2019-06-21 - A Dark & Stormy Night at the Hospital

Maintenance Jim does not survive the night.

IC Date: 2019-06-21

OOC Date: 2019-04-27

Location: Addington Memorial Hospital

Related Scenes:   2019-06-21 - A Dark & Stormy Night Around Town   2019-06-21 - A Dark & Stormy Night at Addington House   2019-06-21 - A Dark & Stormy Night on Elm Street

Plot: None

Scene Number: 399

Event

The hospital is bizarrely unbusy tonight. With half the town having decided to stay the fuck home to ride out the storm, there are precious few accidents to bring people to the emergency room. Around six-thirty, when the power went out all around town, the hospital's generators kicked on. The lights have been dim ever since then, and non-essential systems have been shut down, and the whumpwhumpwhump of the generators in the basement make a goodly amount of noise that echoes through the strangely quiet hospital.

People have started to congregate in the front lobby, watching the crash of thunder and lightning through the glass doors that have been left pried open, allowing a little air to get into this terrifically stuffy room. A lot of personnel have started trying to get home in this foul mess of weather. But there are a fair few people that are stuck here, including any patients and any necessary staff.

For whatever reason, Erin, Isabella, Mark, Sutton, and Bennie find themselves in the hallway adjacent to the lobby. There's a Sparklett's cooler here; maybe they're all thirsty?

Bennie was supposed to get off two hours ago, but that's what happens when a call comes in at the end of your shift. Now, due to the fact that her main mode of transportation is a bicycle and and Easton's jeep is toast, she's left to ride out the worst of the storm at the hospital. Though she's already shucked her work shirt, she remains dressed in her Dickies pants and steel toed boots and a plain white tee bloused into her belt with her hair pulled up into a tight pony tail. Leaning out of the way in the hallway, she mutters very unchipper swear words at her phone that just can't get a signal.

One of her cousins was in the hospital and her grandmother had designated her to be the one to deliver the best wishes. With her rather busy schedule of late it had been a now or never sort of deal so despite her misgivings and the storm, Erin had come. The flowers had been delivered and she'd already decided to allow the storm to let up some before her departure. Blame it on her new high dollar boots. The rain would ruin the suede. So, to pass the time she's stopped at the cooler and realizes she has nothing smaller than a twenty. "Is there a change machine around here?" The words drifted mostly towards Bennie, a face she does recognize.

It was the last stop in an extraordinarily busy day.

After a long, cross-continental flight and a comparatively shorter drive along the coast, the storm was already well into its pitch by the time Isabella Reede arrives at the hospital - the nearest place she knows that is guaranteed to have a pharmacy. With her hard-top cherry-red Jeep busily weathering away the torrents sweeping across the city, she makes it to the lobby only partially drenched, and clad still in her traveling clothes - a blouse paired with a reddish-brown leather jacket, fitted jeans tucked into calf-high boots, straddling the line between fashionable and functional. Brushing her fingertips over her eyes to rid herself of the drops clinging to her lashes, she quickly locates the pharmacy, dutifully falls in line, and by the time she picks up her parents' prescriptions, the hospital takes the inevitable toll against the weather. The lights go out the moment her hand takes the paper bag handed to her by the pharmacist.

That was half an hour ago.

The state of the outside world, with its thunderous fury, makes the rest of the drive a risky prospect at best and she's already exhausted. Forced to wait it out with the poor souls trapped within the building, she finds the relatively vacant thoroughfare leading into the lobby at last, fingers securely clutching the white paper bag at her side and other palm flat against the messenger bag strapped diagonally across her chest. Her long-legged strides carry her to the nearby water cooler, reaching for one of the paper cups sitting in the adjacent dispenser.

Come rain, shine, hail or snow, Mark will always make sure he's on time for an appointment. Especially when that appointment is to get nearly-triple-digit stitches removed. Sure, there was half an hour of incredulously explaining to the nurse that no, he had always only had the one wound on his chest, but apart from that? Everything went fine. Even with the power failure.

Despite the weather, he's gone pretty casual on the dress. Sure, there's his long, heavy-duty woolen coat and a comfortable knit cap, but the jeans and boots he's wearing while a little ways down from the water cooler look almost hastily thrown on. He's right there with Sutton, taking a brief moment to sip from his own paper cup before looking at her with a slowly creeping grin and a voice like rocks in a washing machine. "-An' so the tooth fairy says, 'Twenny Bucks. Same as in town!'" It's probably for the best most folks didn't hear the setup to that punchline.

Sutton's loitering a few strides from the water cooler, a paper cup full and in hand, when a crash of thunder sounds close enough to have her looking toward the lobby adjacent. The paramedic wears an old navy blue tee that reads PARAMEDIC across the back in seriously faded white letters, along with the Seattle Fire Department's logo on the upper left chest. Her black cargo pants are paired with a pair of Harley Davidson motorcycle boots, and her long, dark, blonde-streaked hair is pulled up into a messy knot atop her head. She turns her left wrist to check the face of her watch. She hasn't bothered even checking her phone. Probably it's still off from when she surrendered it and her clothes to try for that MRI earlier. At least they didn't make her sit around waiting in a gown. Leaned against the wall near Mark, she glances over as he winds down a dirty joke that's been going for at least a minute and a half. She smirks. "That would play better if you said it with your mouth full."

<FS3> Bennie rolls Alertness+Glimmer (7 6 3 3 2 1) vs Did You Hear That? (a NPC)'s 4 (7 4 4 4 3 2)
<FS3> Marginal Victory for Bennie.

<FS3> Erin rolls Alertness+Glimmer (8 7 7 7 3 2 1) vs Did You Hear That? (a NPC)'s 4 (6 5 4 2 1 1)
<FS3> Crushing Victory for Erin.

<FS3> Mark rolls Alertness+Glimmer (8 7 7 2) vs Did You Hear That? (a NPC)'s 4 (8 6 5 4 3 3)
<FS3> Marginal Victory for Mark.

<FS3> Sutton rolls Alertness+Glimmer (8 7 7 4 4 3) vs Did You Hear That? (a NPC)'s 4 (8 8 8 7 6 1)
<FS3> Victory for Did You Hear That?.

<FS3> Isabella rolls Alertness+Glimmer (8 7 4 4 3 2 2 2 1) vs Did You Hear That? (a NPC)'s 4 (8 7 4 4 4 1)
<FS3> DRAW!

Between the whumpwhumpwhump noises that the generator is making, Bennie and Mark just... almost... does it sound like something is talking in the basement? Whumpilly, whumbilly, thumpbilly.

Erin can hear it, clear as day, between the whumps is the chanted sound of 'Billy Billy Billy' and the crackle of electricity.

Sutton and Isabella just hear the stupid generator making its whumpwhumpwhump noises endlessly.

But all of them definitely see the door at the end of the hallway suddenly slam wide open. It's the door to the stairway. A bluish light pulses-and-dims from somewhere within, and they all definitely see the shadow of a man slant against the walls revealed when that door kicks open. Everyone else is glued to the show going on outside the glass doors, with that gossipy bitch of a receptionist saying, "Oh! I bet that one hit the trailer park. All that aluminum siding is bound to attract lightning strikes, tsk, sucks to be a poor person!"

"Oh, you mean the Magician?" Bennie asks Erin as she flips her pony tail over her shoulder and tucks her phone away. "Sometimes he turns your money into quarters, and other times, he just makes it...disappear." She's digging into her pockets with a jingle of change, coming up with a handful of various coins that she sorts through with her finger to just lend Erin the change she needs for whatever she wants from the vending machine, head tilting slightly as she hears the noises from the basement. At the slam of the door though, she completely jumps, sending coins raining down with a merry tinkling noise on the linoleum floor. "What the-" Curiosity may kill the cat, but there is no telling what it does to a perky blonde that just has to see what that was all about.

"Ah..no." Erin doesn't know of the magician and opens her mouth to say something about it when the door slams opened and she hears that voice. She even echoes it almost in rhythm, "Billy, Billy.. Who is that?" Does she know? Not immediately at least but the voice and the happenings scare her. "Bennie, are we awake?" Is this a dream would be the more likely question, but she's drawn either way, intending to see exactly what is there. "Something down there is chanting Billy," she confides quietly.

Gray Harbor certainly has ways of making its unique nature simply impossible to ignore, even for one who makes it a point to live as normal of a life as possible. The slamming of the door has Isabella lifting her weary head, her green, gold-flecked eyes landing the entryway left open for them, as if inviting those who dare to slip through it and follow. The expression on her sunkissed mien is indescribable, catching the faint hints of a moving shadow before it slips across the walls and vanishes, like a trick of flickering lights.

A sigh. "It's a trap," she murmurs.

She takes a quiet sip of her water, watching as a blonde she doesn't recognize follow the vestiges of the disturbance almost immediately.

Did she...?

She doesn't move from her spot by the water cooler, a surreptitious glance cast sideways towards the rest of those in the hallway.

Did they...?

"This water tastes like copper and regret, I'm not lettin' it hang around." Mark grumbles a little at the immediate constructive criticism of his punchline, furrowing his brow-line at the woman next to him before chugging the rest of said water. He's actually settled into leaning against the wall as he crumples up the cup in his hand, his head not even showing the slightest hint of turning towards the suddenly-opening door. Or even the shadow that's thrown down the hallway.

Either he doesn't hear, doesn't notice, or doesn't care. His real talent is making sure it's always all three.

<FS3> Isabella rolls Mental (8 7 6 6 4 1) vs Shh (a NPC)'s 1 (8 5 3)
<FS3> Crushing Victory for Isabella.

Sutton hears nothing, or nothing out of the ordinary since the lights went down and the generators started grinding. She turns her head when the door slams open, though, and the tinged light throwing shadows across the wall in there. She does hear that tinkle jangle of all the coins hitting the floor, and bends to pick up a couple of quarters that roll along past her boot. "Most everything tastes like some kind of regret when you're paying attention." Which apparently she is and isn't. But Sutton doesn't really know about supernatural dangers. At least not that she has allowed herself to remember to this point. "Some people's kids..."

Lightning flashes blue outside, white-washing the lobby and everyone inside it. There's a BOOM of thunder a second later. And then - abruptly - the generator stumbles. Its whumpwhumpwhump noise starts to die down, losing its rhythm, and the emergency lights start to dwindle. There's a buzz of activity around them, everyone making sure patients who need their machines have battery back-ups.

Because there it goes. The lights dwindle... dwindle... die...

Through the open door, they can see a guy in a maintenance uniform with a flashlight hustling down the stairs toward the pulsing blue light, in the wake of whatever that shadow-thing was. They can also see him miss a step and eat shit, falling down the stairs. So maybe no one is going to fix the generator after all?

Or, well. Everyone but Mark can see it. He's refusing to look that way.

"I could pinch you?" Bennie offers helpfully over her shoulder to Erin, but it's mostly a distracted thing as she's edging to the door and peering down to follow the bobbing light of the flashlight towards the glow of blue. "Billy. Chanting or ...calling?" The thought makes goose flesh rise on Bennie's arms, her hand going to her Batman belt of EMTs as the generator takes its last gasp so she can reach for the pen light that's standard issue for things like checking pupillary response. "Oh, hey, mister are you okay?" Without further thought to her personal safety, she darts down the stairs to help the maintenance man who just hit the dirt.

<FS3> Bennie rolls Athletics (5 5 4 4 3 2 2 1) vs Zappy Thing! (a NPC)'s 4 (8 8 6 4 2 2)
<FS3> Crushing Victory for Zappy Thing!.

Erin stiffens, plastering herself against the wall as she notices that shadow of a person or whatever it is. Jumping at the flash of lightning and the boom of thunder, she counts to herself to see if it was closer than the last all Poltergeist style. Moving towards or away? A hand slides into her overcoat and she tugs out her cell phone. Hopefully the flashlight would work. Now, she's no maintenance personnel but someone fell down the stairs. "Some saying the name Billy repetitively." As Bennie goes to help out, Erin follows behind. She was fair at medical assistance, by glimmer or not, but she does touching nothing as of yet, just being backup for Bennie.

<FS3> Erin rolls Athletics (6 4 3) vs Zappy Thing! (a NPC)'s 4 (8 4 2 2 1 1)
<FS3> DRAW!

<FS3> Erin rolls Athletics (8 7 4) vs Zappy Thing! (a NPC)'s 4 (7 6 5 4 3 1)
<FS3> DRAW!

<FS3> Erin rolls Athletics (4 3 3) vs Zappy Thing! (a NPC)'s 4 (4 3 3 3 2 1)
<FS3> Everyone failed!

<FS3> Erin rolls Athletics (7 2 1) vs Zappy Thing! (a NPC)'s 4 (8 7 7 5 4 1)
<FS3> Victory for Zappy Thing!.

Bennie gets to the first step of the stairs, and a pulse of blue light sparks right into life! It arcs from the stair-rail to her hand, zapping her hard - hard enough to make her stumble. Fortunately, instead of falling face-first down the stairs, she just teeters backward and lands on her rear-end at the head of the steps. But now she can see that the maintenance guy is definitely in bad shape - like, there's blood illuminated by his fallen flashlight, coming out of his mouth and nose where he landed face-first at the landing in front of the door to the basement.

A second later, another arch snaps across and skitters over to connect to Erin's fingertips, jolting up her arm. Her hair stands on end, but at least it doesn't knock her on her ass.

Like a spell or a curse, those three words are punctuated by a pronounced lightning strike, drowning the shadows with white-blue light...and as it fades, so does the glare of the electric lamps situated above their heads.

Isabella's eyes remain on Bennie's curious figure and stay there. The noisy whirr of the generators fade, replaced by another sound and sense of something else. It pulls at her, tugs at her senses, filling her veins with that sense of inexplicable familiarity and anchoring her further into the strange, ephemeral blanket that makes her hometown so...

So...

Her jaw sets. She drains her water, for a moment wishing it was bourbon, before tossing the empty receptacle in the nearby waistbin. The paper bag full of prescription drugs is one she stuffs securely in the inner pocket of her leather jacket, and takes determined, purposeful strides towards the doors.

Something was calling her. And despite her better judgment, she follows.

She makes it to the top of the stairs just in time to see the fate of the maintenance worker, and the two other women attempting to assist him. Her head turns over her shoulder, waving a hand in an effort to catch Sutton's attention, wearing the t-shirt that helpfully identifies her as a member of the fire department and the only person nearby who seems qualified to see to serious injury.

"Someone fell and there's blood," she calls out. "I think he works here."

<FS3> Isabella rolls Athletics (8 7 5 5 2) vs Zappy Thing! (a NPC)'s 4 (8 8 7 7 5 1)
<FS3> Victory for Zappy Thing!.

The arc reaches out from the doorframe this time, connecting to Isabella at the elbow, then racing all the way down to her feet. It makes her legs go numb for a moment, knocking them out from beneath her just inside the stairwell.

They look so pretty now, the three of them falling and zapped and their hair all standing on end~!

As soon as she sees that maintenance man miss a step, Sutton straightens from the floor, dropping the coins absently into her pocket. "Shit." Bennie's taking off for the assist, so Sutton turns to swat Mark's shoulder. "You look strong. Let's go see if..." She glances over just in time to see an arc of electricity spark over and zap Erin, at least. She wasn't looking when Bennie went down. She did hear Bennie go down.

At Isabella's words, she nods, "Yeah, we'll all go down one after the other and catch an arc — how the hell." Sutton's trying to make sense of this via some freak accident of power and flooded basement arcing to a metal hand-rail, but the power and generators are down. Witness the moment logic stops working for the Glimmer-unbeliever. Nope, wait! Rallying strong, perhaps the lights are down because they blew when the power sparked into a flood. Science and denial win. At least two (maybe four!) people potentially seriously injured and an electrified entry.

"Kids taste like regret? What?" Mark was busy looking out of the window and discarding his cup into the nearest trash, and so actually missed the linking connection between Sutton's two sentences. When the conversation has clearly moved on from punchline criticism, he glances over in the direction Sutton is looking, watching the falling bundle of people and arcing light, switching which shoulder leans against the wall as he does so.

His lips purse up at the sight. And his tongue clicks. And then his head turns back towards the reception area. "So, uh, anyone else wanna run blindly into the pitch-black room that keeps shocking people? Hey! Receptionist! Rich person down! Go be a hero!"

Mark doesn't need to rationalize. Mark has the power of Apathy

Bennie jolts backwards as she shock telegraphs through out her body, making even the fillings in her teeth hurt. She sits there dazed, vaguely noting the smell of ozone somewhere deep in the recesses of her mind. Of all the ways she imagined herself going out, this likely never topped the list. At least the thunder of her pulse in her ears is in sinus rhythm? With a groan, she tries to move. Tries to warn the others who come close and are getting zapped one after another. It just comes out as a whimper instead.

The people in the lobby look at Mark exactly the way one would expect them to: like he's a crazy person. With a big sigh, Marilyn the receptionist fumbles around in the dimness for a walkie-talkie, saying into it, "Can someone please send security to the lobby?"

"Security's kinda busy, Mar."

"WELL SO AM I! Just send someone with some kind of tranquilizer! We've got a patient in here, and I'm not dealing with him!"

It happened so fast that Erin isn't exactly sure what happened for a moment. Following Bennie, she hears or imagines a sizzle sound as Bennie falls just before it catches her own fingers and shoots up her arm and throughout her, her hair standing on end as she falls to her rear end. There's a few following shudders as she tries to get her mind to work coherently enough to try and see if Bennie was okay. Then Isabella joins them and she groans in protest. If she overhears Mark, she doesn't give any indication, perhaps she hadn't noticed him since her arrival?

The three in the stairwell see that pulsing light grow brighter briefly. The shadow of a man again passes between it and then; this time, the slanting shadow of his head passes over the bleeding head of the maintenance guy, darkening the glint of the blood illuminated by his fallen flashlight. But they can also feel the crackle of electricity building up in the stairwell again, like static coalescing in the air around them.

Stay and get zapped? Or leave and... what? Will the generator stay off? Will the maintenance guy just bleed out down there?

<FS3> Isabella rolls Mental (7 6 5 4 2 1) vs Something Familiar (a NPC)'s 4 (5 4 3 2 2 1)
<FS3> Victory for Isabella.

<FS3> Erin rolls Mental (8 8 6 3 3 1) vs Something Familiar (a NPC)'s 4 (8 7 3 2 1 1)
<FS3> Marginal Victory for Erin.

The spark leaps from the metallic framing of the nearby entryway, crackling into the point of her elbow and running a lightning course through open nerve endings. Her legs lock; Isabella manages to bite back a cry when she drops heavily on her knees. Sensation, for a moment, leaves her lower extremities.

"What the f-- " The rest of the invective doesn't leave her lips, teeth grinding together when she presses her palms on the floor and attempts to lever herself upwards. A hand pulls through her messy hair, the scent of ozone standing out from the rest. Mark's exasperated call towards the receptionist has her inclining her head faintly.

Patient?

She could be more reassuring, really. Explain it away. The storm outside was a volatile thing, producing an aggressive amount of static.

But she's tired.

Despite her mood, she isn't unfeeling. As pins and needles wind her way up from her heels to calves the moment she finds her feet, she reaches for the nearest person who has fallen to try and help her sit up - Erin Addington.

"You alright?" she wonders. "Can you st-- "

It pulls. It tugs. Her attention lifts from the stylish brunette and into the darkness waiting for those who dare at the bottom of the stairwell.

She exhales, eyes closing, but she slowly rises to her feet and tests her legs. At least there were professionals around to look after the others. "Sorry," she murmurs, moving without the hesitation she should. "I gotta go."

And off she goes. Whenever she does reach the bottom of the steps, she reaches down to pick up the maintenance worker's fallen maglite.

"Tell 'em I'm in the generator room and I'm very impatient!" Mark throws back towards the lobby. And then actually turns for the lobby, shaking his head as he comes to a little conclusion about his next move. Giving the shadowy shape of good ol' Mar a quick finger wave, he scoops up a wooden broom from a cleaner's kit, the owner of which merely continues staring at the guy like he's insane.

Strolling back Sutton's way, he's pulling out a stick of gum, foil wrapper included. Popping the actual stick in his mouth, it's a little saunter that the guy's got going on as he passes her by, fiddling with the end of the broom handle to give it a fancy little foil topper that wherever Mark goes, that little conductive probe goes first.

"I've had three heart attacks in the past year, and my nitro pills are in my inside right pocket." Is about all he says to Sutton, making his way towards the door and pulling up, eventually, roughly where Isabella Was. Well, for all he knows she's a crispy chicken at the bottom of that stairwell, right now.

<FS3> Mark rolls Athletics (8 7 7 5 3 3 1) vs Zappy Thing Don't Obey The Laws Of Physics (a NPC)'s 4 (8 7 7 5 4 2)
<FS3> DRAW!

<FS3> Mark rolls Athletics (8 4 2 2 2 1 1) vs Zappy Thing Don't Obey The Laws Of Physics (a NPC)'s 4 (5 5 5 2 2 1)
<FS3> Marginal Victory for Mark.

Nothing will make one more faster than the absolute feeling of hatred, abhorrence and malevolence directed at you! And that's the one thing that knocks Erin from her zap induced stupor. Not way is she going down those stairs, and she can see it building, can watch it. Skitterning backwards almost in a crab walk but has her sliding backwards along the floor to put as much distance as she can, even going so far as to tug away from the help offered from Isabella. "I. I can't go down there. I can't." Finally finding her voice she gets to her feet and looks desperately towards the reception. The storm rages on though and the lights are out, she can't make out anything. "Be careful down there!" .

Hey now. The electricity still arcs toward Mark. But, instead of shocking the shit out of him, he just gets a little jolt of static. His hair already seems to be standing up on its own, so this has minimal effect on his appearance. It does not seem even a little bit interested in his gum wrapper.

<FS3> Bennie rolls Smarter Than Zappy Thing?: Embarrassing Failure (2 1 1 1)

Sutton's lips part like she's going to say something to Mark, but he's walking her way, calm as you please, gum into the mouth, and telling her all about his cardiac history and the location of his pills. Well, okay then. "Jesus." She closes her mouth, and watches him... not get zapped to his ass. Hm.

"Fuck." Now she's going in too. And if she ends up bleeding at the bottom of the stairwell? No one at the Firehouse is ever going to let her live it down. Something is really off about this whole thing. She'll blame the nonstop overnight calls about golf clubs the last three nights running. Ruiz is dead when she finds out it was him.

Sutton spends a luck point on Passing a roll against the Zappy Thing. Eat it, Zappy..

"Maybe...if we can ground ourselves." Bennie struggles to her feet, glancing around the hallway for something that will do the trick. "Hey! You down there!" She sees the shadow of someone down there by the maintenance man, foolishly assuming that hand on the head was meant to help him and not harm. "Can you feel a pulse?"

Static gathers together around Sutton. In the darkness, they can see the little arcs and zips and zaps of blue-light that just want somewhere to discharge. But it's not her. They can't - there's nowhere -

Oh, yes. That will do.

The crinkles of electricity race down the wall, visibly trek across the floor, and do what electricity never does in real life: They jolt upward through Bennie's shoes. A race of it darts upward, rattling her legs, chasing upward through her abdomen, fucking up the entire rhythm of her heartbeat, scrambling her brains.

At the bottom of the stairs, the eyes of the maintenance man shoot open, and he shouts, "GOT ONE!" He sits bolt upright (pun intended), blood dribbling out the side of his mouth, eyes crazier than... er... Mark's, even!

<FS3> Isabella rolls Mental (7 6 5 4 4 2) vs Chasing That Feeling (a NPC)'s 4 (7 7 5 4 3 2)
<FS3> DRAW!

<FS3> Isabella rolls Mental (8 6 5 5 4 2) vs Chasing That Feeling (a NPC)'s 4 (5 5 3 3 1 1)
<FS3> Victory for Isabella.

I can't go down there.

"Unbelievable," Isabella mutters in self-castigation, weighing the heavy maglite in her hand and tossing it to her dominant right. "Weren't you the one saying 'it's a trap' earlier? Because it is one. It definitely is-- "

The rest is a blur, but one that her senses can easily detect. Over a decade divorced from all of this weirdness, and now that she is back in the middle of it, it's distressingly like riding a bike. She easily follows the wake of it as it jumps into the fallen body near her, up through the wall, slam into Bennie. Her eyes widen when it hits the blonde.

It's running.

She takes several steps back away from the maintenance worker and his crazy eyes, driving her deeper into the basement in the doing, but she needs the distance just in case, crossing the heavy maglite in front of her defensively. Coils of tension braid over her shoulders, green eyes narrowing faintly. "You alright?" she asks the suddenly conscious man, though her voice is audibly wary.

<FS3> Isabella rolls Athletics (6 5 4 4 2) vs Maintenance Jim Who Is Probably A Zombie Now (a NPC)'s 5 (7 6 6 5 3 2 1)
<FS3> Victory for Maintenance Jim Who Is Probably A Zombie Now.

The badge on the maintenance guy's shirt says Jim. Now that he is pushing upright, clumsily, slipping in his own blood, they can see that. He gets up, slips again, looking mostly like a normal guy that got some sort of head injury.

Until he lurches toward Isabella, grabbing her with limbs that move stiffly and inhumanly, putting all his dead weight into knocking her off his feet. Static crinkles and crackles through his limbs, jolting into hers. It's hard to see what exactly is happening down here by little more than his fallen flashlight, especially now that the blue glow has disappeared entirely, but hearing it should be no problem.

It's the sound of a struggle, though no heavy-breathing from Maintenance Jim. Just the thumpy-lurching when he slams Isabella to the floor. At least he doesn't immediately start eating her? But her head is going to get slammed into the floor more than once.

<FS3> Mark rolls Totally Saw The First Bit: Success (8 3 2)

"Cool." Mark shifts his head from side to side a little as Erin skitters back, Bennie gets shock number two, and a creepy-ass maintenance man sits up like the goddamned undertaker refusing to sell a move. As the static charge passes over him, it fails to make his already errant hair any more wayward, and the guy just takes a second to waggle a set of slightly tingling fingers, shrugging off the effect both figuratively and literally. "I think that fixed my arrhythmia."

Okay, that's more muttered than anything, but it's about on par with his usual reactions to something slightly crazy happening. Moving in to stand at the top of the stairs, casually ignoring the jolting Bennie's having a fun time suffering, he watches the shape of the figure sitting on the floor, illuminated by Isabella's light. "You do creepy as a hobby, or- Okay nope."

The sentence is cut off by Jim heading for the only source of light Mark's really using to see. At least he saw where the tackle happened, at least. And is heading down those stairs to start beating a probably-zombie with a definitely-broom. In a dark room. With slick blood. This will be fine.

<FS3> Sutton rolls Composure: Good Success (8 7 6 3 3 2 1)

<FS3> Mark rolls Melee (8 8 6 6 6 5 5 4 3) vs Maintenance Jim Who Is Definitely A Zombie (a NPC)'s 2 (5 5 2 1)
<FS3> Crushing Victory for Mark.

Sutton completely ignores the blue arcs and sparks and other little disturbances trying to get her as she makes her way through the door and down the stairs. It's better if she doesn't acknowledge them by pausing to worry about it. When Jim does his it's alive moment down there, she misses most of it, but she can certainly hear a scuffle going on. Out comes the mobile phone flashlight and she picks her way down the stairs, strobing of spinning flashlights, occasional arcs of light, and all the visual disturbances presenting kind of a rave effect, at least to her mind, in this bitterly fucked up darkened basement. "This is why I stopped doing drugs," is mumbled.

Zombie Jim answers her question with an emphatic and brutally physical grapple, but not fast enough for Isabella not to notice the signs of his awkward shuffle upwards. Her hand flies to the small of her back, where her gun is usually kept - presently safely locked away in the glove compartment in her Jeep. She wasn't about to explain to hospital security why she has one, despite her license to carry.

The maglite crashing to the floor sounds like thunder and without the only weapon she has in her disposal and knowing that there are people in the vicinity, and perhaps even the spare security Marilyn called for, she manages to keep her wits about her - she lets out a loud, unmistakable cry just before the wind is knocked out of her, borne down on the ground in a tangle of arms and legs. An arm crosses across her face immediately, her thick leather sleeve and limb between her face and the thing attacking her. She struggles. She fights. The first impact of the back of her skull into the ground sends her senses ringing, the world spinning uncontrollably before her eyes.

"Get....off!!" she breathes through gritted teeth. She hears footsteps scrambling. Assistance is coming.

All she needs to do is hang on until they get here.

<FS3> Sutton rolls Athletics (6 5 4 3 3 1 1) vs Electricity Fries Her Phone (a NPC)'s 5 (7 5 3 3 2 1 1)
<FS3> DRAW!

<FS3> Sutton rolls Athletics (8 8 8 7 7 6 5) vs Electricity Fries Her Phone (a NPC)'s 5 (8 6 5 5 4 4 1)
<FS3> Crushing Victory for Sutton.

She can't go down there. Erin could feel the hate. It was a very palpable thing. But the electricity was about the only thing she could see down there in the darkness, that fissure of blue arching towards... "LOOKOUT BENNIE!" Too late the warning comes. Erin has to go help her. But she can't! Torn, deeply torn, she watches as Bennie is hurt. Just watches. Suddenly she remembers the name. "YOU CANNOT HAVE THEM, BILLY!" Making what is probably a wrong assumption. "Show yourself! Show yourself unless you're too afraid." Line of vision is all she needs, she lifts her hands in preparation for something! Anything! So she could shoot that glimmer stuff at it she'd learned so recently to do.

<FS3> Erin rolls Mental (8 5 4 4 3 2) vs Anyone Home? (a NPC)'s 5 (8 7 3 3 2 1 1)
<FS3> Marginal Victory for Anyone Home?.

Bennie taking her licks and keeps on ticking. There is a medical phenomenon where a patient doesn't realize just how injured they are and can go on acting quite normal for a moment before it seems to catch up to them. It's the pump of adrenaline while they are in shock that will hit them like a semi-truck as soon as it abates. One moment Bennie is talking and trying to get up and the next her eyes are rolling back into her head and her limbs go limp, jaw slack.

Erin screams into the darkness... and nothing happens. Nothing is listening. Whatever it was? It's gone. Isabella knew that a moment before she got tackled, and now Erin knows it, too.

The light on Sutton's phone glances across the scene at the bottom of the stairs: Isabella is on the ground, beneath Jim, his hands on her shoulders. Mark is coming down the stairs with the handle of the broom raised, and it comes down with a loud CRACK that splatters into the back of Zombie Jim's skull, splattering through the bone and squishing into the juicy bits inside.

Jim just has time to scream, "OUCH!" Then his whole body gives one quick jolt... and the electricity that was chattering around inside him fizzles away. He falls, heavy and bloody, on top of Isabella.

<FS3> Sutton rolls Alertness: Good Success (8 8 8 6 5 5 1)

<FS3> Mark rolls Grit+Apathy: Good Success (7 6 6 6 4 3 2 2 1)

<FS3> Sutton rolls Composure: Good Success (8 8 7 6 4 3 1)

Sutton's wheeling phone-light also passes over Bennie. Who is collapsing. Because she got electrocuted. Badly. Probably someone should help her.

<FS3> Erin rolls Alertness: Good Success (8 8 7 6 4)

Mark just stares at the broom for a moment. A moment more. ...Another moment. His brows furrow deep, in a moment of contemplation. Just because this delay means there's more and more ichor oozing from was-jim's head doesn't mean Mark's a bad person for doing it. His brain just has to take a second to roll through things and work out what drifting thought he's trying to latch on t-

"His skull was really soft."

Okay. Good job, Mark. That thought done, he's discarding the broom aside to reach down for the scruff of Jim's maintenance overall's neck, yanking the now-acting-like-a-corpse corpse off of the body pinned beneath. Zero attention whatsoever is paid to Isabella, and instead his voice calls into the darkness "Anyone know how the fuck to restart this genny?"

<FS3> Sutton rolls Medicine: Great Success (8 8 7 7 7 6 5 2)

Sutton is so, so glad she turned the flashlight beam on her phone toward the base of the staircase in time to see that. She swallows, and just then her gaze and light sweep over Bennie. Bennie who is visibly and obviously not well. Her training kicks in and all other considerations go the background. She turns her attention to the fallen blonde, taking the steps she needs to reach her, with little regard for the skewering of eletcro-zombies downstairs.

"Can you hear me?" This question is followed up without hesitation, and the paramedic goes hands on, checking for a pulse and breathing first, which can be done by feel, without light. "Come on, babe." Sorry about the probable bruising, Bennie.

It ran. It ran away when she tried to follow and left the trap below the stairwell. Isabella pushes at the zombie with her protected forearm, lips peeled back to bare the whites of her teeth. She can feel blood running down her temple, the headache burgeoning from her skull blossoms like a rose. Green eyes catch Mark's shadow cross over both their tangled forms quickly, the walls around her carrying the sound of the loud crack and the sickening squelch of a skull caving in.

There's no room in her for relief, at least not yet. Blood slickens her fingers when she reaches up while the body above her grows slack, shoving the Maintenance Guy Formerly Known as Jim sideways, though Mark manages to alleviate the burden from her completely. Sitting up and attempting to get to her feet quickly, she stumbles in the doing. It's all instinct in the end, hammered into the marrow of her bones by her Navy captain father - in a situation such a this, to keep lying down is to surrender. To keep lying down is to die.

And she doesn't want to. She just got here.

"Ugh..." she says, swaying sideways and her hand coming up to her head.

His skull was really soft.

"Thank god for that, then," she manages to say, rendered momentarily breathless. And because she's a courteous human being, despite the lack of attention paid in her direction, a smile curls up the corner of her mouth, stitched with a touch of amusement. "Thanks."

There's a glance down at Jim's body, and then up the stairwell. She knows nothing about repairing generators, she's no help there, and Erin's shouts about Billy are still echoing around the chamber. She couldn't go down here, she said.

Why? Other than a healthy amount of common sense anyway.

She reaches for Jim again, in an attempt to hunt down a walkie talkie if the worker has one, ostensibly to call someone for help. There's a dead body. There'll be police. She's going to have to stay and give a statement, for the second time in her life.

"God damn it."

Remember a little while ago when Marilyn called for a security guard? Yeah, that guy finally showed up. He appears in the doorway to the hallway, the one through which all these people walked and got zapped. His flashlight shines into the dark stairwell.

There's Sutton, doing the most awesome CPR ever on Bennie.

There's a pool of blood at the bottom of the stairs.

There's Jim's body, with his brains bashed in - "WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING ON?!"

Erin is shaking all over and she doesn't know what to do except help Bennie after noticing the condition she was in. The paramedic was doing a great job though and they were, after all, in a hospital with doctors and stuff. "I will go get emergency, or a wheel chair or something." Perhaps not as confident in her own abilities despite.. stuff. "Is Bennie doing okay?" Finally she approaches and kneels down beside her too, touching a hand to her shoulder, then her cheek. There's a deep breath or two and despite what she had said, she doesn't leave to go get help. Not right away. She does attempt to give her a boost in healing.

<FS3> Erin rolls Spirit: Good Success (7 7 7 5 5 4 3 3 3 2)

At first Bennie's pulse is thready and weak and then it just stops and her breathing halts. When Sutton throws herself into CPR, the rhythmic thump on her chest - no doubt to the beat of 'Staying Alive' - and the life giving breathes are forced back into her lungs from mouth to mouth, she finally grips back onto this mortal coil by the thread she is given. Blonde eyelashes start to flutter just as the glimmer from Erin seeps in and takes hold with a vice like grip and with a deep gasp, Bennie rouses into consciousness. "What...what happened?" Because that most certainly wasn't a nap she just took, unless you mean the dirt kind.

Mark's looking over to the generator when there's a yell from the top of the stairs. He glances down to the slightly gore covered Isabella. Over to the tended-to Bennie and the Paramedic and the Not aiding her.

"Uuuuuuuuuuuuuuh." Good start. "Your maintenance guy fell down the stairs here. And then tried to make out with whoever this is. And uh, succumbed to his wounds. And never restarted the generator." Mark's an amazing convincer, you know? There's not a person in the world who wouldn't believe that story. Stepping over the legs of the corpse that Isabella is mid-search of, he steps into the beam of the guard's flashlight, shielding his eyes. "You know how to restart the generator, man?"

The security guard is on the radio immediately. More security guards will be showing up any second, hustling anyone not at death's door out into the lobby with stern warnings to not go anywhere. Interestingly, Bennie seems to be feeling remarkably well for someone that just got electrocuted almost to death, so the lot of you are going to wind up spending the next several hours answering questions.

Not to the hospital security, mind you. The actual cops will be here just as soon as the snarl of storm-traffic lets them through.

Oh, and someone manages to get the generator restarted. Though none of you guys get to be here for that part. You'll all be up there, telling your stories to the cops. If you're smart, you'll stick to Mark's version of events; it's credible enough that you could all go home to your own beds tonight.

WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING ON?!

A question that might as well be the city's motto as far as Isabella is concerned. Unable to find a communicator of any kind, her head turns when the security guard finally shows himself, and Mark attempts to explain away the problem in the only way he knows how. She makes a face.

It serves to corroborate what was already said. This is not her first rodeo.

"It was gross," she offers to the security guard.

With more security abound, she remains until they're ushered up the stairs, patiently allows herself to be examined. Whenever the detectives arrive, she'll do the responsible, dutiful thing.

There's a grunt from the paramedic at Erin's question, "I hope." Sutton stops compressions immediately, but she doesn't move away from Bennie, instead searches out her pulse again in the dark. "Hey, welcome back. Take it easy, girl." Her own phone's flashlight beam skirts across Bennie's side where it fell against Sutton's knee when she was exerting some serious chest compressions, and it illuminates a patch of wall at the moment. She pays the security guard no mind. Mark's got that under control, right? "Easton can buy me some shots after blondie does." Priorities.

The story? Goodness knows by the time the cops show up, all Sutton's going to have left for them is exactly Mark's version of events. She was busy practicing her rapid compressions on an EMT, after all. It helps she's been dispatching for almost two months and knows all the cops my voice if not by name. Lie detect this, 12. Lie. Detect. This.

Erin retracts her hands from Bennie and smiles at Sutton. "Good job, I'm so glad you brought her back. Easton would have killed me." As if that were the only reason. It wasn't. She gives Bennie a long look and will go with the others when they are taken for questioning and she'll stick to Marks story she'd overheard. It was the safest bet.

The cops are stretched thin tonight, so it's Chetson that arrives to take the initial statements. He would rather be eating donuts. As long as you guys aren't total morons, he's willing to believe your story. Detectives might be following up with you later, of course, but whatever. Don't leave town (lol) and be safe out there (rofl).

<FS3> Chetson rolls Eating Donuts: Good Success (7 6 6 4 3 2 2 2)

Hospitals always have donuts. Chetson eats a bunch of them.


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