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The Radford Horror, Episode 05

The autopsy of Amanda Lucky shows that she was drugged, crucified and partly eaten, a butterfly hair tie links her to the Augustine barn, and fingerprints from her roof put the long-missing spaceman robber back in Radford.
Arc The Radford Horror
Episode 05
Setting Radford, Virginia
In-fiction date Late May 1992; the day after Radford Horror 04's night, from mid-morning to about 6:30 p.m.
Players present Andre (Keeper), Dante, Ezra, Zack, Rita; Kira sat in without a character
Previous Radford Horror 04
Next Radford Horror 06

Synopsis

At the sheriff's station morgue, Dr. Harvey Mauden examines Amanda Lucky with Kurt Larson directing: she was nailed up without restraints, heavily sedated, and something tore open her abdomen. In her hair is a pink butterfly hair tie matching the one from the Augustine barn. Prints from the Lucky roof match the Radio Shack robbery, so Abelforth Whateley is back. In the woods the agents find blood dragged to the top of a tree and the cracked bones of a dog. The town imposes a curfew, Kurt addresses a church full of frightened residents, and an interview with the Augustines turns up a pharmacist who filled Amanda's opioid prescriptions and flinches at Dr. Lori's name. (Radford Horror 05)

Plot

The autopsy

Following the sheriff in, the team hears from Molly Underhill by radio that the fingerprints from the Lucky roof are back and that the autopsy is starting. At the station, volunteer deputies have been called in and a secretary is shredding paper. Mauden, an older man with a small gold cross who delivered Amanda as a baby, says a Hail Mary over the body and switches on a tape recorder. Part of the face is gone, which he puts down to coyotes after death. A large ragged wound has opened the abdomen and organs are missing. There are punctures through the wrists and ankles. (Radford Horror 05)

Kurt's first Investigate a Mystery (8) establishes that the nails were pulled through the limbs rather than removed, and that the lividity shows she hung from them: Amanda was crucified (see Crucifixion MO). The belly wound is organic, not from a blade, and has no clear tooth marks. His second roll (10) finds no ligature marks, old needle scars six or seven months healed, and one fresh needle mark from the last couple of days. Mauden puts the death no more than four or five hours back. Kurt thinks that is too little time for coyotes to do so much damage; Mauden agrees it is unusual but notes that a bear would leave claw marks, and confides that the nail wounds make him suspect a spree killer. On the same roll Kurt notices a pink butterfly hair tie in her matted hair, the twin of the one he took from the barn couch. The Biz excuses himself from the room and studies the scene photographs instead. (Radford Horror 05)

Underhill then reports the only database match for the roof prints: the electronics-store break-in, the Radio Shack robbery. An APB goes out for Abelforth, along with the child's sketch of the spaceman. In a huddle about secrecy, Andrew Howard says his boss told him to send anything unusual up the chain of command; the Biz cautions that, for Uncle Sam, "state security matters more than lives until it's a lot of lives," and Kurt points out that so far this is only a human murder. (Radford Horror 05)

The highway and the woods

At the highway scene, about a mile from the Lucky house, Samson, a part-time deputy in street clothes with a laminated paper badge, shares his coffee. The Biz (Investigate a Mystery, 10) reads the ground: a trail of blood drops and bare foot smears from the tree line to where she fell, a couple of coyote-sized paw smears, and a ring of spatter about five feet across lying on top of her footprints. No one else's tracks are present. Andre confirms that the cold open was her last run. (Radford Horror 05)

In the woods the Biz (Investigate a Mystery, 9 with Kurt's help) cannot pick the trail up again, but finds a branch spattered with gore and a streak of blood dragged all the way up a tree to its top branch, with no hair and no broken limbs. The agents take their own sample and tell the deputy only that there is a "secondary blood spot." Andrew takes the car round while the Biz, Kurt and Huell bushwhack toward Amanda's neighborhood. On the Biz's Sharp roll of 8 they find, about a quarter mile from her house, a scrap of her dress and the week-old skull and spine of a poodle-like dog, the bones cracked open (see Radford's missing dogs). Kurt keeps the skull. Andrew's theory is that aliens pinned her "like a butterfly" and let her go; the Biz prefers a serial killer and coyotes. (Radford Horror 05)

Back at the station, Mauden reports that the toxicology screen shows trace Xanax and a great deal of opiates, enough to sedate. Amanda could walk only because of an old tolerance, which suggests the other missing people may be held the same way. He takes the blood from the woods for testing. Underhill adds that someone has broken into Lori's office, fouled the toilet and thrown a brick through the window, which she takes for a high-school prank, and that Mr. Augustine is one of the town pharmacists as well as a published romance novelist. The white van's plates turn out to be invalid, and the sheriff puts out a second APB for the van. (Radford Horror 05)

Bedbugs, a darkroom and a lodge

Lunch is at the Lonely Mountain Diner, where the waitress asks whether the van is linked to "the guy that was up on the roof" and Huell Kendrick orders a stack of pancakes taller than his head. His bedbug welts are now obvious, and the waitress threatens to burn the place down for the insurance if it gets them again. Huell's clothes are steam-sterilized at the hospital, and the Biz buys him slacks and a "Radford, Virginia, UFO USA" flying-saucer T-shirt at a thrift store. The team moves out of the Pay n' Stay into four adjacent rooms at the lodge at $80 a night. (Radford Horror 05)

A Preparedness roll of 10, made at the station that morning, has put a portable darkroom in Kurt's travel case, and he stays behind at the Pay n' Stay to develop the Biz's film of Dr. Lori's patient files. At the lodge he and the Biz go through the prints while Andrew naps. Amanda's file shows Xanax prescribed with a stated reason, doses later raised with no explanation, extra appointments tapering into no-shows, and no mention of opiates. Kurt suspects drugs traded for sex. Andrew's alternative is that Lori and the pharmacist were in league, that the pharmacist was filling prescriptions in Lori's name behind his back, and that the two fell out over it. The other missing patient's file is unremarkable, and Mr. Augustine is not a patient. (Radford Horror 05)

The church meeting

At 4:30 p.m., with the Biz and Huell still asleep, Kurt and Andrew speak at a community meeting in the town church, the town hall being closed for black mold. Kurt introduces himself as Special Agent Kurtis and Andrew as his supervisor, and gives advice: the victims were lured out of their houses, so stop relatives from leaving; keep dogs indoors as an alarm; lock windows; sleep in the same room. Andrew visibly restrains himself from mentioning aliens. Afterward he admits he was a desk worker until this task force, and listens in awe to Kurt's stories of toppling a popular despot, of a sale made while posing as an insurance salesman, and of a man killed by the oil on Kurt's hand when they shook. (Radford Horror 05)

The Augustines

At the Augustine house, Mr. Augustine and Maybelline describe Phoebe's last ordinary evening. Kurt (Sharp, 9) catches a flicker in the father's eye at Lori's name. With Andrew drinking sweet tea in the kitchen, Kurt claims to have spotted the hair tie in the yard by the barn. Augustine says that Amanda visited a few weeks ago for a school project, that she owns plenty of those clips and that the girls play all over the yard; that he has filled Lori's opioid prescription for her a couple of times; that he knows of the "record error" and cannot discuss it; and that Lori came by the day before, upset about a prescription he said he had not written. Lori gives him "a weird vibe": he "likes jazz too much." Kurt comes away believing that Augustine is truly worried for his daughter and mostly truthful, but holding something back about Lori. (Radford Horror 05)

In Phoebe's room (Investigate a Mystery, 8) one slipper lies by the window, which faces the woods, and the other across the room: she saw something and bolted. Kurt misses on her diary (5) but still learns that Amanda was seeing someone besides Dean Lawson, whom Phoebe disliked. Maybelline tells Andrew that Amanda had seemed "off" on her last visits, that one of the Whateley twins once had a crush on Phoebe, and that Dean's parents are never home and he does not go to church: "That boy needs Jesus." The session ends in the lodge lobby with the plan undecided: a night stakeout from the water tower by the ski lodge, a split party, or a chartered plane from Roanoke. Huell wants no part of the water tower. (Radford Horror 05)

Cold open and framing

The cold open is a teaser of a young woman in a bloody, ragged dress running through the woods, screaming for help and clutching her stomach. She staggers across a dirt road, something passes overhead and blocks the moonlight, she drops to her knees, and the show cuts to credits. Andre later confirms that it was a flashback to Amanda Lucky's death. Scene changes are called as television edits ("we cut to an hour later"). There is no cliffhanger. See The show. (Radford Horror 05)

Player characters

NPCs

Monsters and entities

  • The unidentified thing that savaged Amanda and the dog, and the dark shape of the cold open: the Radford Moth, not yet seen or named
  • The Spaceman (by fingerprint)

Organizations

Locations

Items

Revelations

  • Amanda was crucified with nails and without restraints, sedated with opiates and Xanax, and injected within the last couple of days. Something then opened her abdomen and ate from it. She escaped on foot and died beside the highway a mile from home.
  • Blood was carried to the top of a tree, and a ring of spatter lay over her own footprints, as if something soaked in blood had shaken itself.
  • The hair tie in her hair matches the one from the Augustine barn.
  • Abelforth's fingerprints are on the roof of the Lucky house.
  • Mr. Augustine is the pharmacist who filled the disputed prescriptions, and the romance novelist of the barn.
  • Lori's file on Amanda records unexplained increases in Xanax and extra sessions, but no opiates.
  • Amanda had been seeing someone other than Dean Lawson.

(Radford Horror 05)

Open threads

  • Who crucified Amanda, and whether the same people hold Irene Whateley and Phoebe.
  • Whether the mutilation and the crucifixion are the work of the same party. The agents lean toward people for one and something else for the other.
  • What Augustine is holding back about Lori.
  • The white van, still at large on borrowed plates.
  • The test on the blood from the woods.
  • Interviews with Dean Lawson, Laura Nichols and Amanda's unnamed second boyfriend.
  • How to watch the sky at night.

(Radford Horror 05)

Memorable quotes

Quote

"If there's one thing that I know about Uncle Sam, it's that state security matters more than lives until it's a lot of lives."

Ezra (as the Biz)

Quote

"We put pins through butterflies, right? Maybe they thought the same thing. They put pins through her to keep her steady."

Rita (as Andrew Howard)

Quote

"Listen, I don't think it's a wolf man, but if we become certain that it's a wolf man, let me know, and I'll call my silver Parabellum guy."

Dante (as Kurt)

Quote

"Yeah, we got a laminator. You know, we aren't some hillbilly town, don't got a laminator."

Andre (as Deputy Samson)

Quote

"All right, but if this place gets bedbugs again, I'm going to burn it to the ground for the insurance money, and you didn't hear me say that."

Andre (as the waitress)

Quote

"I always got kind of a weird vibe from the man. [...] Just, he likes jazz too much."

Andre (as Mr. Augustine), on Dr. Lori

(Radford Horror 05)

Table notes

  • Level-ups taken at the start: Kurt takes Dark Past, and Huell takes a Crooked move that lets him use Tough in place of Charm. See game mechanics.
  • Dante rolls 10s on the second autopsy roll and on Preparedness for the darkroom, and a 5 on Phoebe's diary. A flat roll of 7 decides how well the thrift store can fit Huell.
  • Kira proposes "Roll to eat pancakes." Andre was going to ask for a Tough roll to finish the stack; Zack asks for a take-home box instead.
  • Zack keeps Huell asleep through the church meeting "just because I think it's in character. To be shitty about it."
  • When Kurt pockets the dog skull, Ezra remarks on Dante's habit of collecting skulls in other games.
  • Table anachronisms: Kurt says "Sometimes you really gotta pull out the rizz," and Ezra points out that rizz did not exist in 1992.
  • Andre forgets end-of-session experience until Rita reminds him; everyone marks one for learning something new about the world.
  • The bedbugs remain a running gag, with the diner as their next potential victim and the Pay n' Stay as "Motel Patient Zero."
  • During the opening recap the table briefly calls the dead girl "Amanda Palmer."

(Radford Horror 05)

Continuity

  • The cold open is the flashback that explains the body reported at the end of Radford Horror 04.
  • Underhill twice calls the missing twin "Abelforth Radford," a slip for Whateley; Mr. Augustine refers to "the Whateleys" later in the same episode.
  • Andre calls Andrew's boss "Nelson" here. He is the "Big Bill Nelson" of Radford Horror 01, usually just Big Bill.
  • The lodge the team moves into is across the street from the Pay n' Stay. It is a different building from the mountain ski lodge whose water tower the Biz proposes as a lookout.
  • The pink hair tie pays off Kurt's search of the barn in Radford Horror 03, and the developed film pays off the Biz's burglary.
  • Sets up the stakeout and the first meeting with Dean Lawson in Radford Horror 06.

(Radford Horror 05)