Jenny is shocky, drifting in and out. She doesn't seem aware of what's going on around her.

More cold air blows in, chilling the bar.


Neither FB nor the newcomer can find a pulse.

"Well, that sucks," FB understates.

"Right... Shock. Elevate her legs." Gio says this to no one in particular. He gets up and strides to the entrance. He points to FB. "Jenny's under control. Doc's dead. Follow me. We're going to meet the Hammans." He strides outside and gets in a [insert fancy car here]. He waits for FB, since he knows nothing of the Hammans.

Jan keeps pressure on Jenny's wounds.

"Are you tryin' to say she don't this to herself? Really?"

"Y-y-yes!" Clark drapes his coat over Jenny's torso, shoves a ten-gallon bucket of pickles under her feet to prop up her legs. "Honest, Mr. Gunderson, you know how I love her, I'd never hurt her, never! She was talking crazy, and she grabbed the ... the ... and she just ... it happened so fast!"

6:32 pm

FB ignores Gio; lack of a pulse doesn't mean "dead" in this day and age, and FB was a Boy Scout. Got all the lifesaving badges and everything. So he reaches inside, pops open the door, and takes a better look at the Doctor; he's already expecting the worse, but there's a chance she didn't break her neck and snap her spine, and he's got to be sure.

Jan glares at Clark, while he feels the young man's young lady's lifeblood running out between his fingers.

"Son, if she survives this you can make your case to the judge. If she don't I don't think it'll matter one whit. None of us saw what happened but you."

Jan frowns as a drop of sweat runs down his forehead and drops off his nose onto Jenny's face.

"Where the damn hell are they with that ambulance?!"

The newcomer helps out FB however he can. "you want chest compressions, or mouth to mouth?"




"It's on it's way! It'll take awhile with all this snow!"

Clark draws his knees to his chest and wraps one arm around them, rocking back and forth. He holds Jenny's limp fingers in his other hand. "I just want her to be all right, Mr. Gunderson. Oh, Jesus, I just want her to be all right."

In the kitchen, the heat from the still-running fryers and ovens competes with the stream of icy air blowing in from the bar. Waves of hot and cold alternately wash over the little group gathered on the floor. A few snowflakes make their way in and sizzle on the hot grill.

FB and the newcomer do what they can for the doctor, but she is long past help, dead on impact.

Gio waits in the car.

There's a scratching at the back door that leads out of the kitchen, barely audible over the wind, and a strange chittering noise. The scratching increases, shaking the door in its frame.

Joe frowns. "Frances, take over for Jan here. Jan, can you go see what that is? Sounds like someone's trying to get in."

6:43 pm

Jan passes off Jenny to Fran and grabs his heavy jacket before going to the back door.

"Who's there?"

He grabs the knob and turns it.

The newcomer sighs and closes the dead woman's eyes. "May you find peace in the Shining Lands."

He heads back to the kitchen, where at the sound of the scratching, he draws back the bottom right side of his duster, buttoning it back at the waist, and revealing an odd tooled leather utility belt, with a gunslinger's holster cut from the same leather tied down on his leg. An electrical cord is coiled behind the holster, and runs from the utility belt to the handle of the odd looking gun resting in the holster. The newcomer moves to stand beside the door, and lightly rests a hand on the butt of his weapon. He nods at Jan.

"What the hell?" Joe shouts, starting to his feet. "Look, mister, I don't know where you're from, but it's illegal in this state to carry concealed in a bar. I get that we have bigger things to worry about right now, but once the ambulance gets here, you are out, you hear me?"


The door explodes inward, hitting Jan and the newcomer full in the face with a stinging wave of icy pellets and breathtaking cold, and a cat-sized black thing moving almost too fast to see flies into the room and clamps on to Joe's throat.

The bartender goes down hard, gurgling.

6:44 pm

"Holy spit!"

Jan slams the door with his coonsiderable strength and grabs at the thing at How's throat, trying to pull it free.

"Get clear!"

The newcomer draws his weapon, the electrical cord uncoiling as he moves. A red laser dot springs to life on the, whatever it is, and flashes into blinding crimson incandescence as the laser pistol fires, spitting out ten 200 Joule pulses, each ten microseconds apart, focused on a spot less then a millimeter in diameter. Water flashes instantly into steam with the same force as a large firecracker, creating a deafening roar, dissipating just in time for the next pulse to hit. On ballistic gel, the beam causes a hole 2.2 cm wide by 10 cm deep with a temporary cavity of 10 cm. All this and absolutely no recoil.

(OOG: got my figures Here.)

Gio gets out of the car and back in the bar. "What the deuce is going on!?" Seeing the laser, he is even more confused. If the laser fails, he will attempt to merely pull the creature off Jan.