NIGHTSHIFT 42: BLACK ROCK HOTEL

[stiffserpent.livejournal.com]

Snake jerked his head away from Fox's hand and shot to his feet, disorientated slightly by the sudden shift. The grout in the tiles was black with what looked like old blood, and the stench of rot heaved in his throat. Something was badly wrong. He sensed threats - left, faint shapes in the dark outside the large windows - Fox - something creaking in the ceiling - a long groaning voice off to the right, past the walls - and something moving in the back of the room -

It staggered towards him, and before he fully knew what he was doing he ripped the match from the book and struck it with his left hand alone, popped the cap off the hairspray, and blasted a tongue of flame at the aggressor, aiming for its face. He saw, in the flickering light, long hair and long nails and the skin on its rotten face peeling and cracking and bubbling in the heat. It gave a long, screaming cry, and toppled to the floor. Its arms and legs writhed and kicked furiously, an automatic, animal gesture, before it finally lay still.

"Here?" he snapped at Fox, wrapping his fingers around the can of hairspray. "This place gets better and better. It's like a theme park." His voice quaked with anger. The place now stunk of something far worse than rotten meat, and for a fraction of a second he thought he could hear Big Boss's voice saying something he couldn't make out before he realised that it had come from inside his own head.

"At least I don't have to be the only thing here back from the dead," he growled. The woman zombie was leaking something he didn't want to think about. He guessed that the decomposition must have trapped methane and other flammable gasses inside the body, hence why it went up like a candle.

That said, he didn't really think he could burn anything else again. For a while.

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[high-prosecutor.livejournal.com]

While the others were working on getting the doors barricaded, Edgeworth decided to get started on trying to get medical supplies together. It was hard, though, leaving Phoenix like that. Miles knew him well enough to know that he was running on adrenaline alone at this point, and that wouldn't last much longer. It wouldn't be a pretty crash, and there wasn't the luxury of enough privacy to quietly fall apart.

With that - and a single moment's thought that it would have been nice for them to leave the electricity on if they were going to send waves of the undead at the Institute's population, because at least then there would be enough light to work by when cleaning up the damage - he moved in the direction of another set of double doors, breathing a quiet sigh of relief when he found that they led to a kitchen. Right. First aid kit first, and we can come back for knives or other weaponry if we need them. He involuntarily shuddered at the thought of actually stabbing one of the creatures. It reminded him of one too many murder cases, and a body that never should have wound up in the trunk of his car.

He scanned the area, quickly finding a first-aid kit, then moved back out into the main dining room area. There were a few tables with clean linens, and Miles took a few tablecloths to use as bandaging material, then began setting up shop, as it were, against a wall that was equidistant from both sets of doors. "Once you think the tables are going to hold, all of you, over here."

[rectifies.livejournal.com]

There was an intake of breath as Ken realized, but in the end, he kept the observation to himself. Survival right now was most important; no matter how ill Phoenix appeared, assessment could wait until they were momentarily safe. If they were safe. Surely a few pieces of furniture would only hold bodies out for so long...

Ken clamped a fist over a chair as if to kill the thought and immediately brought it over to where the younger of the two women was setting the table. His other hand grabbed another on the way, figuring two at once would better pass for effort. Using what little knowledge he had of police thrillers, he jammed the back of one chair directly under the door knobs, pivoting the legs in a way that created a makeshift crutch. The other he left standing nearby.

But as much as he knew to grab the other table, the second glance shifted his direction, and the boy found himself at the man's side. Worry seeped into his expression. "Wright-san?" he muttered. "Are you... Are you all right?" Obviously not, but exactly how much was the boy's aim.

[pleading-ngri.livejournal.com]

Knight? Phoenix was so used to people mangling his name, to either humorous or derogatory effect, that it took him a second to realize that the label was a backhanded sort of compliment. "Um- thanks," he replied, flattered and a little self-conscious at once, weaving out of the way of the table. It wasn't until the proximity made him aware of the figure at his elbow that Phoenix glanced down at Ken, eyebrows lifting at the question. The boy had been quiet since the shop,understandably, but it meant that he hadn't expected much in the way of conversation from him. Definitely not questions.

"I'm . ." Even if the thought of blurting an automatic, defensive 'fine' hadn't sent that faint, creeping sensation of cold metal slithering up an ankle, it was hard to lie to Ken. He was a smart kid. Even if lying to him wouldn't have been more difficult, it would have felt wrong. With everything it seemed like he'd been through already, he deserved the truth, at least. "Yeah, it hurts. But I'll be fine," he answered, sounding far more certain than he really was. As discreetly as he could, he pocketed his hand, which was still slowly paling in a way that even seeing was sickening. Taking the weight off the limb helped, and for a second gave him a reprieve from the cycle of alternating pain and restlessness.

He didn't try to be discreet when his eyes traveled down searchingly, then back up, but Ken seemed like he was doing alright, at least on the lack-of-injury front. Phoenix loosed a quiet breath, relieved. He was in one piece. Edgeworth, as far as he could tell, was in one piece. Mercedes and Senna were at least in moving-and-talking shape. It had been a fair trade, he told himself,and that made it a little easier to bite back the increasingly-urgent itching just under his gums, the bright panic that flashed like firecrackers through the sluggish haze of exhaustion and injury. He was getting too tired to focus on anything very well, and while that was good - his brain kept slipping off of the terror and disgust that came with remembering he'd been clubbing people in the head, that it was horrible, that he'd seen people put to the death penalty for things he'd just done repeatedly - it was also dangerous, in that every time he tore his eyes away from an unclothed, uninjured patch of healthy, smooth skin on his companions, it was a little more difficult.

Taking a step away from the doors, Phoenix managed a little, valiant quirk of a smile in the darkness, reaching down and squeezing Ken's shoulder encouragingly. "We're all going to be fine," he murmured, more promise than reassurance. He was still a moment, as if trying to give the words a moment to sink in for Ken (for both of them), to take root and become real. Then he patted his back a little, more subdued, taking a second to avert his eyes - and clench his molars together - which helped, if very briefly. "Come on," he murmured, once he was sure he had half a minute where he wouldn't need to grind his teeth, leading Ken toward the middle of the near wall where the first aid setup seemed to be forming. "Let's make it easier for Senna to not run us over." He glanced over his shoulder, seeing that the barricade seemed well on its way and was more than fortifiable if something started banging at the doors, then ahead at Edgeworth.

Walking had gotten harder since the flight down North Street, and Phoenix reached for a chair once he got within arm's-reach of Edgeworth, pulling it closer and slumping down onto the seat gratefully. He was glad there wasn't anything anything mirrorlike around here - if he felt like this, he didn't want to know how he looked. He tried to navigate his hand back out of his pocket, clenched into a fist, and couldn't swallow back the low noise of pain that moving the joints of his arm startled out of him. His eyes were closed, he realized a second later, pressed tight as he breathed through his teeth with an attempted minimum of tight, gutteral noises on the exhales. He wished the room wasn't so comparatively quiet. He wouldn't have been able to tell how badly he was failing.

"Just- over the jacket," he asked, voice tight and low with the strain of holding the screaming muscles up, cracking open an eye to watch Edgeworth.

[windstwilight.livejournal.com]

Something in her was charmed. She grinned at Phoenix. "No problem!" The table she had went firmly against the doors; a nod given to Meche for the moment. The process repeated, one turned to three and three to five, and as six was contemplating seven, she decided it was good. If they had to leave in a hurry from here, it would take long enough to clear it. As it was, only a nice-sized group of zombies would be able to make it through, and the noise from the tables scraping, if they were successful, would alert them in time.

This was logic. Logic hadn't really been hanging out with her this night. Senna drew a hand across her forehead, exhaling, then gave a small smile to Meche. It was nowhere near her normal bright and charming grins, but it was genuine in its affection. "Gonna get your ankle looked over?" she asked as they headed towards the guys.

The two that were with Mister Gentleman Knight seemed okay physically. But there was definitely something up with the guy himself. If Meche and her both hadn't been bitten and had nothing happen, Senna would have said it was a reaction to the bite. But it didn't seem like these were those type of zombies. Something like discomfort flitted through her. She tried to cover it up, like she always did. "So, our past-due introductions. I'm Senna, this is Meche, and we all have bad timing when we choose to shop."

The joke was flat, and she didn't expect anything. She eyed Phoenix instead. "Are you going to be okay?"

[sheisthecause.livejournal.com]

Meche let go of the doors and shifted to helping Senna put the tables against them. The repetitive motions were slightly reassuring. They could make it through the night like this, and then--and then what? She'd never heard about anything like this happening before. Would they just end up back in their rooms at the Institute as always? Either way, Meche reasoned, morning had always brought safety here. She'd have to hope that would still be true tomorrow.

She carefully wiped her face again with the least gory patch of the cardigan and joined Senna on the way over to the man with the first aid kit. She was still favoring that ankle, but the blood had mostly dried by now. "Once you get your arm taken care of," she replied. "But if you're still holding up all right, let's get Phoenix squared away first. He looks..." Meche didn't keep going, but if she had, she might have admitted, "worse by the second." It was his arm, she saw as they got closer. The way he was holding it made it easy to tell. It must be a deep bite, maybe more than one. Meche couldn't quite push back the little wave of guilt that realization brought on.

He looked like he was having trouble keeping his eyes open. She offered the least half-hearted smile she could muster to his companions and added dryly, "Nice to meet you, although next time we should really pick a better night to go out on the town." The crack was as flat as Senna's, but that hint of bravado cut a little of the tension Meche was feeling. Better than crying, anyway. She took a seat a few chairs down from Phoenix and kept an eye on him--as long as the other man had the ability to treat that arm, she sensed that it would be better to let him handle it.