<hr/><div class="floatleft">(http://elliquiy.com/elluiki/images/a/a4/Flatbush.png)</div><br/><strong>Name:</strong>Charlie Flatbush<br/><strong>Faction:</strong>Law Dogs (3)<br/><strong>Date:</strong>May 18th, 1876<br/><strong>Time of Day:</strong>Afternoon<br/><strong>Location:</strong>Deadman's Rest<br/><strong>Tagged:</strong>Avery Burnam; CLOSED<br/><hr/><br/>Charlie sorted through the keys, trying a few and then pausing as he listened to the detective’s question.  He chortled at ‘Tripod,’ and he had the gist of the question before Avery had finished asking.  “Hell, we got plenty,” he said.  “Men and women both.  Every fella thinks if he’s got a mean name then folk won’t bother with him.  Half of ‘em are painting bullseyes on their foreheads.  Other half are just trying to keep from dropping their name on account of charges and bounties.  We got a Mad Dog McKay, Bloodhound Bill, Wolf Bartleby.  Big Dog Mike Everett, Bulldog Jones.  Let’s see, there’s… “  He frowned.  Those were certainly the top of the list.<br/><br/>“Mad Dog’s been dead and buried for nigh six months, though.  Texas Tummy Twister.  And Bloodhound Bill struck himself a little parcel out west of here, sold it off to Sweetrock and retired back to Florida.  But they called him Bloodhound cause he always get drunk and talked about having a nose for fundament.  Took him four damn years to find a claim, but when he did he found a good’un.  Wolf Bartleby runs the candy shop,” he laughed.  “So I don’t much see him causin’ trouble.  Also, he got himself about ten pounds on your Dolores, so I don’t fancy pinnin’ no murders on him.  Big Dog…”  He frowned, thinking.  “He runs a water ship up and down from Lost Angels to Dragonhome, or whatever they’re callin’ that place with a pet Maze Dragon.  See him every three weeks or so.  He’s due in any day now.  Bulldog’s big, and he’s got a reputation.  He fights three nights a week down at the Bloodsport Arena.  Big Negro fella.  Can’t miss him.”  He considered.  “Prolly a few others, too - half of ‘em end up on Gulgoleth over there, though,” he said, with a nod towards the massive stone wall of names.  “Other half … hell, move on or give up or just plain disappear and we never know what becomes of ‘em.”<br/><br/>“Ah ha!”  He found the winning key, and the gate creaked as it opened.  He scooped up his shotgun propped against the door, and pulled it open.  The scent of dried blood permeated in the darkness, and compared to the bright midday sun, the interior of the asylum was a black pit.  Charlie knelt by the door, feeling until he found a lantern, and took a moment to strike it up.  The large mausoleum was a mere stairwell down into the stone of Deadman’s Rest, and after Charlie had gotten it lit, he cast it down the stairs.  The first bit of stone at the bottom of the stairs was dried brown with blood, and Charlie gave a sigh.<br/><br/>“Ain’t gonna sleep right for a week,” he grumbled.  Then he began to head down the stair, casting the bobbing lamp cast ahead of them, the shotgun carried in one hand.  They were just to the bottom of the stair, in a catacomb that might once have been a mine shaft, refitted to become a tomb, and then refit again to become an asylum.  Wooden doors were built in front of small cubbies of hollowed out stone.  There were splashes of blood<em>everywhere</em>, along the floor and high on the walls, sometimes splashed up to the ceiling.  The first room they passed was the only one with a hint of decor - lamps and a desk and a bed, writing papers and an overturned ink quill.  The wooden doors weren’t on their hinges any longer.  They’d been yanked down, and still lay on the ground, their occupants clearly dragged from their rooms.  The other patients had been treated similarly - though their rooms were little more than mattresses and buckets that stank of refuse.<br/><br/>A dozen doors had been yanked downward, torn from their hinges by brute force.  In places, it looked like bodies had been dragged, kicking and fighting, while others had died quickly and been left in place, the ground stained dark with spilled blood.  The bodies were all gone - mostly.  A foot torn from an ankle lingered in one room, and rolled against one wall was a severed finger.  As they surveyed the place, there was one door that didn’t fit with the others - instead of being torn down, it had burst into planks, broken apart by a force that hit like a charging buffalo.  Charlie and the other Law Dogs had come upon the place when it was strewn with gore and carnage and remains - the details of the door had been overlooked.<br/><br/>Burst<em>outward.</em>The number on the door was a thirteen.<br/><br/>“When we got here, there was… blood and meat everywhere.  Mostly in the halls, a few killed in their rooms.  We think some of ‘em heard it and were trying to claw their way outta their rooms.”  He nudged at one of the fallen doors, were there were deep gouges in the wood near the top of the door.  The doors didn’t fit perfectly into their entryways - there would have been seams between rock and wood.  “We spent most of a day picking up chunks, and … cleaning up as best we could.  Ain’t no fit place to keep a man, even a madman.”