the power of voodoo Who: BB & Daniel. What: BB wakes up for her morning run and discovers that Easter is WEIRD AS FUCK this year. Where: The second floor. When: April 16, 6 a.m.
BB took one step outside her door and stopped. She almost considered going back inside, as though she'd hit some kind of mental reset button and fix the floor. Instead, her door closed quietly behind her as fingers on the knob pulled it shut with her movement, her eyes roaming the floor. Instead of the usual hardwood, white walls, and copy-cat doorways, everything was...colorful. Banners hung from the ceiling, and she felt...odd. Eerie. Like there was electricity running over her skin. She immediately moved to bang on 209, tossing glances over her shoulder like she expected something to creep up on her.
"DANIEL, GET THE FUCK OUT HERE. DANIEL. DAAANNIEEEL, holy SHIT." Despite her fear, she clearly held no compunction against making herself heard.
"Jesus," Daniel snapped. He threw open the door, his eyes heavy and red-rimmed with interrupted sleep. They found BB all the same, fixing her with an exhausted approximation of a glare. "I know it's Easter but I'm still not going to church, I don't care if Mom called you and--" He stopped short. The door to his apartment swung open and he stepped out, red boxer-briefs clinging to his form in a way BB surely would not appreciate.
At once his gaze cleared and widened. It darted around the hallways, taking in the colorful walls, the murals, the flags fluttering in an impossible breeze.
"What the fuck."
Thankfully, BB was too distracted to notice the way Daniel was advertising himself. She turned back to the hallway, throwing her arms out in a Vanna White pose as if to take Daniel's words and put them into motion. She turned back to him, then back to the floor, her arms thrusting out of their own accord as though the motion would suddenly make logic seep into her brain and understand what they were looking at. Finally, she looked down at Daniel's boxers and dramatically covered her eyes, turning away.
"OK, one, you're putting pants on, and two, I am coming inside because I don't want, like, something to come out and grab me and me be gone like some fucking horror movie and then you all have to find me because I know people always wanna find the annoying girl last," she said, shoving Daniel back inside his apartment while keeping her eyes covered. She groped for the door, a hand accidentally landing on Daniel's hip -- she snatched it back as though she'd accidentally touched a snake -- and then finally landed on the door, closing it behind her.
BB made a shooing motion. "Seriously, though. Pants. What the fuck? I guess I should be glad you don't sleep in the nude."
"I do. This was the first thing on the floor." He locked the door behind her, then shuffled off toward his bedroom, still talking at her over his shoulder; BB was in the middle of making an utterly disgusted face in response to his acknowledgement of her guess. "Okay so am I still high? I was pretty high last night but I was sure it would've worn off by now… but that shit…"
He came back to the living room in short order, still buttoning his jeans, the hem of a white tee shirt settling down around his hips. "Okay, so we go find Stephan and ask him what the fuck is going on. This is a little much." He moved past her and into the kitchen. "You want some coffee? I've got cold brew. Or Red Bull if that's more your style. I just feel like I need some caffeine to even start to tackle this shit."
"Give me the wings," she replied. "I am clearly not awake enough for whatever is going on out there." She was dressed in her workout clothes, phone and headphones in hand, hair in a ponytail. She looked every inch awake and alert and still her mind made gibbering sounds at what she had seen.
"Do you think... you know, with the objects and the closet on the ground floor and everything... This can't be related, right?" She moved forward, scraping back a chair as another thought hit her. "Fuck, I need to see if Gusgus and Alice are all right!" Instead of sitting, her attention went to her phone, which she used to pull up the Pax network; even without signal, it somehow still worked.
"What are people sayin?" he asked, punctuating the question with two sharp cracks in quick succession. A Red Bull in each hand, he returned to BB's side, and held one out to her. "I don't know how all this shit can be related, but it's gotta be. Right? I mean…" He took a long sip of chilly, sugary energy, composing his racing thoughts as best he could. He made a mental note to check on Chris as soon as he could, but it would be foolish to so much as mention his name in front of BB; she was too observant for his good, that was for sure. "I don't see how it couldn't be. It's all too much weird shit in quick succession to not be."
He opened the door and held it for her, all the while trying to peer at her mobile phone screen. "Anything useful?"
BB frowned, taking the Red Bull without a 'thank-you;' she took a long swallow before replying. "No, not a lot. That chick from the first floor's been kicking in doors, if you can believe it, and my brother's complaining about secrets? On his floor? Not sure if that's, like, the same thing as those diary pages that showed up awhile ago." She said nothing of Alice, which didn't make her feel better. Clicking the button to make her phone screen go black, she slid it into a makeshift pocket in her workout pants intended for such things. As they moved through the floor, she paused to look at some of the chalk drawings.
"You know what any of this is? I mean...it kinda look like they released a kindergarten class in here, right?" She motioned to the wall, where a larger-than-life sized image of a dark-skinned woman in a green turban looked out onto the floor; her head was ringed in gold that looked vaguely heart-shaped, her eyes soft and hard at the same time. Crosses and swirls floated around her head. "I mean, artistically-advanced kindergarteners, but..." Both hands and arms rose in a shrug, glancing back at Daniel as though he could offer some explanation.
Daniel lowered his Red Bull from his lips, shaking his head. "Not a fuckin' clue," he admitted. "It's almost like those prayer cards you get, with saints on 'em? But not really. And that's the best guess I got right now."
He moved closer to the mural, peering at the confident strokes that made up the woman's face. "This definitely wasn't kids, though. Looks more like folk art. It's actually pretty well done." He scoffed. "Wonder where management got the talent and the money for this. And if all the floors are as fucked up as this one? They're dedicated, man. I just can't figure out to what." The mural thoroughly searched, Daniel moved toward the end of the hall, where a table covered in white cloth waited. His brow furrowed as he studied the objects laid out atop the crisp cloth. "Um, BB? These look like, um, offerings to you?" One index finger extended, the hand curled around his can of Red Bull pointing down at the collected cigars, dolls, food, and liquor there. "Damn sure doesn't look like Easter lunch."
She followed close at his heels, brows scrunching in concentration as she reached out with her free hand to brush the tips of her fingers over a doll. It tipped forward with the movement, then back onto its rump.
"It kinda looks like... you know, it looks like a voodoo doll." BB plucked it up gingerly by its middle, taking a closer look at wiry arms and the Xs for eyes. "They're not like the ones you see in movies, you know, the whole like, I dunno, soap or whatever and you don't stick pins in 'em -- uh, don't ask me how I know this -- but that's kinda what it reminds me of." She'd spent one Spring Break in New Orleans, which she felt gave her enough of a background to offer some sort of insight for the floor. The voodoo doll bit was after she'd asked if such a thing worked while on a tour around the French Quarter. The denizens of Marie Laveau's House of Voodoo gently explained that Hollywood had gotten the dolls all wrong, and that no matter how many pins she stuck in an effigy of one of Alice's potential boyfriends, it just didn't work that way.
With the doll limp in her palm, BB cast her gaze over the rest of the hall. "You think... You know, this could all be voodoo stuff. But, like, that doesn't explain why."
"That's the best guess I've heard yet," Daniel said, nodding agreement. He searched the images on the walls again, narrowing his eyes as though that would aid his recall. "I mean it makes no goddamn sense, but it fits the imagery and everything here. Only way to be sure is to check out the other floors. Maybe they're all Voodoo-themed? Maybe they're somethin' totally different. Either way I feel like we'll know more after that." He squared his shoulders, his chest pushed out in obvious challenge. "You up for it?"
"Um, hell yes," she replied, pulling out her phone to check the network again. She responded to a few of Gus' messages, and saw that Alice was up and talking. That reassured her a little; tapping the screen back to black, she tilted the Red Bull can into her mouth and then crushed the can. "Let's do this." She put the doll back on the altar -- voodoo or not, she didn't feel like finding out what might happen if she carried it with her. And if she was honest, it was kinda creepy.
"You think I'll piss off the spirits if I leave this here?" She waggled the can from two fingers, turning to face Daniel again.
"I mean… I wouldn't risk it." He shrugged. "Just throw it in my trash. I left the door unlocked. Everybody's gonna be way too busy with this shit to bother stealin' from me, I think."
Daniel did not wait to see if she would follow his advice; she did not know if he would be upset that she hadn't, shrugging to herself and setting it down amid the other offerings on the altar before following in his wake. He strode on down the hallway, jabbing a finger at the uppermost button. The elevator began to move toward their floor, but then he thought better of it; he could imagine fewer worse times than this to be stuck in the elevator, and he saw no reason to risk it. So he moved to the stairwell, draining his Red Bull as he moved up toward the fourth floor. He left the can sitting in a corner beside the entryway to the next floor, then pushed open the door onto what appeared to be a wood-walled, root-adorned longhall.
"Jesus Christ." He pushed open the door, giving BB a glimpse of the view beyond. Her eyes went wide as dinner plates, taking in the strangely inn-like atmosphere of the third floor. She darted out under his outstretched arm, prying deeper into the floor's secrets.
"You think that's legit?" She pointed at the kegs, which were sugary-sweet smelling. BB approached one, testing the tap extending out of its lower portion; golden liquid flowed out, and she popped an index finger under it, licking the pad with her tongue to examine. "Man, that's strong, but it's good! We need some mugs..."
Daniel started to ask if she thought it was safe, but dismissed the concern as quickly as it had come. "I can definitely make that happen," he said. "And such a quick trip up, too…" He tipped his head back toward the stairwell they'd come down. "Let's see what's on the next one. We can double back if the others are boring, or empty."
Now more excited than concerned, Daniel took the stairs to the fourth floor two at a time. The door gave onto a garden, and to the sounds of the sea beyond. Daniel blinked doeishly. "Okay," he said, dragging out the word. "So I guess they're all different…" He peered at the thatched roof beyond, and to the mats piled high beneath it. "Is this… Hawaiian? Samoan?"
"Beats me," BB replied. Her hands brushed over sugarcane, confused by the strangeness of each floor. Voodoo, some maybe Finnish thing, and now tropical islands? "What the hell's linking this all together?" She glanced at Alice's door and wondered if her friend was still there; the nagging thought that she'd told Gus to stay put because she was coming up also appeared.
"I think I'm gonna check in with Alice, and see what my brother's up to. Are you all right by yourself?" It seemed an odd question, but she was speaking to the guy who'd taken a full face full of mace for her. BB glanced at Daniel, waiting to see if he didn't want to be left alone. It seemed like a strange time to be flying solo, but maybe he had other plans.
"Yeah, I'm good." Daniel knelt in the gardens, still studying the plants growing there. He pulled a root vegetable out of the ground -- the floor, he corrected himself -- and marveled at the fact that this was even possible. He brushed dirt off the little thing, staring openly at it as he rose to his feet; BB's brows arched in surprise as well. The adventurous part of him wanted to cook it, to see if it was as edible as it looked. But her mention of Alice reminded him of Chris, Faisal, and Kal, and he wondered how they were faring in these odd circumstances. "I should check on some folks, too. You let me know if you need any help, though, okay? For anything. I mean it."
BB nodded. "Yeah, the network's still up, so if anyone needs help, they can get it." At least, from the other tenants in the building, and provided they had some kind of device with them to post from. And if there wasn't anything preventing them from doing so... BB shook her head, dispelling that kind of negative thinking. "I'll see yah later then, pardner." She gave him a little salute, and then wove through the overgrown vegetation toward 405.