Broken Engagement |
Summary: | Mitchell stops into the diner for some pie. Dobson goes to get him pie and a monster attacks. Mitchell kills the monster. Dobson discusses how they might profit from the monster meat. A woman cries. True story. |
Date: | May 16th, 2010 |
Related Logs: | Related Logs: None |
Players: |
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It's that time of evening where the sun is below the horizon, but the sky is still lit with it's last dying rays. It's yet again Dobson's shift at the Diner (when is it ever not, seriously) and the man is working at cranking out some burgers for an out-of-towner couple that's in a corner booth and chatting quietly. Their Caddy is out in the parking lot, looking somewhat out of place given the environs. Whilst flipping burgers, Johnny occassionally pops a glance out his little window from the kitchen at the couple and then over out into the emerging darkness.
Barrelling down the highway at 30-past-'Way too fucking fast' comes the crimson red truck characteristic of Mitchell North, elbow poked out of the open window by the time he's pulling into the parking lot adjacent to the diner. It gets a little smattering of white dust for his efforts, truck pulling to a slightly squealed stop somewhere in the vicinity of 'Diagonal' to the diner. This is what happens when you don't put lines there, people!
The male of the couple, a sandy haired guy with neatly clipped hair, shorts, t-shirt and a bone necklace around his throat, grunts at the woman sitting across from him and pushes to his feet. Glaring at her, he swings down the aisle, looking down at Mitchell's truck as it comes to a screeching halt, before moving on to the bathroom and disappearing inside. The woman, for her part, looks fairly young, barely out of her teens. Maybe. When the man leaves, she starts crying. Drama.
Johnny, of course, sees the whole thing, but is busy pretending he didn't. Nothing to see here. Two burger flips and he peers back out again in time to see the man stride towards the bathroom and to spot the newly arrived red truck, muttering under his breath, "Fucking maniac son of a bitch," and wiping the sweat from his forehead.
Closing the driver's side door with only a minor thump, Mitchell gives one last check-pat of the large panel of metal covering the flatbed of the truck before coming on in through the diner door, adjusting both his hat and a reasonable pile of papers firmy bound and tucked beneath his arm before shuffling hisself onto one of the counter stools. A napkin is nabbed to wipe the dust from his elbow with idle attentiveness before pulling the sleeve back down to match his other arm.
Whilst Mitchell migrates inside, Johnny finishes up the burgers and with a plate in each hand, delivers them to the booth. The woman tries to cover up her crying, Dobson just ignores it and offers a smile, which given the way he smiles comes off way more sleazy than he intends. "Buck up, sugar." And off he goes, eyeballing Mitchell as he retreats back behind the counter. "What can I do you for, North?"
Papers start to spread over the counter, filled with boring words alongside tables of numbers and fanned out by a tired hand as a pen is pulled out from North's jacket pocket. With a little neck-craning (And clicking, seems he's been driving for a while) the man glances at both the bawling woman and Dobson, giving a weary shrug to the latter. "Could murder some coffee. An' y'got any pie?" No preference as to ingredients within, just… 'Pie.'
"Chicken pot or pecan?" Dobson responds to the pie query, skewing a glance down at the woman when Mitchell gives his shrug. A grunt is offered, along with, "Relationship bullshit. Same old, same old." Stepping down the way behind the counter, he retrieves a coffee mug and the coffee pot labeled BLACK. The mug is set down in front of the man and his coffee poured expediently (most of it even gets in the mug!) "How you been?"
"Chick'n'pot." Mitchell fails to hide the slight grin. They have pie. Pushing the papers away from the mug, his chalky-elbowed napkin is used to clean up around the mug, lifting it away from the counter before taking a sip. Grin disappears: Probably tastes like ass. The mug goes back on the table, and his papers come back into place, with a couple of thigns being underlined, or ticked. "Been worse in m'time. Got a few folks tryin' to raise issue with the stables." Finger points at papers. "Their horse got 'et. That's 'parrently my fault."
Dobson oh-so-subtly reaches under the counter and produces a small container of creamer and a few sugar packets before nodding at Mitchell and ducking into the kitchen. "It's on the house, for that rescue a few weeks back. Things've torn me up much worse if you hadn't shown up." The man goes about cutting a generous slice of pot pie for the horse rancher and heating it back up from room temp. Just like mom used to make, etc. "They think you're eatin' their horses? 'less there's something seriously wrong with you I haven't picked up on, what the fuck?"
Over at her booth, the girl sniffles twice, loudly, before peering over her shoulder down towards the bathroom. Still no sign of her bo. Sighing in frustration, she pushes up to her feet, wipes her face with one of the napkins from the table and walks down the aisle past Mitchell.
"My land." Mitchell carefully ignores any mention of the incident a few weeks back, tearing open a couple of the sugar packets before dumping them in the mug to join it's liquidy partner. "Things get et on my land, I'm t'blame. Somethin's been eatin' the varmints, too." Yes. He just really said 'Varmints.' As the woman passes behind him, she does get the slightest of glances. Nothing more.
The woman doesn't stop, but she gives Mitchell the once over before continuing on towards the bathrooms. When she reaches the men's room door, she knocks and waits. "Tony?"
Dobson, meanwhile, slips that slice of pot pie into the oven and sets a timer. "Pie'll be a few minutes, got some fries if you want somethin' to gnaw on." A beat. "So either you tell them to blow it out their ass or you try to find out what's doin' the eatin'. Don't envy you those choices, man. F-ing varmint population in this town is risin' by the damned day. Lucky one of US ain't got ate at this rate."
Mitchell just throws another shrug. "Only so many nights inna row I can sit out back with a light, ome beers an' a gun." probably about 6 of them in a row, if we're honest. "An' sure. I'll take some fries. Missed lunch." As if he needs an excuse for pie, really.
"Comin' right up!" And as Dobson reaches for one of the clean plates off the stack, the woman at the bathroom door, frustrated by the lack of response from Tony, says in a fairly easy to pick up tone, "FINE. DON'T answer me. I don't care. You can take your ring back and shove it up your ass!" She tugs a fairly large rock off her finger and shoving the door open, prepares to hurl it inside. The ring drops from her slackened hand about a second later as she stumbles back and screams at the top of her lungs, "OHMIGAWD!"
A second later something man-shaped hurls it's way out of the men's bathroom, smashing the door into the woman who hits the wall and then drops to the floor. Naked and oddly lacking in distinctive sex organs, the place where a human face should be is a sea of barbed teeth. Standing over the now prone woman, it raises it's head and howls in a decibel range that isn't even remotely human.
Another second later and the dish that Dobson was picking up hits the floor, let go of as he ducks down below his window in the kitchen and grabs for a large metal spatula.
Mitchell's neck pops as it swivels his head around to glance at the creator of the scream. Then stare at the creator of the howl. Eyes travel up. Eyes travel down. He slowly slides backwards out of the stool, keeping one hand on the counter. "Now that is some fucked-up shit." Neutral, almost deadpan.
Well, it clearly has ears, because it rounds about on Mitchell. Snuffling it's hooked face, it takes a step in his direction, teeth clacking together menacingly.
From the kitchen, Dobson calls, "You need some help in there? Got knives. Shotgun behind the counter by the coffee pots. And, er, I think the owner mightcould got some C4. Dude was in freakin' Nam!"
"M'serious, son." Mitchell holds his palms out, still backing away along the counter from the teethy… thing. "You are one mighty ugly sunvabitch." Then, with the attempt at diplomacy over, the rancher dives his ass over the counter, butt-sliding to land on the other side with a loud thump before his limbs go everywhichway to skitter towards the coffee pots. And the shotgun. "S'it loaded?" The voice bounces off of the walls towards the kitchen.
"Hell if I know. Shoot it and find out!" Dobson appears in the window from the kitchen, spatula in one hand, knife the other. The creature is given a wide-eyed look and he says, "THE FUCK IS THAT?"
The creature, drawn by Dobson's voice, cocks it's head bird-like at the man before jumping to the counter in one bound and prepping for another leap down upon the horse rancher. "GeeeeeeRAWRGHHHH!"
Lacking the time the check thanks to the creature's bout of acrobatics, Mitchell hoists the shotgun. Left goes on pump, right around stock and trigger. With a boot to the wall, his slides butt-first along the floor, back hitting the counter as he comes to a stop directly beneath… WhatwasTony. He peers up. The shotgun peeks up. It's like firing from the hip, but not. The trigger? She is pulled.
Seems the ol' coot who owns the bar does in fact keep it loaded. Possibly for 'close encounters' such as this one. The round? Buckshot. Range? V. Close. Damage done? Massive. The creature is blasted upwards by the shot, hits the ceiling and then thumps down onto the counter, there to flail it's limbs. It's chest is one gigantic sucking wound.
Dobson blinks twice and says, "Well. That was easy."
The pumping of the shotgun is just a sudden burst of noise compared to the 'pin-drop' equivalent that is the shell rattling it's hollow, plastic way along the floor with a couple of bounces. Mitchell's on his feet pretty quick, sliding over the counter while keeping the business end of the barrel pointed in the general direction of the thing's face, focusing on the sucking chestwound for now. "Why'd you have to say that? Folks say that then someone dies. Seen it in th'movies."
It's a good thing Mitchell keeps an eye on the thing, because no sooner than he's chastised the man in the kitchen then the creature lunges at him with sharply clawed hands, suckers aimed at the man's face! It can't quite seem to latch onto him, though, but it doesn't stop coming, wound or no.
Dobson squeaks quite girlishly and disappears behind the window again, "JUMPING JEHOSEPHAT! SHOOT IT IN THE FACE!"
"AH TOLD YOU!" If Mitch wasn't so focused on the angry thing trying to claw his face off, Dobson would be getting such a severe looking at it almost hurts to contemplate. Instead, he's a little busy skittering backwards before poking the shotgun in the direction of teethbeast. "Y'look like somethin' that fell offa my dick after m'last trip to Vegas." One-liner: Done. Trigger: Squeezed. Checklist complete.
This time, the monster gets blasted back and stays down. Hole in chest, missing most of it's face. Yep. It's down. Dobson, at this point, peers slowly over the window sill again and after a furtive glance left and then right, he calls softly, "Mitchell? That you, right? You kill it?"
Mitchell just peers through the smoke and smell of gunpowder, letting the shotgun stay firmly pointed at what little remains of the thing's face as he leans just a slight amount towards it. He sniffs. Then he spits, right into the chest cavity. "Yup, 'an mebbe. Y'got a shovel? An that C4?" His boot kicks the thing's foot. "An' some bourbon for the lady?"
"How's it smell?…" An odd question, but Dobson is kind of an odd dude. He comes out of the kitchen now with that spatula and not the knife and says, "Think I can manage those things." Peering down the bloodied counter, he says, "Fucksocks. It's gonna take me forever to clean this place up."
A finger points over the counter before his head turns to look for the woman that was with the man. Y'know, before he turned into a thing. It's probably just to make sure she doesn't thing-ette, but let's not try to get too deep into the mind of Mitchell North, here. "Don'tchu forget my Pie, Dobson!"
"I ain't forgot your damned pie," the cook says, flailing with his spatula. He walks in the opposite direction, more towards the downed beastie and says, "Y'know. I know somebody'd prolly pay good cash money for that critter's corpse. Just sayin'. If you were so inclined." Near the bathroom, the woman is just starting to bring herself up off the floor, clearly in a good amount of shock. It's then that her hand hits her engagement ring and she starts to bawl her eyes out.
Mitchell just blinks. His head turns to the critter. Back to the woman. To the critter. Back to the woman. "Er." The shotgun gets placed on the counter with only a little clatter. "M'sorry this thing prob'y ate your fiance." Fee-untz-ay. He's also careful not to mention it might have been her fiance. It doesn't look like the 'hiding in the bathroom' type. "D-..D'you.." His head turns to Dobson. "Give the lady some pie."
"I don't think pie is gonna—" A look at Mitchell and Dobson just nods his head, swinging back towards the kitchen again. "Might be able to provide some ice cream, too," he adds, not that it'll help all that much. "Y'know, I'm sure there's critters out there that ain't so bad, but fuckers like these and those freakin' ghouls just give 'em all a bad name," said conversationally.
"Not to mention the fuckers that keep eatin' my horses." Mitchell mutters, sliding his way back over the counter before peering around somewhat. There's another mutter, and he grabs a cup and the coffee pot. Without asking. The woman gets some poured for her. Y'know, that's just how he does. "Y'got some tarp or somethin' around here?"
"Pie is on the way!" Dobson comes out with a plateful of pecan pie with a side of vanilla ice cream and a plateful of chicken pot pie. He clears a space on the counter nearest the bathrooms, coincidentally with the least amount of gore present and sets down the plates. "Bon appetite!" said just like Julia said it. Disturbing. A beat. "Think I might have some tarp in the meat freezer. Lemme check." And off he goes again to find them a means of conveying the freshly killed meat.