jumpscares | ( OPEN ) GAME START.

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( OPEN ) GAME START.

▶ WHO: Everyone.
▶ DATE: July 9th, 2015 (Day 1)
▶ WARNINGS: Blood, violence, general zombie horror.
▶ SUMMARY: You've met with a bad... however that line goes. Welcome to Earth.

GOOD MORNING!

Please try and ignore whatever it is that you just heard. It should only last for up to a minute... maybe.

It... it is morning, right?

There are no windows.

There's a light, but it's barely considered one. The compound runs on a solar generator, but that doesn't mean it has a lot of power. The light seems to be hanging from the ceiling, swinging precariously. That's when you might actually start to wake up, sit up, find the things that are familiar to you... and then some of the things that aren't. It'd be wise to explore the small room you're in before leaving through the steel door, but there's nobody around to tell you that.

Outside is a tightly knit compound, just as dark and metallic as the room. The hallway you're in houses dozens more doors identical to yours, and if you're unlucky there may be more people poking their heads out through them, just like you. There's a dull glowing sign that reads MEDICAL BAY but not all of you remember being hurt. Some of you may be just fine, apart from the memory of the sound you heard when waking up.

The Medical Bay is stocked with enough medicine to last a couple of months. There's almost everything that can be found in a hospital. Somebody was thinking ahead.

Outside of the Medical Bay are more doors, some are even locked—many aren't. There are living quarters, a food storage, a kitchen, some laboratories; even a room full of computers and nothing else, all with a screen asking for a password. There's only two doors out of the compound, a vehicle bay with what appear to be a few military jeeps and trucks, and the front doors. It's on the inside of the front doors that something is painted in bright red, flecked with what smell like blood:

DO NOT GO OUTSIDE WITHOUT A GUN AND WATER.
GUNSHOTS ATTRACT THEM.
HOLLOWS IS 1.3 MILES NORTH OF HERE.
GOOD LUCK.

And on the outside of the doors, if you choose to open them:

THE WORLD ENDED JULY 3RD, 2015.

Now... how long ago was that? And where is this place? Luckily for you, Hollows is a small town that can be raided. It hasn't been too long since the apocalypse—surely you'll be able to find something there. Batteries, food, weapons, maybe some people—and what you're guaranteed to find. Them, whatever that means.

Outside of the compound there's a fence with a single gate. Nothing can get past this unless you let them in for tea, so be careful. There's a shooting range and a large shed full of weapons and ammo, enough to last two months if you're careful. Guns, knives, anything that would be used by the military and police is hidden away in the shed. There are even a few hunting bows with arrows.

If you climb up the ladder to the top of the wall, there's enough room to walk along the top. There's definitely something moving in the distance, something you should definitely be worrying about. Maybe it's time to get a good look with a sniper rifle...?

Oh.

It's gone.

Maybe it was just a trick of the light. Regardless, it's impossible for everyone to stay in the compound forever. There are nefarious things at work! The choices are to go to Hollows, stick around, or go somewhere else. Really, the world is almost a blank slate. Maybe more of a used slate, but still yours to explore.

When the night comes, you should be hiding. The screamers, the ragers, whatever the hell they are, are running full tilt through the streets and across the landscape, running through anything in their way, ripping apart anything alive. If you don't make any noise, they won't notice you. Especially since they're stuck listening to each other. But if you get noticed by one, it won't be long until a horde forms... you might be able to outrun one for awhile, but they don't seem to let up on their breakneck pace. Maybe someone should have told you how to kill them.

OOC NOTES.

There will be zombies in Hollows. Whether you meet them on the way there is up to you. Apart from the undead and the animals (maybe somebody should let those poor creatures out of their houses) the town is completely deserted. In fact, the closest thing you can find to a human are the bodies of those who died without being bitten, and there's even few of those. You can find anything you'd find in a normal town here, and are free to loot and raid the houses and stores—the cops won't be coming, after all. The power is OFF apart from what you can find that is solar powered or still has a charge. If you're lucky and find another town while exploring the first few weeks, you might find an area that still has power—thank hydroelectricity.

Just keep in mind travel time... and travel expenses.

You have creative freedom over everything else. The world is open. The only stationary places are landmarks and cities—if you want to go to Texas and talk to the poor astronauts stranded up in space, it's there. (Might be a long trip, though...)

If your character can figure it out by geography before getting to Hollows, the compound is located a few hours from the west coast, in California.

The way to kill a zombie is blunt force to the head. The head doesn't need to be removed, but significant damage needs to be done to it. This does not include the throat—it needs to be a headshot.

There's also a glaring hint. The computers in the compound, asking for a password. It is impossible to hack at this time. There will be more on this later!

Finally, if your character is exploring outside of the compound (or extensively inside of it) there's a comment here for linking me the thread. You can also PM me! I'll be ducking in with what your character may or may not have found, via a response to the actual RP thread.

IF YOU HAVE ANY QUESTIONS please direct them here!

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[Steve stands up very slowly. To get a better vantage point. To avoid attracting the attention of-

Something tears. A piece falls and a stray diner looks up, a berry-red ring around its mouth.

Steve draws in a long breath and says, quietly:] Natasha, get us out of here.

Hold on.

[ The jeep roars. There is no way to get out of there like this, the sound loud and the terrain this side of uneven, but it's not far. The gate, she thinks, might be more trouble than it's worth, but they just need to get inside—

From the masses is a scream, high pitched and full of treble, unholy, like the last scream of a burning man. ]

[He drops into a crouch, hanging on to the back of the Jeep as it tears away, his rifle clutched close. When the scream happens... he... he reacts badly to it. He fliches and cringes and curls into a ball, reminded too strongly of electric shocks and HYDRA's various methods to keep him under control and train him.

He's made that sound before.]

[ The clarity of adrenaline hits him in a rush. One hand moves to hover over Bucky's back without touching him. The other grips the roll bar of the jeep.]

You're all right. You're here, with me, with Natasha. [ He wraps his hand around the barrel of the rifle. ] Can I use this?

[ The screaming things are chasing them. A flailing, blood-streaked pack of animals in human skin. They're fast. Appallingly fast. And the ones behind have attracted others, rising up from the low brush to come at the jeep from an angle.

They'll be cut off well before they reach the wall.] Please.

[ Natasha spares a single glance over her shoulder. Okay. That's happening. She hadn't expected much, and there's a part of her mind portioned over to it that thinks it's a good sign— it means recovery, even if it's painful. Horror means you remember how awful it was. How destructive.

Her expression is a mask of neutrality. It's not because of impatience but because these things, they're fast and bloody and she doesn't know what they— What they are. Natasha bends to take out a glock from its holster, blindly offering it backwards, hand around the barrel rather than the grip. ]

Tell me now if you're going to shoot or drive.

[ The scream continues. It's a long howl of something inhuman, but there's pain in it— unsevered to anything, all raw and flayed alive. The ones coming in from an angle get closer and closer; its not spit that flies off their faces and dead, fat tongues, but teeth. Molars and sinew and blood filling their gaping maws. ]

[For a split second he does nothing, just grips the rifle tightly, but then there's a moment of clarity and he stands again, steadying himself against the rollcage and taking aim.]

You're shit with a rifle, Rogers, everyone knows that.

[And with that, he's firing, and one of the zombies goes down, a bullet neatly through the center of its forehead.

With... some kind of focus back, he fires again and again, though the gun isn't built for too many repeated shots. But every shot he fires finds its target: a zombie's head.

Maybe if he can make the screaming stop, the screaming in his own head will quiet, too.]

[ There's a rushing in his ears. He takes Natasha's offered weapon, feeling a maniac grin on his face and not caring. Even if it's just for a moment, he's got Bucky, and as long as he does they're untouchable.

One of the things is close, at an angle that doesn't allow Bucky the shot. Steve's grip on the rollbar tightens briefly as they swerve, his shot going wide. There's a reason he's the target, not the sniper.

The one approaching is a woman, skinny to the point of emaciation, eyes milky, one collapsed. Her ears are pierced and there's a ring on one bloated finger.

Steve shoots her in the head and his stomach rolls.]

How far!

Not long!

[ Can't let the boys have all the fun. Natasha switches hands so she can take something out of the bag at her feet, sharply veering to the left to narrowly avoid a stray runner, spraying a fine mist of blood over the hood and the front right tire. She hears Steve's shot going wide — one hand tight, she finally snags what she wants out of that bag. ]

Hey! [ It's a clip for Bucky's rifle, tossed over rather than handed out. Somebody's been counting the number of shots, and it's not like the make and model in this place varies so much.

The gate looms. Now comes the question of how they're going to open it to get back inside the compound. ]

[The clip runs out and he reaches out and snatches the new one out of the air as easily as if he were picking up a stick off the ground. In one smooth motion he reloads, and with only a second of down time he's shooting again.

His head hurts. His head hurts a lot. But he's the Winter Soldier, built to withstand great pain and injury to complete the mission.

Don't think. Don't think. Just shoot. Make the screaming stop.

Make the screaming stop.]

[Steve crouches just enough to grab one strap of his shield, yanking it up and jamming his fingers through until it settles against his forearm.]

How do you feel about driving backwards?

[Even though it's a shout, he sounds calm. He feels calm, though there's a newsreel image in his mind of one dangling earring, a wedding ring, a gunshot to the head. That's for later.

Now, he ducks the roll bar and hangs out one side of the jeep, calculating so quickly that he reaches a decision before he knows the questions.]

Five seconds, turn hard and hit the gas!

[ —three, two, one.

She jerks the wheel, hard. Natasha doesn't bother to look over her shoulder; the jeep stays steady. The screaming seems to grow louder, oppressive, and the few sprinters at the front of the hoarde pick up the pace. Each one that gets felled sparks two more in its place, hungry groans and animalistic yelling, and Natasha doesn't have time to reach for her own weapon before one of the sprinters leaps onto the front of the jeep.

It's rotting. Flesh sloughs off it at high speeds. Milky dead eyes and sinew gaping from its face, dangling, and Natasha refuses to let the fear in her chest spark back alive. It bangs a fist at the windshield and old, dead blood smears across the glass. ]

Barnes!

[He braces himself against the rollcage so that when the car turns, he stands steady. He hears the thunk on the hood of the car, and he's turning before Natasha shouts.

Aim. Fire.

There's a certain cold detachment he finds whenever he's in battle. Things will frustrate him when they go poorly, but he remains emotionally apart.

He's a weapon, finely tuned and carefully crafted. He is a weapon.

There is a certain comfort to be had in the absolute clarity of your position, even if it will all dissipate in the aftermath.

The zombie on the hood crumples, and the Soldier turns his attention to another.]

[Steve lets go of the jeep and pushes off as it reaches the center of the turn, thrown hard and far. He braces himself behind the shield, slams into the ground, and rolls with the shield's dome until he can get back to his feet and run.

Has to be perfect-

He hears Natasha yell and doesn't look back.

--has to be--

Twenty-five feet to the gate. There's screaming to his left.

--perfect--

Fifteen. Can't stumble, can't fall, can't stop.

--has to--

One of the pack leaders flickers into view at the corner of his eye. Leaping. Clothes half-off, skin marbled yellow and black, veins stretched tight across a bloated abdomen. Eyes milky blue and bulging. Female? Male? Can't tell.

He swings the shield and it doesn't get knocked back so much as it explodes across the ground like rotten fruit.

That smell will haunt his meals for months.

One hand hits the gate. The other slides and finds purchase.

--has to be perfect.

Steve wrenches upward as hard as he can and prays he's got it open wide enough for the jeep to get through.]

[ The creature's skull explodes, greyish brain matter blowing out the back—

(—and Natasha glances behind her, eyes wide, because if Steve can't do this, if he's not trained or doesn't know enough about the capabilities of his own body then it's done, this is done now—)

—and metal screeches. Natasha kicks out at a greedy hand where the nails of the thing are falling off, something gummy and elastic falling off its sloughing fingertips, expression twisted with effort, red hair obscuring her vision as she whips her head around so she can see—

—she slams down the gas and they slide through the gap.

Natasha stops the vehicle only a short distance from the gate, leaping over the back rather than bothering to open her door; eyes wide, breathing heavy.

Steve get in the fucking compound. ]

[He drops the rifle in the back of the Jeep, and usually he wouldn't treat a gun so poorly, but he has other things to focus on--namely, vaulting out of the Jeep and over to the gate, swinging his metal arm to pummel the face of a zombie about to bite Steve. His right hand pulls out one of his handguns to shoot another zombie, and then he swings around in front of Steve to shove him back inside the compound, his shoulder to Steve's chest.]

[The drag of the jeep passing under the gate hits Steve with a surge of relief. They'll be okay. They'll be all right.

Good enough, Rogers. Good enough this time.

Something hits him. Pain scores one cheek and shrieking makes his ears ring. He slams the shield back and sideways, losing his grip on the gate, feeling it start to drop.

He turns. The thing drops too, face caved by the edge of the shield, oozing God-knows-what onto the dirt.

The whole howling mob is feet away.

He's not going to make it inside.

And then there's Bucky, killing the closest monster. Pulling a gun, shooting the next. Steve lets go of the gate entirely as Bucky rams into him, tumbling to the gravel inside as the barrier rolls downward with a roar and severs a rotting arm and several fingers.

It's not silent inside, by any means. The screaming is only slightly muffled. The gate trembles steadily as the pack hits it and hits it and hits it- ]

Thanks, Buck.

[He feels dizzy. Hopefully he doesn't sound it.]

[ James Barnes moves towards him, and Natasha doesn't bother to check.

Her marksmanship doesn't rival Clint's. She aims for kneecaps before righting the line of sight; the undead drop, but some of them end up crawling, kneecaps blown and legs hanging off in bent angles.

Barnes moves.

Steve gets dropped in.

The gate closes.

Natasha doesn't give herself room to breathe. Shoving her handgun into her holster, she runs towards Steve with her medical kit slung over her shoulder. No, she doesn't open it, but she's shouldering in there to press two fingers to his throat, mouth in a tight line. ]

Did they get you?

Steve. Did you get hit? [ Without so much as a blink, she whips her head around to the Soldier. ] « Did you see? »

[The effort it takes to shove Steve back into the compound drops him to his hands and knees, and when Natasha comes rushing over he joins her in moving close to Steve and looking him over.

When he responds, it's in perfect Russian.]

« He got hit. I didn't see where or how badly. »

[ Hearing Bucky speak Russian should not be hilarious. If anything, in their current circumstances, Steve should be disturbed. It's one more piece of his friend that's changed. ]

Those people.

[ The part of him still functioning in real-time says to answer Natasha. But his eyes won't move. He's stuck watching the shuddering gate, while his mind runs in a tactical loop that concludes it'll hold up just fine. Wha-bam, wha-bam, wha-bam, everything is fine.

Wha-bam, earring, wha-bam, wedding band, wha-bam, rotten gore, everything is fine.

There's a cut across his cheek. He can feel it burning. He can feel flecks of something above it. A nail, and a few drops of something that could be saliva or sweat. But the wound itself is a clean graze.

Earring, wedding band, face caved in. Everything is fine.]

[ A muscle in her jaw jumps. She settles back, properly, to sit; she breathes out a long and hard exhale. Palms on the ground, covered in dust and flecks of blood (contaminant, her brain helpfully supplies) and she breathes, quick and quiet, head thrown back so she's looking at the sky.

One inhale.

One exhale. ]

I don't know what we just saw.

[ It's not confusion. It's not frustration. Fear wells up in the back of her throat as thick as bile, the kind that comes when she doesn't know how to—

She clamps it down and looks back and forth between Steve (she's seen that look before) and Barnes. Plainly: ]

They're not people anymore.

[Out of the corner of his eye he sees Natasha looking at him, but he can't stop looking at Steve... at least until the screaming gets to be too much. He looks back at the gate, hisses softly, and stands. With single-minded purpose, he retrieves his rifle from the Jeep and heads to the wall to climb up it and shoot the zombies still banging on the gate.]

Bucky--

[ But he's gone. Steve should move. He's still on his back in the dirt, elbows propping him up, a small trail of blood welling against his cheek and dribbling down to his jaw at irregular intervals.

Wha-bam, wha-bam. The trembles in the gate pause as something gets their
attention.

Now the crack of Bucky's gun.]

They were people. They--

[ Acid in his throat. He rolls onto his hands and knees, makes it to his feet, and staggers a few steps to brace himself against the wall as he pukes. Not much comes up. He heaves again, and this time there's nothing.

Shame comes with the next heave, but whatever his body wants to do, there's nothing in his stomach to reject.

Breathe. Cough.

He snatches his hands away from the wall with the memory of what's on the other side.]

Edited 2015-07-15 01:55 (UTC)

[ Natasha wills herself to move. She moves.

She puts her hand on the back of his neck. Her spine is straight as anything, but she turns the set of her shoulders so her body language communicates a calm she doesn't quite feel. There's no gentleness in the way she touches Steve's jaw with her other hand, turning him so she can look at his face and that cut on his cheek.

Natasha's thumb cuts quickly across his face, smoothing that drop away with the pad of her thumb. Her fingers are like steel as they hold him still, her gaze this side of intense as they look at his eyes, the set of them.

On the other side of that wall, the infected groan and slam their bodies against it. The snapping sound of bone. The hungry, devouring noises as one of them falls and another takes its place to suck the marrow. The high pitched screaming growing louder, then cut off abruptly. The rhythmic shooting of Barnes' rifle.

Natasha looks at Steve and says, firmly: ]

Grieve later.

[ And then she's off after Bucky, glock still holstered. What she says next is cruel, unkind given her owne experiences in conditioning, but— ]

Hey! Stand down.

[He's picked off three more zombies, and he's aiming at the fourth when Natasha speaks to him.

She doesn't just speak to him, she directly orders him, snaps it out in a way she hasn't yet. He automatically lowers his rifle, standing back and facing her, which is as much "at attention" as he gets.

He still doesn't think of her as his handler, at least not consciously. But she knows how to take advantage of his conditioning, and though he's not totally aware of it, it frustrates him and makes him a little angry, as evidenced by the way he glowers at her.]

[ As she moves off, Steve mutters a little giddily:] Is that what I was doing?

[ It's easier than confronting what just happened, or thinking about the look on her face and her hand on his cheek. Simpler than the question of who on earth she is.

He tries to will himself to do something, to prioritize and find next steps, and he can't until she speaks again.

Stand down.

Steve straightens sharply, looking up at the wall to see the way Bucky watches her. He moves between them, one hand up in Natasha's direction, one facing Bucky, like he's directing traffic.

Please stop.]

You said no orders. [Under his breath, directed at her. He tries to ignore the burn of stomach acid, the rancid feel of his breath. Up toward the wall he says:] We should conserve ammo for now. We don't know when we'll get more, and the gate's secure. If it's... [He wavers. That sound. That awful sound.

Not right now.] It's probably quieter inside. We can't stop them all, Bucky. Not like that.

[He points to the weapon.]

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