ArchivedLogs:Mercy

Mercy
Dramatis Personae Hive, Steve	2015-12-11 "I have this, over." (Part of Flu Season TP.)
Location <NYC> Bronx
The northernmost of New York's five boroughs, the Bronx... well. You might get shanked. The day has been unseasonably warm, though blessedly not so warm as to speed the decomposition of the undead horde. The city's patrols have herded several dozen zombies into a barricaded-off street directly below the Bronx Expressway. A line of sharpshooters are firing down over the jersey barrier, most with bows but a few with crossbows and rifles. Shielded from friendly fire by the overpass, two dozen melee fighters pick off the corpses that make it through the gauntlet. Steve is standing on top of a bus shelter, dressed in a brown canvas jacket, dark blue jeans, a dusty blue helmet with white wings painted onto the temples, and black combat boots -- all crusted with layers of drying blood. The blood actually dripping from his shield, at least, looks /reasonably/ fresh. He's been shouting commands, but now, seeing a zombie stray from the pack to follow the sound of his voice, he throws his shield at a sharp downward angle, cleaving into its skull. Jumps down after it to retrieve his weapon, evidently unconcerned about any others this exchange might draw. The exchange has drawn a handful of other zombies -- two peeling off from the herd towards Steve, one creeping out to clamber through a broken window of a nearby building. The two that stray from the main pack stumble, grasping, towards Steve. The one that has just emerged from indoors is also heading that way -- though /this/ one stops, stooping, by the zombie that has just fallen. Steve ignores the third zombie for the moment, concentrating on the ones actually coming after him. He shield-bashes one to send it sprawling and, in the same stroke, slams the edge of the shield into the side of the other's skull. "Bronx Command, Rogers. I have this, over," he answers a question that comes to him through the headset in his helmet even as he pulls the shield free from the skull he has just split. The third zombie is still crouched by the dead one, hand reaching out slowly towards the split skull. It drops down to the ground short of actually touching the ruined mess of blood and bone, though. A harsh rattle groans out from it as it lifts its eyes back to Steve, teeth bared. Steve pivots and goes after the zombie he had just knocked down, caving in its face with his shield and then pulling it free in a wide arc of blood drops. Then he turns his attention to the the third one. He gives a perplexed frown when he sees the sign of aggression without an actual attack, but the rattling call doesn't leave him a whole lot of time to consider implications. Other zombies near the edge of the diminishing pack are turning their attention toward him. They do not move very quickly, but soon there are five, six, seven corpses shambling toward him. Steve just draws a long breath and wades back into the fight. There's another harsh rasp from the crouching zombie. It staggers to its feet, now, turning away from the scene to stumble back towards the building it had come out of as the others converge on Steve. Most of the others, anyway. One breaks away after a moment, veering off towards the nearby house as well. << -- have this, >> shivers through Steve's mind, a quiet echo of his own voice speaking into his headset moments before. << Have this. Have this, have this -- >> The voice that follows doesn't sound like his own at all, though; a jangling dissonant chorus that creaks and rattles and rasps. << Do you? >> "What..." Steve whispers, glancing left and right for the source of the words even as he kicks one zombie aside and cracks another over the head with a shield. He is unnerved, as much by the alien quality of the voice he just heard as his own uncertainty about whether it came from without or within. << Perhaps not, >> he thinks as he takes a step back in a bid for space. He draws the knife sheathed at his hip, too, sinking it in the same motion into another zombie's eye. << But my people are exhausted, and those two might circle around... >> The next swing of his shield decapitates a zombie without destroying its brain; the severed head rolls on the ground, snapping impotently. << Getting sloppy, myself. >> To the radio in his helmet he says, "Bronx Command, Rogers. I'm pursuing two strays, please monitor the main staging area, over." He shoves the next two zombies back, then turning sprints with inhuman speed for the building after the two zombies. At the last moment, the zombie starts to turn from Steve's knife -- not nearly quick /enough/. A flutter of fear shivers through Steve's mind as his knife drives into the zombie's eye. A pang of -- something almost like loss. From the broken window, two sets of eyes are staring back at him, oddly alert in their decomposing faces. They vanish from view as he sprints nearer, disappearing behind the wall of the abandoned house. The zombies Steve pushes back right themselves -- but then they just stop. Not following him. Not doing anything but standing, slack-jawed, vacant-eyed, kind of wilted, frozen in place. << Perhaps not, >> this, once more, echoes back to Steve in his own voice, but the following: << Sloppy. It's always been sloppy. >> is in that same grating rattling groan. Steve hesitates at the window, looking back at the zombies who are not giving chase. For all the violence and chaos around him, his conscious thoughts still drift in a space of artificial quiet, above a mental representation of the battlespace. << Either I'm hallucinating or that's a telepath. Maybe a deceased one. >> Then his gaze flicks to the last one he had dropped, eye socket hollow and oozing stale blood out onto the pavement. The quiet place in him shudders, and the sensation passes through into his body, a faint shiver. He jumps down from the casement into the building and listens as he moves out in the hallway. << But they ran... They're not a threat. Maybe... >> << Deceased? >> There's an uncertainty in this, turning the concept over with a faint noncomprehension. << We had breakfast. This morning -- >> A flicker of mental imagery -- the kitchen at the Commons, a plate of scrambled eggs, a bowl of oatmeal; the smell of coffee suddenly very strong in the house Steve stands in. It's replaced again with the smells of blood and rot once the image fades. Just past a door to Steve's right is the faint scuffle of feet. << Not a threat. To who? Whose house are /you/ in? >> "Hive?" Steve blurts aloud when his surroundings change. Sucks in a quick breath when the Commonhaus vanishes from his mind's eye again. << Not a threat at the moment. To anyone. But when they want to feed, they'll kill. Anyone convenient. You know this better than I do. >> The quiet space in his mind quivers again, shifts and expands to quash some memory half-surfaced. << I don't know whose house this is, but I suspect they have either died or fled. >> Shakes his head as if to clear it, and follows the noise into the room. The two zombies are standing by the window of a bedroom beyond the door. Currently in the process of unlocking it, though one turns when Steve enters, hissing out a sharp rattle at him and pressing back against the wall. << Kill anyone convenient, >> the rattling-groaning voice in Steve's head feels tense, edged with stress. Fear. << That sounds familiar. >> One of the pair by the window reaches -- grabs a candle in a glass jar from the corner of the desk nearby. Throws it clumsily at Steve before returning to pushing at the window. The second zombie has shifted away from the wall, moving now in front of the first. Steve grits his teeth, though not at the zombie's attack. << They /eat people/ and they cannot be reasoned with! >> He raises his shield fractionally to deflect the projectile without much conscious volition at all. He flips the knife over in his hand, and though the fear that he senses through Hive gives him a split-second's pause, he still is about to surge forward -- powerful muscles tensing and ready. But then the second zombie steps between him and its companion, and he stops dead. Eighty years ago and fifteen miles south-southwest, Steve is swaying on his feet, bloodied and punch-drunk. A taller boy stands in front of him, defiant, shielding him from a muscular young man who might well weigh as much as the both of them combined. Back in the now, he gasps. The quiet inside him is coming apart, tendrils and guilt and anguish shooting through it. << Oh, God...oh God no... >> He staggers back toward the door as if physically struck, as if the candle that had deflected harmlessly off his shield somehow has a delayed effect. << Are they -- ? They're not truly dead?! >> << Dusk eats people, >> this answer comes back reflexive, /defensive/, a flare of protective anger accompanying the rattling voice. << Have you /tried/? >> Neither of the zombies by the window is /approaching/ -- the one in front of its companion is looking about the room, slowly reaching for -- a pillow, from the bed, holding /this/ up in front of itself and its companion when Steve flips his knife over. Its teeth clack together, a softer rasp of cry grating up from it. Its companion has shoved the window open but is somewhat stumped by the storm window beyond, clumsy fingers unable to work the smaller more fiddly latches. After a few unsuccessful attempts it simply starts beating at the pane, rapid. << Dead. They're /dead/. What does that even mean. Zombie is /dead/ and you had breakfast with him, too. >> Steve's jaw works silently. << Dusk -- Dusk /asks/ people. For their blood. >> His thoughts are a whirl of fury and fear. << It isn't /at all/ the same! >> But he stills again at Hive's question. << God, it's...it's terrified. >> Shield still raised, he slowly returns his knife to its sheath. His hand shakes so hard that it takes him three tries to do so. Swallows hard. Draws a deep breath. "Can you understand me?" he asks, slowly. "Nod if you understand me. Please." << Of course we're terrified, you came to kill -- >> Through a sick clench of panic and loss there's a shudder of memory, a third-person view of Steve through broken window glass, driving his knife into a zombie's eye. << And Egg? Do you think they were just /born/ knowing who's food and who's -- >> The voice in Steve's mind cuts off. By the window, the zombie slowly starts to lower its pillow when Steve sheaths his knife. The sound of Steve's voice brings the pillow back up, though, gripped tightly. The THUD thud THUD at the window continues, its companion's hand starting to tear once the glass begins to break. It seems heedless of the torn skin, still hammering at the broken glass to widen the hole. Fingers still clenched tightly into the pillow, the other zombie clacks its teeth again. Then, slowly, dips its head. Steve stares at the zombies. Stares /past/ the zombies, at the blood on the broken glass of the window. For a moment he doesn't understand what he's looking at: glass, blood, pillows, zombies, all pieces of a puzzle that just won't fit together. Only for a moment, and then he snaps to. His left arm drops to his side, as if no longer able to hold up the weight of his shield. Something in him flinches with each frenzied strike on the window. "Stop that. Stop. Please." He crosses the room as if in a trance, heedless of any attacks that he could, in any case, easily repel. Slams his shield into the window, shattering glass and frame alike. Turns and walks back to the door. Lingers at the threshold. << They're going to get hungry. They're going to kill, and those deaths will be on my hands. >> He looks down at his right hand, trembling, caked with blood and grime. "God have mercy on us all," he whispers.