the_lawless (the_lawless) wrote in the_colony, @ 2010-01-31 22:48:00 |
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Entry tags: | ^ week 03, jed bailey, leo parker, | jed and leo |
Week 3 - Saturday
Characters: Leo Parker, Jed Bailey
Location: Alice's Townhouse/Hard Rock Hotel
Summary: Leo goes to get rid of the mess in Alice's house after she's attacked, then runs into Jed in the hotel on his way back to the room.
Rating: PG-13 for swearing and blood.
For a long time, Leo sat beside the dead body on Alice's floor, his expression sober and thoughtful as he stared out over the corpse. With his shoulders pressed back against the wall, he drew up a knee and propped his elbow there, spinning a mostly empty package of cigarettes in his other hand. It'd been a long time since he'd been completely alone like this, and while a part of him had been looking forward to this moment of solitude, Leo found himself distracted by an echoing feeling of emptiness. A sense of disarray started clawing in on him; that desperate pull on his heart when the reality of what the world would likely become came back, full circle, and lay before him in the form of a dead man. He had known there were people like this in the world, even before the end of it. Hell, he was one of them. Leo scowled and pulled himself to his feet. With an unlit cigarette pressed firmly between his lips he took one last deep breath, grabbed the corpse's booted feet, and started dragging him through the backdoor toward the yard.
It had gotten dark outside, in the time Leo had taken to sit and reflect on this past week, but the porch light seemed sufficient enough for what he was doing. He pulled the dead man into the middle of the yard and rolled him onto his stomach on a few planks of old fence pieces he'd found in Alice's garage, unable to look into that ugly face for a second longer. It was kind of surreal, drenching a body with lighter fluid in the middle of someone's backyard without a care in the world of getting caught. There'd be no police sirens wailing warnings at him, and no repercussions for anything he was about to do. Retrieving a pack of matches from his back pocket, Leo struck one against the grainy little strip, the tiny orange flame casting an amber glow across his face as he finally lit the cigarette. He stared at the pile of flesh and bone in front of him and, exhaling a cloud of smoke into the hot air, he tossed the match down and took step back as the flames leapt skyward from the body.
Leo stood a good distance away from the heat of the fire, unable to stop himself from reminiscing about his time with the Sevens. They'd built a fire almost every night, and sat around it to get drunk and push each other around. He drew another long pull from his cigarette and took a good look around the back yard. There was a little greenhouse, but not much else to see, and inevitably his eyes began to wander past Alice's yard and into the backyards of her neighbors. It didn't take long for him to spot something out of the ordinary and with his attention peeked, he crossed the small yard, squinting his eyes at the darkness of Alice's next door neighbor's back porch. Pieces of glass glimmered on the walkway, and within seconds Leo realized what was wrong. The window on the neighbor's back door was completely busted through.
Grabbing his shotgun out of Alice's living room, Leo went back through the yard and hopped the fence, moving as quietly as possible over the broken glass and concrete until he was standing just outside the door. With the fire glowing behind him, he tried at the doorknob, not really surprised to find that it was not only unlocked, but also barely shut. Hesitating before he opened it, his pulse thick in his ears, he raised the barrel of his gun and pushed his way inside. It was deja vu, the feeling he had as he sneaked into the other house, not knowing what he'd find around every corner. The place was laid out almost exactly like Alice's house, but he didn't have to go far to see that something had gone awry here. There were spots of blood on the floor, a lamp knocked off of an end table, a coffee mug tipped over on its side on the kitchen counter, with what appeared to be tea dried in large brown stain, spilling over the lip of the counter's edge. Adrenaline coursed through Leo's blood as he stepped silently through the hall.
"Sonovabitch," he muttered. There, in a heap on the kitchen floor, was another man laying face down in a half-dried pool of blood, his form bent awkwardly upon the tile. With the toe of his boot, Leo flipped the body over, his expression twisting into disgust when he saw the dark crusted line of blood drawn across the dead man's throat. There was more blood, too, spots of seepage along the man's abdomen where there were long, narrow holes in his shirt. The man had been stabbed several times before he was finally done in. Leo noted older wounds too, parts of his body scarring over horrible burns.
Remembering suddenly that Alice had mentioned her neighbor before, the realization struck him that this body belonged to her friend who couldn't hear; the one who was supposed to help get Walker talking again. He frowned deeply. This is how close Alice had come to being killed. Leo took his cigarette out of his mouth so he could rub his face with both hands, and then he put it back, despite the thing already being burned to the filter. Taking one last look around, he didn't seen any sense in leaving the body to rot on the kitchen floor, so following the same pattern as before, he made a small pyre out in the neighboring yard and set the corpse on fire.
It took a long time for the bodies to burn, and Leo had to reignite the flames several times, watching both with cautious vigilance for fear of catching the entire neighborhood on fire. He helped himself to some of Alice's whiskey, dumping out the contents of the rucksack on the floor so he could stuff it full of shirts, rifling through the woman's drawers until he found a handful of bras and underwear, and adding that to his collection. When the pyres were nothing more than smoldering ash and fragmented bone, Leo doused the piles with water from the hose, swung the rucksack over his shoulder, and started back for the hotel.
Leo was sullen and tired when he stepped out of the elevator and onto the seventh floor, his face smudged in soot and dried blood, his hands covered in both. Upon seeing Jed in the hallway, he froze, his gun hanging low in one hand, the rucksack slung over his shoulder in the other. It was a relief to see that the other man had stood guard the whole night, another crack in the wall that he had immediately thrown up between them at the mere mention of his name. He closed the distance between them, hovering a few feet away from the door to Alice's room. "They sleepin'?" he asked quietly, the silence in the air around them pushing his voice low.
"Yeah," Jed said with a nod, his shoulders visibly relaxing. He'd been sitting down before he heard the elevator kick into gear, the noise immediately sending his adrenaline rushing. Aside from that burst of energy, and a quick walkie-talkie call to Jack to let her know he wouldn't be back for a bit (and that she should deadbolt the door), the evening had been a long bout of anxious sitting and pacing. He was glad Leo had come back, if only because it meant he could get dinner and a shirt.
"How'd it go?" Jed asked quietly. "Any trouble?"
"Yeah," he admitted under his breath. Letting his shoulders fall back against the wall, Leo propped his gun on the floor and let the rucksack rest by his feet, holding it with one hand while he tried to wipe a bit of grime from his face with the other. "Alice's neighbor...," he said. "Was she close with him?" He dropped his hand from his face and looked directly at Jed this time.
"Shit." Jed ran a hand over his face, looking at the door. "Enough. I dunno how close, but she was real protective of him. Shit," he said again, shaking his head. "The guy she shot? He had buddies or somethin'?"
"Don't know." Leo shook his head and stared at the floor. "Probably the same guy. Cut his throat, so he must not've had a gun." He narrowed his eyes. "If he was working with someone else, they don't usually split up like that. He had to be alone." Despite his matter-of-fact mannerisms, he could feel the weight of everything suddenly pulling down on him. Seeing something was somehow magnified when telling someone else, the reliving of it mixing more emotion with fact. It was the anticipation of others' reactions that made him a little nervous. This was why it was easier being alone. Easier isn't always better. "Doesn't mean he was the one and only, though."
Jed grimaced. "Yeah. Don' get me wrong, we've had some run-ins, but it's been pretty tame so far. But I know there's still fucked up folks out there." Glancing at the door again, he added, "You weren't followed or nothin', were you?" Leo followed his gaze to the door and stared for a long time, his mind wandering.
"No," he said finally, and with quite a bit of confidence. Lifting the rucksack from off the floor, he fished out the mostly empty bottle of whiskey he'd swiped from Alice's house, twisting off the top to take a good, hard drink straight from the bottle. He flinched at the taste, the warm liquid washing down into his empty stomach. "You got some way of locking this place up?" He looked at Jed and offered him the bottle.
Hesitating just a moment, Jed took it. Leo'd just had a mouthful of it, so it had to be alright. "Naw. Stairs only open comin' down, but never found the elevator key. Some dead janitor's prob'ly still got it on his belt," he said, taking a swig.
Leo gave an amused huff, smirking. He didn't know if Jed had intended to be funny, but he had always had an awkward sense of humor. Still, he was thinking on ways to better secure the building until he finally came to the conclusion that Jed was probably a smart guy, and had done everything in his power to keep the place safe. He nodded absently, as though agreeing to his own thoughts. Running his fingers back through his hair, Leo shook his head again. "Shit," he echoed Jed's earlier revelation. "What about Alice? Should we tell her?"
"Not right now," Jed said, already thinking on that himself. "She's been through enough. I'll...juss find a good time to tell her. I knew Cody, so'd prob'ly be better from me." He took another swig before passing the bottle back. He considered Leo a moment before nodding to himself. "Look, I better get back up to my place, check on Jack an' make dinner. I'll bring some down for Alice an' you an' the kid."
"You don't have to do that," he shook his head, then corrected himself. "I mean... Alice, yeah. But not me." Leo had placed the lid back on the bottle and rested his hand on the back of his neck, feeling uncomfortable for a moment.
Jed gave a snort. "Unless you brung a kitchen up when I wasn't lookin', you're juss as hungry as me. Besides, ain't a big deal. Prob'ly do pasta, so a couple more plates ain't a problem." He glanced at the door again, then raised his eyebrows at Leo. Maybe he was presuming to much. "Unless yer juss plannin' to leave her here an' go back to your place."
"I don't have any place to go," Leo confessed. He'd been watching Jed, but when the other man turned his gaze toward him, he looked off to the side. "And I promised I'd stay."
"Then you'll need food," Jed said, giving a slight smile. Inside, he was torn. It didn't feel right, leaving Alice with someone they barely knew. But he had been there for Alice when she needed him, and it wasn't like Jed could be in two places at once. He needed food, he needed a shirt, and he needed to make sure Jack was alright. Unclipping his walkie-talkie, he handed it over. "I got one up in my room. Keep it on channel three an' you can give me a shout if anythin' happens. Won't take too long to cook."
Leo took the walkie and nodded, his brow crinkling with uncertainty, and for the first time that night he looked straight into Jed's eyes, letting his gaze linger until he quickly returned his attention to the walkie again. "Thanks," he said, this time his voice full of sincerity. He hooked the walkie to his belt loop and gathered his things, slipping as quietly as he could into Alice's room before he pulled the door shut behind him.