Nightshift 42: Hal's Used Cars

[fencing-captain.livejournal.com]

[from here]

The business had been open when the changeover happened, so the doors were unlocked. Juri pushed them open with one of her feet. It was too quiet as she stepped into the dark showroom. It wasn't as big as she expected such things to be, but silent cars surrounded the offices. The stench of the dead filled the air though. Her ears didn't catch any sound of movement, other than her schoolmate, but that meant nothing.

"There have to be some in here," she told Utena. "Get ready."

From behind one of the cars, two zombies shuffled toward them. "Leave us alone!" Juri screamed and charged at the monsters with both of her makeshift weapons. They had to get rid of them long enough to find the keys and take one of the cars.

Comments

[revolutionise]

Utena nodded and gave a vaguely committal sound. She kept the poker up as she would her sword, keeping a careful eye out for moving shadows where there ought not to have been any. She brushed against the ruined wall with the back of her hand at one point and shivered with dull revulsion. Thankfully, she eventually found her way over to a front desk of sorts, and behind it was a door that still looked official enough despite the decay. Hopping up and over the low gate, she made her way over to the door. Not surprisingly, it was locked. What did startle her, however, was the sudden loud sound of groaning behind it after she tried the knob. Salespeople who were in there when the change happened? Maybe Zombie Hal himself? Utena wondered warily.

"Damn," she said, chewing the side of her lip lightly as she turned around, looking for Juri. It was hard to tell where her schoolmate was right away in the dark. "Juri, I think I found the office, but it looks like we'll have some trouble if we try to go in there!" she called out, hoping that she was yelling in the right direction. "You find anything else that might help yet?"

[toxicspiderman]

S.T. jogged over to the showroom door. It opened without a fight. He didn't leave the door -- sneaking up on anyone tonight would go well beyond the bounds of asshole. Besides, if it was the lesbian ninjas again, he needed his hands. Though it didn't look like them. He cleared his throat.

"Excuse my sexist ass, but do you ladies need a hand?"

[fencing-captain.livejournal.com]

The search of the wall wasn't turning up anything useful. "Right!" she called back to Utena. "I'm not finding anything either." Including horrible undead wanting to eat them. That was a benefit, she supposed.

She reached a corner and turned reluctantly back to join Utena. She supposed they'd have to search the cars next. Then someone came into the door. Juri raised her poker and crouched, facing the door. What was this?

"Who are you?"

[OOC: Pardon Juri's attitude. I'm glad to see you.]

[revolutionise]

Utena tensed for a moment as well at the unexpected male voice addressing them, but relaxed more readily than did Juri. She kept her poker up, but more for any other zombie attackers. "We want to get one of these cars going, but the sales office sounds full of not-so-friendly types," she explained, ignoring Juri's defensive question. "Don't know how much you can help with that, though."

[toxicspiderman]

"Sangamon Taylor, hotwire specialist and all-around not-idiot." What was it with cars that turned even smart girls into blithering morons? He stopped that thought before it could gain momentum. He was close to the point of not just missing Debbie, but missing her inability to follow the simplest instructions when it came to basic maintenance.

"Who the fuck needs keys to start a car? Pick one. Preferably outside, unless the part where you drive through a plate-glass window is non-negotiable." It would look kind of cool. Burst through the window, like some all-girl reenactment of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. But having to backtrack for a fresh car with an unbroken windshield would spoil the coolness factor faster the hyperactive town-blight that had hit this whole place between one breath in and one out.

He held the door open. "After you."

[fencing-captain.livejournal.com]

With a glare at Utena--she was too mature to roll her eyes--Juri straightened up and lowered her poker enough that it didn't seem quite as much of a threat. Then she nodded and walked back out like it was her idea. Even in this horrible skirt and t-shirt from the Institute's rag bag, she could look graceful.

"Thank you, I'm Juri." she said belatedly over shoulder. The outside air didn't really smell that much better, but something about not having that rot confined made it much easier to breath. "I don't particularly care which car."

[revolutionise]

Utena breathed a sigh of relief knowing that they wouldn't have to deal with keys to get a car going. "Thanks a lot. We're glad for the help. I'm Utena, by the way," she said, following Juri quickly to the door. Suddenly, she was feeling self-concious of her ridiculously pink skirt again; combined with not appearing to know that much about cars and her age, the getup made her look a lot more feminine and helpless than she really was.

They made their way out to the lot and Utena looked over the cars, trying to figure out which one looked the most secure. Despite herself, her eyes kept going back to a late 90s model red sedan. She supposed it was a sense of familiarity and homesickness that was doing it, even though the car wasn't the same type as the one she had seen around Ohtori campus. "That one's as good as any," said Utena as they got closer to the car. 

[toxicspiderman]

And they never said what they meant. Women. Whatever. Red suburban housewife grocery-mobile it was. He strolled over and tried the door. Open, no alarm. That saved him a lot of trouble. And the panel didn't require a screwdriver he didn't have. That saved a hell of a lot more.

"It's simple. Pop this panel off here." He pointed to Juri, since she looked less invested in the whole car plan. "You can make sure we don't end up as zombie kibble while I figure out what the color scheme is under here." Somewhere along the line, car wiring harness design had sacrificed clarity for a false veneer of security. Went with the wood trim. The ability to slow down potential thieves for thirty seconds or so had trumped the simplicity of red=hot, and so on. Either that or the designer was colorblind.

S.T. yanked a handful of wires free and stared at them. No wire cutter. Eh, a mouthful of lead solder wasn't going to kill him today. He stripped the wires with his teeth, holding them carefully clear of each other when he got to the ones he thought were live.

"When you turn the key, it completes a circuit. All we're doing is skipping the middleman." He connected two wires. Nothing. "Like this." The second pair was the auxiliary power -- the dash lit up and the windshield wipers came on, plastic squeaking over safety glass. Then another two, and the engine drowned out the noise with a dull roar.

"That's all there is. Keep those two pairs of wires together and you're in business." He twisted the insulated sections together, and dropped both pairs. The ends fell apart, and the car went quiet. "Find something to hold those together. And don't touch the wires with bare hands." The latter should go without saying, but not everyone could be Sangamon Taylor. Or even versed in basic electrical theory.

"Now, are you sure you two'll be okay on your own?" He looked back to where Spider was dicking around with something on the car. They could take two more -- two guys, two gals, a couple of cars and quiet small-town streets. It had all of the trappings of an entirely different movie genre. Well, and Spider. Self-described acute victim chronic sex deprivation. On second thought, the zombies would only eat his brains. These two would quite possibly kick him in the nuts just on general principle alone since he had shown up with Spider.

[heading back to here after being turned down]

[fencing-captain.livejournal.com]

Juri watched what he did. When did he think she'd need another reason to steal a car. "Thank you," she said, trying to be gracious at the last. When he vacated, she sat in the driver's seat and slipped the sleeve of her flimsy jacket over her hand to twist the wires back together. She hissed at the heat even through that.

"Utena, do you have anything that can hold these together?" Juri's poker and candlestick were sitting outside the car beside her.

[revolutionise]

Utena watched attentively until S.T. was done. While she doubted she would ever need to know how to hotwire anything else again, it was still something she had never seen done before, and thus it was interesting.

She got in the passenger side after Juri. "Not sure," she responded to Juri's question, looking over the inside of the car quickly. The last thing her eyes landed on was her own skirt, and suddenly, Utena had an idea. "Hang on a sec," she said, gripping the bottom of the white material where there weren't any thick seams to contend with. With a bit of effort, she got it to rip, and within a minute, she had two strips of white fabric off one side of the skirt. "That should do," said Utena, handing the strips to Juri. "Just wrap them around and tie them off."

[fencing-captain.livejournal.com]

Well, that was a direct solution. Juri took the strips and tied them around the wires, knotting the thick cloth as firmly as she could. She lay her poker and candlestick across her lap then and closed the car door. "This might be bumpy," she cautioned and put the car into reverse.

[revolutionise]

Utena had to grin a little bit as she watched Juri tie the fabric around the wires. Even if it wasn't much, she liked to think that she had taken a little revenge against her stupid, floofy skirt. She would have been tempted to throw the thing off altogether if that didn't mean running around Zombieville in her underwear.

"Figured as much," she said as the pulled out of the dealership, already plowing into a few approaching zombies as they headed out onto North Street.

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