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Post by Dr. Jar on Jun 2, 2013 19:01:24 GMT -8
A slinking shape of moving shadow, it seemed like it may only be half-formed. The permeating stench of decay enters his nose. From beyond, pale eyes stare at him, an almost human countenance behind shaggy, unkept hair. It scratched the door, and then he heard the motion on the door handle. It wanted in.
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DKender
Only One Skeleton has the Power to Control both Life and Death, Light and Dark, Words and Blank Space, Our Humble Lives Continue Only by the Grace and Magnanimity of This Skeleton
Nay, let us walk from fire unto firey skeleton ...
Posts: 9,204
Gender: Unknown Skeleton
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Post by DKender on Jun 2, 2013 20:08:34 GMT -8
The young man covered his nose with his hand and slowly scooted back. The rank smell was too familiar. He remembered smelling it moments before Chen was attacked. Could this be the same monster? Had it hunted him? Why?!
The face slid from view, and for a moment, he assumed that the creature gave up. Maybe it was a thoughtless thing after all, but then he heard something slide up against the side of the car, and a second shake of the handle. One two...silence...On the driver's side.
With frantic urgency, the man unzipped his backpack and emptied it onto the car seat. He took a carving knife from the pile. It was caked with dry blood. Quietly, he waited.
The handle rattled a few more times, and then there were a few long minutes of silence. Nothing. A tin can rattled in the darkness somewhere. An alley perhaps. Then nothing.
With a relieved sigh and vague shudder, the man leaned back.
Without warning there was a single, sharp CRACK on the passenger side. The window buckled inwards, shattering into a thousand tiny cubes, and a thin, long arm reached in to grasp him. The smell was overwhelming, the face framed by dark hair.
He slashed at the arm with his knife, his movements untrained and panicked.
Serpentine, the rest of the monster's body slipped into the now open window. Another hand appeared and grasped the knife wielding arm, twisting it. The smell was overwhelming. It sucked in a rattling breath. "....oooohhh." He could swear it said, its voice and rasping, moving on flux like it was guided by bellows from a forge. It pulled, firmly.
The man cried out with fear. Thrashing, he grabbed the head rest on the seat ahead of him, trying to resist the monster's pull. However, it was too strong. He lost his grip and was dragged to the window. [/i] "Help! HELP!" A swirl of movement. It had been wearing a coat, and now the man was wrapped in it. He felt himself being wrenched sidelong. A strange jerking feeling, like the pit of his stomach fell out...then...they were going somewhere. Who knew where. It did not make a sound, and was entirely unconcerned with his screams. What did it have to fear? The cowards who only cared for themselves, hiding away in there? The ghouls? Everything would be fed on soon enough.
((OOC: Me and Jara both did this post, every other paragraph. My NPC is holding out for a hero 'till the end of the night. Maybe he will be rescued someday. Or not. Only time can tell.))[/i]
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Post by Thy Dungyeon Maestyr on Jun 6, 2013 4:11:19 GMT -8
Takuji stepped out of the dead end at 38th street, feeling like he'd collapse from starvation at any moment. He rolled on the balls of his feet and staggered a bit, but kept walking. He felt as if no time had passed since he first went in there, but that he'd somehow aged forty years in that moment.
He'd need to bust into a house, find something to eat, and eat it.
He thought about just eating grass to fill his stomach, but he'd done that enough times to know it wasn't worth the energy it took to chew.
He remembered which houses they'd already gone through, but this neighborhood seemed just as quiet even as he walked further than they'd ever allowed themselves. He looked for a house with a door close to ground level, he had no energy for climbing up steep driveways or staired entrances.
At the fork in the road, he knew continuing north would be out toward where he last saw Jacob fighting a monster, and he turned south onto East Pike. It quickly turned into a fork that was considered Grand Avenue, both ways. North or south? North was more likely to be undiscovered country for Takuji - greater potential risk and reward. South he'd likely run into a familiar road before long, and end up in that alley again.
He went north. All giant houses. Also hillside. The downhill side of Grand had a huge blue house with a door on street level. He'd rather not do stairs, but he needed something soon.
He approached the door - actually huge red wood double doors. They were locked. The garage had been slightly ajar and there was a window nearby. He could break the window or try to squeeze under the garage door. He turned on his flashlight and went the low road.
The garage was full of car. Little soil-like flecks in his light's beam turned out to be dead flies. He got under completely and stood up. Yes. This garage was full of dead flies. There were four cars in it. The closest had...
Two skeletons behind the wheel.
He pulled his shirt over his face and tried to ignore the horror, looking for a door leading further inside. It wasn't the first time he'd seen dead bodies, of course, but it had been a while in the sterile environment so it came as more of a shock.
He moved along the wall to the right. Sure enough, there was a door there into a sort of guest dining hall. Furniture in disarray suggested this place had been scavenged. But still... He kept on.
He came into a carpeted hall. His flashlight was barely necessary here, with intermittent skylights and such. It was still dim enough that the flashlight might help him see something appearing unexpectedly.
First door - a spacious bathroom. Second - a guest bedroom. The bedding had been stolen and the carpet shit on - long ago enough that it barely stank. He hoped it had been by a dog, who would shit on a carpet, even if no one lived there? The third door went to some kind of craft room, that looked like it had been hit by a tornado.
The hall emptied into a kitchen, overlooking a living room a few steps down. It was all too small to be the real main kitchen of a house this big. Must be a guest kitchen. The refrigerator was open. Cigarette butts and broken glass littered the floor. A box of rice had been spilled into the carpet of the living room.
That living room was dark and large, with more ways out of it - ways that danger could come from. He tried to be quick.
A can of lychees! Disgusting! He found the can opener. They were bland as hell, but the sweet syrup tasted amazing after the long drought. He wondered what kind of people had been here, by the mess they made, they seemed disgusting. He thought about the first enclave he'd been in, as he carefully stuck his fingers in the can and licked them.
He was able to get most of the sustenance out of it - by the label some precious few 180 calories or so - but there was still some of that sweet stuff on the side. He tried to scoop it out - ever mindful of the sharp edge left by removing the lid.
The mindfulness was not enough. He brought his finger out at the wrong angle and it instantly ran red - a small but nasty cut.
At almost the exact moment his skin was broken, and strange unearthly sound like a brush in the air came from the bowels of the house. It was followed by a panting like a large thirsty dog.
As his eyes widened, it seemed like the blood was flowing faster the closer the sound came.
He ran for the door to the dead fly garage-- what the hell! Was it some kind of zombie dog?! Was that the one that shit on the floor?!
He had three options down the hall ahead - the door to the garage on the right (shimmying under it would slow him down a lot), the double doors straight ahead (if the lock was tricky, it could slow him down), and the plate glass window in the room to the left (there was that part in a movie where a guy went through glass and they made it look like his neck had a gross flap of skin hanging off and that hella grossed him out).
He leapt through the plate glass window, landed on the lawn with his skin not gross-flappy (victory!), and ran south. He crested the hill and kept south on Grand. After a moment he looked back, realized he wasn't being followed, then got nervous about running straight into trouble if he kept on like that. He forced himself to slow to a fast walk.
Near the sides of the road, there were lots of vehicles. A silver lexus, a yellow camaro, a red smart car, a short RV, a black jeep with a trailer carrying a jet ski, a blue van...
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Post by Dr. Maneep Pamplemousse on Jun 6, 2013 11:53:52 GMT -8
Wolf sped towards the promised destination. When he got within a block, he slowed to the point that he was practically pushing the bike, but still straddled it in case he had to take off in a hurry.
He raised his visor so that he could see in higher contrast and scanned the area. He was looking for movement or poorly concealed bushwhackers.[/i]
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DKender
Only One Skeleton has the Power to Control both Life and Death, Light and Dark, Words and Blank Space, Our Humble Lives Continue Only by the Grace and Magnanimity of This Skeleton
Nay, let us walk from fire unto firey skeleton ...
Posts: 9,204
Gender: Unknown Skeleton
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Post by DKender on Jun 6, 2013 12:59:39 GMT -8
The street was mostly empty. A few zombies staggered into view, drawn by the bike's grumbling. But Wolf observed no other form of malicious life.
In a tree bough above his head, two blue parakeets rested. They were among Madrona's wild pet life that somehow survived spring and early summer.
The zombies clumsily surrounded Wolf. They were fresh(ish) dead, one young man and two women. Their dark hair and hooked noses were similar. These people had been related, in life.
As the undead drew closer, Wolf noticed that their shirts were stained with blood in one particular spot: over the heart. [/i]
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Post by ◊◊BLOODBEASTER◊◊ on Jun 6, 2013 13:41:51 GMT -8
Takuji rested in the black Jeep with the jet-ski on the trailer. He'd found a melted bag of M&Ms in the glovebox, which he had licked clean, and then obsessively cleaned himself afterward. He heard a noise in the distance, probably zombies. He glanced out the windows, looking for the movement, and then sunk low in his seat hoping they'd pass him.
He thought briefly about the carpet-shitters. He wondered if they were still in the neighborhood... he imagined them being terrifying heroin addict bikers, and sunk a little lower.
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Post by Dr. Maneep Pamplemousse on Jun 6, 2013 15:10:09 GMT -8
Wolf sped up, past the zombies, then stopped, dropped his kickstand, and climbed off his bike. He reached for his--fuck. He still hadn't retrieved his knife from the hulk from last night. He quickly retrieved a wrench from one of his cargo boxes.[/i] (can I get confirmation of the gray shade used in the avatars?)He circled around the Murder-Suicide family and worked his way around, swinging for heads when he got an opening.[/i]
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Post by Thy Dungyeon Maestyr on Jun 6, 2013 15:44:25 GMT -8
((Sorry, but the exact value of the grey in avatar BGs does not reproduce in RGB. So Wolf has to lose the color or never exactly match.))
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Post by Dr. Jar on Jun 6, 2013 18:13:24 GMT -8
Breg and Anya catch up with them before too long. Breg seems to be doing a bit of huffing and puffing, but nothing too major. He carries his shotgun in a bag on his back, and a fire ax in one hand as he jogs along. "...Huhhg... Wolf...is there anything unusual here?" He spins around and notices the freshly-dead around them.
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Post by ∆§Indea§∆ on Jun 6, 2013 18:29:01 GMT -8
Anya was a little out of breath herself but it didn't stop her from moving towards the blue van. It was just a van after all, who would be that obvious in their attempts to trap them? Some hippie had probably owned the van and left it there. She just hoped it wasn't a hippie that those creeps had killed themselves..."Should we crack the van open? Sorry for the trouble. I'll make it up to you guys sometime for sure!"
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Post by Dr. Maneep Pamplemousse on Jun 6, 2013 18:55:07 GMT -8
"Just these goons, but they might've distracted me. Let's just keep our eyes open. Wolf moved to the front of the van, wrench still in hand. He peered in the window.[/i]
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DKender
Only One Skeleton has the Power to Control both Life and Death, Light and Dark, Words and Blank Space, Our Humble Lives Continue Only by the Grace and Magnanimity of This Skeleton
Nay, let us walk from fire unto firey skeleton ...
Posts: 9,204
Gender: Unknown Skeleton
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Post by DKender on Jun 6, 2013 18:56:04 GMT -8
As the adventurers approached the vehicle, they noticed that its passenger-side back window had been shattered inward. A black plastic guitar case was propped on the back seat. Its decorative stickers were indeed numerous (and sometimes ridiculous)! They included that recently popular "coexist" logo, some UFO stickers from Roswell, New Mexico, and lots of little known indie group icons.
Nothing else was in the van, except for a blood-caked carving knife. [/i]
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Post by Dr. Jar on Jun 6, 2013 19:05:44 GMT -8
"Humph, well, at least they were truthful. I wonder why they chose to tell us this. If you need help carrying it back, I still have room, Anya." He leans against the side of the car, and wonders about the knife. Was it a human or a monster who broke through that door. He puzzled, and leaned over to inspect it, and the fallen bodies. It was a little unusual to have the heart removed, no? "Some sort of ritual?"
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DKender
Only One Skeleton has the Power to Control both Life and Death, Light and Dark, Words and Blank Space, Our Humble Lives Continue Only by the Grace and Magnanimity of This Skeleton
Nay, let us walk from fire unto firey skeleton ...
Posts: 9,204
Gender: Unknown Skeleton
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Post by DKender on Jun 6, 2013 19:14:06 GMT -8
Breg and anybody else participating in this macabre inspection observed that the bodies each had matching puncture wounds in their chests. They were a few centimeters in diameter. It did not appear that the hearts had been removed, however.[/i]
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Post by Thy Dungyeon Maestyr on Jun 6, 2013 19:31:12 GMT -8
No one saw the scared guy hiding in the jeep, visions of heroin bikers dancing in his head. Will he have the chutzpah to face a man named Wolf? ((Don't wait up... Kelly is werkin on comic, and we can have Takuji meet people by a different means if he isn't available before you want to move on.))
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