The last few rays of light were draining from the sky and a thin dusting of cold fell as he and the monster stood out on a ledge overlooking the surrounding area. It made for an excellent perch, the range of vision stretching out and out wonderfully. This was his favorite kind of place, partly because of the sheer excitement and partly because it let him scan as far as possible for any sign of a threat.
Too far for the range of scent, he could make out the largest other Jumping One from the pack tucked up and apparently dozing under an overhang, as the smallest lurked just above. Eventually, the young one shoved a large pile of cold white off onto the sleeping one, wriggling joyously as he hopped down until he was held captive under one arm.
The monster eventually turned from the expanse to him. He could only guess that she was wondering if it was safe, which it should be, as long as they kept a fair distance and upwind. His assent was a low huff and unconcerned glance away from the pack. She bounced her head up and down once- that meant good, right?- and headed back straight through the nest they'd claimed for the past couple of sundowns. That was another thing about her; she really had something against settling down in one spot for very long, didn't she? Or maybe she had some place in mind, which he had no way of knowing. Still though, he followed. He didn't see much choice other than going back the way he'd come.
She'd staggered in around daybreak, smelling of something bitter and biting, layered over what he was almost absolutely sure was the scent of another Clean One. It made him linger closer than he should have, scrambling his thoughts enough to make it hard to focus on much else. The tremble in his hands worsened. He yearned to be tearing something apart, if not the source of this scent.
He wasn't quite far gone enough though that he hadn't noticed that she'd been particularly thoughtful since coming back. This was unusual from what he knew of her. He did wonder just what it was that she was thinking about, as they stepped out into the open. Her destination, maybe? What she was going to do next? It was difficult to imagine what might be going through her mind.
"I could have gotten fucking laid," Skyler groaned, scrubbing at her face with her palms. She had… she had metaphorical-cockblocked herself in favor of going back to the damned hotel room. What was she doing with her life?
There was nothing to be done for it now, though, and regardless of how grumpy or hungover she was, it was time to get a move on. Nice as some recovery time would be for both of them, she would very much like to get to the meetup point as quickly as possible. Then she could… well. Figure out what she was going to do with this leaper, for one.
She found it questionable whether a "no really, he's been cool about fifty percent of the time" would suffice, and come to think of it, she had no clue just what would happen after that, either; it further occurred to her that it put a really bad taste in her mouth to imagine leading someone who'd already put maybe an unjustified amount of trust in her into being, like, electroshocked or something. It was a bad sign how long it took for the thought of "well then just ditch him" to even pop up, and that it was apparently the last possible option on the plate. Ugh.
There were other things to focus on at the moment, anyways. Skyler may not have been the brightest knife in the drawer, but her instinct had gotten pretty sharp by now, and right now it was telling her to be on guard after seeing that the snow had been trampled into a muddied slush under a multitude of feet sometime not too long ago. The sight seemed to set Adrian into a cautious pace as well, but nothing jumped out at them just yet. Yikes.
"The fuck are you looking at," she mumbled at a solitary common infected sulking around like a sleepwalker in a battered flannel robe, just before it rushed and she capped it. The shot echoed between buildings, causing Adrian to first cringe and bare teeth, then look around in alarm, and then to fix her with the most plain, open-mouthed expression of "what the fuck do you think you're doing" that she'd seen from him yet. Shit. He raised a good point for someone who couldn't fucking talk. She'd lucked out that the sound hadn't drawn anything else. With a sigh, she slung her assault rifle.
As much as it cramped her style to try to get around without causing a stir, this was going decently well, though. They'd fallen pretty smoothly into a routine of sticking close considering how unlikely the arrangement was, and the kid proved to be an adept lookout. Aside from the fact that he had both his fucking eyes, it also was practically like he had eyes in the back of his head, too. Mostly he stood in an awkward, somewhat stooped posture, but occasionally he would drop down into that freaky leaper crawl and slow nearly to a stop, obviously picking up on something she wasn't, before either continuing cautiously or going around. As long as they were still headed the general direction she thought was right, she wasn't going to argue with it either. God, she missed Mapquest.
Skyler kept watch for anything useful during the hike through the business quarter. Go figure that a college town would have a dozen record stores and trendy noodle places, and little in the way of, oh, she didn't know, an actual grocery store or something. Even most of those had already been raided for whatever they might have; smashed glass storefronts and trampled interiors had desperation written all over them. "Poor bastards," she mumbled through a visible grimace at the sight of a long, crusted blood smear leading all the way out through one of the shops, "Just had to grab that last John Meyer album."
What did grab her attention was the Urban Outfitters that still looked at least relatively intact. Man. She'd just been thinking about how her clothes were a tattered mess, but was she that desperate? Like, really? She closed her eye for a moment, and took a deep breath for strength.
"Alright, kid. You ready for the wardrobe change montage?"
Adrian wasn't sure what the monster's interest in this place was, since as far as he could tell it wouldn't hold any food or much useful, but he still breathed in relief as he warily crept in behind her. At least it wasn't out in the open; the edge of danger was getting to be too much. Tension had his skin prickling as his eyes, keen in the dark, flickered in search of movement. He saw none, but his senses came together to give him a pervasive awareness of many. Not within sight, but the bristling was nearly unbearable.
During times like this, it was best to lay low until the feeling of threat had passed. Whether it was even real or just the illusion of being surrounded, there wasn't much to do for it except wait it out somewhere safe.
The monster had some kind of goal in mind, though. There was something she was looking for. They'd entered one tall, spacious room, and while some of it had been scavenged, there were a lot of coverings left lying scattered around. She picked through them almost aggressively, grabbing them up before scowling and tossing most of them to the side. Were coverings that important right then? She already seemed to have plenty of them to him; it was a strange thing to fixate on over safety. Deciding to ignore her, he ventured further in searching for someplace he could tuck himself out of sight.
He had to actually stop himself from shrieking in alarm when something did move. He'd already dropped into an attack stance before it clicked that it was him again. Had this other him followed him? There was the same kind of surface as back in the water room, so maybe this was where it lived? Which would have to mean they were… connected, somehow. Once again, a tense, breathless fascination crept over him. He slowly crept closer until he was within range to reach out. His claws ticked over the same cool hardness as before, and the copy reached out too.
Trapped, he realized, with a soft frown and a pang of sadness. It had been a while since he'd been able to focus on feeling sad for another creature in his own fight for survival, but this made him think. He wondered what it must be like to be trapped inside of this thing. A cool breeze swept in, heightening the chill that ran over his skin.
He shook from his daze with a quiet gasp when he suddenly realized that the monster was now behind him mumbling confusedly. Some of her old coverings were gone, replaced by unfamiliar ones, and she had an armful of more. Mildly frightened, he put his back to the image, resisting the urge to look over his shoulder to see if it was still staring back at him. He hoped his retreating from it and glancing towards the monster was enough to get across that he wanted to get away from here. It was a huge relief that she seemed to understand and followed. Actually, it was kind of exciting that she might be starting to understand him at all. He'd be able to appreciate it more if he wasn't so concerned about being swarmed and killed at any moment. But for now, he was just glad to get away from there.
Hopefully soon he'd stop feeling the image's eyes burning into the back of his head.
Well that had been one of the creepier things Skyler had seen since shacking up with this kid. She neither knew what had prompted him to sit in front of the floor mirror for probably twenty minutes straight or just what he was seeing that spooked him so badly, but gee, it made one wonder. With all the shit that had happened to her, at least she could say she was immune to this whole green flu thing.
After some serious effort, she'd managed to replace her top and pants with a nice absorbent grey cotton top and some deep-pocket men's, and even find a few things she thought might be suitable for Adrian that didn't have a gigantic "DON'T WANNA TACO BOUT IT" or what the fuck ever on it. Of course it had occurred to her that she could put him in any ridiculous logo she wanted and he wouldn't know any different, and it wasn't even so much that she wasn't that cruel as she didn't want to lose her shit at the wrong time. Admittedly now she felt a little bad considering he was obviously stressing enough.
"Alright kid, so. Got a few choices here," she offered, spreading out the assortment over the floor. Fortunately they weren't very far apart at all in size, so she had an idea what would fit. A couple pairs of sweats; a few understated tops in black, blue and grey; and a couple of sweatshirts in flannel and grey and black plaid that would keep some of the chill out, whether he felt it or not.
At first he didn't seem to realize these were meant for him and only vaguely sniffed at them until she gave another motion downward. He rumbled seemingly in assent and began to gather up the whole pile himself. Skyler snorted, taken by the sudden image of this leaper waddling around bundled up like that kid from "A Christmas Story".
"Uh… no. I'm taking some of these back." She stifled a laugh and reached to grab back some of the bundle. Perhaps not taking kindly to being laughed at, he narrowed his eyes, and then she was blinded as one of the sweatshirts was flung directly over her face. "Agh! Fucking… Rude!" she complained, muffled by the clothing, dropping to the floor and then collapsing only a little melodramatically. She heard a weak snicker before wiping the garment away.
For real though, it was time to convince Adrian out of his clothes and get the hell out of dodge. Just being around here was giving her the creeps. Hopefully their luck hadn't run up just yet and they'd be out of the city by daybreak.
Finally, Adrian understood why the monster would want to discard the coverings that were familiar to her. He flexed his joints, wondering at how flexible and non-irritating the new fabric was, and immediately knew how good this would be for running, jumping, and just about anything else he wanted to do. Strange as she was, she could be clever. He'd taken everything that he'd been carrying out, and picked the darker bottoms and a grey top. Of course, he'd been resistant, still nervous about the thought of changing, but he was glad that he had. Maybe not all kinds of changing were painful.
The monster was still smiling despite the tension as she sauntered towards the exit. A lump caught in his throat seeing that, and though at first he couldn't place why, he thought he had something after some easing:
He… was going to regret it when he had to kill her. Past when he'd been certain that she was waiting to turn on him at the right moment, it had been nice simply having someone else there. He knew that he was going to have to. There was no denying the demand, after enough wearing away he'd succumb eventually. Inside his coverings, he wrapped the shiny thing around his hand and squeezed lightly. Just… not now.
At what point had he gone from despising the thin line keeping him from slaughtering her to actively hanging onto it? He was too focused on wondering to be as alert as he should have been. Buildings and landmarks passed in a daze while he fell behind to follow her lead outside. Something was still bothering him, too. There was a tangle of scents here, too many to pick out just one. And that had to mean that somewhere… somewhere nearby…
Inattentively he nearly collided with the monster's back where she'd come to a total stop. Her body had gone rigid, and he was close enough to hear the uneven thud in her heart and catch a sweet whiff of adrenaline. It was lucky that he had enough sense to look for why she'd reacted that way, because when he saw it, his gut lurched.
Nestled among the white scape and stilled metal beasts before them were the remnants of a corpse, not that he could actually see it. No, the scraps of gristle and blood were lost between the bodies of the Weak Others that they were looking upon, milling and shoving at each other and squalling for access to whatever was left. Dozens. A hundred, maybe. He didn't know the words, but he could conceptualize it. Too many. They weren't Weak Others like this; they were the Swarm.
They still had time to avoid this. Sharp as the alarm was, they were far enough, and none of the pairs of eyes seemed to have caught on yet. Just… avoid notice and back away. Don't act weakened, or else it would draw them. As silently as possible, he shuffled backwards, and the monster was quick to follow. And then, like an unstoppable cascade, it began to happen.
One of the Others closest to the edge blearily happened to lift its head in their direction, and after the second it took for it to realize what it was looking at, it let out a grunt somewhere between surprised and infuriated. Within seconds, a few and then a dozen more were fixated, and soon the attention of the Swarm was fully away from the devoured meal. For a second, he felt as though he couldn't get his legs under him.
And then the shrieking started, lancing through his ears and into his brain. Bad! Bad! He had to fight through the agony and rage that boiled up and made him want to do nothing more than mindlessly lash out to turn and make a line away from the now-charging mass.
RUN!
Oh shit! Run run RUN!
Skyler's boots pounded at a frantic pace over the pavement, crunching over broken glass and bits of bone and she didn't give a fuck what else she was all sorts of gone. She nearly kept pace with Adrian who seemed to have gotten the idea before she did. This was a situation she was not managing on her own. Her thoughts spun dizzily in her wild run through the main street.
Horde. Goddamn massive horde.
Commons by themselves or even a couple at a time may have been chump change to deal with, but her and most every survivor left on the face of the earth knew that there was strength in numbers, and it seemed that they weren't the only ones that knew that. For some stupid reason, the back of her brain turned over and over trying to find that one bible quote they used in all those demon movies but she was far too preoccupied and goddamn it, it was going to drive her insane if she didn't die first.
She felt oddly detached from her body, which was probably a good thing, because otherwise she'd be in some serious hurt from how hard she was pushing it and the burn of her lungs and recent injuries.
Would gunning some of them down slow down the rest? Better question. Did she dare take the time to even try? Nope. She had no idea where the hell they were headed anymore, except for away. The kid's back was getting ahead of her by a bit.
"LAUREN!" she screamed until her throat was hoarse over the roar so unbearably close behind, "We've got to get the hell out of-!"
She cut off and it only sunk in exactly what had just come out of her mouth when Adrian just barely slowed to look at her, confused and terrified. For a moment, she choked, not knowing how to recover from that. She shook her head, flushed from strain. "JUST, JUST FUCKING RUN!"
At least that, he seemed to be able to agree on. She could deal with whatever else if they even managed to survive this.
This wasn't working. They weren't losing the Swarm.
If anything, the lure of it picked up oblivious stragglers from nearby that joined the enraged collective. Seething. Swelling. He could hear the crunches and cries as those who were knocked down or too slow to keep up were crushed underfoot. It was worse than one of the faintly-remembered dreams where he was trying with all of his might to run but was slowed by something thick and cloudy.
Think, he had to- had to think! It was near impossible through the chaos on the outside and the screaming inside of his head. The Weak Others, they couldn't…
Kill them, kill it all, rip it apart, make it stop forever-
...They weren't good at climbing. If he could get far up, he might be safe. It was the best way he saw to escape. Quickly determining which building nearby was the highest, he ran for it, the monster close behind.
"FUCKING… LEAPER BULLSHIT!" Skyler screamed, feeling her fingernails grate painfully trying to scale this brick face after Adrian. It looked easy enough when you had not only a set of claws for grip, but some weird mutant adaptations specifically for doing things like this. She, on the other hand, was stuck scrambling frantically after, dangling precariously hardly a few inches from grabbing hands and snapping maws. It didn't help that her right hand was still fucked up from being bitten.
We are many. We are fucking many, goddamn it-
There was a wrenching second where she felt broken, jagged nails scrape across her boot. She let loose a scream of anger and frustration, kicking for all she was worth without losing her footing. From the crunching and snapping sounds that followed its yell, she didn't want to look down.
Hands slick from sweat, she just barely managed to get a grip on a higher awning to pull herself up, and it was a damned good thing she wasn't any bigger than she was. She could do this. Ignore what was going to happen if she fell.
"A little hand would be nice!" she shouted up. Thankfully, Adrian stopped spidering up the wall for long enough to look down at her. The look he gave her, however, immediately flung her thought process into 'oh god please don't be locked into murder mode'. Still though, he offered a shaky hand, which she didn't think twice about accepting and using to help haul herself up.
There. She'd made it. She wheezed, clambering up and over the edge onto the roof. Adrian staggered backwards a bit as she tried to get her footing. Now to see if they could wait out-
Something grabbed her and snaked around her chest. For a single, stupefied moment, she had no idea what the hell had just happened. This ended, of course, when she felt the damn thing yank.
"Son of a TAINT YOU HAVE GOT TO BE KIDDING M-!"
Skyler was cut short when the tongue constricted and started to drag her off towards the edge of the roof. She hardly even got a chance to actually get a glimpse of the Smoker yards away on a lower roof before she was scrabbling for purchase, fighting not to get dragged into the gap. The three possibilities if she went over were plummeting directly into the horde below, smashing face-first into the next building, or else somehow miraculously surviving to be reeled in and choked to death, none of which she wanted any part of.
Well. There was one chance of her not dying horribly here. Gathering all the air she had left in her lungs, she managed a hoarse scream of, "ADRIAN!"
Less than a second passed before he was over her, and in that instant she was positive that he was going to tear the shit out of her while she was down himself. It was like she could see the thought flash across his face, right up until he snarled and slashed into the ropy appendage binding her. The ligaments or whatever the hell these things were composed of were tough and it took a couple of swipes, but soon it was effectively severed. The second that she could breathe and yank the tongue off of herself, she struggled her way to her feet and took aim with her assault rifle.
As it turned out, she didn't need to. Likely from the opposing force of having the tongue unexpectedly severed and abruptly yanked on, the Smoker staggered as she watched, in just the wrong way. She was almost sure she could see a fleeting expression of terror as the misstep caused the other special infected to lose his footing on the edge of his own roof and at the last moment desperately tried to catch himself. It bought a few moments of dangling before gravity won out and the poor fucker fell a couple of stories down and into the street. Skyler winced, pretty sure she could hear a faint snap from there.
That didn't kill him, though. While he did lay motionless for a tick, he seemed to recover somewhat and make an attempt at getting back up. Not that it mattered. When the horde wanted blood, it didn't much matter where it came from. Wounded as he was, the Smoker still managed to throw off the first couple of commons that tested their luck. The next ten, not so much. Like dropping a cube of meat onto an anthill. Pretty soon she could hardly see him, but the sounds.
Christ, the sounds were enough.
It didn't take long at all for the gasps and growls to melt into desperate screams of horror and agony, interspersed with what she could only describe as wet rags being ripped up. Sometime during this, Skyler realized that Adrian was staring just as dumbly as she was while this whole incident went down. Holy shit. She hoped that it was over soon, but by how long the noises lasted, it took entirely too long. Her face blanched. She wanted to puke.
My name is Legion.
It was only after the Smoker had to have been beyond dead that she recalled that one of her "gifts" from Cat was an empty Bacardi bottle full of gasoline and stuffed with a bit of gauze for a wick. Numbly she fumbled for first the bottle and then her lighter down her sock. She could clear out some of that crowd, at least. Once the makeshift wick caught, she tossed it down with a grunt, watching it burst across the back of what had probably once been some businesswoman or librarian and spread over her clothes and hair from there, and then outward until the two of them on the roof were bathed in the flickering glow of a mass pyre, baked in its warmth cutting through the winter night and witness to a horrific wail like a singular voice rising up in pain.
Adrian hadn't budged one inch from where he'd stood watching the other special meeting his grisly end, stiff and quivering. When Skyler got a better look at his pallid face, his expression was glassy and wide-eyed, perhaps not even aware of her there at all.
"Kid."
A quiet, unidentifiable sound came from his slightly parted lips. The only real movement he made was to clutch at her tags in his pocket, and then to shudder deeply when she put a hand over one of his shoulders.
"Adrian. Let's get inside."
Even still, it took a bit to detach him from his apparent trance and get him to move away from the edge and back towards where she hoped might be a roof exit. There was nothing else good to see here.
My name is Legion, for we are many.
