Open House of the Living Dead

[Lydia]

"Nothing." Lydia answered with frustration creeping into her voice. The upstairs hallways were old and run down, like the houses on her world. The floor creaked, there were holes in the walls. It shouldn't be so hard to find the guy behind all of this. "The asshole's real good at hidin'." She walked to a door and yanked it open, just to see a room filled with creepy dolls. "Are ghosts real in Pandora?" She asked. Just about anything could be. Maybe York wasn't crazy and he was talking to ghosts. "Do you see one here? Do they like dolls?"

There was just enough time for York to answer, and then a loud bang and more growling could be heard below them. "Fuck." Lydia muttered. "I think the walkers are loose."

 

[Francis Zach Morgan]

York thought for a moment, "Ghosts probably are real considering the other strange things in Pandora. You probably should check those dolls. One of the many things I've learned from movies, is that ghosts absolutely love to hang around creepy dolls-" his answer was cut short when the door was broken down.

A hoard of 12 zombies were rushing towards the FBI agent, he had to act fast.

He focused his Psych-Gun on the group and discarded all unnecessary thoughts besides from that of his targets. All his thoughts of movies, creepy dolls, and ghosts drifted away as he trained his disfigured arm on the approaching walkers. To the scar-faced man there was now nothing else that existed in the world besides for their disfigured rotting heads, and his arm.

He fired off a bullet.

The bullet branched off in 12 directions, simultaneously piercing the skulls of all 12 zombies, killing them instantly.

He grabbed a cigarette and his lighter, and let the ensuing relaxation ease him back into his current worries.

He took a puff, "Lydia, our walker friends are no more. Did you find our ghost yet?"

 

[Lydia]

Lydia rummaged through the dolls, looking for a potential weapon as much as she was looking for a ghost. Most of them were too soft to force through even the most rotted walker skull.

She found a porcelain doll and prepared to smash it, as she heard a bullet fired. She looked over to see all the walkers dead. Real dead, all from head shots. Damn, she must have missed it and that would have been really amazing to see. It was a good thing that she never told him her own mother might have been hiding in a walker suit. His morals might have stopped him from doing what had to be done.

"Not yet, but I found this." Lydia set down the porcelain doll and picked up one of the soft one that she had discard earlier.

The doll said "Mama" and made a laugh similar to the earlier one.

"That might mean somethin'." Lydia said softly. "My Mama's not a ghost or nothin'. She is evil." It was starting to feel more and more like whatever was behind the mystery of the house, knew about her and her past.

 

[Francis Zach Morgan]

York gave the teenager an understanding nod, "I understand how you feel. I feel a similar way about my father..."

As he said this, the white-haired man ran his fingers across his scar.

Snapping out of his discomfort, the FBI agent glanced at the porcelain doll, "...You should keep a close watch over that doll. I have hunch that it will be important later, and my hunches are normally spot-on."

 

[Lydia]

Lydia wasn't good at talking about feelings, especially in a messed up situation like this crazy house. The closest she could come to telling him she understood, was a simple "Parents can be real messed up." With her, it had been her mom that did the hurting. She knew for Daryl, it was his dad. She figured the end result was the same for all of them.

"Okay." Lydia agreed; she figured she should go with it. The walkers were dead and he must know ghosts better than her. She glanced back towards the discarded dolls. "You wanna look through'em and see if any of'em mean something to you?"

 

[Francis Zach Morgan]

"Okay, Zach and I will take a look," replied York confidently as he walked up the stairs, entering the room of porcelain dolls.

He rifled through the pile of porcelain terrors, none of them were giving him any kind of reaction. Besides for the one in Lydia's possession of course.

"The only doll that looks important is the one you're holding onto. It could very well be related to the reason we're trapped here."