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Arrien rolled 1 100-sided dice:
22
Total: 22 (1-100)
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 Posted: Thu Dec 03, 2009 8:29 pm
It was that net. The same one that had stuck his weapon of choice was tangled around Sue's leg. And well... Sue hadn't actually seen the zombie himself at that point. So he'd fussed over it, not thinking much when Zeke brushed by him. Sue had had other things on his mind. Andeon's group of survivors - he really didn't know if a base of operations could be secure enough to be trusted with the lives of himself and his companions, not with how many zombies were on the loose. He didn't like Andeon in the first place, but if there was something they could use of theirs, then....
The first rude sounds of the scuffle reached him then. Sue's head jerked up, and he swore, surging forward to go help in the fight - but it was that damned net. He tripped, sprawled flat. It was tangled worse than ever, and had both his feet now. He rushed to free himself, but the rush only made it worse.
There was a noise like a slam. A noise like a squelch. A noise like a groan. And soon enough, a noise like a slow, steady drip. The sounds of scuffling had ended, replaced by screams.
Sue finally discarded the net and surged out of the equipment closet. There was nothing to help by then, though. Only a corpse - two, if you counted the zombie.
No question about what he was doing now. His attention honed in on Lucy, sucking at the blood and tearing into the stomach of what had, such a short time ago, been Ezekiel. He could hear her fingers, that sickening ripping sound as they tore past the skin and into Zeke's soft insides.
Were Sue a more crafty individual, he would have realized he had time to plan. Time to get the others, time to set up the rally, while Lucy was feeding, vulnerable. Done the smart thing.
But the sight of blood wasn't one that incited only zombies to the attack. Sue felt only the pulses of anger, fuzzing the edges of his vision and swallowing what should have been the natural fear response. When this one dropped, Sue swore silently, he wasn't just going to double-tap her. He was going to mangle her corpse beyond recognition, scatter the pieces; he was going to keep going until there was nothing left but a smear across the gymnasium. He was the oath of vengeance, the redemption of the damned, the wrath of ******** <********. YOUUUUUU," the boy howled, anguished and furious, as he rushed her. He slammed down his golf club over the zombie's head.
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Krysin rolled 1 100-sided dice:
44
Total: 44 (1-100)
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Posted: Thu Dec 03, 2009 9:32 pm
He was turning to Piper, to praise her as she needed to be praised for managing to find some items that could be of use to them, when he heard the screams. They weren't screams of shock, but of pain, and they nearly shattered him completely on spot. He froze for just a few seconds as the sounds sank in, his face paling considerably. The gym had seemed safe - why was there screaming? Sue had made it seem like it had been safe! There shouldn't be screaming! He dropped his companionable backpack to the ground unthinkingly, and didn't take the time to say a word to Piper as he ran out of the locker room with his tennis racket.
He was so far away, it seemed like he couldn't get there quick enough. Yahya could see Sue, Sue was getting up, running... running! His eyes followed him, settled on the sight of Zeke pinned to the wall, blood dripping to the floor, the javelin t-through... through, oh god. Oh no, no, nonono! That thing was gnawing on his teammate, tearing at his flesh to get to his insides, and the sight would have made him sick instantly if not for the overwhelming anger, the pain, horror, and sorrow at what was happening.
His throat tightened, a strangled sound between a cry of horror and a scream of anger pushing through the fortress of his lips. He was letting Zeke die. Zeke was dying, and he hadn't gotten there quick enough! He was lollygagging around in the locker rooms with Piper as his TEAMMATE WAS DYING. This was his fault. He hadn't heard anything, hadn't come quick enough to save Zeke from the zombie's grasp.
It made him, someone who would rather hurt himself than hurt anyone else (zombies included), really want to see a zombie go down. He had to take her out, she killed Zeke. Zeke. He hardly knew the boy, but Zeke was a person, a precious life, and she SNATCHED IT AWAY. She took away something that she had NO right to take.
His mind was slowly turning into a blank slate. Eliminate the danger. 'Don't let someone else die. You can't save Zeke now, but don't let someone else die, don't let another life slip away by your own carelessness.' Yahya came up behind Sue, swinging the tennis racket over his shoulder and at the zombie.
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Felyn rolled 1 100-sided dice:
66
Total: 66 (1-100)
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Posted: Thu Dec 03, 2009 10:10 pm
Piper was momentarily stunned, shocked into silence as that horrifying scream rang through the otherwise silent gymnasium. She was stock still, even as Yahya began to mobilize, her eyes widened as she watched him disappear around the row of lockers. Then, all of a sudden, it was as if a light switched on in her brain and she scrambled after him. Unfortunately, the mess she had left in her wake was not so easy to crawl over the second time and she found herself stumbling and tripping over books, old gym shorts and a dozen of others things scattered over the locker room floor.
She appeared on the scene behind both boys, stumbling in her frenzy to get there so quickly. Once she was there, however, she almost wished she'd stayed in the locker room. The last thing she wanted to see was a zombie making a meal of one of her best friends, one of the people that had saved her more on more than one occasion. She couldn't even make sense of the scene - all she saw was blood and Zeke in pain.
"Nooo," she breathed, trying hard not to hyperventilate as she pulled her rock up close, clutching it to her chest. She could feel the pinpricks of tears in her eyes, the feeling that was beginning to overwhelm her. She felt so useless. Then, all of a sudden, she realized she wasn't useless. She had her pet rock, and if she couldn't do anything, well.. at least he could! With a deep breath, she grabbed his leash and swung it in an arc before releasing it right towards Lucy's head with as much strength as she could manage - it was time to teach him how to be an attack rock.
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Posted: Fri Dec 04, 2009 11:35 pm
Lucy didn't care about the screams. Zeke's screams meant nothing to her, and invoked no response beyond the gurgling of blood rushing into her mouth as she tore at the flesh, gorging greedily. She had always scavenged, eating the remains of corpses long since dead, killed by other zombies and abandoned to the harsh 'ecosystem' of flesh-eating monsters. Having her own kill... it was a euphoria for her senses. She couldn't control the lust for blood, overwhelmed by the warmth of the flesh, how good it tasted, how much more alive she felt. So good...
She was so completely enraptured by her meal that she failed to see Sue rushing at her, golf club wielded like some holy sword of justice. It was not until she heard his cry that she jerked back from the body, hissing like some sort of wild animal protecting her kill. How dare he?! It was hers, HERS! The blow to her skull was glancing, but she let out a scream regardless, angry as opposed to hurt and immediately she was up, bringing back a clawed hand to swipe at him. She never got the chance. A second blow came, from Yahya this time, the racket cutting deep into her shoulder. Again she screamed, more frustrated than the last, one hand protectively on Zeke's corpse.
Despite the intense repeated attacks, it was Piper's blow that ended her. Lucy was too far gone to realize what the rock meant, watching as it arched through the air, crashing into the side of her skull with a sickening sound of bone breaking and the rock squelching deep into her brain. The blue-haired zombie let out a piercing scream, swaying where she stood for a second before she crashed to the floor in a pile of limbs and blood, body contorted at strange angles. Her one good eyes stared up at the scene, unseeing, staring with a glazed look at the body of Zeke.
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Interesting Conversationalist
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Posted: Sat Dec 05, 2009 3:42 am
Little zombie-bits spattered. Sue was pretty sure that was a piece of scalp hanging off Piper's pet rock. Lucy went down.
He didn't care.
"You ******** b***h, you <********> b***h!" Down came the club again, and a second time - that lacking the proper satisfaction, he took to kicking the fallen body. But venting on a corpse was less gratifying than Sue might have wanted to believe. His fury was used up, he wore out quickly. All that was left was an anger burning like a dull ember, and a rising sense of nausea.
Even so, Sue kept his gaze fixated on the unmoving corpse. He couldn't tolerate her there. He couldn't. Not while Zeke's body was so close - the body that Sue refused to look at, couldn't look at, not yet.
So he hooked his fingers on the back of Lucy's shirt, slickened by the disgusting goop of slimy tissues. He hauled her across the gym floor, leaving behind a trail of slight slickness, and tossed her right out the door Let one of her own kind come by, make a snack out of her if he was lucky. Sue didn't give a ********.
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Posted: Sat Dec 05, 2009 10:32 am
They had managed to take down the zombie, and Yahya could only watch in muted horror as the corpse was beaten over and over again by Sue. Usually he would have said something, tried to get Sue to stop when what Sue was doing was so plainly pointless. But he didn't have the strength for that. With the zombie felled, the true horror began to sink in. Zeke was... dead. He died in their care, underneath their noses. They were in the same area, same ROOM as him, and they couldn't save him! His body was already being made a zombie meal by the time they reached the scene.
His orange eyes shot over to Zeke's motionless body, and it almost had him retching all over the floor. He couldn't look, not for longer than a second. Maybe someone else could, but Yahya sure as hell couldn't. Someone would have to do something about Zeke's body... Yahya was already crumpling down onto the floor in pain and grief. He buried his face into his knees and screamed.
It wasn't the smartest, nor the manliest thing to do, but it was all Yahya could do to relieve the torrent of emotion that was tearing him apart. He screamed and he cried on the outside, and on the inside he apologized, apologized hundreds of times over for failing Zeke, for letting him die. It wasn't enough. No apology would bring Zeke back (as a human, anyways). They had lost him, it was their fault, Yahya's fault.
There was no hope for Yahya drawing himself out of his grief anytime soon, he couldn't even get up off the floor to check up on his squirrels and Columbus. It didn't matter, they'd likely end up dead in his care too.
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Posted: Sat Dec 05, 2009 11:29 am
Piper grimaced slightly as she watched Sue's overkill bludgeoning, wincing every time the club came down and landed with a wet squelch on the body of what had probably once been a very sweet girl. They had all once been nice people. For a moment she just stared at the scene before her, cheeks tear-stained and her body rigid with horror, until Sue began to drag the body of the zombie out of the gym. She didn't even think to ask him to retrieve her pet rock.
Once it was out of sight, it was if fluidity was returned to her limbs all at once, and she ran in a stumbling sprint towards the scene of the crime. She paused next to Yahya where he was crumpled on the floor, her brows drawing down as she turned them up to Zeke in silence. Wasn't anyone going to get him down? Zeke couldn't just stay there like that! If no one else was going to do it, then she supposed it was all up to her. Her face turned grim, but she raised her chin and purposefully avoided looking at the mangled gut of her friend. 'I can be strong, I can be strong' was all she repeated to herself, over and over in her head.
With a deep breath, Piper stepped forward, her small body standing before the gutted one of her friend where it was pinned to the wall. This was a hard task for her to accomplish on her own, but despite the blood now smeared over the javelin, she wrapped her tiny hands around the shaft and tried her best to yank it out of the wall. The zombie had wedged it in with a strength that was more than human and Piper was just one small girl - it felt like she was trying to pull a sword from stone. Her hands were sliding off the javelin from the blood, making the task neigh impossible, and tears of both frustration and grief were beginning to leave trails down her cheeks. Still, she pulled and pulled, though she became increasingly frantic as she realized it might be a fruitless effort. She had to get Zeke down, she couldn't just leave him up there like a scarecrow for the birds to pick at. She gave it one last hard yank, her feet sliding with a screech across the floor beneath her in her effort and her eyes squeezed shut in concentration. Finally, it gave way.
Piper was thrown to the floor roughly, falling on her backside. Zeke and the javelin came tumbling down in a heap, with the javelin's wood making a resounding clatter throughout the gym. Still, she'd done it, even if it was without an ounce of grace, and that was really all that mattered to her in the end. "There, I got you down, Zeke" she murmured, her tears free flowing as she crawled on her knees towards his body, and her bloodied hands leaving smears on the gym floor in her wake. She reached his head first and pulled him up by the shoulder, dragging his torso into her lap as she buried her head against his shoulder, like she'd done when he and Sue had saved her from the fire. It seemed so long ago, especially now when she was cradling his mangled body. She wrapped her small arms around him, trying to crush him into her as she sobbed brokenly into his shoulder. "You said.. we'd race hamster balls," she managed through her tears, even as her hands curled tighter into his ripped shirt.
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Posted: Sat Dec 05, 2009 3:25 pm
Once the matter of the zombie corpse was taken care of, Sue found himself suddenly in a very trying position. Because the pretenses were gone. He didn't have distractions. There was just him... the room... the corpse... and his grieving teammates.
There were a few seconds where he thought that maybe, just maybe, if he tried focusing on his teammates first - tried building them up, tried bringing them down, rallied them, comforted them, got them to focus again on the necessary task of survival - it would be easier. But then Piper got Zeke off the wall. Yahya was screaming. And Sue realized that he was small, so damn small, so feeble. He was helpless, worthless to them.
From where he stood near the gym doors, one hand reached forward without his will. Don't do that, Piper, was the thought flickering through his mind. You'll get blood all over your clothes. The thought passed, and the hand returned to his side.
"... It's this damn school," he mumbled after a few seconds. Then his volume picked up. "******** this place. <********> this place!"
His golf club came around again, and with a resounding BAMMM, went careening off the gym wall. Where it had struck was a good-sized dent. Sue could feel the reverbations all up and down the bones of his arms, rattling and shaking - but that was nothing compared to the way his hands themselves were trembling. He set his teeth, and did it again. And again, more quickly. Then he started shouting, punctuating every third syllable with another slam against the wall.
"You think you've won?! You think you've ******** won? YOU'VE WON s**t. You've won s**t!" He hit too hard that time. The club bounced out of his grip and went far from his hands, clattering noisily against the floor, sliding several yards away.
But Sue wasn't done. More than anything, he yearned to keep hammering at the wall - with his fists, now that the club were out of reach. But even as he was forming the fist, he knew he'd break his hand in the attempt. And he stopped. Because he still had too much, too much that needed him....
One of the cats - Stripers, some voice chimed in Sue's head - spoke up. They'd made a lot of noise, she reminded him. Things would hear it. Things would come.
They should go, Mackie agreed.
Sue's eyes slid over to Piper and Yahya. They weren't... they couldn't be ready to leave yet. Feeling his whole body shaking, Sue was certain that he wasn't even ready to go. And so they couldn't be ready to go. He couldn't rip them away so quickly, no matter what common sense said. He couldn't break them when they were so fragile....
Except that if he didn't, something else would come by and rip them up worse. They could have their moment of grief somewhere else, in a little while. Here and now, though....
Sue retrieved his club. It was slightly bent, rather dinged up, but still heavy and dangerous. "Pack it up. We've got to run." Sue had never hated the sound of his voice so much as at that moment.
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Posted: Sat Dec 05, 2009 4:41 pm
His screams died away in favor of sobs, but at least when he wasn't screaming he could hear what was going on around him. He wouldn't look, couldn't stand the sight of what was going on around him. Piper had passed him, he knew that much, and maybe she was the one with enough strength to take care of Zeke's body. He knew as much that he did not possess enough strength of will himself. What Piper did exactly, he did not know. Maybe she was getting Zeke down and properly laying him out. Yahya didn't have a clue what they did with the bodies of their fallen comrades. Something nice should be done... but he couldn't bring himself to do it.
Sue was fighting against something, but by the sounds of it it wasn't another zombie, and so Yahya didn't move. If it was a zombie, there was still a good chance he wouldn't move from his spot on the floor. There was a brief period of silence, and then Sue spoke up again. Yahya heard him, but did not listen. He said something but Yahya couldn't recall what. He lifted his head, his gaze carefully staying away from the general direction of Zeke and Piper, and stared at Sue, uncomprehending.
It was clear he wasn't moving. It looked like Piper would be just as unwilling to leave Zeke's body. His gaze lingered for only a few seconds, his eyes shining with tears, before again he looked away, buried his face back into his knees. His body shook with grief, and he gave in to the urge to cry, to spill his tears until he had none left to give up.
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Posted: Sat Dec 05, 2009 7:05 pm
Somewhere in the distance, Piper heard a terrible clamor. She had to assume it was Sue beating something else in his anger - or maybe a blacksmith. The first option made a lot more sense, she had to admit. In any case, until it became an immediate issue, she just clung to Zeke's unmoving body and refused to look. She knew the time would come when Sue would come back and demand that they leave, and she wanted to hold on for as long as she could. She didn't want to be separated from one of her best friends.
She jerked as she heard the clatter of the golf club as it slid across the floor. Her head came up just in time to see Sue stalking over, her puffy eyes watching him come closer. As he spoke, she let out a soft sob, her arms pulling Zeke tighter to her. "I don't want to go yet," she said weakly, leaning her head down against his, her cheek resting against his bright blue hair. Deep down she knew that Sue was right, though, and they couldn't stay here any longer. If nothing else, the smell of Zeke was going to attract other zombies and if she lost Sue or Yahya.. well, she'd rather not think about that. She could only pull so many speared friends down from walls in one day.
"I'm sorry Zeke, I've gotta go," she said softly, lifting her head and giving his hair a soft stroke, frowning slightly as some of the blood on her hands stained the radiant blue. She had to disentangle her arms from him, slowly laying him back down on the floor, albeit awkwardly with how the javelin was still sticking through his stomach. She sniffed and reached to wipe at her face, then realized that her hands were stained red with Zeke's blood and stopped. Ever so slowly, she pushed herself up to a standing position and tried her hardest to stop crying. Zeke wouldn't want her to cry anymore.
"Come on Yahya," she said, walking towards her crumpled friend. She held out her hand to him, then withdrew it quickly as she saw the shocking red again. "We need to go somewhere safe."
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Posted: Sat Dec 05, 2009 7:42 pm
Piper was up, Yahya was down. Those logistics worked well enough for Sue, though. "Piper." Sue put a hand on her shoulder. The gesture wasn't one he'd give often, but right now, at this moment, he could afford a bit of human contact. He didn't smile - that would be fake - and he didn't hug - that would be forced - but he said what he thought would be the most comfort to her at that moment; "I've got it from here."
He approached Yahya. Pep talks, Sue had none of. That was fine; he didn't have any time to give them anyway. But a strong back that could support a friend when they couldn't walk for themselves? C'mon. That was practically all he had, when it came to social skills.
Stooping down, not bothering with an explanation or permission, Sue pulled Yahya's arms over his shoulders and hoisted him up on his back. Sue was tired - very tired after that violent explosion of his, actually - but they just needed to get to that math room Andeon had told them about....
But they were missing a few members, weren't they? There was Yahya's backpack in the locker room, plus whatever food and water they'd found....
The cats were already on it. Somehow. Maybe they sensed the need, or maybe it was Columbus crying after being so rudely dropped that called to them. Into the locker room went Stripers, Mackie and Nibs. When they came out again, Mackie was hauling Columbus by the scruff of the neck, and each feline had a baby squirrel attached to its back.
It would have been a touching display of interspecies caring, if it weren't through such a bloody scene.
"Piper, get a bag with whatever food and water you found. Don't worry about packing, just grab and go." A beat passed, and then Sue said something that nobody could have ever imagined: "Please."
Trying times made strangers of us all, it seemed.
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Posted: Sat Dec 05, 2009 7:57 pm
He looked up to Piper, and seeing her bloodied clothes, let alone a bloody hand reaching out to him, almost sent him into a state of shock. His body froze, the tears halting for the time being as he stared at her, stared at that hand. That was Zeke's blood, Zeke's life-force in her hand... oh god. Piper withdrew her hand in time for no real harm to have been done, but Yahya was still shocked by the sight. "I..." He wasn't think about Columbus, or the squirrels. He was thinking about how he couldn't leave, Zeke was still here... he wasn't alive, but Yahya didn't want his body to become zombie food. He couldn't leave! He didn't have the strength, the will to...
Yahya unfurled his limbs as Sue stooped down in front of him, not quite understanding what his friend was doing, and not sure how to respond himself other than making an attempt to move back. At least he was thinking about moving again, but in the end he didn't. He let Sue grab his arms, let the other hoist him up against his back to carry him. Yahya found the strength to wrap his arms around Sue's next, it wasn't like he could protest in his current state anyways. So he held on, subconsciously trying to make himself less of a dead weight against his friend.
"Piper..." He didn't want her to leave, didn't want her out of his sight in case he lost her too. Sue was sending her off to get... his stuff. The student began to think again, enough to realize that he had ditched the kitten Sue had put under his care, and his baby squirrels. He felt sick, so he buried his face against his friend's shoulder, sucking in a quick breath to calm him. "S-Sue..." he choked on his friend's name, trying to say something, but he couldn't. His moment of clarity was fading away in his grief, in his realization that he couldn't speak the final teammate's name because he was gone.
He cried, wetting his friend's shoulder. But then again Sue's shirt probably did need a good washing. "I-I'm so sorry..." and it was clear who he was saying it to.
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Posted: Sat Dec 05, 2009 8:29 pm
Piper blinked a few times in rapid succession, completely out of surprise, as she felt the hand laid on her shoulder. Her head turned to look at Sue and her brows lifted in wonder, before she simply nodded and stepped back. If Sue said he was going to take care of it, then Piper trusted him to take care of it. She hadn't expected it of him, but she felt reassured by it, even if she couldn't explain why. She just did. It was a small pleasure in an ocean of sorrow.
She stood a couple of feet away, staring down at Sue and Yahya, her arms wrapped tightly around her now blood-stained shirt. Everything about her was blood-stained at this point - from her pants to her hair - and mostly from Zeke, although a little had been there from the bite she had sustained on her shoulder. She watched in silence as Sue picked Yahya up, her eyes widening a little in surprise and her feet even moving half a step forward as if she were afraid he might drop him. Once he had him securely over his shoulders though, she wrapped her arms back around herself and waited for whatever Sue wanted her to do. The best way to distract herself was to follow orders, and Sue was good at giving those.
When the orders finally came though, Piper felt her heart sinking. Go back to the locker room? She turned and stared at the doorway she had stumbled through to get to Zeke, knowing that being in there in the first place was what had led to his death. What if she went in there again and Sue and Yahya died? She opened her mouth to beg him not to make her go, but then that one little word came out. Please. "Only for you Sue," she said softly, trying hard not to let the tears start welling up again. She was so tired, tired of crying, and besides that Yahya was crying enough for all three of them. With a sigh, she turned her back on her friends and began a slow walk back towards the locker room, disappearing inside to finish gathering everything she and Yahya had been searching for.
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