2019-06-27 - Dancing With The Dead

Hyacinth says, "Heya Viv"

Can't blame the rain or the storm this time for the power going out. At least there was a lull in it. Only, the sounds of the house settling were louder without the rain as an accompaniment. That made it creepier! Used to the creepy of this town, lifelong resident Lyric just scoots back against the nearest wall that she won't knock anything over, using the last image in her mind to find it. She settles back against it and flattens her hands against it on either side of her, to steady herself. "Can anyone else hear me?" Duh, she knows there's others there but lack of sight seems rather deafening at the moment. "Maybe it'll come back on."

Justin pauses mid-conversation with Hyacinth, the two coming from where Hya had been doing some work and they'd been discussing her plans for pretty much everything. With the power out, he reaches out a hand to touch her elbow, just so that she knows he's still there and nearby. "Blew a fuse, or total outage, do you think?" he asks her and glances out the windows, trying to see if the whole block is out or just the Addington House. That's when he hears Lyric and says, "Yep, we can hear you." He pulls out his phone and switches on the flashlight, shining it around to try to see from which direction the voice is coming.

Very often, one of the first places to bring a guest on their visit to Gray Harbor is the boardwalk and that awesome view. Followed by, more than likely, if they are into historical stuff, the Addington House Museum. Thus, this is where Byron brings Vivian tonight. Having some spare time on their hands and in this weather, walking the boardwalk just didn't seem like the best of options. So a tour of the historical museum it is!

If this were some other random place, Thorne would have dressed down for the occasion, but it's a rather elegant place, so he's wearing his suit and tie getup. They were actually on their way out, having been on the last tour of the place and had wandered to check on a few exhibits before leaving, but then the power is cut. Not something that he's all too keen about. His lips pursed, not like anyone can see in this darkness, though the annoyance in his voice more than hints at how he's feeling, he murmurs, "Now what?" A hand reaches off to the side, where Vivian was standing, checking to make sure that she's there. "Viv, still here?" Then there are the other voices. "Is anyone near the front door that can guide us, vocally, in that direction?"

The trip out to the museum has been an entertaining glimpse into the history of the town that Vivian has recently moved to, entertaining right up until the power goes out. "Does this seriously happen that often?"

If her voice isn't enough to let Byron know that she's still there, then the hand that's reaching out into that direction is probably a more clear hint of the fact that she's still there, joined rather quickly by her reply, "I'm here...right where you left me." Much like him she's not dressed too casually, which means that there is a remarkable lack of pockets with her skirt and blouse, so there are very few places to have hidden a flashlight.

Hyacinth squints her eyes in the dark and makes That Face(tm). One doesn't have to see the face to know that look of disapproval is there. It's less an expression and more of an event to be experienced. She almost had everything done today. Almost. "I'm about to do both." is Justin's reply from her. It's old infrastructure, what can ya do? "We're here-... is that Byron?" Head tilts and she looks where Justin's phone is aimed, a sparkly nail pointing pas it. Shine it over there so they can see and not...ruin anything. "Everyone okay?"

Everyone's accounted for. This is a good thing. Or maybe it isn't. "We're going to go see if we can flip the breakers. Everyone just stay calm." the women state as they disappear down the darkness of the front hall.

No one ever should split the party. This is how horror movies start.

Then they all hear it. The sound of music coming from the direction of the ballroom. Something that is odd in this house to be sure of. Most of the tours end in that room, so it's probably easy to write it off as someone messing around in there while the power is out. The music starts off upbeat and welcoming, but it soon takes a turn for a darker and more moody tune.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=krwj2VX1XJo

Justin points the phone around until he can find Lyric and then the others. When Hyacinth mentions Byron, he glances in that direction. That's when he hears Vivian and his brows raise a bit, "Vivian?" Somehow, he hadn't known that she was in town, but it doesn't entirely surprise him either. The sound of the piano music coming from the other room draws his attention, but only in so far as it seems that someone is having fun with the piano while they wait for the power to come back on. "Want to head toward the front together?" This, he asks of those immediately around him. Those in the ballroom can fend for themselves, apparently.

"Oh I'm fine. Just making sure I wasn't suddenly alone. Because you know, that happens in this town." Lyric says with the wisdom of someone who has experienced that particular event before. "I'm not by the door, I'm by the wall of the old painting thing." Which, to think about now, was frightening so she squeaks and ducks to an adjacent wall. Byron's name was familiar, vaguely, having met him hanging at Tobin's for cookies. Except she was much younger than the others. About to open her mouth to acknowledge him she hears the music and closes it again with a click of her teeth. "Uh.." She sidles closer to the older folks, they'd protect her right?

"Yeah it's me." Byron calls out in the direction of Hyacinth Addington's voice. Though, he turns to Vivian's question and he clears his throat, "...Sometimes." He's not gonna lie! "I always thought that bad weather was behind us, but the weather here in town can be very temperamental." He has the light on his phone glowing as well, though he'll still walk carefully to not bump into anyone or any of the exhibit items.

Then the sad little melody is heard from coming from one of the still darkened rooms. It makes him take pause, at first, but he doesn't turn in that direction. Having doubts that he'll even be able to see anything until he got close enough, with his phone light. "That sounds like a brilliant idea." He calls out to the unfamiliar voice.

"Justin?" Vivian's hand lifts upwards, almost unconsciously blocking the light from the phone from fully reaching her eyes, "What..." She starts to question finding him here, but then she just buttons that thought right back up to worry about later. Instead when the suggestion that everyone should move towards the door en masse is made she does voice her agreement with that, "Wonderful plan."

Which means that when Byron starts to move she reaches out to catch the back of his jacket with her fingers, making sure that he's not able to get to far away from her as she falls in to step with the rest, "They really should start checking the wiring if the weather knocks the power out this frequently. It's possible that the lines are old, or something." Something is right.

Hyacinth flaps her hand Lyric's way informing Justin of the painting, "The one with the super judgy eyes that just lurk and follow people around the room like they're plotting against it. Yeah there." That painting. And then ...there... music? Hyacinth, has, and has always had, her own ideal of the world that she will nail back into place if she has to brad by brad. Peering at the ballroom in the darkness she's not afraid, but offended. "Why can't fucking tourists read the sign that says do not fucking touch? This is why this town looks this way. People keep touching things." She murmurs to Justin, "Sure, I'll go with you in case they broke anything."

The light temporarily blinds her but Lyric just lifts a hand to shade her eyes and gives Justin a wry look. The judgy thing from Hyacinth doesn't seem to bother her though. "To the door then, I'm with you." And she'll follow the light, safely ensconced in the middle, between the two couples. Where it's safer.

"Did you want to check on the pinao?" Justin asks Hyacinth, knowing full well that she wants to check on the piano and yell at whoever is touching it. "One sec," he says to Vivian and Byron. "We're just going to check on the ballroom real quick." He then turns his light in that direction, since Byron has one on as well, and begins to head with Hyacinth in that direction so that she can give whoever is tickling the ivories whatfor. "The door is that way, though, if you guys want to head out while we're doing that."

The music stays in the sad key. But as people start to go towards the ballroom, it changes a bit, a more merry waltz. Why would anyone be playing a piano in the dark? No one might know.

And if the powers out...why is there light coming from underneath the ballroom doors...

Byron thinks he can find his way out of the museum without any problems, though it's when he hears interest of some of the others lost in the darkness that makes his jaw set, taking a deep draw of breath in almost light agitation. From where he stands now, he can see Justin's light more visibly, watching as he and some of the others near him make their way to the ballroom. "Are we planning on chasing disrespectful guests out?" That's all said in an unamused tone. Turning to Vivian, there's this slow shake of his head when he says, "They might need some help." For what? Maybe guest tossing! So with those words said, he starts in the direction of the ballroom, "Do you have your phone with you? If not, you can take mine if you want to head outside." Though that sounds a bit creepy an idea too.

"Isn't that someone elses job?" Vivian wonders quietly when people decide to go check the ballroom instead of head outside, but the she sighs, "No, it's fine." To the offer of his phone, her own phone, or going outside alone. Which does seem like a very bad idea. "I'll come with you." Which leaves her to make a quick two-step scramble after Byron until she's caught up to his brief headstart. Spotting the light from beneath the doors she points out, "Looks like someone in there at least has their phone out for a light."

While the couples keep talking tgether among themselves, Lyric just exhales. There's a longing look towards the front door, but the curiosity within her just takes over and she follows Justin and Hyacinth, and it turns out Byron and Vivian also towards the ballroom. The light is on? It's not something she points out, assuming everyone was seeing the same thing, but she does tug her phone out of her pocket and turns on the flashlight before looking back at Vivian and giving a tentative smile when she notices the light as well. "Maybe its a breaker for just this part that was flipped."

Hyacinth answers Vivian, "It's everyone's job to keep their hands to themselves." So let it be spoken. She pauses and looks down at Lyric's comment. "It might be. Let's hope." Her hand rests on Justin's shoulder not wanting to get herself caught on anything. The hard TAK of her left leg, the banister spindle today, taps out on the wood floor. She notes to Justin, "let's jsut get this over with and get the power back on so we can go get dinner already.

Justin makes his way over toward the ballroom doors with Hyacinth, and whoever else decides to join them in patron scolding. He grabs ahold of the handles and gives the double doors a solid tug to open them up, presuming that they do actually open when he does so.

The doors are opened into the Ballroom and there is something that washes over those that are there. The golden light streaming down from the chandelier and the soft talk of partners embracing each other in a dance. The feeling of warmth and of joy is almost so palpable that they can feel it.

Except for Byron.

"It's possible, certainly. But wouldn't we see light coming from other parts of the house?" Vivian wonders when Lyric mentions just the one breaker being flipped, "But maybe not." She ultimately has no idea how the house itself is wired, after all. When Hyacinth suggests that it is everyone's job to keep their hands to themselves she offers easily, "I wasn't meaning that job, more the throwing people out part." But then Justin is opening the door to the ballroom and any further comments about security being a job for others dies on her lips as she blinks, "Byron...Did you set up this surprise?"

Makes perfect sense to her. It's something Vivian would try to do herself if she'd thought about it.

The doors open and Lyric gasps in stunned surprise, stepping inside the room. "Oh look! I wonder if there's an Addington event or something?" She looks back towards the others then further into the room. "I love dancing." The conversation about the breaker are forgotten for now. "The music is pretty, the room.. gorgeous!" Lyric twirls once, all gracefully. "My roommate would love this. He loves to dance too."

When his light shines on a familiar face, Byron makes this 'huh' sound to go with a similar expression, "Lyric. Fancy meeting you here, but then in this weather, there really was a limit on what one could do, I suppose." With all this talk of the breaker and such, he can only silently agree to what everyone had said.

With good Justin's bravery and those grand doors now swung open, he peers into the darkness, he lifts his phone higher, so as that light doesn't go waste illuminating anyone standing in front of him. At first he squints, only seeing figures moving in the darkness, but once his eyes have time to adjust with the assist from the various phone lights that may still be on, his entire body tenses, a hand automatically moving to be placed before Vivian, to ensure that she doesn't step further into the room. "A surprise? This is an eye-opening surprise alright. I think we should all start heading out." There's this forced calm that can be heard in his tone.

Hyacinth answers Lyric, "Well yeah, I mean I'm right here but there was nothing else on the schedule." Green-gold eyes look curiously around with a turn up of a smile, "Byron, We tell people that, and yet, they never do." It's to the fine points in the room that make it. The color, the feel of the lighting, and the movement of the flow-through. "Justin, are you seeing what they did with it?" Curious!

The warmth and the joy of the place are welcoming. Definitely something that draws one in. Though Lyric manages to bump into someone when she goes twirling, but it's not a bunch of people that go toppling over. The dancers continue to dance and the music seems to speed up a bit. For those that are good at hearing when the tempo ramps up.

"Well, this is.. did you have a backup generator installed?" Justin asks Hyacinth, "For just the ballroom?" He glances back over his shoulder toward the front doors, and then back again. "It certainly looks like they put a lot of work into this. Was the power outage some sort of a joke?" He looks over at Byron and his tenseness and asks, "Is everything okay?"

"Head out?" Vivian's tone is noticeably confused by the idea, her eyes sweeping through the ballroom, a smile crossing her lips before she glances at him, "Why would we head out instead of take advantage of this...." She trails off, thinking, "Surprise you obviously didn't set up." She shakes her head, that smile returning fairly quickly, a hand moving to take the hand that is trying to block her from heading any further into the ballroom. "Come dance with me...it's been so long." She doesn't seem to pick up on the tension, though, instead she's trying to move further into the ballroom, not having a frame of reference for why this might be bad, just that it is some sort of clever surprise. Obviously.

"It's good to see you, Byron. You should ask your lady to dance. Isn't it lovely?" Enchanted, Lyric can't help but to smile. Her twirl started out graceful though, but then she bumps.. something. Someone? "How?" She jars a little. "A room full of empty people and I bump the invisible ones?" She doesn't believe that a second, thinking her mind was playing tricks on her she laughs and faces Hyacinth. "I had forgotten you were an Addington," the words are whispered with a touch of awe. Certainly the royalty of the town she'd grown up in, she hadn't seen this one so much. "Let's not leave, the power is fine in here. It's safe. We could all dance or something?"

Byron's posture stiffens even more when he sees people, namely Lyric, saunter over and begin dancing with one of the revelers. He's yet to move from his place at the doorway and does his best to bar Vivian's entrance, grabbing onto her wrist when she tries to reach out and draw him further into the room. "I... Aren't you all seeing this?" Apparently not! "Addington!" He then calls out to Hyacinth, "Can you kindly start leading everyone out of the room, please." There's emphasis in his tone, even if he doesn't add 'NOW' to the end. There's this forced smile that the gives to Vivian now, "I'm afraid this is not the time. The museum is closed and we shouldn't linger long." His phone is kept raised in the hopes of recording all of this. All the while, he looks like he's concentrating on something or other.

Safe?

It's like someone starts to turn the dimmer down on the room. The warmth giving way to something far chillier. And something starts to smell like death. Like it was something that had died ages ago. For those that have been blissfully unaware of what poor Byron was seeing, the walls of the illusion come tumbling down and those that didn't see it are left with HORROR.

Lyric's dancing near a man who is missing half of his face, blood and...something else oozing from the long festered wound. If you've ever wanted to walk into a ballroom full of ghosts...

Well, you can mark that off your bucket list. You've got the attention of about a dozen.

The sudden wash of emotion that fills him causes Justin to blink suddenly in surprise, and then the illusion comes down and it all suddenly makes sense. His eyes widen and he takes a step back, and then another, dragging Hyacinth with him by the elbow from the doorway, "Uh.. what the fuck is this?" Because Beauty and the Beast suddenly became the Walking Dead right in front of his eyes. And those dead are looking at them. It sends a shiver down his spine that would have been there even if he wasn't suddenly flooded with intense fear. He doesn't stop backing up, eyes fixed on the revelers.

"Byron?" Vivian looks like she might continue to try and step into the ballroom, despite the grip on her wrist, until something cracks through the blissfully warm fuzzies that the brightly lit ballroom was giving. Instead of looking further into the room her attention has turned towards Byron, focusing on him as she takes a step in his direction, "Is every..." She doesn't get to finish that sentence as the smell hits her. It's first, before the dimming of the light. That smell of death and decomp is something she's intimately familiar with, and her attention swings towards the interior of the ballroom in alarm. The surprised scream is choked back fairly quickly, so it comes out as a strangled squeak before she firmly locks it down beneath years of training, that fear and panic shoved deep down to be dealt with somewhere else, some other time. "Byron...I think leaving is a fantastic idea."

Hyacinth looks to the room and to Byron. Now on one hand he has a point. Justin is pulling at her elbow and the facade starts to peel back the facade. "A very... private party. OHhhhh noonononoo.." She takes a deep breath looking where someone's spectrally leaning and turns on there elegantly carved spindle leg of hers almost to reach out, "Oh no not on the damask. Justin, what this is is a private party." Way to sum that up Hya!

That inner sense of panic that Byron is feeling is forced upon a few of the spectators at least, though he can't reach them all. That will have to be enough! That said, when the illusion is dropped and they, the rest of them, are faced with the reality that he'd seen all along, his grasp on Vivian's arm tightens. "Out. We're getting out of here right now. And close that door!" He'll stand near the doorway to help usher the others out, though he keeps a steady gaze on those undead party-goers. In case they launch forward at the group or are the running types. He looks like he's ready to bolt at any moment.

"What?" Lyric asks from further in as she faces the two couples, the horror mostly at her back. It's the stench that hits her first so the assumption was that was what Justin was asking about. But then things just feel different and she turns, slowly, to face the worst nightmare she could ever imagine. Her hands fly up to cover her eyes and she screams. And screams and screams. Her feet unfreeze and she stumbles backwards, not daring to turn her back again to that horrific view! She falls to her read and crab walks/scoots backwards to the door before getting to her feet again, lowering her hands and gaping at the sight. Somewhere along the way she'd dropped her phone. She's not going back for it. The light shines up from the floor still. "Let's gooo.." her voice is shaky, but still she takes no chances in leaving alone. Even with the ballroom party still there.

The sounds of the piano are still going as people start to head backwards from the ballroom. There's the soft tinkle of laughter that dies off into something far more demonic than something heard in the movies. But once everyone is safely away from the ballroom, the power really does come back on. The docents are there and they wave at them, "We found the breaker!" one states.

Now it seems they will be able to see to leave the Addington House at least. Not fall around like lemmings in the dark.

There is really no need for that grip to tighten on her arm, because at this point in time Vivian really doesn't want to dance any more. "Out, brilliant idea." She agrees, starting away from that ballroom door, although she doesn't go far from it until Byron is on the move. She sticks close to his side, her eyes slightly wider than usual despite the visible outward calm that she's managed to pull in around herself. Everything is fine. It's just fine. Those were not shambling corpses and ghost like things dancing around in there. Nope. Just fine.

Once the last person is out the ballroom Byron works to help shut those doors closed, feeling more than a touch unnerved by the dark, demonic laughter that escapes the room right before the room is shut altogether. He won't linger long and he starts on his way, with Vivian in tow. That's when the lights suddenly all come on at the same time. Something which doesn't give him this sense of relief as that dread that he'd felt earlier continues to weight down on his mind. "Are you alright?" He's speaking to Vivian. She's a little shaken, but she's unhurt and that's what matters to him right now. This look is then shot all the way over to where Hyacinth is. It's difficult to read. He's either putting blame on her, partially, or it's a 'we gotta talk' look. Who can tell! Once that's done, his hold not loosening on Vivian one bit, he murmurs, "Old houses, am I right?"

There's no need for talking. Lyric wraps her arms around herself and stays away from the ballroom and the doors leading to it. The workers return and she glares so absolutely at them. "I want my phone back some other time. It's in there." She hitches a thumb over her shoulder towards the ballroom. "But not right now. I'll be back with someone to get it from you some day." And she leaves with the others!

The feeling of terror and disgust is still overwhelming him, so Justin is really not paying attention to anyone else at the moment other than trying to continue to pull Hyacinth back with him, whether she seems inclined to go or not. "Very.. very private.." he mumbles. He's never seen anything like this before in his life -- only in movies, and he's been in movies -- this is not how this works even in movies. "Let's.. get to the door." And with that he is making a bee-line for out.

Hyacinth is guided by Justin until the flappy hand comes out. She reches out and turns the latch on the door. She then turns the tiny [Closed] sign onto the Ballroom knob. Because tiny polite signs that tell people what to do trap ghosts in places out of respect for the fine print, right? It makes her feel a lot better! Looking to Justin she's not crying but she is very, very unnerved, "When I die, telll them I want to be creamated. Promise me people won't let me look like that?" She looks to the docent and says "Splendid job!" Looking at the ballroom and back she says "Ballroom's closed up. We'll...tackle it tomorrow." Because tonight is a big big nope!