We Are Awakened With The Axe [Open to All]

[applesaucemod]

The city has been abandoned.

Its infrastructure has been slowly deteriorating for quite some time, now. Traffic has long since ground to a permanent halt, taxis and trucks rusting by the curbs or abandoned mid-intersection. Most of the ground-floor windows have been shattered. Electricity is spotty, if it can be found at all. The eerie silence is broken only by the wind, the calls of crows, or the gentle collapse of some structure or other. And, of course, the occasional screams.

The city has been abandoned, but it is not empty.

What caused the various outbreaks hardly matters. Viral infection, fungal infection, some new or ancient bacterium suddenly released into the general populace - who knows? What does matter is that the city has become home to thousands if zombies, some slow, some fast, some mindless, some retaining a savage kind of intelligence. And they are all so, so hungry.

There are weapons to be found or improvised, and places to hide if you're lucky enough to come across someplace well-fortified and otherwise empty. Others have clearly had the same idea, leaving hastily constructed barricades in some places. You might even take those as a blessing, if the conspicuous absence of the original builders doesn't bother you. They're probably living on a nice farm somewhere.

One thing is certain: if you don't want to succumb to whatever plagues have ravaged this place, you will have to fight for your survival.

[OOC: usual dream party rules apply; all are welcome to participate, and characters can remember or forget at the players' discretion. Also, usual zombie rules apply: if you get bitten, you'll be turned into the sort of zombie that bit you. Whether your characters deal with comically dim shamblers or the terrifying sprinty variety is up to you.

Finally, let's just go ahead and say tw: violence and gore for the post as a whole, because it's gonna get messy, folks.]

Comments

[driftseeker]

She hisses out a slow breath between her teeth, eyes locked on the concave crater that was once a human face. Her stomach lurches at the sight of it and she has to look away, and clearly, he has to do the same.

She is grateful, at least, that he silenced the thing before she had to. Raleigh would have carried that necessity out grimly, stamping the thing to jelly with steady, composed intent, but that distance does not seem to be something she or her companion can allow themselves. Particularly if these things were once human.

She follows him and keeps her sword drawn. To keep it low and unprepared would be nothing short of a death sentence.

"I think there is a place ahead," she says, willfully steering her mind away from the curled, shivering streak of dead matter left behind them, "where there might be munitions. But the noise might draw more to us." It is why she opted to remain with her sword, which requires no reloading.

[fucking_ebay]

Peter, for his part, keeps the tire iron and almost allows himself to feel a little proud that when he saw it he used it rather than running away to let her take care of the problem. She could have handled it, he's sure, but somewhere along the line he's stopped being the person who'd make her do it to save his own skin (and lunch). He lets the metal rod drop to his side, but his grip on it is sure and his gaze is more alert than before.

He glances at her when she suggests guns, hesitates, then says, "You won't be the only person who's thought of it. Could find someone else alive there, could find the place looted, could find it torn to pieces after someone tried to hole up there."

[driftseeker]

She inclines her head slightly in acknowledgement. They are all options she has considered; firearms would be the first thing to disappear in an apocalyptic scenario, along with food and methods of transportation. She has a certain measure of experience in dealing with human nature first-hand in the event of something appropriately and unexpectedly cataclysmic on a city-wide scale.

"I was just wondering," she says slowly, unwilling to complete the thought but knowing she has, ultimately, no choice in the matter, "that if we find the bridge intact, if we should destroy it once we are across." She has difficulty meeting his eyes. "To make sure nobody follows us."

She does not need to utter the implications of such an act. She has already considered them, and is certain he is as well.

[fucking_ebay]

Peter's grip tightens, as does his jaw. He looks away, refusing to meet the gaze she can't quite bring to his eyes anyway. He doesn't like the suggestion, to say the least. Wishes she hadn't thought of it so he could pretend it never would have occurred to him, either. If anyone who got out ahead of them had any sense, they'll get to the bridge to find it's already taken out, because it's a sound plan. Logical. Better to cut out the tumor that is undead Manhattan, sacrifice whoever's still alive and trapped on the island rather than infect the mainland along with it.

"We'd better hope you are the first person to think of that one," he says darkly, unwilling to voice a decision.

[driftseeker]

"I hope so too," she says, the words nearly soundless.

She does not dare examine which part of her concocted that solution, precise and coldly rational. The memories flooding her head have ensured she already has.

You're protecting a city of two million people. You will not risk those lives for a boat that holds ten, says Pentecost says Raleigh says Pentecost.

Then let's go fishing, says Yancy says Raleigh says

She knows exactly what part of her is capable of formulating that plan, and it never came from Raleigh.

She turns a corner, and wishes she had not.

The crowd of them stretches so far back that she cannot see where they end. They pack into the street like sardines, a thick, softly rustling herd of flesh whispering against dead flesh.

Hungry eyes lock onto them both.

"Run," breathes Mako.

[fucking_ebay]

They've been lucky, haven't they? For a place with the population of Manhattan, there haven't been that many zombies (god, he just called them zombies in his head) shambling about. Maybe there was an evacuation. Maybe someone's come in and shot most of them.

Or maybe the things have just been congregating. Peter sees his companion freeze, registers something's wrong even as he, too, rounds the corner --

She doesn't have to tell him twice. Or even once, really. The sound that comes out of him is more moan than scream as he turns on his heel and sprints back the way they came, not thinking to even make sure she's coming until he's already in motion.

[driftseeker]

He is a tall, dark blur beside her, and that is how she knows he is keeping up. She sprints with incautious abandon, tearing frantically down street after street as the sounds of their slavering, snarling herd of pursuers grow ever and ever louder.

Run, hisses Raleigh. Get outta here, Mako.

For her part, she would love to. Unfortunately, she sees a very simple, unpleasant way out of the predicament.

She peels away from her companion, sprints down a narrow strip of alleyway, and lashes out recklessly with one foot, sending a contingent of aluminum trash cans cascading loudly to the ground with a roaring, angry clatter.

They like noise.

Oh, and she'll give them noise.

She does not yell. She simply sends another knot of trash cans clanging to the ground, and hopes it will be enough of a distraction. If he keeps running, he will make it.

He will have to.

[fucking_ebay]

Peter runs full out, not knowing where they're going or what they'll do. At every turn he expects to find another hoard of them, at every little stumble he expects cold fingers snagging into his back. Up, maybe, like before -- up to be trapped on some fire escape. Out over a bridge like they planned, except they were damned fools to think that all the ways out off the island wouldn't be chokepoints for the living dead.

She's a steady presence beside him as all their non-options flick through his mind, until she...isn't. He isn't in any kind of shape to run indefinitely, and when his steps finally slow through sheer lack of breath, he finds himself panting and sweating alone on the sidewalk. His breath catches when the realization comes to him that he doesn't even know when he last saw her, and he curses quietly.

He should go on, save himself. If she's fallen behind she's probably as good as dead...or she thinks she has a better shot at survival without him weighing her down. He should keep running (alright, walking), find another way out or another place to hide. He should save himself.

With a groan, he turns and starts walking back the way he came, twitchy and silent as he watches for reasons to bolt again.