ONS: Trailer Trash
7/7/2007
10:40 AM
Logfile from GarouMUSH.
Currently the moon is in the waning Half Moon phase (51% full).
It is currently 10:36 Pacific Time on Sat Jul 7 2007.
Currently in Saint Claire, it is a cloudy day. The temperature is 60 degrees Fahrenheit (15 degrees Celsius). The wind is currently coming in from the northwest at 6 mph. The barometric pressure reading is 30.12 and rising, and the relative humidity is 72 percent. The dewpoint is 51 degrees Fahrenheit (10 degrees Celsius.)
Forest North of I-90(#2354RA)
The forest is thinner here than it is south of the highway, though it is still difficult to see for far. Signs of human habitation break the stretch of woods every few miles; roads, paths, farms, and the occasional out-of-the-way home remind you that civilization is encroaching, though in this area, the battle is not yet decided. Hardwoods mix with towering firs and smaller trees, still concealing some of nature's hidden places from the nearby humans.
The forest spreads north from Interstate 90, which delineates the souther edge of this area. Marked by logging areas, farms, and other signs of human presence in places, the woods are still relatively unoccupied by humans.
Contents:
Hummingbird
Silvertip
Obvious exits:
23 Hawk's End Southeast Interstate 90 Grotto South
The two had slipped under the highway through some recently cleared culverts - no fomori blocking it up anymore - and into the stretch of forest north of the interstate. Little Silvertip is alert, sniffing at things constantly as he prowls about. The Ahroun is letting ragabash packmate do most of the leading, only occasionally interjecting with instructions to try this other part of the forest, or head down into that ravine, or the like.
Hummingbird has his usual air of restless tension about him, seemingly never still except for the moments when he settles into motionless to watch. Nor does he remain in one form, preferring instead to take advantage of both wolf and human when scouting. Silvertip steers his path with a light hand, and the ragabash does not seem to resent the Elder's instructions.
Miles from the caern itself, and a bit further from the I-90 itself, the two wolves exploring the forest come upon long stretches of nothing but thin woods and summer meadows. Human settlements are still rather dispersed in the area, but the wind changes direction and brings two things. The soft strains of a fast-paced jazz pianist Fats Waller song singing about a woman named Dinah... and the sickly sweet smell of a rotting corpse.
The music isn't what get's Little Silvertip's attention - that's pretty par for the course, be it from a stereo, or what have you - but the smell of rotting human flesh causes him to stop and re-assess his location. The white wolf silently calls for Fernando to stop as well, as he starts to sniff at the winds more closely.
Hummingbird settles into a stillness that vibrates with anticipation, sheltered in the concealing curve of a tree-trunk with his head lifted high. His brow crinkles with concentration.
The wind fortunately doesn't change, but the scent on the wind is fleeting and twisted. To the Uktena ahroun leading the hunt, the smell doesn't appear much like the smell he thought it was. No, it might be leftover barbecue from the fourth of July. Either way, it smells absolutely alluring to the lupus mind, and causes it to slaver with hunger. The supernatural sense of the ragabash brings nothing out of the ordinary, however, not at this distance from where the scent could be coming from.
Silvertip salivates openly, droll dribbling down from the corners of his maw. He takes a few steps forward, sniffing again, before he seems to catch himself. Far from looking bashful, he merely tries to shake the 'ooh, food!' reaction from his posture.
Hummingbird seems oblivious to his packmate's reaction, and, sensing nothing obvious yet, begins to creep forwards in human form with the stealthy silence of a well trained scout, staying low to the ground to the point of moving on all fours at times. He's not aiming to go far, just enough to give himself a different amgle to look from.
Once he's shaken off that salivating reaction, Silvertip catches the scent more accurately. Human. Male, possibly, sweaty and blood both old and new. Unhealthy. Well, dead is unhealthy, but there are other scents too as the wind picks up. Females, two, and another male. Also a dog and a cat, the former being sickly and the other enigmatically healthy. To Hummingbird's ears, the strains of Ain't Misbehavin' can be heard playing in place of Dinah, up until it record-scratches and stops. A few moments after, Dinah starts to play again. The rot continues to be the strongest thing around though.
Silvertip starts to salivate again, having a bit of trouble clamp down on his body's reaction - a down side to being that in tune with his feral nature. He sniffs at the winds a few more times, circling off a about 5 metres to get a new vantage on the situation. Otherwise, he waits on his packmate.
Tense though he is, Fernando takes his time, checking the ground for signs of activity, edging around the sound of the record-player and working his way closer little by little. He returns frequently to focus in the direction of the sound and the smell, dark eyes glinting in the shadows beneath the trees.
As the pair of Uktena circle, the sun glints off a chrome strip atop a parked metal trailer. The closer the two Garou get, the more they see. The music comes from within the trailer. That's not the important part, though. The more prominent discovery is the sight of a youngish woman in her early 30s, her hair uncombed and her face streaked with tears and redness. She's still crying too, in very tiny sobs that even a lupus' hearing can barely catch. She's only in an oversized, ripped t-shirt and underwear. And, she's got a shotgun clutched tightly to her, rocking it back and forth gently against her as she sits atop the metal step in front of the trailer door. Even from this distance, it's easy to see the open wounds that mark her. Sores, bruises, cuts. She looks not unlike she's been attacked.
Silvertip tenses a bit at the sight of the gun, looking coiled and ready to spring into action at the sight of it. Slowly, he makes his way back around to where he and Fernando diverged.
Fernando is still intent on getting a good impression of the scene without, himself, being detected. He's jittery enough not to just be focussing in front of his own nose now as well, but is glancing behind, to the side, and even above and below from time to time, in case the place is being watched by more than a couple of Uktena. As a consquence, he's not moved in very close to the trailer.
Silvertip's trailing back to his tribemate is undisturbed, but something else cracks the silence. Children's laughter, and a dog's incoherent babble-barking (Hey! Hey hey! Hey!). It comes from further north, getting cloesr to the trailer home, and there is a notable reaction from the Hispanic woman as she screams in startlement and fear. More fear than should be reserved for the sound of children and dogs, certainly. The woman scrambles up to her feet, bringing the shotgun to bear in an unsteady, panicked manner, sweeping the muzzle point around. She certainly can't tell where the laughter and barking is coming from. "Stay away! I told you, GO AWAY!" screams the woman hoarsely.
Silvertip doesn't look very pro-active at the moment. He worms in closer, staying in the forest as he tries to listen and watch the proceedings. He doesn't look like he has a good grip on the situation.
Fernando's nose wrinkles, his attention switching from the woman to the sound of approaching children. His expression grows darker, and his fingers twitch involuntarily, his right hand reaching for his mace. His weight shifts onto his toes, ready for movement. He glances at his Elder, then nods towards the approaching noise and shows his teeth.
From around the back of the trailer home come a pair of children who couldn't be more than 5 and 10, and a terribly skeleton thin medium sized mongrel hound whose coat is dull and dry. The collar and leash slung around its neck looks like the dog could wriggle out of it without a problem, and yet the creature stays by the side of the 10 year old boy whose hand grips its leash. The littler girl in a sunflower patterned dress comes attached hand-in-hand with the boy, walking on his other side. "Mommy," whines the babe of a daughter, "We're /hungry/... really hungry." The woman, however, is absolutely terrified of the three that've come around the corner. She's scared stiff, shotgun muzzle shaking as she points it at them.
Silvertip waits a moment, sniffing once more. Then, abruptly, he bolts forward with petra-natural speed towards the woman. He bellows up into crinos in less than the span of a heartbeat, trying to clasp her face so fast from behind that she doesn't know what hit her. He then hits her directly over the crown of her head with his spare fist.
Hummingbird was flashing into motion even before he can have seen his Elder starting a rush forwards. His attention is still on the children and the dog, however. He swells into Crinos as he charges, his mace sliding easily into his clawed hand. Ears flat, fangs bared, a deep growl starting from low in his chest and bursting out as he closes, he hurtles into the heart of the battle as if to fling himself right through and out the other side, with speed and agility his only defence. His mace flashes out at the closest available target as he moves.
It's too late that the mongrel hound manages to pick up the scents of the Uktena once the wind changes. When it does, though, it barks ferociously and in alarm, adding to the eruption of actions. The woman only /starts/ to turn the shotgun towards the incoming ahroun before he is upon her in a blur of white and Rage. Any scream is muffled by the massive clawed hand stuffing itself over her face, and any action is halted with the strong blow to the back of the head that knocks her down and unconscious. The shotgun falls out of her hands. The in tandem attack from the ragabash wielding his club catches the dog before it can latch any sort of green-foaming jaws onto the newmoon. The mace acts like a baseball bat, and the hound goes flying to hit the top of the trailer home with a sickening crunch of its back. The mutt slides off and plops to the ground unmoving. It just leaves the two children then. The little girl is absolutely dwarfed by the white furred ahroun, but as he looks down at her face, there is a sight chills every bit of his body to the bone and freezes him in place. The swirling green-orange-yellow eyes of the little girl are far from innocent. They're like looking into the depths of the Corrupter, hypnotizing and fear-inducing all at the same time. The little boy stares as his dog yanks out of his grip and is outright killed by a monster. "You... you killed my dog!" cries the boy in outrage. The ragabash surrounds and cuts off escape routes, but the boy's expression twists into a furious, unaffected by the Delirium Rage. "YOU KILLED MY DOG!" The noise is absolutely earpiercingly high-pitched, rattling ear drums of the sensitive type. It's so disturbing, that the wailing sound grips the ragabash's heart and spurs him to retreat even further back from the terrifying child.
Silvertip stands there, hypnotized by the terror-inducing eyes. He can't budge a muscle, but to his credit, the fostern Ahroun isn't showing an ounce of fear. Instead, he's showing his iron resolve, stony and furious.
Ears flat, Hummingbird at first seems spurred by fear. Then, with another snarl of mingled confusion and anger, he lets his path take him towards the metal side of the trailer home. His claws spark as he scrambles up against the vertical surface then springs away from it in a nimble reversal of his direction, and ends up facing back towards the two children ready for another charge.
Fooled once, but not twice, Silvertip's gaze into the little girl's inhuman eyes doesn't get him again. She doesn't know that though, and instead runs forward to pick up the shotgun, wield it very poorly, and send a blast that nicks off half the ahroun's left ear. It's /nothing/ though, compared to the fury he feels of having just been shot at. That snaps him out of his inaction. Not only do Hummingbird's claws rake into the side of the trailer home, but they pierce and cut the incredibly thin metal siding to open new vent holes up the path he cuts. The trailer home rocks with the heavy impact of hundreds of pounds pushing off of it, but stays in place. The little boy stops his screaming, running at the crinos ragabash headlong looking every bit murderous as he.
Silvertip, snapped out of his transfixed state, feels the rage that boils up inside. The crinos physically launches himself at the cub, seeking to clamp his jaws down on her. His claws similarly seek out the flesh of the fomor.
Hummingbird roars at the boy, a roar of hatred and anger and of a warrior's sacred duty, as he faces the ancient foe. He grasps the age-darkened wooden shaft of his mace two-handedly, and his face takes on the same wild-eyed, snarling profile as the stone jaguar-head of the weapon as he meets the boy's wild charge with a single focussed hammer-blow.
So furious is Silvertip's attack that he reduces the little girl child into a chunky mist with little contest. That chunky mist, however, isn't completely red and gore. It's brown and green, and hangs in the air like fungal spores that cling to the ahroun's tastebuds and his inner sinuses. Like an infectious plague, the creepy crawlies again creep over and into him as he destroys the child fomor, but is affected by her sinister secret in death. As Hummingbird clutches the ancient weapon and calls upon his Ancestors, a strange focus and calm comes over him. The sight of the mutant child flashes interspersedly with the memory of a horde of pygmy natives of approximately the same size, each of them with shark teeth in their mouths and eerie screams that sounded just like the child's. The ragabash doesn't even feel the whip-like, barbed snake tongue that lashes out from the boy and strikes him in the face. So focused is he, that when the blow comes, the weapon simply strikes once. The jaguar-headed mace crushes the fomor's head in with a squishy crunch, and down he goes, a one-hit kill like his tainted pet.
Silvertip, no sooner is the fomor dead, turns and hurls. The fostern empties his stomach in short order, spilling his stomach's contents all over the ground. He staggers off a few steps, wiping at his muzzle as he continues to look queasy.
Hummingbird draws his weight back, his mace held ready to strike again. The Ragabash seems momentarily disconcerted not to find further targets, and it takes him a breath or two to shake off the memory of another time and another battle. He keeps his weapon in hand even when nothing obvious presents itself, and eyes the site -and his packmate- with suspicion.
The fungal spores of the wyrm child still hang in the air, clinging tenaciously in a greenish-brown haze that ever so slowly falls towards the ground. The rotten smell that comes from dead fomori mixes with that of the human corpse inside, creating a stench that would technically make a man with no nose nauseous. The young woman on the ground remains unconscious, completely oblivious.
Silvertip finally gathers up his reserves, forcing himself forward towards the woman. He starts to drag her away from the fungal mess. When he finally gets her away, he waves his packmate. ~Stay away.~ He pants. ~Until it blows away.~
Hummingbird licks his lips repeatedly and steps catlike around the edge of the spore-infested area, leaving plenty of room and shifting into his birth form and its mercifully less sensitive nose. He has no quarrel with staying away. He starts to examine the truck and the rest of the area for a fuel can, judging how safe it would be to set a fire in the wooded area and whether it could be made to look as if it started in the vehicle.
Silvertip shakes his head again, gagging once more. He falls to all fours - not shifting forms - heading for the trailer. He opens it up, looking about inside.
"Fire?" Fernando asks. "Eh. I... scout." He indicates the general area. ~Not be seen,~ he adds as best he can in the Mother Tongue when in homid.
Inside the trailer, when it's opened, really comes that stench of rotten human that puts things upside down in one's stomach - no matter if a wolf likes carrion, this is something to leave for the iron-clad stomached vultures. Or a cleansing fire. The inside of the trailer home is too small for a crinos to move through comfortably. There is a bloody form down on one end though, where the path of red and gore leads to the body of a fat, bloated corpse. Atop that corpse sits an orange tabby cat. It looks up as Silvertip's head pokes in, and hisses in fear before darting off the body, and leaping out of a hole in the screen window. The area itself is surrounded by wood. No doubt the family must have been living for a time here, unbothered, seeing how much they've cleared about the trailer. Still, a fire would be noticeable.
Silvertip pulls his head out, wretching again. He waits a moment to get his gut under control. Tossing his head, he rumbles over, ~Dead ape inside. We need to burn these things.~
"I will," Fernando offers, the words breaking off as he shifts into lupus and gets a good sniff of the cat's scent so he can track it later. Returning to his birth form, he starts planning the blaze. "Must start quickly, before people arrive," he informs Silvertip. "Gasoline is good for a quick fire. I scout, check how close to others before we burn this?" He repeats his earlier suggestion.
Silvertip tosses his head, gesturing wide as he looks fairly flustered. ~I am not understanding you very well.~ He rumbles over, baring his teeth for a moment. ~Burn the place. Take the gun; we can trade that - I take the girl. Make sure she does not see your work.~ He gestures to the unconscious Hispanic woman.
~Kill too,~ Fernando suggests offhandedly, then shrugs to indicate that he is not disputing the Fostern's decision on that subject. ~I burn. Keep gun,~ he adds, to indicate that he has understood. And then, to be sure he is not observed, he gives the area a reasonably careful but quick check before he sets about arranging an 'accident'.
~Only part wyrmbringer.~ Silvertip rumbles back at the suggestion, before giving himself another shake. He grabs his spear up off the ground, before grabbing the unconscious woman. She gets slung over his shoulder, and the crinos starts off into the woods.
After scouting the area, Fernando returns. After an initial peep inside the trailer shows him exactly why Silvertip lost his lunch, he holds his breath and dives in on a series of trips to retrieve barbeque lighter fuel, firelighters, gas canisters, fuel cans- anything to get a quick fire going. Several more minutes are spend hunting an empty container and some tube. Taking the cap off the truck's fuel tank is easy enough, once in Crinos, and the Ragabash syphons the gas out of the tank. With the handbrake off and the wheel set, he shoves the vehicle to bury its nose as deeply as he can in the side of the trailer home. With whatever pole, rake or garden fork Fernando can find, the formor children are dragged in to join the rotten corpse inside the trailer, and the whole lot are doused in gasoline.
While the Uktena ahroun caveman carries the unconscious woman out of the area, the ragabash finishes thoroughly prepping the trailer and truck to go boom, all he needs is the ignition. A small propane tank can be found in the lone storage closet of the messy trailer, along with possibly empty ones beside it lying about.
Fernando sits down for a long while, clearly in throught. Then he stacks the propane cans together in the cupboard, packing them in between bags of barbeque charcoal. After several good lungfuls of fresh air to recover, he takes a sniff at the gas-tank of the truck. Choosing the bulk of Glabro now, he lashes a few matches to the end of a long stick, sets them alight, stands well back, and shoves the flames towards the filler hole.
Step back and watch as Fernando completes his own fireworks display for a belated Fourth of July. The ragabash had better be far and away, because in moments after things do a bit of burning, the car's insides do some popping and flames lick out of the holes and exhaust. It's not necessarily as big an explosion as like that in the movies, no. In fact, it takes an awfully longer period of waiting before the flames that are engulfing the truck set fire to the end of the trailer where it's shoved into, and flames creep over the soaked areas. It's not until the fire reaches the propane tanks that there are significantly louder explosions from within the trailer, and the fire really starts to roar. Glass breaks, and flames lick out from the holes in the mobile home. Smoke pours upwards, but the flames are successfully contained within the metal frames of the vehicles. Definitely not like in the movies.
Fernando hmmphs to himself, thoroughly unimpressed, and lurks at a safe distance in the forest, to be sure that nobody gets there too soon and finds more than they should, or too late and puts the forest in danger.
Silvertip's taken the woman some distance away, setting her in the woods before backing away. He, in lupus, watches on, wary of the human as he waits for his packmate to follow his trail.
As sirens start to approach, Fernando slips away to follow Silvertip's path, leaving the cat for a later occasion when the area is once more quiet. The edge of tension is a little dulled now, but he still moves soft-footed and alert as he rejoins the other Uktena.
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