2.3(?) Hunting House

PeanutGalleryDeaver [re: ill-timed music cue]: "The EVIL big pink moving box, apparently."

Raveena: "A lot of stuff can happen on a night like this."

Stefan: "You are a naughty, naughty vampire."

Raveena: "Well! Not bad, Froggy."

Stefan: "Do not worry, Madame, I will ..."
Raveena: "Oh, will you CUT THAT CRAP OUT?!?"

Stefan: "Here at Phillipee."
Raveena: "Pie. Pie. Pie."

Stefan: "Slayer. Cool. I am, as zee American's say, (finger quoting) down weeth that."

Raveena : "Where was I?"
Chase: "Frenchie."
Gabe: "Pink hair."
Rachel: "Blue guy."
Raveena: "Right."

Unattributed: "Didn't you swear you were going to kill him later?"
Chase: "Later happens after free beer."

Raveena: "Anytime you want to kick this guy out of the house, it's fine with me."

Chase: "If he comes running in here every time there's screaming in the night, it's going to be a long year."

Stefan: "Do you have a leetle poltergeist phone?"

PeanutGalleryChase: "Going to the basement seemed like the worst possible idea." PeanutGalleryRaveena: "So we went there for ya."
PeanutGalleryDirector: "Thanks guys!"

Another night, another patrol as Raveena wanders through the quad on the Phillipi campus. Harrison strolls up behind her, not sneaking, but surprising her regardless. He chats her up and walks along with her in the moonlight, stopping to pick some flowers, and being disgustingly charming. As he's trying to convince her to come get a drink with him, a vamp (this guy was sneaking) creeps up behind Raveena. Harrison spots him before she does and stakes him unceremoniously. He cheerily starts plaguing her again, and she gives in and takes a quick side trip to Lone Star.

* * *

Chase is working in the living room of the new house, surrounded by boxes. A massive pink storage box on the street, only partially unpacked, blocks the view out the windows.

Her attention is suddenly snagged by the sound of a dripping faucet. It's coming from the bathroom off the study. Chase goes to investigate, and sure enough, the sink has a serious leak. Water pools on the floor, soaking through the cardboard boxes Geoff was supposed to unpack today before he left for work. Chase starts digging around for a towel to mop up the mess when she loses her footing and pitches over backwards into the tub, bringing the towel bar down with her as she tries to break her fall.

Soaking wet, Chase realizes the tub is leaking as well, and is quickly filling with water. She begins to get up and notices that the ceiling appears to be getting closer. She reaches for the edge of the tub, but the walls of the tub are rising, the top edge always just out of reach. The water in the tub starts moving faster, filling more and more rapidly. Fumbling for the faucet does nothing, so Chase grabs the towel bar and tries to wedge it in between the top of the tub and the ceiling. It crumples as the two collide, plunging her into total darkness. She screams.

* * *

Chase awakens with a violent start on the heels of her own scream. A concerned Geoff is trying to calm her down. She gasps for air and tries to laugh off the nightmare. Geoff doesn't look convinced.

* * *

After their brief "water break", Harrison and Raveena come back to the campus gardens to keep patrolling. Harrison laments Raveena's appalling taste in beer, and makes it his personal mission to teach her to appreciate Guinness. So when does he get to try again? Tomorrow night? She gives him a coy "maybe" and he leaves.

About that time, Raveena gets a tap on the shoulder. She turns around to see a man in a black coat, who awkwardly begins to tell her that he saw her conversing with Harrison, and wanted to advise her to avoid speaking to him in the future. A lot of "let's not tell each other what we are" awkward babble ensues. Raveena is so wrapped up in the discussion that she doesn't notice the two vampires (more sneaky types) coming up behind her. The guy does, however, and in a gloriously chivalrous moment he wipes out both of them single-handedly. Raveena is mildly impressed. Smack-talk ensues. She illustrates her ability to take care of herself by taking him down. Now he is mildly impressed. Looking up from where she has the guy pinned to the ground, Raveena spies a big blue demon waltzing its way through the Phillipi herb garden. The guy gets up and tries to be manly again, but Raveena shoves him out of the way and they wind up going team on the baddie instead. The mysterious stranger explains to Raveena that he knows who she is, and he's been following her. He is a vampire hunter from France, come to McKennit with a specific purpose. So he'll be seeing her around. Blue demon vanquished, the two part ways [they completely skipped the "hello, my name is" social nicety.].

* * *

The next morning, Geoff has called a very important meeting at their place. It is to discuss ? moving boxes. [Surprise!] The gang starts hauling stuff in from the storage container outside.

Stefan [that's the French guy - I'm tired of trying to avoid his name], following Raveena once again [yes, again], watches the activity from the street outside.

Breaking for the requisite moving bribe of donuts and OJ, Raveena fills the crew in on the evening before, and the French guy she met in the gardens, who was apparently following her. She takes no small amount of razzing for the side trip to Lone Star with Harrison. Breakfast over, everyone returns to hauling boxes.

The productivity is interrupted by a shrill scream from the basement - Rachel. Everyone runs to help. She tells them she just fell down the stairs, and the lump on her head is the only damage. Chase goes to the kitchen for some ice.

* * *

Hearing a sudden scream from inside the house, Stefan runs in the front door. He bolts into the dining room, where he comes face to face with the entire group. As Raveena gives him hell and some awkward conversation ensues, Chase is distracted by a sound - a dripping faucet. Off the study. Just like her dream. She grabs Geoff's arm and quietly asks him if he hears it. He does, and the two slip out together to take a look.

In the study, Geoff and Chase flip the light switch in the bathroom. Sure enough, the sink is dripping. One quick turn of the handle fixes the problem. Chase lets out a tiny sigh of relief.

The group realized they had disappeared and sent Raveena to find them, not at all sure what she would be faced with [heh]. She collects them and they all head back to the dining room.

Stefan finally introduces himself at Stefan de Regnier, a new Phillipi student who has recently arrived from Paris. Introductions are made around. He comes from a long line of vampire hunters dating back to the French Revolution, and has come to McKennit with a purpose. He pulls out a gold coin to illustrate that purpose. Chase immediately recognizes it - it is an Alumni talisman. Stefan says he wants Bannon. He has arrived here to avenge his brother, who was turned by one of the Alumni (and who Stefan was then forced to slay). The group warns him that Bannon isn't easy pickings, but he remains unmoved.

* * *

Later that afternoon, Geoff leaves for work (he feels a little guilty for sticking Chase with the unpacking) and Chase goes back to work. She decides to tackle the master closet, and starts hanging things on racks. As she puts up the last few items, the rod she is working on suddenly collapses. She manages to duck out of the way. The shelves she ends up under also start to collapse. Chase makes for the door, but it slams shut of its own accord and sticks firmly. She is trapped inside. Clothes, belts, and shoes begin violently flying around the closet, aimed right at her. She screams ?

* * *

Deaver, Brandon (he's now living at Deaver's), and Stefan are walking down the street [naturally] when they hear a terrified scream from inside the house. Brandon instantly recognizes Chase's voice and takes off running. The three of them burst inside and work their way back to the master bedroom where they hear sounds of a struggle inside the closet. Brandon opens the door and pulls Chase out (he gets punched in the nose for his efforts). The door slams shut again. Chase haltingly explains what happened. She opens the closet door again - the walk-in is a catastrophe, but nothing is moving around. Deaver suspects that the house has a poltergeist, and that it has latched onto Chase. The most obvious course of action is to check out the records of ownership for the house at City Hall, and then to see what they can dig up about the former residents. It is well past closing time, but Brandon assures them that it's easy to get into City Hall after hours. Chase calls Geoff's phone on the way to tell him what's happening; she only gets his voice mail. The others call Gabe, Rachel, and Raveena, who join them to help research.

Using the tunnels beneath McKennit, Brandon gets them into the City Hall building. They successfully trace the house all the way back to 1921 when it was built by Matthew Williams, the well-to-do owner of the local paper mill. The tunnels then take them all to the town library, where research reveals more of the story. Matthew Williams was not well liked by the townspeople of McKennit, in spite of his status as a self-made man. He was run out of town in 1925 when a mob of six descended on his house. A strange "weapons accident" occurred at the scene, and all six of the mob members were killed. The mob included Sarah Owens, who was thought to have shot herself. Sarah Owens' instability was at least understandable. Her husband disappeared, and then a few months later, her son. They were never found, and she never recovered from their loss. In fact, there were many other disappearances between 1921 and 1925, mostly male ? and all of them worked at the paper mill at one point or another. Sarah's brother Terrence was the next owner of the house, and he too committed suicide. He chose to drown himself in the bathtub. His son Andrew sold the house to Edmund Boyd, the last of the Boyd line, who died on the premises by breaking his neck in a fall down the basement stairs.

The research takes them pretty far into the night, and Chase looks at her watch and suddenly realizes that Geoff hasn't called back. He should be off work by now. She calls again, but there is no answer - worried that the house might jump him, she heads home to warn him about the situation. Raveena accompanies her.

* * *

Geoff opens the door and closes it again, yanking at his tie. He heads to the kitchen for his usual beer. He calls out to Chase, but there's no answer. In the kitchen, Geoff accidentally knocks a ring of Chase's off of the windowsill and into the sink, where it falls down into the garbage disposal. Swearing, Geoff goes in after it.

Chase throws open the door and calls to Geoff. At that moment, she and Raveena hear the garbage disposal turn on, and Geoff cussing a blue streak in the kitchen. They go running. In the kitchen, they find Geoff gripping his hand, white-faced, looking around for a towel. He tells Chase that he must have hit the disposal switch somehow, but she cuts him off and tells him a short version of what's going on as she goes to the freezer to get some ice. As she reaches for the handle, the freezer door slams open and tries to hit her in the face. She can't get out of the way in time, and falls backwards onto a rug, which starts to slowly rise into the air, as the drawers fly open and knives begin to dance chaotically around the room ?

* * *

Worried that Raveena, Geoff, and Chase may not be able to handle this alone, the rest of the group starts for the house. Some quick magical research by Gabe and Rachel gives them the beginnings of a plan.

* * *

At the house, there is nothing but madness. The chaos appears to be lessened towards the back of the house. Raveena rips the refrigerator door off it's hinges and uses it to shield herself, Geoff, and Chase as they work their way backwards into the hall. The flying objects continue to force them back, and they make for the basement stairs ? at least there is nothing down there to fly around ? as they hit the stairs running, the door slams shut behind them, sealing them in.

* * *

The group opens the front door and is faced with absolute mayhem. As the move towards the hallway, it feels as if the flying objects slow and part in front of them and then regain momentum behind them. As though the house wants them to go to the back. Really, really wants them to. Gabe has a backpack of supplies and snags a dancing red silk bathrobe on the way to the basement stairs.

They open the door and run down, where they find Raveena, Chase, and Geoff. The three of them are helplessly watching as the pipes above them bang and leak. Using the refrigerator door, some cinder blocks, and Chase's bathrobe, Gabe, Rachel, and Brandon set up a makeshift table and pull off a quick sance. The sounds upstairs suddenly subside. About a dozen figures begin to solidify in a circle around them. Several of the scoobies try to talk to them, but they only seem to respond to Gabe. When asked about Matthew Williams, the ghosts cry out and begin to flicker, as does the light hanging from the ceiling. Several disappear in a whirl, and the noise upstairs starts again. After calming them down, Gabe asks what they can do to help. The ghosts flicker again, spinning into a vortex and up towards the ceiling as a brilliant beam of light shoots out onto the oddly angled back wall of the basement. The ghosts swirl overhead.

Chase grabs one of the cinder blocks and launches it into the wall. The top corner crumbles, revealing a walled-in corner behind it. Tearing down the wall, the group reveals a single grotesque body slumped at an awkward angle against one wall. Looking him over, Chase pegs it as a 50-something male in good health at the time of death - apparently, Matthew Williams wasn't run out of town after all. Raveena spies a glint in the corpse's hands, which crumble as she reaches out to examine the flicker more closely. It is a large crystal shard. The wailing of the spirits gets louder. Convinced that this is what binds them all here, Raveena throws the crystal on the ground and smashes it. The keening ghosts cry out at a fever pitch and then they are suddenly gone, silent. The whole house is deafeningly quiet.

The gang goes up the basement stairs and walks back through the main house. Things are a mess, but actually not as bad as they had feared. Geoff reminds the group through gritted teeth that he REALLY needs to get to the hospital NOW. He is still clutching his hand. As Chase grabs her keys, she sees one object still floating in the air - a cloth wrapped around something, it would seem. It moves directly towards her. She reaches out confused and catches it - ice. She confusedly thanks the air, hands the ice pack off to Geoff, and she and Stefan get him out the door and to the hospital.

The rest of the crew stays to help pick up the mess. Strangely, it goes faster than they expected - things always seem to be right where you expect them to be. How odd.

* * *

A few days later, Geoff and Chase are discussing the house issue. They decide to stay, despite their unexpected roommates (who are in a much better mood, but still seem to have decided to stick around). They have a rare night off together, so they decide to go out for a drink. Geoff suggests Lone Star, but Chase is unenthused - as much as she loves Shannon, she doesn't really like hanging out there when she isn't working. She suggests Cura's instead - the place was swanky, the drinks were good, and it was definitely entertaining. The demon part of it is not too appealing to Geoff, but with enough needling and promises that he won't have to sing again, he eventually gives in.

* * *

Cura's is hopping, and the proprietor, Lorne, is talking to an unexpected guest. He doesn't look thrilled to see this red demon with fleshy beard, hoop earring, and killer zoot suit. The red demon suddenly bursts into a rumbly baritone singing voice, looking around.