[IC] Act One: Savannah

Sam, still well out of his depth, holds the light and lends a hand as he's able. "Don't treasure maps usually just have an "X" on them?"

Dr Walker starts to unravel the twine again, and notices that the twine, after the several foot-long or so marked sections have given way to clear lengths, that the first clear length does in fact match the distance to the second gravestone mentioned at the back of the photo. It doesn't take a lot of intelligence to realise that the twine was wrapped around the first gravestone a few times to secure it in place.

Dr Walker then trails the twine to the next one mentioned, and again is unsurprised to see that after wrapping the marked sections around the gravestone, that the clear length again matches. The third is the same, and leading back to the first gravestone from where the photo was taken, also matches up, leaving the twine wrapped around four of the gravestones, with clear lengths between them, and four knots in total in the clear lengths.

"What do you make of this, my friends? Is this insanity at work, or did Douglas have a specific purpose, I wonder?"

He stands at each gravestone looking at the house from each one. Would Douglas have taken pictures of the house also from the other graves?

"No clue, but I don't think I feel comfortable digging in their family cemetary," Samuel replies, rubbing his chin with his free hand. "It's not the dead, mind you. It just strikes me as disrespectful."

It's a very wonky shape, looks something like this:

"Well... Douglas did carry with him a shovel, on his strange outings..." he comments. "That suggests he might have dug somewhere."

He looks at the positioning of the knots. He tries to pinpoint where two imaginary lines connecting opposed pairs of knots would cross, examining the soil there.

"Oh I know. I'm just hoping it's not..." the Marine looks around at the graves, "...here."

"Not ideal, but the cross knot idea is as good a 'X marking the spot' as any."

Luckily, where paths from the knots cross, there is no grave.

"Shall we try digging here, at the crossing of the knots? I can go back inside and take Douglas's shovel. Wouldn't mind taking the camera too, in case looking at what Douglas was looking at throught the camera might reveal something..."

He will re-enter the house to fetch these items that they didn't think of bringing with them, then regroups with the others.
"Would you mind digging, Samuel? With my physique, we'd be here until morning..." he says offering the shovel.

"I suppose," Samuel replies, hesitation obvious in his voice. "This still feels disrespectful."

With a sigh, Sam raises the shovel and drives it into the earth at the spot the knots indicate.

Samuel starts digging with the old shovel, at first not sure if the tool will last long enough to dig, but the soft marshy ground gives way easily.

As the sun starts to go down, the area is silent other than Samuel's occasional huffing as he digs, Dr Walker holding the torch. Clouds drift over as well, and the occasional drop of rain falls on the group, Samuel not noticing due to the sweat already drenching him. About three feet down, there's a sudden clunk as the shovel hits something hard and metal-sounding.

.

Samuel is busy in the pit he's dug, having hit something metallic, and is scrabbling with his hands to unearth whatever it is as the rain starts to pour down, but Dr Walker and Lillian both hear a noise behind them in the marsh, and turn in time to see a large creature emerging from the marsh and heading to wards them, it's eyes glinting in the torchlight as Dr Walker turns. It's about 5 or 6 feet long (so quite small as these things can be) and scaly, and its jaws reveal lines of crooked and sharp incisors along their lengths. And it's coming right at you.

"Watch out!!"

"Oh no! Its coming here!"