2020-01-13 - Children of Shadows - Part 2

There is a lot of panic, a lot of fighting. But going through floors and walls is enough to shake even Everly's somewhat okay nerves, and by the time she's dumped outside she has to take a whole minute to lose her dinner in the grass. After the heaving stops she hears the sound of her name, and she struggles to her feet, hollaring back, "I'm over here!"

Nicole lingers closer to Joey. She doesn't want him (or herself) to be suddenly taken as well. Plus, she's thoroughly creeped out. We're talking heart-racing high anxiety here. Brown eyes wide as she looks around, watching the movement, she tries again. "Everly! Can you hear us?" Looking to the house she whispers, "should we try to go back in?" She hears a sound that might be Everly and she tugs on Joey's arm, pointing in the direction she thinks she heard it from. "Did you hear that?" she asks, again in that whisper.

"Over where?" Diana calls, looking both nervous and excited somehow; she's a little closer than the others to the sound, but still isn't quite sure where it's coming from. "We're... in some kind of back yard of a house." She frowns, looking around and up at the kudzu until the voices and eyes show up, at which point she goes very still and hisses, "Are you guys seeing this?"

Joey is at leas tout of that room and that tunnel. It's a really really good start. And then? Then he heads his cousin's voice through the gibbering. "EVERLY!" He snaps the words out in a rumble. "Ev, we're coming for you. There's a wall. I think you can keep clear of the fountain if you can stay near... the wall. We'll make our way that way. " He's trying to keep Diana and Nicole in view and looks around, "If these are like those kids in the Shining I'm so fucking out. Little twins are creepy." He pauses and adds, "I should know." Yeah he should.

"JOEY!?" Everly calls, trying to block out the creepy voices, and focus instead on the ones that might prove to be the safety that she's looking for. She starts to move along the side of the house, glancing behind her at the fountain before looking forward. This time she's watching, waiting to see if those hands come back.

Nicole is right behind Joey as he moves towards Everly's voice. Beckoning to Diana, she says, "keep close. Hold my hand if it helps." She looks up at Joey's mention of the Shining and looks around, murmuring, "fuck Redrum... what about the Children from the Corn?" She shudders as the brush seems to move again.

Diana reaches for Nicole and then pauses, glancing over at the eyes. "We should go inside. Might be safer there. More protection from... whatever those are." She's hesitating for several moments, torn between the house and following the other woman. But then she nods firmly to herself, nodding. "Let's get Everly first, though."

"Stop..." Everly slaps at the vines, trying to get herself free of them before she moves a foot or so. Then the vines become even more agressive and she start to tear at them, no longer trying to move forward. "HELP!"

Joey didn't come this far to lose his cousin again. He looks to Nicole and Diana telling the latter, "Good plan. Stay together." And then the panic. Turning he swipes at the foliage with both arms to knock it down and stamp it flat with his boots to try to push himself, and his will, that a way to get to his cousin. "Ev, I'm coming for you. Try to come towards me. Tell em... fuck off or something" Because plants abide by consent issues?

Nicole takes Diana's hand as the vines start being the very definition of creeping foliage (CREEP! NO TOUCHY!), and as Joey starts taking swings at the green ropes of violations, Nicole slips her fingers through one of the belt loops of his jeans. She's not going to let anyone get away if she can help it, even if it means she now has no free hands and is the middle link in a chain of three. "It's okay Everly! We're coming!"

Diana swats away at the vines as they start getting touchy-feely, and keeps doing so with her free hand even after taking Nicole's with the other. "Back OFF!" she tells the vines aggravatedly to no avail, kicking at them as she passes each one; she sort of listened to Joey, even if it'd been directed at Everly. "Be there in no time," she tries to assure the other cousin.

"Fuck you!" Everly is probably not talking to the others, but the plants. She continues to kick and pull, slap and twist around to try and get away from the vines and their grasping, "The plants are trying to kill me!"

Joey doesn't care . Okay, he cares a lot and more than he'd like to need to right now. "Well they're not allowed to win." The eyes withdrawing get a challenging look from the bellicose boxer, but right now? Right now he's more concerned with getting Everly out of that mess trying to pull at the vines to do so.

"They can't have you!" Nicole, the middle link, calls out as Joey works his way through the vines towards Everly, with Nicole and Diana in tow. Looking around, she then adds, "we're almost there!" then whispers, "I think..."

"Yep!" Diana shouts toward Everly's direction. "Almost there! He's kicking vine ass to get to you!" She looks worried, but her aim is clearly to keep up morale despite that. She keeps looking around her, more fixated on the lack of eyes; she's watching to try and see when they return.

"Fuck....you." Everly is still flailing around, rather ineffectually, when they finally make it through. She continues to flail until the vines let go, however long that might take. The three that arrive are noticed, but she doesn't let her guard down just yet, "We need to get out of here!"

Joey reaches out and seizes Everly's hand. That's some grade A fear in those eyes, but unlike many his fight or flight response only falls to one end and the next thing that startles him or tries to grab at the group is getting punched. "We need to get out of this yard. Try Diana's idea. Get to the... house? There's got to be a front door or something or we'll make one." Holes in wlals? Not opposed!

"Anywhere that is away from those fucking eyes," Nicole says, looking towards the foliage where those eyes are glowing at them again. "There's only one set of green eyes I like..." She isn't so sure about the house, but it does seem to be their best option at the moment. "Just... keep hold of one another. If they want one of us, they will have to fight all of us."

Nodding to Nicole, Diana first takes a (brief) moment to tell Everly, "I'm glad you're okay." Then she lightly squeezes Nicole's hand. "Whoever wants to lead should lead. I'm not too chicken to lead, but I'm also not, you know, super talented. And she's right-- definitely keep 'hold of one another."

Around and around.....and around. Everly sticks close to the others, looking grouchy and unhappy about this entire experience, and growing more and more tense the longer it drags on. After a little while she stops and whirls around towards the shadows, "Back off or you'll regret it, go away."

Joey really hates circles. It's like the correctional facility all over, except this place? It's wrong and there's gaps in the walls and they tried to take his family. "Nicole? Diana, Ev? Stay behind me, but gimme some space." He pauses, and stands very still as if feeling where everything is in the space around him. He's visualizing contact and moving through his target and then with alacrity he doesn't open the next door so much as stamps it down. "We are getting..." Next is his fist biting into the plaster of the wall making a sizable dent in the edifice, "...out..." And then three more punches and another kick like the fucking wall owes Felix money, "...of here." A hole! ah HA! does he say it? "OOH YEAH!" fuck yes he does, but he ain't smiling or made of glass; only salt and resentment.

Nicole still has her fingers in the loops of Joey's jeans. She takes them out now, placing her hand lightly on his back instead so she can do just that; stay close but give him room. Little does she know his plans though. She ducks and dodges in case of debris as he Joey's his way through the structure, taking her handoff as he does, only to replace it in between. "Yes. Yes we are definitely getting the fuck out."

As they searched, Diana kept furrowing her brow, certain that THIS way is the right way, or that no, she was wrong before, but THAT way is actually going to be the one. Eventually even she has to give up, looking frustrated. "I... I have no idea where we are, and--" She breaks off as Everly Mothers the spooky kids into submission, nodding her approval, and does get behind Joey when he requests. That earlier excitement returns as he starts Kool-Aid Manning the place half to death, and she cheers with her free hand raising in a fist when she sees the outside again. "My hero," she teases, but she is definitely not teasing as far as the appreciative tone in her voice goes. "Let's beat up some plants next!" she suggests.