|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
 Posted: Tue May 24, 2016 8:45 am
Quote: bad moon rising--1700 wednesday may 18The time is 1700 hours, and a man has just turned into a ******** monster right before your eyes. Or rather, not before your eyes, but close enough that you probably could've seen him become a monster if something hadn't gotten in your way.
That's not the problem, though. The problem is the cordon of state police outside the library: who knows why. There are bleeding people in here, dead people, but until the scene is provably secure not one of the law enforcement personnel can enter. You could've left in the first rush of panic, but you didn't.
Why didn't you leave?
The cozy, uplifting feeling that was being an upstanding salesman for his workplace had been shaken. A man resistant to even slight changes against his favor could only do so much when the foundation was ripped apart. It was ground ******** zero in a world that he'd only recently been told could be more than what it seemed, and now that healthy skepticism had been metaphorically, literally, been slapped in the face.
Dawson Grace was something of a slow man. Slow to anger, but also sometimes slow to act, slow on the uptake, slow in understanding exactly what the mess of panic was around him. Could a man (a monster?) really do so much damage so quickly? Where was Mrs. Potosi? What was being squashed under his body? (The Sweet Spot goods, as it turned out.) Wait, why was he on the floor? Where was everyone running? Why was the world spinning? Had he actually just seen maybe, he didn't know, a really big dog gone wild? His brain sputtered for a multitude of reasons, but threaded throughout it was an escalating fear sympathetic to those around him.
One, after all, couldn't help but break into cold sweat at the sounds of screams and the smell of blood.
The short answer is this:
That quite simply, he was robbed of the option to leave.
A head blow knocked Dawson clean off his feet and too dazed too act. Before he knows it, before he can coherently articulate get me out get me out GET ME OUT PLEASE, there are hands coming around him and the faces of two women he had only just spoken to, like just five minutes ago before the world suddenly went to hell in a hand basket--But he doesn't leave. He's forced to stay and joke that it's a silver lining women would want to touch a car hobo like him instead of break out into tears, because that wouldn't be very manly at all. God forbid these strangers think him the coward he truly was.
348 words
|
 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Tue May 24, 2016 9:48 am
Quote: blood and guts--1830 wednesday may 18The time is 1830 hours, and the first of the casualties has arrived from the crew clearing the upstairs. Oh, there have been civilians, two of them. There's been the woman now sitting near-catatonic near the stairs, cradling a bloody bundle and tended by a nursing student. But this one. This one is really ******** up, and the men and women tending him speak only in hushed whispers.
The police still haven't let you out.
How are you doing? Are you okay?
s**t, what if this got national news? His family would be begging and ordering him to get back home, and then what? Just pretend he didn't witness a monster go ape s**t and hadn't as he was right now, started applying booth t-shirts to wounds like he was a nurse of any sort? Dawson was still reeling from the casual information overload he'd just received from several people; he was definitely not going to be meeting any expectation of accepting this just as easily in lieu of the situation. Hell, his eyes were welling up with tears just like the rest of them--for being stuck in this situation with no preparation, no idea how this was going to end up, if he'd even get out alive. The best he could do was continue to act under other people's orders and pray under his breath that these Ashdown people knew what they were doing.
Or, if all else failed, that someone was watching out for these poor injured people. 'Cause he sure as hell was two steps away from curling up in terror himself.
277 words
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Wed May 25, 2016 9:01 am
Quote: waiting--1830 wednesday may 18The police are slow to believe the efforts of the negotiating team. Insisting that help is required has no impact on the negotiator from the state troopers, and the CDC requires evidence of hypertrichosis before it'll clear the area from suspicion of being a biological attack site.
You're getting by, but how? What keeps your mind off things, if anything does?
On one younger patient (and younger is relative to someone like Dawson, who thinks anyone who still has to say teen in their age is still a kid), he's inspired to try something. "Who can say where the road goes..."
The young girl wheezes a laugh. (Good.) "Oh my God. It's like that stupid vine, the one...This guy does something freaking stupid, and it fades to black and white, and the music plays all sadly..."
"Yeah? You saw that?"
"You saw that? What are you, thirty?"
"Almost." He chuckles and continues to apply pressure to the gaping claw wound in her leg, both of them pretending it isn't soaking up the pads like the blood was going out of business. "Hold that there fer me. You want some water?"
"Yeah." She takes it gratefully. "You know some other song?"
"Heh. I'll take requests."
250 words
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Thu May 26, 2016 6:57 pm
Quote: victory 1--1930 wednesday may 18Somehow, the police have been convinced that they are better served helping than waiting for news. There are paramedics swarming the first floor, people being carried away to ambulances and triaged in the concourse.
You survived.
How does that make you feel?
In the middle of assuring an older man that his elbow could be popped back in place if he just held still (with no inkling if this was the correct way to do it, only the nausea that came with looking at that distended, limp limb and wanting to cringe away), the sound of boots suddenly became apparent. He turned and saw gloved hands reach for the man, touch his head, rapid fire jargon towards someone else about this or that to treat whatever, and then--the weight was lifted from him.
Padson was gone. Dawson Grace, innocent bystander and now survivor, sat dumb on the floor as he was tended to. There should have been something like relief filling him at this point now that the authorities had finally flooded Rider-Waite, but his eyes kept casting out towards the unmoving bodies, the pools of blood, the various stages of grief and gratitude. And all he could think was, That could have been me. Why wasn't it me? How?
"You're free to go," the nurse said hurriedly, already moving to someone else nearby.
But his coward's legs remained under him for quite some time still, paralyzed with a new fear: that this very well might not be the end of this magical bullshit.
291 words
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Thu May 26, 2016 7:08 pm
Quote: victory 2: finale-- 2000 wednesday may 18Someday, the police, your family, someone will ask you: what ******** happened in there?
There will be news stories to direct them to, of course, but they're asking for different reasons. They want to see the look on your face. Record the facts. Hear the trembling in your voice.
What will you tell them?
There are texts streaming in now from Mrs. Potosi, who had gotten out of the building in the first wave of panic; old woman's legs apparently were more nimble than he thought. But instead of answering, he dials Daisy.
Well, to be fair, it's more like Daisyā¯€ on his phone.
It's the home address, so naturally he has to put up with the annoying hi how you're doing what's going on why do you sound so tired is that a siren in the background Daws they didn't arrest you did they obstacle--no no it's fine I'm okay listen is Daisy home I just want to ask her something--she's asleep Daws can it wait seriously man what's going on you're sort of freaking me out--nevermind sorry I'll call back later I'll tell you tomorrow or something just get some rest--
God knew he wouldn't be getting any. His van would look and feel like a sardine can after this unexpected business, compressing him in a too small space in a much too large world.
255 words
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
