ArchivedLogs:In Which Brains are Violated in Multiple Ways, All With An Appropriate Amount of Fuss

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In Which Brains are Violated in Multiple Ways, All With An Appropriate Amount of Fuss
Dramatis Personae

Skye, Taylor

2017-08-17


"This is just how New Yorkers /do/ now, yeah?"

Location

<NYC> Guerrilla Garden - Lower East Side


Situated on the lot directly adjacent to the distinctive sleek form of the Mendel Clinic, this space was once abandoned. The chainlink fence around it is still rusty, dilapidated, and the signs affixed to it still unwelcoming -- rusty as well, reading KEEP OUT, and PRIVATE PROPERTY. For those who venture into the slitted gap cut out of the fence, though, the yard within tells a different story.

Neat and cleaned of any garbage and weeds, the once-abandoned lot has been rebuilt. Packing crates have been broken down for their wood to create raised beds full of rich soil, each bed neatly tilled and tended. Stakes label the different plants growing -- a wealth of vegetables growing three seasons of the year in the carefully tended soil. Around the edges of the lot, smaller beds have had brightly coloured flowers planted, lending even more cheer to the little hidden garden. Very eclectically mismatched seating has been brought in; old packing crates, chairs scavenged from curbs, though it's all been brightly painted.

It's fairly late, though sporadic streetlamps still illuminate this stretch of the neighborhood -- brighter over by the prominent silhouette of the Mendel Clinic but less so next door in this owner-less patch of land. The street is all but deserted, though one muscular youth is perched in the corner of the lot, distinctively tentacled form settled up high where the chain link fence meets a stone post of the adjacent lot. Taylor is in jean shorts, a Black Lives Matter tee. One sneakered foot rests on the top of the tall chainlink, one kind of dangling -- though intermittently moving a bit jerkily to one side or the other. He has a burrito in one hand, a soda coiled in one sinuous arm, and is looking down into the yard with a faint frown.

The chain link, every so often, is rattling. Through the rusted links the uncoordinated form of another body can be seen -- kind of reaching up toward him. Kind of grasping for his foot when it moves, kind of grasping for his arms where they dangle. Occasionally thumping into the fence, which doesn't stop their slow grabbyhands any.

Taylor sips at his soda. Hefts a reasonably solid rock in the end of one arm, almost contemplatively.

Takes a bite of his burrito.

The fence thump-rattles again.

An old dusty blue GMC Conversion van cruises down the street and rolls to a stop in front of the lot. The passenger side window rolls down and Skye, hair mussed and shaggy, leans out to peer at the zombie. "You alright, buddy?" she calls out. Then, quickly recognizing Taylor, "Oh hey!" She climbs out of the van now, in a black t-shirt with a blue leaping dolphin made out of what looks like code and baggy, ancient blue jeans. She's hefting a long tire iron and eying the zombie kind of warily. "Is it just the one?"

Sling -- thwack! Taylor throws the rock with a not-insignificant force. It thuds down against the zombie's head and falls to the ground. The zombie, now with some skin flapped loose from its forehead, continues its groaning grasping.

Taylor sips at his soda again. Looking down at Skye as she climbs out of the van, he nods. "It's just the one. I /got/ knives, but I also got this burrito. You see the dilemma?"

"Yeah, that's rough," Skye says, not sounding particularly sarcastic. "I can take care of this one if you want. Might ruin your appetite a bit? Though New Yorkers, y'all are hardcore about this kinda thing. Hats off." She tips her invisible hat and looks up and down the fence for a way into the garden.

"Shiiit, you got no idea the steel stomach I got. My appetite's hard to shake." Taylor drops one looong arm low, outside the fence, fumbling around for another rock though this time he comes up with a broken chunk of concrete.

The zombie, meanwhile, has turned its attention to the nearer target, crashing itself more steadily into the fence when Skye nears.

"Fence is cut just there --" Taylor is stretching his other loooong tentacle out overhead to indicate the gap in the fence, "I can keep it over here while you duck through."

"Gracias." Skye heads for the spot in the fence indicated, still watching the zombie warily. << Jesus H Tapdancing Christ, how do people get used to this sorta thing? >> She sinks down low and slips through the gap into the garden, then creeps up toward the zombie. << Weight low. Use both hands. Swing and follow through. >> Even while she runs through the mental checklist again, a part of her mind is feeling around the zombie as if searching for something to take hold of. This alien sense registers to Taylor as a weird, subsonic humming.

Taylor drops two arms down while Skye slips around to the entrance. One taps the zombie on the back; after this they just dangle, tantalizingly just in front of Chomping Teeth but pulling back out of distance with every actual bite and clutch of fingers. Up above, he is munching another big bite of burrito, washing it down with some of his Dr Pepper. "Lotta exposure," he answers, aloud. "Necessity."

Skye comes up behind the zombie and swings the tire iron, hard. At Taylor's reply, though, she looks up at him startled. << Wait did I say that aloud I'm /sure/ I didn't say it aloud. >> It throws off her swing just enough that the iron slams into the zombie's neck instead of skull. Its head snaps violently to one side as it lurches, staggering against the fence, and though its neck never quite straightens out right again it turns around and starts grabbing for her now. She jumps back and grips tight with the faint humming in her mind. The buzz grows, and Taylor can somehow feel it in the outlines of the zombie's skeletal system. Outwardly, the zombie's movements become jerky and irregular, as if having a seizure. Skye collects herself, looks up at Taylor as she readies the iron for another swing. << Telepath? >> Somewhat uncomfortable, this.

One of Taylor's dangling arms snakes out, when the first hit doesn't quite finish the job. It loops around the zombie's arm, tugging one grasping hand downward. "Lo siento." He shrugs one shoulder, a little too casual. "I don't try to pry."

Skye nods. << Ugh, I /got/ this. Oh wow that's awkward. Um. >> "I appreciate it, though. Keeping it off me, not the..." Waves one hand vaguely at her temple, then lines up her shot more carefully this time. << Weight low. Use both hands. Swing and follow through. >> This time the iron hits its target, and the zombie's (vibrating!) skull. << /Got/ it! >> She blushes fiercely. "Uh, I haven't been here super long. Not exactly a zombie-braining expert." << So he just...overhears all this, I guess. >>

"Let's hope you don't have to get too much more practice in." As promised, Taylor is still polishing off his burrito with no diminished relish, even after the small splatter of solid impact. He drops his grip, letting the body crumple to the ground as he wipes his arm off against the grass. "Gracias. I appreciate it. Sometimes all you want is to eat your dinner in peace, pick up something healthy for later, but bam." Shrug, a downward-turned grimace. "Zombie all up in your greens."

"De nada," Skye says, but she is looking a little green herself. << Right. That'll get less gross when I get used to it. >> She stoops low and wipes the tire iron in a patch of tall weeds. "First time I ran into a um, zombie, one of my mom's neighbors coming home just whacked it, like she was holding the door for me." She recalls the incident in fleeting, terrified snapshots. "This is just how New Yorkers /do/ now, yeah?" Smiling tightly through her vague nausea, she waves. "Be safe, I'll see you around."

"Maybe. Be honest with you," Taylor admits with a small dip of head, "it's still pretty terrible every time. You just --" He finishes the last of his burrito through a overly casual shrug. Crumples its foil wrapper into a ball as he pulls out his phone -- he's got the city's body identification and collection services in his /contacts/ already. "-- Do what you gotta, I guess. The only way to keep living through it." He's a little more somber as he stretches his arms out across the garden, plucks up an old tarp from where it's currently draped over a wheelbarrow, lays it with a conscientious care neatly over the body. "You too, huh? Stay safe."