Detective Frank Gnome - The Wizard Saga - Part 6

The scene opens in a windowless, white box of a room.  Two individuals are talking with a table between them.

Detective Frank Gnome - "Christine you need to start talking... you're the only one left alive... we need some answers as to what happened in there."

Christine is sobbing, covered in blood.

Detective Frank Gnome hands her a tissue from the table and leans in close to her.

"Christine, I've been drinking in Dougies bar for 30 years and nothing like this has ever happened before.  I don't think... Well I don't think there will be a bar there when we finish this investigation.  You must know something?  Anything?"

It was Detective Frank Gnome's last day on the job when the call came in.  Not that people in fantasy land had telephones but there was a lot of yelling and screaming of the unpleasant nature coming from the tavern and it woke him up.  That was the call, the call of people dying and it just dialled his number.  

Christine - ".. I don't know... I .. it was just a usual Saturday night... Greg had the house band on playing all the good bits from stairway to heaven on repeat to keep people interested, then outta nowhere this guy walks in with a rat on his shoulder"

Detective Frank Gnome  -  "So a stranger you didn't recognise entered.."

Christine - "Yeah he just wafted in and nearly knocked over somebodies drink, bringing his pets with him"

Detective Frank Gnome  - "His pets?"

Christine -  " Yeah he had like, a frog and a rat and rabbit, it was big but i didn't get a good look at it"

Detective Frank Gnome  - "And what happened next?

Christine - "Well they made themselves comfortable in the corner, the big guy with the beard he had this flask with him also, I think there was some kinda fish in it.   The Rat would appear and reappear. It was strange, I was getting some bad vibes from them."

Detective Frank Gnome  - "Did they order any food?"

Christine - "Erm... yeah  they ordered a lot of cheese and bread and crudités but I remember Sally said that he pronounced it CRUD - ITES like he didn't know the french.  Is she ok?

Detective Frank Gnome -  looks at the table, looks at the floor

Detective Frank Gnome  - "Sally's dead Christine, everyone who was in the bar that night is dead but you."

Christine begins sobbing.   Detective Frank Gnome  hangs his head and uses his fingers to pinch between his eyes.  This town used to be so peaceful

Detective Frank Gnome  - "Go on"

Christine - "The night went on as normal, Barry was in his usual seat, drunk.  Lydia was giving her usual drunken spiel about leaving her husband but never will.  It was a normal Saturday Night.  I think the problems started when we opened the stage for the traveling bard acts."

Detective Frank Gnome  " How do you mean?"

Christine - " Well every Saturday as you know we like to give any traveling musicians that might be passing by a chance to play their music and earn some coin, when I announced this the big bearded fella from outta town jumped up and ran over to the bar all excited.  He looked like he had just eaten a sugar cube that unravelled a cool meme in his mind, all zany and mirthful."

Detective Frank Gnome  - "what"

Christine - "It’s all coming a lot clearer now yeah... he came over and he said that he and his friends were traveling bard wizards and they were hoping to play some soothing melodies for some coins.  "

Detective Frank Gnome - "Where is this story going?  When we found you in the pile of bodies.. I have never seen such carnage.  So much blood.   Dougie himself had shucked his own eyeballs out of their sockets with a fork."

Christine - Vomits

Detective Frank Gnome  - "Sorry i should have probably not told you that detail

Christine - "It's ok.. *weeps*.. I'm just trying to put it all together…@

Detective Frank Gnome - "Take your time"

Christine - "So we had them up on stage, the wiry lookin tall fella with a long greasy beard.  Next to him were I guess his band mates or companions or whatever, a rabbit... Actually it was a capybara, a frog and a rat.  They  all had really fancy outfits and pointy hats, it was very cute.   And out of his pocket the lanky man pulled a tank containing a fish which he placed carefully in front of the microphone.  That's when everything started to get dark.  The fish did a little flip in its tank and then solemnly cooed this low baritone note that rose but as it rose, I had these thoughts in my head.  Have you ever heard of erm intrusive thoughts?"

Detective Frank Gnome  - "I'm aware of them, sometimes I get them when I am trying to sleep at night"

Christine - "Yeah those kind thoughts, but bad ones... the worst thing you could possibly think.  It just flooded my head and it was all I could think about.  I could not stop this noise from evoking my most haunting and traumatic internal thoughts.  I felt like somebody had removed adblock from my trauma psyche or something.  But it wasn't just my thoughts, it was all the thoughts every cell of my being had experienced for millenia.  I could feel myself being eaten by dinosaurs and birds and felt myself drowning whilst being bitten by strange killer fish I couldn't recognise.  Every generational trauma that is inbuilt into our genes woke up and screamed all at once."

Detective Frank Gnome - "my god…"

Christine - "That's when people started losing it... People just started hurting themselves trying to escape the torment, spasmodic violent confused aggressive acts against their own bodies.  I saw Darrel smash a bottle just to slice his own neck, and Hank intentionally tombstombed himself into the rock floor to get away from his demons.  Everywhere I looked was people trapped in their own unending misery trying to end it.  Everyone was screaming in their own inner turmoil and that's when the wizard and his crew ran past me and pushed me out of the way, I must have hit my head"

Detective Frank Gnome  - “We found you unconscious behind the bar... I guess this is why you're the only one we found alive... there's 34 bodies still in there.  We had to call a local shaman to come turn the whole bar into a morgue with a freeze spell before everyone went ripe.”

Christine - “Does this mean I don't have a job?”

Detective Frank Gnome  - “At Dougies?  I'm afraid so... but there's a lot of money to be had on true crime podcasts, you'll do ok for yourself.  This town though?  we'll be swamped in vile tourists looking to find pieces of teeth that escaped the windows of the bar that night.  Gremlins of trauma.”