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Post by kinrrataiyath on May 17, 2007 17:28:31 GMT -5
"Mine," she replied in short. Cass' mind was working on a level of everything short of time travel taking up too much time. For all she knew, Eddie was already up and munching on someone, maybe getting shot for it. If they didn't hurry, there might not be enough left of him to bring back. "Got himself shot by some cop at the Morely. I left him in the alley out back." And he d*mn well better still be there when I get back.
Cass pounded up the stairs (again) and stopped at the third level. This was where the mousy girl had made her nest and this was where Agate was leading her anyway. She made no attempt to disguise her jog/walk steps as she moved down the hall towards her room. Her guns made a hell of a clatter anyway.
"Yo, science girl!" she called abruptly. "Get your things together. Eddie's been taken out and you need to get him up and breathing again."
"Wh- what?" Kin stammered. Her brain rushed to catch up to the situation. She'd been peacefully reading a book when Cass' barking voice had made her very nearly jump out of her skin. Now she looked at the two people standing in her doorway, one dripping from head to toe and the other being Agate. "What happened?"
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Post by dray on May 17, 2007 18:02:29 GMT -5
Agate clucked his tongue on the roof of his mouth, first at Cass with her injury, second with Eddie getting shot by a cop. He'd always figured it had to happen sometime. This wasn't as much of a surprise as he'd first figured! "You mind if I come along, too?" Agate asked, ignoring Kin's question for now. Cass had already told her what had happened and what needed doing, she had the whole story.
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Post by kinrrataiyath on May 17, 2007 18:30:08 GMT -5
"Like I said, Eddie's dead. You need to bring him back. Now hurry up and pack," she ordered the girl briskly. Believing that Kin would hop to, Cass turned her attention to Agate. "If you can keep up, sure. He went down maybe fifteen, twenty minutes ago. I wanna get back before he's up and active so that we can avoid any unnecessary chomping."
Kin, however, was not hopping to. She sat frozen in place, staring at them with a deer-in-headlights expression. This was like a nightmare made real. Eddie, of all people! The one person she feared most in this place now needed her help. She didn't know... No, she couldn't. Kin began shaking her head slowly from side to side as she struggled to find the words.
"I- I can't..." she whispered. The rest died on her lips when Cass looked down her hawking nose and fixed her with a deadly stare.
"You can't? Why the h*ll not?" Though Cass waited, Kin made no reply. She watched the girl's mouth open and close but make no sound, as if her voice had fled ahead of her body. The soldier knew though, just like everyone else knew. Kin was terrified of Eddie. It was all well and good for him to bust his ass keeping them safe, but returning the favour? Oh no! That's just too scary a concept!
Later on, Cass would realize that her mental state was likely not in the right spot for the tension of that situation. She was cold, wet, and aching after the run. Her wounds had reopened thanks to her jerky movements, spilling out a fresh flow of blood that had left a large, dark stain on her cargo pants. If she didn't get some help of her own soon, she may pass out from blood loss, but that was the furthest thought from her mind.
"Listen, I know I'm the newbie here, but I've been watching this group's dynamic. You're terrifed of Eddie. He's a big guy, kinda intimidating, but he does everything he can to keep this whole group -yeah, even you, safe and whole. So I suggest you get your godd*mn sh*t together, put on your shoes and come with me so for once in your life you can do your part. This is what you do, right? You fix people?" Kin nodded mutely. "Right, now Eddie needs fixing and you're the one to do it. Move."
Cass watched Kin move like a ferret on crack after that. Her little speech had scared the scientist into action but good. The blonde-haired mouse had gone pale as a sheet as Cass ripped into her, pushing all the right guilt trip buttons. Reading people was a trait Cass had been cultivating for years. Sometimes it got her into more trouble than it was worth, but sometimes, like now, it got the job done.
The dripping wet soldier turned to Agate and looked him up and down. She didn't know if he'd be much help, but any offer was a good offer.
"If there's anything you wanna grab before we go, do it now."
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Post by dray on May 17, 2007 18:48:21 GMT -5
"Everything I need's in here," Agate thumped his pack, which gave a clatter. He carried everything with him but the kitchen sink, so now that the stove had taken up a guarded residence in the building and not his pack, he was practically carrying sunshine, by the relative weight of it. The clatter came from cups, dishes, a collapsable pot, and the two med-kits that he kept his least dirtied supplies in. The rest was sheets and his more common, everyday pharmacy... the kind of stuff that most Maltonians carried around, only more of it. Fishing line, pliers, wire-cutters, bandages with mocked up adhesives, mouthwash, a little tray that had probably once been used as a baking tin, not to mention a small pharmacy of drugs that ranged from medicinally useful, to pretty god damned stupid to take but worth trading for in the rough times. He kept the four syringes that he'd made a habit of keeping filled in one of his pockets. MarkII syringes were hell to come by, and the serum that came in them took hours to make, especially if he wasn't familiar with the lab setup. If Kin' was a trained scientist, Agate was a 'doctor' through experience. Neither of these two ladies really knew that, and he didn't really want to start beating his own chest about it. 'Sides, Cass wanted Kin. Enough said, there.
Agate, trying to mend the thrashing that the soldier had given to Kin, told the scientist, "if you need a hand, I'll be right behind you." He knew the social dynamics between the mouse and the bear, just like everyone else. He couldn't blame her. Eddie could be a big sack of sh*t when he wanted to... but nobody deserved to rot on the street when he'd been, okay, yeah, half-decent most of the time when he was living. The thug was mental, and had butted into Agate's territory, and that had been a sore point for the scarred man for a long time... but Kay'd asked him to be civil about it. So here he was.
He jabbed a finger in the air towards Cass while Kin gathered her things. "When this is done, you're sitting down and getting that blood looked at, alright? Don't care who does it, it just needs doing."
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Post by kinrrataiyath on May 17, 2007 18:57:35 GMT -5
((Dray hun, I'm gonna FF us back to the Morely. If you'd rather do some talking on the way, then I can change the post.))
"Yeah, yeah," came the tried and true reply. From her, that comment meant everything from "whatever" to "absolutely sure thing right away!". It was the response she commenly gave when she was annoyed or aggitated, or just antsy to get moving. As was the case now.
Kin finally had her shoulderbag of gear loaded up and ready to move. The black, patched up sack was so filled with medical supplies that it dragged on her shoulder once she'd slipped the strap over her head. Cass had meant no offense to Agate when she'd demanded Kin come along for this jaunt. She knew only bits and pieces about the individuals who'd come together under the Mullen's roof, such as Agate was the cook and Kin was the healer. The girl spent so much time scouring hospitals that she probably had some medications even fully stocked, non-Malton hospitals didn't carry. It certainly wouldn't have surprised the gunshow any.
"Right, let's move. Stay close. It's still raining out there and visibility's poor. Kinda pointless for any one of us to get picked off on the way to saving Eddie's hide," Cass muttered as she lead the way towards the stairs. A few seconds later, they were on the roof and on their way to the Morely.
If Cass wasn't carrying a lake in her boots by the end of this night, she would be very, very surprised.
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Post by dray on May 17, 2007 19:12:53 GMT -5
((No worries. I'm just following along on this one.))
The trip up to the PD was more grueling than most, considering that on days like this, Agate tended to stay the hell inside. Knowing him, he'd probably catch his own death out here, but not to bullets. Wearing layers meant that he not only caught the downpour, but he absorbed like a sponge... suddenly, lacking the stove in his pack wasn't making a lot of difference anymore.
He followed along at the back of the pack, making sure that Kin didn't slip, allowing Cass to lead the way. Agate had to admit that for the amount of weight she carried, and the state she was in (that had been a lot of blood on her, there) she was pretty god damned fast on her feet. Suddenly the PD was looming ahead of them, and Agate scanned the streets for the corpse that had been (and would be again) Eddie. When Cass had said that visibility was low, she'd meant it.
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Post by mock on May 17, 2007 19:22:34 GMT -5
Death, perhaps, often felt starved for Eddie's company, seeing as the two seemed such an obvious pair. So when they did have time together, death didn't like to waste time. And so, a little over an hour after he promised Cass he'd return, Eddie returned.
He awoke, definitely not for the first time in his life, face down on the concrete. His dull blue eyes opened to the asphalt of the street, painted with the dim, wavering reflections of the rain on the ground. He was aware, vaguely, that one of his arms was lifted into the air behind him, but didn't think or feel any way about it. Even if he could currently recognize that a passing, rain-soaked survivor was trying to pry his leather jacket off of his body, he would only remember the event later as an abstract, blac-and-white frame in the undecipherable slideshow of his post-revival dreams. Later, in life, he might remember a puppet show and not know why.
Feeling around blindly behind him, Eddie took the scavenger's arm, dislocated it, and pulled him to the ground. Once he was finished feeding for now, Eddie rose to his feet, and dragged the body behind him as he wandered away into the night.
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Post by kinrrataiyath on May 17, 2007 21:40:36 GMT -5
The return trip took longer than the initial run down to the Mullen. Cass blamed her two tag alongs for being too d*mn slow, but in all honesty, she was scarcely able to stay to a crawl with her abdomen paining her as it was. The open wound had gotten worse as the day progressed. Not having it tended to properly had left it open to be irritated and torn as her actions dictated. She was starting to feel light headed by the time they reached the Morely. With one hand on a gun and the other clutching her side, she lead them around back to where she'd left Eddie.
Only he wasn't there.
"God f*cking son of a castrated squirrel sucking b*tch!" she snarled. Cass got creative with her curses when she didn't have enough blood fueling her brain. For a while, she simply stared at the rain-soaked pavemen as if it would give her a clue as to where he'd gone. But the blood was washed away, and the body had been dragged away, and the night was still too dark and stormy to give them any relief.
"He's not here," she huffed, looking hopelessly first one way then the other. "We're gonna have to search for him. Probably still in this area."
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Post by dray on May 17, 2007 22:03:01 GMT -5
Great. "You want to split it or do the smart thing and stick together?" Agate asked, moving instinctively towards the underhang of the police station. This far down from the roof, it didn't do much in the way of sheltering him from the storm, but at least it was a little further out of the wind. He didn't like coming to ground level at any time, let alone during periods of low visibility, like night, or rain, or both. Not only were there shamblers, but their smarter counterparts. Zombies never displayed the true range of intelligence as their living relations, and they really didn't think or sense the world in the same way that humans did, but some were 'clever', some were fast, and some were determined above and beyond your average shambler.
At least the rain would keep down their scent. Cass' wounds would have been a magnet from six blocks away if this were any other day, and while that might be good for finding Eddie, it would be bad for Eddie's new friends finding them. The noise of the rain, on the downside, would keep them from hearing as well if they broke out of eye-sight with one another, and since the visibility was so poor, that would happen quickly.
Zombies usually moved to where they sensed they had food. If they couldn't immediately find that (and Eddie couldn't have taken someone down right from the get-go, could he? Nobody was stupid enough to go corpse-hunting in the rain, in the dark, by themselves...) they'd search for the nearest other zombie. "We gotta check around the building," Agate then suggested, "make sure he's not at any of the doors trying to get in." A PD was a quick meal for the hardier types who were fast enough or quiet enough to take down 'cades before anyone could get them back up. Eddie probably wasn't the latter, but he could possibly be the former.
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Post by kinrrataiyath on May 17, 2007 22:18:44 GMT -5
"Stick together." That was a no brainer. "Right, we check the perimeter, then any buildings that've been recently broken into. Chances are zombies don't like the rain any more than we do. Kin, you stay between me and Agate. That'll keep you safe."
Cass looked from one to the other to confirm that her instructions were understood. Agate had been right up there with her making suggestions, so that was fine. Kin, who now looked like a starving puppy being left out in the cold, nodded quickly. She was hugging her back of medical supplies to her chest as if her life depended on it. Eddie's sure did.
"Good, I'll take point." She pulled her hand away from her side, ignoring the washed out blood that had painted it red, and grabbed one of her pistols. Shot gun in one hand, tactical in the other, she nodded towards the edge of the Morley PD and began walking that way.
Thankfully for them, there weren't many buildings to be had in this area. There was the PD, the Railroad beside it, and the Hewetson building to it's North-West. Everything else in direct contact with the Morley was wasteland or roadway. Even in this poor light that would give them a little bit of an advantage in looking for shuffling figures. Unfortunately, it also made them much more visible to the very same.
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Post by dray on May 17, 2007 22:25:08 GMT -5
And Agate followed behind, wiping the rain that was running into his eyes from between the points where brow-hair refused to grow anymore. It was times like this that he wished that he could see more than a half a dozen meters in front of him with any clarity. There had been a time, he knew, where he could see for miles if he was high enough. Nowadays, if he took the same perch things began to blur into a single brown-grey-white smudge no matter how he squinted or goggled. It certainly wasn't helping him tonight.
None the less, he kept his eyes out, tracking across the open spaces. If Cass were taking point, she'd be watching for immediate threats. It was up to Kin and him to scan further out (come to think of it, putting two near-sighters in charge of looking out far was probably a stupid idea).
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Post by kinrrataiyath on May 17, 2007 22:41:44 GMT -5
It was a stupid idea. And had Cass known of Agate's predicament, she wouldn't have put him in that position. On a good day when she was not spilling her life fluids all over the ground at regular intervals, she would likely have asked about strengths and weaknesses. Here and now, it just didn't factor into the things that mattered in her mind. A mind that was steadily growing fuzzier by the minute.
Kin crept along in between the two gun toters, peering owlishly into the rainy night. All sounds were drowned out by the pattering of droplets on the pavement, buildings, and other structures. There was a tinny note coming from the wastelands. Probably from a discarded car or sheet of metal. Altogether, events were conspiring against them in a most unfortunate way.
As they neared the corner of the Morley PD, they could make out the tall, silent structure that was the Hewetson just across the street. There were no lights on within the former business office. Which was vexing given all of them could've used some help.
Especially when a low, ominous groan rattled out of the throat of a nearby shambler. The zombie had been "sleeping" when they walked past, but the smell of fresh food had jarred his foggy mind awake. Dead, white eyes swept across the group as he began shuffling forward.
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Post by dray on May 17, 2007 23:27:36 GMT -5
((Hey, should we wait for an Eddie-post, are are we going to keep going until Mock pops up again?))
One would think with two years of experience with a woman like KTFE, where the woman liked to go out and bash things until she had no more blood left to drain, Agate would notice the tell-tale signs in Cass's actions and thinking. However, other things were on his mind -- like that low muffler-rattle of a groan that had started up. It'd been swaying on the opposite side of a burnt out husk of an SUV, making it difficult to catch immediately, but now that it had caught scent of them, it sloshed through puddles with alarming determination and awareness of its prey.
Agate had nearly jumped out of his skin, having thought that he'd surveyed that area only a second ago and found it clean. He reached for the pistol that'd been slung in its makeshift holster on his belt... but really, he'd probably be more useless than Kin with a crochet hook at this point. He'd never been a very good shot.
Still, he took aim and squinted down the sights, trying to get a good bead on the shambler's head. He took a potshot and went wide, about a meter. "Goddamnit," he grunted. "Think you can take this'n down, Cass?" He called over the rain.
If the local shamblers weren't aware that they were here before, they probably would now.
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Post by kinrrataiyath on May 18, 2007 0:52:52 GMT -5
((I wanted to move Kin to Eddie to make it easier for him to hop back in. Agate and Cass can have fun with their new friends outside!))
Cass tured and fired before conscious thought caught up to her actions. She squeezed off three shots, then watched the zombie slowly slump to the ground. It landed with a wet smack in the puddles building by the side of the road not five seconds before one of its buddies stepped over its head.
"Ooooh sh*t," Cass muttered. This rescue mission was become less rescue and more suicide. Quickly the soldier cast about for any viable exit. She should've had the landscape memorized before she went in. Another oversight due to her frazzled mindstate.
From what she could tell, they had a small horde of rotting corpses moving in at them from two sides; the wastelands and the street they'd just walked down. It figured the b*stards would wait for them to pass before coming out of hiding. Their only safe house was the PD, which was barricaded up tight.
Scratch that. There was one other option.
"Kin!" she shouted over the roar of her shotgun. "Get inside the Hewetson! Agate, you and I need to deal with this lot before we can follow, understand?"
Kin, however, wasn't waiting around for confirmation either way. The order to get the heck out of there was one she could follow readily and quickly. With her bag of supplies clutched neurotically to her chest, she began to ran.
The frightened, soaking wet scientist ran straight through the open doors of the abandoned business office without a single glance backwards. A shaky sob echoed off the bare walls as the broken barrier creaked in her wake. She'd left them out there, alone and surrounded by zombies. It wasn't right. It wasn't brave. But Kin had never considered herself to be a brave woman. The shame of it brought another sob to her lips.
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Post by dray on May 18, 2007 22:02:57 GMT -5
"--Th'f*ck says we do!" Agate didn't quite believe that Cass wanted them to stay out here between a closing wall-trap of gnashing teeth and rending hands.
On thoughts made clear by impending doom, he realized that he'd probably have been better off to ignore the soldier and let her drag Kin' off into this mess. Obviously Cass was out of her right mind. He took another shot at one of the shamblers that was jaywalking across the road, managing to clip it in the shoulder. Noooot good enough! "You want to deal with this lot, fine, we'll deal with this lot. But I'm going to back up that-a-way and if you want to hold your ground, you have fun and do that!" Looking for Eddie took second precedence over watching out for his own hide. Maybe the big goon meant something to Kay that he had to honor, one way or the other, but Agate wasn't about to let himself get killed over it. He was a dad, he had little wriggling bundles of baby to keep breathing for!
As good as his word, the scarred man began to retreat after Kin's long disappearing form. When he got in back of Cass, he was finally close enough to realize just how much damage she'd done to herself. "sh*t, she's one of those." He'd finally dumped her into the same general category that Kay had long ago created a niche for. That was enough of this... they needed to get inside, out of the rain, and to make sure that Cass didn't f*cking bleed out in the street. No wonder they were so surrounded -- rotters had probably picked themselves out of the gutter after getting a whiff of all of that blood.
He came closer, enough so that Cass could hear him. "Scratch that last! You and me, the Hewetson, now! I'll push up the 'cades while you keep them out of the doors, alright?"
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