You follow Carl further backstage. In his state of terror he is running with reckless abandon — dress hiked up above his denim-clad knees and knocking aside everything in his path. If you weren’t in so much pain, it might even be funny. You hope the painkillers will kick in soon so you can enjoy a good belly laugh at Carl’s expense.
After a few frantic seconds of running, Carl stops abruptly and starts hurling furniture around, seemingly at random. You’re about to ask him what’s going on when he lets out a howl of triumph and grasps at a section of the wall. He pulls sharply and it slides away, revealing a small crawlspace that terminates in a cement wall about six feet in.
“GET IN!” Carl screams.
Ducking your head, you scramble into the small space. Carl follows you quickly and shuts the door behind him. For a few moments, everything is darkness, but your eyes quickly get used to it. After a short time, you’re able to see pretty well from the small amount of light that is trickling in from underneath the secret door you just came through.
You see Carl, still in his dress, sitting between you and the door in the fetal position. He is slowly rocking back and forth, and he seems to be shivering.
You move a little closer to ask him what’s wrong and his head snaps up. His nose starts twitching and he makes some sniffing noises. After a few seconds of this, his eyes move to stare at the place in your uniform where you concealed the yellow powder and hypodermic needle.
“My stash…” Carl whispers harshly. He then continues, his voice rising in volume with every word “You’ve got my STASH! GIVE IT BACK!”
You’re about to start arguing with him when you see a shadow block the light coming in underneath the door. You hear a horrible growling sound, like that of a huge dog, and something scratches at the wall near the door.
Your words freeze in your throat and you put one finger to your lips to signal Carl to be quiet. But either he doesn’t see the shadow or he’s ceased to care.
If you don’t do something immediately he’s going to give your position away to whatever it is that’s outside.
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Dude, I wanna hit the crazy S.O.B., but even that amount of noise might get us killed. Then again, the dog might smell him cooking up. I’m hoping that this isn’t a drug sniffing dog from hell.
See I told you going this way was a ~Bad~ idea. Now we have the druggie wanting his stash back. Now we are going to have to stab poor Carl in the Windpipe with his own needle to quite him down. ~Sigh~ Sometimes there is just no getting around being evil.
Fighting is going to be messy; its dark and we’re waiting for Vlad’s meds to kick in. Unfortunately, shanking is probably the only language Carl understands, so we’ll have to chance it.
I love how you’re all listing great reasons to just give the stash back, and then saying that you don’t want to do it. Come on, we only took it cuz it was there.
I say keep the weapon, return the powder and the needle. We can steal it back off him later when the shadow outside is gone.
I’m with brian on this one. It’s easier to just give the crazy dude what he wants. Injured people make a helluva lot of noise, they’re all like “Nooooarrgghhhhhhblurglegurgle” and that’s going to attract some almost definitely unwanted attention. Give the drugs back. It’s the right thing to do. There will be plenty of time for shanking later, I thinks.
I say hit him. If we make a lot of noise, kick him out of the door and hope whatever it is is busy enough eating him to get us.