Participants:
| Scene Title | Stalk |
|---|---|
| Synopsis | In the dark of night, King and Rico slip out of the warehouse for a refresher course in urban tracking. |
| Date | December 17, 2008 |
Journal Square, Jersey City (Irradiated Zone)
Panting breaths fill the air, and steam issues forth from full lips as a dark figure runs at a full sprint in the gloom of a moonless night. Boots slam against concrete, chest heaving and the only brightness on him are the whites of his wide eyes and the flickering gleam of the combat knife held fast in one hand. Like an animal chasing down prey, King rushes out from the alley and leaps up to land on the hood of a a burned-out shell of a car. The hood dents in fromt his weight, and he bounds off of the vehicle into the air again, gripping the hilt o fhis knife woth both hands as he pounces like a jaguar, tackling something down to the pavement with a meaty snap and a yowling scream.
King writhes on the ground for a moment, followed shortly after by a spray of blood across his face as the figure beneath him falls limp and spasms a few brief times. The enormous man stares down into the still open eyes of the young man who's throat he just sawed open with his knife, watching the steam rise forth from the opening in the front of his neck and the blood drooling out from it in every wet and gurgling attempt at breath before all life fades.
He withdraws the knife from the man's shoulder where he had him pinned down to the icy and cracked street, wiping the blood off on either side of his own face before sheathing the blade once more in the front of his vest. "This one was not human." King turns to look over his shoulder, dark eyes ringed with white peering at the man leisurely strolling out of the alley behind where he had run.
Smoke trails from a cigarette tucked into the corner of his mouth, and wavy black hair is held away from his weathered face by a black beret. "Wasn't too fast, but he was nimble, I'll give him that." Rico stops once he's a few feet away from King, watching the man warily, like someone would a large and unpredictable animal. "Might've even been able t'ask what he could do, you know, if he still had a larynx."
"I do not care." King spits out the words, "He died, that is proof enough that he was weaker than I." The mountain of a man finally rises, his black uniform and body armor blending into the lightless and abandoned city square. His eyes lift upwards, tracking the corner of one derelct department store towards the cloud-shrouded skies and the tiny snowflakes falling from them, clinging to the warm blood still steaming from his cheeks.
Rick watches King for a few moments, then circles around the body, eyes lowering down to look at his clothing — tattered and worn, shoes with thin soles, sunken cheeks. He was clearly homeless, probably suffering from radiation sickness. Those same dark eyes lift from the corpse back to King as he circles around the body, mindful nto to tread in the pooling blood that freezes to the cold pavement and stains the snow underfoot red.
"This city is sick." King's deep voice makes the otherwise unsolicited statement seem all the more ominous, "Infected and overpopulated." He lowers his head, downturning his gaze from the heavens to settle on Rico's much shorter form. "Kazimir will cleanse it, then you and I, my friend…" Full lips spread into a gigantic smile of teeth as white as his eyes, gleaming like some cheshire smile in the night.
"We'll be fucking kings." //Plural. // "Right?"
King nods, rolling both of his shoulders as he finally moves away from the corpse, looking out to the streets that branch off from the square. "The hunt is good here, open and free. The sick ones, no one cares for them, kept away by man-made barricades," His smile does not fade in the slightest as he starts walking towards the faint glimmer of light in the distance.
Rico watches King start to move, slowly at first, and then with hastening steps like an animal that has caught something's scent. He shifts the shoulder his assault rifle hangs on, and gives a click of his tongue as he looks back down to the corpse. "Kings of what is the question." He mumbles to himself once his hunting partner has dashed towards the sidewalk, running beneath darkened street lights towards the sounds of movement.
"Kings of the dead?"
 December 17th: As Seen on TV |
Previously in this storyline… Next in this storyline… |
 December 17th: Popcorn |