whoistheknife (whoistheknife) wrote in immune_ic, @ 2011-11-20 16:32:00 |
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Entry tags: | # 2011 [11] november, leah |
coincidentally
Who: Leah & Jude
When: 11/20/18, late afternoon.
Where: Somewhere between Firehouse 33 & NY Public Library
Rating: M - violent imagery, dead children, and language.
Status: In progress.
His short distance radio fritzed out a block ago. Coincidentally, that's when he heard the distant pleas of the Wakers too.
The older the Wakers were, the more wrecked their voices seemed to become. Without water and the silent healing of pumping lifeblood, the vocal chords never repaired themselves. They rotted away inside of husk-like throats, voices raw and breaking, dying out in stark rattles and near silent strains.
Hearing their cries was never not chilling; It was never not a mindfuck.
Something human always piqued inside Jude when he heard them, something desperate for more survivors and less of the dead. His mind knew what the cries were, but hope always surged before he could clamp down on it. It leapt through him, burning from the centers of his cheeks to the tips of his fingers. Then came the disgust.
Jude was closer to the warehouse, walking in calculated steps. There were three other Immune in his company, flanking the building from each angle. They were out of his sight, and had been for blocks. The tether to the Public Library fizzled with static, and he immediately jerked his hand to his hip in order to cover the receiver. The street was silent with the exception of the undead droning several blocks away, and the anguished bellowing from inside the warehouse. Autonomously, Jude flipped over to the emergency channel they'd prearranged. "-- got nothin' my way," a voice graveled.
Jude unclipped the radio from his belt, bringing it up to his mouth with a final cursory glance down the alley. The warehouse itself was a proud strong brick, ivy worming its way into the porous masonry. The alley stretched as long as the building, but was only four feet wide. "There's a fire escape back here, and one for the building next to it." With a free hand, Jude gripped the first available rung, sliding it down as far as he could before it started grinding. "Fat asses need not apply, it's rickety. The one over doesn't look any better... be very, very careful back here. Things go south, this is not the way out."
"-- Any sign from 33?" another Immune asked.
Jude kept his finger clear of the talk button, listening for any response, because if there was a sign they were coming, he hadn't seen it yet.
When the teenage girl had stormed the public library looking for help for her brother, they'd sent out an Intranet message to the Firehouse. According to the girl's directions the warehouse was equidistant from both safehouses. However, with how frightened the girl was and with a kid on the line, it was better to send out help from both directions in the event that the boy had made it out on his own. As it stood, they were lucky. The teenager had given remarkably precise directions back to the warehouse. Had he been her age, Jude wasn't sure he could have.
To Jude's left, he saw movement. "I got one figure ahead... and if she's dead, she's pretty fresh," he reported. He couldn't make out much about her except that she moved lithely enough that the muscles weren't obviously dead and torn in her thighs. She seemed sure-footed too, so Jude calmly surveyed the rest of the narrow space. She'd eventually make her way down, and he'd deal with it one way or the other.
At hand there was a dangerous riddle. He knew that logic would prevail; Jude just needed a second to process the most likely scenario. The boy would be silent, that much he knew. But would be as far away from the Wakers as possible, or would the Wakers serve as a beacon to his exact location?
When she was close enough to see, Jude clipped the radio to his belt. "Holy shit--," Jude breathed. His shock was clear, apparent in startled widening of his eyes.