paigemitchell (paigemitchell) wrote in downfallrpg, @ 2010-01-25 21:17:00 |
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Entry tags: | # group, 2015-08-22, alan, amberlee, joyce, juan, paige |
Who: Joyce, Amberlee, and Paige. Later Juan and Alan.
When: Mid-afternoon
Where: The streets and The Basement Bar
It had become a blur: from the jolt of shock at seeing a dead man on the baggage carousel; to the horror of realising he was only one of a thousand suddenly dead around her; to literally having to climb and wade through bodies just to get outside; to her first sighting of a person‘s skin ripping open as they grew extra arms; to the twilight-zone feeling when she’d realised it wasn’t just an airport full of dead, but an entire city. The events seemed muddled in her mind now, as if she‘d known the whole city was dead before she‘d even seen the dead man, his vacant eyes staring right through her. She’d have closed her eyes and tucked herself away somewhere if the images didn’t play back so vividly behind her eyelids.
At some point, just after leaving the airport, she’d found a thin alleyway which, quite amazingly, was free of the dead. Her carry-on backpack had been emptied, her heavy suitcase ripped open, and then she’d begun to pack anything important. Some things she’d want later, such as photo albums, had been sent home via freight, but she had what she needed. It had been hard to leave the alleyway, to go back out into the chaos death‘s horseman had left behind, yet she’d known there was no real choice. Eventually, she felt, the things she’d spied on the streets while leaving the airport would find her.
Presently, she stood at the end of a very long street. She’d run literally for her life, hidden until she’d felt unsafe in her hiding places, and then she’d run some more. Even if she’d known the city, which she didn’t, it would have been easy to get easily lost when so many of the streets looked the same. They all seemed to have smashed cars, dead blanketing the pavement or in the cars, and the markings of a population gone mad. Or, rather, things gone mad. The faint smell of smoke and the strong smell of blood and vomit filled her nose. Paige’s stomach had long ago emptied itself, and her body seemed to be running on pure adrenaline. Yet she was alive. Why was she still alive?
The sightings of the living had thinned drastically during the hours of her search for somewhere safe to go. The truth was, there was no where safe. But down the very far end of this street she thought she could see life, healthy life, in the form of another woman. Paige took a few hesitant steps to get a better view, her hand tightening upon her guitar case handle. She didn’t want to call out, scared the sound of her own voice might attract more attention than was safe. So instead, very slowly, she started toward the other woman, ready to bolt if she so much as coughed.
Joyce Watkins was not having a good day, but compared with just about everyone else in Detroit, it seemed, she had won the grand-slam lottery. She was alive, by whatever twist of Fate, alive among scattered bodies and occasional piles of bodies, all in varying degrees of what appeared to be rapid decay. Except in some cases, where it was clear that something was eating them. They lay in the streets like litter, discarded, unimportant. They had been people, once, and now, they were just empty shells.
She had been on a bus, commuting home from teaching her Tai Chi class and listening to the music of her teens on her i-Touch, when the world had morphed into some sort of nightmare. The bus had veered dangerously to the right, into on-coming traffic, mounting the divider and impacting with other vehicles before tilting onto its side and slamming to a screeching halt against the crumpled wall of a bank. The screams had been deafening and several people had lost their seats and been flung across the aisle. A few had landed on Joyce, who had closed her eyes and was busy holding on to her seat for dear life.
When everything had stopped moving, she had cautiously opened her eyes again and, with the shocked realization that the people on top of her were no longer breathing, she had eased them away as gently as possible and stood, gym bag still strapped across her chest and small backpack still secure over her shoulders. The side of the bus was now the floor and she picked her way cautiously toward the doors at the front, which were, of course, now above her. Everyone she had encountered along the way was dead, including the driver, a woman named Susanna who talked to Joyce every day about the latest recipes she was trying.
Joyce had looked out the door before opening it manually and seen nothing but destruction and chaos, and a few things that were moving and howling and - She was a tall woman and fit and was able to reach and operate the mechanism without any difficulty. Climbing up and out of the bus, she paused to get her bearings before she slid to the ground and ran.
Why she wasn't dead was beyond her understanding at this point. The Eighties music, still playing on random through her ear buds, had Madonna singing about life in a material world. She didn't stop to switch it off. The next few hours were spent in hiding from the shambling creatures, looking for bottles of water to stick in her gym bag, and frantically phoning her son and daughter and getting nothing but voice mail. She had yet to encounter another living thing who resembled a normal Human.
Fuck.
She reached another intersection, another pile of crushed cars and bodies and after a quick scan thought she saw movement. Ready to bolt, she then realized the person - a young woman - was walking with purpose and was carrying... a guitar case? A woman. A Human.
Halle-fucking-luliah..
Not wanting to alarm the woman, Joyce stayed where she was and raised her hand in a wave. She didn't speak, either, not wanting to draw attention to their position in case any of those...
God, they'd been people once, hadn't they?
As soon as the other woman waved, Paige’s hand was lifted to clamp over her mouth and nose, her eyes welling with tears. She was real. She was actually alive and human, not some disfigured and crazed thing. For at least the last half hour, Paige had begun to wonder if she were the only one alive. Then whether her parents’ had been right in their beliefs of a higher power and, if so, if this was a sort of hell, meaning she were actually dead. It was an insane thought, that she wouldn‘t know if she were dead, yet it was hard to come up with anything more insane than her current reality. This woman’s appearance had quashed that idea completely. Because, if it had been true, it wouldn’t have been this woman’s face she’d be looking upon; if there was such a place as hell, there was someone else waiting for her there.
As her hand came away again, a huffed and shaken breath escaping her, she looked over the carnage once more and then back to the other woman, a helpless sort of lost expression etching her features. While running the streets moments before, Paige had seemed a lot tougher than she did now. But seeing another living person had torn down the barrier she’d created in her mind to prevent all the desperate, terrified, and depressing thoughts from flooding her. She gave a weak smile and continued toward the other woman.
"I’m Paige," she said lamely in little more than a whisper, realizing in the same moment that there was a heavy lump in her throat.
The young woman looked overwhelmed and Joyce could understand why. Likely, they had both been walking through chaos, wondering if there was anyone else. At least, Joyce was beginning to wonder about that. Bodies, bodies, everywhere...
She walked toward her and the girl - she looked so young - was walking, too, so they met at roughly an equal distance from where they had started, with Joyce having covered a bit more ground; a combination of longer legs and a desire to get both of them to cover. The girl said her name and there was no city traffic to drown out her voice.
"Hello, Paige," she said gently and lifted one hand, slowly so that the girl could see what she was doing, and placed it on her slender shoulder. "I'm Joyce. I... really think we should get out of the street. That sound okay, honey?"
Paige nodded, her brows furrowing as she tried to regain some of the just-don’t-think-about-it attitude she’d had for the last few hours. It wasn’t entirely easy when the older woman had, so simply, made a comforting gesture which only made Paige want to breakdown further. But Joyce was right, they needed to move. It wasn’t safe in the open when, at any moment, one of those things could arrive on the road via any of cross streets. And for all she knew the things she’d seen, the things that were human once, weren’t the only things to be concerned about.
"Inside somewhere," she offered in suggestion, her gaze turning then to the buildings which lined the street. It would have to be somewhere safe. Preferably somewhere not too large, and which wouldn't have had too many people occupying it earlier that afternoon. "Feel like a drink?" She nodded in the direction of a bar a few buildings down the street. Above the doorway The Basement could be seen in red lettering. The windows were dark with bars protruding from the sills and it looked like some sort of seedy dive bar. But Paige was very far from picky in that moment if it meant getting a stiff drink. Especially when, it seemed, leaving the city might not only be difficult but completely pointless. After all, if something had killed so many people so quickly, what were the chances it hadn’t passed the city limits already? "I need a drink," she added, and her voice sounded like it, frail and shaken. Nothing compared to her normal steady and cool tone.
Carefully she picked her footing between the ocean of corpses, trying to avoid looking upon any faces turned skyward, their ever staring eyes enough to make the hairs on the back of her neck stand. The door to the bar was held open by a small wedge of wood and the room stretched out from it in a slim rectangle. The air flow from the street did nothing to hinder the dark, dank feeling of the room. Even standing outside the doorway, Paige could smell the heavy scent of sweat and the distinct smell of alcohol. From her viewpoint, she couldn’t see anyone on the floors or slumped on the black couches to the rear. The bar was on the wall to the left, tall with a wood polished top, and it obscured the view of the floor behind it. Paige didn’t have to guess whether there had been staff members in the place when everyone else in the city had died. The only question was: were they harmlessly dead, alive like Joyce and herself, or no longer human and waiting? At the very end of the room were two doors, one which read Staff Only and the other which read Toilet. "Safer than the street, right?" she thought out loud.
Joyce watched a variety of expressions cross the young woman's face before it settled on 'resolute'. That 'I-can-do-this', determined look of someone tired and terrified, but choosing not to break down. Not yet. Later... Well, later, Joyce would likely break down, too. She nodded in regard to Paige's suggestions - 'inside' and 'drink' being key - and followed her, constantly looking up and down the street for any of the... whatever they were. Being spotted now would not be good, as she hadn't found a hardware store, so had yet to arm herself with a crowbar or a gas-powered chain saw or a hammer, dammit. It didn't really matter. She wanted something she could use to defend herself and drawing on the lessons learned while watching her son play video games was an interesting, amusing and sad revelation.
She wasn't sure about the bar - it looked like a shit dive to her - but as long as none of the shambling creatures or the 'hungry children' were lurking inside... She had witnessed a swarm of what must have been children once earlier in the journey. It had been horrific to watch as they descended on the corpses. Joyce looked down at every person the passed now, at every face, and wondered if she would remember any of them. They had been someone's father, mother, brother, sister, child, and someone should remember them. She swallowed, spotted a wooden cane among the corpses and extricated it. It didn't have much heft, but in a pinch, it might come in handy.
Joyce followed close behind Paige, squinting into the bar as she entered and the light values changed.
"Safer than the street?" she repeated quietly, also making it a question. "I don't know. I guess we'll find out." Cane at the ready, she stepped in front of Paige and took the lead. Joyce was bigger and older than the girl, and shit, Paige was probably around the same age as her own daughter. Trying not to think about Jennifer and where she was now, she added, "Watch my back, please, honey..."
Time had passed quietly in the depths of Detroit Public Library. Without even the ticking of a clock the minutes had trickled into hours, and the day had evolved without Amberlee’s knowledge. Not even in her wildest dreams could she imagine what had transpired. So when she had finally come into contact with the virus it was as though a stream had shifted into a torrent, bursting the banks of her world at the beck of a storm.
It started when she found a random body in a random section of the library. Still and laying in a heap with no pulse to speak of, she had run for help. In the main section of the library there was none to be had, and instead a greater need found. The general public along with her colleagues laying still in a similar state as the first man she had found in the aisles. Only breath escaped her lips at the shock of the scene. The faintest of reactive phrases hushing out on its warmth. "Oh my god..." Yet there was life.
She heard it as the faintest of sounds at first. The word 'squishy' came to mind, like a bucket being forced through muddy water. Then cold hard slaps that followed as though a ruler were being cast across skin. Her brow raised, neck craned, and she offered a feeble "hello?" There was no response. Scared she shuffled forward, stepping around the odd corpse gingerly until she saw it. She wasn’t sure what to make of it at first; hunched over and twisted. Hands all bloodied, it appeared feral. From behind it was clearly human. But the fact it seemed to be devouring a corpse was surreal. Amberlee didn’t stop to ask questions. She ran. Finding her bag with haste from the office, she took to the streets and fled.
Outside was no better for her. The streets now littered with the inanimate corpses. But at least there were no living ‘things’, which was a step up in the mind of the librarian. She had her car keys, but found her car now smashed into by one of the dead. She was too afraid to check the pulse of the crash victim. It hardly seemed necessary given the state of things. More over her head was beginning to hurt. So she fled.
There was only one thing worse than a scattered sea of dead, or the visuals of a man turned... horrific, and that was the noises. From across the city, down streets, and into buildings, the terrible shrieks and screams of things Amberlee could only remember hearing in games movies. Like the ones her past boyfriends dorm mate played while at college. It brought the images she'd caught from the screen flooding back, casting dramatic resemblance with the current scenes of her life. Her old boyfriend, she thought, would be a welcomed sight right now. Regardless of the fact their relationship had ended so badly for her. That was a depressing memory. It lead her to fathom others. One of her parents- where she had spent the following two weeks mourning her loss. She remembered her room, and their home, and wondered what they were doing now. The next thought should have been followed with a concern for their safety, and it was in a quiet way. Yet Amberlee found herself drawing on happy images of her father. She could see him seated before the television with a paper. She saw her mother creating music on her violin. Her mind, she felt, was suddenly running away with itself. That made her scared.
"Fear." She thought consciously to herself. 'Distress, an emotional response, anxiety...' She felt an ache in her head and pressed against her temple with the palm of her hand. Squeezing her eyes she willed some control over her mind, and obtained a moment of clarity for her effort. She thought it felt like the sweeping of a puddle with a broom. The liquid responding by surging back. It made her cry.
She didn’t know where to go so walking home seemed to make sense. It was a long trip by car on a good day, so not at all inspiring. That was until Amberlee saw Paige and Joyce. "Oh my god!" She called out. "You're alive!" She hurried towards them, the torrent of noise that had been gathering in her head subsiding. "Help me, please.." She sobbed. "I don’t know what's going on... And…” She shook her hand as she tried to wrap her mind around some words. "My head… I can’t think straight…” She told them, looking worse for wear. Now that she said it aloud she felt as though she were sick. Like whatever had happened to the hundreds, if not thousands of people she'd seen were now happening to her. She didn’t know what to do with that, except grasp vainly to some hope of help from others. Two others she did not know.
As Joyce had made her way inside, Paige had hung back on the pavement close to the door frame. "Of course I’ll watch your back." While the bar was big enough, its simple shape meant Paige could see a person standing no matter where they went in the place. She took one last look around the street before moving to stand sideways in the door, her back pressed against its frame. For a time, she looked between three points: Joyce inside, one end of the street, and then the other. It might not have been the close, on-hand, way most would want their back watched, but so far Paige could see no other exits to the bar. If she went in and a creature came by, they’d be trapped like birds in a cage.
About two minutes in, Paige noticed movement on the street and froze. "We got company," she hissed in a low breath. Yet a moment later, relief had flooded her as Amberlee’s movements and undistorted shape proved she were still human. Paige took a step back onto the street to wait for the other girl to see her.
"Shhhhhhhhh!" came the immediate response to Amberlee’s called words, followed quickly by Paige clamping her hand over her own mouth. While on a usual day Paige might not have even heard Amberlee's words from that distance, she now feared the whole neighbourhood might be woken. Aside from distant screams and strange howls, the city had gone as silent as the death that filled it. Paige gave a few worried glances over the street, a worried look to Joyce, and then moved back inside. She was willing to take her chances to get out of the open, and inside seemed a much better place to let this girl in on what she‘d somehow missed.
Her head turned sharply at Paige's words and Joyce had crossed partway back to her when she heard a voice outside, and words - language, Human, loud - but before she was back to the door, the young woman was turning toward her and someone else was there. Another girl.
God, they're so fucking young...
Joyce smiled at the new person - Human, halle-fucking-luliah - and said, "Honey? Hi. C'mon in. Safer in here. I'm Joyce. Just keep it down..."
And she turned back to the rest of the bar and headed to ward the area marked Staff, cane at the ready. Not that she expected to cause much damage with something this light, but it would have to do.
As Joyce walked away from them, Paige kept herself from questioning where she was going. She wasn’t certain any of them going off alone was a good idea. But Joyce was still a stranger to Paige and she seemed pretty in control considering the situation.
Paige directed Amberlee over to one of the stools at the bar. She chanced a look over the top, relieved when the floor there turned out to be corpse free, then made her way around behind the bar. "This won’t clear your head," she said as she located three clean glasses in the dishwasher. She placed them down between them. "But everyone deserves a drink for surviving this." For surviving this long, Paige amended silently. She scanned the bottles for an expensive whiskey, unscrewed the cap, and poured a generous amount into each glass. She then grabbed for the post-mix gun and topped her glass with ginger ale. An eyebrow was raised in question to the other girl, post-mix gun poised above Amberlee's glass.
With the drinks poured, she placed her guitar case on the counter. Her backpack was opened and she began tucking bottles of liquor in between the clothes. After all, there was no telling how long they’d stay there or how long it’d be before they came across another bar.
Without question, Amberlee went inside. She was just happy to be given some direction given her duress. This made the offer of a drink all the more appealing. Normally she wasn’t a heavy drinker. Socially, yes. In college there had been the odd party. Nothing she had lost complete control over. But she had consumed her fair portion of alcohol, and gathered enough memories for a slur drink brands to come flooding back.
While Paige was still holding the post-mix gun, Amberlee took her glass and threw it back. The searing shot would dumb her nerves. It may even help with her headache. Although something was telling her it wouldn’t. She poured herself another, not making mention of Paige’s hanging offer.
She watched as Paige went about stuffing bottles into her bag. But the registry was distant as Amberlee reflected on other things that had passed. Notably how she’d gotten there. In summary it was her story. “I came from the library. I work there. I was on my own before… I found a body, and then everyone else. All dead…” Despite the sketchy detailing, the story seemed relevant no matter who you were, or where. “Did you see what caused it? Is it chemical?” It seemed chemical. Terrorism flashed through her mind, followed by a collage of every news article she had ever seen on the topic. She winced. “I think I’m infected…” She added dourly and scared. Her unspoken undertone was a mention of her impending death.
The girls were having a drink and that, at least, was a touch of normalcy in what was otherwise one of the strangest days in Joyce's life. She didn't know what Paige had poured for her, but she'd get to it. The other girl - damn, we haven't even exchanged names yet - was right with the program, tossing back her drink and helping herself to another one. Paige was packing bottles of liquor into her bag. Well, it hardly mattered if they took a few away with them. Who was going to complain?
Joyce focused on the Staff room again, determined to ensure that nothing was lurking behind the door. No 'thing', not no 'person'. It was odd to be thinking that way, but given the givens...
As the women settled into their drinks the silence of the bar was completely and utterly SHATTERED by the raw and unhinged screaming of Juan and Alan as they landed harmlessly on the old beat-up couch in the corner, "AHHHHHH AHHHHH AHHHHHH!" Juan's eyes were closed and their screaming continued for a moment longer before they realized where they were. Juan opened one eye and nearly shit a chicken. He shook Alan who was still balled up next to him,"H-Hey... I think we're alive..." The fact that other people were in the room still hadn't registered in Juan's brain. He laughed loudly and hugged Alan tightly,"HA HAAAA! WE'RE ALIIIIIVE! Ahhahahahaha!" He felt as if he could cry but he was laughing too hysterically to even think of drawing tears!
"AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!" Oh wait, they're alive? As opposed to Juan, Alan's eyes were wide open... one minute they were soaring through the air in the front of an armored van that had been tossed like a football by a creature that made the Incredible Hulk look handsome, the next they were sitting in a dark room. Now, Alan had been through a lot of strange stuff today, but this took the cake. Remaining perfectly still, only his eyes, wide as saucers, darted around. Maybe they were dead and this was the waiting room, like in the movie Beetlejuice. No, he decided... if that were the case, he wouldn't be physically feeling so crappy. Juan embraced Alan and the laughter run loudly in his ear, but Alan was far too shocked to react: he sat rigidly, his arms to his sides, pinned down by Juan's hug. It then struck Alan that he recognized this place... the Underground... he and a couple of his buddies had come here to listen to their friend's band play.
Then a corner of the bar erupted with yelling and Joyce thought she might have some kind of cardiac arrest. She swung around, cane at the ready, pulse pounding, and stared, wide-eyed, at two people who had switched from screams of terror to laughter. Well, one of them was laughing and hugging the other, who sat rigid, likely in shock.
Okay, step one: Cut down the hysterics...
"Hey!" she called out in her best 'Mom-volume' voice, placing herself between the occupants of the couch and the girls at the bar. "You.." She pointed at them with her cane. "Calm down. I don't know where the hell you came from, but you don't look infected, so I forgive you for scaring the shit out of me. Just..." And this was directed at - a teenager? Shit - - the younger of the two. "We're downtown. There are these... creatures around. Be quiet."
Perhaps it was watching too many episiodes of 'The Twilight Zone' and 'The Outer Limits' and yes, 'Star Trek' while growing up, but Joyce was willing to accept just about anything at the moment. How these two had entered the bar, she didn't know. The couch had been empty seconds before, but that was a conversation for another time. They were here. There were five of them now.
And to Joyce, the odds that more had survived - and that they might get through the day - were getting better.