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The Walkers in Skin, Episode 07

A naked giant breaks into the double-wide, Bigelow's recordings and staff vanish, and Andrew Howard walks into the school gym at 1 a.m. to meet himself. The Andrew who walks out is not the same one.
Arc The Walkers in Skin
Episode 07
Setting Sherman Ranch; Ballard High School
In-fiction date The night of November 2–3, 1992 (Election Day), from sunset to about 5 a.m.
Players present Andre (GM), Rita, Dante, Ezra, Zack
Previous Walkers 06
Next Walkers 08

Synopsis

An intruder with a shotgun and a key lets himself into the guest double-wide; Andrew Howard ends the fight by driving something out of him with light. At the big house, Robert Bigelow finds every recording and three employees gone, and arms everyone. Andrew keeps his 1 a.m. appointment at the gym, where upright horses usher him in to meet his own double. He fights, sets off a grenade, and loses. A replica takes his place and tells the team a tidied story. In the burning school Huell Kendrick faces a pack of upright coyotes and finds bodies wrapped in plastic falling from the ceiling. (Walkers 07)

The two Andrews

Which Andrew is which

Rita plays the real Andrew Howard up to the end of the gym fight. Andre ejects Dante, Ezra and Zack from the call for the whole of that scene. When the double's tendrils enter Andrew's mouth and "everything goes black", Andre gives Rita a written handout and tells her, "you are not in Andrew Howard's body. You are in a replica." From that moment she plays the replica, which is the same double Andrew fought in the gym ("You are the one that barfed in his mouth"), and which passes itself off to the team as Andrew. The other players are brought back only afterwards. Neither they nor their characters are told of the swap in this episode; Rita remarks at the table, "I think they have suspicions." She keeps playing the replica through Walkers 08 and the unrecorded Walkers 08.5, and the real Andrew returns in Walkers 09. (Walkers 07)

Andre told Rita that the faction clones people from tissue samples (Andrew's came from the cut left by the mayor's ring in Walkers 05, Huell's from the bite in Walkers 06); that a clone of Huell exists but has not yet replaced him; that this copy was made in a hurry and "wrong", has leukemia, and deteriorates the longer it lasts; that it starts at four harm from the grenade and must explain its injuries; and that the faction has suborned about 60% of the town and is close to dropping its pretenses. What will happen to the real Andrew is left unsaid: "You would assume the plan is to kill him." See Replication. In the Plot below, "Andrew" in quotation marks is the replica. (Walkers 07)

Plot

A rough nap

The team naps at about 6 p.m., with Huell's bitten hand swelling. Around 11 p.m. the Biz wakes on edge (Read a Bad Situation, 9) to scratching at the front door. Through the peephole he sees a low mass, not human height, which skitters around the house when he opens up. Then hinges squeak in the mud room at the back. The laundry-room door opens by millimeters and a wide, bald head pokes out two feet off the floor. (Walkers 07)

The intruder is a naked giant, nearly seven feet tall, with an over-under shotgun. He throws Huell into the Biz. Andrew, in striped pajamas, tackles him from behind (Protect Someone, 12) so that one barrel goes into the ceiling, and is slammed through the drywall. Kurt Larson forces the second barrel into the wall and is caught in a chokehold. The Biz loops his belt around the man's neck (a 5) and has a chunk bitten out of his cheek. Shots to both feet from Kurt's P90 and Huell's pistol produce no sign of pain. (Walkers 07)

Andrew will not risk a head shot with the Biz in the way. He uses Cast Out Evil instead, and rolls a 12. With his hands on the man's face, a black-light glow passes through the body and bluish-white light streams from the eyes and mouth. The man goes limp. Andrew does not understand what he did. Huell's first aid (a 15) stabilizes the body, which breathes but has fixed pupils and no muscle tone. A key is still in the back door. (Walkers 07)

Protocol blue

Walt "Coyote" Murphy arrives at 11:15, looks at the naked man, and says, "Is that... you?" The phones are down. He drives the body to the emergency room in Roosevelt without stopping in Ballard. At the big house Bigelow is raging: every hard drive and tape (Bigelow's recordings) is gone, the barn is cleared out, three employees are missing, and whoever did it had keys to everything. Told about the missing students and the departed sheriff, he declares "protocol blue", opens "the big cabinet", hands out SPAS-12s and M16s, and asks the team to stay. (Walkers 07)

The gym

Andrew dresses in his FBI suit and takes his camera, pepper spray, pistol, bag and pendant. He refuses backup. Huell drives him in, straightens his tie ("You kids have fun"), and parks out of sight. (Walkers 07)

The gym's latch is taped over, as the note promised. Andrew knocks. Two horses standing on their hind legs are inside; one politely gestures him in. On a stool sits Andrew Howard, who waves, trots over and shakes his hand. Armed townspeople file in behind. The double offers the easy way or the hard way. The easy way is a kiss: his mouth stretches wide and fine gray tendrils extend from his throat. The hard way is the click of a shotgun. (Walkers 07)

Andrew pepper-sprays him (Kick Some Ass, 9). For a moment the double's head is simply erased, showing cross-sections in colors that do not belong inside a human head, and he collapses in a seizure. A horse brings its hoof down on the back of Andrew's neck and someone shoots him in the stomach with a shotgun. Using his What I Need When I Need It move, he pulls a grenade from his bag and pulls the pin; his Act Under Pressure is an 8, and it slips from his hand. A horse throws itself on it. The blast drives a piece of horse into his back. He casts out whatever is in the horse stamping him (a 14) and it goes limp, pinning him. The double, missing part of a shoulder, crawls over it. Sickly-sweet vomit drips onto Andrew's face, the tendrils enter his mouth, and everything goes black. (Walkers 07)

Coyotes in the hallway

From the car, Huell hears the explosion and finds the gym in flames. "Andrew" staggers out bloodied and says townsfolk tried to kidnap him and he used a grenade. Huell patches him up (a 13) and goes in. The gym is chairs, limbs and pieces of horse (Investigate a Mystery, 10); the attackers have retreated deeper into the school. Part of the ceiling comes down, dropping a spiral bundle of melted plastic that lands with a wet splash. (Walkers 07)

In the hallway ten or twelve coyotes stand staring, then advance in step. Warning shots do nothing. Huell kills one; another clamps onto his arm; the pack rises onto its hind legs. "Andrew" arrives, fires (a 13), and routs them. Huell unrolls the bundle: a putrefied corpse packed in white powder. More fall. No fire truck ever comes. (Walkers 07)

Until sunup

Back at the ranch "Andrew" tells Kurt and the Biz about townsfolk, horses and a grenade, leaves out his double, and guesses "a religious cult thing again". Kurt recognizes the smell of a mass grave on Huell and concludes this has been going on for months. The dead coyote, oddly clean and groomed, goes into Bigelow's beer cooler for McManley. "Andrew" takes first watch with the Ponytail Lady. Midnight passes into Election Day. At about 5 a.m. Walt returns: the intruder died on the heart-lung machine. The plan is to drive out at sunrise with radios and call in the National Guard. (Walkers 07)

Cold open and framing

A dim room of stock tanks filled with dark liquid, hoses and wires, with distant voices and squeaking shoes. Huell's face rises from the last tank and opens bloodshot eyes. Cut to credits. This is Skinwalker Huell. Andre follows with a recap of the previous session. After the gym scene the episode cuts back in time to Huell waiting in the car, and later "to the following morning". (Walkers 07)

Player characters

NPCs

Monsters and entities

Locations

Items

Revelations

  • The faction replaces people with copies grown from tissue samples, finished by tendrils from mouth to mouth. Copies can be flawed. (Walkers 07)
  • Cast Out Evil drives something out of a host and leaves the body empty; the intruder died within hours. See Pilot and host biology. (Walkers 07)
  • Horses and coyotes act with intent on the faction's side. (Walkers 07)
  • Several bodies wrapped in plastic and packed in white powder were stored in the gym ceiling. Kurt takes them for some of the missing and concludes the killing has gone on for months. (Walkers 07)
  • Someone has keys to the whole estate. (Walkers 07)

Open threads

Memorable quotes

Quote

"What, replacing me? With you, I assume?" (Rita, as Andrew)

Quote

"What's the easy way? Because, like, do you know how to be me?" (Rita, as Andrew, to the double)

Quote

"I wanna make an informed decision, bro. Like, 'What's the hard way?'" (Rita, as Andrew)

Quote

"Yeah, it's like, pick a fucking lane, right?" (Andre, as Walt Murphy, on a naked man with a shotgun)

Quote

"You kids have fun." (Zack, as Huell)

Quote

"Fucking Utah, man." (Dante, out of character)

Table notes

  • The cold open prompts jokes that Zack will have to play "four Huells". Zack: "Copies is like my favorite thing." (Walkers 07)
  • Before the gym scene, with the whole table sure the meeting is a trap, Rita says, "The meta knowledge is gonna kill me. The fact that I have to play an idiot." (Walkers 07)
  • When the replica shrugs off its wounds, Dante says, "I thought you got shot in the face." Rita, as the replica: "I don't know what you're talking about. Clearly they missed." (Walkers 07)
  • Andre forgets the dread mechanic until Zack reminds him; everyone marks dread, and Andrew is at 18. See Game mechanics. (Walkers 07)
  • Zack has Huell call the goose Betsy as a joke. She is Nancy; Betsy is the car. (Walkers 07)
  • The car radio plays "Baby Got Back", "Under the Bridge", "Smells Like Teen Spirit", "I'm Too Sexy" and "Bohemian Rhapsody". The Biz: "Real music died in the '80s." (Walkers 07)
  • Zack on Election Day: "Have we entered the Perot-verse?" (Walkers 07)

Continuity