CASE FILE #3

RAGE NECKLACE

Discovered:
in Dan's shower

Properties:
ignites a conflagration of infinite fury in the souls of those who wear it

Background:
The story associated with the necklace isn't that interesting, honestly. Just a bunch of failed tests. It's what happened after we gave up on the necklace that's noteworthy. The part where we created a supervillain.

Dan describes his first encounter with the necklace as follows:

so i woke up and i heard this noice like there was someone in my bathroom. i got up to check it out cuz i also needed to go to the bathroom but when i went in there i realized that my shower was on. i dramatically pulled back the curtain and what do i see but this fuckin necklace floating there taking a shower. s2g bro

it was floating there in the middle of the shower and there was a bar of soap floating around too, going up and down like someone washing themself yknow. like a ghost in the shower wearin a necklace. the necklace kind of turned toward me a lil and then it and the soap fell to the floor.

The next several hours were spent testing the item. We set the necklace on my table and waited for the "ghost" to show back up. Dan thought that maybe it only shows up when it needs a shower so he lightly sprinkled some flour on the necklace. In retrospect, I'm impressed with his restraint in not dumping the whole bag on my kitchen table (though I guess this was before the Second Dumbing of Dan — a story for another time). But, the necklace didn't move.

We set a camera up to watch the table and left the room, thinking the "ghost" wouldn't return if we were in the room with it. For an agonizing 25 minutes we waited but still, nothing. Dan smacked it around a couple of times and called it some pretty mean names until he started getting too worked up and I had to get between the two of them and give Dan a popsicle.

This was pretty early on in the development of our curio operandi so we didn't really know what else to do. Dan had been disturbed by the jewelry pretty late at night, we were both tired (even though Dan had apparently woken up just a few hours before), and we basically decided that we didn't want to waste the rest of the weekend on a necklace. Dan promised that if the necklace did anything else weird he'd destroy it, and I released the item into his responsible guardianship.

Here's where my intentions and Dan's intentions diverged. What was unbeknownst to me was that Dan had recently decided "fifth-time's-the-charm!" and started dating his ex again. Her name was Anne. Is. She's probably still alive, so it is Anne. She's nice enough, kind hearted, great humor, surprisingly book-smart for someone who hangs out with Dan (myself included).

The problem is: she is Dan. Like, exactly. I'm sure there's people who are exactly alike and they get along great and their relationship is a jigsaw that fits perfectly together. Two wonderfully boring people who like tandem bicycling and lizard-watching. But these two together were like. . . what would you call a tandem bike where the riders are facing opposite directions, and both pedaling like they're trying to outrun a tornado, generating enough force that they rip apart the atoms of the bike, creating a nuclear blast fueled by the uranium naturally produced in their mutant semi-brains?

Anne was really into swords. Dan was also into swords, but not as much. Until he met Anne. She started talking to him about all this sword shit, like blade thickness and angle of the edge and how good the point is or whatever. Soon Dan was obsessed with swords and recentered his whole life around acquiring and practicing with swords. He called himself bladepilled and he and Anne would have sword fights until 4 am multiple times a week. One of these sword fights led to a breakup. Dan eventually settled nicely into the niche world of collecting ceremonial daggers.

Dan pulled a prank. He wrote her a note pretending to be an "angry neighbor" complaining about the noise, and put it on her front door. After the prank was revealed, she retaliated by spiking his drinking water with LSD before a dentist appointment. Dan wouldn't stop talking about tooth warriors for a week. This, too, led to a breakup.

That bike thing earlier? That was only partially a metaphor. They tried to do the whole tandem bike thing once but they didn't have a tandem bike, so they tied their bikes together with rope, as one does. Or rather, "as one does when the only other person around is as dumb as you." They rode for two and a half blocks together before she tried to turn and Dan tried to continue straight and their bikes were yanked out from under them. Surprisingly they both landed on separate discarded mattresses so they were fine. The same dumb luck, even. The argument about the bike incident led to yet another breakup.

Her birthday was three days after Dan found that necklace. What are the odds of that? Something like, one-in-a-hundred-fifty or something like that, I don't do math. After promising me to destroy the necklace if it did anything weird, Dan immediately decided that 3 hours was enough testing to deem it safe, drove over to Anne's house and gave it to her with a nice helping of "it just spoke to me, it beloooongs with you, I couldn't wait until your birthday to give it to youuuuu!" In reality, he had remembered it was her birthday by chance and was afraid he'd forget before the actual day showed up.

As soon as the necklace was on her, Dan noticed the change. She hunched up a little bit, got all tense. She slowly turned to him and started yelling at him about all the stupid things he's done. She yelled for a while. Dan eventually had had enough and ended it, demanding she return the necklace to him. Once she took it off, she started breaking down and apologizing, seemingly back to normal. She asked if she could keep the necklace as one final goodbye gift. Dan, being a big softie, agreed. And so the necklace went back on.

Dan realized the necklace and the random rage were connected pretty quickly after the flower pot broke against his head. He ran from the house as she screamed obscenities and swore her eternal soul to ruining Dan's life. He turned back and saw her destroying her living room like a rabid badger, throwing things and shouting and grunting animal Sasquatch-type noises. Dan fled into the night, adrenaline pumping, fearing the scene left behind him.

The scary thing is, we haven't heard from Anne ever since the Spirit of Rage was bound to her mortal flesh. She never called, she never showed up. We drove by her house once and it was empty, door swung open and everything. It's like she picked up and left. Somewhere out there, right now, is the craziest person you'll ever meet, the angriest person you'll ever meet, and the scariest part: they're just as dumb as Dan is.

The thought of her being loose among the population is always in the back of our minds. We don't know when we'll turn around and see her. Dan only drinks bottled water now. Once we saw a post online warning about the "Necklace Woman," an incredibly angry woman wearing a gold necklace that kept harassing workers at a 7-11 near Tulsa. Far from where we are. Did she make it that far? If she can make it in Tulsa, she can make it anywhere. . . .

Wait a second. Dan. . . Anne. . . oh my god.

Status:

Notes:
• The fact that it's a religious necklace seems to mean basically nothing. Oh well.

• [UPDATE]: As of February 22 2019 it has been confirmed that the Tulsa Necklace Woman is NOT Anne. Her name is Shania and after meeting her we're on her side. Those 7-11 workers are vindictive and cruel and really hurt my feelings.