Monster Mash Massacre

The Monster Mash Massacre was a mass killing that occurred at the Whitespring Resort on Halloween night 2103, shortly after the arrival of the Brotherhood of Steel's 1st Expeditionary Force in Appalachia, which claimed at least 21 lives, including 13 youths from Foundation. Though many details of the incident remain a mystery, its gruesome aftermath sent shockwaves throughout the region's major factions.
==Background==
The genesis of the Massacre - and the origin of its name - lies in an ill-advised Halloween party organized by a group of teenagers and young adults from Foundation. The "Monster Mash", advertised through word of mouth and covertly-delivered letters, was to be a "rager" held at the then-abandoned Whitespring, which the organizers believed to be close enough the settlement to deter any attacks by Super Mutants, Blood Eagles, or the Crater Gangs. The party's chief organizers were as follows:
* Brock Burrel: A well-liked member of Foundation's Youth Scavenging Initiative, an effort by community leaders to engage the settlement's teenage residents in productive labor and train them for wasteland survival. Regarded as a budding community leader, he was reportedly the one who first proposed the idea of the Monster Mash.
* Stacy Strode: Another member of the Youth Scavenging Initiative; popular and outgoing with an enthusiasm for wilderness survival. She reportedly pressured her younger sister, Miranda, into attending the Monster Mash and assisting in its preparation.
* Jerome Brown: An AV enthusiast and horror movie fanatic, orphaned by the Blood Eagles at a young age. Displayed skill as an electrical and mechanical engineer, but was described by Foundation's maintenance staff as unmotivated and uninterested in civic work.
* Luisa Hardy: The daughter of Harold and Valentina Hardy, both members of Families Against Cultural Stagnation, a pre-war socio-political organization that protested the extensive glorification and emulation of the mid-20th century that had permeated American culture by the 2070s.
Despite these attempts at secrecy and the event's proximity to Foundation, the party was discovered in its preparation stages by "Fritz", a former member of the Diehards raider gang residing at the Whitespring, who reported the discovery to his former associates at Crater. A group of raiders, led by William "Crusher" Wesley and Diana Payne, were dispatched by Meg Groberg to take the partygoers hostage; Groberg planned to use the youths as bargaining chips to extort Foundation for food and medical supplies, in order to bolster Crater's stockpile for the coming winter.
Furthermore, evidence suggests that the Cult of the Mothman somehow became aware of both groups' plans prior to Halloween, and had been staking out the Whitespring for at least a week prior to the Massacre.
==The Party==
The Monster Mash began its final preparations at roughly 11:30 AM. Testimony from surviving partygoers and Foundation logs indicate that the first to arrive were Luisa Hardy, Stacy Strode, Brock Burrel, Miranda Strode, and Christoph Hodges, having volunteered to conduct a supposed scavenging mission to the New Appalachian Central Trainyard that would last two days. Over the next 8 to 9 hours, they set up a sound system for playing holotape music on the grounds, and a projector in the main building's lounge for a midnight horror movie screening. 
Crusher's Diehards, numbering 10, remained camped in a secluded area nearby, overlooking the campgrounds from a covert distance. Testimony from the group's sole survivor indicates that Payne argued in favor of simply taking the present group hostage, but Crusher vetoed the decision. Roughly six hours into their wait, one of the Diehards present, "Black-Eye" Sam, returned from patrol with a box of Halloween masks that she had discovered in an abandoned van, which the group would put to use later.
The remaining partygoers began to sneak out of Foundation at around 8 PM, having bribed the gate guard, who testified that he "sympathized" with their desire to hold a "wild teen party". By 10 PM, most of the invited youths had arrived - 20 in total - and the festivities began in earnest. Alcoholic fruit punch was served at the campgrounds while music was played over the sound system. While Luisa Hardy initially attempted to mix up the playlist with songs from her personal collection, a lack of enthusiasm led to the organizers simply leaving the 1962 novelty album "The Original Monster Mash" on repeat.Jerome Brown: "There was this one song - "Starlight", I think. From like, the 1980s. I think her costume was supposed to be the singer in the music video; some alien dude who falls in love with a human or something... it was actually pretty good, but she played it like three times; people got sick of it." Guests entertained themselves with dancing and drinking games, and by shooting the firearms that had been provided to the organizers for their "scavenging mission".
At around midnight, the partygoers gathered in the lodge for the horror movie screening - Night of the Fish Men's Revenge - and the Diehards made their move. Wearing the recovered Halloween masks in an ultimately failed attempt to quietly infiltrate the party, a scuffle quickly broke out when an armed and intoxicated partygoer (believed to have been Laura Summers, a known delinquent and suspected daytripper addict) blundered into the raiders as they entered the lodge, which led to a firearm being discharged.
Witness accounts of the following confrontation are sparse in detail, owing to the chaotic and panicked responses of both the partygoers and the Diehards. It is known that three partygoers, including Brock Burrel, attempted to fend off the Diehards but were quickly killed. It is believed that eight partygoers managed to escape in the chaos. Of these escapees, three were found alive by Foundation search parties after the massacre, and three were found dead. The fate of the remaining two remains unknown, though they are presumed dead.
==Initial Escapes==
The matter of the first escaped hostages is generally of little note: the three survivors were found barricaded inside an abandoned farmhouse at Solomon's Pond, while two of the dead partygoers were determined to have been killed by wild animals. The final victim, however, is particularly notorious due to the witness account of their escape and death - Luisa Hardy.
During the scuffle that led to her escape, Hardy managed to severely wound one of the Diehards with a knife. Fearing that she may return and make further attempts to ambush and kill members of the group, Crusher sent five of his men to find and kill her. Only one member of this group survived - one Jake "Jitters" Chompsky - and his account, though highly unreliable for a number of reasons, proved just as infamous a story as the subsequent massacre to the inhabitants of Crater.
===The Woods===
Chompsky's group, led by "Black-Eye" Sam, tracked Hardy through the woods for several hours - avoiding the events of the massacre itself due to their absence. At one point the group discovered an abandoned trailer housing a drug lab containing "weird tubes" that Brotherhood field scribes later identified as canisters of HalluciGen Gas. Chompsky notes that at several points members of the group believed they had spotted her, only to lose track of her in the darkness, and an atmosphere of paranoia enveloped the group. 
This paranoia is believed to have been heightened by a minor mutation that Hardy suffered from, colloquially referred to as "cateye" after a pre-war prescription drug with vision-enhancing properties. The mutation provides slightly improved night vision and manifests visually as a "reflective sheen" on the eyes of the affected individuals during low-light conditions, akin to the effect seen on many nocturnal and vespertine animals, including cats. Chompsky's account holds that he and a few other members of the group began to suspect that Hardy was stalking them as much as they were tracking her, frequently believing that they could see her eyes staring at them from the shadows.
Eventually, the five trackers managed to corner Hardy within a pre-war villa originally owned by the Hornwright family - or so they believed. Splitting up to find the girl at the behest of Black-Eye, Hardy spent the next several hours laying trap and ambushing her pursuers. 
===Hornwright Villa===
According to Chompsky, one member of their group - Isaiah Truman - was found dead shortly after they split up with an axe embedded in his back, and an hour later a scream was heard from the groundskeeper's shack. Investigating the sound with a partner - Greg Hodges - he found the corpse of another - Sofia Garters - with her throat slit. Hodges apparently moved to investigate the corpse, triggering an explosive booby trap that killed him instantly and spread "some kinda gas" - almost certainly HalluciGen Gas taken from the drug lab - throughout the room. 
At this point, Chompsky's testimony becomes highly unreliable. He claims to have heard gunshots from inside the villa, and rushed towards it, entering from the back and proceeding to the dining room. There, he claims to have seen Black-Eye being "torn the fuck apart" by Hardy, who he described as a "fucking monster werewolf bitch", tearing open Black-Eye's throat with her teeth. 
Chompsky at this point panicked and fired four shots from his handgun at Hardy; he would claim that the rounds had no effect. After this, his handgun jammed, prompting him to throw it in her direction and flee aimlessly into the woods. He was found nine days later by a scouting party from Crater, several miles away, severely malnourished and dehydrated.
===Analysis===
Analysis of the bodies at the villa by a Foundation scout team several days after the massacre suggests that what Chompsky's mind perceived as a werewolf attack was likely Hardy cutting the throat of Black-Eye with a meat cleaver found nearby. Contrary to his claims that his bullets "did nothing", Hardy's body was found outside the villa with four 10mm rounds in the chest; it is believed that she was mortally wounded by the shooting and attempted to crawl away.
Her cause of death was not the bullets or blood loss, however, but a blade found embedded in her back, resembling those used by the Mothman Cult.
==The Massacre==
Concurrently to the pursuit of Luisa Hardy, Crusher and the remaining raiders rounded up the eight remaining partygoers and locked them in a suite on the upper floor of the resort, while Payne attempted to contact Crater via radio to report their success and request reinforcements for the subsequent negotiations with Foundation. 
According to the testimony of Miranda Strode and Jerome Brown, Stacy Strode began planning an escape at roughly 1 AM. The three managed to escape their restraints and were searching their suite for makeshift weapons when gunshots were heard from the first floor. Seizing on the opportunity, the three broke down the door and led their fellow hostages to a nearby stairwell, where they discovered that the resort's robot staff had turned on the raiders. 
This did not prove to be an advantage however - shortly after this discovery, Jerome was spotted by a Whitespring Protectron and was fired on, suffering a laser wound to the shoulder. Four partygoers were killed in the chaos, and the remaining members fled into the cafeteria area, where they found and captured Payne. Fearing that a group escape was impossible and that no rescue would arrive in time, Stacy instructed Jerome and Miranda to take Payne's radio equipment and flee while she and the surviving partygoers distracted the robots.
Despite initial protests, Jerome and Miranda ultimately complied, fleeing out a back entrance and into the woods. They ultimately took shelter at Middle Mountain Cabins, and at 5:21 AM managed to contact a passing Brotherhood of Steel patrol, who rescued them at 5:57 AM.
==Aftermath==
The Brotherhood patrol set out to rescue the remaining partygoers at 6:30 AM, leaving the two survivors at the Cabins under armed guard. What they found was not what they had expected, and to this day debate rages over what transpired in the hours between the last survivors' escape and the Brotherhood's arrival.
It is generally believed that the robots had been deliberately set into combat mode by members of the Mothman Cult, and were deactivated at some point during the partygoers' attempted "last stand". Only two corpses were discovered in the cafeteria with wounds suggesting they had been killed by robots - most victims appear to have been ushered out into the main courtyard of the resort and ritually sacrificed, with several makeshift Mothman totems found near the bodies.
Stacy Strode's remains were not discovered among this group, but further inside the resort, alongside Payne. Brotherhood personnel noted that they appeared to have been killed in a struggle, and that blood spatter within the room suggested that at least two other individuals were killed or seriously wounded in the struggle, though it was not clear if Strode and Payne had fought on the same side. Despite the obvious struggle, no bodies belonging to the cultists were found on the premises.
Despite the involvement of the Crater gangs in the events, Foundation and the Brotherhood would ultimately lay the majority of the blame for the event on the Mothman Cult, and over the next year efforts to combat the Cult's activities in the region were redoubled.
==References==
Category:Competitions