Harbinger
Posted: 23 Aug 2011, 23:32
[OOC: The dialogue presented by Moriah through the phone call was written by her player and used with her permission. I took no liberties with the death of Rocklin beyond writing it from Caine's perspective. The shot that killed him on grid was in the heart.]
Caine found shooting zombies more fun that he thought he would. When he heard about the outbreak in Quarantine, he was skeptical, even if the lingering child in the back of his brain jumped with glee at the thought that he could bring to life those games he’d seen advertised, but was never allowed to play. He began to spend more and more time there until he started to fall asleep in the graveyard or the deserted fire department. Only then did he taper off enough to keep track of time so that he could go home and make use of the crypt he owned.
That particular night seemed different somehow. The air was charged with something almost tangible and yet indefinable in the sense that it was out of the ordinary and almost wrong. He’d never come across a sensation like it, so he ignored it and began his nightly game of practicing his aim on zombies, letting them move enough for it to be challenging and him to get more experience at hitting moving targets, even if these lumbering corpses were much slower than vampires, it still made for good exercises in gunplay.
The buzzing of his cell phone in his pocket had him back tracking from being out in the open to leaning against the outer wall of the deserted bar, fumbling with the device as he switched his gun to his left hand to hit the ‘send’ button with his thumb and set the thin bit of plastic against his ear. “Hello?”
"Hello dear, how would you feel about coming over to shoot this Rocklin guy?”
Caine blinked as he heard his sire’s voice and nearly pulled the phone away to stare at it in disbelief. Instead, he merely cleared his throat, ‘brows furrowing as he tried to remember where he’d heard that name before.
“Isn’t he a Hellhound?”
At her affirmation, he shifted his fingers around the grip of his gun and set his jaw, flashes of the memories of being hunted and wounded to the point where he begged Coralie to kill him in the middle of the street assaulting his mind and bringing that sick feeling of anger back into the pit of his stomach. “Where is he?”
“What? I can't hear you over the gunshots, speak louder!”
“Where is he!” It made him nervous to pitch his voice so loud, not because of the lingering groups of zombies, but because it bordered so close to yelling and even if he were merely increasing the volume so she could better hear him, it reminded him of yelling at someone and he wouldn’t (couldn’t) do that.
“Oh, just south west of the Necro.”
Caine nodded and then remembered that she couldn’t see him, keeping his voice as loud as his repeated question had been as he told her that he would be there shortly, more pleased than he ever had been of his gun practise and the power he had that allowed him to run from location to location in the blink of an eye. The last he heard from her before he ended the call was “Alright, see you soon”, phone sliding back into his pocket, gun switching hands and then he was in motion, running in that way that drained him in a way that wasn’t fatigue, the city blurring around him until he came to a stop, a crowd of vampires that he vaguely recognized, eyes searching for the figure of Rocklin.
His gaze fell on Moriah first and more specifically the gunshot wound in her shoulder, his grip on the pistol tightening until he was a hairsbreadth from bending the metal. Slipping into the crowd, he moved through them seamlessly until he found him, the wounded and beleaguered (pathetic) visage of his target. The blonde boy took careful aim and fired, the bullet catching Rocklin directly in his heart, knocking the man’s body, now corpse, to the ground where it stayed still, completely devoid of even the faintest flicker of life.
Caine watched for a moment, transfixed. Was that what he looked like when he died of the same strike that had killed Rocklin? A slight facial tic appeared before he turned away and disappeared back into the crowd, deciding he’d had enough of being out in the city for one night.
Caine found shooting zombies more fun that he thought he would. When he heard about the outbreak in Quarantine, he was skeptical, even if the lingering child in the back of his brain jumped with glee at the thought that he could bring to life those games he’d seen advertised, but was never allowed to play. He began to spend more and more time there until he started to fall asleep in the graveyard or the deserted fire department. Only then did he taper off enough to keep track of time so that he could go home and make use of the crypt he owned.
That particular night seemed different somehow. The air was charged with something almost tangible and yet indefinable in the sense that it was out of the ordinary and almost wrong. He’d never come across a sensation like it, so he ignored it and began his nightly game of practicing his aim on zombies, letting them move enough for it to be challenging and him to get more experience at hitting moving targets, even if these lumbering corpses were much slower than vampires, it still made for good exercises in gunplay.
The buzzing of his cell phone in his pocket had him back tracking from being out in the open to leaning against the outer wall of the deserted bar, fumbling with the device as he switched his gun to his left hand to hit the ‘send’ button with his thumb and set the thin bit of plastic against his ear. “Hello?”
"Hello dear, how would you feel about coming over to shoot this Rocklin guy?”
Caine blinked as he heard his sire’s voice and nearly pulled the phone away to stare at it in disbelief. Instead, he merely cleared his throat, ‘brows furrowing as he tried to remember where he’d heard that name before.
“Isn’t he a Hellhound?”
At her affirmation, he shifted his fingers around the grip of his gun and set his jaw, flashes of the memories of being hunted and wounded to the point where he begged Coralie to kill him in the middle of the street assaulting his mind and bringing that sick feeling of anger back into the pit of his stomach. “Where is he?”
“What? I can't hear you over the gunshots, speak louder!”
“Where is he!” It made him nervous to pitch his voice so loud, not because of the lingering groups of zombies, but because it bordered so close to yelling and even if he were merely increasing the volume so she could better hear him, it reminded him of yelling at someone and he wouldn’t (couldn’t) do that.
“Oh, just south west of the Necro.”
Caine nodded and then remembered that she couldn’t see him, keeping his voice as loud as his repeated question had been as he told her that he would be there shortly, more pleased than he ever had been of his gun practise and the power he had that allowed him to run from location to location in the blink of an eye. The last he heard from her before he ended the call was “Alright, see you soon”, phone sliding back into his pocket, gun switching hands and then he was in motion, running in that way that drained him in a way that wasn’t fatigue, the city blurring around him until he came to a stop, a crowd of vampires that he vaguely recognized, eyes searching for the figure of Rocklin.
His gaze fell on Moriah first and more specifically the gunshot wound in her shoulder, his grip on the pistol tightening until he was a hairsbreadth from bending the metal. Slipping into the crowd, he moved through them seamlessly until he found him, the wounded and beleaguered (pathetic) visage of his target. The blonde boy took careful aim and fired, the bullet catching Rocklin directly in his heart, knocking the man’s body, now corpse, to the ground where it stayed still, completely devoid of even the faintest flicker of life.
Caine watched for a moment, transfixed. Was that what he looked like when he died of the same strike that had killed Rocklin? A slight facial tic appeared before he turned away and disappeared back into the crowd, deciding he’d had enough of being out in the city for one night.