Black Thursday (Group 18)

[Issac (DELETED 5871)]

The rain had been coming down all day. Issac thought to himself that the guy on the television said that it was supposed to be just a light rain, but, it was raining so hard that you couldn’t even see your hand in front of your face. Issac was trying to make it home. He had been at work all day. He didn’t plan on having to deal with this much rain. He buttoned his shirt up all the way, pulled his hat down lower over his eyes and wandered towards his destination. His feet were already soaked and his pants were wet up to his calf. This was going to be a long walk.

He now slowed his steps, made his way through the water that was rising by the minute. He made his way towards some lights that he noticed, they were not on really bright, It was like they were some kind of back up lights. He thought to himself how something in this weather could have power. Where he worked at, they hadn’t had any power in hours. As he got closer, he noticed it was a hospital. He had never been to one before but he was told that they were usually a safe place.

The water had now risen to above his knees. He continued wading through the water towards the hospital. Finally making it there, he slowed slide into the shadows. This is where he felt the most comfortable, his safe zone. Besides Momento and Serendipity, he really had not spoken to anyone. His job didn’t require him to have much contact with anyone but, at least at this point, he was not standing in water. He did have to wonder, standing there in the night, what it would take for him to get home.

Issac watched as people were coming in and out of the hospital. He saw some that were truly sick and some like him trying to get out of the weather. He did have to wonder how he should handle all these people. He just kept telling himself the safe zone was the best place for him. He put himself in the corner as he watched all the people moving about. Who is human and who is vampire was running through his mind. He took his soaked hat off and laid it down beside him. His clothes could be rung out and have enough water for a bath. Some of the people he noticed were still dry. They had been some of the lucky ones that were not out in this awful weather. He continued to watch, but, thought he might try and speak to someone so the bad memories were not running through his mind.

[Klara]

The petit woman had one goal the entire day and one alone. To get home and to spend a quiet evening the gentleman she had recently started seeing. This entire day thus far had been a disaster and it was not even Valentine’s Day yet. Jardin de Fleurs was normally a place Klara loved to be, because not only did she love her job but also her boss was a good friend. She loved the beauty of the flowers, the scents, colors and textures but most of all watching the stacks of flowers turn into beautiful arrangements. Even though she worked security, Mortll was teaching her how to make the arrangements. Today was so busy even she had been pulled to work with flowers. It was already past dark and the last few arrangements were almost done and all the deliveries needed to be completed by 9:00 pm but with this storm in progress, it was going to make things difficult.

Areas of the city had already lost power, flash flooding in the streets was beginning to be seen, the temperature was dropping when Mortll came to Klara asking her if she could make the last delivery. It was not exactly on her way home but out of everyone, she would have to go the least out of her way. Klara smiled and sighed inwardly turning to go get her backpack and her coat grabbing a Jardin de Fleur rain slicker to put over her coat so she could stay dry. She pulled her phone out and texted her friend to let him know she would be late. “I need to buy a car,” she mumbled under her breath as she saw the arrangement she had to deliver.

“This is never going to make it in this wind Mortll,” point out the window hoping she would let the delivery wait until tomorrow.

The smile on Mortll’s face made Klara grown inwardly knowing she had found a solution and come hell or high water this delivery was going to be made. Coming from the back room, she slipped the arrangement into a box and wrapped the box with plastic to keep it dry. She raised an eyebrow wondering how she was going to carry this awkward package but she would find a way.

Grabbing her gear, she left the store almost losing the box as a gust of wind, rain and sleet caught it. Klara caught and found a way to hold onto it and use it as a shield when the wind switched directions. The streets were almost empty except for the brave or stupid souls who were forced to be out in this. It was eerie seeing the city dark like this. As she walked, she looked down one street and saw broken power lines dancing on the pavement, and prayed she did not run into that where she was going.

It was slow going trying to dodge the small lakes and torrents of water rushing down the streets and sidewalk. It seemed the closer she got to the hospital the worse things appeared. What normally was a half hour walk had just taken her an hour and a half. She was late for the 9:00 pm cut off by an hour but she was not going to take the blasted package home with her.

“Well ****,” she screamed into the wind as she saw broken power lines slapping the outside of the hospital, hitting the generators and air conditioning units around back where the entrance was for delivery people. That explained why the building seemed to be darker than normal, the lines must of have shorted out the back-up generators which meant things inside were most likely in chaos. She pulled her phone out to check the time. “Damn it” she hissed as she saw it was almost 10:30 pm now which meant only the ER entrance would be open.

She walked up the ramp to the ambulance bay and entered only to be faced with a waiting room that was dim, only lit by the emergency lights and wall-to-wall people. A group of teenagers where pushing one, another playing some sort of game and being general asses to everyone around them almost making her drop the box. If it had not been crowded, she would have drained them all and hid the bodies. “Worthless trash” she hissed at them.

She made her way to the desk, the woman looking as if she was ready to cry and quite frankly, Klara could not blame her in the least. Finally stepping up the woman went through her usual speech and finally asked her why she needed to be seen.

“I’m not here to be seen, I’m here to make a delivery but couldn’t get through the delivery door due to the downed lines, if you could please tell me what floor that Tilda Kopetsky is on I can just leave these at the nurse’s station.” She waited as the woman sighed and began tapping away at her computer finally finding it.

“She’s in the psych ward, room 1030, top floor but the elevators aren’t working so take the stair case. The one over there comes out back by the rooms and is locked so go to the front of the hospital and take the one there it comes out by the nurse’s station.”

“Of course it does,” Klara, quipped, her normally patient personality quickly leaving her. “Thank you for your help” she said as she grabbed the box working her way through the crowd to the front of the hospital. As she almost made it to the stairs, a woman held two dogs on a leash. As Klara walked past the foul little beasts tried to attack her and would not quiet down no matter what the woman did. She backed away almost losing her balance. She wondered why every animal on the planet seemed to want to attack her. She could not even go into pet stores anymore.

Slipping through the door, she prepared to teleport to the top floor. As she looked up she saw people and from the sound of it they were scattered all the way up; the stairwell full of cigarette smoke. She shook her head, not happy at all for the long climb she had ahead of her. Finally making it to her destination, she delivered the flowers only to be told the woman had just passed away an hour ago. Klara stood there almost ready to cry with frustration and set the package down.

“Give these to her family or keep them yourselves,” she said to the nurses as one signed for the delivery while the other began to unwrap them.

“Would you mind taking them back to her room for us, that’s the family now, Room 30.” Klara turned to see a group of people walking through the door, clearly in distress and had been crying. She went down the hall as they were taken to a room catching a familiar scent, vampire. Whoever it was had left just recently. She walked into the room and set the flowers down, the body lay on the bed, bleached white as if all the blood had been sucked right out of it. She went over, saw the wound on the neck, and was angry at the sloppiness of whoever it was that had done this.

Klara left the room and headed back down when two nurses stepped out of a room, “That is the fourth person on this floor to die and to have that weird wound on their neck.”

Keeping her head down but ever alert trying to sense whether they were still on this floor or not and who they were. How anyone could be this stupid and sloppy was beyond her. It would most likely be impossible to find who did this with as many people running around the hospital trying to stay out of the storm. She was sure that more than just one was in here treating it like a buffet.

Nodding to the nurses, she slipped through the door and made her way back down only to be attacked by the dogs once again scooting past them quickly to head back towards the ER hoping things outside had settled down enough to make it the rest of the way home.

[Dawn Chekov]

The weather was awful, if Dawn had been in a better mood and if the holidays were still going, Dawn would have mentally made the joke that the weather outside was frightful. However, she wasn't in the best of moods. She had been hungry for some time, thankfully though vampire blood had made it that she no longer needed to feed nightly. No now she could got a few weeks before that clawing need took in. And then there was the fact that some days she just felt more alone than normal. But tonight, she wasn't going to let her sadness, her loneliness show. Not with so many beautiful angles sitting before her, all of them looking up at her with awe and in some ways, love.

Tonight she was dressed in one of her Gothic Lolita dresses, but the kind that was still very decent for being around kids. Especially sick kids. Outside lightning struck, the lights flickered for a moment but then were just as bright. It was the sound of the rumbling thunder though that had two or three of the girls moving closer to her, holding onto her legs and the hem of her dress. Dawn smiled to the small children, her medical mask hanging like a necklace around her neck. She had been in this hospital a few times thanks to vampires that had not been to keen on her biting them. Now though, she was in here for the precious ones before her.

She ran her hands through two of the girls hair, looking down at them with a soothing smile before her icy blue eyes shifted to the other kids in the room with her. "How about I sing you all another song? Would that take your minds off the storm outside?" She asked, her Russian accent a little thicker than normal but still to the point that she sounded as she was, an America. A girl from Alaska. When all of the children smiled, nodded, and gave a little cheer, she smiled back at them and then began to sing:

I looked at you and all I saw, was colors oh so beautiful.
From blue to green for rainy days, and pinks and reds for being okay.
They made you you, so incomplete, small, but oh so sweet
See where it's going, can I be knowing.

She had left a small part out but only because these were children and that one would would have come off as not only weird to her and them, but the candy stripers near by and the nurses that still walked along the halls every now and then, still she continued her soft song, singing it in a soothing manner so that the kids didn't think about what was going on outside.

that you will not be here, it's all become so clear.
And I'll keep walking, I'll keep on wondering.
If what we have was real, if i will ever heal..
Heal..
Heaaal..
Heal..
Heal..
Heaaal...
Heal..

By the second or so 'Heal' a few of the other kids had begun to sing with her or hum softly, only one of them, one that was clearly one of the sicker children out of the bunch clearly knew all the words, were mouthing them along with her as she sang to them. Still she continued:

I looked at you and all i saw was colors oh so beautiful.
From blue to green for rainy days, and pinks and reds for being okay.
They make you you, so incomplete, small, but oh so sweet
it made you you it made you you it made you you it made you you ooh..
it made you you it made you you it made you you it made you you you you
it made you you it made you you it made you you

As she finished the song, she smiled again to the two little girls that had once again began to cling to her tightly just as a boom of thunder had broke through her song. "Oh sweet dears, sweet little angels... you need not fear the thunder nor the lightning." She said trying to calm the two little girls.

[Danton (DELETED 5283)]

The phone buzzed in his pocket again.

Again.

Again.

Frantic, panicked texts from Rose had been spamming his inbox all day, stopping only to be replaced by his wife’s texts when he had received the voicemail only about an hour prior to his arrival at this, the last hospital in town. It was a common occurrence that his T.A. would text his phone multiple times throughout the day with small questions that she worried over until she had worked herself into a panic. This time was different. This time she had something to honestly worry over.

The storm outside had been wild and violent, a churning pot that the invisible hands of some metanatural force stirred to froth. These were no conditions for any of them to be caught out in the town in. They had been safe in the apartment, the rooms in their lofty tower suite perfectly calm and untouched by the ravaging storm. His appearance in town was impossibly beyond his choice. His hand was forced.

He was agitated, his hand clutching the picture of Abigail and Rose to the nurse behind the reception desk as he asked again, the third time in this building and what felt like the thousandth time of the places around town that they could have been taken, “Have you seen either of these girls? It is extremely important that I find them immediately. They will be here, this is the last place in Harper Rock that could have taken them. The blonde girl, here…” his finger tapped at the picture just above Rose’s face.

The light had made her hair shimmer like gold in the photograph. He hadn’t seen her smile like she had that day since he had met her, the day she was assigned to his office in Oxford as his Teaching Assistant. She was a bright, brilliant young woman. She was his confidante, his best friend. She was his responsibility. “…her name is Rose Bancroft. She is my colleague. Please, if you could find her, then Abigail, the other girl here…” He tapped the picture again, just above the other girl’s head, her honey brown hair framed in that same flash of sun as Rose’s had been, “Will be with her. They were together, brought to the same hospital. Please, just look for me? Rose Bancroft and Abigail Matthews.”

His voice was strained. He was desperate. His South Oxfordshire accent was thick, weighing his words with the heavy loll of the sound that fingered him as foreign more often than his dress or mannerisms. He blended with Canadian society nicely, the mesh an easy one when he had come here on a research grant with Rose in tow. Now, any concentration on the assimilation into the society around him was forgotten as the mousy blonde behind the desk gave an annoyed exhale through her nose, the sound like a muffled whine. Her pale skin glowed in the light of the terminal as she looked away from him and began clicking the mouse with a long, thin finger. Her nails were done recently, though nothing like the quality that Rose had grown accustomed to.

Waiting anxiously, he pulled the phone from his pocket. It was his wife’s texts that had been assaulting his phone since Rose had gone quiet. It was she that had let him know exactly what had happened in the voicemail that Rose had left him. Quickly, he glanced over her text, responding as the nurse gave an annoyed grunt at the sight of the phone. Her own rest against the desk, still on, her most recent round of Candy Crush still on the screen as she lifted the poorly manicured nail to point at the sign directly above her head. It read ‘No cell phones, please.’ He frowned at her, and stepped away from the desk, out into the space between inner and outer doors to the lobby as he responded to the text.

Baby, stay home. I have it
under control. If I have to
worry about you out there,
too, I will not be able to
concentrate on finding the
girls. Stay in the apartment
and I will get them both home
safely. I love you. Stay warm.

He glanced back to the nurse behind the desk, the white glare of her computer terminal flickered back at him from the reflective panes of her glasses. He sincerely hoped she had continued looking as he had stepped out. As his hand moved to push the door open, his phone vibrated roughly in his hand, poised just shy of being dropped back into his pocket. He frowned, and lifted it again to find that she was calling, now.

His brows furrowed, confused as he tapped the button to answer the call.

“My love, do be careful. You know that I do not like you out this late. I will find them. Go home, please.” her answer was typically headstrong, as it usually was when she was concerned over either of the girls. His wife, for what she was, had a big heart. That heart she only shared with the very miniscule circle of people that she trusted. That list had started so small, that it had quite startled him when she had told him that he, of all people, was one of the people she felt she could be herself with. That was the first night that they had made love.

That had been years ago, now. Now, the list had grown exponentially, though still quite small, and now with varying degrees of trust among its members. The three of them had made somewhere among the top of the list. He was never sure where exactly they landed. He never asked. It was only important that she did trust them.

When the line went dead, he sighed, flipping his phone shut. His eyes watched the torrential water as it gushed across the hospital parking lot, flooding over the sidewalk and forming a thin layer of glistening ice along the already snow-covered ground. He doubted he could make it back to the car, much less to get it safely through town to pick up his wife. He grimaced, and turned back inside.

When he stepped up to the desk, the nurse’s pale lips parted to speak.

She never got the words out.

Her tongue pressed against the back of her teeth, forming the first word before her throat split in a piercing scream. The earth beneath them seemed to tip, a violent upheaval nearly causing the hospital’s foundation to buckle beneath them, the building shuddering around them as it protested the sudden assault from below. The nurse’s chair was thrown from beneath her as the wall split behind her, the drywall cracked violently with the turbulent tremor of the foundation.

Protection was Danton’s nature. His actions were base instinct. He didn’t even have to think about vaulting the desk, throwing open his jacket to cover the woman’s head as debris crumbled from the ceiling. He put his body between her and the danger of harm as he pushed her beneath the desk. It was the safest place when a building threatened to fall on your head. He remained knelt next to the desk as the lights went out with a sharp pop.

The nurse sobbed beneath the desk, curled into a ball as tightly as she could have possibly managed, pressing her body against the man’s leg as she trembled long after the earth beneath them finally stilled. Slowly, he stood, pushing the dust from his jacket. The computer screen had gone dark with the lights. He frowned.

“****.”

He shook his head and just pushed his hand against the monitor, shoving it back against the desk as the small, wiry nurse crawled from beneath the small space from beneath.

“I found the names you were looking for… Rose and Abbigail? I didn’t catch the room before the lights went out, I’m… I’m sorry.” she placed her face in her hands and rubbed at her eyes, trying to dry them. Danton didn’t respond to her apology. He had what he needed. He knew he was where he needed to be.

He flipped open his phone to text his wife.

No signal.

I hope she is okay... I hope they are all okay…

[Issac (DELETED 5871)]

As Issac stood there in the corner watching people walk by. He wondered what he should do. He didn’t really want to interact with anyone. That wasn’t his way. Being social was not something he was good at. The room started to fill up so he slowly made his way out of the room down a long hallway.
He made his way slowly down the hallway, trying to avoid anyone. When he met someone in the hallway, he would look down or just toward the wall, never making eye contact. He came to a window, looking out, he noticed the rain was coming down even harder now. You could barely see the street. He thought to himself that he could potentially be stuck there for some time. He turned and started back down the hallway when he noticed a bench down the hallway so he made his way to it.
As he sat there, he noticed he was feeling a little weak. Issac thought about it and realized he hadn’t feed in a few days now . So many people here that he could feed on. He then remember Momento telling him it wasn’t good to feed on the sick. His thoughts began and he had to wonder what he should do. He tried to think like his sire. She would know what to do in a case like this. He was not having any luck though. The longer he sat there the more he got frustrated with it all.
Issac slowly stood up, looking both ways of the dull hospital hallway. He decided to continue to go the way he was going. He approached a sign that pointed one way to the children’s wing and the other way to intensive care unit area. He thought to himself that seeing some children might take his mind off of everything else going on. He did enjoy watching children play while he was at work. He worked as a security guard at a factory owned by some strange vampire within the city. He would see kids running up and down the street all the time around there. They always looked full of joy and that made him smile. Since, as child, that was something that he never had. “ The Joy of being an actual child”.
He turned down the hall and headed towards the children’s wing. As he approached the area, he noticed it was not like he thought it would be. There was sadness and pain. That was something he could not handle with children. He felt like his insides were being ripped out. How could something so bad happen to such sweet things? He yelled out “why, oh why.” Just as he was saying those words, a nurse approached him asking him why he was in that area. He turned and quickly made his way down the hall away from them.

[Klara]

“Damn, ******* dogs” she cursed under her breath as she kicked at them to try to get away. “Keep your dogs under control lady, they shouldn’t be running in the stairwell.”

Klara hated those little animals that women carried in purses. They nipped at your ankles and had sharp teeth. She looked out the window as she entered the floor and saw that there was snow mixed with the rain as the lightning and thunder made it look like hell had been loosed up on the citizens of Harper Rock.

Klara began to wander around the hospital, bored, hungry and unable to sit still. Her one saving grace was her complexion, it was human so at least she was not stared at where she went. She kept her senses open for vampires, hoping she could catch the one that had been sloppy feeding upstairs. Working her way floor by floor searching she came upon the children’s wing, wondering if they would next strike there since a child wouldn’t put any more of fight than the old people upstairs had.

She slipped onto the floor and began to walk down the hall going past a gentleman who looked like he was trying to put some distance between him and someone else and he was vampire. Her gaze narrowed as she turned to look at him. She turned to follow him, when they were completely alone she caught up to him grabbing his shoulder.

“Hey, I need to speak with you.”

[Dawn Chekov]

Dawn smiled as she picked another song to sing to the children. This one was in Russian, a lullaby her mother used to sing to her when she was a baby and scared - which, given her condition, was often. She watched as some of the kids heads began to droop from being tired, or because their pain meds were kicking in. The two girls beside her she continued to stroke their little heads and cheeks, sometimes singing directly to them and then other times looking back to the other kids. As she was singing, she could have sworn she heard someone yell, it drew her attention away from the kids, but at the same time, she didn't stop singing.

When she was done with her next song, she looked at the two that were still clinging to her dress and smiled sweetly to them, showing her tiny fangs that she had. "You have fangs!" One of the girls said "They are cool! Where did you get them?!"

"I got them from the Dentist. Want to know a secret?" She said in a playful whisper to the two girls who nodded "I'm a vampire..." she said and then reached to playfully tickle both the girls. "And i'm going to suck your blood" She added, letting her Russian accent come out really thick so that it seemed like she was almost talking like Dracula. The girls squealed with laughter as she continued to tickle them and bent over one, playfully nibbling on the kids but never actually intending to harm them or even bite them. That's when the lights started to flicker and she felt a sharp jolt.

That jolt stopped all play, the room went so quiet a pin could be heard dropping if it had done so. Then a rumbled started, and the room started to shake, trembling like a leaf at first and then starting to take bigger jolts as if someone was outside of the room and was beating in the walls. Things swayed from the ceiling, the pictures fell off the walls, windows shattered - but thanks to the safety glass did not break completely, some of the kids IV stands started to roll but the kids stopped them. But they were all starting to cry, starting to freak out. Dawn mean while was stuck in a state of shock, just watching this. Unable to move or even think. She didn't expect to be in an earthquake here. Ever. The east coast was supposed to be without seismic activity. She had never even heard of an earthquake near here.

As the girls next to her cried and clung to her, all she could do was cling back to them, holding them close, bending over them a bit so that if anything fell from the ceilings, it would fall on her and not on them.