Zombie "fun"times (closed)

[failedpromise]

Who:Cortana, Winter, and Steve
When: 15th of August
Where: The beach
Summary: Cortana decides to go investigate the mysterious bodies, bringing some friends along just in case.
Warnings: Violence, gore, mutilated bodies, zombies, possibilities for attempted drownings, trauma

Decaying dolls washing up from the ocean? ...Strange, but not enough to cause her to feel a need to investigate herself, especially given that there were a number of people already doing so.

...She'd rather not have to experience simulated drowning again, thank you very much.

Unfortunately misshapen still moving bodies that might have once been human at one point are much more concerning. News of an unmoving but severely mutilated body appearing the next night only increases her worries, and when it turns out that the corpses washing up are those of missing people ...she has to check. It doesn't sound like the Flood, but she has to see for herself. Has to be sure of the exact nature of this new threat.

She goes out to examine the beach (and any possible bodies) the very next day.

It would be stupid to go alone, of course. Naturally, she asked some friends. If those friends happen to be Winter, her combat instructor, and Steve, who is built like a slightly shorter Spartan, well, that's just being prepared for a possible fight.

"Thanks guys." She'll smile at them as they near the beach, then pick up the pace for those last few yards of distance before everything comes into view, before stopping so abruptly she nearly slips on the sand.

"That's ...more bodies than I was led to expect." She swallows. "A lot more." The reports suggested there'd only be one or maybe two, but this...

Her gaze sweeps over the scene. Fifteen visible at a glance, likely to be more. Just how many people have been taken?

Comments

cw: d-day flashback (should be covered by the general log warnings)

[punched_hitler]

Washed-up corpses definitely warrants investigation in Steve's book, and he's learned not to try to approach bodies of water around here alone. He also doesn't want anyone he cares about doing the same, so safety (or some semblance of it) in numbers, after all.

Plus, since he's managed to stay out of fights for a few weeks, his hands and arms are finally on their way to properly healing. Granted, that means they're scarred up, but although the skin's rougher, he still has all the feeling in them, so thank God for small favors, he guesses. Now he's just got some really weird, intricate lightning burn scars to show off (to absolutely no one).

All the same, he'd grabbed three pairs of heavy work gloves for this - can't hurt - and is digging them out to hand to his companions when Cortana nearly slips and his hand shoots out to steady her by the elbow even as he glances up and -

Honestly has to remind himself to breathe, a minute later, shaking himself out of an unexpected, visceral flashback of beaches in France and other, different corpses washing ashore, still kitted out for an invasion. Some of those had been in pretty bad shape, too. And there had been more. More, even, than this.

But this is still a lot. A lot of innocent people.

He glances sharply at Winter, even as he murmurs, "We should - get them out of the water." If they are all missing people... they have families who need to know.

[worthallthis]

Winter, for once, doesn't get a flashback out of something. He does get a sense of wary distaste. This place never does things by halves, it seems. And this place is never simply what it seems, either. The dolls drowned people outside of the water. The mirror shards made him taste colors. The sheep turned into biting phone cases.

(Let's not think about the sheep. He still has nightmares about those.)

"Don't touch them yet," he warns, approaching the nearest one slowly and cautiously. He pauses at Steve's little moment, looking over his shoulder and frowning, but since Steve recovers he continues on. "We don't know what they'll do."

[failedpromise]

"Personally I'm expecting them to come to life and try to drown us in the ocean." Her tone is casual, but she shivers. Ugh. She glances at Steve. "You gonna be alright?"

In the few seconds that her attention is turned from the bodies to her friends, five more bodies wash up onto the sand. Now there are twenty mutilated corpses on the beach.

Cortana hangs back as Winter approaches, getting her gun out just in case.

[punched_hitler]

"Yeah," Steve says, taking in and letting out a breath. "Yeah, it's - "

But then he sees that yeah, somehow there are suddenly more the next time he looks back, and that's - Well. Disturbing is a word that has been old since the minute he got here, maybe.

"We'd better do something."

He does agree that touching them outright is probably a bad idea. Let's nobody get drowned today. He does the only thing he can do, handing Cortana a pair of gloves and stepping up after Winter to do the same. "Maybe starting with making sure somebody's got eyes on this section of beach at all times. I've noticed that it's when you look away for a second that things really like to get complicated, here."

[worthallthis]

"Probably a good guess," Winter says grimly. "There's three of us for now, we should have this part covered at least."

They can't do nothing, though. So he crouches beside the nearest body, just out of reach if it decides to move for him, and slings his rifle off his shoulder to poke at it with the muzzle. Bonus points: he can just pull the trigger and blow a face off if it moves.

[failedpromise]

"To be honest I'm really hoping I'm wrong, for once." Not really a very Cortana thing to say-she's always enjoyed being the one who knows it all-but she hates zombies.

"For now I guess we can take turns keeping watch. I want to take some samples-shit!" The corpse that Winter is poking takes that moment to lunge for him and Cortana's eyes widen with terror before casting about for signs of movement from any other corps-there! She points her gun at another one further out that's beginning to twitch.

Soon enough, it won't be the only one twitching.

[punched_hitler]

It had been maybe wishful thinking to hope that these things wouldn't start moving, either, as long as someone was looking at them. That's clearly not the case.

Winter might be poking it with his rifle, but that doesn't mean the thing isn't capable of grabbing said rifle out of his hands. Steve has no idea how strong these things are. He starts immediately in Winter's direction, intent on offering backup even if it means he's got to drag Winter away from the thing - and the water.

"Cortana, stay where you are. We've got to keep them from getting up the beach."

Damn. Steve's more of a hands-on guy, not generally one to carry a firearm since the forties, but maybe he should really start, he thinks, as several corpses up and down the line of them start twitching. At least more haven't washed up yet, but they've still got over a dozen to deal with.

[worthallthis]

The rifle goes off immediately as soon as the body moves, sending it spinning back, as planned should the thing move. Winter surges back to his feet, levering the rifle back up to his shoulder so he can fire again, on one of the further ones. "Steve, I have another gun. Left thigh holster. Take it please."

He doesn't want these things within grabbing distance of anybody, and if Steve refuses to carry guns, he gets to use one of Winter's.

[failedpromise]

Cortana was pretty sure Winter would be able to handle shooting the body right in front of him, considering that he already had his gun pointed at it and all. She was more worried about the zombies that didn't have guns shoved in their faces.

"Why, why couldn't I be wrong just this once?!" She follows Steve's instructions, staying where she is and taking aim at one of the zombies currently struggling to its feet before firing. Her aim is good, and it goes down with a bullet between the eyes.

[punched_hitler]

Steve doesn't protest. He steps up as Winter straightens, reaching down to take the gun from the holster and back up a few steps, eyes on the corpses in the water even as he flicks the safety off.

He can't help the humorless laugh, chancing a quick glance back at Cortana. "The burden of always being right, huh? Nice shot, by the way."

But then his eyes are back on the bodies struggling up out of the surf. "Are we really just going to shoot all of them and call it a day? There's got to be something bigger going on."

Not that he knows what, as he catches motion out of the corner of his eye and spots one of the corpses trying to flank them, and this time it's his turn to shoot. It hits in the shoulder, which makes the thing tumble backward into the surf.

But then it starts trying to right itself. "Shit." He narrows his eyes, glances at the other bodies. The ones Winter and Cortana shot are still down...

"It's gotta be the head," he decides.

[worthallthis]

"Shoot them first, worry about the bigger picture later," Winter suggests, taking aim at another, firing, laying it out. "When we aren't in danger of being attacked."

Because the "big picture" is sure to be a fear entity of some sort. Maybe the Flesh, given it's fucking skinned bodies. How the fear entity is doing it may be relevant, or it might not be, but Winter is results oriented and the result he wants right now is Steve and Cortana being safe.

He destroys the head of another of the corpses, picking them off one by one.

[failedpromise]

"Thanks!" She shoots another down. Good thing she's been training ...and also a good thing that these guys seem to go down a lot easier than the Flood.

A really good thing, considering-"Shit! More incoming!"

Several more corpses wash up on the beach.

[punched_hitler]

Shit, indeed. "I dunno, the bigger picture might be a way to stop them," Steve mutters, but he certainly sees the worth in keeping them at bay. There are just a lot of them, and they keep coming.

"Are they coming after us?" Rather than trying to get up the beach, he means. Because if they're coming at them, it might be easier to lead them. Contain them.

Steve picks off two more at the periphery, because that seems to be where they really don't want to slack. "We're gonna run out of ammo eventually." He starts looking around for other options, but it's a beach, so they're not exactly plentiful. "Nobody brought any rope, did they?"

After backup arrives

[worthallthis]

Winter is happy to let the ADI teams take over once they arrive. He gives his report, steps back, and stands down with relief. Just because he's good at this, and even enjoys it on some level, doesn't mean it's easy, and he's fucking tired now. And they still have to get home, ugh.

He turns to Steve and Cortana once he's got his guns all put away or slung over his shoulder. "Ready to get outa here?"

[failedpromise]

They're safe. The bodies are being handled.

She waits, as Winter puts away his guns. Her own is already holstered. The movement of the ocean is a distraction, and to avoid it she glances at Steve.

He's safe too.

They all are.

For now.

Cortana's eyes wander back to the ocean. She drags her shoe through the sand. It hits something soft. Her body freezes. It's only a clump of seaweed, and yet, for a moment, she sees pustulent steaming flesh.

She says nothing.

[punched_hitler]

Steve sees that freeze, that moment that passes over her, and he's seen that kind of thing before. (He's felt that kind of thing before, though he likes to believe he's gotten over it. It just happens.)

But it makes him more sure of himself when he says, "Yeah. Let's head back."

He's doing his best not to look back to the water. ADI has got it covered. He'd seen them set up the perimeter. They have more than three people. They'll be fine.

The bodies on the beach were never soldiers. At least, not the kind he keeps imagining.

"I think we did all right out there," he adds, maybe sensing that Cortana, at least, could use the affirmation. "It's too bad you can't eat, Cortana. I'd say you could use a hot cup of coffee."

[worthallthis]

"Or chocolate," Winter agrees, looking Cortana over out of the corner of his eye. He saw her freeze; he knows that tension. He has no idea what to do about it. "Though. The smell is nice, too, even if you can't drink anything."

CW: flashbacks to extreme trauma

[failedpromise]

She remains unresponsive, software stuck trying to process unseen traumas for several moments before she seems to snap out of it, looking at Winter.

"I-I'd like to get out of here, yes. Please." She says and blinks slowly, staring at him. She brought him here with her, it could have been the Flood, she could have lost him and it would have been her fault...

She looks at Steve. "I..." Him too-neither of them are wearing armor or an environmental suit. "Halsey always drank coffee." Halsey who lied to her. She'd thought about Halsey a lot during her imprisonment.

Back to Winter again. She almost attempts to hug him-has only just enough presence of mind to remember he doesn't like being touched-she hadn't wanted that filthy rotting thing to touch her-

"I can smell it." The first thing she'd smelled was the blended scents of the forest in the memory of its victims...

She's shaking.

cortana ;;

[punched_hitler]

Yeah, Steve's really worried now. He steps up beside Cortana, almost puts a hand at the small of her back, then hesitates -

And then does it, anyway. She can push him away if she wants, he won't keep touching her if she doesn't want it, but sometimes it can help, when you're having a bad moment. (That's how he tries to think of it: A bad moment. Sometimes your brain just does what it wants.)

"Well, maybe we'll make both. I like one, and Winter likes the other, and they smell pretty good together. It'll be something new." But also something a little familiar, if she knows the smell of coffee.

He glances over at Winter, before he puts gentle pressure on Cortana's back. If she doesn't elbow him in the stomach, maybe she'll get the hint that the sooner they get moving, the sooner they can be away from this.

[worthallthis]

Winter nods a little at the glance. Touch is generally okay with Cortana. So long as no one's pulling her hair, but he can't see Steve doing that.

Oh, that's something he could do. Maybe once they're a little further away from the beach. "Cortana," he says. "We'll all go together. Okay?"

[failedpromise]

Cortana is startled and glances at Steve but yeah she's pretty okay with touch.

It helps that both Steve and Winter register as the opposite of threatening to her: it was a super soldier who saved her, and it was his neural link where she found refuge from a world transformed into a confusing nightmare.

She glances between the two of them before nodding. "Okay." She takes a few stumbling steps. Walking is actually fairly new to her - much of her life she had no physical existence at all - and as discombobulated as she is, her movements are as wobbly as those of a newborn foal.

[punched_hitler]

Steve will definitely not pull her hair, so they should be all good here. Which means he keeps that hand at the small of her back, starting to move when she moves - and then upgrading it to an arm around her waist, actually, as she starts to stumble.

"Hey, c'mon. I know we wanna get out of here, but we can take it slow." He isn't sure whether she's stumbling because the shock is finally hitting her, or for some other reason. "Unless this is you not saying out loud that you want a piggyback ride, because I will absolutely give you one if you want."

He glances at Winter, but doesn't know if he knows any more about how Cortana's handling things than Steve does. But they've both seen people manage stressful situations just fine - until they can't anymore. "Sorry today turned out so lousy," he adds, maybe to them both.

[worthallthis]

Winter kind of hovers on her other side. His expressions still aren't quite clear most of the time, but there's a furrow between his brows that definitely suggests worry. "You should definitely spring for the ride," he says. "Since he's offering, and all. And it was kind of lousy. After a lousy day you should take care of yourself."

He says it like it's a rule he memorized.

[failedpromise]

She snorts. Opens her mouth to say I'll be fine, closes it again as Winter begins to speak.

"Okay." She finally says. Then she nods.

Trying to walk right now will just slow them all down.

[punched_hitler]

"Okay," Steve says; his voice is gentle, genial, like it's something fun, not something necessary. It's supposed to be, anyway.

He stops and pulls his hand away so he can turn around and crouch down a little, offering Cortana his back. "Hop on. Winter'll spot you." At least, he trusts he will, without actually having to ask.