Room
Obvious Exits: Out
Contents:
Penny
Compton
Keene
There is a knock on the door. Slight, low down and quiet. But rapid and repeating repeating. Like a tiny little Anne Frank motherfucker tapping to be let out of hiding.
"I'm not getting that," says Keene, working at the desk on his laptop on some seedy press release about the upcoming boy band concert.
Penny always forgets to call 'not it.' Penny gets up from her comfy place on the floor. Always when she's got a good ground & focus going on. "Coming," her voice gravel rolling under water. Not a big room but it takes her a few to get to the door. Long night, rough night. "'whoz'it?"
The knocking stops. There is a pause. Then a slight scratchy noise. Something slides under the door. Looks like the top of a cigarette packet. Yup. The lid of a box of Lucky Strikes, all written on. The tap tap tapping continues. Long short, short long long, short long short long. Morse code?
Penny kicks the lid back under the door "Knock it off, who is it?"
The knocking stops again, and there's another faint noise of motion. Then silence. Footsteps. Closer and closer. Then a real knock on the door. At man-knocking height.
"For fuck's sake," Keene says, pausing to save his work and close his laptop. He turns to look towards the door. "Just see who it is already. If it's a Paradox spirit, they don't like to be kept waiting anyway."
Penny half to the door, half to Keene "You expecting anyone?" waiting on Keene's response before she'll address the door again. "Fine..okay. But if it has a mouth, I'm slapping it."
Penny, of course, opens the door.
A man stands there, one of the hotel's security staff. Just to the side of him is a rather ubiquitous cardboard box. He gestures down at it with a flourishing motion of the hand. "Is this yours? We'd appreciate it if you diddn't leave your belongings out in the hallway for others to trip over them."
Keene puts his hand over his face, fingers splayed, meat of his palm resting on the tip of his nose. "Why, God, why," is his only comment before he brings his hand down, gets up, and walks out to look at the box. "Yeah, that's probably ours. We'll move it right away. Sorry to trouble you." He taps the side of the box with his foot to see if Pobble is still inside of it.
The box seems to be full of something. Not as heavy as a person however. Somewhere a quiet voice says, "About fucking time you wanker.".
The guard looks to the side, squinting back at the two of you. "Did you say something?"
"TV's on," comments Keene, without missing a beat. "You like Red Dwarf? It's one of those wonderfully charming British comedy series." He gives the guard one of those winning smiles that has a strange, reassuring quality. "We'll be sure to keep the noise down. Sorry again for the inconvenience." He begins edging the box towards the door with the side of his shoe, assuming Penny takes over the process of dragging the box in once it's fully in front of the door.
Offended and hungover, Penny gets a good glare on the guard "You g.." sputtering quietly as Keene steps in. It's his fault, really. He should've gotten the door. Penny stands aside, holding the door open "No, sir. Thanks for keepin'an eye out for us, hey?" Her hands twitching, she tucks something that might be money into his front-pocket.
Just out of hearing of the guard, the voice says, 'Fucking nark.' and coughs quietly then returns to silence. Then coughs again. Smoke splutters from the room-side hole in the box to accompany the bhroncial issues.
Keene gets the box in front of the door, then starts to push it into the hotel room with his heel -- keeping an eye on the guard the whole time. He is the last thing the guard will see, hopefully, before Keene closes the door behind him. "Penny," he says, still looking at the guard, "help with the box, won't you? Put it over behind the door there when I close it, that's good." And hopefully Keene gets the box inside the room and closes the door up behind him.
"Alright.." says the guard suspciously. He obviously doesn't get paid enough to give a shit about whatever seems to be going on here and turns and heads along on his rounds.
Penny has a kind of maniacal look to her, closing the door. Reminiscent of Anthony Hopkins in Psycho - moving with that careful, methodical ease of someone that knows just what she's going to do next. And then after that, too. She'll help. She kicks the box that way to the corner of the room. Something in her eyes begins to settle south in her clenched jaw. Hazard sign. Warning. Danger. A vein starts to pulse clearly from her left temple.
Keene closes the door, locks it up securely, then turns to watch the box fly across the room. He works a cigarette out of his breast pocket, puts it between his lips, and lights it with his Masonic Zippo as the carnage invariably begins. "See, that's the thing," he says. "I deal with enough *human* stupidity that protecting Familiars from the fallout of their actions just doesn't fit the bill. Excuse me."
At that, Keene walks into the bathroom, closes the door, and locks it for the duration.
"What the fuck.." comes the startled reply from the box, followed by "Ow, fucking ow." and "Argh, shit." and "You cunt." until the flap opens and a monkey clambers out, throwing a cigar before him and rolling about on the carpet trying to extinguish the arm of his rather shiny looking suit before the fur catches fire. The box seems untouched by the fire. The cigar smoulders on the Holiday Inn carpet, while the monkey rolls.. revealing that his back is marked with a peice of burnt and melted plastic and some kind of blue powder, which has melted onto the suit in places.
Counting down from ten, she paces toward the closet where they keep their things. He'll come out of the box sooner or later, Penny is sure. Penny can wait. Penny has been waiting for a long time.
Rummaging through Jesse's things, she turns on the scorched monkey and flips open, of all things, a switchblade. "Dave," she coos, like Hal "I'm going to skin you, Dave."
The *snikt* sound of the knife opening up may or may not be in Dave's audible range but she's confident he can feel her intent. "And then I'm going to give it to the sylph on the other side of the bathroom mirror. And she's going to possess you. We cut a deal, her'n me. She's going to be the air you breathe."
The monkey freezes. Those with good hearing or lip reading (Monkey Spec) could possibly garner the words 'Oh Shit' from the vulgar potty mouth creature. Staring at the girl, his eyes shift to the slightly overturned box and he darts sideways with The Agility of the Monkey. One hand snapping out a lighter, the other pulls the half open bag of bright blue powder from the box. Dave settles arm behind him, as if the powder bag were a sling, lighter held in the other hand.
The cigar still smoulders. Right on the Holiday Inn carpet.
"Flour mills are dangerous places.." says the cockney edgit.
Penny? is CRAZY. Bug.fuck. Lost it. Completely off her rocker. But she's so calm, a center, an eye around which things orbit. In her other hand is a pillowcase full of something "Do you *understand me*?" She pitches the fabric at Dave, interrupting the dusting and follows with a particularly clumsy thrust of the knife.
On the far bed, where Compton has pretty much claimed as his own, lie the man himself. fully dressed except for nekkid feet. His chast and gut rise and fall in steady rythm. A deep droning snore resonates from the man, as does a faint tinge of diesel fuel.
The monkey jumps forward under the flung pillow, and with a look of terrible sadness in its blue blue eyes it flings the big bag o blue barney powder at the woman. Meanwhile, the pillow lands on the smoking/nearly burning carpet/cigar combo, taking it out of sight. The already burnt open bag splits midair, showering the woman with blue cocaine and creating a veritable powder bomb. Almost on cue, the pillow bursts into flames. And the monkey goes diving for the bed.
That's probably true. It's a well established fact since he slept through that quake in 2006, Compton could sleep through anything. Even a fight.
Aggrivated and irritated, Penny goes low when the monkey goes high for the bed, the edge of her robe not singed, shaking off the coke. She yanks out a plastic bag and unloads what at first appears to be lengths of rope. The more she grabs, though, it becomes evident that it's hair. Dreads. A whole head full "I'm going to SUFFOCATE you, monkey!"
Mean but effective, she gets across what she means to do.
A blue haze fills the air, that bag was pretty fat. Probably the lifetime gross earnings of some little African chap. Floating down through the air. It fizzles and pops as it comes in contact with the burning pillow. The foam has a pungent odour to it and thick black smoke seeps out of it.. drifting up towards the smoke alarm. The monkey struggles amidst the hair, its little monkey nails scratching visciously at its opponent. The fizzling of cocaine and pillow fabric continues as the dust settles.. down, condensing as it moves towards the floor.
A brief second later, there is a big badaboom.
Penny keeps piling the hair at the monkey, choking him. Basically she's done with the dialogue part of the evening. Her reasons, many and varied as they may be, all boil down to the fetid stink of vengence.
The floor is on fire but Keene, we're sure, is very handy with the ice bucket and the making damp of things on fire. She gets one hand free and delivers a punch to his little monkey mouth. Nobody should treat monkeys like that; it's inhumane. Wait'll PETA hears about this one.
The floor burns with the fire of Penny's love for Dave. Sticky black muck is clumped about, in hair and on sleeping faces. One can only hope that the noise will draw Keene from his extended sitting, unless he's fallen down the hole..
The Monkey falls unconscious without a further sound limp suited arms and legs hanging feebly. The smell in here is somewhat attrocious, acrid smoke everywhere. Fortunately it appears that someone turned off the smoke alarm..
