Chill: Last Christmas

Today, a one-session case in Chill (because we were down a couple of players so I wrote a short case and it turned out shorter than I thought). Here's last time, though that session was a flashback session. This is the last session involving any of these characters.

It's Christmas Eve, 2020, and the Addams Ranch is, if not a hotbed of activity, then at least warm and cozy. Dee Addams and Darnell Stafford are here doing Xmas things, of course, but four envoys of SAVE are present as well. 

Manny Wall was planning on eating a Hungry Man with his dog, Peedee, as he has no local family, but Dee wasn't having that, so presently he's on the floor in the living room rolling around with Peedee, Dusty, and Sweet Baby Jesus.

Melanie Banks avoids her family around the holidays - it's too much for her after the loss of her daughter. She's on the ranch helping trim the tree.

Hector Elizalde is a new envoy - he was intended as a sacrifice to the vampire, Ti Papa (back here). He has since joined SAVE as the vampire's bite on his neck hasn't healed and causes him constant pain. He's at the ranch, though, because his wife Lydia is neck deep in her grad school studies (even over the holidays!) and he's giving her a little space to work. Hector's a sous chef, and so he's in the kitchen helping Dee out with the baking.

And Vicki Parsons is here because her dad got stuck at a conference out of town, so she's otherwise alone. Presently she's on the couch Face-Timing with her friend Duncan (we met Duncan back here when we met Vicki). 

Duncan is in the back seat of the family car with his mother, his uncle, his younger sister and younger brother. They're going through Christmas in Color, so the picture is jumping around a little. Vicki hears Duncan's uncle ask "you talking to that white girl?" and laughs it off; Duncan's sister pops into frame and comments on her ugly sweater (Dee had Xmas sweaters made for everyone, including the dogs). 

And then the picture goes screwy and choppy. Vicki sees a man's image flick on the screen and hears an unfamiliar voice say "you there? Babe, you there?" When Duncan comes back, he says that all of the lights around them went weird, too, and he heard the same voice but over the car's radio. And then the lights start going weird again - Duncan shows her out the car window - before the call drops.

Vicki figures this all might be nothing to worry about, but that it's worth looking into. She rounds up the other three envoys and they head out to Christmas in Color. They can see lights flickering weirdly as they pull in, and decide they're better off on foot. There's a parking lot and a trailer where you can buy cocoa and so forth, so they park and sneak in. Vicki takes a moment to use Clairvoyance to find Duncan; he's still fiddling with his phone but the car is moving, and he seems safe.

Peedee snaps his leash and scampers off (Manny remembers that Dusty was chewing on the leash earlier; he must have weakened it). They find Peedee underneath a "tree" (it's not really a tree, it's a wire frame set up to look like one) sniffing around and barking. Vicki senses the Unknown - it's there among them. And then her phone rings, but the ring tone is "Last Christmas". 

She answers, and a voice desperately says "Babe, you there? We got cut off." She tries to talk to the person, but the connection gets bad and the call drops. Hector's phone rings the same way. He checks the caller ID, but it just shows a mishmash of squiggles and marks. He answers, and the voice demands to know who it is. When he identifies himself as "Hector," the voice gets angry. Hector feels something hit his hand, and his phone flies off and hits the "tree", and falls into the snow. The lights get even more chaotic, the "tree" they're standing near goes red (as in, all the red lights activate). 

Melanie activates Sphere of Protection to give them a little room. She and Vicki see a spectral figure - a man in coveralls - appear and get pushed back and out of the sphere. The tree goes back to normal, but lights elsewhere are still acting weird. Melanie drops the sphere, figuring she'll save her strength. And then all of the lights go out - all the phone, all the lights on the trees, even the cars on the drive, everything goes dark.

The envoys spread out and look around a little. Vicki finds a transformer and gets close to it, but then something grabs her and pulls her backwards. She falls on her butt, unharmed but a little shocked, and the man appears in front of her. "Stay away from those, that's dangerous," he says, and disappears again. The lights come back on, and the cars back on the road start moving again.

Vicki plays "Last Christmas" on her phone, hoping it'll work to summon the ghost. It does - she hears the voice on the phone, and passes it over to Manny. Manny gets the ghost to focus a little, and it reveals that its name is "Chris" and it's looking for "Katie." Manny manages to convince it to let them look for Katie and asks Chris to call them back in a little while, and the envoys settle back to do a little digging.

Melanie discovers that last year, an apprentice electrician named Christian Morris was reported missing just after Christmas. She finds an online profile for him, and discovers he was in a relationship with someone named Katie Boone. Her profile is still active (though not very), but his hasn't been touched since last year...except that his mother posted recently to say that she missed him and hoped he was still out there somewhere. 

They dig up Katie's number and Vicki calls it; she doesn't get very far before Katie hangs up on her. Manny calls her back and asks her about Chris, and she reveals that she didn't even know he was missing. They broke up last year and she hasn't heard from him - she assumed he ghosted her and so she blocked him. Learning that he disappeared, she gets a little frantic; Manny assures her they'll let her know if they learn anything. She also reveals, somewhat reluctantly, that he was employed at Christmas in Color doing electrical work that he was neither qualified nor licensed to do. They were paying him under the table. 

The envoys form a hypothesis - it looks like Christian might have actually died here last year, possibly on the job, and that his death was covered up by someone who didn't want anyone to find out that he was working here. They head to the trailer and ask to speak to the manager. The manager, Brett, tells them that he wasn't here last year and didn't know Chris, but does mention that a former manager, Annie Estrada, was fired sometime over the last year. He's not entirely sure why, however. The envoys talk to an employee who was here last Christmas, but he barely remembers Chris. He does remember that some of the lights went out last year, and draws them a map in the snow showing roughly where the outage happened.

They head out into the park again, and see the lights going screwy in various places - letters that should say "MERRY CHRISTMAS" instead show "KATIE YOU THERE". They contact Chris again, but he barely remembers their previous conversation and gets angry when Manny tries to talk him down, throwing all four envoys back. They hear the distinctive sound of "Last Christmas" from the road and someone answers a phone, but then tells the caller to piss off and hangs up. That doesn't go well - the hapless civilian gets flung ten feet into the air and crashes down on the hood of his car, and the lights go out again.

The envoys find the transformer that the employee indicated, and Hector notes that the cable end is new. It looks like this transformer might have shorted last year. Vicki calls Detective Jackson for info, and learns that Christian's car was found at the airport in January. The police interviewed Annie Estrada, Christian's boss, but she claimed he worked in the trailer. 

The picture becomes a little clearer - it looks like Chris died by electrocution and Annie, not wanting to admit that she was employing him under the table for work he shouldn't have been doing, covered it up. Jackson asks if there's any proof, because without it he can't really investigate anything. The envoys keep looking - Vicki uses Clairvoyance to find Chris' body, and discovers it buried under another "tree" not far from the transformers.

The envoys grab shovels out of their car and dig him up. They send pictures to Jackson, who tells them to make an anonymous call but to make sure there's not, like, a dangerous ghost around before he goes sending cops out. They contact Chris again and get him to manifest, but he barely looks at his body. Vicki uses Telepathic Sending to try and get him to look at the body, but realizes that he's focused on talking with Katie - everything he says or does is within that context. He's not going to remember that he's dead, even if the envoys somehow manage to convince him.

They decide to gamble, and call Katie. Manny hands the phone to Chris, who takes it (telekinetically) and turns away to talk to her. The envoys only hear the last bit of the conversation: "no, it's fine. We can go see your mom tomorrow. I'll see you soon, babe."

The phone falls to the snow, and the ghost fades away. 

The envoys get the heck out and call the police to find Chris' body. Annie Estrada is arrested for moving the body and failing to report the accident, and Chris Morris' loved ones get some closure. Another Christmas in Boise for SAVE.