acts_of_gord | We Don't Go To Ravenholm- Oh Wait, Looks Like We Do

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We Don't Go To Ravenholm- Oh Wait, Looks Like We Do

The Milliways portal door is a capricious, fickle thing. It had opened for Gordon earlier when he'd tripped over the charred, blackened remains of a lurking zombie while firing a sawblade into its still-mobile companion. Then it'd gone and opened again, back to Ravenholm, just as he was leaning forward to check and see whether the zombie that'd loomed over him before had gone.

The blade had flown true and eradicated the zombie threat, but in the moonlight that trickled through the cracks in the boarded-up window and badly patched roof, Gordon could see he still wasn't alone...

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The course is really probably for the best. The alternative route involved diving into that cistern at the end of the street, climbing its ladder, taking an elevator down to street level, and having to jump a fence to escape a trapped, angry thing swollen with black headcrab bodies. This route crosses both the fences and brings Gordon and Dinah around to a boarded-up window overlooking the square...

... into which what remains of the population of Ravenholm is beginning to pour. Two, three, four at a time, they come, shuffling and wailing their horrid, muffled cries. And they just. Keep. Coming. The only real mercy here is that none of them seem to have been any less than full adults when they were still alive.

Gordon's throat moves convulsively at the sight, and he begins reloading the shotgun from a box of shells he snagged along the way.

A square of light opens in the wall of a large building diagonally opposite their current position. "How came you here, brother?" calls Father Grigori. "You have lost your way at the last! Did I not tell you to seek the church?"

As he points to a side alley that's still relatively zombie-free, he adds, "Mend your ways before it is too late!"

Gordon doesn't know whether to thank the man or punch him. "Think you can sprint that far once we're at ground level?" he asks Dinah.

"Yeah," Dinah says, eyes not leaving the square. "I'm a fast runner, don't worry about me."

"Good," says Gordon, and checks the shotgun one last time. "You're probably faster than me. I'll clear us a path."

He's had more nerve-wracking descents before this. They involved hundred-foot cliffside drops and lurking Marines. This isn't nearly so far to fall, but it's right up there.

Dinah's just glad she's in sneakers and not her Mom's high heeled boots for this.

She glances at him to makes sure he's ready with the gun, before crouching and dropping the distance easily, landing in a deep crouch.

Gordon's not on the ground yet, but he's very, very good at holding onto tiny little grips while using a firearm. He could probably keep his position on a ladder using only his knees and still handle the shotgun's kickback.

BLAM.

As the zombies fall back on either side he drops to the ground himself. Whatever the suit might have to say about that is drowned out by Gordon's distraction of choice: the sound of what happens when a shotgun shell is fired at a barrel full of oil. (Or whatever the hell Father Grigori's been filling the barrels with. Oil doesn't explode like that, does it?)

NOW Gordon runs.

Dinah's just ahaead of him, sprinting into the alley. She checks only just enough to make sure he's OK, and heads forward.

A piece of shrapnel got him across the forehead- stupid splash damage- but overall Gordon's all right. He's used to running over precarious ground when he can barely see.

There're a couple of headcrabs roaming the streets up ahead, but the zombies are, for the most part, simply attempting to give chase. Gordon has no love of either, so it's a matter of priorities: what can get in our way? matters more than what's behind us?. As long as Dinah doesn't suddenly swerve when he's shooting at one of the headcrabs (or shooting twice, in the case of the one that made the hissing, catlike sound), the way ahead is mostly clear...

Dinah keeps a fixed straight line, not even flinching as he shooting around her and pounds on ahead. She looks around for something vaguely church-like, but the only thing she really sees is a gap between the buildings further up, beyond which there appears to be a more open space.

"Think we should head down there?"

"Better than where we are now," says Gordon. "Wait-"

There's enough breathing room for him to yank his crowbar free and offer it to her.

"Headcrabs like dark, narrow spaces. Don't let one catch you by surprise."

"Thanks," Dinah says, taking the crowbar with one hand and testing its weight shortly.

She glances around quickly and heads through, into a wider, open plaza.

With a zombie in it.

And not just any zombie, either. The ones pursuing them had been still sort of human-shaped, for all their missing parts. The skinless ones were... well, about what you'd expect for a moving corpse with neither skin nor much muscle mass left. This one is bent low, its knuckles nearly brushing the cobblestones. What little of its skin is visible is a repulsively bloated reddish-purple, mottled like a livid bruise. And the black thing covering what used to be its head isn't alone; there are at least three or four more of them clinging to the creature, studding its back like pustules about to erupt.

With a wet snuffling noise it turns in Dinah's direction and tears one of the black headcrabs loose from its torso.

Dinah moves fast, bring the crowbar up to bat the incoming crab away like a baseball.

But not fast enough. The bar misses entirely amnd the crab lands on Dinah's upper arm. She inhales sharply through her teeth, drops the crowbar and yanks the crab off to throw it away.

She doesn't need a helpful voice to tell her about neurotoxins, though. She crumples to the floor, gasping in pain.

"Dinah!"

Gordon hasn't got the time to run over and check her yet- the zombie's pulling another crab free. Thankfully, Father Grigori has excellent taste in shotguns; this one holds six shells at a time.

Plus it fires two shells at a time if Gordon pulls the appropriate trigger. Which is good, because that purple-and-black son of a bitch takes no less than three direct hits before it staggers and plummets to the ground, facecrab first.

It might be Gordon's imagination, but it sounded like the thing chuckled right before it died.

Now he runs over to Dinah's side. "Can you hear me?" he asks, and reaches to her neck to see if she still has a pulse.

Dinah's pulse is raising, fortunately enough. She's curled up in a foetal position, sweat and tears pouring down her face as her breaths come in gasps.

When he speaks to her, she gives a shallow nod and tries to move - to get up.

Her entire body feels like it's peeling away from her bones, but they've got to keep moving.

Gordon glances away a moment and spots the church; it's on the other side of a fence and a sharp drop in the landscape, but there's a set of thick cables overhead that look suspiciously like they're intended to hold up a trolley of some kind. Father Grigori probably left some kind of supplies in the building they're attached to.

"Stay where you are."

Gordon's not known for being gentle, but he knows exactly what this feels like, and he wouldn't wish it on anyone. They can afford a few moments' delay for him to pick Dinah up, assuming Father Grigori left any of the healing solutions in the building. If he didn't-

-he'll think about that later. He's got to get her inside first.

"Mmmm." Dinah says. She's trying to move but she's not getting very far. Instead she manages to grab onto him, tight.

"'M fine."

She's really not.

"Good. Stay that way," says Gordon; he can hear howls in the distance, coming in over the rooftops. The faster he shoulders that building's door open, the happier he'll be. "And stay awake until we can find something to counteract that venom!"

If he has to get out of his suit to put her in it for an antidote-

Oh, thank the pitiless and impersonal forces of chance and entropy, Father Grigori did leave a couple of medkits in here, under the stairs. Gordon quails a little at the thought of having to make it up three floors' worth of stairs to get to the roof, but he needn't have worried- there's an old cargo elevator on the opposite wall. "Okay," he says, cracking open the first white box. "Dinah, I need you to swallow this stuff for me. It's nasty, but it saved my skin more times than I can count. Keep going until there's no more left."

He hands her the first green cylinder, its top already pried off, and starts jamming the elevator button with his thumb as if repeated punchings could make it go faster.

It's more effort than Dinah is willing to accept, just opening her mouth to take the stuff, but at least she can't really taste it. Her mouth, like everywhere else, hurts too much.

Gasping, she takes a couple of sips, then downs the rest at increasingly fast speed.

When it's gone, she's coughing in distaste.

"That is nasty."

Gordon smiles grimly. "Sorry," he says. "That's not Earth chemistry there. The important thing is that it works."

Well, that and the elevator's arrived. He'll help her in if need be.

He doesn't need to: or Dinah won't admit that he needs to. She stands up extra straight and walks in, leaning on the wall inside as the only outside indication that she still kind of wants to throw up.

"I do not like those crab things."

"Don't blame you," Gordon says, thumping a fist against the 'send us up now' button. As the elevator lurches upwards he notes, "They don't even taste all that good. The non-poisonous ones, anyway."

"You've eaten them?"

Dinah blanches, mostly because the lurching of the elevator doesn't feel so hot right now.

"Stuck for food?"

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