2019-08-29 - When Tables Attack

Joey pushes the doors to the root cellar open and comes bolting out. "THe HELL?" Lookig around he looks to see if he's being chased and calls out, "Jaime? Ev? ...Hey that ain't funny." He checks himself pulling cobwebs off of him and looks for the truck and his brother.

Jaime sits on the front porch with his guitar, idly strumming as he watches Joey come crashing up from the root cellar, one brow raising a little bit, but the music never quite stopping as he just stares at his brother idly. The truck is out on the street where it usually is if there's naother car parked in the drive.

Joey jogs backwards to a halt on the lawn eyeing the hole and the stairs...Jamie...then the hole. He points, THAT hole in case you missed it, "You been there the whole time, bro? You go down and do laundry lately There's a giant fucking bug down there. I wanna know if that's you fuckin with me or if ma's pissed again. Either way it's big enough the munchkin can ride the damn thing like it says FIsher Price stamped on the side."

Jaime raises a brow and an amused smile touches his lips as he continues to strum lightly at the guitar. He glances at Joey, then at the hole, then back to Joey again before he says, "Haven't been down there in a while, least a week. You probably did something to piss mom off." He's fine with blaming it on the ghost. He doubts that's the case. The house is full of holes. It probably just wandered in there and got stuck. "So you going to leave it down there or get it out?"

Joey looking shaken and annoyed his head swims in a bit of a figure 8 and points, "Well if you wanna hold the trash can I'll get the shovel and chase it on out." He actually looks serious but his other hand sticks out and swishes in a circle, "When your'e done." Frowning he really cosiders all sides of this. "Yeah maybe mom lured it in. She's been pretty mad since I stopped talking to her last week." But that thing in the basement? Spider's about the side of the damn coffee table. Reminds me of the one that popped up onut of the damn stormdrains and chased that deer down." Yeha because this is apparently mnormal to everyone. Frowning he admits, "Still wanted that thing for dinner. Lil pissed."

"I hear in some countries, spiders are a delicacy," Jaime says, entirely unphased by this apparent enormous insect in the basement. He picks up the guitar and sets it aside, ambling down off the porch and onto the lawn, and eventually across to the root cellar. "Alright." He grabs up a garbage can lid and a croquet mallet. Who even knew where that came from? They don't even have a croquet set. "Let's do it."

Joey looks back at his twin and forgets about being disturbed by the monster in the basement holding his hands up. "I leave you alone from three years and you go and learn about other countries on me." There's a pause and with ideal deadpan nods in agreement, "I agree, screw this one for doin that." Looking at the croquet mallet he sks, "You win a tiny strong man contest at a carnival?" He fetches a spade and comes back. "A'ight. let's do this." Taking a deep breath h..okay three he lumbers down the stairs into the basement.

The whole root cellar is covered in cobwebs that weren't there before. In the back by the boiler there's a cold draft that has impinged itself on reality and a tiktiktiktikking like an ignighter trying to start.

Jaime had texted Sparrow earlier, just a brief hello and nothing too particularly pressing. He had told her he was just sitting out on the front porch playing a bit and hanging out. Currently, however, he is standing at the top of the stairs to the root cellar, outside the house, looking down into it with a garbage can lid in one hand, and a croquet mallet in the other, as he and Joey survey the stairs. "Learn about other countries?" Jaime looks confused, not quite sure what Joey is referring to, but then he turns the croquet mallet in his hand and says, "I don't know. Found it in the back yard. Not sure how it got there." But he has learned not to question these things. Sparrow may see this odd display before they begin to descend the stairs.

Sparrow's car is a red four-door Kia, several years old, a little bit dusty and road-worn, with a whole spattering of stickers collected across the country plastered onto the back. It runs well, though, and would be fairly quiet pulling up if it weren't blaring loud pop music out an open window. That concludes quickly, though, cut off when she kills the engine, when she opens the door. In jean shorts, comfortable sneakers with glittery orange shoelaces, and an oversized white tee shirt that declares DIBS ON THE DRUMMER, she gets out, grabs a backpack, and starts... well, not toward the porch. "Heeeeeeeello?" she calls, starting toward the sound of voices, toward the pair near the root cellar. "Uhm."

Joey can be heard from the dark root cellar, "Yeah... fucker's down here." There's a pause and he calls back up, "If that's Everly tell her to get a rake or something...note fire or the whole house'll go up." He murmurs something about liek teh shed that time. He's not the brightest brick in the stable but he's not rushing in without Jamie there.

Jaime glances over his shoulder as he notices Sparrow approaching. He ofts his croquet mallet in greeting and says, "Joey's scared of a spider. Want to come help vanquish it?" He flashes her a grin and then begins to descend the steps. "Bring a rake." Then down the stairs he says, "It's Sparrow, not Everly. Ev's probably working." Because Ev is almost always working.

Sparrow shrugs, hands spreading wide at her utter lack of garden tools. "Don't think rakes help much against spiders unless we're talking, like. Aragog or Shelob. And, I mean, at that point it's not really your house to save anymore." Whether ill-advised or not, she follows rather casually down into the gloom, hands hooking onto the straps of her backpack. "So, how big's the beastie? And does the dashing hero get a kiss or something when she emerges victorious?"

Joey calls back "I didn't say it was a spider I said there was a fuckin beast the size of a power wheels down here because Ma's piss- oh fuck it jsut bring a weapon or a industrial grade fly swatter." Boots on the basement fllor move then pause and the voice calls up, "Hi, Sparrow. Don't get eaten."

"Oh, sorry, a bug the size of a tricycle," Jaime says with a shrug of his shoulders, seeming to consider the nature of the bug inconsequential. He then continues to descend the stairs, grinning over his shoulder at Sparrow. "All dashing heroes get kisses. I think it's in the rules." And with that he heads into that strange chill, listening to the weird clicking. "Shit, we oughta clean this place out. How long has it been since we did laundry?"

"Got nothing but my charm," Sparrow informs Joey, shrugging at the brother too far in and vigilant to catch it. "Hasn't gotten me eaten yet," she half-lies, depending on definitions. She gives her brows a little waggle when he looks back, all confidence still. Until she starts following. Until she feels that chill, hears that noise. Steps slow a little as she looks about the basement, not in search of whatever it is back in the shadows, potentially nesting in all the dirty laundry, but in search of something to swing in case whatever it is is as big as reported. Random piece of rebar? Yeah, that'll do alright. It scrapes against the floor as she lifts it from where it was leaning, hefting its weight a bit uncomfortably. It's fine. It'll be fine.

The clacking gets louder. That's not entirely the boiler. There's more cobwebts down here to make the forbidden forest look recently swept. By the looks of the Shelob may actually be down here. Joey isn't looking down for it but up. Something brushes past Jamie's leg. Also why the hell is there fog in the basement. This is normal right? Jory murmurs, "If you see it... call out."

"You sure there aren't crabs down here?" Jaime asks with a squint when he hears that clacking. The fog in the basement doesn't seem to phase him all that much, but then, lots of random weird shit happens that he just passes off all the time. He has no idea what brushed against his leg, but he glances down into the mist and says, "On your three," to Sparrow, meaning the thing is probably going to pass her on the right, whatever brushed his leg. "Are we talking bigger than a bread box, here?"

"Something wrong with your sump pump..?" Sparrow mutters as she watches what looks like fog spreading through the basement. She follows that moisture up, since that's where Joey's got his eyes and it is way scarier than anything down on the ground could be, but then Jaime's turning directions back her way, and she takes a couple quick steps back and to the left as she holds the rebar up, ready to strike. Let's hope it's not a stray cat. Behind her, a box clangs and rattles, its contents protesting the sudden collision from the college girl. "Don't fuck with me," might be for Jaime more than whatever monster it is they're tracking. She sure as fuck didn't see anything in the dark.

Joey murmurs, "Nah I got checked out." Is he serious? Funny? Good in both cases apparently. Hey, either way these things are good to know. The boys are looking around but Jamie wasn't wrong when something brushes his leg. THe clak clak clakking. But something the size of a large piece of luggage rushes past Sparrow on 6 mechanical legs and what looks like two rabbit ear antennae like someone made a motorcycle sized bug out of old TVs and the old smoker. From in front of them a steam hiss.

"We don't even have a sump pump," Jaime says with a blink and then looks around. "I'm not fucking with you," he says, assuming that Sparrow's comment was directed at him. "There really is something down here.." Though he was expecting the size of it to have been more of an exaggeration. But when he catches the sight of mechanical legs and movement he blinks, "Shit, you weren't kidding." He lofts his croquet mallet. This can only bode well.

"You really need a--" Sparrow's going to have to give home improvement advice to the Kelly boys later. Right now, she's too busy yelling, "Shit!" and flat out throwing that rebar at the first sign of antennae. Luckily for Jaime, that shit's heavy, and she's a terrible shot, all startled like this, not half the hero she claims to be. The metal clatters dramatically against the floor, rolling a couple inches before stopping. Entirely ineffective. Except maybe if she were trying to trip someone. No one trip. "It's fucking wearing your basement."

Joey pulls the spade around looking for the caltter. That rebar bounces loudly throught eh basement and around that weird corner. It's an old home with the space segmented a few times. Sometimes more, sometimes less. Usually just the three spaces though. Joey frowns, "Yeaaaaah. Sometimes it do that." Just like that. But there it is: Some... thing... Insectoid looking like a small chrome edges linolium backed table for 4 beatle with jointed chrome legs sharp and jointed scuttling and now? Rearing back and clak-hissing at the rebar. Oh! Sparrow has its attention. Now it's making a dash that way.

"Yep, I'm seeing it.." Jaime says to Sparrow just before she throws the rebar. When it hisses and goes for Sparrow, Jaime hurries in to try and get between her and it. He hefts the croquet mallet and brings it down hard into the side of the thing, which just causes a very loud clang and some serious recoil as the mallet almost bounces back the full distance it had come down in in an arc.

Sure, Sparrow panicked when she saw the table-beetle. Who wouldn't? But now that it's coming at her, she tells it flat out, "I will fucking stomp you," as if aiming to intimidate it, ready to stand her ground and kick it in its... face..? She hardly has a chance to notice how ineffective that mallet swing is before her foot comes down to connect with linoleum and chrome with similar effect. There's just no give! It sets her off balance, sprawling suddenly backward onto her ass, right onto the concrete, vulnerable to the terror-bug.

Joey flips the spade over and tries to lunge and lip the fucker over. Instead it backs up and starts up the metal shelving. And then it leaps past them diving at Jamie making a SKREEEEE sound of horrific metal on metal as its trying to make a hole through Jamie to get to teh root cellar door.

Of course Joey's yelling "HEY! The dinner table doesn't get to eat at my brother!"

When the table thing lunges at him, Jaime dodges out of the way. Those boxing lessons have helped him to be lighter on his feet than he might first appear. "I thought you said there was a /bug/ down here," he shouts at Joey, looking incredulous. "What the holy hell is this?" Then he's discarding his garbage tin lid and his croquet mallet and is reaching for a hand-saw instead. What he intends to do with that saw is anyone's guess.

Sparrow doesn't look the least little bit heroic where she lays on the floor with her knees drawn up and her arms over her head. For a second there, she was sure the... table... thing... was gonna pounce her. But it doesn't. Screeching and crashing elsewhere has her peeking out to confirm she's out of immediate danger and... figure out where the immediate danger is. "I'm okay with letting it go," she admits as she scrambles to her feet. Table Monster can be somebody else's problem!

Joey tries to look through the fog to find it and pointedly not his is twin with the shovel. Calmly and with mild annoyance he answers, "I said it was big didn't I? You think I'd run outta the basement over something smaller than my damn shoe?" The chittering is coming from the adjacent part of the basement that is closer to running upstairs where the kiddo might be goofing around and Joey sighs. "We can't, Sparrow. Ma'll get pissed. It gets out someone's gonna have to tell her her damn dinette set has taken off and we let it. She loves that damn thing."

"You realize ma's going to be pissed regardless, because we're going to have to take this thing apart?" Jaime mutters at Joey as he goes chasing off after the thing and leaps for it, attempting to ride it like a damn mechanical bull in a bar with way too many peanut shells all over the floor. He hefts the hand saw and threatens, "You settle down or I'm going to take you apart, leg by leg." He's not kidding, either.

"So no fire then," Sparrow mutters dryly at the expressed fondness for the table that's trying to escape. She moves to go scoop up the mallet that Jaime abandoned, hefting it with the business end hovering over her shoulder as she tries to get to a position where she might kinda sorta flank the thing while it tries to buck its unexpected rider. As she mutters something beneath her breath, the world seems a little brighter around her, sharper. Like the fog's cleared for just an instant around just her. But then it's gone and nothing seems to have happened and who's going to notice in this chaos anyway? But maybe the odds will be in Jaime's favor as he wrangles the unruly furniture. Maybe. Hopefully. Fingers crossed.

Jamie makes a run and leaps for it and man, can a table buck? Apparently it can, but it is also an aluminium frame and Jaime isn't an aluminium boy. The end where his chest lands hunches lower a bit finding it harder to hold up the weight skewed to that end and it's slower. Two of the legs still try to grab it forward bumping an old aluminium storage shelf. Three cans hit the ground denting their corners and roll idly off to the side. From stashed on top of things in the middle two old board games slide out landing on their side. The contents of that to sort later will be on the kiddo. A couple pieces from the Connect Four bouncing and rolling past Sparrow's foot. The table, Joey called it, is trying to get out.

Sparrow effectively blocks the opening as best as she is able, mallet in hand to the central partition of the basement where the Root Cellar access is.

Joey's boots callry him back the way they came in, and he slams the shovel head of the spade into the dirt to go in through the back porch as evidenced by the THUDTHUDTHUDTHUD of heavy boots overhead. Yeah secure rugrat if they are home and loct that damn door...or be ready to kick it back downstairs. he can be heard calling out, "It's fine, Ma. Everything's fine."

Jaime attempts to grab onto the legs of the dinette table, to try and wrestle the thing to the ground, but it is bucking and kicking wildly, and while he does manage to hold on, he is entirely ineffective in managing to get ahold of one of its legs to try and destabilize it. The entire tableau is ridiculous. He's swaying and flailing around and managing to hang on like he's in some kind of crazy basement rodeo.

Sparrow's a clever girl. Not necessarily capable, but certainly clever. She watches Jaime wrangling with the Table of Terror, the way he's aiming to get its legs out from under it, and she moves in to take a swing at one with such confidence, such determination! If only she actually connected with the chrome and not the rider. Oops? "Oh shit! Shit! Sorry! Fuck!"

Joey comes through the door, winded, not out of breath as he slides around that thing from the front and grabs the two crawling legs that lash out at him. Well he's holding it, still on the stairs. "Noooope! Nopenopenopenope... Got it...fuck who polished this thing? Chevy Chase?!" This table is far more slick than even he remembers...and more agile too. Tables at not supposed to be agile! "Got it. Do the thing." He squints his eyes shut to avoid being poked in the eye by those angry TV antennae whipping around.

Since the saw isn't going to work on the metal legs, Jaime slides off the table once Joey's got a hold of it and grabs a screwdriver instead. He works quickly, grabbing on and attempting to unscrew the legs and pull them off. At least it won't be permanently destroyed and maybe once it's no longer possessed they can use it as the spare table for Thanksgiving again. But the thing still manages to buck him off and he goes tumbling onto the floor, after taking a crack from Sparrow's mallette. "Ow, shit.." he actually laughs because this is kind of hysterical.

Realization dawns as Sparrow catches what Jaime was trying to do. Boys who don't even understand why they should have sump pumps in their ridiculously foggy basements probably don't know how to work screwdrivers well either. The mallet bounces and clatters as she drops it, as she dives toward the laughing stuntman to snag the screwdriver from his hand. "I got this," she tells them, brown-eyed attention flicking toward Joey momentarily. "Hold it steady." She works fast. Like she's got a degree in screwing. Loosening screws? Let's go with that. One after another, they fall to the floor until at least one of the legs is detached, quick to start working on another.

Joey murmurs, "Yeah that's what she said." He sighs letting the bad humor focus his determination. one by one the pairs of screws come off. There's a screech of chrome o metal. It does not like that. by the time she's done and Joey's only holding the frame. Shooooooop the bunny ears slide off. Slowly the fog rolls away and there they are standing in the basement with a perfectly ordinary 1950's Formica and chrome table neatly disassembled, and laundry in a basket on top of the washer that Joey's still not gotten to.

Taking a deep breath like some strange disassembly dream is over he muses, "Well... it's easier to store now?" Looking around there's a few marbles rolling across the ground. "Hey, don't slip on the Ker-plunk."

Jaime lays sprawled on the basement floor, rubbing at his thigh a bit where he took a crack from the croquet mallet, laughing a bit and shaking his head. "I don't.. yeah.. sure.." He can't even articulate what he's thinking at the moment. He looks over toward Sparrow and says, "My hero," flashing her a grin, now that the table has been neutralized.

Sparrow falls flat on her ass when the basement beast sloughs apart into its component pieces. She's still holding onto that screwdriver tight like she's ready to use it again the second a metal leg twitches. But there's no twitching. There's laughter. There's all the assorted nonsense still settling against the concrete. And there's a breathless redhead just kinda staring wide-eyed at the twins like what the fuck did they get her into? She snorts a laugh for Joey's quip, a sputter of humor for his brother's declaration. "Pretty sure this was a team effort, but since I'm not sure one or both of you aren't to blame for whatever the fuck that just was in the first place? Yeah. I'll take the title." Beat. "And the reward that goes with it."

Joey just sighs and goes about picking up the legs off the floor and pocketing the screws. "Yeah...it was somethin." Not even weird, but wearying. He pauses and looks to Sparrow, "It's just a table. But seriously, thanks for making us not chase all over the yard after it." Looking down as the scratch in his arm he sighs. "Fuckin embarassing." Looking to Jaime he asks curiously, "Jaim, you good?"

Jaime pulls himself up off the ground, dusting off his hands on his jeans and looks at Sparrow wide-eyed, "Me? I was upstairs on the porch practicing!" He points at Joey, "He's the one who insisted on doing laundry!" Because, that's clearly the problem. He offers a hand to Sparrow to help her get to her feet, "Besides you already whacked me with the mallet for punishment. Haven't I suffered enough?" He does lean then though, down until he places a kiss on her lips for her heroics. He glances sidelong at Joey while doing so. Yep, he seems good.

"Still think you boys need a sump pump down here," Sparrow mutters up to Joey in answer to his appreciation for her skills with a screwdriver, glancing back at the... utter absence of fog. There might be a little shiver shaking her shoulders as Jaime steps up. Nothing to worry about. She accepts the offered hand, lips parting to issue objection to his retelling of events, but that kiss stills her. Hell, it seems to calm her a bit, like something in the world is just as it should be, some of the tension knotted in her shoulders dissipating.

Joey looks to Sparrow. All that just happened and she can't believe... they don't have a sump pump. he blinks and looks to the back of the utility room. "Shit... you got a point." Looking to Jaime he waits. It's that look of angry resting face. Nope. vigilant face. Never resting, always ready. It's really just his default mode with nothing behind that there. "Think we can do that over a weekend?" He wanders over to find tape to adhere the screws to the table with so they don't get lot. "Hmm. Maybe there? Low corner of the basement."

"Yeah," Jaime says once he steps back from Sparrow, "I think we can probably put in a sump pump."