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Tuesday, November 28, 2023

The Murder Maze of the Soska Sisters

I ran PLANET MOTHERFUCKER last Friday, devising a quickie adventure that is basically a love-letter to the Soska Sisters. I think I did a good job capturing the cackle they used on Hellevator.

The Characters

Runa Ravensbane, Church Burner who poses as a Scandinavian black metaller, but is secretly Sicilian

The Leather Corinthian, Living Dead Hustler, who is like Lux Interior if he were "Sears Catalogue Decadent"

Dr. MK ULTRA, Doctor Feelsbad, a walking drug lab who has trouble pushing his Purple Haze

Y3N, Unnatural Symbiote with a big toothy worm inside of them

Sault Voi Vittu, Vermin Lord from the Upper Peninsula with an army of frogs

Events

The motherfuckers were all rollin' down the road when they heard this ad spot come on the radio:

Tonight, one night only, at the STRIKEZONE!, Tomahawk Johnny & the Savages (cut to a track that sounds like a cross between Link Wray and Ennio Morricone). Come on down to the STRIKEZONE! To hear the thrilling Tomahawk Johnny & the Savages. And that’s not all at the STRIKEZONE! We’ve got jalapeno poppers and two-dollar shooters all night long. Only at the STRIKEZONE! That’s the STRIKE ZONE!, exit 10 off route 81. 

Since you don't pass up the opportunity to see Tomahawk Johnny & the Savages, they pulled in to the STRIKEZONE! The STRIKEZONE! was a sports bar decorated in wall to wall baseball memorabilia (posters, baseball cards, signed balls & bats, jerseys, shit like that); the seats of the stools were upholstered to look like baseballs and CRTS mounted around the bar were playing VHS tapes of old World Series games. However, the stage was conspicuously empty and the crowd was growing restless.

The group were approached by SLUGGER, an older, paunchy man chewing Big League Chew who used a dented aluminum bat as a cane. SLUGGER was the owner of the STRIKEZONE! and he had a problem; he approached the group explained:

"Huddle up with me in the clubhouse. We got us a problem. It’s the bottom of the ninth, bases are loaded, and we can’t find the MVPs. Tomahawk Johnny & the Savages shoulda been here by now! They shoulda done a soundcheck an hour ago.  Look at those bleachers. The fans are getting restless. Now, you folks look like just the All Stars we need to step up and find Tomahawk Johnny and the boys, bring em here, and win this one for the Gipper! Whatdaya say? There’s a signing bonus for ya if you can hit this one out of the park!"

The motherfuckers agreed to find the band and bring Tomahawk Johnny & the Savages back to the STRIKEZONE! in return for cash, free shots, and free jalapeno poppers.

The group decided to head back out on the road in the direction the band would have been coming from. They discovered the band's 70s Dodge Tradesmen veered off the side of the road in a ditch. There was no sign of a struggle, but from the tracks it did look like someone laid a trap that forced the van to skid into the ditch. Inside the van, they found a bucket of turkey legs from Madame Turkeyleg’s House of "Bird Meat." The art on the bucket showed a cartoon turkey in a Marie Antoinette wig having its leg cut off in a guillotine. The also found a crumpled up piece of paper with a phone number written on it: 867-5309.

The group decided to look for a payphone to try the number, and it turned out that the nearest one was outside Madame Turkeyleg's House of "Bird Meat." Dr. MK ULTRA called the number, and got an angry guy on the line who said, "You lookin’ for Jenny? Then you’re looking for trouble! I’ll kick your ass, man!"

Inside, one of the two pimply teenage boys working at the joint was mopping blood off the tile floor while the other waited to take orders behind the counter. Both kids were dressed as French revolutionaries, as that was the company uniform at Madame Turkeyleg's. The boys confirmed that the band had stopped in to buy a bucket of turkey legs and use the restroom. The restroom was searched for clues, and the motherfuckers found a fanny pack that a band member had left behind. Inside the found condoms, a baggy of weed, and a receipt for gassing up the van.

However, before they could ask the kids working the counter for directions to the gas station, Madame Turkeyleg's was attacked by a roving gang of French aristocrats, complete with powdered wigs and stupid makeup. Both of the teenage employees were wasted by gunfire, but the motherfuckers fought back. Runa exploded a bunch of their heads and they rest were dealt with in a similarly violent fashion.

After the carnage, they found the gas station. Inside were two identical twin sisters, dressed a bit like horror hostesses. When the motherfuckers asked a few too many probing questions, one of the sisters pulled a lever behind the counter that caused the floor to open like a trapdoor, dumping the group down into the depths below. The chamber they fell into was filled with machine-generated fog. They also noticed that there were video cameras mounted toward the ceiling, documenting their every movie.

The horrible truth: the gas station owners were the Soska Sisters. They had constructed a murder maze beneath the gas station and were luring victims into it so they could tape what happened to them as a way of recreating their glory days of Hellevator! And now the motherfuckers were caught in their tangled web! Fuckin' shit!

Following a strange orange glow brought them through a doorway done up to look like a giant demonic mouth. Inside were two doors: they could choose to enter The Lair of the Boiler Room Bastard or The Camp Minnetonka Massacre. The Soska Sisters provided commentary over the murder maze's PA system--which the mofos found extremely annoying. 

Anyway, they opted for the Camp Minnetonka Massacre. As they entered, the Soska Sisters narrated "Witness the horrors of the Camp Minnetonka Massacre, a Christian summer camp where the uptight counselors were picked off one by one by a masked killer before their season even began! Be careful if you meet the Minnetonka Mauler–there’s a dreadful secret behind the killer’s mask! Ahahahaha!" over the PA. Inside a sleepaway camp cabin, the motherfuckers interrupted a robot dressed like a masked killer in the act of butchering a topless nubile. In the fight that ensued, they downed the killer, but in true slasher fashion it got up and attacked them again when they took their eyes off it for a sec. On the plus side, they found Billy, the bass player for the Savages, hiding in a canoe.

The next room they chose to tackle was The Gunderson House, a Texas Chain Saw-style hellbilly hangout. The voiceover: "The Gunderson’s never let a guest go hungry–even if it meant feeding them their own friends and family. There’s something piping hot in the oven, better eat up before the Gunderson’s come in. They like to see a clean plate! Ahahahahaha!" Inside the house, they were confronted with an oven full of meat pies of dubious provenance. They ate them, and survived to tell the tale!

Next, they choose to enter a scenario called The Dark Angel of Riverside Hospital: "Riverside Hospital–people were sent there to get well, but many of them GOT DEAD instead! Sometimes the cure is worse than the disease! They never did find out which nurse was offing the patients. Ahahahahahaha!" This one was pretty simple: they brawled their way through hospital corridors full of murder nurses in American Mary aprons and did their best to avoid their bone saws. Y3N did get stabbed up at the door leading out, though.

They found the rest of the bandmates tied up in a storage closet. Annoyingly, the band saw Billy as their savior, giving the mofos no credit. Ingrates! Everyone exited through the murder maze's gift shop, which sold action figures of the animatronic killers they encountered and t-shirts that said "I survived the Soska Sister's Murder Maze and All I Got Was this Stupid T-Shirt." By this point, they badly wanted to tangle with the sisters, but they discovered that they had run off with the tapes of the motherfuckers' trek through the maze.

Even worse: they had stolen Dr. MK ULTRA's car. And since the doctor had a woman's corpse in the boot, the Soska Sisters were now in possession of a DEAD HOOKER IN A TRUNK.