Nightshift 42: North Street

[rocksthecourt]

[from here]

Being stuck in a small room with those monstrosities didn't seem the safest option. Being outside, with more space to see and move sounded far better. But when Klavier actually got outside, he suddenly thought maybe the small room didn't seem so bad.

THEY. WERE. EVERYWHERE. Crowded worse than LA during rush hour on even the worst of days. Rushing and moving like a writhing, anguished mass. So many. Where had they come from?! Stupid question. What were they?! Monsters, people... How could this-- AHHH!!!

He was frozen in place for a few moments before he realized staying in one spot wasn't the best idea. He frantically looked around. He needed to find somewhere safe! He needed to get out of here. Where was safe?! Somewhere high? Were all of the buildings infested? Maybe he could lock himself in somewhere and--

WAIT!! NO! What was he thinking?! What about everyone else? He couldn't just barricade himself somewhere safe and sit around while everyone else was ripped apart. And... KRISTOPH! Where was he?! Had he been swarmed, too?! He had to have been. But in this mess, he didn't even know where to begin looking for him. Or how long he would last searching. Maybe he would have to trust that his brother would find a safe place... No. He couldn't spend the entire night not even sure if he was safe or not. What if he needed help?

....Holy-- It looked like HE needed help!! "AAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!"

Again he swung the lamp anytime any got too close, moving with his back toward the walls. Where to go?! Where to go?!

Comments

[windstwilight.livejournal.com]

[skipping Ken with permission.]

Okay. The nervous civilians were getting to her, in the way horses will rear when the rider is anxious. Too much standing and freaking and looking like the world was ending. So the dead were rising. So they wanted to eat you. So they reminded you of those little pieces you were missing and really didn't ever want to see again, and the creep factor was up the wall because they reached out in the same way and squeezed and held and--

Yeah, okay. Just her. But man, she wasn't going to stay here. Moving was a necessity. If she stayed in one place, she'd give into this. And it looked like Mister Gentleman Knight was in agreement. Senna glanced around quickly. Meche and him were the worst, from what she saw. Kid needed to be protected, no matter what he was or could do. And seriously--why the fuck kids? Were they seriously that hard up for torment? Another tightening of her chest, and she slid into decision easy as breathing. Needed to move. Gotta move now.

"Senna," she said in response, a bit more evenly than normal. "But I'm gonna have to say introductions are going to have to wait. Let's get somewhere safe first so we can check you guys over." Senna looked meaningfully at Meche. Love bite, her ass. The blood would argue that fact. She glanced back at the Knight-guy. Phoenix? Interesting. "I'll take point. Stay together. I won't rush ahead." After a glance around the group again, and another fricking tug in her chest, Senna slipped out of the alley, sword coming up to intersect an undead close-by. The dull blade would do nothing for lethal, and so Senna settled for bashing; again, heaving it like a bat into the zombie's side.

[sheisthecause.livejournal.com]

When Phoenix finally emerged, he looked exhausted and unsteady, but definitely alive. Good thing, too--she couldn't even recommend a travel agent. Her impulse was to say something, thank him, but the crowds of zombies weren't getting any thinner. And if there was anyone here entitled to make a fuss over Phoenix, Meche thought with a glance at the man who was supporting him, it certainly wasn't her. She could talk to him when they made it to safety; for now, they had better focus on getting there.

She'd meant to circle back to the park, but Senna was right: they should breathe first and check over their injuries. Wasn't zombie-ism contagious, or was that only when they ate your brain? Meche couldn't remember, and she didn't really want to.

"Right behind you," she said in assent to Senna's plan. When Meche actually ran, though, she was a few steps farther back than that. Her right ankle kept threatening to buckle under her, and she fell into an uneven gait that slowed her down without really doing much to ease the pain. She tried to keep an eye on their new companions, but it was tough to watch both them and Senna when zombies kept popping up like flowers out of a sproutella dart. Couldn't those things just go get a salad like everyone else?

Now that it was harder to outrun them, Meche really had to work to avoid getting bogged down in a mob of them again. If she just stopped long enough to get one good swing in with the duck and kept galloping, she could manage to keep Senna pretty clearly in her sights most of the time. She just had to keep it up for a couple of blocks.

[pleading-ngri.livejournal.com]

The crowds being thinner out here didn't mean much, other than that there was room to move and breathe, the latter helped by being clear of most of the heavy, oily smell of rotting bodies. Not being able to smell much was the one advantage to panting, Phoenix guessed, pausing long enough to knock back one of the lurching figures that had managed to get by Ken. The impact jarred the pincushioned knot lodged right in the middle of his arm and wrung a noise out of him that, between his teeth and the more urgent need to breathe (what was with that, anyway? he shouldn't still have been this winded) he managed to muffle down to a thin, startled grunt. Mercedes had fallen back again, and he paused long enough to be sure that she was actually catching up again - sure, they were both walking like old women with bad hips, but at least Phoenix had a shell-shocked but otherwise steady walker. She put on speed again, though, and there was an ebbing-back of the distress rising and falling in his chest in a strange, distant way, like the sound of the ocean from a distance. Everything seemed sort of fuzzy and unreal, really, like it does when you have a fever, but that didn't make any sense. He felt cold, if anything.

When the hotel loomed near the end of the block, he breathed a low, intent 'thank you,' to nothing more than the spot of not-quite-as-awful luck that had brought them there, and finally let go of Edgeworth long enough to make their way through the blasted doors and into the ruined lobby.