Episode 13 - Return to Juju, Part 1 - December 15, 2024

Cast of Characters

Player	Character	Background
John	Keeper	Bringer of torment and delights
Todd	Lawrence “Skinny Larry” Simons	Inventor, saxophonist, and engineer
Eric	Father Gerald “Gentleman Jerry” O’Shea	Catholic priest, former bare-knuckles boxer
Eli	Dr. Kenneth Filmore	Wealthy medical doctor and neurosurgeon
Cyle	Aaron Winters	Occultist
Scott	Ritter Gunter “Stig” von Stiglitz	Former German POW

Journal

Wednesday January 21, 1925 (continued)

From the journal of Lawrence Simons

Having returned to our hotel from the Carlyle Estate, we hatched a plot made of several parts. We will equip ourselves with shovels and rakes and implements of destruction and as much dynamite as we can reasonably carry. And then we will return to the Juju House, beneath which lies horrors and abominations. If all goes well, we intend to blast the writhing mass of oily flesh in the pit into a million pieces, and take down the Juju House once and for all.

A trip to a hardware store outfitted us with bolt cutters, a trash barrel, coveralls, and a wheelbarrow. From there we made our way to a construction site where the foundation of a new bridge for motor cars is being excavated. It was only lightly guarded, fortunately.

Kenny and Stig, not being hardened men of action, stayed in the Cadillac, while Aaron, Jerry, and I snuck into a storage shed under cover of darkness. We successfully gathered what can only be described as an alarming amount of explosives, along with blasting caps, timers, wire, and the like.

We made our way back to Harlem, and around midnight snuck into the Juju House. After our previous incursion only two nights ago, the cult had been busy covering their tracks. They buried the entrance to the ghastly basement with dirt, and then nailed over a new floor on top, to try to hide the whole thing. Fortunately, we were able to easily re-excavate the trap door, and descend. Jerry stayed above to guard our escape and keep an eye out should the Bloody Tongue cultists try to surprise us.

On arriving in the subterranean chapel of evil, we peeked behind the curtain and once again awoke the four shambling undead that we have been calling “zombies”. We soon learned they are tough buggers, as they shrug off even a lead bullet to the chest or arm. Fortunately, we came by accident upon a new and successful strategy - aim for the head. This is a challenge even for skilled marksmen. We downed one of the zombies this way, but then an eerie silence settled over the scene.

To Be Continued

Gentleman Jerry’s Conjectures and Musings

My companions REALLY want to blow up the basement of that African Shop - The Ju-Ju House. And I find once they make up their minds, no amount of discussion will bend them. Hell, I like a nice fiery ‘splosion as well as the next guy, so we figured out a few ways to get our hands on some TNT, dynamite, unexploded ordnance, and the like.

We grabbed our trusty, oiled bolt-cutters, acquired some denim coveralls, and loaded an empty oil drum and wheelbarrow into Kenny’s rear cargo seat of that beautiful car of his. We lit out for a construction site next to the Hudson River (we could make out the profile of Sing-Sing, I think). A fabricated office … more of a shed with power … seemed to hold a night guard, who we saw silhouetted by a bare light bulb within, as we cruised by, slowly.

We also made out a storage shed, which must contain whatever the crew uses to get through the rock, to sink the bollards for the bridge being constructed. Its sturdy door faced the occupied office shed.

The chain link security fence surrounding the area did not extend into the river, so we stepped around it, briefly navigating the frozen river where it touched the shore. Me and Aaron and Larry crept up to the rear of the shed, but the ground had been thawing by day and refreezing by night, and was slick as Hell. We won’t talk about my pal that fell into the wheelbarrow, dumping the metal oil drum upon the rocky ground with a clatter so loud that the night watchman opened the door and peered out with his lantern. We dropped to the ground and discovered he must have a small transistor radio, to help pass the time.

To make a long story short, we popped the rivets of a section of corrugated metal forming the storage shed’s rear wall and slipped away with a drum full of bags of powder. We pushed the loose wall section back into place and shored it up from the outside; Aaron had shifted the remaining contents to “even out” the empty spot indicating our theft.

Rejoining Stig and Kenny was easy, and rather than storing the blasting powder in Kenny’s nice wheels overnight we decided quickly among ourselves to pay another visit to the Ju-Ju house. As my pals carried the bag or two of powder first into the vacant Pawn Shop (which we left with the padlock in place but not engaged), then into the African Curiosities Shop, I ambled down the street two blocks to pay a quick visit to the Catholic Church. I said a few Ave Marias and Hail Marys, lit a candle, and dropped a few dimes into the poor box, before tipping my hat to the Priest and joining the fun in the cul-de-sac. As before I sort of hung out at the street entrance to the alley, rolling and lighting a smoke (to tell the truth, I fully expected the shave-headed African to be lying in wait nearby). After a minute or two, I entered the shop where my companions were busy pulling up floorboards and sundering a shallow sill full of dirt that hid the narrow stone steps, down. Neat trick for the unaware. Downstairs, my pals tempted fate a second time, engaging the four zombies behind the solid door whose hinge pins we had popped two days ago (seems like much longer). The big stone plug covered the oily whatever-it-is in its pit, and as I hid next to the end of a shelf of ceramic jars and feathered drums and little strings of beads to ensure no one interrupted our little excursion from the rear, I heard gunfire below. I made out “Aim for the head!”, and knew they had found a weakness of the walking dead, with the exposed loops of intestines and ritually scarred foreheads.

I slid two ceremonial (but serviceable) spears down the narrow steps and could just make out the powder bags at their base. Flickering light, rather than a solid flashlight strobe, told me the guys were lighting fires down there … for light I suppose … nasty business.