Night 49: Bill's Hardware

[swornandbroken]

[from here]

Mello was ready for it, sure, but dizziness still took him for a moment as he put his foot down somewhere completely other than the hall that should have been there. He swayed on his feet, making an abortive, instinctive grab for his gun before realizing he didn't need it. Yet

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[quarter_english]

The queasy, disoriented feeling hit L as he stepped into the hardware store; it was now obvious that it was a side effect of traveling through the doors. He teetered, unable to place his weight on either foot with certainty, then reeled, and was only able to right himself by clutching at the glass of the window behind him.

Stability achieved, he took in his new surroundings. The state of the store suggested that someone had been through it already -- perhaps a number of people. Lunge was saying something about zombies. L blinked at him, then registered the question.

"I really can't say. The 'zombie' situation occurred the night before I was abducted. The other patients displayed heightened anxiety earlier today; they seemed to think that there was a reasonable chance that it might happen again. Yet little that happens here seems to happen twice."

He looked over his shoulder, trying to orient himself better. They appeared to be in Doyleton. He could see the Sheriff's Office across the street, and, if he squinted, the kitchen shop somewhat further away. A number of unpleasant conclusions followed: Landel's control of Doyleton might not be perfect, but should not be underestimated. That being the case, who are the residents?

A flash of lightening lit the street, and then he saw, at some distance, a few shuffling figures.

Surprised and frustrated, he spoke with urgency. "Take what you want and keep the lights low. I think we can find weapons here, but it would be better to leave as soon as we can." He was already moving towards the back of the store, scanning the aisles for useful items. Almost anything here might be serviceable in some way in their day-to-day situation, but he could only carry so much, so he kept his eyes open for -- what? A hammer? He would prefer something that could do more damage if he landed a blow, something that would allow him to strike from a greater distance. The trouble with the knife he carried was that if something was close enough for him to strike at it, there was a good chance that it was already too late.

Discussing Landel's purpose would have to wait until their circumstances did not have as much immediate potential to turn critical. They would have to find the balance between grasping the present opportunity and not being overtaken by its hazards.

[herr_inspektor]

More a rhetorical question, but having L make such a sensible reply was sobering enough that Lunge remembered himself and nodded again, more as a physical aid to snapping back out of the nauseous haze to match the mental one. "Of course. If we're lucky-" and it really is down to, though I hate to admit it, pure luck, "- we might have dodged a second flush of-"

Bright white light filled the store and suddenly the hunched figures beyond the glass came into sight, silhouettes mottled by rain but most definitely there. He stared for a moment, morbidly fascinated; how could he not be? What he was seeing was the impossible, the walking dead. Hollywood fodder moving before his very eyes.

And in the same instant the light vanished, and they were once again alone in the dark of the hardware store, flashlights pointed down. L's face was dark against the dim light from the window, but the tension in his words was almost tangible. Without question, he made his way down the aisle with him. "If they'd made it in here already, there would be signs of it," he said in a low voice. "A smell, for one thing. There might be a shopkeeper to deal with but for now we have time."

As he spoke he ran his light along the shelves for potential weapons: one side of the aisle sold nuts and bolts and the occasional crowbar, standard fair, but the other... "What's this?" Sitting on the was a knife in casing- the blade wasn't quite the length of his fingers, but it looked sharp, and that was what counted. It was certainly better than the kitchen knife. "One moment."

Removing the casing, he took the knife out and gave it a better look. Most likely it was intended for hunting and it admittedly wasn't a gun, but it would do well for whatever the Institute deigned to throw at them. It occurred to Lunge briefly, as he exchanged the kitchen knife for the new one, that this was probably some sort of stealing- but it hardly mattered when the storekeeper was, by all definitions, clinically dead. He glanced at L, smiling in spite of himself. "Found anything?"

[quarter_english]

"It's ridiculous that we should have to consider it at all." There was undisguised bitterness in L's voice. "When the esoteric becomes a factor, almost anything is a possibility. It amplifies the difficulty of our situation by several orders of magnitude."

He made his way through the aisles as efficiently as he could, shielding his light; it would be better if the people outside didn't see a moving source of illumination indoors. Nuts, bolts, screwdrivers... a spanner might be heavy, but a hammer would do more effective damage. Whatever he chose, they had no time to waste.

But this was a small hardware store in a small town. Shops like this had to meet the needs of the community, and as far as he could tell, there were no other stores offering tools of any kind. That meant that it would probably stock landscaping tools, some of which might have sharp blades. It didn't take him long to find them, and when he did, he lowered his pillowcase to the floor.

He heard Lunge, some distance away, saying, "What's this?", and his own gaze snapped over in momentary alarm -- but no, it was only that Lunge had found something that might be useful. From the looks of it, it was small, glinting in the darkness. A knife.

The rack in front of L was full of pruning shears and small axes, and he hesitated, frustrated that the situation was too pressing to allow him to make anything but a hasty decision. Utility should take precedence over perfection, he thought. Nothing with a wooden handle -- I might die anyway, but relying on a weapon that can be shattered increases the probability by a significant margin.

He shifted the fingers covering the head of his torch, letting out dim, filtered strips of illumination, which he kept as close to the rack as he could. His flesh gave the light a faint pinkish cast.

With more visibility, it wasn't difficult to choose. The curving blade of the brush axe was almost the length of his forearm, and its packaging advertised an unbreakable handle; he felt a small burst of satisfaction in spite of himself.

He picked up his pillowcase and set it on the top shelf, then used it to shield the beam of the flashlight until it gave off nothing more than a soft glow. Now that both hands were free, he removed the axe from its heavy plastic sheath. A delicate touch of the tip of his index finger to the fore-edge of the blade told him that it was as sharp as he would have hoped. Swinging the axe up and down a few times, close to the floor, left him satisfied with its balance and the feel of it in his hand. It wasn't a gun, but it would do; better, its usefulness wouldn't rely on careful aim, or bullets that would inevitably be in short supply.

When he retrieved his pillowcase from the shelf, he continued to use it to shield the light, then padded back up the aisle toward Lunge, holding his new prize down at his side.

"Yes. It's a kind of machete, I think. Do we risk leaving through the front door? The trouble is that if we wind up on the street, we will have drawn attention to ourselves, but in any case, it may be our best chance."

[herr_inspektor]

Lunge sighed, ddd. "When the impossible can and will happen, efficient preparation for it becomes impossible." How was one supposed to plan for a zombie attack, for example? That would require predicting it in the first place, which would be out of the question. The best they could do was sufficiently arm themselves and will that coping with whatever Landel threw their way next wouldn't be beyond their capabilities. Which was utterly preposterous, of course, but complaining about it now was pointless- and maybe, just a little, a small part of him rather enjoyed the challenge. A very, very small part of him, of course, but a part of him nonetheless.

Arming himself with a worthwhile weapon was one step towards adequate preparation, at least. He turned his flashlight on the blade, holding it close to his body to prevent stray rays of light escaping too far and attracting the wrong attention: the size was manageable, and since it folded he could carry it in his pocket rather than in his waistband. Much better. He glanced to where L was as he answered, eyes falling on the object in his hand- now that was a weapon. Watching L test the feel of it in his hand was enough to put any concerns he might have had about its practicality to rest, though; he trusted the man not to overestimate his ability, and he seemed to have a good grip on it.

"Something good came out of tonight, then," Lunge commented, gaze moving briefly back to L's face before he looked to the front door. "It looks as though the doors are rigged to randomise the location anyone who steps through them ends up at. It's a risk, yes, but only in the sense that there's a very slim chance the door might take us to the outside anyway. We can't stay in here all night."

Quietly, he made his way to the door and glanced through the store-front window, where he could just see those shadowy figures from before moving through the rain. Not that many, but enough that they were outnumbered.

Well. What was life, at times, but a game of chances? "Let's go." Gripping the handle (a touch tighter than he needed to, perhaps), he pushed it down and opened the door, stepping out into the rain.

[Rolling!]