5/11/2004
05:11 PM
Logfile from GarouMUSH.
Zoo Grounds(#3023RJh)
The sign over the locked gates reads "St. Cl ire oo," with the missing letters nowhere to be found. The small abandoned zoo has been home to a sucession of vagrants, drifters, and the occasional gang, and it looks as if each successive resident decided to trash it just before they left. Spray paint both ancient and new scrawls over all the buildings, walkways, and exhibits. Septic puddles remain in some of the exhibits, drains having been clogged years ago. Mosquitoes thrive and swarm. Weeds have long since begun their assault on this abandoned zoo, taking over the green patches and making remarkable progress in the cracked cement. The main offices, simple cinder block constructions, sport only broken windows and cracked tile floors. Everything else has long since been cleaned out or broken; if it had any value whatsoever, it's gone. Even the toilets in the restrooms have been unbolted and carried off to sell for a couple hits of crack cocaine. To the north, the constant buzz of traffic on I-90 intrudes on any conversations. This zoo is little more than a weed-choked, litter-strewn cement wasteland, doomed to be bulldozed some day into a parking lot, office complex, or shopping center as the city grows.
A cracked walkway littered with weeds leads towards the main office. To the northeast, there is a small hole leading out underneath the fence and to the street.
(Please read the +views.)
Contents:
Olga(#4061PJceq)
Obvious exits:
Main Office Under the Fence
Work's over, which means little on this derelict side of St. Claire except that the traffic is heavier than it usually is. It's warm getting on hot, and smoggy, a thick grey gauzy mass covers the sky. The sun doesn't bake, it radiates, like the difference between an oven and a microwave. In front of the zoo's chainlink fence, leaning agains the gate, nervously and impatiently running her fingers along the metal, Olga waits, in her coat and sweaters, with a thick layer of sweat making her look like a glazed doughnut.
Yi is at the Zoo as well, after being contacted by Olga about the situation. Already, one of the locks of the fence gate is unlocked, but left in place. The ragabash doesn't wait alongside the theurge, however, as it would seem too suspicious. She instead is watching from one street corner.
The rumble of the V8 truck engine is heard even before the U-Haul turns onto the Zoo road. It's not a large truck, but it is windowless. the gaudy green and orange paint job advertises a rate $24.99 under certain days, not including tax or mileage. Dust puffs up as the truck rolls to a stop and Simon climbs out of the cab, right in front of Olga. He adjusts his cap, smiling faintly.
A weak, anxious smile slips across Olga's face, and she glances once at Yi before turning her attention on the big man in front of her. "Thanks, Duffy," she says, quickly and distractedly. "We gotta hide the Squeaker, people know, could be by at any time," she informs him in a rapid mumble, slipping the lock off the gates and pocketing it. "Gonna have t' take the truck right in, see if you can back it up close t' the door as possible. A'right? Yi and I'll see to the kid." With a noisy creaking swing the gate opens wide, shuddering when it comes to a halt.
Yi watches the U-Haul truck until it rolls to a stop in front of Olga, and Simon gets out. It's good to have Kin who can drive. Sparing another long glance at the street on the other side, she looks to the theurge and nods an All Clear, before turning and moving towards the gate to join the group. "She should be... somewhat quiet."
Simon takes a good look at the gate, how wide it swings open, and then he nods at Olga. "Not a problem," he promises her, replacing his cap and heading back to the cab of the truck. The engine ticks several times and then roars to life again. The kin backs it up and then turns the wheel to drive it through the gate. Once he's close enough, he turns it around and backs it up so the truck-van's doors are facing the facility.
Squeaks is in her cage still, ravenously chewing at one of the bars like no one's business. Even before the U-Haul got backed into the Zoo, she seemed to be waiting, listening... chewing.
Olga hurries along beside Simon at a rapid pace, one hand up and wiping away the sweat from her forehead. "Jesus it's hot," she complains, though it's mostly the dryness that does it. The Theurge tosses Yi one final worried look before entering the Zoo, picking up a sack there she'd been saving for just this purpose. Her form lifts and her muscles rip and she waits longer than she should just staring at the mule, before finally Olga opens the cage.
Simon engages the emergency brake, but this time leaves the truck running. Hopping--as much as a big man can hop--down out of the truck, he moves to the back to open the swinging truck doors. Once they're open, the kin wisely decides to back up, towards the cab again.
Remaining in homid, Yi keeps a watchful eye on the proceedings in case the cub decides to bolt. She doesn't look discomforted by the temperature at all, nor particularly worried. She's just another wolf, ready to herd prey into the trap.
Squeaks, on the other hand, watches Olga shift and takes her slavering jaws off from the rusting bar before sniffing intently. One or two steps towards the theurge is all the cub makes, remembering that this one was the one who made her go back into the cage that one day when a whole bunch of new smelling people were in the building.
Olga takes a long, deep, preparatory breath, and she holds out the bag for Squeaks. "Look what's inside," she says to her, flapping it to gain her interest, trying to entice her to at least get Squeaks to put her head inside and make her life a hell of a lot easier. "Look what's in the bag."
Simon peaks out from along the side of the truck, beyond the doors. He doesn't come out, though. e just stays put and waits. The driver's side door of the truck remains open, the engine purring faintly.
Squeaks sniffs again, indeed having a look towards the bag. Like a moth to the flame, the metis goes over and compulsively sticks not her head, but her claw into the bag first. Feeling around and feeling nothing, the cub turns her gaze up towards the glabro'ed Olga.
"Maybe we should try food," Yi suggests quickly, looking back towards the truck and the at the moment, opened gate.
Olga entreats Squeaks with a throaty "Shhhh," which comes off anything but comforting. She squats down on her haunches, putting her left arm out to playfully clutch at the cubs, wide fake smile on her face, and then the Theurge tries to jerk the sack down over her Squeaks head and shoulders in a sudden burst of anxious movement.
All things quiet, Squeaks moves a little closer as she interprets the play gesture. The sack attack is unexpected. When things go suddenly dark, Squeaks shrilly cries out, the sound muffled by burlap. Immediately the claws come out and start flailing every which way, scraping and scratching at the 'monster' that's enveloped the baby's head and shoulders. The inside of the bag heats with the panicked panting of a scared mini-crinos.
The battered old payphone outside, which has never worked the entire time the Gnawers have inhabited the zoo and likely didn't work for years and years before that, comes to life. Or, rather, comes back from the decidedly dead by the sounds of it. *Brrrr-brrclick!* *Brrrr-brrring! *Bring-ring!* *Ring-ring!* Solicitors always call during the worst possible times.
As soon as Olga's got the sack over Squeaks she stretches out her heavy Glabro arms and grabs her as tight as she can, trying to pin her arms and claws down, trying to give her her own hand to chew on and save the sack from the tiny knife-like teeth. In all the commotion of the capture she doesn't hear the phone, or at least doesn't respond to it. If she can secure Squeaks, she's up on her feet and lurching towards the exit.
Simon remains leaned against the side of the truck when the phone goes off. The kin startles, looking around as if unsure who or what would or could make such a noise. It takes him a moment to understand and then /believe/ the ring comes from the phone booth--long enough for it to ring a couple of times. Tentatively, and uncertainly, he moves towards the booth, looking around him to see if he can find Allen Fundt.
Yi jerks her gaze off the watch when the phone starts to ring, her expression annoyed first, puzzled next. "Don't answer yet..." she warns aloud, while Squeaker is struggling for her life.
The metis does indeed have very sharp teeth and sharp claws. Olga's attempts to secure the cub take awhile, earning her a nasty scratch by mini-crinos claws and one hell of a painful bite through the burlap. Squeaks latches on, not letting go and shaking like a mad dog. Her whole body gets into it, twisting and writhing in the theurge's grasp.
*Ring-ring!* *Ring-ring!* *Ring-ring!* Well, the good news is that the answering machine won't be picking up.
Simon reaches the booth and slips his bulk inside to lift the receiver from its cradle. He holds it close to his ear, but doesn't let it touch, as if it might be infected. "H-hello?" he says.
Olga moves forward in lurches, squinting through the pain as Squeaks uses her hand as a chew-toy. Once she makes it out into the main room, her attention shifts for a brief moment towards the ringing, so that Squeaks is able to nearly wriggle out of her grasp. "Jesus," she grunts out through gritted teeth, "'f all the fuckin' times." She continues her desperate and difficult trek, kicking down the plywood which had so long served the Zoo as a door.
Yi decides to help with the crinos cub, shifting the plywood aside to gaze around. As long as Olga's got the cub, this should be no problem. "I'll get the rope," she says passingly before heading to the designated spot where her coil of rope lies on the ground. She can't really pay attention to Simon right now, busy as she is trying to get the cub's feet tied. A task for a homid.
Squeaks continues to bite Olga's arm with a vengeance, her growls and squeaks through the sack becoming more than vicious. As Yi tries to tie the metis' feet together, the ragabash's arm is scratched during a flailing spasm of a footclaw.
Color fades a little from Simon's cheeks. The receiver is dropped, and the big man squirms noisily out of the phone booth, staring at it as he backs away. Eventually turning his back on it to hurry towards the truck, he takes several quick glances behind him to make sure it's still there and not doing anything even weirder--like chasing him. He nearly runs into the open door of the truck, managing to just veer out of its way and call into the zoo's main office building. "Olga!"
Olga looks up at Simon's call, and she waves Yi off, trying to grab the rope with any free fingers she may have. "Yi, Yi," she says hurriedly, tongue moving faster than her head, "go get the phone, I can take 'er, can do it later." She steps into the open and jumps into the back of the van, causing it to bounce up and down on its shocks. She tosses the cub off towards the opposite end of the vehicle and slams the back door shut with all her Glabro strength.
Yi curses something fierce and foreign when she's scratched, but manages to secure the scrambling paws and legs together mildly at least. Narrowly being missed by a flailing hand, she glances up only a half second when she hears Simon call out Olga's name. Hopefully they haven't been spotted. At least they're not outside yet. "We need a damn bigger bag... or at least knock the cub down," she grumbles before Olga tells her to answer the phone, and the theurge jumps into the van. Fine, she answers the phone. "Who was it?" she asks Simon, heading towards the booth and picking up the receiver. "Hello?"
Squeaks scrambles and screeches in the confines of glabro arms and bag, but when she's tossed into the vehicle the calls change into a strong yip. Then, it's just a matter of lots of scrambling and fierce snarling to attack bag and rope.
Simon is quick to push the opposite door shut behind Olga. He pauses only long enough to give her a worried but significant nod before blackness descends upon the Gnawer elder and the metis cub. The kin pushes the handle of the van-door over to the side to lock both in place.
From afar, Nicodemus ||| At first, there's nothing but an eerie, unnatural, ululating static sound coming out of the earpiece, but it slowly fades into a staticy background noise as distant, unintelligible, spectral-sounding voices are heard, slowly but steadily resolving into one voice that can be understood above the chaos. The voice is spectral-sounding, as if a ghost being strangled in another realm by an electrical cord while talking over a cell phone. A single word--or maybe a moan--comes out of the phone, painstakingly drawn out. "Gaaahrhoooooo...." Maybe there was an inquisitive inflection on the end? Hard to say.
"Hello?" Yi asks again, apparently confused by who is at the other end and... wait a minute, why is this phone, which has never been working before, suddenly working anyway? She puts the receiver closer to her ear, waiting for someone to maybe get rid of the static and ghostly voices and actually speak.
Olga doesn't wait for her eyes to adjust to the sudden darkness, as soon as the door's are secured she scrambles forward to try and wrap her arms again around Squeaks-Like-a-Rat's, to pin down her claws, and get a meaty hand around her muzzle, to keep her quiet. In the darkness, it isn't going so very well at all.
From afar, Nicodemus ||| The static remains, then the single voice returns a second time. "Yeeees. Gaaarhroooo."
Simon, once the door is locked, moves back around to climb up into the cab of the truck. He calls to Yi. "Come on! Let's just go." Settling into the seat, he closes the driver's side door, releases the emergency brake and gets ready t roll. The only thing he waits for is Yi to climb into the passenger side.
Squeaks protests like a madcub, managing to wriggle her muzzle away from the theurge's grabs. But the bag is the enemy now, and whatever it is that's got itself tangled around her feet.
Yi's expression goes from puzzled to worried. "Who's this?" she asks into the receiver, clearly disturbed as well before she hears Simon calling. Another few mutterings from the ragabash as she holds up a hand really quick and stares rather annoyedly at the side of the phonebooth.
From afar, Nicodemus ||| The voice is still staticy, and drawn out. "Gooooood neeews, gaaarhroooo. Theeee piiiictuuuures arrrre nooooot oooof yourrrr kinnnnnd. Baaad neeeews, gaaaarhroooo. Theeeey maaaade meeeee loooooook. Theeeey wiiilll maaaaake ooootherssss toooo loooooook."
Olga uses her legs now, trying to wrap them tight around Squeaks arms where her hands once were, a cross-legged position with the mule in the middle, trying to free up her hands to get them around Squeaks mouth. The Theurge begins to make quiet, calming sounds, shushing and hushing the kid, anxious sounds that wouldn't be too comforting in Homid, let alone Glabro.
From afar, Nicodemus ||| Belatedly, an "ooooooOOoooOoooooo" ghostly whine is added. Probably as an afterthought.
Yi talks into the phone still, waving a hand to the kin in the cab for them to start moving the van out. "Who are y-- what are you?" the ragabash is quick on demand, looking around still in case anyone's looking in the U-Haul's direction.
Simon sits, muttering curses under his breath. He gets the truck in gear while Yi tells him to hold. Hands grip the wide steering wheel tightly, as the kin looks ahead, to the side, and behind him to make sure there are no people around.
From afar, Nicodemus ||| The voice gets higher-pitched, like ghosts do when they make their spooky-like pleading/ultimatums. "Fiiiiiix iiiiit! FIIIIiiiiIIiiiixxxx iiiIIiiiiiiIIiiit!" And the line goes completely dead.
Squeaks's muzzle is finally wrapped around with big hands and pressed together, but the bag is being gnashed between it. Growling into a high pitch, she spasms again in the grasp of the theurge and claws weakly.
Yi finally takes the receiver away from her ear and hangs up, looking at the phone once before getting out of the booth. She runs to the van's driver side, telling Simon, "Get the van out of the grounds." She'll close the gates.
Olga presses her back against the wall of the van, rocking slightly back and forth, trying quite futilely to calm the anxious, angry cub.
Simon gives Yi a quick nod, relieved to be moving. The truck's engine rumbles as he makes sure once again that it's in gear and then hits the gas. It lurches forward and then settles into a forward roll with a small shudder. He moves quickly enough to jolt the passengers locked in back, but not quick enough to settle his nerves. Eventually the truck rolls through the gates again, and comes to a stop to wait for Yi.
Yi closes the gates right after the van is out, making sure to thread the chains through the same way they were. Then, she's into the passenger side and finally having a look at the slightly blood sleeve of her shirt. "Let's go," she tells the kin,
Squeaks is not calming down. Not when everything around her is black, and confusing smells and sounds seeping through the sack. She is restrained though, which can be be said to be enough, for now. The sack is still being chewed on.
Olga lurches as the van does but she keeps her grip tight as a vice. She continues her poor attempts at lulling the mule into something more relaxed than murderous confusion, as much for her own sake really as for Squeaks'. The Cliath starts to sing, very faintly, an old sombre Ukrainian song. It fails to soothe the savage beast.
Simon doesn't even wait for Yi's door to be closed all the way when he hits the gas again. The truck rumbles to the end of the street, slows, then makes the turn onto the main street.
Simon waits tilt he truck is well underway before he even thinks of relaxing. Even then, his knuckles hold to the wheel tightly. Clearing his throat, he tells Yi, "What I'll do is take you 'cross the bridge to Kent Crossing, then down highway 22. It's quiet and empty where it dead ends. You should be able to get him into the woods from there."
"That's fine," Yi says quietly, wondering if maybe she should shift later to remedy the scratch on her arm. "What did you hear in the phone?" she asks, glancing to the big kin.
Squeaks the does the worst of all worst things. Nature's calling plus fear of combination makes the U-Haul into Squeaks's toilet. Olga's treated to the worst of it, as the metis cub lets the mother of all bodily nasties go right into the theurge's lap.
The road gets bumpy as they cross the bridge out of the city proper and into the smaller community of Kent Crossing. While their kidneys get bounced around, the kin answers Yi, "It was creepy weird. Hairs on the back of my neck stood up. But, quie clearly, I heard it say 'gaahroooo', like it was taunting me that it knew what we were up to."
"Jesus," Olga complains with a plaintive, pathetic voice. "Jesus fucking Christ!" she says much louder, loud enough for those in the front cab to hear. When the smell begins to rise up she doesn't say anything more, she just moans loudly, and, finally, breaks into wild cathartic laughter. She holds just as tight as ever before.
Yi replies to the kin, "The same thing here. But I don't remember that phone being in use at all..." Then Olga's voice makes her look behind the cab. "What the bloody hell is going on in there?" she wonders aloud.
Squeaks finishes her nice little present with a snorted huff, wriggling in the grasp and making it smear (ew!) further into the theurge's clothes and the truck floor.
Simon doesn't know, but he g4ets even more nervous. Without doing anything stupid, like brek the speed limit, he moves the van as fast as he can down highway 22.
Olga does her best to wrinkle up her nose against the smell, but mostly she's inured to it, still giggling away while wrapped tight around Squeaks. It's getting, well, slippery, but she does do her best to keep the wriggling mule in her place. "Squeaks," she complains to her quietly, around her laughs, "that's disgustin'."
End of Highway 22
Two roads of radically different age meet up here. Highway 22's faded and warped asphalt comes in from the northwest, to be overlaid with the dark, lineless new asphalt of Park Road, which runs off to the southeast. The dark conifers grow right up to the edge of the road here, almost as though grudgingly standing aside for you to pass. In fact, a few roots have cracked Highway 22's old asphalt. A narrow strip of sky is visible high above you. The underbrush is thick beneath the trees. Birdcalls can be heard now and again, as can small animals in the roadside brush, though you see none of them. Large green 'signs' stand on either side of the road, half-hidden in the trees.
Highway 22 runs northwest, and Park Road runs southeast.
Obvious exits:
East into Forest Highway 22 Park Road
Once out of Kent Crossing, the paved highway turns into a pot-holed, overgrown two lane blacktop that makes the truck lurch and rock. It took twenty minutes or longer from when they set out at the zoo just to reach highway 22. Once on it, it's another half hour down the slow road until Simon finally pulls over and down a culvert where the truck can't easily be seen. Not that there's anyone at all around.
Squeaks, still confused but now with the scent of her own feces filling the immediate area, seems to be less so. That whole near hour of being restrained seems to have worn the metis down a little. However, what it must be like in the back of that truck must be awful.
Yi occassionally glances out the cab window on her side while the trip is going on, contemplative about what to do next. "I hope Olga is ok in the back. It seems too quiet back there."
The back of the truck smells like an overflowing sewer and Olga's long since stopped trying to do anything to lessen its impact. No doubt the smell's drifted up to the front cab, too. Squeaks has settled down for the last ten minutes or so, resigned herself to her situation and sits curled up in her own waste on Olga's lap, whimpering softly. When the van stops, the Cliath Gnawer looks up at the door, hoping against hope the trip's over. She doesn't twitch a muscle, though, breath held in anticipation, praying that when she breathes back in it's not to the smell of mule faeces.
Simon shuts the engine off, the yellow truck emanating heat and soft little tick ticks into the evening air. "Let's find out," he says, jumping down and heading back to unlock and open the truck. The moment he does, he regrets it, covering his mouth with his arm and squinting his eyes. He'd curse, if he could take a breath.
The truck opens and a huge volume of Nasty just billows out. Groooooss. Yi has to wince and put a sleeve to her nose, as well as taking a step back. It's been awhile since she smelled anything like That. Her eyes immediately travel to the truck's occupants, and... the mess.
"Damn," Is Simon's first audible comment, when he can catch his breath. It's repeated three more times, even as he backs up. "Damn, damn damn." the kin, thankful for a small downwind breeze, gives Olga a sympathetic, pained glance.
At the whine of the opening door, Squeaks' own whimpering stops, and in a second she's resumed her struggling. Olga holds her tight for a moment longer while she makes sure Yi can intercept the mule before she'd get to Simon, and then she lets her go, and the putrid little tyke goes rushing out the back door, towards light and fresh air, just covered in her own filth. Olga emerges stiffly a few seconds later, looking like she's just waded hip-deep into a swamp, dazed and somewhat confused. "She pooped," the woman explains, looking at the others with wide eyes.
Simon flinches, when the filth-covered metis ball leaps out of the back of the truck. He takes three involuntary steps back, holding his hands up as if they could ward the thing off. "Yeah, we know," he answers Olga, shaking his head and swallowing dryly.
Holy sh... well you know. The ragabash completely didn't expect Olga to let go, but luckily the crinos is caught via the no-moon's shift to glabro and reluctant grab. A string of Cantonese is uttered in low and threatening 'Gods I'd kill this kid if it were mine' tones, before finally Yi drags the cub to the forest nearby and sets her down there. The crinos takes off, as all kids are prone to do. Yi follows.
Olga emerges from the back of the van looking a soldier who'd been holed out in a foxhole. She looks at Simon with a pitiful grimace, which quickly melts into a laugh, and she crunches down on her knees, giggling madly. "Good God," she says between laughs, "that was putrid." The woman continues sucking in what to her at least seems the cleanest air man, woman, or Garou has ever tasted, even though it must smell awful to those who didn't have to go through the ordeal.
Simon backs up a few more steps, just to put a wee bit more distance between himself and Olga. "Yeah," he says in his resonant, bass voice. "But don't think you're getting in the front of the truck looking like that."
Yi and the metis finally do reappear, still nasty as ever, and the crinos's scruff held onto rather roughly. Somehow though, the ragabash managed to make the cub obey her at least for the moment. "We need to find a safe place to put this cub," she says with a grunt of paint. Her arm sports a bite mark. "And if there is no one to watch Squeaks right now, I can take her."
Olga takes a couple more deep breaths of sweet, sweet fresh air, before springing up off the ground onto her feet, removing her jacket, swinging it in a wide circle around her head, sending little bits of fecal matter flying, and finally tossing the shit-stained garment into the woods with a satisfied grunt. "Man," she complains again.
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