ArchivedLogs:Let Me Go

Let Me Go
Dramatis Personae Dex, Jackson, Kelly
In Absentia	2013-12-07 Dex has a pet zombie... Kelly finds him, and Jackson has to put it down.
Location <NYC> East Village
While the bookstore may be closed, its back door opens just a moment as Kelly's voice calls back into the darkened building: "I'll get these loaded up, sir, no worries." The kid having volunteered to come along with one of the staff to pick up a shipment of rather heavy books. Volunteering had promised food and maybe even a recreation stop... but delays have denied them both of those things, and they were lucky enough that the store would let them pick up the order at all tonight. The box his heavy in his hands as he lets the door close and lock behind him. The boy is dressed in thick clothing occasionally accented with the X logo of the school, though it's a bit oddly bulky around his arms, and that bulk sometimes shifts awkwardly. His hood is up, as well, obscuring his head and hair, and he seems to shuffle a bit uncomfortably in shoes a few sizes too big for his feet. There's a pronounced hiss from the back of the alley area, and the woman rolls half onto hands and knees, and partially reaches out towards the ill-fitting boots Kelly's wearing with one hand. She's quiet other than her slow shuffle, as if her legs weren't working, to try to make a little grab for his shoelaces. It's very horror-movie, though, since it's such a slow motion move, and her head is a mass of hair. She doesn't LOOK dead, though, just really dirty and pale. With the large box in his hands, Kelly is painfully slow to respond to the noise, and simply tries to look down over the side of it... and no, that doesn't work, the other side? And the entire time he's doing it he actually steps /closer/ to the outstretched hand. He finally notices the woman down there, and... assuming she's just simply homeless, says: "Oh man, are you ok? I don't really have any money or nuthin' honest. Are you hurt?" Concern in his voice since she's on the ground. Naturally, she'll try to get a grip on the laces or the side of the shoe, with her outstretched eager-grippy fingers. However, the words from Kelly will get more response from the back of the alley itself, where Dex is sitting. He's got his back to the side of the dumpster, previously facing mostly away, but now he leans out partially to look. A slow, languid movement, as if to take in the encounter of the girl and the guy with the box. "Let him alone," Dex mutters towards the girl on the ground, who pulls her hands back with a little jerk and tucks them under herself, and makes some funny nonsensical sounds at Kelly, face now on the ground. "Its ok, I'm not mad or nuthin'." Kelly says, but he has to put the large heavy books down on the dumpster with a WHOOMP sound. "You know her, then? Is she alright?" He asks again, but this time to Dex since the girl didn't respond. With his boots not free, his posture completely relaxes in place, "I can get my teacher, inside, if we need to call an ambulance or something. I think they're running again." "Um," Dex answers, as if trying to decide how to answer that. He scoots out just a little more, but leans heavily on the dumpster. He's vocal, but physically, has a similar style of motion to the girl. Neither seems like they'd leap to their feet anytime soon. "I /think/ she's harmless," Dex answers, after a long stare at her back. She's making some uncomfortable noises and wiggling, wormlike, to inch towards Kelly's feet, as if denied use of her arms, but still intent on getting close to his shoes. "Right now," he adds. "Oh man, you both look kinda wrecked." Kelly says but steps away from the girl when he says 'right now.' And realizes only a moment later that his books were now out of his reach. "What do you mean, 'right now?'" Kelly demands, getting a bit nervous as he sees her wiggling down there. "I'm pretty sure I don't need to tell 'ya how important it is to get checked out if you're sick right now?" "I don't think the dead ones are infectious?" Dex asks as if honestly trying to remember, scooching his legs up a little rest one elbow on a knee, and support his head on it, as if it's rather heavy to keep using his neck to hold it up. Dex mostly sounds either stoned or exhausted or sick or some other issue. The girl has only gotten maybe an inch or two, at best. "Oh crap." Kelly says and tries the door. The huge thick locked door... that's soundproof. "Dang it... what do you mean dead?" he says a moment later but keeps a healthy distance between her and him... but when its obvious he can't summon responsible adult supervision right now... he moves to get closer to Dex: "So you /are/ sick? Jeez, can you move or stuff? I can't get in to get my teacher, but like, we can get you to a clinic. I think there's one near here, isn't there? Or a hospital at least." And while his voice is definitely strained, he's moving into 'handle the emergency' mode, keeping even, if rushed, voice and giving Dex a very careful look over as he closes the distance. Dex is watching Kelly pretty closely... despite that lackluster sort of stare he has going on. Closer than he's watching the girl on the ground, anyway. "I said, I don't think the dead ones are infectious," Dex repeats, as if he interpreted Kelly as asking him to say it again literally. There's no mocking or annoyance, just a complete re-parroting of what he'd said before. "So she is not infectious. I was just... trying to help her," Dex says, in a very sad, depressed tone, lolling his head a little to gesture with his forehead to her. She's started to get her arms and legs under her now, while Dex is chatting with Kelly. Dex, otherwise, doesn't look like he's injured, aside from an awful pallor. And that's when Kelly figures some of it out... That he's now placed himself between a stranger... of the exceedingly strange sort, and one of the zombies... with the only way OUT now being past the zombie. He turns around quickly now, and as he does instinct alone causes his bark plating to expand around his neck, as well as other areas around his body... making his clothing bulge quite obviously. His arms begin to... /squirm/ as well, inside the coat. "Holy Jesus, she's one of them?" he asks again, backing up next to Dex. Well, the bulges and everything else attract Dex's full attention, who STARES at Kelly. "Your coat moved," is what Dex comes up with, in surprise. He lifts a hand to gesture at Kelly's arms, and then drops the hand back to his lap with a plop. While Dex is asking this, the girl seems to recover a great deal, in that she's able to turn around and lurch to her feet with a typical groan, to face Kelly. Dex doesn't look even aware of her movement, so focused on Kelly's body is he. Kelly gives Dex an extremely surprised look and his breath starts to accelerate. "Yeah, its moving, kinda... uhm... sor- err... apologize about that." But even as he says this, his hand is fumbling through his pockets to find that nice little phone with that nice little button to press. And while he's scared completely out of his wits... he still moves to put himself between Dex and the assumed dead girl. "Professor?!" He calls out loudly as his thumb fumbles to find the panic button with one hand... while long vines start to slither out the coat sleeve of his other, that he holds up warningly to the 'zombie.' "Stay back!" as if she knows what that even means. "...What?!" Dex asks, loudly, orienting to take in the girl again. Oh, she's standing. Dex reaches out towards the zombie also, similar to the time when Kelly does so, which will make the zombie seem to react to the both of them: her arms pull in across her chest, and she wriggles slightly and collapses back down forwards onto her knees, face back onto the ground. "She'll stay down, don't," Dex says, partially struggling to stand up. One hand is on the dumpster, using it for leverage to stand, the other is aimed at the girl, palm out and down, as if pressing her to the floor from where he is. "We're harmless, it's okay," Dex says, as if trying to be calm, but worried. Kelly looks at Dex, and then looks down at the girl, frowning as she goes down. "She is dead isn't she?" he says, and when he looks back to Dex, his face is streaked with green lines. "What are you doing with her? And it looks like you're like on death's door yourself, man." He doesn't lower his own hand, but he does relax it... and refrains from pushing the panic button on his phone just yet. "Yeah," Dex answers, after a pause, to the question about her being dead. Yeah, she's dead. "I'm just..." he takes in the green, and makes a choice. "...trying to fix her. Make her less crazy. There's no /harm/ in trying," Dex insists, a little bit of fear rising there. He leans on the dumpster, but seems to be able to at least keep things under control. The girl is worming a little, but clearly doesn't feel any emotion other than hunger in Kelly's direction. Kelly looks down quite sadly at the situation. "Is it working?" he asks with just a spark of hope in him. "I mean, you're lookin' pretty bad right now man..." Kelly reaches out a hand to touch Dex's arm, see how it felt at least, his own fingers pink and warm... though his arm is still extra squirmy from the vines. "Did you know her?" Dex doesn't evade the touch at first, doesn't flinch at all, but then sort of pulls back a little belatedly, as if embarrassed. Dex is 'room temprature'-- which in this cause means really cold and kind of clammy. "I didn't know her, but I looked at her ID in her purse, her name's Emily," Dex says, flatly. "Well... She looked worse before," Dex admits, but doesn't sound particularly hopeful. "But, I don't think so." Defeated. Kelly pulls his hand back with a bit of shock in his eyes. "Oh man, you're like really really sick." He pushes further, thinking that that cold clammy nature of the other boy's hand meant the worst. "Ok... I get that you want to help her... and I'm not sayin' you shouldn't have tried but... uhm... you need help and like pronto before you're just like her." Dex seems distracted more fully with Kelly, again. And similar to before, the girl starts to get to her feet much like the other time. But Dex kind of shakes out of it, and very obviously looks at her again.. and she does the collapse. "Does you being green mean you're sick?" Dex asks, simply. He turns his head to attempt to at least look directly at Kelly's face, but it has an 'off' quality to it, like Dex is looking through Kelly's head to somewhere beyond. "Uhm... I'm green... huh..." Kelly blushes, well, sort of 'blushes', but instead of pink it's a deeper green. "But no, not sick. 100% not zombie, promise." He says at length. "But you're cold and... limp, and... is that normal for you?" But when he turns to 'Emily', he shifts uncomfortably. "I don't think it's a good idea to take care of Emily like this, though. Its not safe." "Normal... well... no. Uh. it's.. complicated," Dex says, in a way that suggests that he's either too out of it or too exhausted to think about how on earth he'd explain it. "It just ...IS. Maybe if I were smarter, I'd have already saved her, or the others." Dex pauses, and then, quietly continues, "We'll be okay. I want to try a little longer. If it doesn't work out... some hero will come by and end her," Dex says, in a sad voice. "Nuh 'uh." Kelly says, shaking his head. "There really isn't any way I can leave ya like this,man... Sorry, not that kinda jerk." And with that, he considers the situation, looks around and pulls out his phone. "Lets get some help, one of my teachers helped with some of this zombie stuff, he can help maybe? You don't have to go at this alone." And then he considers the zombie, and adds: "And maybe... something can be done for Emily. If you /CAN/ help make 'em better, I /know/ they'd want to help." Currently, in the alley behind the bookstore, is a strange little situation. There is a girl laying flat on her stomach in a yellow jacket and jeans, with her face on the concrete, wriggling around and hissing a little bit. Further in the alley is one Kelly, and hanging onto a dumpster just back and to the side of him, is a barely-standing Dex. Both boys are obviously paying heavy attention to the girl on the ground. Dex and the girl are both extremely pale, but otherwise don't seem to have big injuries anywhere. Kelly, on the other hand, is a bit prickly. Dex lets go of the dumpster, but it's not easy going, he half-stumbles as if his limbs were heavy. "Nono, don't want people around, /seeing/...." Dex says, clearly trying to think. Clearly, if only because he stands there wavering and seems to stare at the girl unblinkingly. Too late. And the stumbling routine Dex is giving isn't really helping his case. Kelly, who is in the small alley behind the currently closed bookstore near a box of heavy books that were long ago meant to be hauled to a car for delivery back to Xavier's, opens his phone, flips over to the phone number list the school provided until he finds Jacksons number. He presses it and the phone begins to ring. "Mr. Holland? This is Kelly, sorr- err... pollogies for calling, but I'm in kinda a pinch. I'm ok, but... there's a kid here and he's like us... but I think he's pretty sick. And there is... well, one of the zombies." "H'lo," comes Jax's cheerful greeting, when he answers; and when Kelly replies his correction of title: "S'just Jax," is reflexive. Then quiet. "-- Zombies? Are you safe, are you alright?" The bright cheer has largely gone from his voice, just calm now and quieter. "Where are you, are you alone? I mean -- obviously not but nobody else from school?" Dex reacts, but it's not the quickest reaction. "Here, I'll move her, you can go, and leave us," Dex suggests, stepping directly towards the zombie on the ground. Well, in an awkward, shuffling step, reaching towards her a little. And the zombie promptly and easily gets to her feet, taking one step towards Kelly, and then as if her body got a new idea, moves directly sideways into the side of the wall with a 'smack' of her limbs hitting the brick. Well, she IS out of the path. Looks like she'd far prefer to go eat Kelly though, but can't quite fight free of Dex's focus on her. "I came here with Mr. Deeb, I'm behind the bookstore at (address is given), and I can't get to him." Kelly explains as he watches Dex move the zombie so easily, and then sees him stumbling around. "I'm ok so far, I think, but this kid's barely standing, he's trying to control the zombie." Kelly explains some more, his tone getting slightly desperate and worried as he talks. He whispers the next line: "I'm worried he's going to turn..." Kelly lowers the phone for just a moment to tell Dex that: "I'm sorry, I can't just leave you here, really." Which would be audible over the phone. "Don't get up, you can barely walk." "I don't know what to do." Is said with a cracked voice to Jackson when the phone comes back up." This is answered with more quiet; then muffled speaking, indecipherable in the background. "I don't live far," Jackson answers after a bit; there's some shuffling noises in the background. The clink of dishes, the rattle of keys. "Tell Shane --" is audible, for a moment, before more muffled harder-to-pick-out words. Then clearer again: "Can y'all hang tight jus' a few minutes more? I'll be there quick as I can." Dex is mostly paying attention to the zombie that's trying to get at Kelly from her weird spot against the wall. Dex is clearly keeping tabs on her, but is also working to position himself towards the opening of the alley as well, as if to get into a better position to leave, or escort the zombie out of the alley. "Just let me work on it," Dex says. "See, no harm." "Do what I can." Kelly says, as he hangs up, and looks towards Dex with a tired sort of disbelief in his face. Looking towards Emily, he says with a frightened stutter: "Hey, you can stop trying, I mean, really, you woudn't even want to eat me. Honest and cross my heart, Emily." Hoping that would ease Dex's nerves a bit. "Just wait, would ya, man? I mean, as soon as she gets out of this alley, everyone's going to freak out and hurt her, and you look a little TOO much like one yourself right now, they might hurt you, too." There's some frustration showing on Dex now, but it's still pretty mild. He hasn't shown much expression of anything overall, there's only been small changes in tone. He's struggling to come up with something that won't cause him more trouble, but the options are a bit limited. Fortunately for Kelly, probably, Dex isn't exactly operating at a rapid speed. He takes a long while to consider options and mostly stands there staring at Emily. Unfortunately, Kelly's own advice about not going out into the street soon hits him as he looks down at his greenish skin, bulging form, and wiggling vines. Closing his eyes he tries to calm down himself, but his bark just gets even thicker on his neck as he stresses out, and his jacket makes a small ripping sound as the bulk inside it pushes further. "C'mon, you remember this, just relax..." he says, "Try to calm down..." and it isn't clear if he's talking to himself or Dex as he slides down the wall to a good sit, eyes locked on the pair. "I'm going to end up with like a week's detention for this, I know it." A choice is finally made. Dex says something related to not being caught or something, and veers out into the street, at an uneven, maybe drunken pace, putting one hand into a coat pocket, then the other, in a shuffle to get away. Emily the zombie seems to turn and orient towards the street, and then starts to kind of meander that way. It isn't all /that/ long before a car pulls up outside the bookstore, a sleek red electric Stark convertible. One that will hopefully not get /towed/ soon, because the spot Jax takes is decidedly not a legal one, designated for loading and unloading only -- but then again, a lot of municipal workers are currently dead or overworked and the city is still thickly littered with abandoned vehicles, so it's less likely anyone will take much note. He's as bright as ever when he gets out, long pink and green skirt with shiny silver leggings beneath, silvery jacket, huge mirrored sunglasses. There's a significant hurry to his steps as he heads towards the alley, though with the enormous sunglasses his /expression/ is hard to read as he surveys the people within. "-- Oh," he says this in a rather surprised tone as he nearly bumps into Dex on his way over, "s'you. You don't look so great, you think maybe you should sit down?" His attention turns to the zombie, watching it carefully. A faint shimmer of shield sprouts in a circle around it, restricting its movement any further towards the street. "Kelly, y'aright, honey-honey?" "Jax, don't let him get hurt." Kelly begs as he stands up and starts to walk near Jackson with some relief... but stalls the normally large boy realizes he's a little bit on the /extra/ large side of things right now, and more than a little green around the gills. Not that he actually has gills. "I'm ok, just... can't seem to go back to normal right now." He says with a bit of stress, as he shrinks back out of sight from the street, 'Emily' given more than enough room to breathe despite the light circle. Technically, compared to the last time, Dex looks horrible, cold and blueish and emotionless. If Dex is surprised to see Jackson, it shows only in a vacant stare at him for a few long seconds, and then said stare continues at the passive, wandering zombie. A zombie which starts to attack the glowing shield with aggression with claws on one side, then the other, as if seeking a weakness in the shield. And then does a whole new thing. Emily rasps loudly, "Let me out!" Well, after that, Dex shuffles back a step or two, without actually lifting his feet much. The light shield doesn't fade, although /Jax/ does take a startled half-step back at the speaking. He steps closer again afterwards, a flutter of illumination lighting the zombie's face so that he can examine it more closely. Then look at Dex. "Did /you/ make it say that?" His voice is rather quiet. He shakes his head briefly. "I don't got no intention of letting anybody get hurt. But I can only give people s'much help as they want t'have. Kelly, jus' try to breathe deep an' stay calm. Focus on somethin' that makes you feel grounded. Favourite song, maybe. Your powers'll listen to you, but you gotta get your emotions listening to you, first." He looks back to Dex with a deep enough frown that it's easy to see even behind his sunglasses, face scrunching up and his teeth worrying at his lip ring with a lot more fidgety anxiousness than his aggressively even tone would suggest. "You look like you're real unwell," he says to Dex. "An' it ain't safe to stay out here. Do you /have/ somewhere safe to go?" Listening to Jax, Kelly at least finds some strength in the fact that he's not the one responsible any more... and takes some deep breaths, trying to relax. But his whole world stops the moment that the zombie says something. "Holy... holy Jesus..." he says in a long southern accent, stepping back against the wall. "He aint kiddin'... he is helpin' the poor girl." He says, slack jawed. "Her, not 'It'," Emily the zombie corrects Jackson when he asks Dex about if he made the zombie talk. Then, Emily the zombie then seems to just go into general, default zombie-clawing at the shield to get at the nearest person-- which is probably Jackson. "I'll go home. But I was getting somewhere, this time," Dex says, in a sort of flat tone. Not much emotion in it, as if emotion was tiring. "I'm safer here than she is," Dex adds, more quietly, but seems to have given up, by body language. And starts to back off, in a disjointed shuffling way that looks like exhaustion, drunkenness, or zombie plague. "Mmnh." Jackson sounds /entirely/ unconvinced as to Kelly's statement that Dex is helping. The wall stays very firmly in place, solid and unwavering against the zombie's clawing. "Stop --" His hand reaches out to Dex's shoulder, firm but not a hard enough grip to be actively /restraining/. "You ain't in no fit state to be -- you can't hardly walk, hon. How far is home? And what exactly are you doing to it? How do you make it do that?" Favorite song? Kelly begins to hum to himself a dreadfully off pitch version of a top 40 tune, and slowly tries to force himself to relax. Its moderately successful in that he stops growing any further, and actually does shrink back into a more Kelly-like shape. "It aint like we want to hurt you, or Emily..." Kelly says again, more than eager to call the potential infected person by name instead of 'it', the boy ever so lost in his constant willingness to hope for better. "Just... don't want you to get... well, worse." Dex stumbles back a bit away from the hand, but much too late. Dex is easy to grab onto, his reaction time is clearly delayed, at this close range. "Not gonna tell you where I live, I can walk home fine," Dex points out, but it's without inflection, it's just a statement. "I just direct her. Them. She likes me," Dex says, weakly, glancing from Jackson to Kelly slowly, his glassy-eyed gaze muddled. "I feel her. It just... is." Dex is having a hard time with being coherent, and it probably shows. Jax's lips twitch faintly as he looks back to Kelly, relaxing minutely when the boy starts to revert more like his usual form. His hand reaches to the shield, fingers brushing across it just in front of the zombie's line of vision. "I'm just worried, hon," he says quietly to Dex. "Whatever it is you're doin' here --" His hand pulls back, curling across his chest to fold his arms there. "I teach at a school that can help. Learn to understand your abilities. Control them better. But this ain't the way, it's killin' you an' it's dangerous to everyone around you because the /second/ you slip up? This zombie is gonna start killin' people again. An' you don't want that weighin' on you." Kelly's bark begins to retreat some too, now, and soon the boy is normal looking except for the greenish tint that has stuck to his skin, though nowhere near as strong as it was a few moments ago. "Really, it aint no joke, man." He echoes Jackson's sentiment. "I mean, they know how to help people like us. I... kinda thought it was a joke, too at first... but I mean, its worth a shot, itn' it?" He's getting tired though, the experience having taken a bit out of him now that the adrenaline isn't pumping through him. "Yeah, it does kill me," Dex agrees, as if that part in particular made him really take in what Jax was saying. "...but this is important. If even one, if I..." Dex says, in a disjointed tone. "...I can't think right now; I don't /KNOW/.... At least destroy her after I've gone," Dex asks, with a rough shake of head, backing off with some better cohesion now (now that the zombie's on it's own to do default things), and will fully vacate the area into the night. Jackson doesn't actually answer the teenager. There's a more tired slump to his shoulders, and his head tips forward to rest his forehead against the warm shimmering shield. His hand presses up against it, and the breaths he draws in are slow. "Kelly, hon, can you get back to Professor Deeb's car aright on your own or should I walk with you?" "I can go." Kelly says, though there is a bit of apprehension in his voice when he does so. He pulls his hood down tighter, looks down at the floor, and puts his hands in his pockets. Someone looking close at the boy might notice the green, but it was dark. But... any hope and joy in his face dies when Dex moves off, and they're left with the zombie in a bubble. He turns towards Jackson and then to Emily... and with a sigh pats Jackson on the shoulder once. "I'm really... I... 'pologies for calling, sir." And he turns to move out of the alley, a favor to Jackson as much to himself at having to not see this. "I'm sorry, Emily..." he whispers to himself when he's out of sight, and he's crying by the time he makes it to the car. "No, don't apologize. It was the right thing t'do. I just wish I coulda --" Jackson doesn't finish this. Just lapses into silence, as Kelly moves off, staying just where he is with his head leaning up against the shield. It takes a while for him to straighten, right hand lifting to cross himself and press his fingers lightly to his lips afterwards. A brief bright flash illuminates the alley, and then it falls into darkness once more.