skeloric
09-26-2008, 10:33 PM
Down like the smell of opened graves it came, a bridge of grave mold and bone fragments, crashing into a mall during the 6PM rush.
Mall rats and window shoppers alike were overpowered by the smell, collapsing where they stood leaving the mall quiet except the insipid droning of the "mall music" that echoed throughout the storefronts.
But not everyone collapsed.
Rod Beachman and Tony Feliks were untouched by whatever had happened.
As was Lane Montro, the elder brother of another friend of theirs, who they were trying to antagonize while he worked.
Tony went to check the first of the people to recover, a girl named Renee who he barely knew from his English class but which he always hoped to know better.
She seemed incoherent, going so far as to trying to actually bite him, which was their first real clue that something was wrong.
Lane called him back and they stood inside the otherwise empty "alternative records" shop which is where they had found Lane just barely 20 minutes earlier.
Rod had heard from Ricky, Lane's younger brother that Lane had scored big on a new source for weed.
Stuff had sounded good.
Really good.
Which is why they were there, to get some from him so that they could go smoke up.
Lane, filled with inexplicable apprehension, dropped the security gate that closed off his store from the mall and locked it down.
Renee was making very strange mewling sounds and a few others were starting to wake up as well but they all seemed... funny.
Not right at the very least.
Lane was on the phone, talking to the police or maybe to 911 services and shouting that whatever it was, it looked like something airborne and was probably "terrorists".
Then he paused while a voice seemed to be asking a few questions to which he replied in a much quieter voice that whatever it had been they were certainly in it as well but it hadn't affected them.
Not yet, at least.
Ten minutes passed and the shoppers were all up awake and sort of aware enough to be pressed up against the locked gate and moaning and mewling and shambling and trying to get in.
This was when a hazmat team came in with stretchers and "first responder" kits, taking samples, trying to treat the people.
Or rather they tried to.
Instead, the crowd became aware of them and attacked.
Within moments of the dozen men who had entered the mall by the entry near the store only one was still moving and fleeing the mall itself.
The rest were being eaten by the mall patrons.
The phone rang again.
Lane answered.
A few brief words and he hung up.
"They don't know what it is but they hope we can hold out until they can secure the perimeter and hopefully subdue them all."
Tony and Rod just stared out at the carnage and felt sick.
Tony noticed that Renee didn't look "hawt".
She looked sick and... wrong.
Wrong somehow, in the eyes.
With the blood running down from her chewing mouth and the bits of forgotten gristle, she looked more like something out of a horror movie.
The kind where everybody dies, torn apart by a mob of...
"Zombies. These are ZOMBIES!" Tony howled.
"Like in the Romero films?" Lane and Rod together replied.
They looked out at the crowd of shoppers and they remembered that the fleeing man had bite marks on him.
The phone rang again.
Lane answered and listened and the look on his face got even more despondent.
He put the phone back on the hook.
"They aren't coming in.
The guy, the paramedic guy?
He attacked two others and bit them before he was shot by one of the officers.
They're running the men he bit to the nearest hospital and they hope we can hold out until they have a better idea how to get us out of here."
What they did not know and would never understand was that there was a bridge to SOMEPLACE ELSE through the roof of the mall and that at that very moment a man was walking down that bridge.
With him was an ebony skull, its teeth elongated and sharp and the skull was easily as large as an oversized helmet.
The skull was moving by a spinal tail whip like a mutated snake-thing.
The man was talking to the skull and discussing what new delicacies might be found in their newest conquest.
As they turned the corner and passed by the gate, the man noticed the three living men in record shop.
"Ah, stormers. How nice. How utterly... delicious."
With this he walked towards the barricade and flexed his muscles as he pushed against it with all his might.
Rod was the first to notice, "Hey, he's one of THEM! I can see some of his bones sticking out."
With this the three fled like mad for the door into the 'Employee's Only' back room.
Beyond them they heard a horrendous tearing of metal as the gate gave way, allowing the crowd entry to the storefront.
Then they heard a voice.
The voice of the strange man.
"Come on. It won't hurt much. Ah, who am I kidding? It'll hurt a lot. I hope you scream a lot. I love it when they scream."
Finally, he made his way into the back room.
They did.
They screamed a lot.
===================
The Cosm "Romero"
Axioms
Magic=8
Social=20
Spirit=11
Tech=23
World Laws
"The Hunger"
Romero's only world law is that Ords that transform to Romero's reality become ravenous undead monsters.
Possibility Rated Individuals (PRIs) who transform however do not. At least not until they've been bitten and infected.
Upon becoming one of the undead, they are still quite coherent and aware and fully capable -- except the exist to feed upon the living and spread the malignant malaise further and further.
However as it is part of the Cosm itself, it is a contradiction (1 case) beyond its borders -- Cosm or Realm.
With disconnection in the Ords leading them to dissolve into an inert sludge immediately.
PRIs take a wound level every 15 minutes until they reconnect or "die" -- again, then dissolving into the aforementioned inert sludge.
Attempts to discover its "pathology" fail as it isn't truly viral -- although it masquerades as one.
As a final wrinkle, the attack upon the Ords by the Cosm gets a +6 within 60 feet of any bridgehead in an attempt to transform them to the invading reality and thus kill and reanimate them.
The Skull has an identical field in a 20 foot radius around it as well.
Mall rats and window shoppers alike were overpowered by the smell, collapsing where they stood leaving the mall quiet except the insipid droning of the "mall music" that echoed throughout the storefronts.
But not everyone collapsed.
Rod Beachman and Tony Feliks were untouched by whatever had happened.
As was Lane Montro, the elder brother of another friend of theirs, who they were trying to antagonize while he worked.
Tony went to check the first of the people to recover, a girl named Renee who he barely knew from his English class but which he always hoped to know better.
She seemed incoherent, going so far as to trying to actually bite him, which was their first real clue that something was wrong.
Lane called him back and they stood inside the otherwise empty "alternative records" shop which is where they had found Lane just barely 20 minutes earlier.
Rod had heard from Ricky, Lane's younger brother that Lane had scored big on a new source for weed.
Stuff had sounded good.
Really good.
Which is why they were there, to get some from him so that they could go smoke up.
Lane, filled with inexplicable apprehension, dropped the security gate that closed off his store from the mall and locked it down.
Renee was making very strange mewling sounds and a few others were starting to wake up as well but they all seemed... funny.
Not right at the very least.
Lane was on the phone, talking to the police or maybe to 911 services and shouting that whatever it was, it looked like something airborne and was probably "terrorists".
Then he paused while a voice seemed to be asking a few questions to which he replied in a much quieter voice that whatever it had been they were certainly in it as well but it hadn't affected them.
Not yet, at least.
Ten minutes passed and the shoppers were all up awake and sort of aware enough to be pressed up against the locked gate and moaning and mewling and shambling and trying to get in.
This was when a hazmat team came in with stretchers and "first responder" kits, taking samples, trying to treat the people.
Or rather they tried to.
Instead, the crowd became aware of them and attacked.
Within moments of the dozen men who had entered the mall by the entry near the store only one was still moving and fleeing the mall itself.
The rest were being eaten by the mall patrons.
The phone rang again.
Lane answered.
A few brief words and he hung up.
"They don't know what it is but they hope we can hold out until they can secure the perimeter and hopefully subdue them all."
Tony and Rod just stared out at the carnage and felt sick.
Tony noticed that Renee didn't look "hawt".
She looked sick and... wrong.
Wrong somehow, in the eyes.
With the blood running down from her chewing mouth and the bits of forgotten gristle, she looked more like something out of a horror movie.
The kind where everybody dies, torn apart by a mob of...
"Zombies. These are ZOMBIES!" Tony howled.
"Like in the Romero films?" Lane and Rod together replied.
They looked out at the crowd of shoppers and they remembered that the fleeing man had bite marks on him.
The phone rang again.
Lane answered and listened and the look on his face got even more despondent.
He put the phone back on the hook.
"They aren't coming in.
The guy, the paramedic guy?
He attacked two others and bit them before he was shot by one of the officers.
They're running the men he bit to the nearest hospital and they hope we can hold out until they have a better idea how to get us out of here."
What they did not know and would never understand was that there was a bridge to SOMEPLACE ELSE through the roof of the mall and that at that very moment a man was walking down that bridge.
With him was an ebony skull, its teeth elongated and sharp and the skull was easily as large as an oversized helmet.
The skull was moving by a spinal tail whip like a mutated snake-thing.
The man was talking to the skull and discussing what new delicacies might be found in their newest conquest.
As they turned the corner and passed by the gate, the man noticed the three living men in record shop.
"Ah, stormers. How nice. How utterly... delicious."
With this he walked towards the barricade and flexed his muscles as he pushed against it with all his might.
Rod was the first to notice, "Hey, he's one of THEM! I can see some of his bones sticking out."
With this the three fled like mad for the door into the 'Employee's Only' back room.
Beyond them they heard a horrendous tearing of metal as the gate gave way, allowing the crowd entry to the storefront.
Then they heard a voice.
The voice of the strange man.
"Come on. It won't hurt much. Ah, who am I kidding? It'll hurt a lot. I hope you scream a lot. I love it when they scream."
Finally, he made his way into the back room.
They did.
They screamed a lot.
===================
The Cosm "Romero"
Axioms
Magic=8
Social=20
Spirit=11
Tech=23
World Laws
"The Hunger"
Romero's only world law is that Ords that transform to Romero's reality become ravenous undead monsters.
Possibility Rated Individuals (PRIs) who transform however do not. At least not until they've been bitten and infected.
Upon becoming one of the undead, they are still quite coherent and aware and fully capable -- except the exist to feed upon the living and spread the malignant malaise further and further.
However as it is part of the Cosm itself, it is a contradiction (1 case) beyond its borders -- Cosm or Realm.
With disconnection in the Ords leading them to dissolve into an inert sludge immediately.
PRIs take a wound level every 15 minutes until they reconnect or "die" -- again, then dissolving into the aforementioned inert sludge.
Attempts to discover its "pathology" fail as it isn't truly viral -- although it masquerades as one.
As a final wrinkle, the attack upon the Ords by the Cosm gets a +6 within 60 feet of any bridgehead in an attempt to transform them to the invading reality and thus kill and reanimate them.
The Skull has an identical field in a 20 foot radius around it as well.