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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[Second Floor - Random Room]

[winged_moon]

Although the barricade against the door was the best that they could manage with the furnishings in the room, and was likely to hold for at least a little while, Yue still wasn't entirely pleased with it. He was studying the makeshift structure with a small frown, imagining he could already hear zombies in the hallway trying to open the door, when he suddenly found himself being manhandled into the bathroom.

Getting cleaned up wasn't exactly something he'd protest, but wasn't there time for that once they weren't in danger? Or rather, once Sakura wasn't in danger. He glanced back over his shoulder toward his mistress, then toward Fai, his frown deepening, but before he could say anything he was pushed rather unceremoniously into the bathroom.

[dropping down to here]

[Second Floor - Random Room]

[not-rly-fai.livejournal.com]

Even with the furniture pressed against the thin wooden door, it was difficult to feel safe. He could still hear them, not far away, but he tried to smile and put on a brave face instead of letting on just how frightening the whole thing was. If it was enough to shake him, what about a child like Sakura?

Yue and Touya left to get cleaned up and Yuuhi couldn't really say he blamed them. Doing something normal, even if it was just going through the motions, would probably help. He glanced over to Sakura, looking concerned for a moment.

"That was a pretty close call," he tried, after a bit of silence. The other two were probably having a conversation in the other room, but it was hard to hear anything specific. He didn't really want to invade their privacy anyway. "Lucky we all found each other though, right?"

Not that it'd really been luck. And as he tried to push himself up from the floor, he could feel pounding on the other side of the door. Did the dead know they were here? He took an apprehensive step back, but kept himself between Sakura and the door. Maybe if they kept quiet enough, they'd give up and continue on.