Carl Stucky was the owner of premium cabins in Bright Falls and the gas station owner. He appears to be a friendly character but is consumed by the dark presence and becomes a minor antagonist. He appears only in the first episode, Episode 1: Nightmare.
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Carl Stucky
Involvement in Alan Wake
Before Alan Wake’s arrival, Stucky proclaimed ‘Bright Falls Businessman of the Year’ because he had recently expanded his gas station to include cabin rentals and bring in tourists. Alice paid him a reservation deposit and rented a cabin near Cauldron Lake for the vacation she was planning for Alan there.
Stucky was supposed to hand Alan and Alice their keys at the Oh Deer Diner, where he was having lunch with Rusty, a park ranger, and a few other citizens. However, the Dark Presence was already planning to entrap Wake in the Bird Leg Cabin, so it ambushed Stucky in a darkened hallway. When Stucky went down the hallway towards the diner restrooms, the Dark Presence touched him. In the form of Barbara Jagger, The Dark Presence hands the keys to Bird Leg Cabin to Alan when the writer, directed by Rusty, comes looking for Carl in the restroom. Stucky disappears momentarily, with Barbara Jagger covering up the truth by telling Wake that he was ill and that she was filling in for the ‘poor man’ in his place. After Alan leaves the diner with the keys and drives away, Stucky mysteriously reappears. He runs out of the restaurant and tries desperately to deliver the Wakes’ real keys to them but fails.
Sometime in the next week, Stucky began noticing strange aspects of his recent behavior. As an agent of Dr. Emil Hartman, Ben Mott came looking for the Wakes while searching all of Stucky’s cabins but could not find them. Shortly afterward, while working late in his gas station on a car one night, Carl is engulfed and seized by the Dark Presence. As a puppet of the Darkness, he became little more than a hollow shell, retaining only the ability to utter garbled words. As one of the Taken, he began to stalk the nearby forest with a large ax.
Stucky spat on the garage floor and tried to shake the cobwebs from his head. Ever since the couple never showed to pick up the keys, things had been fuzzy. Something — a feeling — caught his attention. Stucky looked up and stared as his brain tries in vain to process the horror before him. He stumbled back, knocking over a can of oil; a black pool spread across the floor while he struggled for a brief moment, then let go as the unrelenting darkness engulfed him.
Stucky Taken, Departure, Page 9.
After an injured Alan wakes up in his car following his escape from Cauldron Lake, he staggered to a nearby logging camp in the forest, seeking help. To his horror, however, he found that the loggers were missing. The only person in the camp proved to be a lost hunter, who the possessed Stucky promptly attacked. Although the hunter, who recognized Stucky, was forced to shoot the crazed gas station owner twice with his rifle, Wake witnessed the Taken only shrugging off the bullets and killing the hunter. Stucky then tried to murder Wake with the ax, but Alan fled into the nearby logging trailer. The Dark Presence then possessed a bulldozer, which knocked the trailer over a cliff and into a river. Wake thought Stucky had probably been driving the bulldozer (and had thus been killed in the fall), he decided it was safer to flee through the forest and seek cover at the well-lit gas station a few miles away. However, as Wake made his way across the river, he heard Stucky screaming insane banter somewhere in the distance. While attempting to get to the gas station through another logging camp, Alan eventually kills numerous Taken loggers and finally Stucky himself, now armed with a pipe wrench.
Upon reaching the gas station and seeking help, Wake discovered a framed photograph of the smiling Stucky, presented with his “Businessman of the Year” award. In the novel, Wake feels genuine remorse for having killed him, and the fading memory of the Taken gas station owner makes him feel sick.
Investigation
Sheriff Sarah Breaker investigated Stucky’s disappearance a short while later. She asked Wake if he had seen Stucky the previous night when he was at the gas station, but Alan hid the truth. Breaker expressed concern over the dead man, reporting that she had called him at his home earlier to ask Carl to be on the lookout for Alice Wake, but he wasn’t there. Breaker also noticed the wreckage in the gas station garage as if there had been some scuffle.
Deputies Mulligan and Thornton came to search the ruined logging camp that day, but of course, found no trace of Stucky. They blamed the damage on vandals, although both agreed that “it was weird.” The hunter killed by Stucky was also missing, as the Dark Presence had also possessed him.
Shortly afterward, the two deputies went to the gas station itself, looking for Stucky. They reported back to the dispatcher their results. The audio transcript is provided below for further reference:
Deputy Mulligan: “Yeah, it’s Mulligan here. I’m at Stucky’s gas station with Thornton. There’s no sign of him, over”.
Deputy Thornton: “Wait, Wait, Wait, Wait. Yeah, this is Thornton. Look, we’ve located the parade float. It’s here. That’s some good news, right? Stucky was supposed to be driving it at the rehearsals today. Over”.
Deputy Mulligan: “No, give me that! Mulligan here. Looks like someone really thrashed the garage, Sir”.
Strategy
Stucky is similar to regular Taken, but he has more durability. It is best to take out the other Taken before attempting to kill him since he will stay out of the fight for a good portion of the time. Be sure to evade his attacks and use all the light to your advantage.
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