[prologue]

[murphy_pendleton]

There aren't a lot of places Murphy expected to end up - prison, most likely. Some shitty apartment back in Baltimore, maybe, if he's lucky. The general handyman/groundskeeper of a wilderness resort...thing? Not so much. It hadn't been an interview he expected to get much out of. Just some gasoline wasted on a pretty drive.

He's not going to look a gift horse in the mouth, though. Hartfield's nice. Decent weather. Tiny town nearby. A nice lake and some rivers off in the forest, probably with some decent fishing. He hasn't gone fishing in a long time. He's looking forward to that, when he gets a chance.

Murphy's considerably less excited about the apparent onslaught of tourists coming out to watch the leaves all change. Tourists. Lovely. He's already hoping that he doesn't actually have to deal with most of them, though that's likely to be mostly in vain. Customer service might not be the main parts of his job description, but the summer staff is packing up and leaving. He'll have to pick up the slack.

For now, though, he's got a few things to keep him busy before this round of guests shows up. He still needs to build up the firewood stores considerably before winter hits - that's a big fucking task, because apparently his predecessors never replenished what they used. It's also one he can only do some much of in a day. Eventually, he's just got to give up and wander down to the lake with what amounts to his lunch, axe in hand still. He never know when he'll need something like that.

Comments

[hopingfortheshore]

He's coming down to the lake. She's not sure what to make of that. Any time the staff changes is stressful for her, really. And there are new people pretty often. She's never sure if they'll be able to see her or not, and the ones that can see her usually don't react well. One of the side effects of being a ghost, she figures.

She retreats farther under the water once he gets close enough that she can see the ax. Definitely not a good sign. She wonders if it's a coincidence or if he can tell something big's coming.

[wsullivan]

There's already too many people at the lodge. The overly friendly staff... and guests, especially guests. With more set to come, because something about leaves or whatever. Maybe hitching a ride out here wasn't the greatest of ideas.

The forest isn't terribly different from what he's used to. No sign of anything of any particular interest, even off the trails. Nothing that stands out as unnatural. Nothing to make the trek really worthwhile. He's seen trees like this a million times before. And lakes like this, too. Stumbling across the shoreline again in his aimless forest wandering mostly just gets a vague frown of a reaction.

Sure it's pretty but that's not why he's out here.

Maybe the haunted stuff was just another tourist gimmick.

[pavelachekov]

Pavel isn't exactly sure what to do with himself after having arrived. The friends he came with already managed to weasel their way onto one of the tours to some historical thing or other, while Pavel was diligently waiting on his cell to finish charging. Oh, well. He'll catch one of those later, he figures.

Left to his own devices, young Mr. Chekov quickly realizes there's a lot of interesting things about the lodge. Lots of things... for Instagram. His accomodations are the first thing he goes on a picture taking spree in. Not long after, and he's lurking around the main lodge, snapping away with his cellphone happily. At anything that even looks remotely interesting, too, because why not.