Forums » General Roleplay » Ripley and the Ghost Club (1x1)

"Well..." Ripley said, trying not to sound as uncertain as she felt, "if we just need to look around so V can let her spidy senses tingle or not, then we could do a school project. School projects usually get you in good with older adults. They like seeing kids be industrious. Or maybe some kind of community service? If they are older, they might have a garden that needs weeded or something. Heck, even younger adults like that. If we need to be there for a long time... Stakeout?" She shrugged. "It's hard to say without knowing the people, you know."

"Yeah..." Francis said. All of this would be so much simpler if Livia was still with them. But now they had to figure it out on their own. "Let's go appraise the location from a distance so we can select an appropriate plan."

Without their church contact, he would need to use his GPS, so he attached his phone to his bike. Of course this nerd had a phone mount for his bicycle. The GPS lead them down a few more blocks until they came to the house they were looking for. It was a simple, suburban house, like the others around it. But the front yard was horribly overgrown. Vines covered the walls and fence.

"Well. That's...fortuitous." The good news was, they had an in. The bad news was, it would involve dealing with...that.

Ripley looked around the yard with wide eyes. "Wow... Okay, so, plenty of work laid out for us. Provided we can get in." She looked at the other two. "And provided they have tools we can use. We don't exactly look like we're set up to help with yard work." She rubbed her chin thoughtfully as she studied the yard. "How about we just ask the if they have any chores for us and put yardwork in our lineup? Yeah, that should work."

Leaning her bike against the fence, Ripley brushed herself off and tried to look respectable. "Okay. Looks like I should do the talking. V, Fran, look eager and supportive." With that, she marched forward and right up to the door. She rang the doorbell and stood back, hands behind her back.

"That sounds like a comprehensive plan." Francis said. He took a deep breath, steeling himself for the manual labor he would likely have to engage in. The things he did for the spirit realm. "Affirmative." He put on the best endearing child smile he could. Visia nodded, but her expression didn't change. Maybe she couldn't. The door was answered by a man who looked like he was barely out of high school. He wore a polo shirt and cargo shorts. Perhaps he and Francis would get along.

"Hey there. Can I help you?" he asked. Clearly, he was confused why these kids he didn't know were ringing his doorbell, but he was still smiling, since they looked so nice.

Ripley grinned brightly, quickly rewriting what she had been about to say. In her mind, church people were all old, like the lady in the hospital, and older. There were kids in Sunday School, and maybe some parents, she supposed? A younger guy did not even factor into her mind. Then again, this guy might be a visiting grandkid.

"Hi, there! I'm Ripley, and this is Francis and Visia. We're working on a project that encourages elementary kids like us to take a more active role in our community. We were passing by and saw how your lawn looked like it could maybe be mowed. It'd earn us points in our school project if we'd be allowed to do some work for you. It doesn't have to be lawn care. If you'd rather, we can do indoor cleaning, too, and other small tasks that might be hanging over your head. Are you interested, Mr...?"

When Francis was introduced, he waved enthusiastically. Other than that, he let Ripley lead the interaction, since she was far better at lying. Unlike the other adults they'd interacted with, this one showed no sign of suspicion. Perhaps his youth came with a certain naiveté. Or maybe he was too nice for his own good. By the time she had finished, he was smiling brightly.

"Dayer Christiansen. Pleased to meet you." he replied, offering a hardy handshake. "That would be a huge help! My wife and I got married a few months ago and got this house at a steal. But you can see why... we've got the inside pretty clean, but I'd kill for some help with these darned plants."

He lead them over to his garage and opened the door. The inside was mostly bare, save for a car parked inside, and a rack full of gardening tools. "I got a whole set of these in preparation for this task, so help yourselves." Considering for a moment, he went ahead and grabbed the large pair of hedge trimmers, not wanting the kids to use such a dangerous implement. "Maybe I'd better take this one..." But there were other, smaller trimmers they could use, or trowels if they needed to dig any roots up.

Being intimidated by the larger tools himself, Francis went ahead and grabbed the smallest trimmer. Visia paused, seeming confused about what to take. In the end, she chose a small trowel.

Ripley found something that looked like a pair of giant scissors. She wasn't sure what they were or what they were supposed to be used for, but chopping things was always a good idea in a yard this messy! She also found a pair of gloves and grabbed another little trowel for just in case. The gloves so handed to Visia, guessing she had the most delicate hands between the three of them. Then she marched out to the lawn as if she knew what she was doing. She had some idea, having watched her share of gardeners, and she'd pulled a few weeds in her lifetime, but never actually yard work. This was going to be interesting! She set about hacking away gleefully, removing large chunks of weeds and grasses so they could see what they were doing and make it look pretty.

"So, you just recently moved in?" she asked casually.

As it would turn out, Francis had the most delicate hands between the three of them, which was why he also grabbed a pair of gloves for himself. He didn't know what he was doing either, and was much worse at hiding it. But surely the vines on the fence had to go, so he started trying to cut at those with his meager trimmers. Visia tried to help as best she could, digging out the roots of the vines with her trowel. Dayer was making much better headway with his clippers. These kids might be here to help, but he wasn't going to sit back and let them do all the work. Hearing Ripley, he looked over and smiled.

"Yup. Edrie and I met at Hawthorne Baptist Church while we were in high school. Soon as we graduated, we got married, and started looking for a place where we could raise a family." He wiped the sweat from his brow and continued hacking at the massive weeds by his house. "So, this project you mentioned, is it from your school?"

"Oh, that's cool," Ripley said brightly. She chopped down a few weeds and pulled them away from the house to create a single, large pile. "Yes, it's from out school. It's an extracurricular thing for certain club members to go out and try to do good deeds and record the effects. On ourselves and the people we help, of course. I think it's to do with... What was it, Francis? Like, good community and getting us out and away from our phones and stuff."

"Oh yes, many school personnel and parents were complaining about our device fixation!" Francis chimed in, attempting to pull down the vines he'd chopped up. "They lamented about the irrecoverable days of their youth when they would live life instead of observing it on a screen, so they- ack!" The vines suddenly gave way, causing him to tumble backwards into the pile of weeds Ripley had created. Seeing this, Dayer couldn't help chuckling.

"You alright there, Francis?" he asked.

"Affirmative!" The boy gave a thumbs up, but ended up coughing out some dirt.

Ripley laughed and set aside her tool so she could lean over and offer Francis a hand up. "Up you get!" Once Francis was on his feet and brushed off, she addressed Dayer again. "Say, you said you went to that Baptist church. Um, Hawthorn or something? We went to visit some older people in the hospital, to give them company and such, and one of them was from that church, I think. Isn't that right, Francis?"

Once Francis was dusted off, he nodded in thanks, and got back to work on the vines. "Oh yes, I believe it was...Nadrie Chapman?" he said. In reality, he knew her name perfectly well. But for the sake of their cover story, it couldn't come from the top of his head. Dayer shook his head.

"Poor thing. I heard she got attacked by an animal or something." he said.

After around an hour, they managed to get a good chunk of the weeds taken care of. During this time, Francis uncovered what appeared to be a nest of spiders, got chased by a swarm of bees, and somehow managed to cut his leg on a branch that didn't seem sharp. Dayer was in the process of offering him a bandaid when suddenly, Visia shot upright. Her intense stare was fixated on a dark corner of the home's foundation.

"Something's coming." she hissed. The darkness in that corner seemed to grow in an unnatural manner for how sunny it was. A single, spindly, red hand reached out, its sharp claws grasping at the soil. The creature used this grip to pull the rest of it out of the darkness. Everywhere else on its body was just as red and spindly. It bared its fangs as the animal-like slits it had for eyes fixated on Dayer, who obviously wasn't seeing this. He seemed confused about what Francis and Visia were staring at.

"Um, you seriously aren't seeing that?" Ripley demanded, her voice shaking as she pointed the thing crawling out of the shadows. "That's no animal! Not one from Earth, anyway." The creature was not as clear to her as the ghost had been, but she could definitely see it. She reached out and grabbed Dayer's arm, tugging him back as she walked backward. "This is bad. Real bad. Francis, what do we do?"

"No?" Dayer said. His confusion only grew as Ripley pulled him away. "What are you talking about?" Francis' knees were quaking, but he started searching through his pockets.

"Okay... we're out in sunlight... highly unlikely the UV flashlight will have any effect..." He pulled out something that looked like a radar gun. When he pulled the trigger, it let out a high pitched whine, and the creature snarled in apparent pain. Unfortunately, now its attention was on him. Crouching down, it lunged at impossible speed. But before it could reach him, Visia jumped between them, holding her hand out. A mysterious force from her stopped the demon in its tracks.

The two struggled against each other. Visia seemed to be straining to hold it back. After a few tense moments, it broke through, knocking her back with a swipe of its claws. Francis pointed his device again, but it was also swiped out of his hands.

"What in blazes is going on over there!?" Dayer exclaimed. The entity turned and started running on all fours towards him.

"How can you not see that thing? It's like a rabid dog thing!" Ripley blurted the first description that came to mind. It was not anything at all like a rabid dog.

The creature, whatever it was, was coming straight for them. Ripley jerked Dayer back as hard as she could and stood between him and the creature. She held up her clippers. Would these things even do anything against this creature? She doubted it, but she had to do something! She could just let him get eaten by this thing!

"I don't see anything!" Dayer insisted. "Oh my goodness, are they bleeding over there?" The supposed "rabid dog" didn't slow down as she held up her clippers. It lunged towards her, fangs bared, claws out, eyes full of fury... and it passed right through her body. It felt like an icy cold wind passing by.

Landing behind her, it stood tall, and swiped at Dayer. He let out a yell of pain and clutched at his chest as he fell back. There were three distinct gashes in his shirt, quickly becoming stained with blood. Once it had done this, the creature seemed satisfied. It crept back to the corner and sunk into the shadows once again. At that moment, there was a scream from the front fence. A woman the same age as Dayer wearing a sundress was standing there with her hands on her cheeks.

"Dayer!? What happened!?" She ran over and knelt down to check on him. Although it didn't entirely make sense, all she could see was a man with slash wounds and a little girl holding a pair of clippers. She leapt to the only conclusion she could come up with. "Did you do this!?"

She'd heard the expression, "Like someone walked over my grave," before, but she'd never understood what it meant. She understood in that moment. The cold, frigid lifelessness that engulfed her for only a moment but what felt like an eternity. She hunched over, shuddering, her teeth chattering violently. She barely even registered the fact that Dayer was bleeding until the lady started yelling.

"Why would I do that?" Ripley demanded, fear and frustration clear in her voice. She dropped the sheers point first into the earth where they stuck there upright. "There was a-a-a thing! I don't know what it was! They saw it!" She pointed a trembling hand at the other kids. "It just jumped at him!"

"She's... telling the truth... Edrie..." Dayer managed to grunt out, luckily for Ripley. "Those kids... are hurt too... call 911..." Francis was in the process of helping Visia stand up. Although Edrie sounded like she was hyperventilating, she pulled out her phone to call an ambulance.

"H-hello? M-m-my husband and some k-kids are hurt! We're at 1200 North Avenue!" At the instruction of the 911 operator, she ran inside and got some towels to staunch the bleeding. She handed two of them to Ripley. "P-please take these over to your friends and press them against their wounds."

Ripley grabbed the towels and took them to Visia and Francis and tried to help press them against their injuries. She had never felt more like she was nothing more than a kid than in that moment. She looked at the blood, her face pale, and tried to make it stop.

"We never should have gotten involved," she whispered, not really talking to anyone even though Francis and Visia could probably hear her. "This was stupid."

Luckily, the kids weren't hurt as bad as Dayer was. Francis had some cuts on his fingers and Visia's arms had been slashed when she tried to defend herself. Still looking shell shocked from their encounter, he wrapped one of the towels around his hands.

"We're the only ones who have a chance to stop it." he said. "But right now... that chance is looking infinitesimal." He looked up at Ripley. "We need Livia. Do you think there's a possibility we could convince her mother that- okay, upon voicing it, I realize how quixotic that would be. Could we convince her to go against her mother? That would be... slightly less quixotic?"