Black Tuesday (Group1)

[Grace Hale (DELETED 5425)]

Grace had just gotten into town a heavy coat on and boots. On her back was all her camping gear and bag full of clothing, food, and her tablet. She found herself outside this place as the sun was coming up and found herself outside the Harper Rock City Morgue. The storm was getting worse and she felt the ground start to shake. Looking around she saw that the building she was outside was the only one close. Pulling her hood tightly around her face she pushed her way into the building and hunkered down under one of the tables while the shaking got worse. Basic knowledge was to get under something and cover your head. The table she was under was the closest thing she could find. The ground was quaking hard now. She also did not notice if there was anyone else in the building but till the quaking stopped she was not coming out from under the table she was under.

[Andrew McGee]

"I love it when it rains, because even if you don't-it's still gonna rain."

The older man stood under the remains of an awning and watched the torrent of rain covering the area around him as if someone had turned out a faucet full tilt. "So much for this supply run," he frowned. As far as paladins when, Andrew McGee was not the judgmental 'You are vampire-you must die!' type like the ones who lived in the cathedral east of the QZ. Some fangers were total self important assholes and deserved to die while others were just normal people with fangs added. One of the 'normal' ones he knew had some things he needed for a project and wanted things in return. A fair trade McGee agreed to do but had not counted on the skies suddenly pissing like a line of drunks gathered at the urinal during halftime of a football game when he paid a visit to the QZ to harvest them.

His first impulse was to use the sewers to get out of here, but a quick look down the hole showed him the rushing waters that could easily pull someone off their feet and drag them along. He saw a few rats fighting vainly to survive before he let the grating close and ducked for cover. Hiding here was not a smart thing either. McGee did not like his naps being bothered by hungry zombies, ferals, the occasional mooncalf or idiot vampires looking for an easy meal. Add to that someone notice what he actually was...

"Face it, Fireball, we need to get our *** out of here." He didn't want any trouble. Not tonight.

He watched till the lightening flashed and saw his path was clear. Getting a solid grip on his tool kit and supply pack and making sure his sword cane was secure over his shoulder, the man took off running down the deserted streets of Zone toward the graveyard. Just west of the fenced in area he veered off the road that lead to the gate and cut across the weed infested landscape to the river. He could see it was kicking up a fuss due to the rains and winds as well and he questioned his judgment as he ran directly towards it.

"Stupid idea. STUPID IDEA!" he shouted over the winds as his foot made contact with the water and supported his weight. It wasn't the stolen power he had doubts about but the surface he was about to try and walk on. Suddenly he was walking on gelatin storm that kept rising and falling as the waters boiled furiously. He almost fell several times as he stumbled along trying to make it past the fence line and back into the populated area of town. A final leap and he fell to the ground. He was soaked to the bone, but he had made it. Barely.

"Every funhouse should have one of those," He got to his feet quickly and ran into the parking lot of the Morgue. "Why not?" he managed a laugh as he moved to the front of the place. "At least the dead people in here stay dead." He opened the door and was surprised to find the lights still on. Flickering a bit, but still holding on. He looked around the reception area as he slipped his bags free. "Hello?" he called out. There had to be someone here for the doors to be unlocked. McGee grabbed his gear and began to look around in the rooms along the hall.

When the tremors started, the man froze in his tracks. "You got to be ******* kidding me!" he exclaimed. Andrew ducked into one of the rooms and looked about quickly for any kind of shelter. He saw a couple of prep tables and moved to one that was currently occupied and dropped to the floor.

"Sorry Mr or Mrs Doe," he slid under and grabbed the rails to hold it above him as the vibrations grew worse. He looked about and was surprised to see another had the same idea as he did. Despite the situation at hand, Andy gave the girl a smile.

"Unusual weather we're having, don't you think?" he asked just before something fell from the ceiling and landed on the corpse above him on the table.

[Doc]

Glancing at his watch, Doc saw he had another few hours before Joe, the night attendant he was covering for would be back on duty. Doc wasn’t covering out the goodness of his heart. Not by any means. He was covering for Joe, because Joe would warn him when ‘weird’ or ‘unusual’ cases came into the morgue. Most of the time the corpses were vampire kills. Because he was given a heads up by Joe, Doc could deal with the fallout before there ever was any fall out. Because of this, when Joe lamented earlier that his girlfriend was pissed at him for forgetting their anniversary, Doc pulled out a couple hundreds and handed them to him.

“Man I have been there. You need to go buy that girl some jewelry and beg her forgiveness.”

Joe reluctantly took the money, “I am pulling a double shift.. I was supposed to be off, but Sammy that asshole called in sick. Like we don’t know he’s not really sick, it’s because he hates getting out in the snow, cause he always wrecks. Dude cannot drive.. Anyway by the time I am off I am not going to be worth ****…” He offered the money back. “I appreciate the offer though, means a lot.”

Doc waved it off. “You go.. I will cover for you until 7am. Get her something .. NICE.” Doc waved him, “I got this. You go, suck the **** up to her.. tell her you pulled in every favor you had.. because you -had- to make it up to her.”

Joe grinned at him, “Doc you are the man! I owe you big time.. “ he said as he was grabbing his jacket. “Guy on the table.. needs paper finished, and then assign him a drawer. If any more come in.. just stack ‘em..”

Doc cut him short, “I’m covering.. go before I change my mind.”

Joe needed no further inducement, he was out the door.

Doc changed into a set of scrubs and spent the next several hours filling out the paperwork on the body that had been on the prep table, and then on three more ‘dearly departed’ that came in from a weather induced automobile accidents. He had just finished the paperwork on the last one, when his cell started ringing. He headed to the back office to collect his phone out of coat, when, of course, the caller hung up just as he fished it out. He sighed, but the frustration was short lived as the building started to shake violently.

His first thought was that a truck hit the building. But that thought was quickly dismissed as ceiling tiles rained down and light bulbs twisted and shattered. The once lit room went dark. Filing cabinets toppled over and the floor heaved. This was no car accident.. it was ******* earthquake. Ducking the falling debris, he moved to take refuge in the doorway, which happened to be the support wall for that part of the building. Harper Rock was no where near a fault line? Earthquake? That made no ******* sense.

[Daniel Theron (DELETED 3334)]

The streets were on the verge of being empty, which was to be expected in the weather that currently plagued the city. It was rough, violent and just plain nasty and Daniel would have rather been anywhere else. Namely, at Ever’s side, but given the fact that he had been sent out on a job that was not to be the case. His hood was drawn up to try and keep himself as dry as possible, though it equated to him basically having a paper bag on his head and nothing more. Soaked from head to toe, he lost the trial of whomever he had been tailing and paused to duck against a building for just a break from the wind that had continued to assault him.

Just as the thought was to let Lyonel know that he would have to call it quits for the night, his mind already in the process of accessing his phone, the ground began to shake. Not familiar with anything like this at all, he was practically thrown from his position against the wall he leaned upon as it cracked and crumbled beneath him. On his hands and knees he looked up and saw that it was not just localized to him, as in it was not just some smartass vampire having himself a good time spooking some humans. No, instead it was the whole of the city.

An earthquake.

Panic set in and he moved, now on instinct and the desire to get inside somewhere, the idea to teleport never crossed his mind. The only one other thought was whether or not Ever was alright? A matter he would have to settle on later, but right now he needed to get inside somewhere and get somewhere safe. A door caught his eye and he slipped into the building, it had suffered some damage and continued to do so, yet it had seemed to the safest of the ones he had passed by thus far. With a dash toward one of the inner doorways, he braced himself there and waited for the aftershocks to settle before he even took the chance to look about the room.

The smell of death, mixed with a sterile environment and formaldehyde clued him in on the fact the was likely at the morgue. A place he was rather familiar with, given he had often come down here for work for Lyonel about one thing or another. The power was out, but he could hear the hum of what he hoped to back up generators that had begun the process of kicking into gear.

“Hello?” he called out into the darkness when he caught the sound of what he thought to be someone breathing.

[Grace Hale (DELETED 5425)]

Grace looked out from under the table as the quaking stopped though when she did she got hit on the arm by a falling something. Looking at her arm she concentrated and healed it. She loved having that gift. She had ran into this sorc apprentice when she hit the woods and he had taught her a few things. Hearing voices she looked around the dark room. Power was out so she could not see anyone. When someone said hello she looked towards the direction of the voice. "Hello" She dusted off her pants and dropped her bag on the ground it landed with a thud. Damn that thing was heavy and she did not mind. Opening it up she pulled out a bottle water and opened it.

[Andrew McGee]

Andy half smiled in reply as the girl seemed to be mildly annoyed at best by what was happening around them. She looked familiar, but then again she didn't. As curious as that was, there was more important problems to consider at the moment.

The humming in the air caught his attention more now. Back up system was trying to kick in. It made sense the morgue had one. A power outage in high summer and all the corpses beginning to bloat and decay in the heat. Not a good idea. He slipped out from under the table and made his way to the small window to look outside and found ice and snow had replaced the burst of torrential rain. Beyond that he could not see much. He needed a better view of things.

"I'll be right back," he told the girl as he pulled a pair of flashlights from his tool bag. He handed one to the girl and then carefully walked to the door. "Gonna see about getting the lights back on." The tool bag was over his shoulder and his cane in his other hand. A purely reflexive act on his part. The girl seemed human enough, but he was getting a faint vibe now. Somewhere in the building was a vamp or two,

or thirty.

He stepped back into the main hallway and glanced around. His eyes zeroed in on the first aid kit on the wall and made a note of it before heading back to the main entrance. The door refused to move despite his best efforts. Either the frame was pinched now from the quake or something else was blocking things. The solid doors giving him no point of vision to the outside world. "One normal window i this place would kill someone." he thought and mentally chuckled at his bad joke considering where he was.

"Hello?"

"Jesus!" Andy gasped as he spun around. The beam of his flashlight found a young man who had seen his share of the outside weather as well. He had not seen him on his first pass or noticed him till he spoke. The light was lowered so it was not in the man's eyes but on his chest instead. "Hi there!" he answered calmly. "Looks like you had some fun as well."

Andrew hooked his cane over his arm as he took a step closer. The vibe was growing now. The guy had to be packing fangs, but right now he doubted the fella was in here to go on a kill spree. Probably ducked in here for the same reasons he had. Vampires could freeze and be crushed by chunks of buildings just as easily as people could, so until his new found company decided to act like a idiot, he would stay calm.

"You work here by chance?" he asked while pulling a cigar from inside his work coat. "That humming," he nodded as he began to light up. "Back up system should have kicked in by now. Probably got damaged in the quake. I can take a look at it and possibly get it running again if I had a clue where it was hidden, so if you know the layout of this place, please share. Freezing is not in any of our best interests right now. A little light would not hurt either."

He extended his hand. "Friends call me Fireball." McGee waited for a reply either way. If the vamp wanted to do the dance he would oblige him and only prove having fangs made you stupid as anything. Getting out of this situation would be beyond just one person, but if the guy wanted to play that way it was fine. He was just hoping he wouldn't.

[Doc]

Doc made his way out of the back offices, cursing to himself, “God damned ******* frackers.” He kicked a pile ceiling tiles out of his way, as he made his way back to the tomb, where he heard talking. Maybe Joe had made it back? Making his way through the debris to the main lobby, his gaze was first drawn to the two men. “****. You aren’t Joe.” He sighed in a frustrated manner, then he glanced to his left where there was movement, he did a double take when he saw Zodiac standing there in the lobby. She wasn’t dressed in her usual style, but they were in the middle of a blizzard, would make sense she dressed differently due to the weather.

“Zo? What the **** are you doing here?” He solicitously put his hand out toward her, “Are you hurt?” Then he frowned slightly, “How did you know I was here?” He was still trying to see if she was hurt, his eyesight was used to the dark, but the question was more leading than that, there were only so many reasons Zodiac would come to the morgue. Someone was dead, or she suspected someone dead. Someone she cared about. “Has something happened?.. other than the ******* earthquake…” He then muttered under his breath, ‘I told you fracking was a ******* mistake.’

He was expecting a comment from Zo via mindspeak, but as of yet nothing was sent his way. He looked at the two men, maybe she didn’t want to give anything away in front of them, “Can one of you check on the phone lines? See if we have a dial tone? If so call 911 and tell them the morgue is off line, and unless we get power restored, we will be stacking bodies outside to keep them cold.”

Doc turned back to Zodiac, “Look Zo.. I have to check on the tomb. Make sure everything is still sealed tight. And fix it, if it isn’t. If the drawers spilled, well it won’t be pretty, so just stay out here. You’re not authorized to go back there anyway.”

[Daniel Theron (DELETED 3334)]

The light blinded him only for a second and he could tell from the heartbeat that the man was a human, as was the woman in the other room.

“Daniel,” he said as he shook the other man’s hand. “Well, most building keeps their backup generators in the basement, someplace with a sub-pump to keep everything dry,” Daniel remarked as he focused on the technical aspect and not the social discomfort he began to feel with being surrounded by strangers. Another man entered the room and seemed to at least know the woman in the other room, at his remark about the phone lines, Daniel closed his eyes and tried to connect through his telepathic powers and ran into a dead end there. For good measure though he did fish out his cellphone and got the same dead connection.

“Unless you know of a possibly working land line I think we are on our own,” he said to the new man, who he could tell was another vampire; two humans and two vampires, now that was interesting and possibly dangerous one never knew when in this city. His attention returned to the other man, Fireball (a different kind of name there), and went back to the problem at hand.

“I don’t work here, but we should be able to find maybe some stairs or even a hatch? That leads down. Then from there we could work on getting the generators started and figure out what else to do. Sounds good? There may be a hardwired land line down there too, which should still work as long as it is on its own power source,” he said in a bit of a ramble as he removed his soaked hoodie to drape it over a broken section of wall to dry. Once they were in agreement he would lead the way into one of the other sections of the building to try and find a way down.

[Grace Hale (DELETED 5425)]

Grace took the flashlight from the older man then looked around the room she was in. She shook her head and walked around the table she had been under. Dead people gave her the creeps but she had to deal with it. When she heard someone address her as this Zo person she blinked and looked at him with a look like what the **** you talking about. "Hey Buddy my name is Grace not Zo." She had heard people have a double out there but being mistaken for someone else was weird. She watched all the men and concentrating made her skin hard as rock so nothing could hurt her. Hell she should have done that when the quake started but she did not think of it. She sipped the bottle of water in her hand and just watched everyone as they worked. Power and all that would be a good thing. She pulled a tablet out of her bag and did a few things on it having it connect to the 4g network. She pulled up info for the police station and sent them a quick emergency e-mail. A phone she did not have but the tablet she had gotten with a plan and loved it.

[Andrew McGee]

"Howdy, Dan," Andy nodded as they shook. Well, so far, so good. He listened to the man offer his views and could find no fault in what he was saying.

"You aren’t Joe."

He turned to look at the new arrival who had appeared from somewhere else in the building. Judging by the look of the man, he possibly worked here, and the way he rattled off orders like he was accustomed to being obeyed. Typical asshole vampire, or else was one before being turned so now he was plus sized one. Basically gave orders and focused on the girl. "No problem, Doctor Skippy, we'll get right on that." he sighed softly then turned back to the more logical vamp of the two while checking his tool kit quickly.

"Well then, Dan. Lead on." he handed the man his third and final flashlight. Doctor Skippy had vanished, so he glanced at the girl and smiled.

"We're going downstairs. If anything goes wrong, holler long and loud, okay?" He had watched Doctor Skippy talking to her as if he knew her all his life, but the girl was having the opposite reaction. "We won't be long," he assured her. Andy then walked to the reception desk and followed the phone line and unplugged the old style phone from the wall. If there was a working junction below, they would need something to use.

"Just in case the handset below is damaged," he explained to Daniel before following him into the depths of the building. He was still thinking about the little scene between the girl, Grace she had called herself, and the big Skippy. The more he thought about it, she actually did look a bit familiar. Zo? What kind of a name was that?

As the pair made there way pass the darkened rooms, he remembered why she seemed familiar. The little vampire girl he worked for, Miss Iris. She had a semi frequent visitor at her shop in the evenings. A gypsy girl who was, in his view 'Flamboyant as **** and probably gay as old Paris'. Miss Iris always seemed to stop dead in her tracks when the woman showed up and the two would be having silent conversations peppered with occasional giggles-at least from his boss. The gypsy never said a word or made a sound, but smiled like a rainbow. What the hell did Iris say her name was? Grace did bear a kinda resemblance to that woman, he'd admit that much, but the differences outweighs the similar in his view-if Skippy was referring to the same one he was thinking of.

As they approached the door marked for the entrance to the lower level, he shook off the idea. Doctor Skippy's joke about stacking bodies outside so they would keep was an error. If the temperature outside kept dropping the four of them could start freezing inside just as easily. Vampires were tough and could take a pounding, but they were made of flesh and blood just like he was. Moisture could freeze if exposed long enough. The idea of a frozen vampire made him smile a bit. Just bop them with a hammer and crunch. Dan seemed okay, so far, but a frozen Doctor Skippy? Andrew might pay real money to see that.

They headed down the stairs and the humming began to grow in volume now.