Nightshift 42: Main Street

[arc_wrench]

At first, the idea of being stuck in this meatbag dwelling sector at night seemed like a wonderful idea. So many targets, such an open field, and so many things that could be repurposed for use as weapons

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[pleading_ngri]

For a second, after the transition, the town was perfectly silent. That was when Phoenix looked around himself and stopped, frozen in the slow, uneven crescendo of yelling, scraping, shattering, and over it all his own trembling, erratic breaths slowly rising in tempo. It was daylight. This wasn't supposed to be happening. The shops had been whitewashed perfection, not rustwater-browned and warped. These had been people a second ago, and now they were something else, something that sent a panicked kill-it-kill-it-kill-it of self-defense into minor-key siren wailing in the back of his head.

Ken was louder, though, and for a second, nothing was as real as his startlingly tight grip and the look of determined terror in his eyes.

"Edgeworth, come on!" he barked, grabbing Miles' and trying to pull him nearer, to move the three of them closer to the minimum momentum needed to break into a flat-out sprint. His stomach dropped into freefall at the look in his eyes - like that night in the hallway, but magnified, trapped and fixed on absolutely nothing. A sharp, sulfurous stench drifted by on a moment's frozen draft, like rusted metal and burnt hair, and his eyes flew toward the door of Pearl's, being jerkily worked open by the half-glimpsed suggestion of a ulcered blue-gray hand.

[high_prosecutor]

Miles didn't hear Ken's cry at all. It was drowned out by the noise in his own head, the voice screaming out a sharp, high-pitched cry. The noise was accompanied by a stab of pain. This was...between the noise, the pain, the sharp smells of blood, metal, and burnt flesh in the air, and the sights...

For a moment, it was all too much, and he froze in place. None of this made sense. They had just been talking on one of the street corners at sunset, and now? The scene was like something out of a bad horror movie, and it was a little too surreal.

When Phoenix grabbed his hand and yelled, that was enough to break the moment's spell. "R-right," he stammered, trying to swallow down a wave of nausea. "Where to?"

[rectifies]

The adrenaline shot through Ken's entire system, and any desires to sit and think it out vanished. Without waiting for input, the child took off down the street, pulling Phoenix--and subsequently Edgeworth--along. Any fears regarding his former condition had no place; Ken, in fact, appeared more than capable of mowing down a set of undead town folk. In fact, the strength used to guide the adults felt less of a child's, more in line with something bigger, stronger.

He whirled a head back once to answer Edgeworth. "Anywhere! Anywhere we can barricade ourselves!"

[pleading_ngri]

The burst of speed nearly pulled Phoenix flat onto his face, and he recovered his pace to match the run, too panicked to ponder just how a kid who was both a) not feeling well and b) a good foot shorter than him had just about jerked his shoulder apart. The buildings flew by on his right - Pearl's door creaking open to reveal a face his brain shut out before he could stare again, Callahan's coming up with its sour, heavy aura of rotten vegetables. It didn't fade as they ran past, instead growing stronger, an oily and coppery kind of rotten, as they neared the corner opposite the Tasty Burger. He gagged against the musty slaughterhouse air, stumbling, and pulled up short as he straightened.

There weren't any cars - that wasn't what made Phoenix hesitate. What stopped him for a half-second was the shambling mass of incomplete silhouettes making their way up Main Street from the park, backlit by the last lurid rays of sunset.

"This way!" He dragged the group around the corner, no goal in mind but getting out of the way of the oncoming surge.

[to here]