The following is a ‘narrative replay’ for my Call of Cthulhu scenario, Be Good Neighbours, from the Flash Cthulhu series. I haven’t done one of these for quite a while, so to explain: what I call a narrative replay is simply an session recap, or AAR, or whatever you want to call it, but in a narrative, prose, format, with ‘replay’ being stolen from the Japanese term for session write ups (and actual plays…), and ‘narrative’ tacked on because I’m pretentious.
Without further ado, Be Good Neighbours:
I write this at the kitchen table in the farm house outside Arkham, the papers with Mother’s words to me lying scattered beneath. My hands shake and my eyes can’t help but look up at that little house across the field.
I was the only one who had forgotten about what had happened inside that squat house. Joe hadn’t, and it had driven him to drop his medical degree and go patch up the boys fighting Hitler, never to return from that bloody business. Father hadn’t, he’d gotten us away from that farm as soon as he’d saved up enough, letting us think for years he and Mother had fallen out, right up until he dropped dead in ‘52 and I finally got to talk with Mother at the funeral. And Mother clearly had never forgotten, as the letters on the kitchen table now lay out so clearly, and her labourer’s scratchy handwriting bluntly scoured the fog from my own mind.
That little house, its hunched roof barely visible over the corn out the kitchen window. Our little house. Legally, my house, along with this one, now that Mother finally rests. Back then, this was the Mason’s house, as was that wretched little one, and we only rented it.
Our little house.
Their house.
Mother’s last words, sprawled out on the kitchen table, remind me of everything, and strip away that warm blanket of self-knitted ignorance. Father had hoped he could spare Joe and I. He’d succeeded with me, for a time, but Joe had been too bright for his own good. You can only spare someone from their own memory, their own home, for so long. Now that Mother is gone, the responsibility has fallen to me. Father couldn’t keep it from me forever, and Mother has now told me what I must do, as she had to do for so long. Alone.
Shirley. My little girl. I had missed you, and Joseph, and Roy. I wish you could have spent more time with me. I wish we could have talked more. I wish I could have told you with my own voice instead of my writing. I’m not good at writing. You should have learned, remembered, with more grace.
I’m gone now. The houses are yours. It is all yours. You need to remember what happened.
We lost the house and shop in Boston in early ‘33. Lots of people lost things then. Roy blamed himself. I always told him it couldn’t have been helped. I didn’t want you or Joseph to think badly of your father. But I think I did hold it against him. I did good work. He didn’t. It was so long ago, though. Maybe I misremember. I hope I didn’t show it. With everything else that happened, he didn’t deserve to feel responsible.
Maybe he should have. But that wasn’t something Roy could do. I did.
He did find the house in the paper though. Right when I thought we might have to beg to have you sent to your great-aunt’s, Roy saw and followed up on the ad. And soon we were bouncing down that dusty road outside of Arkham in the back of a farmer’s truck. I forget that man’s name. Do you remember? Jack? I remember what he said though. ‘You seem nice. Hope you don’t run off like the others.’ Not a polite way to greet new neighbours.
You sulked and Joseph had his nose stuck in a medical textbook. He always did, didn’t he? Or maybe I misremember. We carried our whole lives with us. How could he hold a book open with his luggage in hand, too? The two of you went in ahead to fight over the south bedrooms. I’m grateful neither of you complained. Not much. Roy and I knew you were both disappointed moving out of the city. Farm life didn’t suit either of you. Not yet. But Joseph just studied harder, and you offered to help even more than you had before. We were so proud of you.
We all had our complaints, even if we didn’t speak them to each other. The school being all the way off in Arkham and us with no automobile meant Joseph would have to walk so far or give up on school. No close neighours. No shop for my tools. We couldn’t complain about everything, though. One shared kitchen/dining/living room, but enough other rooms for everyone to have their own. And electricity! Roy and I had been worried about that. The well water tasted good, even better than Boston water, Joseph said.
The well.
The well in the utility closet.
The grate on the well.
The lock on the grate.
The shapes on the lock.
I didn’t think much of it.
There was so much else to think about, to worry about. Roy chattering away, all those ideas and hopes. You know how he got. Become farmers. Plant a garden. Build me a workshed. Find cheap bikes for you and Roy to go to and from school. Charming, but also frustrating. We’d lost the shop and the house. He’d lost them. How could he think he’d make things so much better?
That wasn’t fair. But it’s what I thought. I guess I had blamed him. I’d forgotten how angry I’d been. We didn’t fight, though, not then, thanks to our neighbours.
You had called then, seeing the four of them coming down the dusty way. We watched at the window. They waved, we waved, and met them on the porch. A lovely family, good landlords, and how perfect with a boy and girl just the same ages as you and Joseph. And you played so well. You talking with the girl, Joseph playing ball with the boy. What were their names? I only remember Mrs. Barker’s name, or her nickname. ‘Do just call me Shirley,’ she said. Same as you. She gave me a casserole. It smelled so good, I still remember that. We made plans for dinner, Shirley telling, no, ordering me not to make anything. Such good neighbours, and good landlords. Mr. Barker offering to help Roy with work, volunteering to help build me a workshed.
We thought ourselves so lucky.
The girl had said something. Abby, Abigail, that was her name, wasn’t it? Something about the past tenants. The truck driver had said something as well, earlier. Mr. Barker and Mrs. Barker explained away well enough. Cityfolk not used to living in the country, hearing coyotes or racoons and crying ghosts and ghouls. Mr. Barker did seem more inclined to believe in the supernatural, ‘nothing dangerous of course! Just some past ancestors, perhaps!’ He had laughed and promised to talk more over dinner.
You made a face as they left. Something Abigail had mentioned, you said. Voices from the bathtub. I laughed. You didn’t. We sent you off with Joseph outside so we could unpack and get ready for dinner. Into that little wood at the end of the field.
Roy and I joked about it for a while.
Until he heard them.
Until I heard them.
Voices in the drain. Like rustling leaves, caught and crushed by a dry wind, only forming into intelligible words by happenstance, or darker, unknowable ways, a crackling chorus that whispered and coughed and spat horrors.
The drain. The bathtub. The toilet. Their slithering demands flooded the little house.
The well.
The grate with the lock. And beneath, so dark.
Roy brought a candle, but its flickering tongue barely licked halfway down. We could see the faintest of glimmers on black, black water far below. And then something else shone in the darkness. I met their eyes.
I wrote down what they said, later, after everything had happened. After we had cleaned. As we started forgetting. I felt I had to remember what they said.
‘The others will kill you, they will butcher you, and then give us your bones so we may break them. They will do it, as they have done before. Free us, and we will break their bones.’
And when we fled the closet, they snarled.
‘Then we will drink your still-hot blood, tear your wet flesh, and grind your slick bones. As we have done before, we will do again. And your killers will kill again and again. We feed, either way, though you may choose on who we satiate our hunger.’
You and Joseph ran back in then. Or later. I don’t know how long Roy and I sat at the table, not speaking, just staring at each other. Holding each other. The two of you ranted about a tunnel in the woods, and an empty graveyard. I’m sorry, I didn’t listen to you then. But after, we did go, Roy and I. We saw the tunnel, smelled the must and rot wafting from the deep earth. We saw the graveyard, old as the pilgrims, with its long emptied graves, and the new mound with its abandoned trophies. Clothes, jewelry. Things left behind. Things unused. Things unneeded.
The knock on the door came so soon. I hadn’t noticed the light dimming. Roy and I looked at each other, eyes wide, trying to ask what to do. In the end, he let the Barkers in, and I didn’t stop him. Why wouldn’t we? Who would listen to those horrible things in the water? Not me. No matter how much I should have. And no matter how much I wanted to. Rationality won out over that deeper sense that urged to trust the untrustable, to believe the unbelievable.
Our neighbours came in all smiles, carrying covered pots and dishes. What exquisite smells! The Barkers’ smiles and jokes, the clattering of utensils, our mouths watering at the scents, it all felt so normal. How fast we forget, or make ourselves forget. We’d talk it over dinner, I thought. Mr. Barker had said odd things happened at the house. We’d just scared ourselves. Or maybe the boy had played a joke on us. Forgive me, I started convincing myself even you and Joseph had done it for a laugh.
We sat. Joined hands for Grace. Shirley, not you, my dear, Mrs. Barker pulled the towels off the dishes.
And the knives came out.
I was impressed with how well you pushed all that away. Joseph too, for a time. It was harder for him, of course. How could he forget his own scars? You did, though, not questioning Roy’s limp, the white lines and pocks on his arms, the fold down Joseph’s forehead. Roy took care not to show his chest or back to either of you.
You and Joseph showed such bravery. It’s because of you two that Roy lived as long as he did. Not me. I’m so ashamed, still, all these long decades later. I ran, hearing the screams, I ran. You could say I ran to save everyone, but in truth, I didn’t know where I was going. Just away.
Until I stood over the well. The lock that slipped free, effortlessly, as if it had waited for my touch, its patterns shifting and crawling.
Then they came.
My cowardice kept me in that closet. It spared me the sights you, and Joseph, and Roy, suffered. My family, oh I’m so sorry, so so sorry, you saw what I only heard, and that alone has kept me awake for nigh on twenty six years, without a night of free of terror-filled sleep, without the phantom screams, unable to touch meat for the rest of my life, gagging at the sound of chewing, fleeing from raised voices in cheer lest they turn to screams, the screams, the screams of men and women and children being torn and rent.
How long did I cower by the well? How long did you watch the terrors at their meal? How long until Joseph came to his senses, marshalled you to carry Roy, to pull me out of the house, to save your parents.
I heard them. You must have heard them. And I saw them, one last look over the shoulder. How I wish I hadn’t seen them! Hunched in the red, claws deep in it, horrible eyes ablaze. I wrote those words, too. I thought writing them out might excorcise them from my dreams. Of course, of course, it doesn’t work like that.
‘We prefer feasting on the dead, but we do not abide being fed.’
Roy recovered, miraculously, thanks to Joseph. A teenager, sowing up his father, what a terrible thing to entrust to a boy. We moved into the Bakers house. Roy and I tried to make it work. We worked. We cleaned that little house. Scrubbed all that remained away. We locked the well.
We knew you two couldn’t move on. How could you? How could we?
Roy and I fought. I won. He took you and Joseph and made a life for you. For a time.
Maybe we never moved past that night. It took Joseph in ‘44. Roy in ‘52. And now it’s come for me.
I’m sorry, Shirley. The farm, the house, the houses, are yours. And with them, the memories. The knowing.
We have neighbours, still, Shirley.
I’m sorry.
I write this at the kitchen table of our house, once the Bakers’ house, and I look out the window, watching that little house over the corn. How could I have forgotten? How could I not have forgotten? It’s unconscionable. Unthinkable. Those things simply could not be real, they could not exist, they simply do not fit in my mind. And yet, I saw them slaughter the Bakers.
I know those things are real. Wherever they are, they share the world with me. And because of them, I still am as well. Our neighbours would have murdered us all that night, if not for them.
Our neighbours saved us.
***
If this scenario sounded interesting, you can find it on DriveThruRPG individually, in a 4-pack bundle, or in a 12-pack bundle with all the other Flash Cthulhu scenarios.
Before you go, maybe you would be interested in some of the below reviews or replays?
MJRRPG scenarios, Chaosium-released scenarios, Miskatonic Repository scenarios, Japanese scenarios
