Nightshift 49: The Bookworm

[chainsaw_royal]

[From here]The dark looks the same, no matter what, but the moment Hime's flashlight beam ghosted over rows of books, she knew something was odd. When a flash of lightning illuminated the darkened bookstore, it was confirmed

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[scalyfishman]

Hime sounded pretty slagged off, and really he couldn't blame her. What kind of a cheap joke was this, anyway? "Looks like it," he answered, giving a sigh and lowering his crowbar again. "I wouldn't call this 'renovation', but..."

But he wasn't the one winding this little world round and round, huh? If Landel wanted to call it that, frag, he could call it that. Who was he to argue over names with the guy who apparently now had the power to warp reality?

Speaking of which, was it just him or did something look wrong in here? The place was a mess. Not quite nuclear-bomb levels, or anything approaching the mouldering, stagnant shells he'd seen in the other stores last week, but still. You had to wonder just what else wasn't right around here- and whether or not they'd have any 'company' tonight, too. "I'm on it."

Taking his flashlight back, he moved cautiously down one of the aisles. "Someone really doesn't like books, huh?" he called casually, sidestepping a mauled dictionary with a raised eyebrow. It was weird now that he thought about it, seeing books with real pages, but that was the least of his worries right now.

[No problem. No zombies for now! :Db]

[chainsaw_royal]

"So it would seem," Hime observed blandly, stepping around a fallen pile of paperbacks. Her flashlight moved quickly at the sound of something tapping, only to reveal a leak in the roof dripping water droplets onto a discarded hardcover. Other than that, it seemed the building was entirely silent besides the constant patter of rain and the occasional thunder.

"Nothing," said Hime, coming back to the front of the store with a book in hand. It was a waterlogged tome labeled "The Necronomicon", but as she flipped through its pages, it revealed itself to be a collection of short stories. Clicking her tongue, the Royal tossed it aside. "Anything on your end?"

She began wandering towards the counter, looking for anything of use. The most she turned up was a pair of scissors which, frankly, were even worse than the knife she'd stolen from the kitchen. She left it where it was.

[scalyfishman]

The shelves cast deep, uneven shadows against the narrow strips of floor in front of him. He'd never much felt the urge to visit this place before, and he definitely wasn't going to fix that any time soon- this place could be creepy when the situation called for it. But creepiness didn't always make for danger, and no matter how much atmosphere they wanted to pump into the place, there didn't seem to be any actual danger lurking underneath that.

Depth Charge emerged from another aisle a few moments later, crowbar lowered again. "Nothing. The place is deserted." You had to wonder what the point of bringing them here was, though, if there wasn't anything here that could touch them. Yet.

He moved to the counter anyway, leaning over while Hime searched the other side- without luck, he noticed. Well, what did they expect? It was a book shop. The most they'd be able to do with anything in here was give someone a particularly nasty papercut. "So what do we do now, princess? Try the door again? Pit only knows what'll happen this time."

[chainsaw_royal]

"We're left with few other options," Hime said, finally giving up on trying to open the locked drawers or cash register. "First of all, we can't split up. As you can imagine, if we become separated, it will become almost impossible for us to regroup." A bit of a huff, then. "Though, it's not as if we aren't already separated from the rest of the patient population. Secondly, we need to start mapping this all out. To do that-"

Hime's explanation was cut off by a low, moaning noise, the kind of deathly rattle she recognized right away even through the pouring rain. She immediately headed over to the window, peering out into the darkness. Vaguely, across the street, she could see a figure. Her flashlight beam barely made it a few inches beyond the glass, but all it took was one flash of lightning to confirm what she had suspected.

"Zombies," she hissed, an uncharacteristic look of hatred coming to her face. She turns around, looking for something heavy and shouting. "Change of plans - we're going outside!"

Picking up the cash register - it wasn't bolted down, apparently, the Royal held it over her head and turned, throwing it against the storefront glass. The window shattered with a crash, letting a howl of cold wind and torrential rain. That out of the way, Hime marched around the counter with a purposeful stride, heading towards the jagged hole she'd opened up.

[scalyfishman]

Uh-oh. Hime wasn't happy. Depth Charge sighed, resting both elbows on the counter and listening with surprising patience while she started to speak- and then stopped, just as he heard the first traces of a faint, ragged rumble under the steady beat of rain. No, not a rumble. That was a moan. Exactly the kind of moan he'd heard only a week before.

He stared, then, slowly rising from the counter and turning towards the window with an expression that fell somewhere between disbelieving and outraged. "Oh, gimme a break." Zombies? Again?! As if that hadn't been bad enough last week- looked like someone decided that what they really needed was a rerun.

But that didn't even approach the reaction it got from Hime. A flash of lightning and suddenly Hime's face had changed completely, switching from plain old irritation to utter revulsion in the blink of an eye. Slag. He'd never seen her look like that, not even when she was getting her skidplate handed to her out on the activities field.

"Hime-" he began quickly, stepping forward to grab her shoulder before she could do anything rash (like he could talk), but she was already gone- and so was the cash register, clean through the window with an almighty crash and a spray of broken glass out onto the streets like crystal raindrops.

Slag it-! As much as heading out into the zombie apocalypse again didn't appeal, it wasn't as though he had any better ideas. And with Hime already halfway across the store floor, who was he to argue? He took off after her, gripping his crowbar more tightly than ever. "Are you out of your processor?" he snapped, but not before he was certain he was standing in front of her. Just in case.

[chainsaw_royal]

Hime wasn't particularly listening to Depth Charge's shouting and it wasn't until he stepped before her that she payed him any attention - lucky for him it was to run vanguard rather than stop her. At the very least, he'd have a few stomped-on toes if that were the case.

"Zombies are threat even the Royal family are forbidden to use," she hissed as she continued towards the window. The door would be useless. "As the only appropriate authority here, it is my duty to contain and eliminate that threat."

Stepping past the display of books, Hime only took a moment to knock away any further shards of glass from the frame with her baseball bat to make sure she wouldn't suffer too bad of injuries before stepping through with Depth Charge into the torrential storm.

[To here]