[MW] Pennsylvania

[re_mybrains]

It's a pleasant March afternoon in downtown Harrisburg, Pennsylvania -- sunny, partly cloudy.

In the courtyard of Pennsylvania Apartments, the bang of the front door slamming is still echoing when it opens again.

Two dozen zombies, in varying states of decay, are staggering towards it.

A human lighting generator, a superhero, a geek, and two regular schmoes are coming out the door to face them.

Ladies and gentlemen, place your bets.

Comments

[re_mybrains]

The moment the door's open, Tom darts out and whirls to cover either side. The bulk of the shamble is still a few yards away, and he doesn't want to get ambushed the way he did before.

--Oh look, that zombie in the skirt that did the ambushing is still there. Tom stares, bemused, for a bare second before bringing his gun up and firing.

The zombie's head jerks to the side as the bullet slams through half its skull; it stumbles forward another step or two and falls as Tom moves sideways to clear the door.

[accipiterpuella.livejournal.com]

Kendra is armed for bear, zombie, and miscellaneous as yet uncategorized malevolent entities of a possibly ambitious nature. She's got a particularly large morning star in her right hand, crafted more for close quarters carnage than distance killing. She spent a goodly portion of last evening checking and rechecking her weapons, testing them for heft, balance, and sharpness.

She's ready.

But she's also hoping she won't have to get too up close and pesonal with the enemy. But Kendra knows that such hopes are almost always futile. That's why her left hand has a broadsword, a heavy one, because she doesn't want to waste time with crushing skull strikes when she can just behead. She's got other weapons, but if it comes down to using those, she'll be in more trouble than she'd care to admit, but that short sword strapped to her right hip should hold her for a while if things go south too quickly.

Truth be told, she'd have preferred to be the first one through the door, on the principle that an aggressive offense is better than a defense without fail, but Tom knows the lay of the land until she can get in the air and pick out her targets.

He might feel a whoosh of air behind him as soon as he's given her enough room to ascend.

Ugh. The smell, that sickly sweet and slightly astringent smell of the undead. Sadly, she's familiar with it.

Then she's ten feet in the air, assessing who is where and what is what.

"Go!" she says, mostly to herself. She's trying to save her voice for when the killing starts.

[re_mybrains]

A few zombies -- two in the middle of the shamble, one on the front line -- crane their heads back, tracking after her.

(So does Tom, for a second. Because. Damn.)

But zombies are pretty dumb. To scent after Hawkgirl, they stop in their tracks, which makes the front one a perfect target for Tom.

The rest of the shamble keeps shuffling forward, zombies at the back pressing against their slower fellows.

[accipiterpuella.livejournal.com]

Kendra doesn't like zombies close to her friends. Were this a more leisurely pursuit, where so much danger wasn't present, she might experiment with distraction techniques, but right now all she wants to know is if she can make them keep looking at her and perhaps, if the stars are aligned, follow her.

"Up here!" she singsongs. "Hey, sooooey soooey soooey!"

Then she arches, and descends in an arc. Kendra can fly very, very fast when she's got space and time to work up speed, but gravity works almost as well in pulling her down, and she uses that to her advantage. The shamble is too close together to use her sword effectively until she picks off one or two to loosen up the crowding.

There, that guy, the male zombie at the back, pushing the shamble towards Tom.

Her mace is up with a roar - that's the fun part, when her adrenaline surges into overdrive and she can roar as loud as she can - and down it comes with a wet CRUNCH sound of breaking skull and traumatized brain matter.

If she loses her voice, there's always the throat lozenges in a pouch on her belt.

[re_mybrains]

Now that's an effective distraction technique. The zombies at the back react, slowly, turning away from the main group and reaching up towards her.

[accipiterpuella.livejournal.com]

Her first suitor has slowly begun to crumple to his knees. Apparently, it takes a while for these zombies to work out that they might, in fact, be dead.

Half his head is sliding wetly down the remains of his Kings of Leon t-shirt, with bits of skull festively decorating bits of brain like particularly white tortilla chips in pink guacamole.

Meanwhile, Kendra has taken to the air again, striving for height, up, up, and up, orienting herself first to the sun, whose position reads afternoon to her. Circling, she looks down, scanning and picking out any structures, trees, overhangs, or anything else that might hide more shambling or ambling unwanted pursuers coming their way.

"Clear!" she shouts, hoping to God they can hear her. "Clear! Nothing but them for now!"

[re_mybrains]

BANG. Another zombie at the front of shamble jerks backwards and drops; the fallen bodies are starting to interfere with the shamble's forward progress.

"Well thank fuck for that!" Tom hollers back to her, wincing as a shot from one of the others goes past.

The zombies at the back keep reaching up after her for a minute before losing interest and turning back towards the food that's actually in reach.

[accipiterpuella.livejournal.com]

"Good shot!" she yells back. That's the spirit.

He's good at this.

Later, they can talk about how sad it all is. It is sad, this pretty Earth of Tom's that's been overrun with the dead, with nothing home in the faces of all of these people that used to eat, laugh, make love, weep, walk the dog, buy milk at the store, and simply live.

Kendra's taken the opportunity to put some horizontal distance between herself and the shamble, angling for an approach that doesn't get her in the line of fire of anyone else. That would be, after all, a bit louche. Nothing humiliates like going to the hospital and explaining that you went down due to overzealously getting in the way of friendly fire.

Then she's circling back, shoving her mace into the loop at her right hip so she can free up a hand, aiming again for the back of the shamble, flying in fast just feet above the ground, snatching at the leather collar of a jacket being worn by a sadly decrepit teenage girl.

Or what used to be a girl.

"C'mere, you."

And they're in the air, rushing upwards.

[got-red.livejournal.com]

Shaun leans back against the open door, only all too happy to be guarding the rear. He's trying very hard not to think about the last time he used a cricket bat for purposes no one ever imagined.

He only hopes he doesn't look as nervous as he feels.

[re_mybrains]

In the first minute or so of combat, enough zombies go down in the front line to slow down the ones behind them. Hawkgirl's in the air; the other three are flanking the door. It's going well.

Until one of the zombies discovers that hey, it can go around those obstructions on the ground.

The remains of a young man in a hooded sweatshirt are staggering towards you, Shaun.

[got-red.livejournal.com]

Great. Why is it always the bloody hoodies?

Maybe he should have gone with the gun after all, he reflects, as it's rather hard to get up enough leverage to kill a zombie with a cricket bat when you also have to prop open a door. Nevertheless, the hooded zombie goes down easily enough once it shambles into close enough range.

[re_mybrains]

Which is why ranged weapons are awesome, as far as Tom's concerned.

Anyway.

The zombie crumples with one arm just inside the door. The movement attracts the attention of another zombie, which tries to change direction -- and ends up tripping over one of the bodies.

It hits the pavement with a damp thwack and lies still -- for a second, until it starts inching veeeeeeery sloooooowly forward, worming and dragging itself along.

[got-red.livejournal.com]

Hey, it worked before. And none of the zombies seem to be complaining. Which is... rather the point.

Not having to hold the door does make it a lot easier though, and the crawling zombie is quickly dispatched before it can start gnawing anyone's ankles.

It hardly seems fair, really.

[re_mybrains]

Yeah, there are few things as pathetic as a downed zombie.

"You okay, Shaun?" Tom yells from beside Andrew.

[got-red.livejournal.com]

"Yeah, I'm-"

Whatever he's about to say is cut off by the surprise arrival of a blonde-haired female zombie to his left.

"Shit."

His aim is off on his first swing, and the bat connects with her shoulder with a thunk.

[re_mybrains]

The zombie grunts, annoyed, and staggers at the impact. The move puts it a step closer to Andrew, currently distracted by the rest of the shamble.

You can almost see the cogs engaging as it transfers its attention from Shaun to the others.

Of course, zombies being, well, zombies, they can only really focus on one thing at a time: tracking, or moving.

[ellectrical]

Elle's not carrying any weapons, but her hands are crackling before she steps through the door. It's simple, apparently: Anyone she didn't come here with is fair game. And they're all zombies – which don't look much like Tom's cardboard cutouts, and but a lot like fucked up humans. Except slower.

And they don't fly, or do much of anything else.

None of this bothers Elle. She doesn't waste any time in sending a thick, blue electrical charge that leaves a rather tall, gangly one charred beyond recognition before it has time to make much noise.

Now that it's down, that she's seen what it takes, well – she won't be quite as quick about it.

She moves sideways, with her back to the wall, as two more approach from the right – one looks like an old man, wearing something tattered and bloodstained, though Elle recognizes the clerical collar. Her left hand opens to toss a small, bright blue sphere of electricity toward him; it's not even enough to shock him, but more than enough to set his shirt on fire.

The zombie screeches and stumbles into the short, balding man behind it, making Elle grin before she uses both hands to send the electricity toward their heads to leave them nothing more thank hunks than burnt up flesh and charred bone. Her eyes linger on them long enough for another to get close enough to latch a hand on her ponytail – Elle spins to grab the zombie's arm, her hand sparking with the amps to burn straight through its skin. It's a skinny woman in a red tank top that recoils momentarily before Elle reaches toward the thick metal chain of a necklace around its neck and pulls.

Hard. The woman's distracted by clawing at the high voltage chain as it burns into her neck as Elle lifts her hand to incinerate her face. This time she isn't slow about letting the woman drop and choosing another.

There's not a lot left – the lawn is mostly covered with variously splattered and burnt corpses. After a quick scan, she hits a middle-aged woman in the back with a thin bolt of electricity that slices through the air like lightning. It's bright white, enough to bring the woman down without killing her. The woman's yell is brief, and she immediately tries to pull herself up again. So Elle throws another handful of electricity toward her.

The zombie's not incinerated until the fourth throw. Elle's face is blank when she lowers her hand.





But she smiles, and almost skips more than steps as she walks away.

[re_mybrains]

And, less ten minutes after they stepped through the door, the metaphorical dust -- and the more literal and much grosser fragments of zombie -- is settling.

Tom takes a deep breath, ignoring the smell, and says, "Everyone okay? Elle? Shaun?"

[ellectrical]

"Yep," Elle calls, still smiling as she steps over a couple corpses to head toward him.

From her demeanor, you'd think she was a kid returning who just bought a candy store. No one should really be that cheerful right now.

[got-red.livejournal.com]

"Yeah. Fine."

He absent-mindedly wipes his hand on his shirt as he goes to join the others.

[stilljustandrew]

Andrew's glancing around to make sure nothing's still moving.

"I'm good."

[accipiterpuella.livejournal.com]

"Still have all my fingers and toes. I'm okay."

The roasted zombie corpses left by Elle provoke a long look. It's maybe not quite up to Black Lightning's abilities, but it's damn impressive.

Meanwhile, she unsnaps her sabretache, pulls out a square of felt, and starts to wipe the bits of gore off of her morning star.

[re_mybrains]

"Okay."

The adrenaline's wearing off. He wipes his forehead with the back of his hand. "Okay. Don't let any of that" -- a nod towards the gore -- "get inside you, any of you, okay? Wash it off as soon as you get back to the bar."

A deep breath. "And thank you. Thank you, guys. I couldn't -- I would be so dead right now. Thanks."

He takes another breath, and jerks his head towards the door. "Okay, you guys should probably go back."

[ellectrical]

With a shrug, "Ok."

Elle doesn't take any time to think about it, and doesn't ask why he says 'you guys' and not 'we.' Job's done. Whatever.

She heads toward the door back to the Bar.

[stilljustandrew]

Overlapping, Andrew starts "Listen, are you..."

Elle's cheerful departure appears to make him stall out midsentence. He turns to look after her, blinks, and then shakes his head and starts over.

"Are you gonna be all right here?"