Cold Fury (open)

[nealgordon]

www.jacksonvillepost.com/news

Third suicide shocks local community.

The small community Jacksonville has reported its third suicide within the last eight days. The latest suicide a local teacher Roberta Marsh has according to sources ended her life in the early hours of this Monday morning behind the locked doors of her study. The late Mrs. Marsh a widow of some ten years was discovered by her sister who immediately called 911, however any help came too late for the deceased. The reports of the method which Mrs. Marsh used to end her life remain sketchy at best with some witness claiming that the deceased was lacking both eyes and a left hand. An official cause of death is pending.

This latest tragedy only throws an even darker shadow over the small town, since the suicides of retired Deputy J. Hanson, who ended his life by ingesting two gallons of bleach and former defense attorney G. Rosenblatt, who reportedly disemboweled himself. Police Official’s claim that these deaths aren’t connected in any way, yet one has to wonder if there being quite truthful.

By Jessica Keith

Neal couldn't quite believe it as he sat in front of the computer monitor in the small and probably only internet coffee within miles. Four hours ago he was flipping through Henries old Journal, on one of its pages he found the memo to get to this town exactly eight days ago so he decided to visit this place more on a whim then any actual reason. Perhaps he was simply being sentimental. And now he was witnessing what seemed to be a string of murders with a possible paranormal connection. With a sigh he decided to go back to the car and to scan Henries journal more thoroughly as something told him that things were going to get a lot worse before they got better.

[Deleted]

Today had been marked in Brody's diary as 'pay day'. Or it might have been marked in that way if Brody actually owned a diary. Or a pen. Or had a job that paid him a wage on a certain day. In reality, Brody's version of pay day meant he was out on the street picking pockets in order to get enough money to survive the next week or so.

Three blocks away he'd accidentally bumped into a woman who's handbag he could have lived in it was so big, but disappointingly, her purse only held credit cards which were of absolutely no use to Brody whatsoever. Another try with a younger guy wearing a suit got him eight dollars and yet more plastic, one of which was a diners card. Again, no use to him. Feeling very fed up with the way the world relied more and more on credit and less and less on cold hard cash, Brody decided to go for another tactic. Jumping in front of cars.

Well not exactly what you might think at first, he didn't actually intend to get hit by them, just timed it right so that a fairly slow moving car would just clip him and with a little roleplaying Brody could make it appear he'd been quite badly injured, enough to draw sympathy from the driver. Usually they were quite happy for him not to threaten to call in the police, so just long as they gave him a little cash so he could make his own way to the hospital to get patched up. The hit rate for this wasn't brilliant, only about fifty percent actually coughed up the money, but the guilt involved meant that those who did pay up usually gave quite generously.

So Brody bided his time and waited for a mark to show up, someone not driving a giant SUV that would probably just drive over him should he throw himself under it's wheels. No he needed a smaller car.

Hello Fiesta.... He thought, spying the old style Ford coming his way. Noticing the young male driver was a little distracted by something, he stepped out in front of it's path, slamming a hand down on the hood as it clipped him so it sounded as though he'd been hit much harder than he had. As the car suddenly stopped, he threw himself down on the floor in front of the front tyre and closed his eyes, lying in wait and hoping there were no eye witnesses to give the game away or interfere.

[nealgordon]

(((OOC: Sorry for the long wait. My pc crashed, now it's up and runing again!)))

Neal slammed the breaks as hard as he could when he heard the loud bang which seemed to have originated from the hood of his car. He cursed out loud while the car came to a screeching halt. Henries journal was quickly dispatched to the back seat as Neal looked what he had hit. To his horror he saw the body of man in front of his tire. Quickly he exited the car, completely disregarding to put on his gloves, and crouched next to the man.

The man luckily wasn’t under the tire but rather in front of it. Neal cursed again as he pressed the fingers of his right hand against the man’s pulse and held the man’s head steady with the other. He thanked his lucky stars, as he felt a strong and regular beat.

“….Hello Fiesta….”

For a second he didn’t even notice that the thought wasn’t his.

“….Hello Fiesta…. SUV….jump…now….money…” He did notice the latest thoughts he was reading even as he tried suppress them thus he only achievied a partial transfer.

Confusion crossed his facial features as he finally realized what was absent from man’s thoughts; pain. The sweat which covered his back dissipated almost instantaneously as he realized, under the shadow of a rather large grey building, that the man was faking it.

“What’s your name?” he asked sounding slightly testy, he waited for a minute for the response “Dude I know you’re faking” Neal snapped as he glared at the man.

[Deleted]

Brody lay perfectly still, his arms and legs limp and relaxed as he waited for the driver to come see whether he'd killed anyone or not. The car door opened and whoever it was that got out didn't seem too concerned with closing the door after them, which hoefully meant that they were the concerned type. They always gave much more generously.

“What’s your name?”

Brody groaned for dramatic effect but kept his eyes closed, aware that the driver was looking for his pulse. It was strange to have a random stranger holding his head, but he reminded himself that he was desperate and that if he wanted to eat anytime soon, this was the only way short of getting a gun and robbing a store. But since he couldn't afford a gun, wouldn't know where to steal one and probably would freak out if he ever fired one, a little fraud was going to have to do.

“Dude I know you’re faking”

Now that wasn't quite what he expected. Once again he groaned as though he was in pain, but when that didn't seem to work he cracked open one eye, and looked up at the young man leaning over him. It would seem that his little stunt wasn't flying with the guy, though Brody wasn't exactly sure how he knew he was faking. He was no oscar winner, but he'd pulled this routine enough times to know what to do to be convincing.

"I'm not faking, you hit me man...." More pathetic moaning and a lot of clutching of his ribs, hoping that keeping up the pretence would help convince him.

[nealgordon]

Neal raised his eyebrow as the man on the street started to
moan and what seemed to be making an attempt at speech. The broken pieces he had gleamed from this man’s psyche by accident were more then enough to make him suspicious but then again telepathy and psychic phenomena was everything but exact science. His gut feeling however told him not to trust this guy for whatever reason. Deciding to hate himself in the morning Neal pressed his palms against the man’s face.

His telepathy, if one could call it that, only functioned if he had skin-skin contact with another person, accordingly the more skin he was touching the easier it was to read another person. Of course he didn’t need to touch a specific body part to read the thoughts of others, yet he had the strange inkling that it might be considered odd that he was undressing a semi-conscious man who was partially placed under his car. Ignoring the stranger’s facial hair he focused hoping to learn as much as possible from the man.

….the image of bloodied hands flashed through Neal’s mind, the wounds placed in the center of each palm…another car….Neal’s Fiesta was driving towards him….the bloody hands again…money…good that Neal hadn’t closed the door…money…a woman apologizing for the accident….blood….another woman giving him money…bloody hands and pain…

Neal recoiled back in pain as his hands started to burn with pain almost as if somebody had pierced his hands with a metallic rod. Horrified he looked at his hands only to find that they were completely normal, no wounds and the pain dissipated. His breathing was hard and labored but returned to normal after a few seconds.

“What are you?” Neal asked, his eyes wide not with fear but rather curiosity

(((OOC: When Neal uses his telepathy, people feal as if a cold draft or cold water was tugging on their mind, just remembered this little fact I'll have to ask Dean to update my profile with it)))

[Deleted]

((You can update you're own profile, just add a note at the bottom to say what's been altered ))

If you'd ever stuck your head in a bucket of ice water, you'd have some idea of the sensation Brody was beggining to feel when the driver of the car, who had upto this point been calling him on his bluff, pressed his palm against the side of Brody's cheek. It was the strangest feeling, a slow creeping cold seeping through his skin and into his brain causing him to pull away in shock just as much as the other guy did.

The pretense of being an injured party was momentarily forgotten, particularly when he was asked, "what are you?" as though somehow he'd done something to startle the driver. Something other than throwing himself in front of his moving car that is. Sitting upright by the side of the curb, he returned the same confused but curious expression and pressed a gloved hand to the side of his temple like he was trying to get rid of brain freeze caused by eating too much cold ice cream too quickly.

"What did you just do?!"

[nealgordon]

“Ah huh!!” Neal exclaimed victoriously as he pointed at the man with his finger “I knew it!!” the stranger’s sudden confusion and startled jumping around had proven Neal’s point. For a split second he had almost forgotten the burning pain in his palms, it didn’t last longer then it took the stranger to utter his own question; what Neal was.

“I’m a full blown Leo” he replied referring to his zodiac sign “Don’t change the subject what do you think were you doing under my car?” he shot back the feeling of rage was rekindled in his belly

The strangers reply, if there was any, was drowned in a sound of breaking glass. Neal look up only to see shattered glass rain down on him and the stranger, on instinct he covered his head as the glass shards rained down upon him. For a second it was quiet, and then followed a loud thud a few feet away from both of them.

When Neal opened his eyes he looked at the source of the noise, specifically he staring at the broken red mass of bones and blood that was once a body. On some level he understood that somebody had just jumped and committed suicide yet his rational mind seemed to refuse to believe that the red gore only five feet away from him had ever been human.

Then a scream rocked him back to reality. Someone from one the buildings windows was screeching at the top of his or her lungs as the street started to fill itself with various onlookers.

[Deleted]

Brody was beggining to realise that today was not going to be a very good day for him. Especially since it appeared it was yet another day chock full of weird.

The old 'pretend to get hit by a car and guilt-trip them out of money' routine was proving to be an epic fail and had landed him in an arguement with the driver who was now asking him what he thought he was doing under his car.

"I was checking for rust on your under-carriage. You gotta be careful with old cars y'know." Brody quipped back, feeling defensive and in need of using his street smart mouth while he mentally decided on which direction was best to run in to evade a punch in the face for trying it on.

"And I wasn't the one changing the subject, you did that when you started feeling me up with your freaky frozen fingers..."

Mid rant and half way into standing upright, Brody too heard the overhead sounds of breaking glass and like anyone would, instinctively looked up to see what it was. Let's just say, 'rain of glass' isn't one of those things that makes your day any brighter.

"Shit!" There wasn't time to run so in an instant he was back to crouching on the floor, arms over his head and all curled up on himself - which was never easy when you were six foot two and a half - hoping that he wasn't about to get speared in the back by a large shard of window pane. The sudden thud of something heavy nearby and the feeling that something had splattered against his arm signalled that whatever had just happened was over and he gingerly peaked his head out from underneath his arms and stood back up again.

"Fuck....me." He muttered slowly, staring at the open and lifeless eyes of a very flat person on the sidewalk beside him. The sight was horrific but not nearly as grotesque as reasling that the splatter he'd felt on the arm of his grubby sweater was actually a nice big old splash of the dead guy's blood from the force of impact. Brody twisted his arm around to look at it and sighed deeply.

"Well that stain's never gonna come out."