Open Memento Mori

[Coroxn]

A gunshot rang out.

Okay. Be logical.

If Alayne knew of this hiding place, then the other zombie hunters could too-and they might have worked their way up here and gotten into trouble. Which meant his brother could be in danger. But, out of all the teams, what were the odds of his brother's wandering up here? And what were the odds of it even being a team at all? Could it be just a random group of survivors or zombie hunters?

He needed to get a better look. Two roofs away was a stack of chimneys. He ran.

The first roof was just a foot away from the other. He wondered why the buildings weren't joined together at all. He didn't break stride. The second gap was similar. Which was good. He wasn't exactly the Prince of Persia or anything.

The chimney stack was a bitch to climb, not because of the lack of footholds but because of their lack of width. Eventually, he got to the top, but there were no obvious signs of anything. He gritted his teeth with annoyance and half jumped, half fell down to the ground. He jogged lightly back over to the original roof.

"Should we light a fire or something? Let them know we're here? Or would that be more trouble than it's worth?" he asked, mainly to Alayne, who was quite obviously the authority figure here.

 

[Phantom]

"Fuck," she cursed again. James asked if they should make a signal fire or 'something'.

She shook her head, "I don't know... if there is anyone there we don't want the zoms to follow them here... let's post a watch on the roof and split the shifts. I'll take first, you guys go ahead and rest. Whoever wants to take second watch come back up here in maybe.... four hours?"

 

[Coroxn]

"It's not enough," James blurted out, and before he could allow himself to feel regret for the few words he'd said he kept talking. "Either they're inexperienced enough to use a gun when they don't have to or hard-pressed enough to use a gun when they do. Keeping watch from here won't do a thing to help them, really. Not that we should have to help them. It's an unnecessary risk that they're just not worth. Camping out here won't do anything but ease our consciences."

It felt cold and awful to decide that a human life wasn't worth saving, when weighed against the risks of doing so. It would be infinitely more difficult if he could actually he seem them. In this, he supposed, they were lucky.

But, there was always the chance of this helping them, right? They were doing what they could do, however small, however inconsequential. It counted for something, right?

"I'll be up in four," he said, trudging down the stairs and coming to a crouch near the fire. He stared at the squirming flames for a while. He wouldn't even try to fall asleep for the few hours he was allowed. There was no danger of that, now.

 

[Phantom]

Alayne sighed as she watched James leave. He was right... if she could she'd save them, or see if they could be saved. She hoped that whoever fired those shots was okay, somehow she knew that that was not true. Whoever they were, they were doomed. She knew that she had some small, albeit very small, part in their deaths.

"You guys should get a little rest, busy day tomorrow, surviving and stuff," she mumbled sadly as she stared off toward the East.

 

[Ulqi-chan]

At the sound of the gunshot from afar, the blonde whipped around to face it. From the conversing between Alayne and James, it was dreadfully apparent that the source was from another team that set out to find the cause of the zombie's sudden burst in strength. Axelle was about to speak up, about to voice that they couldn't just let them die and turn into zoms, but James cut her short with words that made it seem like he didn't care at all for their well-being. Her lip curled as he finished, her eyebrows arching and furrowing, but she managed to hold her tongue. She didn't particularly want to leave them out there to die, but... what other choice was there?

As James left to go back downstairs, Alayne told the rest of them to get some rest. "Will do," she muttered, turning to take her leave. However, as she reached the top of the stairs, she looked over her shoulder. Axelle felt as though there was more to be said, but she couldn't find the words to say to the zombie hunter. Sighing, she hurried downstairs to find James huddled by the fire. Seeing nothing better to do as a chilly air nipped at her face, she sunk to her knees by the flames.

For a while, she was silent. However, as she closed her eyes and mused over the happenings of that eventful day, a soft hum buzzed from her. It flowed along in the theme of a song she heard from long ago, telling its own sorrowful tale, and Axelle scarcely cared if James would get annoyed by her humming or think it as a nuisance later on.

 

[Coroxn]

Axelle knelt by the fire-his fire-and started to hum. If he had been trying to sleep, he might have found it annoying, but he was too wired with conflicting emotions-wanting to help the people in trouble, knowing it was dangerous and stupid, feeling more free than he ever had locked up in the city, knowing that danger was around ever corner. It was a weird, mixed bag that seemed to jumble whenever he tried to think to hard about it. So he just coasted along, letting himself think whatever he wanted to think.

He liked the humming. She was a good hummer, if that made sense. Somehow got a melancholy tune into the sounds. However, it didn't seem particularly framed-it just went on and on, changing, having no sense of familiarity. He felt a beat could much improve it.
He took out two drumsticks from his bag pack. They were badly chipped from years of use-he hadn't been able to procure new ones in the ensuing apocalypse, and even if he had been, he would have stuck with these. They had sentimental value. He had used to play drums, and the guitar, and the piano. Drumming was the only one he had been able to keep up in the apocalypse. All he needed was some different materials, and he could make a rhythm.

His chosen drums were his calf and the cold stone floor.

The beat was slow, purposeful, and added little to the song in the way of style. It was just framework-something that repeated over and over again, so that the listener could stay grounded and appreciate the main tune with this beat as a reference.

One,
Two Three Four,

One,
Two Three Four,

Over and over.

James wondered if Axelle would mind. Would she care that her humming had been complimented by his drums? Would she see how useful they could be musically, or would she be irritated that he had tried to join in?

Music was indeed a complicated pursuit.

 

[Ulqi-chan]

[[ I just pictured all of the gang joining in and singing :D ]]

Axelle had subconsciously let her eyes close as her humming continued. The tune went on to weave a story of peril, dispair, horror. Undeniable sorrow and sadness was evident, but somehow, it managed to stay beautiful. It was rather unstable, though, not having a solid pattern to follow. It had no anchor to make it more enjoyable, but that problem was soon to be solved.

James had joined in with a beat—a rather common beat, but it added flavor, regardless. Axelle felt her lips try to twitch into a smile as he tried to improve her song, but managed to keep them formed just right to produce the right, smooth sound. The volume of her humming increased greatly as she tried to make it audible over James' steady drumming, and warm brown eyes blinked open as she watched over his beating with interest. It was rock solid, being beat so precisely. Did the man have experience in music before now? That must've been the case. Well, that suited Axelle just fine. She knew how to play the acoustic guitar, as she still had one in the house she lived in back at Sacramento, and could spot a musician when the chance came along.

Eventually, her humming evolved into something more. It started off as a simple "ah" sound, dragging out and changing pitches accordingly, but it soon formed into a harmony of "ahs," "las," and "ohs." Of course, Axelle still included the humming at the appropriate time, and was overally delighted by the music the two were making. Even in the midst of death, the undead, and utter darkness, the melancholy song she sang provided a small sense of comfort to her mind. And she hoped James was enjoying it as well.

 

[Black Yoshi]

Miles nodded to Alayne, and silently followed the other two back down into the building. He considered going to the corner where he marked his symbol. But the fire sounded nice enough. He leaned against the wall, and slid down until he was sitting with his wrists on his knees, and his head back on the wall.

Axelle started humming. At first, Miles was confused, but payed it little mind. James began rummaging through what little he had, and produced drumsticks. He joined in. It wasn't bad, really. Axelle got a little louder, a little bolder.

Miles wasn't much good at anything but finding a beat. He had tried to get into music when he was seven, and his teacher put him on violin. Two years later, he decided it just wasn't meant to be. Aside from being able to read music to a lesser degree, and some basic music theory, Miles was clueless about the music world. He knew if he tried to join in this little tune, he'd only screw it up. So he followed James' beat with his four fingers tapping silently on his knee, one finger a beat.

There were worse things. Miles could think of a large number of things that would be worse than sitting around a fire in the middle of a zombie-infested hellhole with a little tune going around. Most of them involved being eaten, dismembered, or the exact same situation, but alone.

 

[Phantom]

Alayne gazed at the sky. Of all the things that had gone to shit when the outbreak happened there was one good thing; the stars. With no more light pollution they shone clear in the sky; millions of them, probably billions. Some where out there, in space, there were other forms of life. She just knew it. Maybe they'll find us one day, she thought with a smile, we'll be beaten and broken, but still there, still fighting. And then they'll help us, save us, and take us away from here and bring humanity to the stars. It was something to look forward to.

With a sigh she brought her self back down to Earth. She glanced at her bandaged hand, the one she'd cut to draw the group of geeks in earlier in the day. She unwrapped it, whincing slightly as the fabric brushed the cut. In the light of the moon she could see the dark line of the cut. It was about an inch or so long, but it looked like it was going to heal fine. She wrapped the bandana around it again to protect the scab. She wasn't going to waste supplies for a cut.

The first two hours went by smoothly. She stood and stretched lazily as she looked out over the street.

Then her heart jumped into her throat.

Holy shit.

That was when she saw them. A huge group of zoms... were they... chasing something? There had to be at least twenty or so zombies, and they were chasing a small figure... it looked like a young woman.

Alayne wasn't sure until she heard the woman scream.

The woman must have seen Alayne on the roof. She was running right towards them.

And bringing the herd with her.

Drawing her machete with her left hand and her revolver in her right, Alayne sprinted down the steps, calling to the others as she passed; no doubt they had heard it too. "EVERYONE GET UP! WE'VE GOT A PROBLEM!"

 

[Coroxn]

"Aww, and we were having such a nice campfire song," James sighed, drawing his small gun from the umbrella and clicking the silence off.

"So, woman, screaming, attracting zombies to us. No matter how many there are, their highly acute hearing will mean every zombie for a mile 'll be here to chomp on us. All we can do is flee, right? Any place we try to hold up in will be overrun in no time, and we can't tackle them all on our own. So we run. And the question becomes not 'Do we run?', but 'Do we take the girl with us when we do?'"

He let the words sink into the gang, hoping they'd be calm about the whole thing. If they panicked, he'd have to leave them to die running around like headless chickens, and he didn't want that. The woman screamed again, and he heard a zombie's moan, uncomfortably close.

He held a gun in one hand, his umbrella in the other.

BANG! BANG! BANG!

Gunshots. Very close by. The girl was defending herself.

Down stairs, a much softer banging started, right at the door.

"LET ME IN!!! OH GOD OH GOD OH GOD OH LET ME IN!!! HURRY!!!"

"We have a visitor," James said, somewhat redundantly. "Will we let her in?"

 

[Black Yoshi]

Miles glanced up at the sound of the woman screaming. He didn't have a gun. What a shame. Not that he was a very good shot. He found his large knife quickly, and looked over at the gun in James' hands. He asked if they should let the woman in. Morality demanded it, but survivability would be jeopardized. Of course, Miles was still aware of his ridiculous need to preserve manners, morality, and culture. He figured they had to let her in, no two ways about it.

"Of course we should, what kind of question is that? I'd say the question is whether or not it's possible." The woman was still screaming at them to let her in. Miles was running through scenarios in his mind. They could open the door, pull her through, and slam it shut again, or they could open it, pull her through, and shove something in front of the door. Or burn the whole place to the ground. Difficult to say.

He began wondering if maybe the woman would be infected by the time she got in with them. They'd have to kill her before she went feral.

 

[Ulqi-chan]

At Alayne's sudden shout for the rest to rise up to a new problem, Axelle abruptly ceased her singing and jumped to her feet. She cracked a smirk as James complained about having to quit the song they were making, but this grin instantly faded at the sound of a woman screaming. It was desperate—no, it was hysterical. And out in the lands where zoms roamed free, it became dreadfully obvious what was taking place.

And the fate of the poor woman as of now.

James had asked if they should let her in soon after the woman started pounding on the door downstairs, shouting for them to open it. The blonde frowned, her teeth baring. "Well, duh!" she barked in response, grabbing the switchblade from her pocket. "I'm not just gonna let her die! And I'd hope you all would think the same way, too!" And with that, scarcely giving it another thought, Axelle sped off to the door, knife at hand.

However, as the girl reached the bottom of the stairs, the moans of the dead were slowly getting louder. The cries and yelps for help from the woman became more shrill and, for the lack of better words, crazed. And her life was in the hands of a rebellious blonde—unless the others were quick to follow her, of course, which in reality would make this much easier.

Driven by desperation and fear of the woman's fate, Axelle swung the door open, immediately grabbing the woman's arm and yanking her in with all her might, and slammed it closed again, not once sparring a glance to the zombies right at the doorway. Putting her weight against the door, the girl ignored the clawing sounds coming from the undead as she panted, staring at the woman sprawled out on the floor. She was a brunette—her chocolate hair hung low in her face as she breathed heavily, and her coffee-toned skin shaked in fear.

The woman was motionless for a moment—not counting her shivering and labored breaths—but her gaze slowly lifted to Axelle. Her eyes, black as ink, were wide, fearful. She stared back at the girl at the door, her hand gradually covering up the shallow bite marks on her arm, and she coughed a bit. "... Th... Thanks," she breathed, letting her gawk fall back to the floor.

[[ I guess we all know what must happen to our new friend ; ; ]]

 

[Phantom]

Alayne followed Axelle down the stairs, and then stared at the woman shivering on the floor, clutching her arm. Axelle was pressing against the door. Alayne sheathed and holstered her weapons, grabbed a large cabnet, and, with Rodney's help, managed to block the door. The zoms continued to moan and claw and the door, but the door stood strong. For now.

With a sigh, Alayne knelt before the poor woman. She was obviously terrified. Alayne and pointed to her arm, "Let me see it." Slowly, the woman extended her arm.

She was doomed. Alayne knew it once she saw the broken flesh. This girl was infected, she had maybe hours left. The infection was a slow death; fever, shakes, pain, and everything from hallucinations to muscle spasms would wrack the body as the infection slowly kills you from the inside.

She'd seen it before.

"What team?" Alayne asked, half trying to distract the girl.

"B-Blue..."

"Where are they?"

The way the woman dipped her head was Alayne's answer.

There wasn't a Blue Team anymore.

Without another word, Alayne reached for the woman's pistol, a nice 9mm beretta, and slid it away. Alayne reached for her revolver, and pointed it at the woman's head, "I'm sorry. I have to-" she stopped.

Their mission was to get a zom and bring it back.

They now had a zom.

She holstered her gun and stepped back until she found the wall. The weight of what she was about to suggest sitting like an elephant on her chest. She slid down the wall and sat there, back against the wall and arms over her knees, "Someone tie her up. We're bringing her back to Sacramento when the geeks clear out."

She stared at the girl, her dark, almost black eyes, "I'm sorry."

 

[Black Yoshi]

Miles stared down at the woman with pity weighing on his heart. "Well, now that you mention it, that is a convenient plan. If a little... Well, cruel." He pulled out some rope from his bag, though, and approached the woman.

Blue team. Green team. What did it matter? It all seemed pretty hopeless in the end. He thought about this while he uncoiled the rope. He stopped as he was bending down to bind her wrists. "Is it really necessary to do this now? Safer, yes, but... She doesn't deserve it. I don't suppose there's a possibility of waiting a while. A half hour, forty-five minutes? It seems a little rude to just tie her up and gag her before she's even turned." He wasn't sure Alayne would go with this. She was a practical person. Then again, she seemed to know what it meant to be human.

He looked uncertainly at the rope, then the woman, then the door. It all seemed so fragile. So hopeless. Yet here they were, with a would-be zed-head in their grasp. "What's left of the couch?" He asked, glancing between the fire and the woman.

Was it wrong of him to be thinking of making her comfortable at a time like this? With zombies bashing at the door and her infection growing worse by the minute? Probably.

 

[Phantom]

"Fuck," she cursed as Miles asked if she really needed to be tied up... She hated to do it; to command someone to do it.

She looked at the woman, who seemed to have gone into a state of shock, "Do you understand what we have to do?" Alayne asked her.

No response, instead the woman sat there, bleeding, but no more tears fell. She just stared at the wall.

Shock.

Alayne nodded to Miles, "Maybe... not now then... But keep any weapons away from her. Once it happens..." she couldn't finish, it was obvious anyways.

She stood, but her head hung, she hated this, but it was the safest and best option they had. She started to make her way to the stairs, to return to the roof to see the situation, but she paused and turned back to the woman, who'd begun rocking where she sat, "You're saving us. All of us. We'll remember."

 

[Coroxn]

Blue team. Blue Team. Blue.

"Of, fuck," James whispered. His brother. And the only source of information he had was fast becoming a zombie. "Oh, fuck,". A little louder. His brother. Outside. In all this. "Oh, fuck".

He sprinted down the stairs, somehow remembering his pack, to where a large cabinet had been pressed against the door-and was rocking dangerously from the zombies outside it-to the whimpering girl. Before, taking her had been a luxury, a moral decision they might have been able to afford to waste some time on. But now she was vital. He needed to reach her before she became catatonic.

"Blue team, you said?" James asked, then continued, knowing he hadn't misheard. "My brother, Josh Culpepper, looks like me but older and better. You were with him?"

She nodded.

"What happened to him? Where is he?"

James had seen the dip in the head when Alayne had asked a very similar, but much less personal, question. He knew what that meant. That this girl thought they were probably dead. His brother's survival chances were slim. But he saw the girl falter, stammer, trying to think of a lie, and then the chances dropped significantly.

"You don't have long left, kay? Don't ruin your last moments with lies."

She whimpered and swallowed and tried to continue but couldn't and James waited as patiently as he could, but he rocked forwards and backwards with anticipation, body, mind and soul all moving together in there one collective thought: Josh.

"We c-camped in the open. They snuck up on us. Brittany, she got bit, and she put a bullet to her head and then there was just us and we knew nothing and-and we were running but the gunshot had attracted so many and we tried to,...to fire, but we were missing and they were everywhere and I kept thinking of my little girl, and how I had to get back to her, and I tripped all of them."

She broke down into a fit of tears. James just broke. He wished she'd shut up, wished he'd never asked, because before she had been so beautifully unwilling to talk, and now she was spouting far too many words.

"I'm so sorry, I hoped I could be stronger than this, I didn't even look back as the zombies rip-"

His fist caught her hard in the face, and she gasped and cried out all at once. He hit her again before her weak leg forced him away, and he pulled out the length of rope that constituted most of his back and, despite her struggling, had her legs and arms bound in less than fifteen seconds. Years of practice, he supposed. She was still screaming apologies as the knot finished at her mouth, preventing any of those wretched teeth from biting down and infecting anyone else.

He took his umbrella and hit the struggling girl one temple, snapping her head into the ground to crack against her other one, and that stopped her struggling.

"Josh," he vocalised, anger spent, voice cracking. "Oh, Josh..."

But that was all the sentiment he could allow himself to have, because, as the cabinet that came dangerously close to tipping over showed, it would not be safe here for much longer without further barricades.

He swung the unconscious-but still breathing-girl over his shoulder and took a step towards Alayne. "Where de we go next? Out of here? Or are we barricading further and holding up? Best be quick deciding, we've wasted a lot of time with this sentimental shit."

Blood was streaming for the girl's face into his hair, but as long as they could drag her back into Sacremento and he could go to fucking sleep, he didn't care if the whole world drowned in her blood.

 

[Black Yoshi]

Miles nodded with some relief at Alayne's willingness to let the girl remain unbound for a while yet. He had left the rope on the ground, and was pacing in a circle slowly, scratching his head. They needed to know a few things. Her name. Where she came from. He could hear James trying to get more details-personal ones-about the situation.

His heart was in his throat when he lashed out at her. James had her tied up before Miles had time to run over and shove him off her. So he stood, having gotten all the way to James only just in time for him to be done, dumbfounded. He wanted to scream, 'what the hell,' or yell at James that he had no conduct. But he'd heard what had happened. His brother. Tripped while they ran. So Miles held back his anger.

"I can't say I know how it feels to hear someone tell you they're responsible for the death of your brother... But that was completely unnecessary." He collected his rope, and stuffed it back in his bag. "I hope she wakes up before she turns. And if she does, I hope James can hold back his feelings for a few moments." He said. "I think it would be nice to know the name of whoever they're making the cure out of."

He looked at the door. "So, Alayne. How do we get out, now that we're basically sitting ducks in our own safehouse? Don't suppose this place has a nifty pole for the firefighters to slide down?"

 

[Phantom]

[[Coroxn, RNG hates James]]

"There's a fire escape," she murmured. No, she couldn't afford to wimp out now.

She turned to James, "I'm sorry about your brother, but hurting her won't solve anything. Through the fire escape and out the back."

She drew her machete, "No guns."

 

[Coroxn]

If another person told James not to hurt this girl he'd toss her to the zombies, mission or no. He already had hurt her all he wanted-no, all he was permitted if he wanted to keep her alive-and he had already stopped. He wanted to swat them away. And then Alayne told them to forsake their firearms and go with pure melee weapons, and James wanted to rile up and fight over that, how he needed to use them because he couldn't use the umbrella effectively with this bitch over his shoulder, but he remembered that Alayne was the expert here, and did nothing without reason. He begrudgingly put away the small firearm, feeling all the less protected for it.

He trudged up the stairs, to the fire escape, as commanded. The window that lead to it had lost its glass long ago, and the rotted wooden frame snapped completely free when he put his hand on it, and so he simply stepped through the completely empty space onto the metal framework that extended to the ground. Almost to the ground. This was a fire escape with a retractable steel ladder well off the ground, presumably like this to deter criminals. Although, what it would be deterring in this instance was quite different.

Seven or eight zombie stragglers were making their way down the street to where the slobbering mass was at the other end of the building. As yet, they hadn't noticed him, and he was at a loss for how to deal with them. He held a hand out, telling whoever was coming after him to be quiet and careful.

The girl suddenly started, but then went limp again; merely an unconscious kick. He wondered if he'd be able to easily drag the bound girl around. Maybe he'd need help. That could get awkward; no one else had approved of his decision.

 

[Phantom]

Alayne followed James down the fire escape. There were no zombies in the alley yet, but they needed to move fast. Alayne was nervous that the woman's blood from James' beating might attract them. "James, take her to the back end of the alley, make sure it's clear. I'll follow and cover your back," she whispered so low that only James could hear.

Nikki, Rodney, and Zach had followed Alayne, their weapons were drawn and ready to fight should the need arise.

So far, so good.

[You three should probably come back if you don't want to die... ]