[h1][color=lightgray]Carl Semken[/color][/h1]
[@Mr Allen J][@Maxx][@He Who Walks Behind]
[hr]
[color=lightgray] “You two just ran into all the fucking cartoon villains, didn’t ya?”[/color] Carl piped up, after Michelle had finished her story. [color=lightgray] “Heh. I got one. Story, from out east. Not as funny but uh… eh, if we’re all sharin’.”[/color] He took one more sip of his drink to finish off, and he began. [color=lightgray]“Get ready, this is a long one.”[/color]

[color=lightgray]“When I was doing a few turns in Idaho, there was a call made from a police department somewhere in Wyoming. Forget the name of the place, it was pretty out of nowhere. They issued a report to NEST because they were convinced something was up in one of their nowhere-towns that would be best handled by a meta or two. And seeing as jack shit was happening in Idaho, I was selected for the detachment op. Just me and a group of five other agents, all humans. Lenny, Powell, Justin, Ellaine, and Catherine. We get to the report location and it’s [i]literally[/i] out in nowhere. Cornfields and grassy plains all over. Real farm country, but there were a decent number of folks around.”

“Anyway, people around there were mixed about us showing up. Some of the kids were interested in what we were up to, older folks just wanted us to do our thing and leave. We start asking around and sure enough, we get told some folks are missing, plus a lot of pets and cattle. At first, myself and the team were pretty confident it wasn’t a meta at work because, I mean, since when does a nowhere-town get metas? But we still had to figure the thing out nonetheless so, we start running forensics, collecting more witness accounts, the boring stuff. Eventually things start coming up showing that whatever was pulling this shit weren’t no human, and certainly weren’t no random animals. We end up in this rundown barn that was further away from the concentration, and we got there at night.”

“I should have probably mentioned before that some of the older folks were, uh… creepy. As in some Twilight Zone or Children of the Corn bullshit. They stared at us whenever they were around, lookin’ all weird like cannibals or something. Turns out we weren’t far off. This barn, it had a pretty big basement, and the weird folks were using it as a little hideout for their cult. They… had this [i]kid[/i] chained up down there. Early teens, I think. She was definitely a meta, super-system. She just straight up looked like some kind of chupacabra on steroids when she shifted. The cultists were letting her run free to snatch up anything with a heartbeat and bring it back to the barn. They’d let her eat the bodies and then… [i]they[/i] would eat her [i]shit[/i]. Like they’d churn it with other stuff and… nevermind, details aren’t necessary.”

“Things didn’t end up so great. There were a lot of folks and they weren’t afraid to go up against a team of NEST agents. They had quite their own stash of guns too. They let the girl loose and she chased half of us out of the house, myself included. Lenny, Ellaine, and Justin worked their way through the house and took down the cultists, while the rest of us dealt with the girl out in the nearby cornfield. When it’s late at night and all you’ve got are flashlights on your guns… that shit’s unsettling, to say the least. It didn’t take long for Powell and Catherine to end up dead, the girl… [i]probably[/i] knew it was better to take out the normies first. She starts huntin’ me down and I decided my rifle’s not gonna cut it. So I uh… I [i]get naked[/i], in the dark, in the middle of a cornfield, and I just start flashing Hans-Pacer – that’s a pretty strong calming agent – and just wait for her to charge me. Guess it’s a good thing I glow in the dark ‘cause she came runnin’, fell flat on her face once she got close enough. I get redressed and bag her.”

“Morning comes around and we have one knocked out meta, three dead agents, and a house full of mixed-status cultists. NEST says the examinations showed the cultists had the girl, Megan Waller, chained up since she was a kid. Brainwashed to high hell. The uh… [i]full details[/i], about their agenda, is pretty sick so… not gonna divulge, if that’s alright. I get back to Idaho after the wrap-up and take a break for a while. [i]Never[/i] going back to Wyoming again.”[/color]

He was staring at his empty glass.

[color=lightgray]“So uh… yeah. That’s the most of it. Sorry if I uh… killed the mood. I don’t got any funny ones.”[/color]