ArchivedLogs:Welcome to New York

Welcome to New York
Dramatis Personae Dusk, Frank Lucas	2013-11-06 You're sure to love it here! (Part of Infected TP.)
Location <NYC> Village Lofts - Fourth Floor - East Village
The hallways here are not as bright as they once were, cheery yellow paint faded to a dingier shade, carpeting old and worn and threadbare. They are generally clean, though, despite the fading, diligently cared for by the building's maintenance. With the city in slowly climbing chaos, the Lofts have been -- oddly quieter than usual. Most of its usual in-and-out traffic just staying /in/, if they can afford to. Slipping around in a hushed hurry if they need to continue work and life. The fourth floor hasn't seen a lot of hallway traffic today. There's been an intermittent thumping coming from somewhere upstairs but lately it seems to have quieted. Occasionally the elevator moves. More often it doesn't. Frank has picked a wonderful time to move to New York City. With autumn and chaos in the air, she's been in this weird little cocoon provided by the process of moving all of her things into her apartment, building Ikea furniture (and swearing at it repeatedly), and trying to find her bearings. However, as news of so much sickness in the air has spread, she's found herself pretty grateful for her isolated job and odd hours. No one to get you sick if you don't have much human contact. After having spent much of the day asleep, she's up and moving around, having found the motivation to get dressed and put some music on. Pennywise is as good a soundtrack as any to get oneself moving to head downstairs to get rid of some boxes. So bobbing her head along with the music playing through the half-unpacked apartment, she gathers a stack of broken down boxes under one arm and pushes her way out into the hallway. Being oblivious is great sometimes. The door to the apartment just across the hall from hers unlocks, is pulled open. The young man who emerges is fairly nondescript in many senses -- Vans sneakers, plain blue jeans, a Doctor Whooves t-shirt ('Trust Me, I'm a Doctor' it reads around the pony's image), scruffy dark beard, scruffy dark hair. But the enormous dark wings -- batlike, not feathery -- that spike up over his head disrupt somewhat from his otherwise drab college-student appearance. Dusk stops as he re-locks his door, blinking for a moment at Frank, near-black eyes skipping over her before a small smile touches his lips. "Hey. New here? You need a hand?" He's looking at the boxes next, his nose wrinkling up. "Great time to move in, hm?" From the nearby stairwell door, there's the sound of a door pushed open. Swinging back closed. Footsteps, on the stairs, but as many people as this building holds that's hardly unusual. These ones don't seem to be in any particular hurry. Frank doesn't have much of the typical look going on herself Her outfit she picked for deboxing is fairly sedate - a pair of cargo pants and a Nirvana shirt that looks like it has seen many years of heavy wear, but the green and black hair, once a mohawk and now just a strange mess is pretty unique. There's nothing to compare to the wings, though. That gives her a pretty good pause, stopping short for a momentary gawk that's quickly replaced by looking the other direction. "Uh," she says eloquently, at first. "Yeah," she says, after collecting herself a hint. "I found pretty much the most awesome time to move out here. Just kinda finished moving stuff in yesterday. I don't even know," she says, with a gesture of the arm not burdened by flattened boxes. "Crazy stuff, right?" she says, pretty clearly a good step outside of comfortable with her apparent neighbor's appearance. The sound of the door off by the stairs doesn't do much but earn a momentary glance in that direction, as far as Frank is concerned. "You from out of town or just from out of building? Cuz, um, the whole city -- whole city's -- city's --" Dusk's brow has furrowed on Frank, eyes a little unfocused for a brief moment. He shakes his head quickly afterwards, glancing towards the staircase too and then back to Frank. His smile skews a little bit lopsided at her evident discomfort; reflexively, his wings fold closer to his shoulders. It does little to /hide/ them, there's not much that would accomplish that, but it does keep them in a smaller tighter space. "Need help with anything? I had pretty much fuck-all to do with the rest of my evening. -- I'm Dusk, by the way. I, uh." He gestures back towards his own door. "Guess I live across from you now." The footsteps move down closer, stopping on their landing. There's a small nudge at the door. And then a wider one. The person who slowly emerges is a neighbor from the fifth floor, a student from the nearby art college who lives there with her four roommates. Still dressed in mirror-inlaid peasant skirt and a t-shirt patterned in skulls, hair pulled back into a French braid and suede ankle boots on her feet, she looks like she is ready to head out, though her pallor and uneven gait and blank stare don't look all that healthy. Behind her the door is pushed again. Falls back closed. There's kind of a little squint from behind Frank's black framed glasses at Dusk trailing off like that, but she doesn't really question it. There's far bigger things about the guy to question. Things squeezing closer to his shoulders at that moment. Her eyes keep roaming up that direction, but she's clearly trying her best not to stare. She's just not succeeding. "From San Francisco," she says, then corrects herself, "/I'm/ from Ohio, but I moved here from San Fran." At his question about help, the shoulder of her free arm shrugs lazily. "Not really. Just you know, trying to unbury myself from packing crap and figure this city out." She sets her stack of boxes down to lean against the wall beside her door before offering her hand, "I'm Frank," she offers as well. Her attention skips back toward the door of the stairwell when she hears it it again. When she spots the unfamiliar figure of another as yet unknown neighbor, she doesn't give it too much thought. She's still too far into being unfamiliar with everyone around her and not-slightly distracted with trying not to gawk at Dusk to place anything as wrong with the art student who has joined them in the hallway. Dusk steps in closer to take the offered hand, shaking once firmly. "Oh, San Fran. You'll fit right in in the Village, then. I mean, you kinda already look like you do." His smile has curved a little wider as he says this -- behind his lips now it's easier to see the twinned pairs of very /sharp/ fangs glinting. "Frank. Huh. What brought you --" He stops, turns, as he notes the other person entering the hall, his brows furrowing. "... Rye? You alright? Don't tell me this thing has hit you --" He breaks off again, though this time less vacant and more just staring down the hall. His head tilts slowly to one side, eyes locked on her. Rye does not respond. She tilts her head too, almost in mirror of Dusk. The conversation seems to pull her, her steps speeding now as she moves closer. Beelining towards Dusk and Frank. Behind her the door opens again; this time one of her roommates. Still looking like an art student. Silver fishnets over solid blue tights, short dress printed with R2-D2, tall boots, feathery black-tipped blonde hair spiked upwards. Frank definitely notices those fangs. It is a little hard not to watch Dusk's mouth move when he's talking. She shakes her head a bit when he turns to face the approaching girl and only now really begins to take note of the odd stride and the pallid look. Standing up a bit straighter at the concerned reaction from her neighbor, she looks between him and the girl called Rye. "Uh?" she asks, once again showing that eloquence of hers. Now something is starting to seem really off. And it is not the dude with the big bat wings. She makes another, more anxious sounding "Uh?" as the girl starts moving quicker and another girl comes out of the stairwell. "... You said you hadn't been out much yet. You watched much of the news?" Dusk's wings are unfolding, again -- pulled in it's hard to see just quite /how/ large they are, but that becomes more than evident as they /spread/. Not quite to their full fourteen-foot span, one of them bumps the window at the near end of the hall before it can manage it, but far enough that the /other/ nudges in a firm /push/ back at the approaching girl with one clawed wingtip. "Might be a good time to get -- um." He's pressing at his own door with a palm, not evidently to open it but to test its sturdiness. "Back inside?" He doesn't sound /entirely/ sanguine that this is the best course of action. Rye is prompted into sudden sharper action at the push of wing. It's sturdy enough that it sends her stumbling backwards a step or two, bumping into her roommate, but after this she /lunges/ forward. A harsh rattling noise croaks its way out of her, hands lifting to grab at that wing and her teeth champing towards the bone that's pushed her. Her roommate moves, too, pushing past Rye in an awkward shuffle-hop of -- maybe not run. Closer to jog. The same rattle in her throat, hands lifting outward to pincer fingers in repetitive grabby-hands motion at Frank. "The news? I haven't - not really - what?" Frank kind of jabbers. As Dusk's wings unfurl and suddenly, everything becomes much faster, her eyes are wide. This is the kind of girl who knows George A. Romero's birthday off of the top of her head. "Uh!" she yells that noise this time, as the Rye and the roommate are suddenly on the attack, like something out of a movie she would have marathoned a week or so before. She scrambles for her door and pushes it open, not having bothered locking it before meeting Dusk. "In?!" she yells at him, while scrambling through herself. With the roommate coming right at her, she's prepared to slam the door shut any instant if her winged neighbor isn't joining her. "/Khhh/," Dusk hisses this sharply with the clamp of teeth on his wing. The wing /shoves/ back out, a short strong whip of movement with a lot more strength to it than the fragile-looking membrane would imply, slamming up against the woman's neck to shove her backwards. He sprints after Frank into the apartment, wings curling in tight again once he's inside and the door can be safely slammed. "... good time," he says again weakly, "to move here. Come for the ridiculously expensive rent, stay for the zombies." Rye and her roommate attempt to follow. Still rattle-croaking in their throats. Shuffling their ungainly walk towards the door to simply THUD right into it as though they hadn't noticed it closing. Thump. /Thump/. Thump. Maybe they have come to ask to borrow sugar. Very insistently. The reaction out of Frank, once the door has been slammed very emphatically and locked, is probably a hint predictable. "Zombies?! ZOMBIES?!" Then she looks at Dusk, "Did they bite you?! ZOMBIES?!" she yells again. At the thudding against the door, she takes two steps away from it, eyes locked on it. The apartment is only half furnished and there are still boxes piled up. Of note, there are approximately 8 times more computers than the average person would need sitting around, and a desk with three large monitors. Nerd den. "What do we do?! Call the cops?" She's a hint frantic. A tad. She starts looking around to try to find something to use as a weapon. "They are kind of dead, I think," Dusk says, "I don't know what else to call them. I mean, /I'm/ a vampire so I guess there are weirder things." He eyes the door for a moment, but then is /promptly/ distracted by the computers in here. He ignores the zombies in favour of better priorities, wandering closer to examine them. "Oh, holy shit, you gotta come over and see my rig -- /uh/." His wings flex briefly at his back. "Think the cops are a little busy, this has been happening all over the city. Maybe we wait for them to go away? I guess I could --" He frowns uncertainly. "-- Move them back to their place?" THUMP. THUMP. THUMPTHUMPTHUMPTHUMP, this gets more frequent as the second woman joins the first. "Really, what kind of set up do you--" Frank at least catches herself before curiosity overwhelms her instinct for survival. "This is the most surreal shit that I've ever..." She loses momentum on that and instead looks right back to the door as the pair of zombies pound on it. "Go home!" she yells in the most fierce tone she can manage. That will certainly help. "This is some kind of apartment hazing right? Right?!" she asks Dusk, looking a good deal desperate to be right in her assertion. "It's pretty -- weird. Weird. Pretty fucking -- oh god." Dusk scrubs his knuckles against an eye at the question about hazing. "This is probably some terrible karma. The kid who lives just above us, when he moved in we kind of made it look like his apartment was haunted. I /wish/ this was hazing. This is -- there's been some sickness going around. And it ends in --" He flicks a wing towards the door. The thumping speeds up at Frank's yelling. It's joined by a soft rattling croak again. THUMP. THUMP. The door is starting to creak. The punky woman is starting to look more and more anxious as the thumping continues, wincing at the result of her yelling. "Look I... we..." She looks around her apartment frantically. For a second, she keeps doing this thing where she starts moving toward the kitchen, then stops. This is repeated three times before she looks at Dusk. "Please, please, please promise me you aren't going to tell anyone," she implores. Then she runs into the kitchen and, of all things, toward her refrigerator. In one quick yank, the fridge is picked up, the cord yanked out of the wall and all. The drawers inside clatter and the door tries to swing open. Frank then /jogs/ across the apartment, carrying it as if it were made out of cardboard, before pushing the back of it up against the door. Dusk just stares at this. Eyes wide, his wings folding neatly back in at his back. His mouth opens and then closes again, and he exhales heavily. "-- Yeah," he decides, "you'll fit right in around here." His hand rubs at the back of his neck, and he watches the door steadily. His voice drops quieter. "I won't say a word." THUMP thump THUMP thump. The creaking of the door lessens when it's bolstered by the heavy refrigerator. The thumps grow more infrequent when Dusk's voice drops lower, one set of footsteps shuffling away. There's another protesting croak out past the refrigerator. Frank doesn't show even the slightest sign of strain from her refrigerator carrying. She's got plenty of fear to deal with that for her. She presses her back against the refrigerator, hands pressed back against it. She's braced her legs. "Please go away, please go away," she murmurs under her breath as the thumping lessens. Her blue eyes are wide behind her glasses as she looks across her living room at Dusk. That expression speaks volumes. She's terrified of the zombies outside of the door, but she's also completely horrified at what she just revealed to a complete stranger. When the thumping starts to lessen, Dusk falls quiet entirely. His knuckles press to his lips, even his breathing slowing. There's a note almost of sympathy in his expression, but it soon fades into just anxious apprehension as he watches the door. And stays very, very still and quiet. The thumping tapers off, after a minute or two. There's more shuffling outside the door. But, slowly, it recedes, footsteps moving away. They drift back and forth in the hallway for another minute longer, but then both sets of footsteps rather abruptly move back towards the stairwell. Once the shuffling steps fade away, Frank slumps toward the floor. There are dents in the refrigerator where she was digging her fingers in. Both hands run back through her messy hair, then she takes her glasses off and tosses them off to one side. She exhales a long, slow sigh. "Holy shit," she finally whispers. She looks up toward Dusk again, expectantly. Obviously he knows more about what is going on than she does. Plus, he's already in the horror movie genre. He must know. Dusk exhales a long slow breath, dropping into a crouch as well; with the way his wings drape long behind him it seems this posture might be more easily maintained than /sitting/ on the floor, but with his hands braced between his feet it gives him somewhat of a gargoyle look. If gargoyles wore Vans and My Little Pony shirts. He waits a good bit even after the footsteps recede before he is willing to talk. Unhelpfully: "So. Zombies. -- You haven't felt, like, flu-y at all lately have you?" Frank looks at Dusk for a long moment, like his appearance is clicking back into her perception now that the panic is fading. "No, I'm fine? Well, not fine. I guess fine is a weird word for where I am right now. I'm not sick." There's some adrenaline still pounding through her, aiding her in jabbering. "Okay. Okay. If you start to feel sick um -- come tell us. Or tell the people down in 303. Or up in 603. People are working on -- finding a." Dusk still speaks quietly, his hand scuffing at the back of his head. "What's even causing this. How to stop it. I know folks working on it. Good people. The doctor who founded that mutant clinic -- man did he have a terrible opening day." Slowly he gets back to his feet, arms folding tightly across his chest. "... I have been sick. Feel fine now, but that's no guarantee of -- anything. So I should probably -- get back to my apartment." Now that there's actually time to unlock the door. His smile flashes, a little thin, a little crooked. "But if we all live through this, you can totally come over so we can compare notes." His wing flicks towards her computers, indicating notes on /these/ and not on the zombies outside. Looking up from her spot on the floor, still keeping the dented refrigerator pinned to the door. "Is this like, serious zombies? Like, do I need to start trying to destroy people's brains?" she asks, her movie knowledge coming to the forefront now that she has a moment. She pushes up to her feet slowly though, as Dusk starts making motions about leaving. She moves quicker when he mentions being sick. "Look, I uh. Seriously, like, no one knows about that thing I can do. I know it seems kind of weird to be worried about it when things are all Walking Dead outside, but if things get back to normal like... secret, please?" she asks. After saying so, she tugs the fridge with one hand to move it away from the door. "Well." Dusk's fanged teeth press down against his lip lightly. "Nobody's mentioned anything about killing them yet. But they do seem pretty much dead. And they will try to kill you. I haven't killed any of them but -- take that information how you will. And try not to get eaten." He watches her move the fridge, and the ease of this tugs a small smile onto his face despite Frank's apprehension. "It's not -- weird. This c --" He hesitates again, shaking his head. "Things are fucked up as hell. They're even more fucked up for freaks. I won't tell anyone." He starts for the door, pausing with a hand on the handle to listen closely before opening it. Tentatively. And peeking outside. Only then does he offer her a wan smile. "-- Welcome to New York." He pulls his keys out of his pocket as he slips back across the hall.