ArchivedLogs:Officer Down

Officer Down
Dramatis Personae Eric, Kyle Whelan, Nox
In Absentia	2013-06-09 freaks and monsters (Part of Thunderdome.)
Location <NYC> Central Park South
Central Park South is home not just to the park itself, but also to the Belvedere Castle, the Alice in Wonderland statues, and the Central Park Zoo. These areas tend to draw tourists like a magnet - it is, perhaps, for that very reason that places like Bethesda Terrace tend to attract more New Yorkers than not, if just to escape the press of tourism that infiltrates the whole city. It's after dark, if only just. The evening still holds a good deal of warmth, and it's not late /enough/ for the park to be cleared of people. Strolling through, biking through, jogging through; just sitting on the benches, fountains, getting hot dogs at the stands. Kyle has recently done the latter! He is armed with a /pair/ of hot dogs, trundling his bike over near the fountain at Bethesda Terrace to offer it out to Eric. "Tide you through your last hour," he says, with this offer of /food/. He's in uniform, the tight blue of a bike cop. He leans his bike up against the side of the fountain. His hand drops to his belt -- kind of /equipped/ with sidearm and taser, handcuffs and flashlight, radio -- to turn down the volume on that last one and quiet its squawking. "S'your Saturday night look like?" Eric's tight blue is better than Kyle's tight blue. /Better/. It is, in fact, the exact same blue uniform, manufactured by the same exact company - their sizes are even not /that/ different. "Look like more of this, I think. I've been workin' nights, mostly. Tryin' to help clear the roster, you know." Eric says, flashing a smile at Kyle. "And, leaves me more time for wakin' up in the mornings with some nice lookin' guy. Or girl. You know me - I ain't picky." he grins at the other man, accepting the hot dog and taking a bite of it. Only just dark is dark enough in a park filled with trees and fountains and carts. The gathering shadows makes it ever so easy to slip from place to place without being seen--very few know what signs to look for, to recognize Nox as present. She is here on business rather than pleasure, though the day has been sweet and the evening promises to be sweeter still. No rest for the wicked, they say. But she isn't feeling particularly wicked...until the bike cops are spied there, backlit by splashing water. Some might admire them for their aesthetics--some probably /are/ right at that very minute!--but Nox's intrigued comes less of attraction and more a sudden dark spike of nausea. She gathers under the spruces just across the path, subtly increasing the gloom beneath their branches as she sizes the pair up. What to do, what to do... "Not picky," Kyle says around a mouthful of hot dog, "is the most euphamistic -- Sutton, you see more action than /all/ the fucking bicycles in the district." He swallows, licks relish off the side of his mouth. "Better you than me, though. I got an /early/ morning." He doesn't sound to upset about it though, really. "Kids all week, but they're getting dropped off at the /ass/ crack of dawn. Think we might go upstate," because anything out of the city is Upstate, clearly, "been talking about some carnival they want to --" His hand waves. He takes another bite of his hot dog . "When was the last time you went to a circus?" "Yeah, maybe I do." Eric says, thoughtfully, all of a sudden. "But, I think I have more fun than anyone in the district too," he drawls a moment later, winking brightly at Eric. "Went to a circus? I dunno. Uh... maybe I saw one when'n it came through my home down in Georgia? Five years back, or so?" he looks up, blinking at the dark sky for a moment. "But it was some shit little show in Georgia. Not exactly the kind'a shows they have up here, I imagine." he says, shaking his head. The lurking shadow hesitates for longer than she might have, otherwise. But in the end, the decision was made for her long before tonight--years ago, in fact. It will be difficult to hear, soft as it is and with the sound of water splashing right behind the cops. But. Eventually, on the evening breezes, the whisper-quiet sound of a woman--a girl?--crying drifts towards them. Conveniently near, just beyond that stand of spruce, in fact! Kyle is still finishing his hot dog, chomping the last of it into his mouth. "Dunno what kind of show it's gonna be. Kids're excited, though, so --" He shrugs, sucking mustard off of his thumb and crumpling his foil and wax paper into a ball. He perhaps missed the qiuet sound of crying over the burble of the fountain, the chatter of passing tourists, but he's /made/ aware of it when a pair of teenagers approaches. A little nervously. "Hey -- hey? I think there's a person -- they might be hurt?" They're gesturing towards the direction of the crying. Kyle tosses his wrapper into a nearby trashcan. His head tilts, and a second later he swears quietly under his breath. "Sutton." He leaves his bicycle where it is, wandering away from the fountain. "Miss?" His gruff New York voice is quiet. He switches his flashlight on, shining it into the trees. "NYPD, miss, do you need some help?" Eric glances up at the teenagers and steps over his bicycle as well. His hand, on the other hand, goes to the radio at his waist. "Central, this is Patrol 5. We've got a report of a female in distress. Going to investigate." he says, before he follows after Kyle. "Yeah, I'm right here, Sarge." he says, softly. One hand rests gently on the butt of his tazer as he steps forward into the darkness after the older man. "NYPD. You alright out there?" he calls, eyes glancing back and forth. Within the shelter of the trees, it's dark enough that Nox only flinches when the light ripples over her. It sketches out a few general shapes--a curved shoulder, a drooped head, a bare back. All are marked with faint grey stripes that look like color-leeched scars, including the hand that raises to block the light from the face that turns towards Kyle. It's a face made for horror movies, all immense black eyes and opened mouth. But that's only the sideshow. The /lesser/ attraction. The magician's slight of hand, intended to pull his focus away from the numerous black tendrils that creep over the mulch of needles on the ground. They snap around his ankles and /pull/, looking to send him onto his back, looking to pull him into the stand of trees. "Miss?" Kyle calls again, flashlight shining bright and strong into the trees. "-- Oh my /god/," this comes from one of the teenagers who alerted him to the noise, creeping behind the officers to /rubberneck/, "Ohmygod oh my god --" "... Oh my god," Kyle joins in abruptly when his flashlight shines into that face, "/Sutton/ your fucking flashlii --" The beam of his arcs upwards, then back away from the trees as he is yanked to his back. From beyond the trees there is screaming as his light is dragged off into the spruces. "Get /back/!" Eric yells at the teenagers. "Get out of here!" His hand goes to his waist, tugging open the pocket with his flashlight and shining it into the trees around here. The other hand is once more at his radio. "Patrol 5, 10-13, 10-13, officer needs assistance!" There is a note of panic in his voice as he shines the bright beam around him and drawing his pistol with his other hand. He raises pistol and flashlight together, the beam and the barrel following each other as he pluges into the woods after Kyle. The fallen officer is not taken far. No, just deep enough into the trees that it's near full-dark and Nox can shed the human guise. Multiple tendrils are fallen by numerous tentacles, coiling around him, lifting him up, turning him like a doll. One even plunges into his screaming mouth and begins to work its way down his throat, stretching his jaw, seeking out the junction that will block his air--and worst of all, when she whispers to him, the whisper can be felt inside as much as it is heard outside. "Why are you free? Why are you free and speaking of circuses? Why are your children safe and mine were not? Why /are you free/?" It takes only seconds. She's everywhere. Everywhere. Surrounding Kyle, wrapping him as a python would. Flashing out at Eric, slapping at his hands, wrapping herself around his wrists, pulling them sharply to the side and /hissing/ at him. "Did you help him? Did you help him hurt so many? Of course you did. Of course. The blue line. So many police. So many /monsters/." Outside the copse, the screaming is spreading through the terrace. Yelling at the teenagers to get out just draws extra attention; extra attention draws -- more screaming. Inside, Kyle is oddly quiet. Maybe not oddly, give the tentacle working its way down his throat. There is a strangled choking noise. A lot of struggling. He probably /would/ be screaming if he had any air. "Stay back!" Eric calls again, his breath hitching even as he is pulled to one side. "Fuck you," he hisses, voice dark. "I saw you fight. The Shadow Lady," he says, and his voice is rough, though there is a trace of fear in his voice. "I saw what they did to you, and I had /no/ part of it." His voice is low, glancing to Kyle. "Don't do this. This ain't right. Wrongs don't make rights, no matter how many ya' add. Stop this." He, to his credit, has not fired, despite getting tugged around. Perhaps he doesn't know what to shoot. "No part of it and yet you saw. You saw and you did not stop. An officer of the law, allowing a wrong," Nox murmurs, directly into Eric's ear--yet another tentacle has curled around his throat and is now prodding at that delicate pink shell. "Did it excite you? Did you get hard while you watched me fight? Are you hard /now/?" The coils wrapped around Kyle tighten. His jaw is forced wider, and wider, stretching to the point of discomfort--any further and she'll dislocate it. Another is almost tenderly stroking his head, scraping over his hair, mussing it. She's whispering to him as well, as smaller tentacles branch off of the larger and force their way past his epiglottis to squirm down into his lungs, his stomach, filling his sinuses. "This is how I felt. Years and years. How I felt. When they took me. When they made me perform. When they made me a murderer. When they made my /child/...he is so small, so sweet, and you tried to make him a butcher. Maybe someone should do the same to yours." Kyle's strangled voice quiets into only occasional muffled grunts, dwarfed by the background commotion outside the trees -- people screaming, people running, people calling for the police. People yelling that the police are already right there being eaten by shadowtentacles! Kyle's muscles are bouldered up hard, tugging against the restraining shadows. YANKtugyank. In between the yanks, just tensed-up squirming. The fear in Eric's body is enough to keep him from responding in any kind of attractive way to the movement against his ear. "I /did/ stop i'. How d'ya think they found out about the fight club? How d'ya think they knew exactly how'ta go in rescue you?" he says, voice still that quiet hiss. "I'm not just a cop. Stop this, now, before you do another wrong." Even as he speaks, he strains against the tentacles wrapped tight around him, moving from one side to the other to try and break free. The commotion outside of the trees is what brings it to an end. Nox knows she can't linger. The many tendrils of shadow she's wound so deep inside of Kyle suddenly stiffen and spread, growing larger without concern for petty things like breathing and a heartbeat. It's fast, it's sharp and it's likely extremely painful--as well as fatal. "A little too late, Officer, to convince me otherwise. You two seemed so /friendly/. Tell them all they are not safe," Nox whispers to Eric. He, it seems, gets to be the lucky message bearer while Kyle is dropped to the ground. "None of them." And then Eric is free as well, shadows withdrawing, the darkness draped among the trees /seeming/ to be just that--simply, unliving darkness. Probably. Eric's light/pistol darts around quickly as he's released, cautiously stepping forward towards the fallen officer. "Kyle. Kyle. You alright, Kyle?" he asks, eyes focused more on the things around him than on the officer beneath him. When he does chance a glance, he pales slightly. "Shit. Hang in there, Sarge." Under his breath, he mutters, "You don't get the easy way out." His fingers press the radio at his chest. "Patrol 5, 10-13, 10-13. We... we need medics, here. I've got-" His voice cracks, once, and his face sets in a hard line. "I've got an officer down."