Yes." Frank encourages -- but she does not move towards the root cellar, just... Sort of gestures towards it. "You see what's up, then -- I'm going to... Find... A bowl."

A bowl? Apparently so. Off Franklyn goes -- trying to find a bowl in the kitchen; dark wood or steel, if she can manage, but even a dark baking tray will do in a pinch. Anything which she can fill with water, place back on the floor in the den/office, and...

...Jack's busy with a spider, right? Right; maybe Frank has an iota of privacy...

She's kneeling in front of the scrying water - dropping a single strand of Suzie Whyte's hair into the liquid, before she takes a charcoal pencil and sheet of paper from her bag, and starts muttering under her breath, chanting really - Latin, no doubt lines memorised rather than improvised. "Ostende mihi, ostende mihi, ostende mihi..."

"That's good. You leave me alone down here, with the spiders. I can... handle it. I'm tough. What they gonna do to me? Crawl over me till I die?" Jack says. He eyes her, then sighs. "Fine. Go find a bowl - but don't call ME weird later."

Down in the basement - oh boy why did he ever agree to this - Jack navigates to a corner where he spots a larger spider, figuring the bigger the better. He takes a deep breath, crouches down and sits as still as he can with his head bowed. There's a strange twitch to his head, as his senses are assaulted by a strange buzzing, like his brain is being webbed over. This is why he doesn't talk much to spiders. He tries to convey what he wants to know - sending a picture of the basement, of all the spiders - why so many? What do they eat?

Franklyn sees...a room? A very white room, with four people dressed in white, visors covering their faces with reflective silver one-way, in positions reminiscent of guards? wardens, perhaps? They have a combination of medical gear and what appear to be blunt weapons of some kind. Their uniforms have sleeve-stripes of varying colours, but they stand out, since they're the only colours in the room at all: two men have simple thin grass green stripes. One, a woman, has a grass green stripe and a blue stripe above that. One, who holds himself with more authority, has red stripes. There are a series of skeletons laid out on otherwise-immaculate tables. One is very old, crumbling apart. Another is a bit younger, fresher, but still old. Another looks like it belongs in a museum, clean, white. And then there is the fourth, a very human skeleton, with streaks and strings of bloody muscle tissue and poorly-cleaned ligaments still attached. There are no windows. There is no one else in the room other than Suzie and the four.

As for Jack and the Spider, the impressions he gets are those of ants. Many, many ants, and tunnels everywhere.

"Oh hush -- they're only spiders!"

...But Franky didn't go down there, no. She went to go sit with her weird magic shit. Speaking of shit...

Oh shit. Oh shit. Oh--- well, what was Franklyn even expecting, really? If not a scenario like this? She may have already gone on a few paranoid rambling about said situation to people in Cat-22 before -- oh, how /painfully/ satisfying it must be, for a paranoid to be shown she's right to've gone off on one, right?

Mm, feels like trauma.

The chanting, "...Ostende mihi, ostende mihi..." It hasn't stopped - Frank's hand draws circles and circles and more circles on the paper; her gloved hand may smudge the charcoal now and them, but they still look like - what? Eyes, portals, wormholes, connections, wholeness, whatever.

Such is the life of a magic user. In her weird vision, Franky tries to shift her perspective: trying to look down at Suzie's body, her arms -- then the room, the space, the area; looking to see what condition Suzie may be in, while trying desperately to pick up on /any/ identifying information. A shadow, a label, a bit of trash in the corner: /anything/.

But there's nothing. Just skeletons to examine -- right?

Jack shudders, like someone who has spiders crawling all over him - that's how it feels. Or he imagines. Still, he keeps his cool - they ARE animals after all and not doing him any harm. "Ants?" he murmurs, a bit befuddled. He pulls out his hunting knife and aimlessly digs around in the dirt, to see if there are indeed ant tunnels beneath. His discovery doesn't seem quite as exciting as what goes on upstairs.

There are, indeed, tunnels, tunnels in the dark. They are coming.

Also known as Jack pissed off a bunch of ants, and now has a swarm of perfectly mundane, albeit large, black insects crawling out of the place he stabbed.

As for Franklyn...

Suzie has ligature marks on her wrists, chafed skin, bloody bruises and contusions one would expect of someone fighting to escape bondage. Her arms aren't bound now, however -- but her waist is, to the wheeled chair someone is moving her with.

The room, as one would expect, is immaculate.

Beyond the grotesquerie of fresh and less fresh human remains, everything is clean, sharp, crisp and brightly lit by panels in the ceiling. The drop ceiling itself is sound-deadening white industrial tile and metal strips, banal and ordinary.

The floor, too, is tiled in ordinary white, absolutely nothing remarkable or overly memorable about it, beyond how obsessively white it truly is. Even the grout is perfect. Someone spends a lot on cleaning products. Or uses magic.

Suzie is clean as well; injured, bound, captive, but clean.

There are no tags on the uniforms, and Suzie's clothing appears to be nothing more than hospital paper, too weak to hold a cutting edge or make long enough rope with which to hang oneself.

"Hey.... hey!" Jack brushes off ants from his pants and his knife, backpedaling hurriedly. He stalks up the stairs again and closes the door behind - enough of this. Impatiently he brushes some spider net off his hair and goes to find his accomplice with her bowl.

"Frankie?" he hiss-whispers in the dark house. He'll find her - it's not that big of a house. "We should get going," he whispers, before really taking in the whole scene, feeling edgy now.

What does Jack find, when he comes back upstairs and enters the room where Franky is?

Franklyn crying, tears rolling down her cheeks and dripping into the scrying bowl -- sending ripples out, reflecting up black nothingness. Well, black nothingness to him. Who knows what Frank's seen.

The paper in front of her doesn't just have eyes or holes or circles written on it. There's a bunch of scribbles there too.

When Jack speaks again, saying they should get going? Frank jerks - taken out of her trance, which leaves her looking startled - haunted - like awoken from some terrible dream. Nightmare. Vision. The bowl? Nearly gets kicked over as she stands -- then it's all Franky putting on gloves and taking her automatic writing supplies and making sure the hair is back in her bag and trying to hastily take the bowl back to the kitchen; water to be drained away, object placed back where she found it.

Muttering the whole way: "You're right, you're right -- we need to go, we've got to -- they've got her, you know, but I don't know-- fuck, fuck, what's in the baseme-- we need to go, yes, c'mon you're right -- back out, the door or the-- no the window where we..." Chatter-nonsense. She might need to be led back through the house.

Franklyn will chill out and explain things, once she's had a cigarette -- and gotten far, far away from here.

Jack expected nothing like this. Keen gaze takes the scene in, he gets an idea - he's seen enough strange and knows some to maybe hint at what's going on - but that pales to her reaction. "Fuck."

However, rather than say something, since he's really bad at saying the right things, he'll simply help her. Clean up. Gather things. Make sure they leave the house as they entered. Quiet, supportive, solid and calm.

In the car, he'll listen with a set jaw and offer at the end of listening: "We'll get her out and we'll blow that fucking place up."