No One Gets Out Alive Character Creation
Episode 1: "The Drop Off"
Episode 2: "Another Midnight"
Episode 3: "The Inevitability of Death"
Episode 4: "Here in the Dark"
And with this, our fourth sitting, we wrapped the whole damn thing up. We knew it was a possibility going in, everyone played hard, the ghosts came out to play, as did the secrets, and, as hinted all along in the name of the game, some of the characters died in the gloriously messy finale. Here's the recap, and I'll put up a second post shortly with all my character thoughts and some bonus backstory written by the GM!
The session opened right where we'd left off, just after Michael had gotten a series of texts and photos on a phone that wasn't supposed to be getting reception, of his son, alone and terrified against a red brick wall, and the word "MORE". He asked Jo, urgently, where Tyler was. Jo said she presumed he was in his room, but Michael said no, there was someone on the island, someone evil, and he'd taken Tyler.
Michael passed Jo his phone, but when she took it, the screen was dead. Worried that witnessing his brother's death had been too much for him, Jo asked Michael to sit down, and for Lisette to go upstairs and check if Tyler and Maddie were there. Michael protested, saying that they had to figure out what to do about the company, but Jo said that they could deal with that tomorrow. Getting his phone back, Michael could clearly see the photos of Tyler, and said he had to go out and find his son. He was somewhere on the island, scared. Jo let him go, worried.
Michael grabbed a flashlight and headed off into the rain that had started to pour down on the island. He convinced himself that the background behind Tyler in the picture was from the foundation of an old ruined house in the woods.
Meanwhile, Lisette found no one in Tyler's room, but could hear Madeleine crying through the door. She knocked tentatively, and Maddie came to the door and threw herself, crying, into Lisette's arms. Lisette held her uncomfortably, and asked what was wrong. Maddie was incredulous as she said, tearfully, that Uncle Matthew was dead, that's what was wrong.
Lisette tried to comfort her as Jo came upstairs. From where she was down the hallway, Jo could see Lisette reach into her pocket and pass something small to Maddie. Jo called out to ask if Tyler had been in his room, and when Lisette replied that he wasn't, she walked down the hallway and briskly held out her hand, palm-up, to Maddie, asking her for whatever Lisette had just given her.
Maddie stared at her mother, confused. Lisette said that she hadn't given Maddie anything, but Jo clearly didn't believe her and continued to ask Maddie to hand it over. Now. As Lisette reached out to try to explain, a pill bottle fell from her pocket on to the floor. Jo's lips thinned as she picked it up, seeing some of Miss Maudie's pills. She looked at Lisette, noting her large pupils, and asked if Lisette were high. Lisette protested, unconvincingly, that she wasn't. Maddie pulled away from her mother and spat something horrible and teenager-ish at her, before running off.
Lisette tried to explain that she hadn't given anything to Maddie, that she didn't remember putting those pills in her pocket. She said she hadn't even wanted to stay on the island, that Michael had convinced her. This did not impress Jo. Lisette said mournfully that she didn't want anything to do with this family anymore. When Jo stalked off, Lisette looked down and when she looked at it, now the name on the bottle of pills read Jo Ross.
Somewhere around this point, the lights went out, as claps of thunder and lightning lashed the island.
Meanwhile, out in the driving rain and dark, Michael trekked through the woods, yelling for Tyler. When he got to the foundation of the ruined building, he couldn't see anyone, but climbed over the low remaining wall anyway, jumping in, and landing on a ripped tin can, which pierced his foot through. There was no sign of his son. Bleeding and swearing, Michael tried to make his way back out, but slipped on the mud. His phone lit up again and two more images appeared, of Jo with Adam, her colleague (and the man she was having an affair with), smiling a smile that she used to turn only on Michael. Michael scowled, and resumed his painful struggle out of the foundation. When he got out, he realized he had a knife in his hand, the skinning knife that the man with the burlap sack had carried.
Back at the house, Lisette grabbed Jo’s purse, intent on proving that Jo was trying to frame her again. With the lights out, she went into the kitchen and lit a candle. She looked at the knives in the kitchen, feeling like she needed a weapon, but decided that something blunt would be much better. She went into the dining room, intending to pick up a poker that was leaning against the fireplace. Suddenly, the lightning flashed, and Lisette was surrounded by people in the room. She shrunk back, but as the light faded, so did the people. She made a dash for the poker, then back to the kitchen and out into the night to find a lantern in the gardener’s shed.
Jo was in search of Maddie when she heard the distinct sounds of two people having sex in her and Michael’s bedroom. Thinking it might be Michael and Lisette, she opened the door angrily, only to see a very large man having enthusiastic sex with a small woman - Miss Maudie, when she was very much younger. Jo could see clothes strewn over the floor, including a burlap sack with two holes cut out for eyes. After finishing, Miss Maudie cast her eyes towards the door - but clearly didn’t see Jo standing there.
Lisette had made her way to the gardener’s shed and found an oil lantern and lit it. With that in one hand and the poker in the other, she started back to the fence, only to see Skinner, the man with the burlap sack over his head and a skinning knife in his hand, heading towards her. The camera flipped, and we saw from Michael’s perspective that he was heading towards the light, and calling out for Lisette while she saw something quite different and fled for the house. He pursued her, worried that she was going to betray his trust and the family.
Losing sight of Lisette, Michael come up to the kitchen window, seeing Jo standing there with a butcher’s knife in her hand. For her part, Jo saw the figure on the other side of the glass as the man with the burlap sack, complete with knife. She pulled back and yelled at him to go away. Michael, frustrated, called out to Jo to let him in, and she recognized him, but he looked even more dishevelled and crazy than he actually was. She hesitated, then finally unlocked the door.
When Michael stumbled inside, Jo tried to see what shape he was in, physically, but Michael was fixated on the idea of finding Lisette, and needing to determine where her loyalties lay. Jo didn’t understand why this was so important, tonight, when their son was missing, so Michael finally told her about the financial trouble the company was in, the trouble he was in, that he could go to jail. Was she with him? Loyal to the family?
Jo pushed back - how could he not have told her this? How could he have kept this secret? Michael narrowed his eyes. She was one to talk about keeping secrets. Jo demanded to know what he meant by that. He knew about Adam, Michael replied. Did she really think she could keep that secret? That he wouldn’t know?
Jo stilled. She really thought he didn’t, she said softly. Come on, Jo, Michael said. He wasn’t an idiot. So, where did she stand? Was she loyal to the family? Jo looked at him, still confused. What did he mean loyal to the family? Michael said, with difficulty, that they all needed to pull together to survive this. He strongly hinted, but didn’t say outright, that he’d had to kill his brother Matthew to keep the family going, and that he’d do anything to protect Jo and their kids. Jo could guess at what he meant, but the ambiguity let her put it aside for the moment. She continued to triage the situation - they had to find their kids, first. Then they could talk.
Outside, both Jo and Michael could see a figure run across the lawn - it looked like their daughter, Maddie. Jo sighed and picked up the kitchen knife again. She’d go after their daughter, and wanted defence against whatever was stalking them. At the door to outside, she paused, and haltingly, tried to explain. She’d wanted to come to the island to see what she and Michael still had between them, what might be possible. But she’d screwed it all up.
Back with Lisette, as she ran from the figure of Skinner. She ran into the building on the other side. But where she ended up as she went through was not where she intended. She was suddenly in the secret passage, between floors. Lisette started shaking, terrified. Noises echoed around the small staircase, and Lisette started to head up towards the attic, but stopped when a stone fell right past her and landed at her feet. In the brick wall in front of her face, there was a small hole, and inside was a package of small bones, wrapped in paper. The newspaper showed three bodies hung up like in an abattoir. It dated to Prohibition, and heavily implicated Michael’s grandparents and their enforcer in the murders. A headline read “No One Gets Out Alive!”
Lisette recoiled and started moving rapidly down the stairs to the creepy basement. Once there, the lantern-light glinted eerily off the walls. She shrank down, against the wall, trying to block out the manifestations, utterly lost.
The sound of a phone ringing lured Michael, still bleeding and limping, into the east wing of the house. There he saw Miss Maudie. She praised him for being a good boy, the one she could always count on, but now demanded that he take care of Josephine. She wasn’t really part of the family, after all. Never had been. And now she’d shown her true colors. Michael resisted, swearing to his grandmother that Jo loved this family. Miss Maudie’s eyes narrowed in scorn. She demanded more.
Outside, Jo continued toward the dock, looking for Maddie. On the dock itself, she stared out into the water, then noticed something just below the surface of the water. It was a face. It was many faces, glinting just below the surface. They were watching her, and began to break the surface in pursuit of her. Jo stumbled backwards and ran up the hill, back towards the house.
Lisette heard the sound of someone scared in the basement, and found Maddie there, trembling. Maddie was scared, and Tyler was missing, and her parents were upsetting. Lisette hugged her close, trying to comfort her.
Just then Michael heard the noises coming from the basement. Still clutching the skinning knife he’d found in the ruins, he ventured down the slippery stairs, and found Lisette and Maddie. He was bloody and looked crazed. Lisette pushed Maddie behind her as she got to her feet. With a shaking voice, she said she didn’t want to be part of the family any more, she just wanted to leave.
Michael asked how he could know that she wouldn’t betray the family, tell everyone about what had happened with the company. Lisette swore she wouldn’t, clutching the poker tightly. She just wanted to go to her mother, and be done with this entire family forever. Michael got angrier at this, accusing Lisette of never caring about the family, of never really being a part of it. Maddie whimpered behind Lisette’s back. Scared, Lisette told Michael to move so she could leave. He couldn’t do that, they needed to talk.
Lisette lashed out with her poker, catching Michael on the side of the head. Startled, he jabbed out with the knife, stabbing Lisette in the stomach. They both fell to the floor. Lisette crawled her way over to him, painfully, and threw the knife across the room away from them both. Maddie shrieked and ran up the stairs. As Lisette had fallen, she had dropped the lantern, which broke and started a fire.
Maddie ran to the door and almost straight into her mother on the porch. Maddie was nearly incoherent, talking about her father and Lisette and people going crazy. Jo told her to stay on the porch or the lawn, where she could see the door. She’d be right back. As Jo entered the basement, she could see her husband and Lisette on the floor, and assessed that both were in danger of dying if not treated quickly. Just then, though, she heard Tyler yelling.
Jo ran to the wall, seeing the red brick, and a spot that looked different from the rest. Picking up Lisette’s poker, she started to smash at the wall, getting through it relatively quickly. The fire was spreading, though, starting to fill the basement with smoke. Covering her mouth, Jo went through the hole she had made, to see her son in an alcove, with the hand of a skeleton of a very large man with a burlap sack over his face on Tyler’s shoulder. Jo broke the hand away and she and Tyler climbed out rapidly.
As the fire spread, Jo had Tyler help her lift Michael to get her up the stairs, and looked at where Lisette was lying unconscious, biting her lip. But between her husband and former best friend, she made her choice. She, Tyler, and Michael made it out onto the porch and down the stairs to Maddie, watching as the fire spread through the house.
Jo left Michael alone on the lawn, and ran back up the stairs to the porch. She hesitated and went in, intending to go no further if it was too dangerous. However, Michael watched, horrified, as the house collapsed around his wife.
An emergency boat pulled up at the dock, and Michael could see Perry and others running up the hill. Maddie started to shriek about her father being a murderer, Tyler was huddled in a ball, and the house continued to burn.
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