Quin

Well, Eisen finally had some ideas. They weren’t necessarily bad ideas, but there were more than one of them and he was looking at her like she was supposed to decide what they did. Quin supposed that’s what happened when you bodily shook someone and told them to give you options. All things considered, it was better than what she had.

But what option did she pick? Taking the quickest moment to look around the bar, Quin still couldn’t find any of the Havenites she’d come with tonight and could only hope they weren’t part of the writhing mass of goo infested thralls starting to lurch their way around the floor.

But what did she do? Did she take the easy way out to the roof of the establishment and simply wait for help to arrive, or did she drag herself and Eisen back into the fray?

”Dammit!” she yelled, ”Let’s go take out another clown…” she said...yelled…whatever. It was hard to tell with all the screaming. To that end, Quin pulled more floor tiles to her and started mashing them together.

”On your mark.” she said.

There was no way she was taking a piggyback ride either, even if it had been nice for Eisen to offer.

”On your mark.”

“Wait!” Eisen wanted to take back his options, but Quin had already made her mind up. He was sure authorities or someone would have made it in time; they could have easily hid or helped with a barricade like the people at the restroom. But, since Quin seemed to have a surge of confidence after beating the first zombie, her gung-ho resilience forced him to spring into action.

“Damnit.” Eisen said as he spun his billiards stick around his head and charged toward the zombie at the stairwell. At this point, a few limp bodies littered the floor and most of the partygoers had evacuated and ran towards the barricade forming at the bathrooms. That gave Eisen and Quin some opportunity to grab the zombie’s attention should they have wanted to do that. 

Eisen focused his mutation into the soles of his shoes, such that whenever he took a step, he locked his shoe into place and used it as a platform to propel himself forward in the air. Eisen ran across the floor, a good two meters off the ground, his bright neon a sure way to garner the zombie’s attention. Luckily, the zombie was busy prying open the mouth of an overweight man in all black, when Eisen ran up and kicked the zombie in the head. 

Goo flung from the Zombie’s eyes, and some fell onto Eisen’s shoe, as his foot collided with the skull. And instead of stopping the zombie, it only forced its head to snap backwards. Then it reached an angry arm at Eisen and grabbed a hold of his leg. Eisen almost puked, as he swung the pool stick at the zombie’s wrist, to try and get it off. But his grip wouldn’t budge.

“Fuck! Let me go. Pleeaaaase.” Eisen brought the pool stick up high into the air and channeled his mutation into it, creating a makeshift pole. He used the rest of his strength to pull himself from zombie’s grip, kicking at the arm with his other leg. When his foot was finally free, Eisen hung out in the air above the zombie, to catch his breath. It remained below him, swatting angrily at him, like a little kid reaching for a piñata.

 

Eisen said wait…so Quin waited. She’d said to go on his mark, after all…

But the mark never came and suddenly the man was twirling the pool stick like a bo staff and running off through the air like a character in one of those old chinese martial arts movies. It would have been really cool to see if it weren’t for all the injured people, the dead clown, and all the zombies. He kicked the clown in the head and Quin did have to be impressed for a moment at his boldness.

The kick didn’t do much though, ”Shit, shit, shit.” Quin yelped as the clown snatched at Eisen’s leg and managed to grab hold. Down from the pool table Quin lept, running barefoot across the sticky floor and intending to…who the hell knew what, but as Eisen pulled his leg free and floated above the clown, Quin found herself standing right in front of it.

Using the distraction that Eisen had provided as an opening, Quin tried the same trick that had worked on the first clown, but left a little breathing slit around the nose this time. The thing would be blinded, deafened, and unable to get proper ventilation in its new mask, but it probably wouldn’t die.

”Where was the third one?” Quin asked, just in time for a hand to fist in her ponytail from behind. Goddamned hair, if she lived through this, Quin was going to cut it all off or they were going to be practicing this exact thing the next time she was at the dojo. When someone had leverage on your head, it was next to impossible to control the momentum.

Panic made it hard to focus as her head was pulled back, but Quin focused, once again, on the floor tiles and managed to pull them up into a makeshift shield in front of her face.

She wanted to yell something intelligible to get get help, but all that came out was, “AHHHHH!” as she frantically tried to hook a leg around the clown’s legs to pull him down. Maybe if she could get them both to the floor, Quin could get her hair loose and make space.

As Eisen caught his breath whilst crouching in the air, the flashing lights in the barcade annoyed him more now than it did before. The clown reached for him, making gurgling and laughing noises as he did so. Eisen was able to see him just a little clearer; his features struck him as almost identical to the first clown Quin had incapacitated earlier. 

Eisen readied himself to slam his body weight onto the clown when Quin arrived to the scene and did her plastic magic, wrapping the clown that grabbed for Eisen with another plastic helmet. The clown clawed at his new helmet, this time seemingly still able to breathe. Eisen then used this moment to swing from his makeshift pole and booted the clown in the temple. He slammed onto the floor and stopped moving for a moment post-impact. Eisen kept a foot on his chest.

He then turned to give Quin a thumbs up, but watched in horror as the clown that had been at the balcony grabbed her by the ponytail and brought her into his clutches. “AHHHHH!” She screamed as she pulled more plastic to a shield in front of her face. 

The clown was so ready to goo her.

“Oh no you don’t.” Eisen charged toward them two and ran behind the clown. He brought the pool stick in front of the clown’s neck and pulled it tight to his chest, in an attempt to choke the clown. Eisen then pushed up on his soles, pulling the stick to his own chest and squeezing the clown’s windpipe against him. Then he let gravity do the rest as he pulled in and up, until the clown was dangling by his tiptoes, trying to pull the stick off his neck, and letting go of Quin in the process. 

As he did this however, he felt a set of hands grab onto both his legs, throwing off his focus for a second. Two females, who seemed to have been zombified by the initial clowns, were trying to save their zombie friend. 

“What the fuck? There’s more?” Eisen clenched his teeth, still applying pressure onto the clown’s neck as it started to squirm, as it began to lost oxygen. Just then, he could feel two sets of teeth sink into his heels.

“OUCH! That fucking hurts.” Eisen tried to shake off the new assailants, and in doing so, he released the clown he was asphyxiating and escaped back up into the air. “Holy fucking shit, Quin we have to get out of here. There’s no way we can take all of them on.” Eisen pointed to the opened stairwell, that the earlier zombie was no longer blocking.

[OOC: once the three initial clowns die, the new zombified people will regain their senses]

Quin couldn’t see what was happening owing to the makeshift shield of vinyl she was holding over her face to keep the goo from the zombie clown from dripping down into her face. She was still trying to find purchase to get some sort of leverage to get herself free, but the hand in her hair hurt and unbidden tears were blurring her eyes to a point she could hardly see.

Abruptly, the clown let go and Quin found herself falling backwards into an awkward heap on the floor.

Eisen was, quite impressively, using the pool cue to choke the everloving shit out of the clown as he continued to hover over the floor. He was doing well too until two of the zombie thralls made their way over to him and started to try to pull him down..and bite.

That was just about effing enough of that.

The vinyl tiles turned sheilds locked themselves around the clown’s face as the redhead climbed to her bare feet, marching forward to the lesser zombies as the clown fell to the floor behind her.

Had she remembered to give that one a breathing hole?

These zombies were slow and pretty unremarkable and it didn’t take Quin long to get the first one flat on its back and shove the second one far enough away to make an opening.

”Yeah, let’s go. You were right, this place is a shithole.”

Quin made easy work of the clown and the two other zombified ladies, that Eisen couldn’t help but feel outdone. The stinging in his ankles from the bite marks, however, forced him to abandon that thought. There was no time to linger— the way was clear. It was time to get the hell out.

The other partygoers were either still erecting a barricade defense at the bathrooms, or finding new ways to avoid the newly erected zombies. The second clown that Quin created a plastic coffin-headpiece for was still writhing on the ground, trying to get it off his head.

Eisen eyed the staircase and ran to the top of it, beckoning Quin to follow. Eisen then spun around to see five more newly turned zombies making a beeline towards them. Eisen channeled his mutation into the floor and locked all five in place with their clothes, so as to give Quin a chance to catch up.

“Hero time is over. Let’s gooooo!” He pointed down the stairs. If Quin chose not to follow, Eisen wouldn’t know what to do. He probably wouldn’t have left her, despite really wanting to. There was something about her stubbornness that somehow grew on him. From the top of the stairwell, Eisen could already hear the sirens from below— authorities must have finally arrived. About damn time.

Quin

The clowns were down, but their thralls were still bound and determined to cause trouble. Now that Quin’s ire was up she kind of wanted to stay and fight them. The rage felt good.

Eisen was waving her out an open door though and the redhead realized that what she was possibly going insane from shock and trauma. Five on one wasn’t good odds anyway, so she ran towards the doorway he indicated, wincing as she stepped on a broken something with her bare feet.

Concentrating her power down as she ran, Quin picked up little bits of the floor with her feet, similarly to how she’d been pulling it to her hands, solidifying the substance slightly as it molded to her feet.

Then just like that she was out the door and the sirens were blaring.

Oh god, the last thing she needed was the NYPD, especially if it was that mutant division. Too many of them still recognized her and with no small amount of panic she realized that more than a few of them knew what her powers were and might be able to connect the plastic wrapped around those clown’s faces back to her.

God. Were there cameras?

Down the stairs Quin went, hoping that Eisen was behind her and wondering what it meant about her as a person that the concerns in her head were all about the legal ramifications of what had just happened and not where her friends were or about the fact that there were at least two dead bodies in that bar that could be directly laid at her feet.

”I know a place.” Quin said over her shoulder to Eisen, already heading down the street, wishing she was a bit less conspicuous and glad she’d somehow managed to hold onto her phone.

Once Quin slipped past him, Eisen was more than happy to release his concentration on keeping the zombies standing still. A couple fell flat on their faces, once able to move again. Eisen shuddered before racing down the stairs after Quin, and the zombies fell after them. They were not fast enough to catch-up, however, as Quin ran past the authorities that were questioning a few survivors at the main entrance. EMS technicians helped to escort a few frazzled souls out to the ambulances, and the NYPD stood with their radios and weapons, just watching the stairwell that Eisen and Quin were coming down. Luckily a few more survivors ran down with them.

Quin somehow melted in the crowd, and Eisen had to sprint to keep up with her. Where was she going so fast? Why was he chasing after her? Why wasn’t he just headed home? His could felt the adrenaline still coursing through his veins, knowing tomorrow he’d be so sore after all the tension and mutation using and biting and chaos.

Once safely outside and past the emergency personnel, Eisen noticed Quin with her black outfit and new plastic footwear. 

“A place? For what?” Eisen grew curious. He then began to recall just how swiftly and confidently Quin had dispatched the zombie clowns and he wondered, his heart beating calmly enough to do so, who exactly was this Quin person. And was she even trustworthy?

He decided to follow her, only because he was still frazzled and dazed, unable to really decide what he wanted to do next. “Lead the way.” He said, peering back every so often, not wanting to be followed by another zombie or something. Realizing he was zombie-tail free, he relaxed his shoulders and trailed behind Quin.

The cops were everywhere and Quin silently thanked the stars that she was dressed absolutely nothing like she usually was, or ever had been dressed.

Too many of the cops still recognized her and felt like they needed to say things when they crossed paths. It was awkward and wouldn’t help the situation they were in at all.

Melting into the crowd the best she could with her tall frame and red hair, Quin zigged and zagged among the survivors of whatever the hell had just happened. At the thought, tears sprang to her eyes, but there simply wasn’t time to acknowledge it right now. She needed to get away from here and get her head on straight, then there would be time to dissect what had happened.

Peeking over her shoulder to see the Eisen was still there, Quin couldn’t help but smile a bit at his question.

”Tea. A place for tea.” she said, and led the way, the shop was close and it was open all night and it wasn’t very far away.

Soon enough they were there and going inside and Quin was gesturing Eisen towards the little corner bench and round table she usually sat at when she came here.

”Do you want anything?” she said, ”They import leaves from all over the place and make their own blends, so they have about anything you could want…”

It was such a weird thing to ask considering what had just happened, the fact that she was essentially barefoot and wearing vinyl flooring, her hair had been pulled halfway out of its ponytail by a zombie clown trying to attack her face, and she’d only known Eisen long enough to dance somewhat inappropriately with him at the club.

It said something that it wasn’t the weirdest thing that had ever happened to Quin, so she just waited to see what he would say.

Eisen followed Quin, the strobe lights and zombie clowns, screaming crowd, all of what had just happened remained but a dream. If it weren’t for the exhaustion in his limbs and the dull ache in his ankles, from those two zombies, he might have been able to forget that he had escaped with his unzombified life.

“Tea?” Eisen muttered to himself, as he followed Quin into this little tea shop, with a partly oriental theme to it. Or was it Indian? Eisen wasn’t so sure at the moment, since he could barely tell his left from his right. He followed Quin to a little bench at the corner of the shop.

Eisen stared blankly at the menu propped up between them, as Quin rambled on about tea. Tea? Eisen’s eyes widened as tea was the last thing he wanted right now. He fought the instinct to flip the table over and start bawling his eyes out on the floor, in a giant heaping mess. Just a few blocks down, people were probably still fighting for their lives, or awake but not themselves in a zombie prison, and Eisen was here deciding what tea to drink. 

But maybe tea was exactly what he needed, since he had nowhere to go from here anyway. His empty bed still screamed, “Imposter”, “Loser”, “Fraud”. He he was the one who wanted to book it out of that apocalypse setting and leave everyone behind. If it hadn’t been for the little-miss plastic in front of him, he could have left tonight with more guilt than he already had.

When the waiter came by to take their order, Eisen had to ask. “Which tea has alcohol in it? AL-CO-HOL. Like gin, vodka. Hell I’ll take Saki.” He almost shouted his words. He couldn’t believe they were at a fucking tea shop. What the hell would boiled leaves do for him?

Eisen, it appeared, was not in the mood for tea.

Quin could almost see it, the adrenaline rush from the bar and everything that had happened was wearing off and everything that had happened was starting to catch up.

Yeah. It was happening for her too.

”Don’t shout in here.” she said, ’The owners are good people who don’t deserve that.”

With that, she stood up and walked to the counter to order, and hopefully let Eisen have a chance to pull himself together a bit. When she returned, she sat down and looked at him levelly, ”I got us some lemon balm and peppermint tea. They’re both good for nerves. You can take your pick when they get here.”

Now that it was calm, quiet, and she was somewhere safe, Quin noticed that her hands were starting to shake and she reached out to grab one of the little packets of raw cane sugar that decorated the table so she would have something to fidget with since she didn’t have any spare plastic on her and it would have been really rude to mess up anything in the shop.

”Are you hurt?” she asked, trying to piece together what had happened. Was she hurt? No, besides a few incidental bumps and bruises and a dull ache in her scalp, Quin didn’t think so. That was more than she could say for the clowns, the redhead thought with a shudder.

The waiter gave Eisen a side eye and pretended like he wasn’t being talked to at this hour of the night by such a rude customer. That forced Eisen to rest his head on his hands on the table. Suddenly, his head started to ache. A dull throbbing pulsated through his temples as exhaustion began to seep into his every pore. It was as if he had been clenching his butthole for the longest time and finally let go. Was this place really safe?

He heard Quin tell him to be quiet, but he didn’t notice her get up and order the tea. He instead, now with his eyes closed and his mind had the black screen of his eyelids to project his memories and emotions on, all he could remember were the scared faces of the people at the barcade who were hiding behind the arcade machines and asked them to help. They had asked for his help, and the moment that things got difficult, Eisen completely erased them from his mind. The uncanny scene of the lifeguard zombies pouring their eye-juice into their victims also flashed back in his mind, and he began to shudder to himself. There was no telling how many people had been turned. And though he’d risked his life before, that was a whole room of civilians.

Quin said something about tea which Eisen didn’t register at all. It felt like years since it was he and Quin dancing on that sticky floor, how he didn’t want to sleep with her for some reason he couldn’t remember. Had she wanted to sleep with him? Now he was entirely unsure.

”Are you hurt?” Quin’s question brought Eisen out of his self-imposed time-out, and he looked up at her. Her hair in a little bit of a disarray, though it still remained in a bun. Her face unscathed. Her gaze, suddenly something he could examine in the calm light of the tea-shop.

”Huh? Me?” Eisen wasn’t so sure how to answer the question. He immediately remembered how Quin had slapped some sense into him that moment he collapsed on the pool table. Telling him to get himself together. He knew her question wasn’t mean to be charged in anyway, but upon being asked about being hurt, Eisen clutched his stomach and felt a wave of nausea wash over him.

”What the actual fuck did we just survive? Was that some sick joke? Ugggh.” He didn’t answer Quin’s question at all, as Eisen began to chug the glass of water that a waiter came by to give them both, whilst they waited for their tea. Suddenly he’d become as thirsty as a mule.

Eisen was doing…better? Quin decided.

No, not really better. He was coming down off of the same adrenaline high that she was and…the better question was probably why she wasn’t more upset.

It was shock, right? People went into shock when they lived through experiences like this. Eventually it would wear off and then she’d have to deal.

Eisen spoke, and Quin’s head jerked up from where she’d been staring at her hands.

”I don’t think it was a joke…” she said as the tea was dropped at the table. It came in the little pots that looked a bit like a coffee press and even though she’d said Eisen could have his choice, she reached out for the Lemon balm and pushed the plunger down so the loose leaf was pushed to the bottom of the kettle and then poured the tea. There would still be enough if Eisen wanted any.

Cradling the now-warm cup in her hands, Quin blew gently on the tea to help it cool as she stared a bit blankly ahead, ”Do you think they died…?” she said, maybe too quietly for Eisen to hear. Something hot splashed onto her hand and Quin realized her hands were shaking again.

”I’ve never done anything like that before.”

At least not that she could remember.

The tea came before Eisen could ask for another glass of water. He almost reached for Quin’s but stopped himself. But then as he watched her press down against the tea leaves and pour herself a hot glass, he screamed internally. 

I can’t chug tea!!! He held both sides of his head, almost crushing his won skull between his palms. He wanted something that could take the edge off his emotions, not force him to sit in them. He then began to hyperventilate. The calm facade of the shop. His feet did the jerking thing where they hopped up and down underneath the table, to which there was no way Quin 

”Do you think they died…?” Quin’s question rang like a gong in Eisen’s already throbbing temples. They could’ve died? Those people could be dead? For some reason, watching goo drip from undead-looking entities into the mouths of helpless individuals finally clicked in his head.

“How the fuck would I know? We FUCKING… We… We left! Them! There!” Eisen grabbed the edge of his seat and dug his fingernails into the surface. How were they so calm right now? The wave of nausea continued to pulse through Eisen’s body until he couldn’t hold it in anymore. He didn’t want to puke in the cup, so he grabbed  the lid off a hot teapot and grabbed it entire with his hands, spilling his drink, dinner and water into the already full container. 

The kettle, hot as a freshly boiled water, burned his hands and he let go. It fell to the table and splashed the puke, tea and all on his chest and lap, scalding him. 

Eisen shot up and out of the booth, and fell to the floor doggie style, so that all the hot liquids wouldn’t be stuck onto him. Then he began to sob. And collapsed in a heaving mess on the tea-shop floor. 

The eyes all fell on him, but he didn’t care right now. All the pent up emotion inside him just wanted release.

Had that…had that just happened?

Quin was still sitting at the table, holding her warm cup between her hands, just about to take a sip when Eisen had some sort of…episode that ended with him on the floor getting sick in the teapot.

So much for bringing things down a notch. Brown eyes slightly wide as she took in the scene before her, Quin went ahead and took that sip of tea before setting the teacup down again.

As a strong believer in signs, Quin decided this was her sign that she needed to leave and never come back here again.

Reaching into her pocket to pull out some of the cash she’d brought for the night, she dropped what she hoped was a sufficient tip for the trouble on to the table before she slowly stood up, and walked towards the door. She’d already paid for the tea so there was no need to worry about that.

What had she been thinking? She tried to puzzle out as she made her way slowly down the street, tears starting to prick at her eyes again as she walked.

This time she didn’t try to hold them back and made it about ten more feet before she dropped down to sit on the curb, arms crossed on her knees and head cradled on top. The thought of going home right now was horrible, and now she was alone and wondering the same things she’d wondered before.

This was what she got for going out, Quin thought, she should have just stayed home and studied.