apocalypsehowcomm | Zombie "fun"times (closed)

Entry tags:

Zombie "fun"times (closed)

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?

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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.

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."

"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.

"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."

"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.

"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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

"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.

"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.

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?"

Winter watches the patterns as they shoot, taking them out one at a time. Or three at a time, as it were. He can't see how stopping to look at them more closely right now is a great idea, but then, Winter tends to default to shooting things anyway.

"I have extra clips. And they can't come forever. Just don't waste bullets." Then he finally decides, watching a couple in the distance still laying flat on the shore, not approaching the firefight, "They're attacks of opportunity. I think. They only start coming for us when they recognize we're here. If there's someone else close, they'll grab for them instead. Don't shoot ones that aren't getting up."

Cortana is busy keeping an eye on the beach and shooting any zombie that moves, but she wouldn't be much of an AI if that truly had all of her attention.

"Shoot those that are coming for us, then we can call for backup!" They'll need to worry about other people coming to the beach and disturbing the corpses if they just leave the non attacking ones here. Hopefully ADI can get things blocked off so that won't be a problem.

They can't come forever, but that's still a lot of time they could potentially keep coming. Steve's first instinct is to just stop them, too, but he doesn't know if there's a limit. If they'll just keep washing up. If it'll stop if they turn their backs and walk away. These fear entities - he assumes it has to be their doing - are still such unknowns.

He does think Winter is right, though. It's probably an attack of opportunity. If there's no one to scare, then why put in the effort.

"If they're here because we are, we need to clear out," Steve says. "And yeah, then call for backup. If it's just this part of the beach, we need to make sure no one else sets foot here, either." Blocking it off seems best, and ADI has the resources to do that.

"Close ranks. Stay facing them," he decides, taking a few steps back toward the others but keeping his eyes on the patch of ocean and beach right in front of him. "Then we start backing up."

He feels, crazily, like he understands how some of those German gunners had felt, back in Normandy. It's all wrong and upside-down and uncomfortable, but he tries to shove that down. That's probably what the powers behind this want. "Do we want one to give to someone for analysis? After we shoot it through the head," he adds.

"We'll grab one," Winter promises, lining up and taking another shot, methodical and steady. This is one thing that doesn't care him at all. This is what he was made for.

He backs up until he comes up on Cortana's left side, letting Steve take her right, flanking the one he considers the most vulnerable here. "Once we have some breathing room," he adds. "When we're far enough back that they stop getting up again I'll get one we've taken down."

Because he's not letting Steve or Cortana with their actual flesh limbs. Or, well, whatever Cortana has that passes for flesh.

"It is why I came here..." her tone is, perhaps surprisingly, reluctant. Is taking a specimen worth it when backup will be here soon and can do it?

She's doing an admirable job of keeping her aim steady, but once they're close enough, Winter and Steve might notice she's trembling.

"Be careful, Winter." He's the most logical choice, she knows. But she doesn't want to see either of them hurt.

She shoots another zombie, and her lips quirk into the tiniest of grins. It only lasts until moments later, overfocused on keeping her gun steady and trained on what's in front of her, she stumbles trying to take a step behind.

Cortana might seem most vulnerable, but she's holding her own. Her aim is just as good as his (even though Winter probably trumps them both. It is his specialty). Even so, Steve can tell she doesn't have the experience the two of them do with pushing down that fear. He doesn't think less of her for it. It's just how their lives have all played out.

But when she stumbles next to him, his instincts are not to ignore it - he turns to her, trying to reach out with his left hand to catch her by the elbow before she goes over, keeping the gun in his right. "Hey - "

He trusts Winter to cover them - the bodies aren't moving that fast - but it does give the areas of the beach that he and Cortana were watching the chance to produce more bodies. Although at least the corpses that have been shot down have sprawled awkwardly out, so the new ones have to climb over them. For what it's worth.

As they back slowly away from the shore, as well, fewer of the bodies coming ashore actually struggle towards them, so while there's still quite the tide of them, they aren't an immediate threat.

Winter shoots a few of the still ones, too, just in case.

"Keep moving, please," he tells them both, letting Steve handle the moment of comfort, and definitely handling covering them both. He even switches to the additional handgun he has holstered rather than stopping to reload the rifle. "You don't have to keep shooting. But keep moving away from the bodies."

"Dammit-" flailing, she starts to go down, but then Steve catches her. She glances at him in startled gratitude before righting herself and resuming movement.

"Don't need to tell me twice!" Ugh. Dammit, Winter's right, she can't shoot and walk like this. Is she really so useless?

Edited 2022-08-31 12:20 (UTC)

"Yeah, yeah," Steve murmurs to Winter, but he is moving again, and trying to prompt Cortana to do the same, even if it doesn't seem like she needs it. He offers her a smile before he has to look away to cover his part of the beach at least visually. But once Cortana's got her footing, he lets his hand slip away to bring the gun back up and guard against anything moving too fast, or too close.

Honestly, she's not useless. It takes a lot of practice to do what they're doing, and on top of it, Winter is much better. He's had actual training drilled into him; Steve's no slouch, but he's had the benefit of the serum in addition to some hands-on learning in the middle of a war.

He starts inching closer to Winter, though, because he thinks this is where he'd be most useful: "Where are your extra clips? I'll reload for you." And then, "Cortana, why don't you get a little further up the beach and call this in." The sooner the better; and he doesn't want to say it out loud, but if the situation goes sideways, he wants one of them clear of things.

Different people have different skills. And Cortana has now had to deal with Winter as a shaking, huddling mess twice, so it's not like she doesn't know he's had his moments. Those moments just don't generally have anything to do with shooting things.

He pauses long enough to hand off his rifle to Steve to reload, though as they're backing away from the shoreline, fewer and fewer bodies are actually getting up to shamble in their direction. "Pouch on the left side of my utility belt," he answers, and then fires again at one of the bodies.

Cortana often applies different standards to herself than others. Sometimes this takes the form of being irrationally hard on herself.

Fortunately, there's enough awful shit going on outside to distract her from her unkind thoughts inside. "On it!" Well, at least that's something she can do. She sprints up the beach to a safe(er) location and makes the call.

Who here isn't irrationally hard on themselves, honestly. (Well, maybe Winter is more practical. Steve is not. He gets you, Cortana.)

While she gets away to call this in, Steve finds the right pouch and extracts the clip, making quick work of reloading. The next time Winter squeezes off a shot, he holds it back out: "Trade you." He figures the rifle is more accurate (well, most things are accurate in Winter's hands, he knows, but still. Every little bit counts).

"They do seem to be falling off," he admits, watching the bodies lie in the surf. It's awful. It's too familiar. He feels like he isn't going to want to eat for the rest of the day. But that's for later. He squeezes off a shot toward one on their left flank, just as he sees it start twitching in the seafoam. "We should set up patrols along the whole beach here. After we get this part contained."

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Zombie "fun"times (closed)

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

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