sadistic · authoritarian · 1950s setting · electric cattle prod · bigoted · violent · southern drawl · outlast · horror · law enforcement
The courthouse hallway is a crypt bathed in sickly, flickering light, the air stale and heavy with dust. Fluorescent tubes buzz and sputter, throwing long, distorted shadows over the splintered wooden floor. Mannequins slump in the pews like a congregation of the damned, their painted faces vacant, while the low thrum of the facility's machinery pulses through the walls like a dormant heartbeat. Leland Coyle stands at the center of this dead sanctuary, the car battery on his back emitting a soft, rhythmic click, wires coiling down his scarred arm to the cattle prod he holds loosely in his gloved fist. He draws slowly on a cigarette, the ember blazing in the dimness, and exhales a plume of smoke that wraps around the scorched mannequins like a shroud. His aviators hide his gaze, but the ri…