[MW] Pennsylvania

[re_mybrains]

It's a pleasant March afternoon in downtown Harrisburg, Pennsylvania -- sunny, partly cloudy.

In the courtyard of Pennsylvania Apartments, the bang of the front door slamming is still echoing when it opens again

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[re_mybrains]

The moment the door's open, Tom darts out and whirls to cover either side. The bulk of the shamble is still a few yards away, and he doesn't want to get ambushed the way he did before.

--Oh look, that zombie in the skirt that did the ambushing is still there. Tom stares, bemused, for a bare second before bringing his gun up and firing.

The zombie's head jerks to the side as the bullet slams through half its skull; it stumbles forward another step or two and falls as Tom moves sideways to clear the door.

[accipiterpuella]

Kendra is armed for bear, zombie, and miscellaneous as yet uncategorized malevolent entities of a possibly ambitious nature. She's got a particularly large morning star in her right hand, crafted more for close quarters carnage than distance killing. She spent a goodly portion of last evening checking and rechecking her weapons, testing them for heft, balance, and sharpness

[re_mybrains]

A few zombies -- two in the middle of the shamble, one on the front line -- crane their heads back, tracking after her.

(So does Tom, for a second. Because. Damn.)

But zombies are pretty dumb. To scent after Hawkgirl, they stop in their tracks, which makes the front one a perfect target for Tom.

The rest of the shamble keeps shuffling forward, zombies at the back pressing against their slower fellows.

[accipiterpuella]

Kendra doesn't like zombies close to her friends. Were this a more leisurely pursuit, where so much danger wasn't present, she might experiment with distraction techniques, but right now all she wants to know is if she can make them keep looking at her and perhaps, if the stars are aligned, follow her.

"Up here!" she singsongs. "Hey, sooooey soooey soooey!"

Then she arches, and descends in an arc. Kendra can fly very, very fast when she's got space and time to work up speed, but gravity works almost as well in pulling her down, and she uses that to her advantage. The shamble is too close together to use her sword effectively until she picks off one or two to loosen up the crowding.

There, that guy, the male zombie at the back, pushing the shamble towards Tom.

Her mace is up with a roar - that's the fun part, when her adrenaline surges into overdrive and she can roar as loud as she can - and down it comes with a wet CRUNCH sound of breaking skull and traumatized brain matter

[re_mybrains]

Now that's an effective distraction technique. The zombies at the back react, slowly, turning away from the main group and reaching up towards her.

[accipiterpuella]

Her first suitor has slowly begun to crumple to his knees. Apparently, it takes a while for these zombies to work out that they might, in fact, be dead.

Half his head is sliding wetly down the remains of his Kings of Leon t-shirt, with bits of skull festively decorating bits of brain like particularly white tortilla chips in pink guacamole.

Meanwhile, Kendra has taken to the air again, striving for height, up, up, and up, orienting herself first to the sun, whose position reads afternoon to her. Circling, she looks down, scanning and picking out any structures, trees, overhangs, or anything else that might hide more shambling or ambling unwanted pursuers coming their way.

"Clear!" she shouts, hoping to God they can hear her. "Clear! Nothing but them for now!"

[re_mybrains]

BANG. Another zombie at the front of shamble jerks backwards and drops; the fallen bodies are starting to interfere with the shamble's forward progress.

"Well thank fuck for that!" Tom hollers back to her, wincing as a shot from one of the others goes past.

The zombies at the back keep reaching up after her for a minute before losing interest and turning back towards the food that's actually in reach.

[accipiterpuella]

"Good shot!" she yells back. That's the spirit.

He's good at this.

Later, they can talk about how sad it all is. It is sad, this pretty Earth of Tom's that's been overrun with the dead, with nothing home in the faces of all of these people that used to eat, laugh, make love, weep, walk the dog, buy milk at the store, and simply live.Kendra's taken the opportunity to put some horizontal distance between herself and the shamble, angling for an approach that doesn't get her in the line of fire of anyone else. That would be, after all, a bit louche. Nothing humiliates like going to the hospital and explaining that you went down due to overzealously getting in the way of friendly fire

[re_mybrains]

The zombie lets out an annoyed noise and flails up at Kendra, swinging in her grip.

[stilljustandrew]

Andrew, meanwhile, has his shoulder to Tom's and is firing into the shamble.

His aim isn't flawless, but with targets packed this close together it doesn't have to be.

[accipiterpuella]

Oh, gods, they talk. Or something close to it, because for these kind of zombies, ones that don't appear to be agents of some collective intelligence (yet), that's pretty damn close to talking.

"Sorry," she says, curtly, but with feeling. "You have to go now."

They're still airborne, going higher and higher, until Kendra judges that it'll do.

Then she lets go, watching the girl tumble and pinwheel in the air. If there's anything left after she hits the ground, Kendra will chop it up later.

She's glad she's in the air when zombie meets ground. She hates that sound of a human body being spread out into a thin paste of biomass.

[stilljustandrew]

Andrew's not too fond of it either, and he's a lot closer.

God, this is so much messier than vampires.

(If not as messy as, say, slime demons. But much more human-looking, and that doesn't help.)

He sets his jaw, and keeps firing.

[re_mybrains]

Tom flinches at the impact. "Jesus--"

One of the zombies, stuck behind one of its downed fellows, overbalances and tips forward. It hits the pavement with an unpleasant thwk noise and lies still.

For a second.

Then it apparently re-evaluates the situation and reaches for Andrew's ankle.

"--Andrew on your left--!"

[stilljustandrew]

"Gah--" Andrew stumbles back from the grasping hand, and puts a bullet through the prone zombie's head at point-blank range.

Close enough to get splattered.

[re_mybrains]

"Oh, shit," Tom mutters, half-disgusted, half-dismayed. "Don't let that get inside you, man--"

[stilljustandrew]

"Not a chance," Andrew says fervently, scrubbing a smear of zombie gore off his knuckles -- the only bare skin to be touched by it, fortunately, owing to the angle.

His shoes and pant legs are sticky with it, though.