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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...
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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Date: 2008-07-28 08:43 pm (UTC)The window they're aiming for opens onto a long, narrow room with stairs leading both downward and upward. Gordon glances at the downward stairs suspiciously, then steps forward and turns his suit light on the rest of the room. And has to suppress a shudder; there are corpses laid out on three tables, two of them visibly ex-zombies. If the cracked rib cages and clawed hands didn't give that away, the nearby headcrab corpses and mutilated skulls probably did. The third... the third appears to have been relieved of rather a lot of the things one would imagine even zombies might need, such as skin and most of its musculature. Gordon turns the light away from that one quickly. It happens to fall on a pile of torn, empty white boxes, and he gives a low whistle at that.
"Spent medkits," he explains to Dinah. "I'm not sure what they contain these days, but the ones we had at Black Mesa used alien chemical compounds to heal up anything short of limb loss or death. I think... I think Father Grigori may have been trying to use them to get these people back, and it didn't work."
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Date: 2008-07-28 08:55 pm (UTC)"That poor guy."
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Date: 2008-07-28 08:57 pm (UTC)Below them, in the streets, something howls. Gordon's head comes up sharply. "The roof. Now."
If nothing else they'll be able to get to the far side of the building before whatever that is catches up with them.
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Date: 2008-07-28 09:00 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-07-28 09:10 pm (UTC)The moonlight reaching the Ravenholm streets reveals something scrambling about with a bizarre four-legged gait, at a speed the zombies Dinah's seen so far can't hope to match. It's making braying noises like some sort of wild ass- at least for a moment; then it pauses and lets out the same soulless howl as before.
The howl is cut off by a sudden WHAM!. Gordon made it onto the roof in time to be profoundly disturbed by the same sight. No sense carrying the radiator all this way and not using it.
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Date: 2008-07-28 09:14 pm (UTC)For all his faults, the priest has an excellent pitching arm. Something black and silver flashes in the moonlight, arcing across the distance. Gordon catches the tossed shotgun out of midair.
"Good," says Father Grigori. "Now keep it close. My advice to you is... aim for the head."
The drainpipe nearest Gordon starts to rattle. Grigori hisses. "They come!" he says. "There is no rest in Ravenholm! Move on and I will meet you at the church."
He makes a vague gesture towards an onion-domed building in the distance before darting off into the shadows of the other building.
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Date: 2008-07-28 09:16 pm (UTC)"OK, what was that?"
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Date: 2008-07-28 09:21 pm (UTC)And as he does so, the howl sounds again. The pipe shakes- and two things out of nightmare leap up onto the roof in front of them. One never completes its arc, because Gordon, for all his other flaws, can take advice very, very well.
He likes that shotgun, oh yes.
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Date: 2008-07-28 09:36 pm (UTC)"We should move."
Obviously.
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Date: 2008-07-28 09:43 pm (UTC)It's in the direction they were headed before, anyway, so why not? Besides, old churches tended to be sturdy buildings, right?
"I'd ask how far you can jump from roof to roof but I don't think either of us would like the answer." Gordon glances around. "If we can make it along that ledge there, on the warehouse, we'll get past a couple of fences below. The town square's on the other side- we can make a run for it there. You take point this time. I can hear more of those things coming."
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Date: 2008-07-28 09:48 pm (UTC)Constantly looking back for him, she keeps alert all the way.
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Date: 2008-07-28 09:52 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-07-28 09:55 pm (UTC)Gordon's throat moves convulsively at the sight, and he begins reloading the shotgun from a box of shells he snagged along the way.
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Date: 2008-07-28 09:57 pm (UTC)As he points to a side alley that's still relatively zombie-free, he adds, "Mend your ways before it is too late!"
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Date: 2008-07-28 09:58 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-07-29 08:06 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-07-29 01:40 pm (UTC)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.
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Date: 2008-07-29 01:50 pm (UTC)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.
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Date: 2008-07-29 02:00 pm (UTC)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.
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Date: 2008-07-29 02:27 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-07-29 02:31 pm (UTC)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...
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Date: 2008-07-29 02:37 pm (UTC)"Think we should head down there?"
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Date: 2008-07-29 02:40 pm (UTC)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."
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Date: 2008-07-29 02:49 pm (UTC)She glances around quickly and heads through, into a wider, open plaza.
With a zombie in it.
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Date: 2008-07-29 02:56 pm (UTC)With a wet snuffling noise it turns in Dinah's direction and tears one of the black headcrabs loose from its torso.
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