RE419S | audio | Day 7

[aluminumandash]

[ Rust's voice comes over the walkie, urgent and forceful. ] Anyone in the area between the concrete structures where Martin and me were held—that's the foothills with, ah, a river to the south and the jungle ten hours to the west of the northeast coast, check in right the fuck now.

[ He thinks to type the rest out—some semblance of a record, something for people to refer back to for the while it's around—but five minutes punching little keys and he can't take it anymore. So his voice returns, matter-of-fact. ]

Officer de Guzman's dead. [ If anyone was hoping for a eulogy, it's not fucking happening. ] Took an arrow to the shoulder then was executed, from the sound of it, likely with his own firearm. He was in the region I just described, about a kilometer away from a wood cabin with no defenses or occupants he could discern. Guessing he walked into some kind of a trap. [ He concludes, irritation seeping into his voice. ]

Much as I hate to state the obvious, circumstances compel me to say: do not seek out the cabin. Hell, I'll say it twice: do not seek out the fucking cabin. You find yourself in an area suspiciously quiet and bereft of animal activity, turn around and go back the way you came.

The individual who killed him had a message for us. It follows.

[ After a short delay: ] The next animal I find here will die a much slower death. Tell your friends for me.


OOC: Replies subject to even more robust threadjacking than usual from Lalo!

Comments

action (cw: gore)

[aluminumandash]

Rust's outside when it happens, where the jungle starts to reassert itself, get dense—sunlight strangled by the canopy. He says fuck once, turns back to the building with his shoulders squared. Then he burns through a cigarette with single-minded intensity, staring into the wilderness. Thinking about the body out there, caved-in face and scattered skull fragments. Imagining the creature on the other end of the walkie stringing it up, a warning.

Other possibilities. What you'd do with an animal.

He talks into the walkie, at all of them.

Then he checks for water and heads back to the windowless building, the girl inside. His eyes take a moment to adjust; he scans the cell doors, automatic. “Thirsty?” he asks, the wrinkled plastic bag in his hands. He doesn't quite meet her eyes, but that's not so unusual for him. Perpetually on edge around her, as if uneasy to find himself occupying the same space.

action

[ichoosefight]

She blinks up at him for a second when he comes in, distracted by her own dark thoughts. She doesn't really know what to think or feel about Ben as a person, but he was one of them. Now he's dead. She can't help asking herself what she could have done to prevent it, what she can do to keep it from happening again, if he'll come back like Sameen did.

"Sure," she answers, coming back to the present. Her voice is as calm and even as ever, but she usually gives answers longer than one word. For that matter, she usually says 'good morning'.

He doesn't look right at her, so she doesn't feel like she has to hide her somber expression as she turns back to her walkie talkie. She'd had her suspicions when he ran off to take that call. She hates that she's always right about the bad things.

[aluminumandash]

He walks it over to her, the water—spare her ankle. Offers it with a kind of wooden courtesy, his hands dirty and stinking of tobacco. The listening's drained something out of her, he can tell, but he doesn't know what to do about that. He sure as shit doesn't know how to go about bringing it back.

“Sorry you had to hear that,” he says, mentally bristling at his own words: rote policeman's bullshit. His voice sounds out of practice. He flashes a look around the room, as if searching for someplace to stow his gaze.

[ichoosefight]

She takes the water, but watches him for a moment before drinking it. She smiles. He cares, even if he's clumsy about it. It's sweet.

"Be sorry about the news, not the sharing," she answers with gentle scolding. The knowledge that there's a cold-blooded killer out there is scary, but there had always been that chance. Murder isn't really all that extraordinary for her. That's not great, now that she thinks of it.

Her smile falls as she turns serious again.

"You said he took an arrow and then walked into a trap? Do you think it was a warning shot?"

[aluminumandash]

He turns his head—a minute little jerk, almost anticipating the smile. As though he can deflect it. “Maybe. Yeah,” he says reluctantly, spooling out the word. Interesting, too, that the killer uses a crossbow, lives in a wood cabin, but a gun picked up off the ground didn't present any trouble. He wants to talk it through—he wants, really, to pack his shit and move, go hunt down whatever's left of de Guzman and whatever it can tell him. But it's out of the question.

“Need to talk to you about something.” He looks at her then, in the eyes. Gaze gone still. “How well do you remember the trip here?”

[ichoosefight]

A warning shot, traps, and what sounds like a very angry hermit. It's a puzzle, but it doesn't seem like it has anything to do with how they all got here or why. Still, there might be a connection there. She has to make sure she's involved when they start looking into it, even if she has to swear to stay back at camp.

She looks back at him, curious more than worried. It's kind of an odd question for such a serious lead-in.

"I couldn't tell you every tree I passed, but I remember my route."

[aluminumandash]

He eyes her a solid moment, gauging the answer—weighing her capabilities against her desperate need to be taken seriously–and ultimately judging it sound.

“Mind if we go outside? Scribble in the dirt?” He indicates her ankle with a glance, regretting his phrasing—too childish, like brushing up against the cobwebs strung between old memories.

[ichoosefight]

"Sure," Steph answers easily, apparently thinking nothing of his word choice. She rolls forward and onto her feet, keeping her left slightly raised as she stands so it doesn't take any of her weight. Then she grabs the spear that had been propped next to her and heads outside as naturally as if her ankle was never hurt. She's not about to let a tiny little sprain give her a limp, no matter how much Rust nags about it.