Lets Make A Twisted Small Town

[lwcamp]

Jack and Troy Olsen are brothers. Jack is blond, Troy brown haired, both are tall, rugged, blue-eyed, wear blue jeans and t-shirts, drive beat-up pickup trucks, and own lots of guns. They grew up in the trailer park on the outskirts of town. No one thought they'd amount to much, but they went through vocational training and learned how to fix up cars and trucks. The Olsen brothers started up an auto repair shop, and have made it a modest success.

The trick to their success is that they don't earn most of their money by fixing cars, that's just the front for their business. The Olsens had always been poachers. Then they learned that they could sell elk antler velvet on the international market and make good money doing so. Soon they had branched out into bear bile and turtles for Asian turtle soup. This got them contacts for importing illegal exotic animals into the country. The shipments of parts to their shop all too often contain endangered cockatoos or perhaps a crate of illegal spectacled cobras, which they sell to unscrupulous exotic animal collectors on the black market. Neither is particularly cautious, and they've had their share of close calls - from the puff adder hiding under the back seat of a Chevelle to that time a Bengal tiger got loose and marauded through the city streets until it was shot by the police (fortunately for the Olsens, no one was able to connect them to the incident).

[Phantasm]

A few folks that would not be out of place in an "are they or aren't they?" setting ala Eerie, Indiana:

Donnie van Sliver is one of the biggest four-eyed geeks in school. He is mostly left alone, partly out of respect for his late brother, Ronnie, who used to be the star quarterback before a fatal car crash. Donnie has restored his brother's car, a vintage black Trans-Am T-top, to near mint condition. Every so often, though, the car is seen prowling at night . . . with no one at the wheel. The driverless car has been reported destroyed several times, but every time Donnie and/or his sister, Joy, have driven it the very next day, seemingly without a scratch.

Speaking of Ronnie van Sliver, his body disappeared from the morgue before it could be embalmed for burial. Donnie was the last known person to enter the morgue, and all he's ever said was his brother's body "went home." Since then, every so often a man with extensive scarring, stitching, and a pained expression - plus a hint of metal - can be seen haunting the high school football field....

Joy van Sliver has changed the most. A 20 year old mousy redhead attending classes at the local community college, after her brother died she went on a drunken bender, and wound up being attacked by a wild animal, though her neck wound looked a lot worse than it actually was. For three days Joy refused to even come out of her room. When she finally emerged, she had changed. The mousy bookworm had turned sensuous vampiric goth. Joy dropped out of college, does not show her face during the day, and went and got red contact lenses and realistic looking fake retractable fang dental implants, though no one can ever say when she got them installed, as no dentist is open at night. To top things off, she has thrown out her bed and replaced it with a fancy coffin, provided by their father, the local mortician. (And hey, a well-made coffin can be comfy and cozy....) Joy's boyfriend has also recently come down with mild anemia, for which Dr. Thompson has prescribed iron supplements. Coincidence?

[Johnny1A.2]

Originally Posted by David Johnston2

As to that, I'm prepared to allow two high schools. The national average in the United States is about .2 high schools per 1,000 inhabitants, and Serenity Falls has about 10,000 inhabitants.

Originally Posted by Jasonft

I think for now everyone is mundane and no blatant psychic or magic stuff. That almost makes it too easy.

We've already got enough secrets and trouble and Trouble to be a statistical issue for 10,000 people. There's likely to be something about this place drawing so many disparate and troubled people together. The transgenic plants can account for some of it, but not all, and their presence is itself a weirdness.

Robie McMasters: Sixteen years old, male, straight, brown hair, green eyes, 5'11". A junior in one of the high schools, straight 'B' student, though actually very intelligent, he just isn't driven enough for straight 'A'. Neither particularly handsome nor unattractive, slightly near-sighted with contacts, ordinary level of luck with girls. OK athlete, good runner, he could make the track team and probably win some local championships, if he was sufficiently motivated, which he is not.

All in all he seems like a very ordinary high schooler, and he mostly is. But he's much more intelligent than he lets on, in both the intellectual and 'street smart' sense, and he doesn't miss much, he's a very keen observer and not many people realize just how much that's true.

Robie is being raised by his grandfather Allan McMasters, who is his legal guardian.

His Secret: He doesn't have one personally...quite yet. That is likely to be about to change. He does suspect that there is something Not Right about Serenity Falls, and has for a year or two.

Mostly it's just a feeling, but he has observed that animals sometimes behave oddly around certain plants in town, especially in hot still weather when pollen is hanging in the air. He knows a few other of the milder odd secrets in town, simply from observing what goes on around him and being brighter than he acts like, putting pieces together.

Allen McMasters: Robie grandfather. Age 64, male, grey hair, brown eyes, 6'1". Former Marine, Vietnam veteran, trained in biochemistry and voracious student of many other things. Has been a soldier, a scientist, and in his younger days he was on the Serenity Falls City Council. Born in Serenity Falls, left for the Marines at 18, returned 26 years later with his wife Amy and 2 year old grandson. His wife died in a car accident that was exactly what it seemed ten years later.

His Dark Secret: He killed his son and daughter-in-law. The ironic twist is that he did it to save his grandson. His son and daughter-in-law were scientists themselves, and Allen learned that they had been part of a group of fanatics trying to breed a 'new kind of human', and experimenting on themselves and their offspring. They had decided that Robie was a 'failed' experiment and were planning to terminate their son and study him for clues about the failure. They had already done this with a previous daughter.

Allen, together with a couple of old 'friends' from his military days, stopped this plan with bullets through the brain of his son and daughter-in-law, and disrupted the project with some well placed explosives that destroyed an entire laboratory complex, killing many of the other members of the project.

All the public knows is that Robie's parents were killed in an explosion, probably accidental, and Allen and Amy adopted their grandson, bringing him home to Serenity Falls to raise. Even Amy never knew the true circumstances of the death of her son and daughter-in-law, her husband saw no reason to burden her with that knowledge.

Since returning to his home town, Allen has realized that there is something odd about it, seeing it through adult eyes after years away. The trauma of having to murder his son to save his grandson may have bent Allen a little, but it also sensitized him to the darkness he can perceive in his home town.
He doesn't know the underlying Secret, but he's sure there is one.

He's also worried about his grandson, who he knows was 'tampered with' by his parents. So far, Robie seems normal enough, but one in a while this or that oddity is displayed, and now the boy is growing up. Allen isn't sure how much, if anything, of the truth he should share with his grandson, but he knows he'll have to decide soon.

Allen's best friend is a former school chum named Jimmy Kane.

Jimmy Kane: Jimmy is 64, 5'11", about 50 lbs overweight and out of shape. He's bald, walks with a cane because his knees are already failing him, but he's cheerful and friendly to most people. He owns a local hardware store, and has managed to keep it modestly profitable in spite of big box competition. He has a well-deserved reputation for honestly in his business dealings and personal relationships. He is divorced after his wife left him for a smooth-talking con artist. He has four kids with whom he retains good relations, and a fifth daughter who left town years before and been out of touch for years.

His dark secret: When he was in his 20s, he was far more athletic and active and he used to like to explore the countryside around Serenity Falls, and the caves near the waterfall that gave the town its name. When he was 26, he found a tunnel he had never explored before, behind a rockfall, and gotten lost in the caves. While there, he found an underground chamber full of skeletons. Hundreds of human skeletons. Some appeared to be very old, there were some that appeared to be wearing the remnants of clothes that would have been in fashion a century and a half earlier. What was even scarier was that others wore electronic watches and other modern regalia.

He found his way out of the tunnels eventually, and doesn't know the way back to the chamber. He was in a panic and didn't keep track of which way he went as he found his way out, he doubts he could find his way back to that chamber now even if he wanted to...which he absolutely does not!

Jim never told anybody about what he had found. Partly because he had no proof and no way to find his way back, partly because he was frankly scared about what the consequences might be if it was known that he had seen it. Those modern skeletons were enough to silence him. From time to time he's been tempted to say something, but always he kept quiet in the crunch.

Though he doesn't know exactly how to get back, he has calculated that based roughly on where the caves run and where the waterfall is, the skeleton cave would have to be fairly directly under the town, and he thinks it might be directly below town square.

One side-effect of all this is that Jimmy has always actively encouraged his kids to move away from Serenity Falls, to make lives elsewhere. When he gets a few years older, he plans to sell his store and leave himself, Florida is nice and warm and the weather would be easier on his joints...

[Dr. Beckenstein]

Baby Suzy

A few days ago, a baby girl was dropped around 05:00 am at the door step of the fire station. A few early risers saw a person nearby, dressed in a trench coat and a fedora who left the place in a hurry. The witnesses could not decide if this person was a man or a woman.

The baby, who was christened "Suzy" by the fire fighters, seems to be two weeks old and healthy, with probably Asian background. Neither the police nor the media could locate the parents, and no babies are claimed missing in the state. Some people already thought that "Suzy" could somehow be related the amnesiac woman, but genetic testing showed now common genes.

Secret: Baby Suzy is the first human clone. She was liberated from a research lab by a nurse who feared for Suzy's life. The big pharma company who created her invested millions in her existence and want her back.

[Dr. Beckenstein]

Deborah Jones: Caucasian female in her early thirties. Pale complexion, average height and build, blond hair, always seems a little nervous.

Deborah arrived by bus last summer in Serenity Falls with her son Ricky, who is about ten years old. She rented a small apartment near the elementary school and found a job as a cashier in a supermarket. She claims that she and her son left Chicago after a "bad divorce" and try to get a fresh start.

Secret: Her real name is Dolores Madison (nee Richards), and she bought the stolen identity in the dark net. After years of abuse and beatings, she took her son and fled her husband, a wealthy and absolutely psychopathic stock broker in New York. Should he ever learn where she is, he will come for her.

[Phantasm]

Originally Posted by Dr. Beckenstein

Secret: Her real name is Dolores Madison (nee Richards), and she bought the stolen identity in the dark net. After years of abuse and beatings, she took her son and fled her husband, a wealthy and absolutely psychopathic stock broker in New York. Should he ever learn where she is, he will come for her.

Boy, will he ever come to the wrong town looking for trouble. ;)

We have more than our fair share of killers, a few dark web identity thieves, a Fed or three (for the more reasonable way to get rid of him), a scary clown, a psycho-genius (when she's off her meds), a rumored Frankenstein monster, a maybe-vampire (or at the least, Delusion ("I am a vampire.") [-10]), and plenty of ways to hide the body . . . .

One thing I'm thinking for this town is its sense of solidarity: everyone has a secret, but no one preys on the town itself. You come to make trouble for one person in town, you deal with all of them!


That reminds me, I need to come up with a secret for the Van Sliver Mortuary....

[Dr. Beckenstein]

Time for a brighter one:

Marcus Wilson Caucasian man in his mid-40s, dark, thinning hair, moustache. Usually wears a plain suit and horn-rimmed glasses.

"Veep Wilson" is the vice-principal of the high school and is known for his absolute no-nonsense attitude. His cold voice and icy gaze immediately gets respect from the students and teachers. He has sent hundreds of students to detention, and there a grown men in town who are grateful that he no longer haunts them. Some people in Serenity Falls wonder why he can afford such a large house, but if they dare to ask he just snorts and says something about "a small heritage and smart investment".

Secret: Marcus Wilson is not your average, under-paid school official. In fact, he is "Amanda 'Trueheart". Under this pen name, he writes steamy romance novels since his college days. "Amanda Trueheart" has published more than 20 novels successfully and has a dedicated fan-base. Most of them think that "Amanda Trueheart" is an old spinster living in the South.
Wilson does not need to work in school, but he likes his job very much and even likes the students who he thinks just need some stern guidance.
Should his secret ever come out, he would be the laughing stock of the town.

[Kromm]

Originally Posted by Dr. Beckenstein

Secret: Marcus Wilson is not your average, under-paid school official. In fact, he is "Amanda 'Trueheart". Under this pen name, he writes steamy romance novels since his college days. "Amanda Trueheart" has published more than 20 novels successfully and has a dedicated fan-base. Most of them think that "Amanda Trueheart" is an old spinster living in the South. Wilson does not need to work in school, but he likes his job very much and even likes the students who he thinks just need some stern guidance. Should his secret ever come out, he would be the laughing stock of the town.

I love this one! I think we need a few more twisted-but-lighthearted stories. :) Of course, part of me can't help but wonder how many Trueheart novels are based on Wilson's observations of or speculation on events in Serenity Falls, or just use locals as inspiration for background characters.

[AlexanderHowl]

The Sugar Creek Gang is a group of a dozen childhood friends who started exploring the abandoned Sugar Creek Goshenite Mine when they were eight years. After six years of exploring and some really close calls, the six boys and the six girls have mapped out around 100 miles of tunnels that follow a dozen played out veins of goshenite. While they are more interested in exploring each other's bodies than they are in exploring the abandoned mine since they started high school, they know every inch of the tunnels by memory and could navigate the tunnels blindfolded.

The Gray Family operated the Sugar Creek Goshenite Mine from 1890 to 1910, but it closed down after a sinkhole opened up beneath the mine cafeteria during a meeting between the management and the workers at 12 pm on October 31, 1910. After an investigation, the authorities concluded that the formation of the sinkhole was an accident, but the mine was considered a complete lose due to the instability of the area. The Gray Family received a $1,000,000 insurance payment for the lose of the mine and gave the property to Serenity Falls County.

Secret: The Sugar Creek Gang discovered natural tunnels beneath the manmade tunnels of the abandoned Sugar Creek Mine that opened up after the formation of the sinkhole and the abandonment of the Sugar Creek Mine after two years of exploration. Within the natural tunnels, they discovered dozens of washes where flooding over the centuries deposited gemstones. Over the last six years, the Sugar Creek Gang has collected a king's ransom of gem quality beryl, including several hundred large emeralds and a couple dozen large red beryls. While they are planning on eventually selling their collection, the Sugar Creek Gang knows that the adults will steal everything if they try to sell any before they are adults. They know the natural tunnels as well as they know the manmade tunnels.

Dark Secret: The Sugar Creek Gang led a group of bullies into the Sugar Creek Mine two years ago and allowed them to get lost in the maze of tunnels. Unable to understand the code used by the Sugar Creek Gang to aid navigation, the bullies stumbled into the natural tunnels and died of dehydration after a few days. A year ago, the Sugar Creek Gang collected their bones, buried them in unmarked graves away from the Sugar Creek Mine, and swore each other to secrecy.

[Dr. Beckenstein]

Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl

Dark Secret: The Sugar Creek Gang led a group of bullies into the Sugar Creek Mine two years ago and allowed them to get lost in the maze of tunnels. Unable to understand the code used by the Sugar Creek Gang to aid navigation, the bullies stumbled into the natural tunnels and died of dehydration after a few days. A year ago, the Sugar Creek Gang collected their bones, buried them in unmarked graves away from the Sugar Creek Mine, and swore each other to secrecy.

Wow. Just wow.