Nightshift 42: Bill's Hardware

[ruthless_hunter]

[from here]Lockdown kicked the door to the hardware store down and barged in. There was already a zombie in here, a big one, who the bounty hunter guessed was the owner of the store. There were also two other zombies with him, so Lockdown was already outnumbered. But that had never stopped the bounty hunter

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[fooledintuition]

[From here]

This place had to work, and it seemed like a bunch of people had already had the same idea. Although as he entered, it struck Adachi just what was across the street. The sheriff's office had to have a gun of some sort, right? He was sure someone else had probably already had that idea, but...if there was more than one officer, then maybe there was more than one gun. All the officers back in Japan carried them, and everyone knew America had really lax rules about it, but it worked more than well enough for him. He'd have to go there as soon as he got something more effective than his fists

[ran_on_empty]

[From here.]

It took them a few minutes but it wasn't long before they reached the hardware store. To Sync's amusement he discovered the door had already been kicked in, but that didn't deter him from slipping in after making sure Dahlia was free from pursuit as well.

Of course, the first thing he managed to make out was a streak of spiky blond nearby, but it wasn't too hard to miss; after all, it looked as if Guy was making his way to the exit. Sync immediately slipped into the shadows, knowing that it wouldn't be hard to find Dahlia again considering her bright hair and ridiculous looking bag.

At first Sync reflexively reached for a nearby tool (in this case a hammer) and aimed it at the swordsman. However, it wasn't long before he caught sight of someone else nearby. Someone easier.

Trying his best not to laugh, Sync stretched his arm back and threw the hammer as hard as he could in Claude's general direction before ducking out of sight.

Who said he was supposed to act mature in this kind of situation?

[dahliahasthorns]

Okay, maneuvering around walking corpses, she was getting used to. But having to duck a hammer that Sync decide to toss at someone else, then watching him hide back in the shadows to giggle like a girl? ...what was this guy, five?

Dahlia rolled her eyes and gave him a dismissive handwave before continuing deeper into the store. It looked like most of those things were paying attention to the other patients, but she still had to whack a few of them to get to where she wanted. Saws... saws...

Really, she couldn't use just a skillet all day. She was a five foot, twenty-five year old woman with limited strength and stamina--she needed something easier on her.

Unlike some overly excited redhead nearby, Dollie was smart enough to go for the circular saws, not the chainsaws. They were more lightweight, easier to carry and, from her experience, the blades were easier to replace. But she didn't have enough room her bag for the extra blades and batteries with all the junk she put in there already, not to mention she'd need both her hands

[ran_on_empty]

What might've (or might not have) surprised Dahlia was that her guess about his age was a lot closer than she might've thought, but now wasn’t the time to divulge in the details. It was a shame he missed Claude's head; he would've liked to see Guy fret over his poor friend while fighting for his life, but it wasn't like the chance wouldn't spring up another time.

Now that Sync was feeling rather accomplished he silently slipped through the aisles in search of Dahlia, spotting her hair from the corner of his eye and quickly followed. He made sure to stay away from the other redhead that'd been slicing away at the monsters with a loud piece of fontech, quirking an eyebrow when there was no longer the threat of him being hacked away.

There certainly wasn't anything like that on Auldrant, but there were several things in this world he'd never seen before.

By the time Dahlia called out for him he was only a few feet away, eying at the tools that piqued her interest.

"What is it?"

[dahliahasthorns]

In the meantime it took for Sync to wander over, Dahlia had tore open the box to her new toy, quickly reading the instructions on just what to do. Ugh, she'd skim through the instructions on installing new batteries and blades when she had the time. Hmm... may as well take out her braids and tie her hair up so it didn't get in her way. And put on some safety glasses, while she was at it.

Oh, there he was.

She opened up her bag and made good dumping everything that she had already stashed inside of it onto the floor. "I don't have room for these. Take what you want." She had something more interesting to play with, now. Any extra blades or batteries just went into her now empty bag, accompanied by the instructions and an extra pair of glasses. Eh, the skillet could stay behind--it took too much energy to use.

[i_dont_paint]

As little as Tony typically liked routine, there was one at Landel's Institute that he'd almost learned to count on: things went horribly wrong when it went dark. And yet, dark had not quite fallen, and everything had already erupted into chaos. It took his mind a few seconds to catch up to the sudden warping, cracked and sagging floorboards, oddly stained, where there had been clean before. He didn't even try to catch up with the mental track that would explain the groaning, shambling dead men or the fights erupting in the aisles. After that first night, he'd learned to hold off on trying to explain why things were happening until after said things were no longer trying to chew his arm off

[catstreetblues]

Sanae quickly concluded that all he needed now was a timer ticking away on his palm for this to be a legit Game, because otherwise it had all the necessary elements- mostly the "run for your life or die" one. He'd planned on trying to create some distance between him and the undead masses, but the street was packed, and the barista was forced to make a sharp turn into the hardware store for cover.

Not that this place was any better. The inside smelled like a battlefield (a rotting and maybe seven days old one), and Sanae nearly tripped down a random aisle to escape the grasp of what had probably been a customer only some minutes ago. No good: painfully slow though they were, zombies had good reflexes, and soon he found himself backing up in a panic, scrambling for something to defend himself with as said ex-customer lurched closer and closer.

Partner...pact...psyche...paint! Sanae's mental alliteration cut off as his hand closed on a canister of spray paint - one of the industrial kinds they used for street construction. On reflex

[i_dont_paint]

The movement jolted Tony around, prybar half raised in a manner more reminiscent of a baseball bat than any more traditional weapon. If he could have seen his own expression, he would have been annoyed at how much it revealed, eyes too wide and jaw taut with strain.

The voice processed first, long before he managed to take in enough of the man's appearance in the dim light to see that he didn't appear to be rotting. None of the dead seemed to be able to do anything but moan, so using actual words was as close to a good sign as there was likely to be.

Tony managed a smile, grim and fixed rather than the nonchalance he was aiming for, and lowered the prybar enough that it was no longer threatening. Not enough that he couldn't bring it to bear when another of the walking dead inevitably tripped down the aisle, though. "Don't worry about it. Just one of those nights."

His eyes lit on the paint can in the other man's hand, and that grim smile mutated slowly into something manic. "Where'd you get that?"

[catstreetblues]

Sanae's eyes widened when he saw the prybar, his first thoughts being strangely enough something along the lines of Getting my head smashed in - that's preferable to being eaten. But then he got a better look and realized that zombies typically didn't have their jaw set so tightly - or have jaws at all

[number_crunch]

As the light's dimmed, Sho's mind grew brighter. Having spent most of the last hour or two in a vague stupor counting windows, calculating wind speed velocities, devising algorithms for rearranging the landscaping and attempting to derive the chemical make up of some liquid in an abandoned soda cup by the side of the road by visual cues only - one whiff told him that gathering data through other sensory methods would not be advisable - Sho had eventually wandered into Bill's Hardware, looking for tools with which to make art. He proved irate enough when bothered that the employees generally left him alone to wander the aisles, pick up tools, put them back, pick them up again then drop them on the floor, though they did manage to herd him towards the back of the store. It was there that he came to his senses as night fell and the scenery drastically changed. Blinking in the semi-darkness, he had to admire the stack of tape measures and ball-peen hammers someone had made. He suspected it might have been himself.

"t, t, what's t... " he

[number_crunch]

Now came the problems with Zombies E and F. And G, H, I, J

[scalyfishman]

[From here]

It looked like a bomb had hit the place already, but that was the least of Depth Charge's worries. Almost flinging Javert (as well as his passenger) against the counter in his hurry he leaned back out of the hole where the door had once been and hollered, "Hey, Bird Boy! Get your tail-feathers in here, pronto!" before darting back inside again. If he didn't materialise in twenty nanokliks he was heading back out again.

There was something wet on his back. Blood? Most likely. Probably looked like someone had been skiing on his back with a couple of razor blades from behind. Well, slag it, he could deal with it later. A moment later he snatched a spanner off of a nearby shelf and brought it down on the thing's head as hard as he could for good measure. If it wasn't dead now... well, they didn't stand a chance.

"Better safe than sorry," he said breathlessly, glancing back at Javert. His shoulders were starting to hurt now, either from the beating they'd taken or from overexertion, and the spanner fell from his hand. "Still

[buteo_sapiens]

Tobias was already on his way in, sweeping past Depth Charge like a bullet before flaring and banking sharply-- what room there was in the store wasn't enough for a bird his size, and he let out a pained < Ah! > when one tired wing clipped a shelf, sending him tumbling to the floor and skidding across it.

A dazed moment later, he said, < I could really go for a mouse right now, > thought-speech a little foggy before he struggled upright. < Right. Right. Uh, I don't think I can fly anymore, > he apologized. < I'm going back to human. Sledgehammers. I could swing a sledgehammer

[unmocked_lawr]

"Yes, thank you." There wasn't much he could say beyond that as he smashed the remains of the zombie's head against the counter, at which point its jaws finally loosened and it squelched pathetically as it hit the floor. Damn and blast, that hurt.

The world had gone fuzzy for a moment, but he blinked and the moment was gone. Taking a steadying breath, right hand gripping the injury instinctively, he straightened and looked around. Sometime between their entrance into the building and the removal of the zombie from his arm, Astor had changed back into a human. He didn't look in particularly good shape, either.

"I suppose this has been our worst night yet," he said through gritted teeth, a touch of the old dark humor slipping in despite the pain. "Well, might as well have a look around, now that we're already guilty of breaking and entering."

[scalyfishman]

It didn’t take a genius to see that Astor could barely even walk for the moment, let alone do any searching or rescuing. Frankly, Depth Charge wasn’t surprised; just watching that transformation was enough to make him almost glad that he hadn’t been left with his own transformations intact.

While the he and Javert recovered, the Maximal began to pace up and down the aisles. “No mice here, kid,” he said absently, ignoring the pain in his back while he combed the shelves. A few moments later a couple of crow bars landed at the other two's feet. “With our luck they’ve probably been given the undead treatment too.”

And speak of the undead and they shall appear. Depth Charge drew to a sharp halt as he turned a corner and found himself treading in coagulating black ooze- complete with a couple of decapitated bodies, one of which looked like the storekeeper. Someone had taken the time to arrange one of the heads on a rake. Real cute. “I don’t think the owner’s gonna lose his head over it, Javert. Really.”

Well. Someone had to say it.