shadowtina (shadowtina) wrote in shadows_rpg, @ 2018-01-31 16:24:00 |
|
|||
Entry tags: | #september 2017, jen |
Who: Jackson & Jen
What: Fog aftermath
Where:
When: Afternoon 9/27
Warning: Squick
By Wednesday morning the fog was gone and everything was back to normal, or so they were told. Jackson didn’t feel the least bit ‘normal’ after the past few days. He’d been at the movies when the power had cut out Saturday night and he’d had to make his way home in the dark and fog, a feeling of foreboding nagging at him the whole time. Once he’d made it home, he’d refused to leave for anything. His bad feeling only got worse over the next day and he’d felt in a near panic when his brother had gotten stuck out in it, unable to make it back home until the next day, though he’d had somewhere safe to spend the night. As Jackson had watched out for his twin’s return on Monday, he began to see something else in the fog, some kind of shape, vaguely person-shaped, but he didn’t think it was a person. Then it looked at him with bright red eyes. By the time he had his phone in his shaking hand to try and record it, it was gone.
The whole experience had left him shaken and not eager to go to school once the fog was gone Wednesday morning. He pretended he was fine as he walked to school with his twin, glad he wasn’t alone. The day was normal enough, though the odd weather was almost all anyone was talking about. He stayed after school for the S.A.F.E. meeting and found himself walking home alone afterward. Feeling in the need of some comfort snacks, especially since their grocery supply at home was still woefully low, Jackson stopped into the small grocery store that was on the way. Inside, he was indecisive, so he impulsively bought a few different snacks, carrying them out in a plastic grocery bag along with his Mountain Dew he’d bought. He took a moment outside of the store to fish a candy bar out, a KitKat, and start to unwrap it. A movement in the distance caught his eye and Jackson stared across the street. There was an empty lot there that backed up to a small bit of woods. Jackson vaguely remembered there used to be a house there, but it had burnt down a few years back. In the back of the yard, near the trees, was a large shape. After a moment, Jackson realized it was a bird. “That’s weird”, he muttered to himself. He glanced down at his candy bar, considering putting it back in his bag and getting his phone out.
While he was standing there Jen had come strolling around the corner and she easily recognized his bleached hair and familiar backpack the moment she saw him. She almost didn't catch what he said, his voice was so low, but it took only a moment to parse out the words. It was kinda cute, him talking to himself, and if she had to guess what was weird the answer would be 'everything' because everything had been very, very weird lately.
Jackson wasn't the only one with twin-worries either, Hunter had been acting out of character lately, jumpy and clingy but unwilling to talk about why and it was honestly driving Jen crazy. Then the fog came and he only got worse and last night... Jesus. Even Jen had stayed at home because her dad was legitimately freaking the fuck out and so was the rest of the town apparently. She hadn't gone to school today because she hadn't slept a wink all night so she'd missed out on a lot of the gossip and worried chatter going on but that didn't mean she was absolutely clueless. Her dad might not tell her much but sometimes he told her more than he meant to without words.
"What's weird?" she said after debating whether to hassle Jackson or not but when she looked at where he was looking she had to agree that yes, that was weird. "...That's a vulture," she muttered deadpan because why the hell not. A vulture in the middle of town after a night of fog. Yeah, that couldn't be good.
Jackson gave a small nod when she asked what was weird. He accepted her presence there as if they’d planned to meet or something, on some level it felt good just to not be alone. “Yeah. Never seen one so close before.” Jackson dropped the candy back into the bag, not even bothering to pull the wrapper back up over it first. He set his bottle of Dew in there too, then got his phone out.
“Want to get a closer look?”, he asked, already taking a step out toward the street.
The real answer should be 'not really' but Jen nodded because there was no way she was not investigating this. She suspected Jackson felt the same, they weren't that dissimilar. She'd actually watched some of his videos after they ran into each other and he seemed interested in some of the things she was.
She walked after him, watching the large bird with a little wariness. It wasn't the bird she was afraid of but whatever they might find it snacking on. Dead animals were sad, even if death was a part of nature and all, there was something very bleak about actually experiencing it.
“Fuck, it’s huge…” he whispered, staring at the carrion bird. Remembering himself, he looked down at his phone, quickly setting it to record, having the specific settings he wanted saved already. Jackson gave a quick look down the street then crossed over. He paused again at the sidewalk. “Do these things migrate, or do you think it actually lives around here?”, he wondered aloud. They crossed into the yard, the closer they got, the slower they walked. Jackson was worried they would spook the bird soon. It was large, he didn’t necessarily want it’s attention on him. “Think there’s others around?”, he whispered. He glanced up at the sky for a moment, letting his camera angle go that way too.
As much as Jen wished she was like those cool cats in the movies who knew shit like that off hand, well, she wasn't. She was just a seventeen year old girl who managed to keep a cool aura about her without putting much actual work into it. Still, that was what phones were for and since she wasn't the one filming she opened a browser on her phone and quickly typed in 'Vulture Maine'. "It's probably a Turkey Vulture," said as she peered down at her screen only glancing up every so often to make sure she wasn't bumping into anything. "Common in Maine, but probably not right in the middle of town." Skimming didn't tell her much and it was an awful lot of text to be reading on the go so she switched over to her camera to take a picture. "Hey bird, are you lost?" she murmured and she could practically hear her dad telling her not to get too close.
Hearing the commentary pop up from Jen caused Jackson to grin. He hadn’t expected an answer, but he appreciated it. It would add more flavor to the audio too if he ended up using it. “Better than Alexa”, he teased quietly. He was practically tip-toeing forward now and stopped when they were more than halfway through the yard. Jackson squinted, trying to see what it was doing, but he couldn’t quite see.
“What’s it got there?” His first thought would have been a deer hit by a car, something that could have easily happened over the past few days. He didn’t see any telltale fur to help identify what the large bird was picking at. He took a curious step forward, then one more. He could see something… “What is that?” He fidgeted with his camera setting, zooming in all the way. Jackson frowned. “It looks like… clothes.”
That gave Jen pause and she lowered her own camera and narrowed her eyes at whatever it was the bird was picking at. A bird picking at clothes... She instantly thought it might be a body but that seemed too unreal and yet there was a cold panicky feeling growing in her chest. "Well, we won't be able to see it from here," she said because she was more so stubborn than she was scared. "C'mon." She strode toward the bird, her nervousness entirely internal because she was not about to be visibly more afraid or nervous than a boy, damn it.
Jen’s resolve to get even closer startled Jackson, but he followed at her side. He was more afraid of the bird than of what else they would find, though he was disturbed to think there might be a body there. He kept the camera focused on the bird as they neared. Some brush at the edge of the woods was partly obscuring what they were trying to see, but Jackson could definitely see clothes.
“Fuck…” He stopped again when he was finally, unfortunately able to see more. The bird was pulling a large strip of it’s meal right off of what looked to be a human arm. Jackson could definitely see flesh and bone. “Oh hell.” His stomach did one hell of a somersault and he dropped his bag of snacks on the ground.
Jen went through a flurry of emotions. Bodies were no big deal when they were on TV but this was real and she hadn't in any shape been prepared for that. At the same time she felt a morbid urge to go closer, to see more, to try to suss out what had happened. It was more the logical 'this could be a crime-scene' thought than the faint rush of nausea that stopped her and she reached out for Jackson's arm as she stepped back again.
"That's..." she started and trailed off. The air felt thicker somehow, like the fog was back and more tangible than before. "We need to call my dad." It was barely a whisper, she wasn't even sure Jackson could hear her and her gaze was too transfixed on what she could still see of the body for her to actually look at him.
“Yeah…”, Jackson confirmed in response to her unfinished thought. He barely heard her mention her dad and he nodded, for a moment not even really thinking about who her dad was. His camera hand was shaking a little, but he hadn’t noticed yet. Jackson looked away from the bird and body and over to her.
“I should… try and shoo it away.” He wasn’t thrilled with the idea, despite it feeling like the right thing to do. Part of him hoped she’d talk him out of it.
Shooing a bird that size was more than a little intimidating, no matter how low risk they were supposed to be but Jen did agree that it needed doing. The thought that the bird was 'eating the evidence' crossed her mind followed by the rude reminder that this had been a person and maybe even someone she knew. "Yeah," she mumbled. "...shoo it."
Jackson frowned as he considered how he should go about doing this. Confronting a turkey vulture would no doubt be YouTube worthy, but he was aware that there was a person on the other side of the large bird. He didn’t want to disrespect.
Sighing, he turned off the camera. He looked from the bird to Jen. “Okay… I’ll take care of the bird, you call… 911?” He wasn’t sure if that was right, if this was an emergency or not, but he’d leave it to Jen to figure out.
Jackson turned on his music app and quickly picked one of the louder entire he could see right away, a System of a Down tune. He turned the volume all the way up as he started to play it. “Hey!”, he shouted at the bird over the din. “Over here!”
The bird did quickly turn toward them in a shuffling motion. It gave a flap of its wings, then did something Jackson hadn’t expected. The bird began to vomit up what it had been eating.
"Oh," Jen groaned and wrinkled her nose because that was weird and disgusting. "Guess it doesn't like rock... Turn that down?" She quickly went through her phone, noticing her hands were shaking which was kinda embarrassing but to be expected she supposed. She had the sheriff's station in there but the moment she selected it to call she felt a little dumb. What if it wasn't a dead body. What if someone was just playing a prank, putting rotten meat in some clothes and they'd be wasting the time of her already overworked dad and his deputies. She hesitated then braced herself and took a few steps closer, keeping plenty of space between herself and the large bird. "I just want to make sure," she mumbled, clutching the phone tightly in her hand as she craned her neck to see better, hopefully before having to get too close.
There was no mistaking it at that point, that was definitely a person... Or had been. Jen pressed her lips together, mouth watering as bile rose in her throat. "Okay," she whispered, backing up. She was never going to get that out of her head, whoever that had been didn't have a face anymore. It was like someone had pummeled his head over and over until there was nothing left of his face to be recognized and that was not what Jen had been expecting to see. "Okay," she whispered again, almost self soothing as she pressed call on the phone.
Jackson muted the music. They had the bird’s attention. It shuffled to the side, away from it’s meal. It put a little more distance between them, then began to flap its wings again, this time taking the large bird into the sky.
“Shit…” Jackson’s eyes stayed on the bird until it was over the trees and lost to sight. Letting out a breath, he turned toward Jen, noticing she had moved closer and was now starting to back up. She looked startled to him.
“What is it?” Without the threat of the vulture looming, Jackson felt freed to walk forward. He looked closer at the form. It was definitely a person. His eyes went wide as he noticed the same grotesque details that Jen had seen. He quickly turned his head away, his eyes squeezing shut. “Fuck! I did not just fucking see that? Is that really fucking real?”, he asked, knowing it was. “Shit!”
Jen didn't reply, listening intently to the ring tone until Rose's familiar voice replied and just hearing her was soothing in a way Jen couldn't explain.
"Hi Rose," she said and inwardly marvelled at how calm she sounded, like she was just checking in on her dad and not letting them know about this dead body with its face bashed in. "It's Jen. Is my dad in the office?"
Grady was out and Jen thought about calling him directly, maybe, but God, he was probably so busy... "Uhm," she mumbled, glancing over at Jackson who was freaking out as much as she felt like she should be doing but it was like her brain had just turned off her Panic Mode. Self preservation, maybe? "There's a dead body," she said and suddenly had the urge to laugh because it was so fucking surreal! "I'm looking right at it so... Maybe send someone? I'm at..." She looked around but couldn't see any street signs so she just told her which store they'd just been in.
"No I'm okay," she then muttered as Rose started fretting. "Just... send someone. You know... Put up crime scene tape and stuff." She was suddenly very glad Hunter had been freaking out as much as he had been and all but barred the door to keep her inside because this... This could have been her.