ArchivedLogs:Vignette: Downfall

Vignette: Downfall
Meanwhile...
Dramatis Personae Jim, Rachel, ZombieHive	2013-11-09 In another corner of New York City... (Part of Infected TP.)
Location Rachel's Apartment
Two fig trees stood sentinel at either side of the apartment door, the branches fanned out and cluttering the entrance. Over by the window, he'd placed a row of stout, ugly little boxwood shrubs and spruced them up to obscure the view from outside. It cost less than a hundred bucks flat to buy the materials needed to rig it all up which, as Jim had commented dryly to Rachel at the Ace Hardware, over the din of other emergency shoppers buying hammers and shovels and rope and bungee cord and god knew what else in a blind blithering panic when the quarantine hit: He'd dropped more cash in one night during his barhopping days. They got out of there around the time someone could be heard screaming at the back of the textiles aisle. Now his hands were crammed under Hive's warm armpits, hoisting him up and forward to awkwardly kick at the pillows on the couch to prop him upright. Fucking ragdoll, he thought, but it wasn't like a doll. Not really. It was a body. Anatomical, somehow. He could stand if you got him up, but move him around and his limbs would fold and swing at their joints like loose hinges. Jim dropped him down again. Through the window, blocked off by shrubbery, came a muffled wheeze. A man was moving past on the sidewalk outside, his shadow tumbling through the leaves in jerks and pulls. Jim looked towards it, then past Hive to Rachel standing in the kitchen doorway. The cup of tea in her hand unleashed thin sheets of steam, and he looked, as he always did, to see if she wore a ring on her finger. Old habit, and he hated to see himself do it. But he still did it anyway, after all these years. He hated more to realize he hadn't even tried to exchange a look with Hive. There wouldn't be much there looking back, but by god, he'd rather have forgotten that he wasn't all there, than have forgotten that he might be. Where are you, buddy. The shadow outside moved on, two more slow moving shapes traveling shortly behind him and Jim took his hand off the gun in its shoulder holster. Hoping that Tag kid wasn't stuck hiding somewhere just outside. Rachel moved back into the kitchen where her wings could be seen through the corner of the door, tucked up primly against her back. Somewhere a few blocks away came two gunshot reports, then silence. "-You should see what the news is saying about the fucking airports." He swept a hand over the coffeetable surface, gathering up up the dice littered across it in an ivory constellation, and clattered them into a plastic cup. "Losing hundreds of thousands of dollars in all this - I guess JFK was overrun for a while, they'd had to evacuate the people stuck there to a shelter." He slams the cup down upside down, and lifts it away, leaving a new configuration of dice. "Getting spread by words, though, man. No one saw that coming. Except maybe my fucking ex. Vicky always did used to say the English fucking language would be the downfall of the god damn nation. She was a school teacher for a few years. - hah. Three of a kind, asshole, beat that." He picked up a pencil and wrote down his score on a notepad to the side. Wondering what Vicky was doing right now. What she might be doing if the plague spread to Colorado. He stood up, stepped around the table and dropped down on the couch next to Hive, tossing the dice back into the cup and shaking it. It was the sound of heavy teeth clattering in his hands. "I guess Luke Cage is running a -- reanimated-corpse collection service. Thing. You believe that? It's like the guy was made for shit like this. I had a fucking uncle like that. If things were going well, he'd drive his life into the god damn ditch. But when things were falling apart?" He thumped down the overturned cup again, the dice landing flat, their new faces peering up through spidery black eyes. "You'd never have a more solid guy on it." It all felt like some demented dream he'd have after a night of hitting the town. Some booze fueled nightmare that faded away when the dawn broke into the smell of linens and mildew walls and carpets in need of cleaning. It didn't sound appealing but sometimes, Jim liked those smells. Didn't mind them a bit. He'd take the walking dead. If the body next to him would just look out again with his dark, sharp eyes. And take this nightmare in with him. There's different ways to be undead, isn't there, Hivey. God damn us all. He leaned forward to count up the dice. And frowned. "…Yahtzee." Then dropped back and scrubbed his face with a moan. Tossed a pillow across the room into the folding chair. "Bastard." He hauled himself up out of his seat, stepped around the table, and sat down again in his own chair. And began to to gather the dice back up, plucking them like grapes into his palm. And throwing them one by one into the cup for his roll.