History
- Friday, July 16th, 2004
- At around 11 AM, all over LA, imbued were abducted by a shadowy power, taken deep below the earth, right where they stood.
- F.H. "Effey" McNally from her upscale party in up scale LA
- Laurie Jones right off of the street after persuing her from her own room for several blocks
- Billy-Joe Syrus, along with his Harley, from the North bound 110
- Quentin Fox and Jeremiah Cunningham were drug into a rift of blackness along with a powder blue El Camino
- Ezmarelda Barrio and Charlie Barle though it was an earth quake when their whole house was drug beneath the earth
- April Baldwin disappeared without a trace while out of view of her boyfriend for just a moment, still in her pajamas
- Tracey Dean vanished from the bathroom of a crowded rave club
- Kimberley Nyuguen Paige fought valiently in her dojo but diappeared all the same
- Jeff Murphy's SWAT van sank into the street, along with him and the rest of his six man team
- Terrance Belton and his girlfriend, Denise Radcliff, were sucked down while otherwise occupied in the back of Terrance's car
- If any others vanished from LA that night, their names may be forever unknown, as they never completed their Katabosis
- Underground introductions
- When the enveloping darkness cleared; Quentin, Jeremiah, Laurie, Effey, and Billy found themselves in a small cavern, with the only light coming from a Harley, a damaged El Camino, and Jeremiah's shoulder light.
- After brief introductions, the five Reckoners fled the scene with whatever they could carry, spurred to action by the footfalls of approaching zombies and the ominous threat of certain doom from the Demonic Entity that had brought them all there, blocking the path behind them by detonating Jeremiah's borrowed El Camino into a flaming barrier against pursuit.
- Terrance
- Soon they heard the sounds of combat ahead and rushed to investigate.
- The five Reckoners found two individuals cornered by just over a dozen zombies who had all but finished off the boy.
- Once they finished off the attackers, the boy introduced himself as Terrance, and the girl as Denise.
- Jeff
- moving on from Terrance and Denise's car, the group found another cavern from which a chorus of gunfire could be heard.
- the ensuing battle revolved around a SWAT van where the last surviving SWAT officers were fighting away nearly a dozen ghouls. During the battle:
- Ghouls killed five of the six SWAT officers
- Quentin killed the lion share of the remaining ghouls with an overly powerful pipe bomb that nearly had additional catastrophic effects
- Effey spotted a retreating ghoul, who she later identified as one Jacob Winters from the dog tags she shot off his neck
- Jacob cut off Jeff's, Quentin's, Effey's, and Laurie's pursuit of him by summoning zombies from the walls of the tunnels
- Terrance was killed by a ghoul who also incapacitated Jeremiah before being driven off by Billy
- Billy, upon pursuing the fleeing Ghoul was confronted by zombies that he was sure were the same one's they're killed to save Terrance
- these zombies withdrew after ensuring that Billy was cut off from his pursuit of the ghoul
- Denise went into hysterics and them feinted after the sight of her gutted boyfriend
- the group met the captain of the SWAT unit, a Reckoner named Jeff Murphy
- A very strange place for a house
- Moving on to avoid being overtaken by more undead, the group came to another large caven with a house at its center
- Jeremiah identifies this house as Ezmarelda's
- Inside the Reckoners find Charlie's dead body and Ezmarelda being killed by a zombie
- after Quentin kills the zombie, Ezmarelda uses her dying breath to tell the Reckoners everything she's forseen about the Demon and its desire to have it's followers in LA free it from it's subteranian prison
- Though Billy Jo tries to save her with his Edges, a mysterious force blocks his efforts and Ezmarelda is sheparded out of her mortal coil in the presence of a powerful unseen energy
- A ray of hope
- After going back down strairs and setting up in the living room, the band of Reckoners spotted a small hole that revealed a starry night above
- Quentin, Jeff, Laurie, and Effey did their best to rig a transmitter to get cell phone service and call for help, which they eventually managed
- With Questin's Bystander friend Miguel on his way and a rescue squad dispatched by the Bystander Sherrif Wilson, another contact of Quentin's, the Reckoners were left to deal with their remaining time in the caverns
- Exploring the perimeter - April
- They found a young African-American girl trapped in a pit some 100 feet below the tunnel they were exploring
- The girl wassurrounded by dozens of zombies that she was hiding herself from through unknown Reckoner powers
- She was dressed in nothing but pajamas with bare feet
- Jeremiah would later confirm her identity as April Baldwin
- Quentin and Effey had no way of getting to her and she seemed to be alright, if scared, so they returned to the house to plan a rescue for her
- After tying together enough rope to theoretically be able to reach her, the group went back to the tunnels, this time with Billy Joe as well.
- Search and Rescue - Tracey & Kim
- Billy, Quentin, and Effey, while on their way to rescue April, heard sounds of fighting and a female yell of pain from down another tunnel.
- Upon rounding a corner, they found easily 100, probably more, zombies crowded into a cavern around an unknown prey
- The three Reckoners entered into a melee with the corpses and succeeded in fighting their way through to the monsters' intended prey
- After brief introductions, the 5 Reckoners rushed back to where April was trapped to pull her free
- The Reckoners then colapse the tunnel of the several dozen zombies below them
- A final stand
- As the 9 Reckoners, and Denise, awaited rescue, Quentin and Jeff set traps with Jeff's remaining grenades at the 6 tunnel entrances
- One by one, single zombies were sent on suicide runs to detonate the booby traps, allowing hundreds of zombies, along with a dozen ghouls, to stream into the cavern in a last effort to overwhelm the escaping Reckoners
- The Reckoners spent every round of ammo the had and even fought in hand to hand momentarily, but they were able to hold off the horde, killing most of them, until the rescue squad was able to begin lowering rope harnesses down
- As they began to be lifted out one by one, Jacob Winters played a final card, using more of his mysterious power to cause the caver to begin caving in
- All the Reckoners escaped, though some with some very nast bruises from the cave in
- The group began to disperse for much needed rest and agreed to meet the next day
- Tracey and Effey to Effey's condo for showers and sleep
- Laurie to her own home to recollect herself and rest up
- Quentin, Kim, and Jeremiah to the hospital for basic care
- Billy, sin motorcycle, with Miguel to visit those at the hospital
- Jeff to his precinct to report of his lost unit
- April home to her boyfriend's house
- Denise home to what was left of her life
- Saturday July 17th
- One by one the Reckoners woke and began to get together
- Billy, after being harrassed by cops as a vagrant, collected the $1.80 people had dropped at his sleeping feet and headed into the hospital
- upon entering, a nurse insisted he get a shower and get rid of his filthy cloths, the same gore covered rags from the night before
- after showering at the hospital, Billy found a too small hopital orderly jumpsuit waiting for him and no sign of his old cloths
- Tracey and Effey got breakfast as headed over the the hospital as well
- Once all the Reckoners, sin Laurie April and Jeff, had reconvened at the hospital, the began to talk over what had happened and what they'd do now
- Sherrif Wilson showed up and informed everyone, cautioning them that the info was not being released to the press, that 10 young girls had all been murdered the previous night
- Identicle stab wounds to the chest
- Similar ages, though differing backgrounds
- All in the same one hour time period
- None missing till that night
- After agreeing they didn't have much to go on just yet, Wilson promised to get a list of the girls murdered the Reckoners each went their own way to do some necessary errands before invenstivating any further
- Quentin went to spend some time with Ebony, Jamal, and Miguel
- Kim went home to her dojo
- Jeremiah said he would go get some more rest, still very sore from having nearly died
- Tracey convinced Billy, still wearing the hospital scrubs, to come with her and Effey to shop for new cloths
- They arrived down at Rodeo trice not too much later
- Tracey flashed her credit card and told the service there to "fix William up"
- Salonists snipped and shaved and exfoliated and dressed 'William' till he was barely recognizable, now a dapper gentleman with perfectly groomed hair and manicured nails, dressed in a sleek modern style
- Billy felt ridiculous and was fit to be tied, but he kept quiet
- Tracey was very pleased with herself and doted on 'William'
- After a quick stop in at Tracey's palacial home to get her Porsche, the three headed over to Quentin's garage to recovene
- Tracey parked her porsche so Quenting could take a look at it (that sly dog and his tricky ways) and Miguel ended up going over to check it out so he could make his move on the ditzy hot blonde
- A fax arrived from Sheffif Wilson for Quentin, who looked it over with Billy, Effey, and Jeremiah
- The fax listed the names of all 10 murdered girls, as well as their address and basic information on them
- The fax confirmed the cause of death, but stated that the murder scenes were not where the girls were found and that the wounds were identicle in nature, reminiscent of occult sacrifices
- One girl's address was in Tracey's area and the 4 Reckoners interupted Miguel's moves on Tracey to see if she knew the name
- 'Denise' is Tracey's friend's boyfriend's sister's classmate according to Tracey and she ran into her at a party once
- While Tracey makes some calls to try and track down where Denise had been last night, the other 4 Reckoners prepared to head to Las Cruces, a small pueblo town just south of LA where Quentin has a contact
- Las Cruces and Gonzolo
- They came upon the town after a 50 minute drive, half of which was on dirt or gravel roads
- Towards the back of the town Quentin pointed to a long house with windows shuttered up and boards stained black with age, mildew, and soot
- After entering through a black door on one of the house's long sides, they were struck momentarily blind by the difference between the sunny airy day and the nearly lightless stuffy room that greeted them
- An old man sat at a desk/counter on the far end of the room going over a tome in front of him
- The man's skin was wrinkled, his form bent and hunched, and his thinning grey hair hanging in un unkempt tangle, giving him a look of being indeterminably ancient
- Quentin gave the old man a gift of a bottle of whiskey and the man had the 4 Reckoners drink with him
- The 4 filled the man in on what they'd seen in the last 12 hours in hopes that he'd be able to enlighten them as to what was going on
- About the ghouls, he showed the a book in archaic Latin that described the creatures and Effey copied this to translate later
- He revealed that the zombies and ghouls are just the Demon's agents, creatures that are likely no more than tools for the Demon
- Of the 10 dead girls, he theorized they may be connected to ritual sacrifices, then pentagram occultists use having 10 focal points for rituals.
- Of Jacob Winters he knew very little, only that the dog tage of his that Sherrif Wilson has hight shed some light on the situation
- Jeremiah, Quentin, Billy and Effey finally departed and made their way back north to LA to prepare for what may come that night and any new information they might gather
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