2020-03-26 - Plants vs. Zoo

Is here with a sketchbook in her lap and pencil in hand. The peacock is her current subject as it struts about with fanned tail. An occassional child makes it spread it's wings and hop-fly a little ways off. It is these moments she is really waiting for. But in the meantime? She is filling out the image with faint lines. As the bird goes flying again her eyes come up and she watches carefully it's flight. Then she furiously moves to sketching details in the wings when it lands over near the bench August sit on. When the woman looks back up she sees the older man and pauses. He is new. She tilts her head and flips the page and begins sketching again.

James hasn't slept a wink since he had an unexpected late night visitor at his eminently cursed abode. And boy, he looks it. Not breaking any hearts today, our Mr. Hecker, no he's not. If August has 1 bloodshot eye, James has 2, from lack of sleep and being pretty dang stoned because only the ganja gets him through. He's standing in front of the parrot pen, giving the bird a baleful look. "... I mean, who does that?", he's asking the bird, clearly in the middle of a one-sided conversation with this thing who's ancestor was once a mighty dinosaur.

From the looks of James, his ancestor was a small, bug-eyed marsupial.

August watches the peacock do its dance with the children, one they're unaware will result in them getting pecked decisively. His attention lands on Kailey, and he watches her a second, like he's making note of her. He glances at James, whom he vaguely knows, takes a thoughtful sip of horchata.

There's a bit of commotion over by a parrot habitat. A child screams; a parent yells something in surprise. "It bit me!" a little girl's voice cries out.

"Honey, bushes don't bite," a man's voice replies. "Here, let me look."

August tenses, but doesn't move immediately. In Gray Harbor, a great number of things bite which shouldn't. But, there's a few prickly plants here--someone thought Oregon Grape would be a good idea, and more than a few blackthorn and Shrub Rose have been added. (Someone was having a laugh when they suggested those.) A kid could easily run into them.

Kailey glances over at the child's scream. But it is a dismissive thing. She isn't a local and hasn't learned yet. Children get hurt playing outside all the time. Probably stuck a finger into a cage they shouldn't. So back to sketching the odd man on the bench. Who seems more concerned with the bushes suddenly. At least it gives her several seconds of good 3/4 face profile. There is a pause as she rights some quick words up in the corner. The date and time. Then back to what she was doing. She isn't hiding that she is watching August. Or drawing him.

James raises a brow as he hears children screaming. He'll never understand why we don't just put them in cages until they're 18 and can become someone else's problem, really, but he doesn't get to make the rules, so he'll put up with it. For now. As he's glancing over, he sees those bushes... moving. He blinks, and reaches up to rub his bloodshot eyes, then looks again. Nope, they're still moving. His left eye twitches. "... this fucking town I swear...", he mutters under his breath, and does some quick mental math, calculating how many kids he's willing to abandon to their inevitable deaths at the hands- err, branches, of these things.

"Hey, uh, might wanna, like, step away from those bushes there, kid. Full of thorns.", he calls out, like the goddamn hero he is.

August's mouth flattens, and he starts staring, hard, at one of the black hawthorns. He glances at James when he hears him speak, peering, and in that moment that same black hawthorn reaches out to swat Kailey in the back of the head.

An Oregon grape maybe six inches from James leans over to do the same to him, sweeping at him with its spiny leaves. August abandons lunch to get up and look around, just in time to get smacked in the face by another black hawthorn, leaving him with a thin, bleeding cut on his temple. "Shit," he mutters.

And just like that, there's another shout and a scream. "MOOOOOOOOOOOOM! THE BUSH MOVED!"

Parrots begin to shriek. Lemurs start crying out, either to mock the panicking people and parrots or because it seems like a good idea.

Kailey is focused on what she is doing. Obviously. So when she is hit by the branch the cry is high and piercing. Sketchbook flies from her lap as she jerks forward and puts hands to the back of her head. Dropping the pencil. She looks behind her and then pulls one hand away. Blood. Now she glares at the offending bush and her jaw sets. "Mother fucker," She doesn't seem to care there are children about at the moment. "I'll set your ass on fire," She threatens and begins to snap her fingers. There might be sparks flying from every rythmic snap as she steps back another foot from the menacing hawthorne.

James is a writer. He's basically trained himself to always be taking everything in, to be alert for all the little things in the world that might spark a story. It's a useful skill to have in a town where survival often comes down to being alert for all the little things in the world that might try to kill you. And so he spots the movement of those leaves and sidesteps just in time, turning a swipe of razor sharp leaves that might have beheaded a fragile little thing like him into nothing but a nick along his neck. "OW!", he shouts, reaching up to grab at where he was cut. When his fingers touch blood, he panics a little, and lashes out without skill or control, just instinct- but his particular 'gifts' don't really work on plants, and his pulse of psychic ability instead hits several of the parrots inside, who immediately start to squawk loudly, saying in their funny little parrot voices, "WE'RE ALL GONNA DIE AWWK!"

James winces as he lets out that inadvertent pulse, and starts backing away from the plant, looking around as people start to panic. He looks from them, to the plants, to them again, and curses under his breath. He's no fighter, but maybe at least he can get a few of the kids away and safe, so he starts rushing towards anyone near the bushes and trying to herd them away. "Hey! Yo! Step back! Get back!"

Because it turns out that the math he did earlier about how many kids he was willing to let die here turned out to add up to zero.

August grunts and winces at all the noise. His head's still throbbing from his bad life choices, and this is the last thing he needs. He half-turns towards Kailey when he feels that, though, since it pings nice and strong. "Woah, don't, you don't want to--"

The parrots screaming out "WE'RE ALL GONNA DIE! WE'RE ALL GONNA DIE!" silences him. He stares at them, stunned into inaction for a half-second.

James is in luck, his accidental channeling through the parrots has terrified a lot of people into fleeing. But one girl and her mother and trying to disentangle her from an overly-enthusastic blackberry bush, which seems determined to hug them. Or swallow them, it could go either way. A pair of teens are being harassed by an Oregon grape like the one James has now moved clear off, and James, well, he has a new friend: a porcupine tomato that's unspooling itself from under a salal where it's quietly been growing like a jerk, sending it's thorny vine-and-leaf self at him.

August snaps out of it. "Don't burn them, it could spread," he tells Kailey. Probably not; they're not dry, but the last thing August wants is to be proven wrong.

And then that salal hits him again, and he reacts by grabbing the branch. "Knock it off," he says to the shrub.

Kailey's threat is met with another smack to the face with those big, long thorns. BRING IT, the black hawthorn seems to say, waving its branches at her.

Kailey glances at August when he tells her not too, frowning, and then is struck again. It leaves an ugly scratch down her pale cheek which begins to well red. Pain and a defensive instinct, and already being charged up to reply, mean she doesn't listen. Impulse control is not this womans strong suit. She'll probably regret it later though as she lets the hawthorne get a taste of lightening. "I -said- fuck off you 'Ni' wannabe!"

James mutters to himself irritably. "... come at me all you want, but, kids? Fuckin' dick move, Gray Harbor." He looks around, eyes wide, adrenaline somehow mixing with the near-hallucinogenic levels of weed he's been smoking since shortly after he was visited by the Ghost Of Stalker Present around 3 AM the previous evening to give him a sort of super-vision. He sees the girl and her mom, he sees the two teens, and he especially sees a spiky fuck you from the produce section of Hell's grocery store wriggling towards him. "Not today, motherfucker.", he shouts, and starts running towards the mom and her kid to try and help them instead. "I'll be back with some fresh mozarella for round two, asshole!", he shouts back at the plant he's fleeing from.

The static-sparks at Kailey's finger tips brighten...then fizzle. One small bolt leaps out at the bush, singeing a few leaves. It responds with another slap to her face and a shudder which has to be a taunt or a laugh.

The salal starts grabbing August, coiling up around his arm. He sets his feet, engaging in a tug of war, thinks he needs to carry pruners around from here on out. In a second here he's going to lose his patience and kill every last one. For now he sets his teeth, adds to James' earlier call, "Get out, there's something wrong with the plants!"

"MOTHERFUCKER!" one parrot echoes after James. A kid gasps as his mom hauls him past. "Mom did you hear that?!" "Not now honey!" she says, voice shaking.

Another parrot screams, "DIE! DIE! DIE!" A lemur throws a rock at the porcupine tomato, which swats the rock aside. the devilish vine starts to rise up in a coil, almost like a snake, and whips out at James and he heads for the mom and daughter, but falls short. It starts to coil itself up for another go.

For all that James isn't exactly super-strong, he and the mom are able to pull her daughter free of the blackberry bush. "Thank you, God thank you," she says, tears in her eyes. She scoops up her sobbing daughter and runs for it.

Well that didn't work how Kailey liked. Not at all. Another scratch across the face and she sneers and growls before she spies her fallen sketchbook. "Fuck," She says. The pencil is fine, but the book? That she isn't going to leave without. Instead she flips the Hawthorne the bird as something ripples in the air around her. Then she darts forward to snatch up her work, before turning to start running, but she stops upon seeing August's problem. "Fuck," Again says the purple-haired woman as she moves over to try and help the man. "What is their problem?" She asks him as she offers a hand to help pull away from the prickly persistant plants.

"... thank me when you get home safe.", James replies, and calls after them as they run, "AND SERIOUSLY, CONSIDER MOVING!" He then spins around, catching sight of that damn spiky solanum pyracanthos (James went to college, you see) still coming for him, and so he puts his getaway sticks in motion and keeps running, heading for those teens he spotted earlier. Maybe with less enthusiasm than what he had for the mom and kid, because, come on, teens are assholes, we all know it.

"No, fucking, clue," August grinds out, flicking Kailey a grateful look for the help. Between the two of them they're able to haul him clear of the bush, but it's a near thing, and leaves all kind of scrapes and bruises on his arms.

James finds the two young teens, both scrawny, gangling boys, scratched up and yelling at one another over how to address their predicament.

"It's attacking us!" one yells, half-in, half out of those shuriken-like leaves.

"No, you're just stuck, calm the fuck down! And stop moving!"

"I'm not, the fucking bush is!"

"That's just you!"

"IT IS FUCKING NOT!!"

The porcupine tomato swivels to face Kailey and August. James is out of reach; they're not. Is whirls and spins tiowards Kailey just as they get August free.

"Should we just...leaf?" Kailey can't resist even as she is getting the crap beat out of her by overly aggressive vegetation. As she is whipped by another tomato it barely leaves a scratch on her arm. "Yeah, leavings good. I've seen Attack of the Killer Tomatos," She keeps one hand on August's arm and tugs towards the Zoo exit.

James stops as he sees the teens arguing, and sighs. "IT FUCKING IS!", he shouts at the two of them, and then dives in to grab and tear at the plants, pissed off. "Help me get these goddamn things off him!", he shouts at the non-trapped teen. It's less that he's being heroic, and more that he's pissed off at the town.

August is about to agree with Kailey, because the last thing he wants is to get scourged by a goddamned Solanum. No thank you. But he hears the kids yelling, and then James. he sighs, looks askance at Kailey, and nods towards the direction of their voices. "Come on," he says, and heads that way.

"SEE?!" the one half-eaten by the bush yells. His friend, inspired by James' activity, begins doing the same, and the oregon grape gets all the way mad. It's not enough for James' fury, and he begins to free the buried kid, while the grape bats at him ineffectually.

Almost everyone else has fled, and some of the animal handlers are arriving to sort out why the parrots are yelling.

And oh, how they're yelling. "IT IS! IT IS!" "WE'RE ALL GONNA DIE!" "MOTHERFUCKER!"

Kailey wrinkles her nose and pauses for a second before following after August. And as she does she sees the kid being wrapped up in the thorny foliage. "This...fucking...town," She pants beside August as they run. Then her eyes are narrowing on the plant itself. Slowly a few vines are unpeeled and pulled back. The woman makes a soft grunt of annoyance when that seems to be the limit. "We'll get you some fertilizer, leaf him alone!" Yeah she already used it, so what? "We need to de-vine the problem and fix it," She adds to the man who is the shiniest fuck she's seen in this town, or her life, to date, August.

James is entirely focused on getting that plant off of the kid, like a tiny furious bearded ginger chihuahua, but only slightly less ineffectual. Still, apparently that strategy is working for him, because the kid starts to get free just as the cavalry is on its way. Which is probably a good thing because how much longer is James' luck going to hold out?

The answer is: not any longer. The Oregon grape shudders as Kailey drags back at it, and between her and the teen's friend they get him loose. His arms are slashed up good, blood soaking into his hoodie, but he'll live. Maybe have a cool story to tell which no one will believe and he'll soon forget.

This makes the shrub mad. Real mad. Real mad. It grabs hold of James, striking him twice, slicing into his arms and gouging him along the neck and collarbone. That makes August pull up short, and he finally does what he's been trying to avoid doing. He makes a gripping motion and gestures to one side, and the branches attacking James wither and crumble into papery remains. He lunges forward to grab James while the bush reels, hauling him back with an arm around his chest. "Come on," he says, mostly to Kailey. The two teens are already fleeing for their lives.

Kailey needs no encouragement. Though her eyes go big and round when the plant just withers. "Whoa," She can be heard to comment as she breaks into a run. The sketchbook is clutched to her chest and she glances back at the angry greenery once. Finally the sting and tickle of blood trickling has her responding to minimal injuries. Reaching up as she runs to wipe blood off on the sleeve of her black hoody. Once they're at a distance that could be considered safe she looks at James worriedly. "H-he may need a doctor..."

James is no action hero. He's a scrawny little thing built for being hunched over a keyboard, not wrestling with some Jumanji rejects. He lets out a 'hah!' of victory as the kid is freed, but then the plant turns to him. "OH SHI-", he starts to say, and then he's getting all tangled up, sliced, diced, and julienned. He lets out a scream of pain, struggling ineffectually as blood spills from him, soaking into his slashed-up hoodie. When the plant suddenly crumbles away, he swoons, groaning as he falls into August's arms. "... fuck plants..", he groans out, and clings to August, limping a bit as he lets them drag him off. "... pave the planet." When they stop, he's still a little woozy, and blinks groggily at Kailey's words. "... y-yeah, tell 'em to get me the good morphine.", he says, and starts bringing an arm to tap the side of his nose, but only manages to lift it a little before he hisses and winces and bites back a cry of pain. "... fuck."

They have to edge past the porcupine tomato, but luckily a Zoo worker is trying to rake it back and confused as to why it's coiling around the black plastic fan. Thus occupied, it doesn't seem inclined to come after them again. The other bushes lean their way, but none can get close.

"Hospital's right there," August says. "I can drive you." He focuses on literally anything but James and how he's bleeding all over his hoodie. The last thing he needs is to throw up his lunch while they try to escape.

"WE'RE ALL GONNA DIE!" a parrot cries after them as they depart.

"MOTHERFUCKER!" another replies.

"Charlie, who taught you that?" a handler demands.

Charlie whistles, then shrieks, "DIE! DIE!"