The Black-Eyed Men: Chapter 1

Hunter: The Reckoning

Thomas Wiik: Jerry Olsen
Eleanor Savell: Lucida Blackletter

Prelude:
Jerry Olsen, having bounced the wrong member of the wrong branch of the Russian Mob, has fled his home in Norway - a friend from school suggested the place they were least likely to look: a small island in the Caribbean called Antigua. Away they flew. Jerry has picked up his career as a bouncer at the local club 'The Reef,' while his friend, Nick, works as a small-time thief, and womanizes on the side. He's been there fore a few years.

Lucida Blackletter, on the other hand, is pretty new to Antigua. A student of marine biology, Lucida has earned a grant to go to Antigua and research the reef in the ocean nearby - not a bad gig, but she wasn't going for the nightlife or the beautiful views, she was going to make a Discovery, capital D. Which was exactly what she did...

Scene 1: 'The Reef,' ext.
- Just another night at the club: Jerry sifts the wheat from the chaff at the door, under strict orders not to let any lowlifes or peasants (read, "black people") into the club. It's a job.
- Enter Rick, Jerry's friend, roommate, and fellow flee-er from the Russian Mob, toting his newest girlfriend, Carol, who's five months pregnant. Jerry latches the velvet rope in their way - a pregnant woman shouldn't be in a place where there's a) second-hand smoke, b) alcohol, or c) the possibility that some drunk could bump into her. Rick pleads with Jerry, because it's their anniversary, Carol assures Jerry it's fine - Jerry holds back. Rick calls Jerry on insinuating that he's going to be a bad father, because he's letting Carol go to this dangerous place. Jerry concedes, and takes away the velvet rope. Rick lets Carol in first, then points a disciplining finger at Jerry: "don't ever do that to me again."
- It's a job.

Scene 2: The Buechner Library for Marine Biology; later, the Hopkins Hotel.
- Lucida studies away - the Buechner has yet to get up to date with technology and still uses only the card-catalogue system. Wading between the Dewey Decimals, she keeps digging around for anything that might add to her already voluminous notes. She finds something, in a cross reference of a cross reference, and seeks it out.
- The Buechner has a large collection of sea fossils, and this one is hidden back behind a few others, as if on purpose. It's an anomoly: either it has a symbol carved in it, though it predates writing, or there's a new bone structure represented in it, since no known animal has such a bone structure, or someone has defaced the fossil.
- She checks with the Archivist: this fossil has not been viewed since 1999. It was discovered in the 50's. No one can really make much sense of it, but then no one has really cared to.
- She collects her notes and heads home.
- Tossing her notes on the bed, she quickly notices a strange coincidence. A map of the Antigua beach is pinned up on her wall, and closest to the reef, there is part of the beach, with a jetty, that looks similar to the symbol. Maybe it's the fact that she's been cooped up for two weeks, maybe it's the caffeine, but she decides to go play Treasure Hunter: X Marks the Spot.
- She buys a shovel and heads to the beach.

Scene 3: 'The Reef,' int.
- Jerry's shift as bouncer is over, and he helps himself to some discounted booze at the bar. He can't see Rick or Carol anywhere.
- Around 10, there're some noises in the back alleyway behind 'The Reef.' Like someone has been pushed into a trash can or something - or stumbled. A few of the businessmen-customers seem a little worried.
- Jerry's boss comes up and tells him to go take care of it: there're a couple drunks back there, he says. And do it quiet.
- Jerry puts down his drink, and prepares to work overtime for no pay.

Scene 4: The Alleyway
-It dead-ends nearby the door from 'The Reef,' and the alley itself heads out into the street. The club is so close to the sea that you can see sand on the road. There're a couple trash cans, and a rain gutter.
- Outside are Rick and Carol, and also a group of three men. They look a little too muscular for their own good, and some of their clothes are on inside out. Or backwards. Their eyes have deep black pupils.
- Rick assures Jerry that it has nothing to do with him, and that he should go back inside. Jerry, instead, takes a few steps down to try to extricate Carol from the situation, but one of the Black-Eyed Men steps between him and Carol. He doesn't open his mouth, but it sounds like he gurgles inside his throat, like a growl.
- Jerry pushes the Black-Eyed Man. The Black-Eyed Man pushes him back and knocks him up the flight of steps that lead down from the door to the club.
- Rick goes to defend his friend, a struggle insues. Rick whips out a long knife, and faster than Jerry has seen a man move he guts one of the Black-Eyed Men, and throws the knife at the one nearby Jerry. It hits the Man in the back of the head, and he falls. The third Black-Eyed Man, however, lunges for Rick. His arm grows into a claw and slashes Rick across the face. Jerry grabs a wrought iron banister to the staircase for safety - the alleyway has started to spin.
- Jerry looks at the two fallen Black-Eyed Men. They either: a) have turned into twelve year olds, or b) have been replaced by twelve year olds. And their blood is pooling. One still has the knife in the back of his head. Jerry's nose starts bleeding. His fingernails too. Sounds from passing cars and Carol shrieking echo in his head long after they've stopped.
- He almost vomits, twice. The second time he swallows it.
- Carol can be heard shrieking something about 'generators' and 'grottoes,' but it just makes more echoes Jerry has to deal with. Then he hears something, and recognizes it as the Black-Eyed Man. 'This one is your mate?' Then a splash of water and trickling, as the echoes in Jerry's head harmonize into one chord and his vision stops spinning.
- When he opens his eyes, Rick is nowhere to be seen. The bodies are still there. Carol is cornered in the alleyway, and the Black-Eyed Man picks her up by the neck and throws her down the length of the alleyway, and she rolls towards the street. Slowly, the Black-Eyed Man walks past Jerry, still curled up in the fetal posistion and grasping to the wrought-iron banister for dear life. He looks at the man, and knows that he doesn't belong - he wreaks of wrong.
- Jerry, with nothing else to do, reaches for the handle of the knife, but the knife is wrong too. It pushes his hand away like it's magnetized, but Jerry forces his hand onto the handle, and the wrong thing spews out of the blade, blowing out of the child's head, and swoops down the alleyway. A parked car is suddenly impacted, and all the windows break - its alarm goes off. The wind blows by.
- The Black-Eyed Man turns around to see Jerry getting up with the knife. Jerry hears in his head, "you think you can stop us, dirtwalker?" That chord Jerry heard when the world stopped spinning comes back, and for a moment all other noises stop. He tosses the knife up in the air, catches it, and can feel some crackling, burning thing moving down his arm. He lobs the knife at the Black-Eyed Man, hitting him in the shoulder, and underneath the skin Jerry sees what looks like a bulge, an explosion, as the area turns purple and the thing shrieks, somehow.
- It turns and runs, grabbing Carol, and heading towards the beach.
- Jerry follows, splashing through puddles of blood.

Scene 5: The Beach
- Lucida searches for treasure on the beach, but finds only empty bear cans and seaweed. A couple are sprawled out on a blanket, looking at the moon, and they all see a man running towards the water carrying a woman. He's having trouble carrying her, one arm seems hurt. The man in the couple gets up and tries to go stop them, and suddenly a dorsal fin rips out of the man's back, his grin gets wide with multiple layers of teeth, and his eyes go completely black. He grows claws.
- Lucida suddenly feels like she's alone in freezing water, staring at the gaping maw of a megamouth shark. The world starts to spin and she collapses on the sand, gripping at anything she can for comfort. She hears the couple shriek and footsteps run past her.
- She, too, goes through nosebleeds, bleeding fingernails, and the like as the vision comes closer, but a chorus of voices are heard in and beyond her, harmonizing into one chord which sends the hallucination, shattering, away, leaving Lucida gripping at the sand.
- When she gets up, the woman has gotten out of the Black-Eyed Man's arms, and runs away from the water. It catches up with her, and in one fell swoop it bites her, and starts pulling her into its mouth. Desperately she tries to stay on the outside of the thing's gut.
- Dropping the shovel, with no idea what she's doing, Lucida runs at the thing as the chord she heard re-doubles and triples and harmonizes with her footsteps and the girl's screaming, and, as pain seizes her entire body, she leaps through the air and collides with the man-shark. It coughs up some chum and the woman begins pushing her way out of it.
- Enter Jerry, who runs at the thing.
- Lucida gets visions of a shark, the large shark she saw before, the man-shark, a Black-Eyed Man, and a teenager all at once, and quick flashes of the fight in the alleyway moments ago.
- The man-shark turns and runs, practically dragging the girl into the sea.
- Jerry chases it, and leaps on its back. The further it gets into the sea, the faster it moves - the tides support it.
- Jerry clamors onto the thing and reaches for the knife. Quickly he finds himself up to his knees in saltwater. He pulls the knife out of the thing's shoulder to stab, and the woman screams, "find Rick!" and the thing gives a shudder, sending Jerry sliding off it. Grabbing for something, he slams it on the back and his hand print burns the thing's skin, spewing smoke out of it.
-Jerry falls into the sea and quickly shoots out of the water, searching around. Occasionally there are bubbles in the distance, and smoke comes up from them. But the thing, and the woman, are gone. He wades back to the shore, carrying the knife.

Scene 5.2, the Beach, cont.
- Jerry and Lucida connect and witness the neon sign for 'The Reef' change into "FIND RICK" and then back. Sirens.
-They decide to go back to Jerry's apartment, as it might have clues, but not by means of the streets.

Scene 6, The Slums
- Jerry, being well-acquainted with the city, decides to take the back alleys to get back to his apartment. As they go deeply into the slums, where the peasants live, they quickly become aware that they are the only white people in the area, and that they stick out like a sore thumb. A hobo hassles them, but Jerry quites him down with a grunt. They don't know if they're being watched.
- They make it back to Jerry's apartment.

Scene 7, Jerry's Apartment
- There's little to no evidence of a struggle, but the place, or Rick's part of it, has been trashed. He's most likely been through here packing.
- Jerry opens up a closet filled with guns and hands Lucida a glock, taking a Desert Eagle for himself.
- Lucida and Jerry continue the search, finally finding a lose floorboard. Beneath it they find a number of seashells, and a leather scabbard with the same markings that Lucida had found on the fossil, obviously meant to house the knife.
- They decide to leave the apartment forever, since the cops would be there soon.
- They go back to the Hopkins Hotel.

Scene 8, The Hopkins Hotel
- Lucida pretends that Jerry is a man she's picked up that night, however unlikely, and gives him a fake name when she's talking to the doorman. She tips the doorman even more than usual.
- They go up to the room and fall asleep for three hours.

Scene 9, Lucida's Room
- Lucida wakes up to find a curious email in her inbox. It has no return address, no subject, no date of sending and no body except for "www.hunter.net." She follows the link, and is prompted to give herself a handle. She chooses "Archivist." "Welcome, Archivist110" it says.
- Here she finds a forum of people boasting similar circumstances, and forums upon forums claiming that they'd seen, and hunted, and killed, these wrong things. She finds a variety of wrong things. She even finds a few posts about man-sharks, but nothing more than a cautionary note saying ever to hunt them alone, and that they always hunt in packs.
- Jerry wakes up and makes cereal. Lucida joins him.
- They notice smoke rising in the distance. Jerry knows that it's from the wound he left on the Black-Eyed Man. He's back on land.
- They head in its direction in Lucida's rental car.

Scene 10, the Streets
- They follow the smoke until they see a kid that it's rising from: he's been walking and now waits to cross a road.
- They pull over and follow him, and Lucida then pretends to be the kid's mother, and Jerry his father. They take him off into an alleyway.

Scene 11, an Alley Leading to the Slums
- They start questioning the boy, but he doesn't respond. Then, more Black-Eyed Men appear behind them, and another boy - this new boy is neatly dressed while the rest have shirts on inside out and so on. The Neatly Dressed Boy asks them to keep moving, and they walk deeper into the slums.
- The boy claims they are carrying out "Sea's Justice." That the two of them, Jerry and Lucida, have no reason to protect Rick, because it is outside of their control, and so why should they bother? If they do try, the Black-Eyed Men will kill them and eat them, just like they ate Carol for harboring a Betweener's spawn.
- Lucida tries to reason with them, trying to find a way to keep them from coming back to the island, but all of the suggestions the Neatly Dressed Boy offers are things like, "blow up 'The Reef' which puts trash in the sea" and "murder all the people in the power plant," and so on.
- Jerry and Lucida tell the Black-Eyed Men they won't interfere, and watch them leave. Quickly, they start asking around the slums about Rick and Man-Sharks, so they might be able to save him.
- Lucida garners a story about peasants who thought there were shark-gods on the island, and whole lines of peasants descended from them. But the White Men drove the sharks away with rifles and explosives, and the peasants decided that they weren't gods after all. The lines descended from them disappeared, the peasants thought they were hunted down by the sharks because they were outraged by the unbelief...
- As the peasant is telling this story, some markings on a nearby piece of craftwork form words for a split second: "RICK IS DEAD."


Theme Song: Monster, by the Automatics.

All Possible Prologues

The following are stories made up, acted out, crafted, broken down, remade, completed, and then retold in the past tense by me for my records, based on the RPGs that I've played.

Each entry will begin with which game I'm playing, the players involved, and their characters. Each entry will end with some extraordinary parts of the game, and some possible theme music. Maybe I'll think up some new conventions as I go along, maybe not.

This is a Game Master's notebook made public, because this way I can keep track of what happens in games, but also because one of the best parts of RPGs is retelling what happened. Be aware, I did not write these as narratives: THEY ARE NOTES ON STORY EVENTS. I have used some flourishes in the language to make them readable, but they are by no means short stories. Don't expect them to be anything more than notes.